Character	Touya
Appearance	The Crimson Flower that Divides: Lunar Coupling
Media	Otome Game
Type	Yandere
Love Interest	Naala/ Protagonist

Touya is the king of Nasla. Despite the current state of affairs between Rus and Nasla, Touya is determined to establish peace between the two countries. He appears kind and responsible, but has a different side to him.

SPOILERS AND PERSONAL OPINION

Naala met Touya when he brought his Nasla army to invade Rus and kidnap the women from Rus. By then, Naala had already defeated three Nasla men. Unfortunately, she was weaker than Touya, and he managed to kidnap her along with other Rus women.

Touya was the king of Nasla. Due to the Rot affecting Nasla more than Rus, the situation in Nasla was dire with the severe gender imbalance. Facing such population crisis, Touya had no choice but to listen to the highly ranked officials in Nasla and resort to kidnaping the women from Rus as a temporary stop-gap measure even though he was reluctant to do it.

To make things better for the Rus women who were forcefully brought into Nasla, he allowed the girls to interact with one another, and also gave them freedom to roam around within the 1st District. However, the women must each find a husband, though they were free to choose who they liked. It was also illegal for the Nasla men to force themselves on the women. Although the situation was far from ideal for the Rus women, Touya was doing his best to make them as comfortable as possible.

Still, Naala’s friend Shalu could not stand staying in Nasla. She hated that the other women were slowly adjusting to their new lives and was worried that Naala would be the same. Thus, Shalu plotted her escape. Unfortunately, she failed and as punishment, she would be married off without a choice. Under the trio rule, Shalu’s roommates can act as substitutes, so Naala decided to sacrifice herself instead. Luckily, Touya arrived to the scene just in time, and decided to be the one to marry her.

Understanding Naala’s position, Touya made it clear that he only wanted to help Naala out by marrying her so that she would not end up in the hands of some weirdos. Also, since Touya had wanted to establish peace between Nasla and Rus, he thought that this marriage can make an excellent opportunity for them to collaborate and achieve this goal.

Despite this, Touya obviously really liked Naala. While Touya never overstepped his boundaries and made it clear to Naala that he valued their friendship, Touya was never shied away from showering Naala with complements. He always enjoyed Naala’s company, thanked her for her understanding, and praised her for her endearing qualities. Although their marriage started off as a contractual one, Naala slowly began to develop feelings for Touya.

Once, Naala had a nightmare. To help her sleep, Touya performed a chant with a little rock for her. Naala recognized the chant, as it was exactly the same as her long lost mother’s. In fact, even the rock used was exactly the same. Naala’s mother had also been kidnapped and brought to Nasla in the past. Turns out, she had ended up as Touya’s caretaker in his childhood. Unfortunately, she too succumbed to the Rot. Since then, Touya vowed to find a cure for the Rot so that no one else will suffer like Naala’s mother again. This revelation also made the two grew closer.

In addition, they also realized that Naala and Touya had met since way back, when they were both kids. Naala had really liked Touya, and named him “Bayal” for his beautiful appearance. She also wanted Bayal to marry her when she grew up, and he agreed. When Naala found out about this, she was overjoyed. It seemed as if their fate as long been intertwined.

However, Touya was hiding a secret. The “Bayal” that Naala had met when she was a kid was in fact Touya’s older twin brother. As the country was superstitious and considered twins to be a terrible omen, and that the younger will cause harm to the older one, the previous king hid Touya from the public. Since young, Touya lived his life underground, serving as his twin brother’s clone. Both of them are “Touya”. Only a few who knew of Touya’s existent, and Bayal would visit him often.

Bayal had loved Naala dearly too, and he would often share his encounter with Touya. Once, Touya even switched places with Bayal because he so desperately wanted to meet the girl he often heard about. Eventually, Touya also grew to love Naala. However, Bayal later committed suicide, and Touya took his place.

If Naala is hung up about her past and continues to reminisce about her time with the past Touya (aka Bayal) instead of focusing on the current Touya, Touya will start to believe that Naala loved his older twin brother instead of him. This will bring you to his bad end. Gradually, he will start to show his ruthless side that he had kept hidden. He can order an execution of a high ranking official while sipping morning tea as if he was having a casual conversation. He will also forbid Naala from going out at all and chain her to the bed. He also dismissed Nasla’s personal servant, since she only needed him now.

Eventually, even that was not enough, and Touya moved Naala to a dark underground room where she was supposed to stay forever. Touya took care of all her needs, cleaning her up, brushing her hair, giving her food. But the lack of stimulation made Naala so numb that she could not take it anymore.

Once, she lashed out and demanded that Touya freed her. For split moment, Touya seemed to actually process what she wanted, and proceeded to unshackle her. Naala, relieved to finally be unshackled after such a long time, moved towards the door to get some fresh air away from Touya temporarily. However, Touya took it as a sign of rejection from Naala, and thought that she would attempt to escape him the moment she could. Sadly, this caused Touya to quickly chain her again so that she would not be able to escape.

From then on, Touya seemed to be completely broken as well. He stopped speaking to Naala. Instead, he would visit her everyday, stare at her, hold her close, seek physical intimacy with her, then leave. Days like this would repeat until Naala felt like she was about to go insane.

One day, Suren secretly broke into the room and asked if Naala was willing to take Touya’s life in exchange for her freedom. As much as Naala longed to be free, she still clung onto a tiny thread of hope that Touya would return to his kind self again. Naala was unable to decide, so Suren said he will come back again to get her answer. But the next day, Suren was sent away by Touya to invade the a Western Island. This means Suren could not return for awhile. What’s more, Suren was also threatened that if he visited Naala again, the both of them will be executed. With no interactions and awareness of the outside world, Naala’s sense of time became warped; her senses dulled.

Later, her dismissed personal servant Uru managed to find Naala in the underground room, and brought along Naala’s friends with him. Fearing Touya’s return, they dare not stay long. However, they gave her a dagger before they left. The objective was clear: to take Touya’s life for her freedom.

When Touya entered the room later and saw the knife, he acted furiously and approached Naala with his sword. As he was about to swing it, Naala stabbed him in self defense, thinking he was about to kill her. But Touya was pretending all along. He had turned his sword around so that the scabbard faced her. He had tricked Naala into killing him.

Touya knew that he was hurting her and that what he did was wrong. Yet, he did not know how else to keep her by his side. Eventually, he too got tired of it and wanted it to end. As his consciousness fades, Naala burst into tears, as she knew that everything was lost.

Touya came as the biggest surprise to me. I knew that there would be yandere and abusive troupes in this game. With my self-proclaimed, very experienced yandere-spotting eyes, I happily picked out a few ones that might have yandere potential. Then, I slotted Touya in between those routes so that there will be some fluff between toxicity. Boy was I wrong.

Touya turned out to be one of the biggest yandere in the game. His calm and kind demeanor was hiding his much darker side. His childhood was messed up, and his personality was equally messed up. In his route, he was revealed to be kind of psychopathic as a child, experimenting on animals and not putting much importance on lives. Even on his route leading towards the good end, you can see brief instances of his sinister side. His bad end, where he went full yandere, featured his gradual descent into increasing madness in full, well-developed chapters. The pacing did not felt rushed, this yandere end is one of the most expanded ones in the game.

Very rarely do we get to see this type of character in otome games, much less as a love interest. Point-blank, Touya is evil. It can be seen from his childhood. Even when he took his older twin brother’s place as the Nasla king, he was still harboring sinister thoughts. What was interesting was that despite his inherent personality, Touya consciously tried to fight against it to keep up the necessary image of himself. So much so, he tried to act and think the same way as his older twin brother did. In his route, he was finally able to open up to Naala and confront his inner demons. However, it makes me wonder that if Naala was to never come by, would he be left to struggle infinitely between his brother’s and his own persona? Altogether, I really enjoyed Touya’s route. He is a really complex character and the story did him justice by the storytelling.