Yonosuke Sakai

Yonosuke Sakai is a first-year male high school student and the main protagonist.

He is nicknamed “AU”, although the origin of this nickname is still a secret and is hinted to have been given by one of his two childhood friends.

He has straight black hair and a generally neat, ordinary appearance.

Despite that, his daily life is anything but ordinary thanks to his childhood friends Shio Minamo and Akari Hiodoshi.

Yonosuke is extremely serious, diligent, and earnest.

He maintains good grades at school and is portrayed as an honor student type.

In the original comic’s second volume, his first-term final exams show that in all five core subjects he scored just below perfect marks.

This indicates that, objectively speaking, he is quite academically gifted.

However, his seriousness becomes a source of constant inner conflict.

He is deeply worried that if anyone realizes he sees his childhood friends in a romantic or sexual way, it would be “bad” or inappropriate.

Because of this, he goes out of his way to avoid romantic developments.

Whenever something happens that could lead to romantic or rom-com-style progress with Shio Minamo or Akari Hiodoshi, he frantically tries to dodge or shut it down.

This behavior often frustrates both the heroines and the audience.

On the surface he seems uninterested, but internally he is desperately trying to keep himself under control.

Yonosuke is constantly overwhelmed by how cute and attractive his two childhood friends are.

He often feels like he is going to “die” from how sexy and charming they have become as they grow up.

He is caught between being flustered by their appearance and trying to preserve his composure.

As a result, his daily life is full of tension as he struggles to maintain a “normal” relationship with them.

He is particularly troubled by the fact that Shio Minamo and Akari Hiodoshi have become even cuter as they’ve grown up.

This intensifies his awareness of them as girls, which he sees as dangerous for their friendship.

Interestingly, Yonosuke loves reading romantic comedy manga featuring childhood-friend heroines.

He buys new volumes of such series whenever they come out, even though he refuses to let similar developments happen in his own life.

Shio Minamo often reads these manga without asking him first, which adds another layer of embarrassment.

The contradiction between his idealized rom-com fantasies in fiction and his avoidance of real-life romance is a core comedic and character-defining trait.

As the protagonist of You Can't Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends!, Yonosuke serves as the straight man who reacts to the chaos caused by those around him.

He is constantly being dragged into romantic and comedic situations by Shio Minamo and Akari Hiodoshi.

His attempts to block or escape from rom-com developments create the main tension of the series.

He becomes a source of both comedy and frustration, as audiences watch him repeatedly sabotage the very situations that would turn his life into the rom-com he secretly consumes as fiction.

The story often highlights the gap between how a “perfect” rom-com should go and how Yonosuke actually behaves.

His internal monologue and panicked reactions are a key part of the series’ charm.

Yonosuke has straight black hair and a simple, clean appearance typical of a serious high school boy.

His school look is fairly standard, matching his earnest personality.

In contrast, his casual clothing is surprisingly quirky.

He seems to be a fan of a certain “Funny T-Shirt” style brand or series, often wearing T-shirts with bizarre or comedic prints in his everyday outfits.

These strange printed shirts stand out against his otherwise plain, serious demeanor.

This contrast makes his fashion sense a small but memorable running gag that catches the eye of readers and viewers.

His odd fashion choices add another layer of humor to his character.

Even when he tries to be serious and composed, his T-shirts quietly undermine that image and draw comedic attention.