Robert Whitaker

Robert Whitaker

Quote
"Life is short. If one day we are going to lose our lives... I want to take back my cowardice. I want to be brave and persistent and reckless."

General
Gender	Male
Occupation	Teacher, Hoover High School

Name in Other Language(s)
Chinese	白瑜轩 / 白瑜軒 (Bái Yúxuān)
Japanese	白石渉 (Shiraishi Wataru)
Korean	백유현

General

Robert Whitaker was a teacher at Hoover High School before his death by suicide shortly before the incidents of Artem's Story: Blossom Chapter 4.

When he was in high school, Robert was involved in a serious school bullying case. Robert's father went to the school to speak on his son's behalf, but the students' harassment turned toward him as well, and their actions toward both men were severe enough to cause Robert's father's death due to sudden illness. The case was taken by Neil Hume and Artem Wing, who delivered the "highest possible compensation," but did little to heal the trauma from the incident. The bullying got worse after his father's death instead of improving, and the compensation money was quickly siphoned away by greedy distant relatives who left Robert penniless and alone. During this difficult time, Robert was in 12th grade and was greatly assisted by intern teacher Lynnette Li, who assisted him with tutoring, meals, and other care, a favor which he would later pay forward with his own students such as Cyrus Poole and Bianca Bonner.

While students and distant acquaintances remember Robert as unfailingly kind, positive, and optimistic, those who are closer to him remember this as a facade hiding loneliness and struggles with depression. After returning to Hoover High as a teacher rather than a student, Robert's relationship with his peers was not good; due to his class's low grades, many gossiped that he didn't know how to teach, and his former anchor, Lynnette Li, was noted to be especially cold toward him.

Robert was noted to be good at non-woven fabric crafts, with many trinkets made from this craft at his home; he also led a student extracurricular group in this field at Hoover High School.

Story

Robert was in love with Lynnette from the time she helped him, trying to confess his feelings even during his days as a student. While she reciprocated his feelings and even delivered a drunken confession that saw him planning to formally confess his love and leave the area if necessary due to the damage to their careers, she believed the age and experience gap between them was insurmountable, and she faked having a fiancé in order to break things off with Robert while he was planning his confession. Despairing at the loss of his only love and under threat from one of the students he'd helped in the past who'd developed a crush on him, Robert ended his own life.

Organization(s)

• Hoover High School - Teacher