KU: Kato Yumi

*Winter Outfit because I can't figure out what Yumi would wear in summer;;;


<sub>Name: Kato Yumi　「嘉藤夢実」
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Height: 5'0/153cm
Date of Birth: January 3rd, 1992
Degree: Nursing
Year: 2nd

Bio: Gentle and shy by nature, Yumi was always the girl who found it hard to get along with kids her own age. The general rambunctious need for adventure and excitement was lost on her- she preferred books and numbers to dolls and pretend. Raised exclusively by her grandparents on the outskirts of Hida, she grew up with a reserved and traditional Japanese upbringing, reverent to her elders and exceptionally well-behaved. From a young age, she took it upon herself to care for her aging grandparents in the way her parents, busy with work in the city, could not. 

Getting along far better with the elderly, Yumi found herself quite content with spending most of her time in the local hospital, where her grandparents were regular visitors to old friends with failing health. After many rebuffed attempts, a boy there claimed the title of being the only friend her age she had ever had—an act of desperation on his part and reluctance on hers. Aoi was by nature an energetic and loud boy, the very type Yumi hated the most—but his illness confined him to bed and refused him the opportunity to get too excited, something that Yumi was admittedly very thankful for. She valued his calmness, and while she was afraid of how energetic he might become when he recovered, Yumi was quite saddened to see him restraining himself. 

However, he never recovered, and the friendship ended with his passing two years later. Things that had once seemed mundane took on a new value, and Yumi resolved then and there to go see the bigger world. She enrolled in a middle school in Takayama City, hoping for a ticket to a better high school and university in bigger cities. For Yumi, there was now a need to live her life in the way Aoi had been unable to- but despite everything, she was still unable to make friends.

By her third year of middle school, Yumi had decided on going into nursing as her profession of choice, and would settle for nothing less than a large university in Tokyo as per Aoi's old dream of going to study medicine there. However, her plans were derailed when time began to take its toll on her grandmother. The occasional slip of the mind became a regular occurrence, and she was quickly diagnosed with Alzheimers, prompting an ensuing 3 years in which Yumi struggled to balance studying and caring for her increasingly attention demanding grandparents. The memory of her only good friend was to take a backseat during her high school years as Yumi's patience and emotions were tried on a daily basis, her and her grandfather slowly working through the trials of being gradually forgotten and having to sit through the same conversation multiple times.

Before the new year had passed, her grandmother went first—and it was a hopeless few months that Yumi faced now, doing her best to graduate with good marks while struggling with her loss. Her grandfather was strong in the face of his wife's passing, to Yumi's great comfort, but she could not bear to leave her grandfather alone in their house. She postponed university for a year, working a part time job and spending as much time as she could with her aging grandfather—but he was discontent to see his granddaughter tie herself to the older generations, and insisted she fulfill her original ideas of going to Tokyo for school. 

By the end of the next year, she was hesitantly on board a bullet train to Tokyo, off to live with her parents who had thus far only been faces she'd seen during winter breaks. It wasn't of much consequence however- as expected, they were never home, and she had the apartment almost wholly to herself. While lonely and pining for her grandfather who was likely just as alone, she realized that one year off had put her at a distinct disadvantage—and she didn't pass a single university exam. The challenges of adapting to city life put her back to writing her letters, now addressed to both her grandmother and Aoi, and on top of this she did her best in studying for the entrance exams the following year. At 20 years of age, she was finally accepted to a handful of universities out of which she chose Kamenoko University—and after a year at the program, she's excels in her academics, almost always placing near the top of the examination results-- but continues to lag in her ability to socialize.

Personality: Yumi may at first seem disapproving and hard to get along with-- but she is actually quite considerate of others, and merely refuses herself the opportunity to be involved in things that others her age take great joy in. Not unwilling to be present, many people often misunderstand her refusals for invitations to go drinking as refusals to go at all- but rather, she's the type who's willing to go, but just isn't willing to drink, glad to simply be the 'designated driver' type if nobody will pressure her to do something she doesn't want to-- or if there'll be someone there who can come to her defense should they try. Indeed, she doesn't often condemn others for their choices unless she thinks them truly negative for everybody involved- she just has a hard time conveying that while she may view peoples' choices in a negative light, she won't mark them off for that alone. Yumi tries not to change people forcefully to fit her own 'ideal', seeing it as improper and selfish, and instead preferring to help people decide for themselves what's best for the way they want to spend their time alive. But despite these honest feelings, she spends most of her time being misunderstood as antisocial and a generally boring square of a girl because she herself chooses to live in a rather unexciting way. She holds herself to these high moral standards, but doesn't impose these principles onto anyone else. And after experiencing two significant losses in her life, Yumi is surprisingly well adapted to big changes- and she handles them with a grace that she seems incapable of extending to the smaller problems in her life.

She enjoys observing, rather than participating, and it takes a strong willed person to get her to be involved in anything outside of the library and her apartment. Her list of fears are long enough to wrap around her twice, as they often do in many situations-- and most notable of her fears is her wariness towards boys in her general age range or younger. (She particularly fears children.) Yumi tends not to get along with boys whose dispositions offer unexpected reactions, and she very much prefers the company of females, often taking up the position of shadowing a more confident companion in public to make up for her own inability to speak by herself. She may be nervous and stand offish in most situations, but catching her in her relaxed state offers a thoughtful and kind person who is, while perhaps a little awkward, quite capable of functioning normally. She highly treasures the few individuals she's comfortable with calling 'friend', and places an extremely large value on friendship, seeing it as a precious rarity- and doesn't easily bestow her own friendship on others. This however, makes it easy for her to feel slighted-- and while she normally keeps such feelings of disappointment to herself, these instances often weigh quite heavily on her mind.    

Club: N/A
Occupation: N/A
Extra: 
- Loves watching Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese Dramas. 
- Her favorite genre of music is rap.
- Plays the piano with average proficiency.
- Likes taking photographs and videos of things. Treasures memories like an old lady.
- Is a neat freak, but only with her own stuff.
- Hates her hair. A lot.
- Actually doesn't have to study very much to get good marks, but does because she has nothing better to do with her time.
- Her mother is a flight attendant, and her father is a politician. She lives with them, but they're never home.
- She lives thirty minutes away from campus by subway with an additional 10 minute walk.
- Keeps all her "letters" in a notebook now that essentially functions as a diary that she keeps on her person as often as she can.
- Strictly does not drink, but well-versed in taking care of drunks...............
- Seiyuu, Inoue Marina: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jve5JR…</sub>