Kaede Tsurumi

[decoy73]

Name: Kaede Tsurumi
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: 12th
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Dancing, Model United Nations

Appearance: Kaede Tsurumi has straight black hair that is normally done in a loose bun, with dyed blue streaks, and light blue eyes. She is 5'7'' and weighs 136 lbs. She is conventionally attractive, possessing a medium build, with her weight evenly distributed throughout her body with an average bust, although her legs are exceptionally toned due to years of dancing, and waist is slightly narrower than her hips. On her face, she uses basic concealer, but nothing more. Kaede’s clothing alternates between two main styles - a wardrobe that is reminiscent of Japanese fashion in the 1930s, or more often, a more modern ensemble of jeans, T-shirts, and boots. On the day she was kidnapped, Kaede was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans, black boots, as well as a plain white shirt and a black fleece jacket.

Biography: Born on February 26, 2004 to father Rikyu, who is currently unemployed and lists himself as a stay-at-home father, and mother Hoshiko, who works as a supervisor at an Amazon warehouse in Lynn. While both Rikyu and Hoshiko are American by birth, they were raised traditionally Japanese. The two of them were in their late teens (Ricky was nineteen, Hoshiko eighteen) when they had and married due to their first daughter, Sayaka, in 2002. Sayaka was unplanned and was the source of many arguments, as Rikyu’s spotty employment combined with Hoshiko’s relatively low paying job meant that they frequently had few funds to raise three people. As a result, in an effort to fix the marriage, they intentionally had Kaede. The combination of having two children led to many financial problems, which ended up bleeding over into their home life, as Hoskio was always working and Rikyu was very frugal, buying cheap clothing from secondhand stores, for example. Furthermore, neither parent truly cared for their children, as Sayaka was unplanned, and Kaede didn’t fix the issues in the marriage - they didn’t offer any support, and in fact repeatedly criticized and talked down to them and drilled in two points: the first was that they never wanted Kaede and Sayaka, and that the family was depending on the two of them. This gave the two of them inferiority complexes, as their parents’ words made them believe that they would never receive or deserve praise or acknowledgement. This continued until Kaede was nine and Sayaka eleven, when Kaede asked to stay in Sayaka’s room, as Kaede was afraid that her parents would criticize her room again. This made Sayaka more defiant and self-confident, as she stepped up to take care of Kaede.

Kaede’s biggest interest is in dancing. Her parents signed her up for traditional Japanese dancing at the Salem YMCA when Kaede was six. Kaede stuck with it, since it was a break from home, and she was genuinely enjoying the lessons. While she has never thought of competing, she has participated in a few cultural festivals, and has helped out with the beginners since she was fifteen.

Kaede’s social life and social skills have never been very good. This comes from her home life, which has made her very neurotic, which means that people at school have only talked to her when they had to. This, combined with her clothing style, which was reminiscent of Japanese fashion from the 1930s, being either some combination of old or traditionally Japanese. This continued into high school, where she was left alone and talked about as being “that weird chick,” which made her feel bullied, even though she was merely avoided. This, for the most part, continued into high school at John Endicott Memorial.

High school has represented a bit of an upturn for Kaede socially. Entering freshman year, she did not have any friends, a result of her outdated clothing style and neuroticism. This changed due to two things - Kaede joining the Model UN during freshman year, which was due to a passing interest in cultures that has since been solidified, and her meeting up with Danielle Bird. Danielle met up with Kaede when Dani saw Kaede was relaxing through dance. This caused Dani to strike up a conversation with Kaede, noting their similar interests in dance, and their conceptions - Danielle, like Sayaka, was conceived by accident. The process of Kaede opening up to Dani was quite slow, as Kaede’s nervousness and inferiority complex made it hard, however the two of them were quite close by sophomore year. This was further helped by the fact that Sayaka had graduated high school at the end of Kaede’s freshman year with a job lined up with the US Postal Service. Upon turning 18, Sayaka moved to an apartment as soon as she could, with Kaede moving in with Sayaka.

The COVID-19 pandemic over Kaede’s junior year wasn’t much of an issue for her. As she only had one person whom she was close to, Kaede was content with online classes as well as Zoom calling Danielle or talking with Sayaka while in lockdown.

Kaede plans on taking a gap year to figure out what she wants to do with her life after college or even if college is the right move for her. Scholastically, she is an average student, having a B average with almost no standard deviation. The main exception is in English, where she can spend more time writing and sourcing opinions and gets an A-. Gym class and art class can also be more pleasant, due to her dancing improving her performance in individual activities in the former, and being able to can simply lose herself in what she’s doing in the latter, although those simply stayed average. She is very close to Sayaka, and relatively close to Danielle, but with no close relationships otherwise.

Advantages: Kaede is, through her dancing, very athletic and flexible. This workout has also made her attractive, should she realize it.
Disadvantages: Her life before she moved in with Sayaka has given her extreme social anxiety. While this has been getting better, she is still very nervous around others, and has a strong inferiority complex. As a result of her nervousness, she can be very impulsive. Furthermore, she only has one person whom she could truly count as an ally, her friend Danielle Bird.

[Ruggahissy]

Howdy howdy again, Decoy.

It's me, Ruggahissy. Your dear and old (elderly) friend. We'll get Kaede ready for the game, but we need to go through some things first.

- How long is Kaede's hair?

- What is her skin tone? Some more facial details would also be nice (face shape, nose, lips)

Kaede’s clothing alternates between two main styles - a wardrobe that is reminiscent of Japanese fashion in the 1930s, or more often, a more modern ensemble of jeans, T-shirts, and boots.

- I have some questions about her wardrobe. What exactly do you mean by Japanese fashion of the 1930s? By the 1930s, from what I can tell, the biggest women's fashions were split between traditional Japanese kimono fashions as well as more westernized fashions which had been gaining prominence from the start of the 20th century. Her wardrobe here could range to full kimono to something more like this (photo from 1935):



Either way, I have some questions about how the family can afford these clothes since it seems in the profile that they don't have much money and Japanese or westernized 1930s fashions would not be cheap as they are considered to be vintage pieces and wouldn't be easily available in stores.

While both Rikyu and Hoshiko are American by birth, they were raised traditionally Japanese.

- What does this mean? I ask because of some of the choices the parents make seems to stem from this "traditionally Japanese" upbringing.

Rikyu’s spotty employment

-The intro only says he is unemployed so what is his employment, when he has it?

- I'm not saying people don't make bad decisions, but is there a reason they decided that adding another financial obligation (a second child) would help their relationship, which was poor due to financial difficulties?

This continued until Kaede was nine and Sayaka eleven, when Kaede asked to stay in Sayaka’s room, as Kaede was afraid that her parents would criticize her room again.

- Were the parents criticizing them? I thought from the previous bits that they were just telling the girls they didn't want them.

Kaede’s biggest interest is in dancing. Her parents signed her up for traditional Japanese dancing at the Salem YMCA when Kaede was six.

- How are the parents affording these dance lessons? Also, I thought they didn't care much for these children. Why are they signing her up for dance classes, especially when it's costing precious money?

This, combined with her clothing style, which was reminiscent of Japanese fashion from the 1930s, being either some combination of old or traditionally Japanese. This continued into high school, where she was left alone and talked about as being “that weird chick,” which made her feel bullied, even though she was merely avoided.

- This is going to go back to my questions about her clothes, what type of clothes they are, and how they are being afforded.

Danielle met up with Kaede when Dani saw Kaede was relaxing through dance.

- I guess this is a strange thing to ask since Danielle is not your character, but she was observing a lesson of traditional Japanese dance?

This caused Dani to strike up a conversation with Kaede, noting their similar interests in dance, and their conceptions - Danielle, like Sayaka, was conceived by accident.

- So this will come up a bit more later, but Japanese dance is a bit different than cheer, which I think is the thing closest to dance that Danielle does. I also feel like finding out about the strange circumstances of your birth is something that it would take some time to come up rather than as something that comes up during getting to know someone.

- How is Danielle and Kaede's friendship affected by their differences in financial situation? Danielle is extremely wealthy with unlimited credit card spending and Kaede's family seems to be very poor.

- How does she feel about her parents now? How do they feel about her?

- If the family is in such a dire financial situation, why doesn't her father get a job? Doesn't seem like he's doing very much work with a single teen daughter as a stay-at-home dad.

Kaede is, through her dancing, very athletic and flexible. This workout has also made her attractive, should she realize it.

- Traditional Japanese dance is mostly about slow, precise movements. I don't think that you'll gain a lot in the way of athleticism or flexibility from the activity, and it doesn't look like it's much of a workout.

As a result of her nervousness, she can be very impulsive.

- What are some examples of this? It doesn't seem to come up much in the bio proper.

I feel like two hobbies or interests are a bit scarce. Maybe she could have an additional hobby or interest?

And that's about it. Let me know when these are addressed and I'll take another look!

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This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.