Name:
Asahina Yume (Japanese-style)/ Yume Asahina (Western-style)
Nicknames:
Yu-chan (by Itori)
Nee-chan (by Hinami)
Mademoiselle Papillon (by Tsukiyama)
Fairy (by Uta sometimes)
Birthday:
15 October
Age:
21 (when she first comes to Anteiku, about 3 years before Kaneki)
24 (Until a little before the operation to rescue Kaneki from Aogiri Tree/Jason)
25 (At the time of the rescue operation)
Appearance:
Yume has medium-length hair that goes down to just a bit below her shoulders when left down and is dyed a royal blue shade and generally worn up in a chopstick bun unless she's at home. Her eyes are naturally a warm brown similar to the color of coffee unless her kakugan is showing, and she likes to wear layered clothing as much as she can. She always wears a fitted black hooded jacket with lots of pockets and when it's colder, she wears a larger, heavier black jacket over that. Her build is slender and feminine, but toned although not as muscular as most ghouls', and her skin is intentionally kept very, very fair. Her tendency to wear baggy clothes hides it and makes many people think she's very flat chested, but she's actually a C-cup. She also likes to keep her nails long and filed into almond shapes to make her fingers look longer and slimmer, and she always has them painted black. To sleep, she wears a form-fitting black long-sleeved shirt and black sweatpants because she's perpetually cold. She is also a fair bit underweight and her ribs are slightly visible when she's not clothed.
Voice Claim:
Shindou Naomi as
Shindou Ayaka from Kyoukai no Kanata (0:00-0:05, 0:09-0:20, 0:45-0:49)
Species:
Ghoul
If OC is a ghoul:
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Kagune: a defense-type Koukaku that looks like the wings of a
blue mountain swallowtail butterfly
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Mask: A black half-face mask like this one, but without the feathers.
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Alias: Mariposa
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Rank: C (Would be a B-rank in strength if she ate consistently instead of starving herself)
Personality:
Yume is almost always cheerful, ever the optimist, even in situations that seem bleak to others. Her real strength is in her ability to lift other people's spirits and to care for them. She lived in hiding among humans for a long time and even believed she was one at one time when she was a child, so she tends to act more on her human side rather than the more animalistic one that many other ghouls seem to favor. Despite her kindliness, or perhaps because of it, she's a horrible coward and can't stand fighting or conflict. She's a peacemaker and so the fighting between the ghouls and humans and the ghouls and other ghouls really tears her apart. She is also fiercely loyal and protective of people she cares about, even going so far as to set aside her fear to protect the ones she loves, whether it means putting herself in danger or not, though once the danger has passed she goes back to her usual, somewhat fearful self. Her first instinct is to nurture and protect. She can often come across as being distant or spacy and it seems like she daydreams a lot, but in reality she's usually just very tired.
Likes:
-
Small children - Yume loves kids and is usually pretty good with them. She desperately wants a family one day and would love to have a couple of kids, preferably ones she gives birth to herself, but she would happily adopt as well.
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Coffee - She's a ghoul, so coffee is really the only food she can have other than human flesh. However, beyond being a comfort food for her, she also likes it because her sense of smell is so powerful that it can get overwhelming sometimes, and the smell of coffee is so strong that it temporarily dampens her sense of smell and gives her a little bit of a break.
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Reading - When she was a child, stories were the only way she could escape her bedroom, and books have always held a special place in her heart. She collects old books now, partly for the joy of reading them over and over again, and partly because she likes the way very old books smell
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Humans - Yume loves humans, and not as food. She sees humans and ghouls as one in the same aside from their diet and a few internal organs that ghouls have and humans don't. She firmly believes that without the fearmongering of the CCG, it would be a simple matter for humans and ghouls to coexist peacefully.
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Going on walks at night - As long as no one is around to bother her, nighttime is Yume's favorite time. She loves the quiet of it and the sense of solitude one has a night. It's a good time for thinking, according to her.
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Hot baths - Yume loves taking baths, and tends to take hers at a temperature that almost anyone else would consider too hot. She also likes taking baths together with Yomo if he'll allow it once they're a couple, though she'll make sure the water isn't so hot if they ever share a bath together. It isn't a sexual thing for her rather than something intimate and comfortable where, she hopes, they can both relax a little.
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Rainy weather - Rainy weather makes her sleepy, but she likes the sound of the rain and watching the raindrops make tracks on the window panes. She gets contemplative and nostalgic when it's rainy.
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Cuddling and kisses - Yume is very affectionate, and these are her two favorite forms of affection to give or receive. She does try to tone down the affection a bit in public if she feels like she's embarrassing Yomo, though
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Electric blankets - She has an extremely low metabolism and gets cold very easily, so electric blankets are what she considers to be one of the best inventions in the world since they get extra warm. It's hard to get her out from under one once she wraps up in it. Same goes for if she's ever somewhere with a kotatsu.
Dislikes:
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Conflict and fighting - Yume is a peacemaker through and through and she dislikes any forms of conflict, verbal or physical. She also hates fighting and sees it as pointless when it would be easier and less destructive to just talk things out
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Seeing children or people she believes to be strong crying or in pain
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Alcohol (so, fermented blood) - She has only a slightly higher tolerance to fermented blood than Yomo does (she can have a small glass before getting drunk, rather than a sip or two like him) and when she's drunk, she tends to have a harder time controlling her emotions. Normally this means that she cries, usually out of guilt for all the lives she's taken, and then later she'll fall asleep. She also gets nauseous from the smell of it.
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Killing - She hates killing and refuses to do so unless she has to. All life is sacred and precious to her and she won't take a life needlessly. Any time she does kill, she feels immensely guilty for it afterward.
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The smell of blood - The smell of any kind of blood nauseates Yume, as a remnant from her many, many years of starving herself. Ghouls' blood makes her more nauseous than human blood, but they're all bad in her book. She's better at hiding this now than in the past, but it will still distract her in a fight.
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Cannibals - Yume is terrified of cannibals. She's been attacked by them a few times in the past, and was nearly killed by some when she first met Yomo. She knows about his past as a cannibal, and initially was a little wary of him for it (which only lasted a day or two, really) but now she accepts that it's in the past and isn't something he's likely to do again.
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The CCG - She sees the CCG as nothing but fearmongers spreading hatred senselessly. If she gets roped into a fight with one, she'll always try to talk some sense into them, but it never works. She's convinced that they're all brainwashed into hating ghouls with no reason to, which doesn't seem to be too far off the mark.
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The Clowns - She also hates the Clowns for stirring up so much trouble. Since she doesn't like needless conflict, they're a direct threat to her peaceful ideals. Her dislike and distrust for this group also extends to Uta and Itori, even though they used to all be friends and even though she knows how much Yomo still cares for those two. She tries to hide it and won't talk much about those two if she can get away with it.
Fears/Weaknesses:
- Hurting someone she loves
- Not being strong enough to protect people important to her
- Losing control
- She's weak in combat
- She hates the thought of having to eat human flesh to live and will sometimes intentionally starve herself if no one checks to make sure that she's eaten
- She can't hold her alcohol at all
- The smell of any kind of blood makes her feel sick but ghoul blood in particular makes her violently ill
- Her control over her kagune isn't very good
- She's quite slow in terms of her movements and running, in part thanks to being a kohaku ghoul.
Profession:
Waitress at Anteiku
Love Interest:
Yomo Renji
Relationship with Love Interest:
As Friends - They've been friends for several years by the start of the series, so they're quite close. They know each other well and so there really isn't much conflict between them, except for as relates to Yume's eating habits. Even then, it isn't necessarily conflict more than that he worries about her and has to remind her or convince her to eat, which she may resist until she reaches the point in starvation that she can't anymore. They serve as an emotional refuge for each other, and being with him is a safe space for Yume, since she knows that he's not going to hurt her and he's not going to ridicule her for anything she might tell him. She normally won't sleep with other people around, but she likes to take naps using his lap or shoulder as a pillow, because she knows he'll make sure she stays safe and because she finds his scent comforting. In fact, she's so familiar with his scent that she can pick up on it from literally blocks away which she is not able to do with other scents, in spite of how strong her olfactory sense is. They still train together periodically because he worries that Yume won't be able to defend herself if she gets into a fight when she's alone, and she comes with him for most of his visits to Helter Skelter to see Itori and Uta. If Itori makes him drink blood wine on those visits, she always tries extra hard to make sure that she stays completely sober so that she can make sure they both get home safely, and she's had him stay over with her a few times when he's really had too much to drink. She's also the only one out of the three of them who will actually listen to him and keep up a conversation when he starts drunkenly rambling. He knows some things about her past and why she doesn't like to eat people, and in turn he's told her a little of his own past, including how he and Uta met after his sister was killed. They're so close that they can often communicate without words, and Yume has a tendency to stand much closer to him than is considered normal for a non-couple, so they're often mistaken for a couple around people who don't know them, and sometimes get teased about it by people like Nishiki. She's had feelings for him since about six months after they met, which both Itori and Uta know about, but she's sworn them to secrecy. It annoys Itori that she won't just go ahead and confess, though, since she values his friendship too much to risk losing it.
As Lovers - Their relationship really won't change too terribly much once they become romantically involved, since they were so close before. Yume will be much, much more physically affectionate with him once they get together, but will respect his shyness and save anything other than hand holding or the occasional hug for when they're in private, so as not to embarrass him. Once they're in a romantic relationship with one another, there's really nothing that's off-limits to him, as far as Yume is concerned. If they've committed themselves to each other, she's confident that it's going to be for as long as they're both living, so she has no physical or emotional boundaries that she won't let him cross, because they've known each other for a long time and she knows that he's loyal to an absolute. This means that beyond hugging and kissing and the like, she would have no problems with having sex right away either, because she trusts him not to break her heart. In fact, she'd probably be pretty quick to start talking about wanting to have a family with him, though she wouldn't be so impatient that they'd have to act on it right away; it's just something that's important to her and that she would want to make him aware of early on in the relationship so that if he were in disagreement, they could talk through it, or if he were in agreement, they could decide when the best time to start would be. When it comes to sex, any mouth-to-skin contact is a huge turn-on for her, including kissing, licking or, in particular, biting as long as it doesn't draw blood. She also would love it if she were ever able to make him feel good enough to vocalize his pleasure, either with a moan or a grunt or what have you. She'd only like positions where she's able to look at him and touch him as well during sex, though, so nothing too weird. She's quite a romantic but respects his shyness, so she tries to keep the bulk of her affections for him for when they're in private, but sometimes if there aren't many people around or if it's only people they know, she'll give him a little peck on the lips or cheek as she passes by, or if he seems stressed or upset, she likes coming up behind him and giving him kisses on the nape of the neck or massaging his shoulders. If she's feeling playful, she'll nibble on the skin along his jaw or his earlobe, though definitely not hard enough to hurt. Their ideals and goals are so similar that they'll rarely fight, and if they do touch on a topic on which they disagree, they're usually good at talking it out calmly and rationally, and then making sure there are no hard feelings between them afterward.
Bio:
Early Childhood
Yume was born to two full-ghoul parents, but she has no memories of them. When she was only four years old, her parents, who were peaceful ghouls like herself, were sold out by their neighbors and their home was invaded by the CCG. Her father held them off in the main room of the apartment while Yume's mother escaped with the toddler Yume. However, the Doves made quick work of her father and soon went after her mother. Yume's mother managed to hide her under someone's combustible trash and told her not to move or come out, just before the Doves came and killed her. Yume remained there for several hours before eventually coming out at dawn, only to find that her mother was gone, as well as her father when she tried to go back to their old apartment. She wandered the streets for about a week after their deaths before she was discovered by a human man who took her into his home. Upon finding that she had no parents and no families seemed to be looking for her, he and his family took her in. However, they didn't know she wasn't human, and she had no idea there was a difference between humans and ghouls, so she quickly fell ill due to lack of nutrition. They took her to doctors, but no one was able to find the cause of her sudden illness, and no one would suspect a little girl of being a ghoul, especially since by the time she was taken in for help, her RC count was so low due to starvation that she passed for a human who just had an RC count on the high end of normal. An old ghoul woman who had been a friend of her parents' found out where she'd been taken to after about two months, however, and at that point came by about once every week or two with home-cooked meals that looked innocuous enough but were actually made of human flesh. This was the only reason Yume survived her childhood.
Teens and Early Adulthood
However, that old woman died when Yume was 16, probably killed by Doves although Yume was never able to find out, and she quickly regressed again and became bedridden. After about a month and a half of not eating and vomiting up anything her adoptive parents gave her except for coffee, and then eventually becoming unable to keep coffee down as well, she finally lost control and attacked her foster mother in a fit of ghoulish hunger. She got one small bite in before the taste of the blood brought her to her senses. The woman wasn't injured very badly, but Yume was terrified of her own self and fled. From that time until she was 21, she lived alone, mostly on the streets since she was unable to settle down anywhere for long thanks to her being a weak ghoul who was easy for other ghouls to take advantage of. Learning the ways of ghouls was an extremely sharp learning curve for her, starting with learning about what ghouls had to eat. Then she learned about ghouls having territories, and quickly learned to identify different territories by smell. She usually scavenged for the leftovers of other ghouls' meals, since she couldn't bring herself to kill, which meant that most of the time she was going weeks at a time on maybe a mouthful or two of food. This kept her weak and made keeping herself safe and moving difficult. She didn't first manifest her kagune until she was 17, which is very late for a ghoul but completely due to her malnutrition. She was entirely unable to control it, however, and had such a hard time producing it in the first place due to her lack of RC cells from her malnutrition that she never learned how to use it properly. If she were to be caught in a situation that was going to end in a fight, she simply ran away, and that was how she survived her teen years.
Anteiku
When she was 21, she got cornered while in the 21st Ward one night by a small gang of cannibal ghouls. They were threatening to take turns feeding off of her body while the others held her down so she couldn't fight back, out of curiosity for whether she would taste more like a ghoul or a human with her low RC count. She fought back as best she could, but one had already stabbed her through the stomach with his kagune to keep her from running by the time Yomo arrived. He only saw her as someone in need, and the ghouls assaulting her as deviants who needed punishment, which he dealt out swiftly and sent them away. Upon seeing that her injury wasn't healing like it ought to have, however, and then being presented with the evidence of her being a ghoul in the form of her double kakugan, he made the decision to take her to Anteiku. There, he fed her and tended to her wounds while Yoshimura spoke with her and heard about her situation. It was then and there, after hearing that she just wanted to live in peace, with harmony between ghouls and humans, that Yoshimura decided to take her in as part of his staff. But first, she had to recover, and so after they had gotten her to eat as much as she was willing to, she slept for a couple of days while her injuries healed and regenerated before beginning her training as a waitress at Anteiku. She was extremely nervous and wary around her coworkers for the first few weeks, unused to being around other ghouls who didn't want to kill her, but once she got to know them, she warmed up to the community quickly. Upon realizing that she had no idea how to fight or use her kagune, however, Yoshimura assigned her to go and train under Yomo, as he was their best martial artist. Since being rescued by him, she hadn't had much interaction with him at this point, since he worked to gather food at night rather than working in the café with customers like her. She was nervous around him at first like with her other coworkers, but it only took a few training sessions for her to start picking up on his mannerisms. Within a few days, she was able to tell when he was worried, and that she made him anxious, and even sometimes when he seemed to be struggling with what to say to her, so she broke the ice by mentioning it and suggesting that they start over with their relationship, from the very beginning. It was awkward going at first, but something with the two of them quickly clicked, and with Yume's better social skills to help it along, they became fast friends. He was soon the one she went to when she had questions about ghoul life, and until she could find her own apartment to live in and had to live at Anteiku instead, she'd always come down to visit him after he was done working once she started recognizing his scent when he'd return from collecting bodies. Little by little, they both started opening up to each other, and he began to bring her with him on his visits to Helter Skelter to see Itori and Uta. The first time she saw him drunk came as quite the surprise, and he was extremely embarrassed afterward, but at that point she started making an effort to verbalize her care for him and how much she valued him and his friendship. They've been near inseparable ever since then, and a lot of her life revolves around him because he's her anchor, the one constant in her life that she can always trust to be there for her. Now, she makes a point of stopping to talk to him every time he comes to Anteiku when she's there, and she also tends to meet up with him on her days off, even if it's just to go on a walk together and spend time enjoying each others' presence rather than for any actual reason.
Extras:
- She's friends with Itori and Uta, though she's wary of them at times
- She tries to avoid drinking fermented blood because she doesn't have a very high alcohol tolerance and she tends to cry a lot when she's drunk, not necessarily because of being emotionally unstable but rather because it makes it more difficult for her to hide the amount of pain starving herself causes her.
- She tries to avoid fights at all costs and generally runs away from them if she can
- She's very good at blending in with humans, but has almost starved herself to death on a couple of occasions because she gets attached to them. She feels extremely guilty about having to eat humans, and will often intentionally push herself as far as she can go before the hunger is enough to make her mind break before eating unless she's made to eat sooner. Only Yomo and Yoshimura know about this for certain, however other people who know her could probably guess it but she'd never confirm it if someone asked.
- She tends to mimic Yomo's fighting style since he's the one who taught her, although she has some problems with it because he's much stronger than her and, as an ukaku ghoul to her koukaku, he's also much more agile.
- Though she is physically very weak, she has an extremely strong sense of smell, which often helps her escape before any Doves or other ghouls can find her. She also has a lot of emotional fortitude.
- As a product of her self-enforced starvation, her body temperature is lower than it should be and her hands in particular are always quite cold. This worsens as she goes longer and longer without food, however, due to the effects on her metabolism, so when she's nearing her limits her hands will be icy cold no matter what temperature her environment is and her fingers start to turn blue around her nail beds. She's good at hiding when she's pushing herself too far, but someone who knows her well would be able to tell because she tends to seem even more laid-back than usual almost to the point of being dazed and her hands get so cold.
- She can't use any products with artificial scents because they give her terrible headaches due to her uniquely strong sense of smell. As such, she tends to just smell like coffee and old books, since she doesn't use scented soaps or perfumes.
- She's not big on using honorifics, at least with her friends, and tends to call them all by their given name, with no honorific. She usually doesn't give people nicknames, but Yomo is the exception and she'll affectionately shorten his name to "Ren" instead of "Renji" sometimes.
- Her favorite song is "Misty Blue" by Buck-Tick
