Name: Akemi Tsukimori
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Occupation: Full-Time University Student and Part-Time Librarian's assistant
Appearance:
Brief Biography: Born to a struggling artist and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Akemi Tsukimori was taken away from her parents at a young age due to negligence, her mother deemed 'unfit' to support a child and her father not really caring either way.
In the years that followed, Akemi would see her mother only sporadically, in the space between one custody battle to the next, from visiting hours that grew less and less frequent to birthday cards and letters that her mother rarely sent. Eventually Akemi lost track of her parents entirely, finding herself a foster child with no proper claim to kinship or home to speak of.
It was then that Akemi met Sayuri. Two foster kids with no place to call home, similar enough in age and stature and sharing enough common interests for a friendship to form. From then on out, the two girls were inseparable. It didn't matter that they weren't related by blood. Some bonds run deeper than blood. Some things you don't walk away from unchanged.
Hobbies: Reading, Writing, Painting, Graphic Design, Playing Video Games, Programming and Coding are all pastimes that Akemi enjoys. Her main hobby at the moment is a combination of all of the above, as she has slowly been hammering away at setting the foundation to make her own small scale video game.
What is the gravest sin you have committed? Three years ago, a neighbor that Akemi and Sayuri used to live near took advantage of the girls naivety. Encountering them on a walk home from campus, he preyed on the kindness of the two young women, luring them into his home, pleading for help with his sick pet kitten. Once there, he held the girls hostage for half a week. Raping them repeatedly, threatening the girls so that if they ever told, he'd kill them. The horror of the event combined with the threat of future abuse assured their silence, but it didn't quiet their hate.
Together, the girls planned and plotted their revenge.
Physical abuse was weak, pathetic and cowardly. Like him. They wouldn't need to harm a hair on his head in order to break him. Psychological torment would be more than enough.
Over the course of a few months, they led their rapist to believe that he was losing his grip with reality.
It was almost easy, a simple phone call here or there, a soft whispering voice pretending to belong to that of a dead relative. Lacing his food with the occasional hallucinatory drug or drowsiness inducing medicine, before sneaking into his home to run about, casting shadows and giggling just loud enough for him to hear. Leaving a scrap of cloth belonging to a doll or a girls dress where there shouldn't be any such thing.
Being extra certain to lock all the doors on the way out, to make him think someone was inside, planting evidence to frame him for a crime he didn't commit, quietly reminding him of the
crime he did. Their goal was to make him think that he was never, ever alone, that someone, somewhere was always watching. Someone, somewhere, that someone, somewhere
knows what he did.
Guilt is a powerful emotion when wielded like a weapon. Akemi and Sayuri's acts, slight and simple on their own, amounted to something stronger than they could control. They wanted to torture him, to leave him afraid and alone, they wanted to induce just enough paranoia in their attacker to have him slowly come undone... And they succeeded.
But they didn't expect it to go so far.
Grief and madness stricken, their attacker committed suicide. Promptly ending their game and ensuring the two girls silence forever. How could they tell anyone what had happened to them? And what they had done in return?
Now they too had a sin to live with, and how heavy was it's price.
What is the most selfless act of compassion you have performed? Working at the campus library allowed Akemi to meet a lot of different people. One of those people in particular was a fellow named Jack. Wheelchair bound and cancer-stricken, Jack didn't let that keep him down. Cheerful and somewhat adorkable, Jack and Akemi became close friends within the confines of that quiet space.
Jack didn't have many friends to call his own as most students around the campus had a habit of looking at cancer like it was something they might catch if they stood too close; and as for Akemi, she really only had Sayuri to confide in, so having someone else to talk to was really nice for a change.
The two had a lot in common, from their shared passion for video games and comic books to their nostalgia over old cartoons and new age anime. For once, it felt like Akemi was living a normal, comfortable life.
The niceties didn't last long though.
It was only a matter of time before Jack's illness took a toll for the worse. Within a year, the bright smiling friend she knew began to look tired and worn down. His cheerful demeanor turned sour. His laughter was replaced by the demands of man short on both time and patience and furious about it.
Between coughing up blood and struggling to stay awake, Jack was angry and Jack was bitter. It was clear to all who knew him that the young man was nearing his end.
One by one, every 'friend' Jack had known began to trickle out of his life. No one wanted to remember him like this. No one wanted to see Jack for who he really was underneath his cheerful facade, a tired, dying man afraid to face the end of his days alone but being forced to do so just the same.
Akemi stayed. Despite it all. The ups and downs, the anger, the hurt. Akemi stayed.
Akemi did everything in her power to try and prevent his passing, to slow his inevitable demise, from donating bone marrow to blood transfers to simply spending days upon days at his bedside, holding his hand as the end appeared.
On the day he died, she was there, by his beside, both hands wrapped around his, as if she could will him to stay by refusing to let go.
In a breath, he was gone. And somehow... something inside of Akemi was gone too.
