Yuniko

1

Yuni.
Everyone calls me that; Yuni. Kusakabe Yuniko is my full name. I've always been told it's an interesting name. It's a way of saying "unicorn". I guess my parents thought I was meant for something bigger than what this world holds within it's walls. That's what my aunt has always told me anyway. I may never know the truth about my name, though.
When I was 4, my parents were in a car accident and my father was killed on impact. As for my mother, she was in the hospital with some pretty serious injuries for a long time. The doctors told our family that she could pull through if she kept her strength up, but according to my aunt, she was already fading away. She was so grief stricken by the loss of my father, a man she had known since she was 13, that it was a challenge for her just to eat.
Plans were already being arranged for her funeral along with my dad's, when suddenly one night, my mother disappeared from the hospital. The doctors and night staff demanded that there was no possible way she could have gotten up and left in her condition. A nationwide search ensued and continued for a few years before the police had to declare the trail as "cold" and close the case. As a family, we grieved but slowly moved on with life.
I'm 18 now and just started my first year at university to study theater and acting, following in my father's footsteps. I currently live with my aunt Akane, my mother's sister. She is only 32 but after her older sister vanished, she was forced to grow up fast. Since the accident, she took on a huge role in my life as my surrogate mother. It was a long journey for her to legally adopt me as such a young, single parent, but she stood strong through the process and finally was able to claim me as a child. We've lived together more like sisters than like mother and daughter.
Now that I am starting school full time, I won't be able to pick up shifts at her bakery as often as I could in high school. I feel a bit guilty about it, but the money that was left to me by my parents was meant for my education and I know Akane understands how important it is to me.
Acting has been a part of my life since I was young and it has never left me. When I was 12, I discovered a stash of tapes that Akane had hidden away in storage. They were all filled with footage of my father acting. One by one, I watched all of them and immediately, I fell in love. He was so warm and real on those tapes. I couldn't believe I was seeing my own dad, hearing his voice and his laugh. Seeing him act, seeing him grab at his words and his emotions with such a passion, it truly changed my life.
Akane later told me that she had hid them away because she knew how dedicated my father was to his acting during that time, to the point that he almost never had time for my mother or myself, and it upset her greatly. I don't really remember that part of my life too clearly anymore, but just seeing my dad on the screen, seeing his movements and the way he carried himself, I felt connected to him for the first time that I could recall. That was the day I made it my mission to strive for that connection with him in everything I did.