What's in a Name?

Yumi Aikawa

Yumi Aikawa- Korean (mother); Japanese (father); Yumi Aikawa is one of the cashiers at the local bookstore that is routinely frequented by Hannah Quigley, with whom she has something of an intergenerational friendship. She is somewhat naïve and not thoroughly educated, but has a lot of common sense and briefly stays with the Quigley's when she becomes homeless after losing her apartment. Already quite overworked due to the load of her job, she can quickly lose her patience, especially when she has to deal with someone else's shenanigans or her neighbor's "criterballs". She is quite considerate however and usually willing to lend a helping hand, which has in turn made her employee of the month, a title she prides herself in. Hannah's initial interactions with Yumi reveal her to be bubbly and talkative, as she becomes very loquacious and animated when she hits on a topic that she is passionate about. She is very much a people person, greeting many of her customers with friendliness and affability and if prodded, is the type of person who will go on tangents telling stories of her past. She is generally very level-headed and cheerful when interacting with others at her job and is revealed to be a good multitasker. She often works well under pressure and has the ability to efficiently handle several duties at a time, with the help of the new shift manager Paige. Yumi is also possessive of people who mean a lot to her and can get defensive of her female friends, as she was visibly upset when Eli Fonseca cheated on Hannah. She is the type of person to come in three hours late and nap beneath her desk after lunch, yet somehow manage to accomplish twice the amount of work she usually gets done. She played Youth Soccer and has a fondness for sci-fi and enjoys reading paranormal sci-fi alien romance books, along with Golden Age sci-fi and horror comics from the top shelves.

She can usually be found reading the latest comic during a slower day as she eats peach purée or slurps down a bowl of udon and allows music to blare out of her headphones, including any song by Gwen Stefani. Friendly, affirming atmospheres fill Yumi's soul with meaning and happiness, as being able to laugh, joke, and swap life stories with friends gives her a sense that life is worth living. She sometimes hangs out with the Quigley family at home or at the mall when she feels stressed out, as they oddly enough give her a sense of stability. Despite her calm and kind nature, she has somewhat of a sassy side to her and can be more headstrong, impulsive, and stubborn in dealing with ruder clients, being unafraid to verbally call out others who disrespect her or those around her. She has a keen sense of integrity and honor and believes in treating others as she wishes to be treated, showing a great disdain for rudeness or unpleasant behavior in others. Yumi is nonetheless energetic and optimistic, seeming to genuinely enjoy her job and meeting new people, and tries to protect Hannah due to her childlike and innocent nature. Despite her passionate demeanor, she has shown strong instincts at her job, staying focused at the task at hand and rarely losing her composure. A trait of hers that Hannah greatly admires is her indifference towards how other people perceive her, as she considers Coldplay's Parachutes to be her favorite album of all time. Once a highly self-conscious, insecure girl who struggled to make friends due to her awkward appearance and personality, she was an easy target for others to manipulate and take advantage of with her desperation for popularity. Throughout her early adolescence, Yumi tended to worry excessively over what other people thought and highly valued outside opinions, going drastic lengths to alter who she was to better fit in with the rest. 

She was raised in the suburbs and often felt negatively about her ethnicity, belonging to one of the few Asian-American families in a mostly white space. She idolized Maria Media, a popular newscaster, but struggled to make friends and often felt like an outsider among her classmates, leading her to internalize Eurocentric standards of beauty. She was rejected at times for coming on too strong in her attempts at befriending new people, such as when she snuck past a bouncer to get into a night club, which gradually deteriorated her self-esteem over time. Yumi has a spontaneous streak however and bonds well with Paige Broussard, a millennial who attended classes at Trinity University in San Antonio. She likes paper chains, making miniature versions of the pets that she owns and practicing en plein air painting, and she gives Hannah seven little dolls known as the Gods of Luck. She misses her grandmother Chiyo, whom would often refer to her as "Yumi-chan" and share a special tea with her on certain afternoons. She knows how to change a car tire and considers her favorite foods to be tempura and cinnamon-sugar toast, on both sides of the bread, meanwhile her favorite color is red. Yumi was also obsessed with her physical appearance and tried to make herself appear "pretty" in different ways, which proved a relatively difficult task with her previous struggle with cystic acne. She was left wallowing in despair after losing both of her jobs at Area Coffee and Whole Foods Market, spending her days lamenting her misfortunate while scrolling through social media and watching reality tv shows. She planned to attend art school in the big city as soon as she graduated high school, although she struggles to sell her abstract art and worked as a barista for some time. She benefits from the kindness of Hannah's grandmother Lois once she uses some of her retirement funds to invest in a new business, allowing her to open her own bookstore known as The Night Owl.