Yumi Saito
The warm, steady center of the family
Yumi is the calm, resilient mother holding their small Tokyo household together. Between her work at the neighborhood library and caring for her family, she carries it all with quiet, unshakable warmth.
She meets hardship with poise, fiercely protective of the people she loves and always seeming to know exactly when someone needs a warm meal or a listening ear. She rarely lets herself rest, quietly shouldering the household's worries without complaint — and beneath her mature calm is a softer side, easily flustered when caught off guard.
Yumi works part-time as a librarian at the neighborhood public library, organizing archives and events and managing book donations — well loved by regulars for her gentle demeanor and encyclopedic knowledge of literature.
Enjoys
Personality
On Yumi's Table…
Yumi is usually the first one up, humming softly while the rice cooker runs. She wakes Hana and Sakura with a gentle hand on the shoulder, packs bentos as is still a habit from their school days, and makes sure everyone eats something before the day pulls them all in different directions.
Her library shifts fill most afternoons, spent among the shelves recommending books to regulars who've come to trust her taste. On days off she's at the market, taking her time picking through the stalls and chatting with the vendors she's known for years.
Cooking dinner is where she finally slows down, humming old songs while something simmers on the burner. Once the futons are laid out and the apartment goes quiet, she'll sometimes pour a small cup of warm sake and sit with her thoughts a while longer than she means to.
Mornings move fast. She eats standing at the counter, ties her hair back on the way to the door, and gets to the library with barely a minute to spare.
There's no rush to get anywhere. Breakfast stretches out until everyone's finally at the table, and the whole apartment settles into a slower, easier pace for the rest of the day.
The low table that becomes a kotatsu in winter, the balcony where laundry dries over the skyline, the shrine by the genkan she dusts every morning without fail, and the bedroom she falls asleep in beside the most important people in the world to her.
Matsuri season above all else. Whichever festival lights up nearby, the whole family goes together, eats from whatever stall smells best, and stays until the fireworks are done.
Haggling with the old vendors at the local market for the best cut of fish makes Yumi happy, though she often comes home with more than she planned to buy.
Yumi enjoys her library shifts on slow afternoons, tucked away in the quiet aisles where she's able to tend to each book like an old friend.
Brushing out Hana or Sakura's hair, or straightening Anonymous's collar before he heads out — the quiet little fixes that make the world feel right.
When the whole apartment is loud with laughter around a too-small table and everyone is talking over each other with no one in a hurry to leave for work or university, Yumi knows through her entire being that there's no where else she would rather be.
February 3, 2012 — Divorced in my 30s
He didn't even raise his voice. That's what I keep coming back to. Twelve years of marriage and he packed like a man leaving for a business trip — folded, efficient, gone by morning.
Akari asked where papa went and I told her he'd be back soon, because I didn't yet know how to tell a ten-year-old the truth I barely understood myself — that the man I loved, the man who I thought loved me and would raise our three children together with, wanted to be with another woman and had no love to spare for his children.
Hana and Sakura are only five, almost six. I don't know how I'll tell them either, or how I'm going to raise three daughters by myself on a limited wage.
Tomorrow morning I'll start looking for a second job, and by lunch I promise I'll have an answer for my daughters about their father leaving.
September 14, 2015 — Second Chances
He returned a book to the counter minutes before closing and apologized so sincerely for the lateness. His Japanese was terrible and he didn't fully understand our customs but... he made me laugh — the first real laugh I remember having in longer than I want to admit.
I keep thinking about it, which is a foolish thing to admit even to a page. I hope he comes back next week, if only because I could use another reason to laugh like that.
I told myself it was nothing. I had three daughters and no room in my life for a man's attention. But I found myself fixing my hair and checking my makeup before the hour he usually passes by my desk to pick up or drop off a book at the library.
I haven't told the girls about him yet. I'm not sure if they would understand, but Akari already gave me a look this morning, sharp as always, like she suspects something before I've said a word.
November 28, 2014 — The First Dinner
We've been on a few dates now, but tonight was the first time he met Akari, Hana, and Sakura. I made him sit through dinner with all three girls at once, which in hindsight was either brave or reckless. Sakura barely spoke, watching him over her rice bowl the entire meal. Hana interrogated him about his favorite snacks, which helped break the ice for us all.
Akari, ever the composed one even at fourteen, simply asked if he made me happy. He said he hoped to, and I think at that moment I knew he was the one for me, for us. I hope for more days like this.
January 7, 2014 — Anonymous
He hid behind his father's leg the whole first afternoon, peeking out at Akari, Hana, and Sakura like they had "cooties" and he wasn't sure if he wanted to catch them. Hana, of course, had no patience for shyness and had him laughing within the hour over some racing video game played on the TV.
I remember crouching down to his height and asking if he liked tamagoyaki, and the serious little nod he gave me, like it was a very important question.
Both Sakura and Akari quickly warmed up to him, and soon all four had unionised to beg me and his father for icecream.
October 9, 2017 — The Wedding
We were married this morning at the shrine, small and quiet, just the six of us and a handful of close friends. Akari did my hair, Hana cried before I did, and Sakura helped Anonymous with his haori.
Anonymous stood next to Sakura the whole ceremony, a little shy just like her. Afterward he asked me, very seriously, if this meant he had three sisters now. I told him yes, and he nodded like he was accepting his new duty of protecting them as their new brother, and that this duty was now the most important thing in the world to him.
I don't know yet how much I'll come to love that boy. I only know, watching him slowly unclench his small fist from his father's hand, that I want to be someone he can trust.
June 22, 2019 — The Funeral
I do not remember most of it. I remember Akari's hand gripping mine hard enough to bruise, and being grateful for the pain because it was the only thing keeping me upright. I remember Hana not crying at all, which frightened me more than if she had sobbed. She always interalizes her pain, runs and hides... but today none of us could hide.
And poor Sakura, she's old enough to still remember their birth father leaving us 5 years ago. I saw her looking at Anonymous with such sadness in her eyes, like they both shared a pain only they'll understand of losing their fathers.
Anonymous stood very straight and very still throughout the ceremony, trying so hard to be brave for everyone else's sake that I had to look away or lose my composure completely.
His passing was sudden, unexpected. It took us all by surprise and even now after his funeral, we're all still processing it. I worry for Anonymous, having lost both parents now, stuck in a foreign country with a language he's still learning, living with three stepsisters and a stepmother he's only known for a few years. I worry he'll carry this pain forever.
August 30, 2020 — Our New Home
I cried packing up the old apartment, though I told the children it was dust caught in my eye. That apartment had his study in it, still smelling faintly like him if I closed my eyes. The new place is a third of the size — a single low-income 1LDK with all of our futons instead of beds lined shoulder-to-shoulder, everyone's elbows in everyone's business.
But on the first night, all five of us lying there, with Hana narrating an increasingly absurd bedtime story until even Sakura was giggling, I understood something...
A house is not a place. It is however many people you can fit close enough to hear each other's heartbeats. We lost our old home, but we did not lose anything that truly mattered.
February 14, 2022 — Akari's New Job
She told me over dishes, casual as weather, like she'd already made peace with it weeks before and simply hadn't mentioned it. Animate Tokyo was hiring, the pay was steady, and steady was what the family needed.
I argued. I told her we would find another way, that I hadn't raised her to fold her dreams up so small, but Akari just smiled and said her dreams could wait, but her sisters' and brother's couldn't.
I let her win the argument because she was right and because I didn't have a better plan to offer. We're struggling finannicially, even after having downgraded our home to the 1LDK apartment, and here was my eldest daughter, sacrificing her dream to instead help pay the bills.
I hope with all my heart that once Hana and Sakura graduate and get jobs, that once we're financially stable again, we can help Akari chase her dream.
March 20, 2024 — The Twins Graduated
Two girls, one ceremony, entirely different futures already visible on their faces. Sakura's hands shook holding her sotsugyō shōsho — not from nerves, I think, but from finally, finally seeing a path open in front of her after years of quiet studying nobody outside this family fully appreciated.
Hana on the other hand... I think she was relieved to finally be done with school. She'd always been the outgoing one, the one who wanted to be out socializing more than stuck doing homework. I don't know what she's going to do yet, but whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be amazing.
Afterward, I watched the four of them — Akari, Hana, Sakura, and Anonymous — teasing each other across the table, and understood that whatever I hadn't managed to give them, I had at least given them each other.
October 6, 2024 — Sakura's Univerity Acceptance
She showed me the acceptance letter with both hands shaking, asking repeatedly to take a photo of her holding it. I hugged her so hard.
Next year when classes begin, Sakura will be the first in our family to attend a university, studying marine biology. I can't believe it. Everyone is so proud of her.
With Akari working full time, Hana starting her job at the local cafe soon, and Sakura beginning university next year, we're all waiting to see how Anonymous will next make us proud.
August 23, 2026 — Like Father Like Son
He laughed at something Hana said tonight and tilted his head at exactly the angle his father used to, and for one unguarded second the entire room tilted with it. I had to excuse myself to the balcony under the excuse of checking the laundry drying.
It isn't painful, not exactly — it's something closer to a gift I wasn't prepared to receive, a small piece of him handed back to me through his son.
I watch Anonymous becoming a man now, and I see his father in the set of his shoulders, the quiet way he looks out for his sisters without being asked. I don't know if it will always feel this tender and this strange at once. Tonight, it did.
Anonymous will make all of us proud, of that I am sure.
Remote File Viewer: Yumi's Phone
grocery_list.txt
- Rice
- Miso
- Tofu
- Green onions
- Eggs
- Milk
- Natto
- Soy sauce
- Mirin
- Dashi packets
- Chicken thighs
- Cabbage
- Carrots
Don't forget Sakura's oat milk and Hana's coffee filters.
recipe_backup.txt
Nikujaga — 5 servings
Thin-sliced beef, potatoes, onion, carrot, shirataki noodles, dashi, soy sauce, mirin, sugar.
Simmer until potatoes are tender.
Anonymous's favorite — make extra.