Aihara Kanako

Aihara Kanako is an eight-year-old ghoul living with her brothers in the sixteenth ward. She attends Elementary School a couple of blocks from her home.

## Appearance

Kanako has a genetic trait called OCA4 albinism, which affects her colouring. She has a paper-like complexion, and a short figure. Because she is a very active little girl, Kana is quite strong in her overall frame- some might even describe her as being a little stocky or compact- and she has powerful legs. However, despite this, her bone structure itself could be considered 'petite'. Kana’s face is round with narrow, catlike and shockingly pale grey eyes. These eyes are trapped by thick, cream-coloured eyelashes. Sitting above her eyes are delicate eyebrows of the same colour. Positioned over her eyes are glasses with cute light pink frames. Her lips, apparently the only spot of noticeable colour on her face, are small and pink. She has a softly-shaped nose. Usually, taking note of her ethnicity, her hair would be brown or black. Despite this, because of the afore-mentioned genetic trait, her hair is a very pale creamish-white colour. This hair is straight and smooth in texture and reaches past her shoulderblades. The bangs are of the "blunt" hairstyle, meaning that they are cut straight across her forehead. On most days, Takahiro puts up her hair in low pigtails with pink ribbons.

Kana generally refuses to wear dresses because they restrict her ability to play, but Taka still takes secret enjoyment in babying her and buying her cute clothes of other types (when their budget allows it). In particular, Kanako has cute bright pink, purple and baby blue tops decorated with ruffles. Takahiro also likes to buy her shirts with polka dots or typical little-girl logos. With these she will frequently wear white shorts, and (sometimes) a white or black skirt. She has white sandals with little bows on the cross-sections and pink runners, and Kana is now old enough to decide for herself which pair she’ll wear on any given day. Because she's a princess and she knows it, she has a hairclip with a little plastic tiara on it that she adores. (Takahiro sometimes has to wash this clip every second or third day because she outright refuses to take it off, even when playing in the mud).

As she grows, Kanako has begun to enjoy less babyish styles of dressing and takes inspiration for this from older kids at school. She has begun to wear less pastel colours and more red and navy blue. She also has begun letting her hair remain down instead of in its previous pigtails.

## Personality

As many eight year old’s do, Kanako rules the house. At home she can be loud, sassy and absolutely unafraid to voice her opinions. Simple things, such as seeing her favourite idol group on a poster, excite her. She has trouble expressing this excitement in public, however, and this often leads others to assume that she is unenthusiastic and incapable of feeling delight. She used to adore and idolize princesses until recently, and even now it isn't uncommon to find her in the living room rewatching various Disney movies if she thinks nobody's around to witness it. Even if she isn't always vocal about it, she always lets her brothers know *exactly* who is in charge- and no, it's not Taka.

Despite her secret love for girly things, she prefers to play with boys in her class rather than girls. She's the type of girl that enjoys running around in the forest and wrestling in the dirt, and when she was smaller she would even drag her dolls into the fun. In the past she had a grand total of three dolls, and each of them had been dragged into her playtime (read: torture) outdoors to the point where they were often missing hair/clothes and probably would have been disgustingly dirty if Takahiro hadn't regularly cleaned them. Kanako no longer brings her dolls to school or plays with them but they still occupy a space on her bed because she's secretly too fond of them to pack them up into storage.

Kanako hates hats and sunglasses, but because of her skin and eyes' natural vulnerability to sunlight as a result of her albinism Takahiro never allows her to leave the apartment until she has at least one of them on (if not both). Her eyesight is already slightly affected by her trait, which is why she wears glasses.

Kana is a balance between being understandably naive and shockingly mature. Of course, she fully understands what she eats each week and where her food comes from. She is surprisingly grown-up in that aspect, as she knows that she must not tell anyone- even a teacher or other trusted adult. She also understands that her food is of the same species as all her friends and neighbours, and although she has a grim outlook on it she accepts it as she knows there is no alternative.

At the same time, she does not quite understand that ghouls are not always friendly creatures. Taka and even Haru (previous to being affiliated with Anteiku) used to try to explain to her that ghouls usually do not work together unless they own territories together or are part of a group, but she still continued to inquire as to why their family didn't just ask for another ghoul's help when food was scarce. Fortunately, she has never been in a situation where she could be individually exploited or attacked by another ghoul for this innocence.

In the past (due to a wide age gap and her young age) Kanako regarded Taka as almost something like a parent, but as she has grown she's been slowly beginning to share a relationship with him that's more similar to the typical sibling dynamic Haruhiko and Takahiro have. However, she still rarely fights with her eldest brother and depends on him for the emotional support that children would usually recieve from their parents (that is therefore otherwise unavailable to her).

She usually pesters and irritates Haruhiko more because they are closer in age. She loves to tease and push his buttons to see when he'll snap, and (in typical youngest-child fashion) then try to blame it on her brother when Takahiro gets involved. Kana really does love both her brothers, but messing with Haru is just too much fun!