Yui Hirahara

> *"You're lucky I have plenty of powerful friends." -Yui Hirahara*
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**Yui Hirahara** (平原 ゆい, *Hirahara Yui*) is a major antagonist and a supporting character in *I Love Yoo*. She is the mother of Kousuke Hirahara and the wife of Randulph Hirahara. She is a businesswoman in the Hirahara Corp, and is in charge of the Health Facilities.

After meeting Shin-Ae Yoo, she claimed to have seen her as a possible love interest of Kousuke. She eventually made a deal with Sang-Chul Kim, which involved Shin-Ae being forced into attending the Kim Ball, which set into motion the chaos that erupted at the event. It is possible that she also purposefully intended to ruin Yeong-Gi's reputation.

After the Kim Formal, she temporarily left the country. She is currently back home with an unknown plan in mind.

## Background

Yui Hirahara lives in 'The United States of Asia', where according to Quimchee, is where *I Love Yoo* takes place. She married Randulph Skuli, and had her son Kousuke. She is now known to be a mischievous and shady woman. She ran the Hirahara company with her husband and her son Kousuke. When Shin-Ae Yoo needed money, she gave her a job at the company as Sang-Chul Kim's assistant. But at a party, there was an accident, which caused Kousuke and Shin-Ae to fall into a pool. Yeong-Gi tried to grab Mrs. Hirahara's hand, but missed, and grabbed her wig instead, and fell into the pool with it.

Mrs. Hirahara was humiliated in front of her husband and a crowd that was watching the incident

## Appearance

At first glance, Yui Hirahara can seemingly be Kousuke's older sister. She is a youthful looking woman with naturally wavy dark brown hair which reaches slightly past her shoulders. Yui has thin Azure eyes along with long thin eyebrows. She has a mole on the right side of her lower lip. Her hair is parted at the left so her bangs are tucked behind her ears.

Shin-Ae noted in Episode 30 that she and her son Kousuke look like clones of one another.

It was revealed in Episode 63 that her long hair is actually a wig.

In Episode 117, her real hair is finally revealed. Without her wig, her hair seems to greatly resemble that of her son Kousuke.

## Personality

Yui is portrayed as a business-minded woman, in which she determines the worth of a person dependent on the person's potential contribution to her agendas.

She gave her scarf to Shin-Ae as a gift after realizing that she would be cold. She often commented on how she tried her best to make sure that her son would be with a woman soon. She even helped Megan to be set up with her son.

Her manipulative side was later shown, when she falsely answers Shin-Ae's text in the place of Kousuke. She manipulates others to do what she wants, but her true intentions are still unclear.

Yui can be very blunt sometimes. She is also very observant and clever. She realized that her son Kousuke seemed intrigued by Shin-Ae, and managed to get the exact reaction out of him that she wanted, by hiring Shin-Ae as Sang-Chul's supposed assistant and by doing that, she was also able to uncover Shin-Ae's situation.

## Relationships

### Kousuke Hirahara

Kousuke is Yui's son and they appear to have a good relationship. Yui is shown to enjoy teasing Kousuke on getting married or pursuing relationships, as they often have arguments about either Shin-Ae or Megan. Kousuke is defensive when the topic of girls is brought up. It does also seem that she loves to tease any love interests he has as well. Kousuke seems to be more close to his mother than his father.

### Yeong-Gi

Yui and Yeong-Gi are not close. Yeong-Gi often becomes frightened when Yui is mentioned and Yui rarely refers to him as her son. She does not call Yeong-Gi by his name, and instead often calls him "kid". The first time she references herself as his mother is in Episode 113, and then again in Episode 129.

### Shin-Ae Yoo

Yui tried to set up a relationship between Kousuke and Shin-Ae by inviting Shin-Ae to Kousuke's birthday dinner. Yui tricked Shin-Ae into coming to Kousuke's place, and wearing his shirt. This embarrassed Kousuke and angered Shin-Ae. This did however result in Kousuke taking Shin-Ae home.

Yui and Shin-Ae's relationship turned sour before, during, and after the formal when Shin-Ae found out that Yui was the one who texted her regarding the job offer, not Kousuke. Shin-Ae felt that she was played like she was fooled when Yui forced her to go to the party even if she does not want to in the first place, made her wear a revealing and uncomfortable dress, sucking up to people that she wanted to punch and having someone drug her during the party. Yui even manipulated Shin-Ae into thinking that if she doesn't accept her offer, Kousuke would lose his job and might face a backlash from everyone. After Yui gave the check to Shin-Ae just like they have talked about, Shin-Ae rejected it by tearing it into pieces in front of her.

Shin-Ae there after views Yui with disdain and disgust.

### Megan Cho

Yui offered to help Megan win the affections of Kousuke, but later ignored Meg. She doesn't show much dislike towards Megan, but seems to encouarge Meg's competition with Shin-Ae for Kousuke.

### Sang-Chul Kim

Not much is known on their relationship, but it is speculated that Yui and Sang-Chul may have been the reason why Shin-Ae was drugged at the formal. It is also shown that Sang-Chul does not like Yui and referred to her as "That b\*tch" in Episode 60.

### Yu Jing

Yu Jing is a popular journalist that Yui first met after Yu Jing began interviewing Yeong-Gi. Yui wanted to meet Yu Jing, to which Yu Jing offered to find her contact info on her website. Yui commented that Yu Jing reminds her of herself.

### Eleanor Lochlainn

Eleanor had met Yui previously 5 years ago. Eleanor was polite to Yui, and even complimented her on her 'hair'.

## Etymology

* The name **Yui** is written in hiragana (ゆい), which has no special meaning. However, when written in kanji (結衣, 優衣 or 結), it could possibly mean:
	+ 結衣 - "tie, bind" (結) (**yu**) and "clothing, garment" (衣) (**i**).
	+ 優衣 - "excellence, superiority, gentleness" (優) (**yu**) and "clothing, garment" (衣) (**i**).
	+ 結 - "tie, bind".
* Yui's surname **Hirahara** means "flat, broad, level, even, peaceful" (平) (**hira**) and "field, plain" (原) (**hara**).