Masako #8

I started from this almost a year ago: chopsuey9444.deviantart.com/ar…
...and now I'm here. Oh, I'm a blogger now. whitelotusstudio.blogspot.com/

**Yes, I'm aware that the angry face does not have her trademark missing tooth

                                                                                                    ~Chopsuey
Origin Story

Jing-Wei Li is a Chinese immigrant who left China at a very young age (8) after being abandoned and left in an orphanage at five years of age, due to the country's "one-child policy". Believing that distancing herself from her family would make her happy, she snuck onto a cargo ship bound towards Japan. In Japan, she lived as a street urchin for some time. After being beaten and harassed by Japanese school children one day, she was rescued by an old homeless woman who introduced herself as Ms. Maeda. Ms. Maeda takes Jing-Wei under her wing and raises her as she grows up. At first, Ms. Maeda wasn't able to get Jing to name herself due to the language barrier. Instead, she names her Masako and teaches her Japanese and important survival skills. Together, they were happy, until the weather got colder. Winter was the coldest in decades. During the night of a terrible snow storm, because they couldn't find shelter, their only option was to bundle up in an alleyway and share body heat. But, because Ms. Maeda was too old, she died that night.

After the death of Ms. Maeda, in honor of her adoptive mother, Jing-Wei took on the name Masako and her surname, Maeda. As Masako Maeda, she spent most of her teenage years migrating all over Japan. When passing through the relatively unknown city of Hareyakana in wintertime, she is forced to bunker down in the city from an impending cold front, one that the entire region had not seen in years. While bundling up within the stairwell of a cheap apartment complex, waiting for the snow to die down, she has a run in with co-protagonist, Mitsuru Hara, who invites her into her apartment out of pity, and with the consent of her older brother Junichi, they allow Masako to stay for a few days until the weather improves.

During the day, when Junichi is at work and Mitsuru is at school or working her part-time job, Masako is left alone in their small apartment. Several days later, the weather does not improve. Mitsuru's overall health degrades as a result of the combination of work and malnutrition, as there is barely enough money made for food. Out of appreciation for what Mitsuru and her brother had done for her, and the concern of Mitsuru's health, Masako improvises cooking utensils out of household equipment and junk found outside, and dumpster dives behind grocery markets for still fresh produce that were overlooked and thrown out. She prepares a healthy meal for Junichi and Mitsuru, much to there surprise, and out of appreciation, they let her permanently stay in their home, provided that she does the cooking and housekeeping when they're away.

Some worthwhile notes:

- Great survival skills, proficient cook, unreal appetite, and is bilingual
- Has loose morals, is not beyond doing petty criminal acts
- Lost her front tooth from the school children whom Ms. Maeda had saved her from. Ironically, Mitsuru and Junichi were amongst the kids whom     bullied her, but to no recollection
- Deeply infatuated with Mitsuru's older brother, as a child, was the one responsible for Masako's missing tooth

OC Archive:

chopsuey9444.deviantart.com/ga…