Name: Kiyoshi Yamada (subject to change sob)
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Facial expression: Sheepish smile
Hair: Black, streaked with dark blue; lengthwise, slightly past his shoulders.
Eye color: Black
Skin color: Pale
Outfit: Standard + Black-rimmed glasses/goggles + Shirt buttoned at the collar + Thin, dull red neck/collar ribbon tied in a bow
Personality:
Kiyoshi is an introverted individual by nature, and prefers engaging in solitary activities such as reading, sewing, cooking, and cleaning; to him, those activities are therapeutic and energizing. While he does not dislike socializing with others, he tends to avoid or speed over small talk, and seeks deeper conversations - especially with familiar faces. As a result, he might seem overly eager to be friends when he is just unaware of certain social boundaries; his questions might thus be personal or sensitive to some. To make things worse, he does not read people very well, and often gets confused when someone is offended or upset by his words or questions.
However, what he lacks in understanding of social etiquette he makes up for in effort and sincerity; if someone were to point out that he was making them uncomfortable, he would immediately apologize. Although you would think that he should have learned his lesson by now, Kiyoshi figured that everyone has a different tolerance threshold, and that he should find out what that threshold is in order to become closer to that person.
Growing up with protective parents and a protective elder sister, he never got the chance to develop any street smarts. Even after his sister joined the Scouting Legion, she hardly spoke of the gore or blood or death of her comrades in detail; instead, she focused on the technical aspects, such as how they moved as a unit to minimize deaths or how far outside of the walls they traveled. Besides, those were the parts he enjoyed listening to the most as they reminded him of the war stories he had read... And he had read an array of books - both fiction and non-fiction - growing up.
Although he possesses book smarts, he can frequently be too rigid and "by the book" in his thinking; it often baffles him to find out that there are more ways to do things than suggested in books, for example. However, due to his extensive general knowledge, he gets excited whenever he is given the opportunity to share an interesting fact or phase he had read from somewhere.
History:
Born and raised in the Karanese District, a town located on the east edge of Wall Rose, Kiyoshi was the younger of two children. His parents were both small time tailors, making and mending clothing in exchange for coin and food. Even if they had to starve themselves, they made sure that growing up, the Yamada siblings never had to worry about food, clothing or shelter.
Since he did exceptionally well in Middle School, his parents planned to send him for further studies after the end of the mandatory education. While he was interested and appreciated his parents intentions, he knew that further schooling would be a huge burden on their already limited income, and convinced them against it.
His elder sister, 3 years his senior, was always more interested in physical activities than in an activity like sewing or studying; she would repair the roof when it was leaking, collect firewood, and called on those that owed the family payment for their service, while he would help out with the sewing, and chores around the house. Although they differed in personality, they had always gotten along well; in fact, Kiyoshi looked up to her and thought of her as one of the strongest people he knew.
When she wanted to join the military with the intention of enlisting in the Scouting Legion at the tender age of 12, their parents, fearing for her life, stopped her. They used the excuse that she was still a child and that they would only permit her to make her own decisions when she was 17; they hoped that with time, she might change her mind... She never did.
It had been 4 years since his sister left, and 2 years since she joined the Scouting Legion. When she returned home after her first expedition outside the walls, she threw up all her meals, unable to keep the food down as the memory of the blood and gore she witnessed made her nauseous. After the second expedition, she slept a whole day due to exhaustion, occasionally waking up drenched in cold sweat. With each expedition however, the "after effects" lessened, and Kiyoshi saw that his sister was determined to get a breakthrough.
Perhaps that's what inspired him to think about enlisting in the military as well.
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