Ayumi Yumemite (wip)

Ayumi Yumemite (Japanese: 夢見弖 歩美 Yumemite Ayumi) was previously a first year student from Nekoma High. She was the volleyball team manager. She joined during the second semester of her first year.

As of 2019, she is in a relationship with Kenma Kozume. She currently works as a music producer for a well known Tokyo-based recording studio.

Ayumi is a petite, young girl with black twin braids that fall past her shoulders and peach pink eyes. She’s normally seen wearing ribbons along with her braids. She’s never seen without twin braids due to the thickness and length of her hair. Ayumi has been acknowledge by several peers (Yamamoto, Tanaka, Nishinoya, and Yamaguchi) to be very pretty.

During volleyball practices and matches, Ayumi wears a red tracksuit with white and black accents — similarly to Coach Naoi’s tracksuit. When wearing her school uniform, Ayumi is normally seen with a white naval-style Japanese uniform. The uniform has a dark blue miniskirt with pleats and ruffles at the end, and a white cardigan and a red bow. She wears black thigh socks along with her uniform, and is often seen holding a bass guitar gig bag on her back.

Out of school, Ayumi often dresses in a mall gothic and punk fashion. She prefers wearing chains, arm warmers, ear piercings, fishnets, and other various accessories. She removes all of these when she goes to school.

During the timeskip, Ayumi is depicted with long hair that falls to her back and her signature bangs. she outgrows the braids.

Ayumi is a laid-back and cunning first year student who joined partway through the year as Nekoma High’s team manager. She is generally polite and respectful with students who are older than her, but can possess a sarcastic side when prompted. Ayumi is often relied on for her motherly instincts — balancing the chaotic dynamic of the team. It is revealed that despite her lack of knowledge to volleyball, she knows how to uplift her fellow teammates due to her attractive and charismatic demeanor. She is able to put Nekoma's mission statement to good practice, as she contributes more in morale and spirit than volleyball skills. Although she often has good intentions in mind, Ayumi's possesses questionable tactics to "inspire" the Nekoma boys in improving their skill — through charm and wits — qualities that Kuroo admitted finding both "impressive and terrifying." He just knew she'd be a great addition for the team.

Ayumi has a strong analytical side to her, which is especially present when recording stats and contributing advice with the other coaches. Despite her lack of knowledge in volleyball, it’s evident how passionate she is being part of the team, participating in drills that benefit the other teammates and asking questions about the game. Ayumi has definitely used her shrewdness to get away with convincing several teammates into doing drills they normally don’t like doing due to their laziness or lack of motivation. Similarly to Kenma, Ayumi has a pretty extraordinary read on people and scrutinizes others to a fault. She tends to, however, downplay her intelligence to steer the attention away from her calculating side. Ayumi has a fondness for contemporary novels, and has shown a great aptitude in philosophy, literature, and her greatest passion: music.

Ayumi has a tendency to present herself differently depending on who she's around. She is considerably likeable among her peers; Lev and Inuoka both pointing out her list of admirers from different places. Though acquaintances among her class would describe Ayumi as easygoing and carefree, Kenma noted Ayumi as one who should not be underestimated so easily. On the flip side, she’s fully aware of Kenma's suspicions of her for that reason, and doesn’t mind it either way since she’s accepted by her peers. 

Ayumi's biggest flaw is her tendency to form rash decisions too quickly regarding people, which is why she prefers to maintain a likable reputation. In actuality, Ayumi can be sardonic and harsh at times, and is fully capable of saying things that can come off as blunt and not easy to hear. She is a pessimist and realist at heart, which is reflected from her sarcastic personality. When questioned why she’d hide her true self, Ayumi admits to struggle with overthinking, and purposely misrepresents herself to avoid rejection from others—something that Kenma empathizes with. Nonetheless, she can be described as cunning and even a little manipulative by others. 

Despite this, Ayumi can be sentimental at times. She is loyal to a fault, and has proven capable of demonstrating extreme acts of kindness and compassion towards those closest to her. She has no trouble expressing genuine affection for the other teammates, and feels very comfortable around them to the point where she can joke around with them. She loves to indulge in their antics, even though it doesn’t appear that way all the time. Whether she shows it or not, it’s very evident how much Ayumi cares about others.

Ayumi was born and raised in a small traditional home in the boondocks bordering the south side of the Nerima Ward. She is the third child of six children (one boy, five girls). Despite being the third oldest, Ayumi was raised to be the responsible and reliable sibling, which explains her natural ability keeping up with the volleyball team and their diverse set of personalities. She grew up with Yuki Shibayama. She is the daughter to a plumber (her father) and a paralegal (her mother).

Ayumi had a very complicated relationship with her family, particularly her mother. She loves them to a fault, but being the middle child, she was often overlooked or overshadowed by her other siblings. Her family leans somewhere in the lower middle class; and seeing that that there are six of them, her mother often relies on her to help out and watch over her younger siblings. This causes a strain between her and her mother due to the unrealistic expectations her mother places on her, especially when considering the lack of support Ayumi receives from her. This isn't to say she resents her siblings, and still does what she's told, but mostly for their sake over her mother's. She still maintains a healthy and good relationship with all her siblings, but is considered the odd one out since the rest of her siblings are close to each others' respective ages.

Ayumi grew up somewhat sheltered since she was expected to stay home most days to watch after her siblings. Before middle school, she was considerably close to Yuki since they were the same age. Her fondest memories of Yuki was when she would attend his volleyball games as a child. Though she enjoyed watching Yuki, her heart wasn't really set on sports. As a child, despite her tense relationship with her mother and distant relationship with her siblings, she had a very strong bond with her father. The earliest memory she could recall is listening to her father play guitar after a long day of work, and immediately fell in love with music ever since. Being young, she was always curious of the guitar but never pursued it because of chores or Yuki. But once Ayumi and Yuki entered different middle schools, Ayumi found herself more isolated than ever. Her father noticed how anxious Ayumi was growing up to be, and saved all the money he could to buy her own bass when she was 13.

Ayumi fell in love with playing music. She would practice at every moment she could, staying up late at the dead of night and waking up at break of dawn to play her bass. She picked up the bass guitar extraordinarily quickly and would even surpass her father in terms of skill before entering high school. Ayumi slowly broke out of her shell once people noticed her for her music and her personality. It was at this point when she realized how acting a certain way would give her more attention and freedom over her own life. Since she was lacking that at home, she decided to play around with that once she would attend Nekoma High School in 2012. Since the school itself was about an hour bus-to-train commute from her house, it gave Ayumi the opportunity to craft together a new and bolder personality — and perhaps only then would she learn to find herself.

[[ SPOILERS BELOW!! ]]

After high school, Ayumi attended the Tokyo University of Arts to pursue music production. She graduated a year early and secured a position with one of the top label companies in Tokyo after completing her internship with them. By 2019, Ayumi is in a committed relationship with her old high school flame, Kenma Kozume. By 2021, she marries him and changes her name to Ayumi Kozume. They end up having two children together — a girl and a boy.

Ayumi lacks the raw athleticism that the rest of the volleyball teammates possess. It’s safe to assume that she is not an athlete in any sense of the word, but she is a very quick learner when it comes to the complexities of volleyball. Naturally, she isn’t able to pull off the skills that she’s learned, but she does occasionally contribute to conversation regarding strategy and areas to improve for the team when asked.

Character Name

blah blah i'll work on this another time (wip ig)

• Current Concern: People pointing out her blistering fingers from playing bass too much.
• Her star sign is Aries.
• Nomenclature:
  • Ayumi (歩美) - walking, beauty
  • Yumemite (夢見弖 ) - dream
• Biggest Pet Peeve: Making a mistake while using a delay pedal.
• All of the upperclassmen in the volleyball team find her full name a tongue twister because "there are too many y's and m's!" according to Yaku. It became a joke among the first years to nickname her Yumiyumemi because of how often Yaku's struggled to pronounce her name so many times.
• Ayumi started wearing braids everyday since her first day of middle school because she hated the feeling of hair in her face when she'd practice bass. 
• Has an extreme irrational fear of butterflies, to the point where she'll burst into tears at the sight of one.
• Ayumi is a natural virtuoso. She possesses the ability to learn a new song she just learned in under 10 minutes, and can play with perfect pitch. She is regarded as one of the strongest players in her school band. The only thing she lacks is holding a tune when singing.
• She is in the jazz and orchestra club in school. During the summer, she likes to perform with a couple of students she met from a youth orchestra ensemble back in middle school. Rather than orchestral music, they're more of a garage band.
• Out of all the first years on the Nekoma team, Ayumi is the oldest.
• She lives about an hour away from Nekoma High through bus-to-train commute. This is because her hometown is so small that there is no high school closeby. Her older brother chose Nekoma High despite it being far away because he liked the girls' school uniform, and they didn't need to pay to get in so the parents stuck with it.
• Ayumi prefers to read only when she's commuting to and from school. She enjoys Japanese-translated contemporary literature and philosophy: her favourites including Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Chimamanda Ngozi, Hitomi Kanehara, and Albert Camus. She wouldn't consider herself an avid bookworm since she reads at a snail's pace.
• With that being said, she struggles with English the most — similarly to Hinata and Kageyama. But for some reason, when it comes to English lyrics to music, she gets it on the fly. She just doesn't know what it means.
• Despite having so many nicknames, she's not the biggest fan of them.
• Living in the boondocks, Ayumi has a slightly different dialect from the intercity dialect in Tokyo. Because of this, she has a tendency to speak overly-formal which tends to confuse others because of her casual demeanor.
• She has a weird thing for people with tired glaring eyes.
• Ayumi plays a Fender Japan '62 Reissue Jazz Bass in 3-Tone Sunburst, and prefers to play without a pick. She named it Stringo Starr. She is left handed on bass.
• Ayumi secretly counts the number of times Kenma has smiled.

• "The kanji in my name is simple. Ayumi written as 'walking and beauty' and Yumemite written as 'dream.' It should be easy to remember because I am, in fact, a walking and beautiful dream." (To Kenma Kozume).
• "It's not a yes." (To Lev Haiba, prior to joining the Nekoma Volleyball Club.)
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