Kei is generally well-liked by her peers, at least those who get to know her personally. She’s very approachable, preferring social interaction to isolation, and is very bubbly and friendly to the people who visit the library. She’s kind and helpful, and even though she focuses more on people to ignore her duties, there’s no denying that she’s very passionate about her interactions with others, finding herself very good with people and socialising. Her laziness when it comes to more troublesome tasks can be very frustrating, especially to those who get to know her closer, but she’s always willing to lend a hand on something smaller for someone else, especially in place of something more difficult. She’s the kind of person who will spend three hours doing something low-effort to avoid five minutes of hard work.
It does, however, shine through in how she behaves that she’s… not the brightest, really. She can quote famous books easily, to make herself seem intelligent, but she hasn’t actually read a good few important books beyond their CliffsNotes, and only knows the handful of quotes that most people would (think ‘am i a nicky fan? …..pull up in the sri lanka WHAT’ kind of referencing). She likes to talk about books, because she finds people with the capacity to sit through them very interesting, but most of her own experience comes from trashy romances and magazines. She’s a bit of a ditz, clumsy and unaware of her surroundings, which can be endearing or frustrating depending on who you ask. Her constant relaxed exterior can be infuriating in a troublesome situation, and can put her in danger by underestimating the consequences for her actions, but she can act as a reassurance, and a calming force in a group, always meaning well to those around her.
Kei is an incredibly relaxed person, rarely taking things too seriously, and to some this is a benefit; when people stress around her, she does her best to keep them calm, and can be a good distraction. She tries her best to be a source of reassurance when someone is blowing an idea out of proportion in their panic, by breaking down the issue into something less worrying. However, to some, her reassurance can come off as tone-deaf. She has a very narrow frame of reference for people’s stress, and her advice can come off as telling someone to ‘just stop worrying’, which isn’t always useful. She has a very privileged outlook on life, always believing that nothing’s too big of a problem to be solved with a Starbucks and her family’s money, and this outlook doesn’t mesh well with larger problems, especially those affecting people less fortunate than her. She believes others simply worry too much about life, and doesn’t seem to recognise her own privilege, assuming that others are simply stressing too much over problems similar to her own small ones. She’s generous with her wealth and time, but struggles to grasp that those can’t solve everything.
Kei is, undoubtedly, a very lazy person, preferring to sit around doing something fun than put in any actual effort, but a big part of that is how they were raised. They’re very spoiled by their family, and this has made them a bit of a slacker, always assuming that things can be done by someone else. This has made them very resourceful, but perhaps in the wrong way, as they do their best to find the easiest and quickest way to do something. All in all, they do their best for others, but put very little effort into their work, and would rather slack off than actually try.
Kei Sasaki has never had to work for anything in her life.
Born into a family of the rich and famous, nobody in the Sasaki family ever really had to work for their wealth. Her father was born into wealth, and became an agent due to his social skills and family connections, and her mother was a natural actor, with the beauty and charisma required to excel in film without much effort. Kei was always provided for without question, and never really made to work or do chores, with it all being handled by people the family were paying. As such, she never really developed a sense of responsibility or work ethic, and never really had to worry about anything.
Kei had a base interest in media from a young age. She loved watching TV and reading magazines, and she enjoyed reading to an extent, but preferred more childish fantasy and cheesy romance novels. They were never really one for the high society their parents lived in, and instead he preferred to stay indoors, or go out with his friends. Her parents picked up on this, and how good it was for their image, and, slowly, her father had an idea. Kei being an Ultimate would mean she would likely never really have to work for anything, and would be able to breeze through life with barely any effort. He discussed this with his wife, and they decided they would find a way to transform Kei’s interest into an easy path to success.
And so, Kei’s parents told her about a job that had opened up working in a local library. They said it would be enjoyable for her to be around so many books, and that the job would be an easy way to spend her weekends. Not only that, it would make her look good, and make her parents look good by association, for her to be seen as hard-working and down-to-earth. Kei agreed to this arrangement, and, after a wardrobe makeover to make her seem more intellectual (requested on Kei’s part), she began working at the library.
The biggest problem with that, however, was Kei’s own laziness. She slacked off and focused on menial tasks, like sorting the bookshelves and helping at the front desks. She didn’t really care about working hard, as she’d never really had to. Sure, she wasn’t completely useless, but she hardly put in the effort she needed to. More importantly was all the time she spent making herself look busy, by occupying herself with people’s questions or coming up with small but long tasks to do so she didn’t have to help out too much. They spent most of their time reading magazines and trashy novels, and used their job as a place to lounge about in peace without the glitz and glam of their home life.
And so, his parents started funding the library, secretly pouring money into it to ensure it went well for Kei. This wasn’t a foreign concept to them; they’d done this before for Kei’s schools, as Kei was never all too bright outside of his media interests, and it was easier than getting Kei to work hard. This funnelled money helped the library to excel, and it all seemed to be down to Kei, who looked on the outside like a useful and helpful person for the library. They looked to be doing so well, in fact, that Hope’s Peak sent them an invite to go to the school, as the Ultimate Librarian, much to their parents’ delight. Surely, this would guarantee success for Kei.
Upon arrival at Hope’s Peak, Kei was put in charge of the managing of the Hope’s Peak library, a decision she was… less than happy with. Hope’s Peak library was far more important than her local library, and far bigger too, more difficult to manage. Still, she was sure she could get away with continuing to slack off, if she was more resourceful about it (and, unbeknownst to her, if her parents kept sponsoring Hope’s Peak as they did to the library to keep her in a beneficial position). She was generally considered helpful and sociable by her classmates, and got along well with her class, but over time it became clear to staff that the library wasn’t nearly as well-kept as it should have been, especially those who also worked alongside the library.
Her teachers quietly pulled her aside, worried about their performance, and Kei panicked, grabbing for the first excuse she could think of. She explained that going from her small local library to such an expansive one like Hope’s Peak was a massive shock to her system, and that she was struggling to cope with the stress of the new environment (something that was partially true, though Kei had been actively avoiding that stress by slacking). Some teachers were sceptical about this reasoning, but none of them wanted to kick out Kei, both as an Ultimate and as the child of a pretty strong benefactor of the school. Kei was offered a space in the Reformation Program, to work on those feelings of anxiety and pressure and get used to the bigger library and its responsibilities. He agreed readily, primarily to take the heat off him while he worked out a way to sort out his library work, under the assumption that his parents would find a way to bail him out.
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