kimoyo matsuo was a veritable sweetheart.

that really, really freaked you the fuck out. your local college tended to have a handful of overseas applicants every year, from other parts of the u-s-of-a, to australia–you estimated it was because of the spiders.

kimoyo had gotten into a fashion design course, meaning leaving the sanctity that was the bustling cities of japan for the first time in her life to enroll as a freshman. going to america? willingly? one could only assume madness..

another unfortunate manifestation of your post-diploma ascension was the rest of your peers–a copy and paste visage of your graduating class. and it seemed that two years into college had tone little to rend apart petty cliques. how a daisy in a field full of briars had been snatched up by the most pretentious, ungrateful bitches to ever breath air, you had no idea.

to say that kimoyo was ill-suited among livia van acker, kenzie whitmore and savannah crane was similar to declaring that you had discovered the sky was blue in hue. no shit.

she wore knitted leg warmers and gingham skirts, pinned her sleek hair back with star clips, always with that smile on her face. mariana could have sworn that she'd seen her try to give a bumblebee CPR.

every wednesday afternoon, she had her arms looped with kenzie's like they were the best of friends—giggling, apologizing when the others said something cruel, as if she had committed the social war crime.

"you were not at the party yesterday. were you ill?" kimoyo inquired, mocha brown eyes fixed on you as if you were a butterfly that had landed on her folio. she often found you sitting under the oak by the art building, and usually mariana's scowl was enough to ward her off–but said comrade had absconded on a date with her girlfriend.

"my obaachan swears on yuzu and honey tea for colds, i could make you some." she quipped, clasping your sun-warmed hand between hers, before reigning in her enthusiasm and settling for an amusing attempt at stoicism. "...or i can send you a recipe."