Yuko Ozawa

These days Yuko is tall and slim, her short brown hair brushing her shoulders with straight bangs drawn across her forehead above russet eyes. Her current outfit teams a roomy cream sweater hanging below the waist with an ankle-length lime skirt and white heeled shoes capped in brown.

During junior high she was heavier and wore her black hair to the chin, dressed in a dark sailor uniform over pale socks and light shoes with dark tips.

Timidity marks Yuko, a trait bound up with the crush she nursed for Yuji over many years. Once the two reunite as older teens and finally get a chance to talk, she thinks it over and chooses silence, refusing to court his affection on the back of her transformed appearance the way someone she resents might.

Her feelings sparked when she caught Yuji saying he liked her, along with his reasons, and the two later found common ground in a shared love of snow. Come graduation day she summoned the courage to ask for a photo with him, then relocated to Tokyo, where she grew taller and shed weight under the strain of the move. Around the events of the Death Painting arc she stumbled onto Nobara and Yuji, and over a meal at a restaurant she confided her lingering crush to Nobara. Megumi was summoned for what he knew about Yuji, and the moment Yuji turned up he knew her instantly, putting her at ease. She handed her contact information to Nobara but kept her feelings tucked away.

Later still, a trip back to her hometown brought a chance reunion. She had returned because her grandmother was about to enter a care home and the family residence needed clearing out, while Yuji, by coincidence, had come to empty his late grandfather's place. As snow started drifting down, she asked whether he still loved it, and he told her it was as special to him as ever, a beat that, to her, quietly evoked the boy she had cared for so long.