Minomi

Minomi had a thin frame and favored dresses that fell to around the knee. Her dark hair was cut into a bob that reached her chin and hung straight, finished with a very blunt, short fringe across the forehead. On occasion she pinned matching clips at each side of her head.

Warm and easy to like, Minomi carried a quiet burden beneath her friendliness. Life at home was marked by abuse, and she often fantasized about slipping away from it for good. She described her relatives as loving her in a strange way, a phrase that masked the bruises she regularly bore.

Minomi crossed paths with Karao Saeki the day he defied his father and slipped into the village, spotting him alone at the roadside and quickly making friends. She led him to a disused shrine, and the two spent hours there at play. From then on they arranged secret meetings, sharing games while only skirting the truth of their difficult households. She taught the boy how to read, write, and ride a bicycle. To Saeki, a ghoul who envied what looked like her stable ordinary life, the marks on her body were oddly fascinating.

Eventually both children fled their homes on a rainy night and met by chance. With nowhere else to go, Saeki brought her to his father's tent up in the mountains, where they dreamed aloud of traveling to the sea; he swore he would learn to drive and carry her to the beach she remembered from her youngest years. They drifted off together, only to be found by Saeki's father. Minomi never woke, since the father slaughtered her for food during the night. Saeki killed him in a fury when he realized what was happening, then preserved her torso and spent the rest of his life fixated on scarred women he treated as her stand-ins. She notably resembles Tooru Mutsuki, the very investigator Saeki later fixates upon.