Kuriko Hatsuhara Resubmission

Kuriko is the child of Yoko and Aki Hatsuhara, a couple who owned a mini-mart in central Tokyo. Times were always tough for the Hatsuharas as money was never in plenty, but they survived. During the pregnancy the happy parents were told that Kuriko's corneas had not developed properly and that she would be blind as a result; although this upset Aki and Yoko they loved their newborn no less and made sure she lived a happy childhood, not letting her disability get in the way of her day-to-day life.

As Kuriko got older and began to walk, things got more complicated. There is more than one story the Hatsuharas tell at dinner parties involving Kuriko getting into a disagreement with a chair or table leg. As she got older Kuriko was taught from home by her mother, who was a qualified teacher, to avoid the trouble of navigating the busy corridors of all the local schools. Even so, it was cheaper to teach Kuriko from home as by this point money was almost non-existent in their life; with the shop failing Aki had to begin looking into other avenues of work.
The young girl's education, however, was going swimmingly. She easily picked up braille and could read books aimed for her age group extremely well, and she showed a surprising talent for music after a family friend offered to teach her guitar as part of his community outreach project.

When Kuriko was thirteen the toll of having little to no social life was having a negative effect on her, she wasn't her usual chirpy and happy self and would often stay inside her room all day. This carried on for months, and the Hatsuharas eventually gave up hope; that is, until a man named Takeshi Tachibana approached them. He told the family that he had read of Kuriko's musical talents in the paper and that he wanted to help her. He explained the launch of a charity run by him and his wife: CyberHeart. He offered to completely fund and perform a life-changing operation for Kuriko, the installation of cybernetic eyes.

The experimental procedure was agreed to, not without hesitation, by Kuriko and her parents and all went ahead fine. The operation went ahead without a hitch, and a couple of months later Kuriko Hatsuhara walked out of a hospital on her own without a cane and did not meet a sticky end at the hands of a chair leg. Sure, the eyes weren't without their setbacks, for example she could no longer cry, her eyes are now a startlingly bright blue colour and the vision is far from 20/20, but she is no longer blind. Following the operation, Aki's shop finally gave up its tenuous grip on life and closed, forcing the family out of Tokyo and to move somewhere else. The family were advised to enroll their daughter at Yamaku Academy. In Townsville Aki was offered the job as a manager in the town store and has thus become a regular face in the 4 years they have lived there.

Kuriko is now a student of four years at Yamaku, and is loving every moment of it. Her schoolgirl crush of big-time star Tiberius Hawke has come to reality in the form of his son and namesake, she even has a boyfriend: Satoshi Veach. The facilities at Yamaku make accomodate for her less-than-perfect vision, and her medication is carefully controlled by the school nurse.