#Now I think of the autism creature when I think of Ippei now

[despair-to-future-arcs]

//Hey, just read it and Oh gosh - these 2 are so adorable; man the Hatano's are such an adorable family. ^^

Now that I'm free from college for the next few weeks i can finally talk about these two, the headcanon/take on Ayame's parents i made a little while back with help from my friend Poi, Bashira and Ippei Hatano.

-Ayame is their only child, she takes after her father both appearance and personality wise as both of them are pretty quiet and timid people who tend to not speak a lot. In Ippei's case, his often very subtle emotions don't help at all on the matter as it tends to give people the wrong impression that he’s serious and intimidating, but he really just doesn’t know how to express himself and is a pretty awkward dude in social scenarios just like his kid. He is a tad more talkative when around his family and close friends, but even then he doesn’t talk THAT much more but his family knows he cares for them more than anything.

-Bashira on the other hand is the complete opposite of her husband and daughter, very extrovert and talkative, it's from her that Ayame takes her habit of rambling about her interests tho unlike her Bashira will continue talking for hours and hours without getting self-conscious about it. She has a keen eye and can read through her family's seriousness like an open book if she senses there's something bothering or off about them, whenever that happens she will make them open up and try to help them with the problem.

-She wears her heart on her sleeve and is a very caring and emotional person, thought she's as curious as she is nosy and tends to ask a lot of questions to Ayame's friends as she wants to know the kind of person her daughter’s hanging out with, this borderline interrogation is made worse by the fact that she's the kind of parent that will embarrass her kid with childhood stories but Ippei is usually there to pull her aside and tell her she's embarrassing Ayame in front of her friends.

-Bashira owns a flower shop as she's been fascinated by plants and nature ever since she was little, she used to tend to her parent's garden since both had very demanding jobs and were busy most of the time which led to her wanting to know more about plants and study botanics. This passion of hers is so strong that she named her daughter after a flower (japanese iris).

-She’s known for having a “magic touch” of sorts where everything she plants grows beautiful and strong, when tending to plants she never wears gloves of any kind as she feels like touching the dirt and plants with her bare heads makes all the difference.

-These two met at a restaurant Ippei used to work in as a waiter in his late teens because Bashira used to go there often with her friends. The whole reason he was working there to begin with was because this place had a piano in the stage where artists would perform sometimes and he’s always had a love for classic music, so whenever he had closing shifts he would stay there overtime after the restaurant closed to play the piano. There were a handful of times he let Bashira get in after closing to listen to him perform.

-His dream was to pursue that kind of career and become a musician but with the bubble burst and economic recession he decided to take a more stable office job than try his luck in the industry. He does still play as a hobby though! The Hatanos have a piano in their house and he plays it for fun and when he needs to de-stress from work. When Ayame was a child he would often play for her and talk about his passion even if she didn't have much interest in music.

-They're not as close as they were when she was a kid by current time since both of them aren't great at communicating but both know the other does care for them quite a bit even if the lack of words and some not-so-well solved issues are a bit of a barrier between them.

-While Ippei isn't outright not supportive of Ayame’s athletic career, he worries more than he cheers for her after the injury she had in one of her legs because it was a very serious one that could lead to her losing movement/feeling in her leg if she goes too far in training and doesn’t take good care of herself. On the other hand Bashira is still as supportive as ever about Ayame's sprinting, she worries too but much like Ayame herself she is pretty stubborn and being a huge optimist she is certain nothing worse will happen.

-When she was still in the hospital recovering from the surgery he went to talk to her about how it was ok to slow down and that she could still enjoy running and training as a hobby, just like he did with playing the piano. He obviously said that with the best intentions in mind but Ayame was in a very stressful and awful mindset because of everything and ended up not taking it very well, as if her dad was telling her to give up on her dreams, so she ended up yelling at him in the hospital about how she won’t give up like he did and Ippei just goes silent out of not wanting to argue with his kid.

-She apologized shortly after but they haven’t had a proper talk about all this stuff? If that makes sense? It was just a quick apology since neither of them are very good at talking + Bashira doesn’t want to intervene heavily on the situation since she feels like it’s something they need to resolve on their own, just father and daughter. (Though it’s not like their relationship crumbled after this mess or anything, it’s just something that was never properly resolved)

-Both of them died in the tragedy but if they had lived long enough to be rescued by the Kisaragi foundation alongside the 6.5 cast Ippei would have joined the foundation in Rei’s division while Bashira could have become a secretary or assistant of some kind if she didn't dislike Minako to the point of being unable to stand being around her.

-In a non-tragedy setting she would already dislike her quite a bit due to the way she treated her child, but because Bashira developed a strong disdain towards Kizuna because of what happened in the killing game she directs that hatred towards her mother since Kizuna herself is not around. The gist of it is that Bashira refuses to believe Ayame could have been so cruel out of her own volition, “I know my daughter more than anyone else, she would never do such a thing!”, and so blames Kizuna for her death since she was the one who instigated the event. (She despises Akane too, but she's the mastermind so who doesn't)

-Ippei is not the kind of person to hold these kids of grudges + he mostly blames himself for what happened to Ayame because he feels that if he had prohibited her from continuing her training as a sprinter after the injury she wouldn't have been called to hope's peak and subsequently died in the proto-killing game, he would much rather have Ayame hate him for putting a stop to her dreams than her being dead.