Hatsu Kanou

Hatsu Kanou (叶ハツ) is the grandmother of Seigi Nakata, and the mother of Hiromi Nakata. In the sixties, she stole Tae Miyashita's pink sapphire ring, which she eventually passed down to Seigi.

Physical Appearance
Hatsu was an elderly woman in her sixties.

According to Seigi, she was petite, yet strong. She also had lonely looking eyes.

Personality
Despite being a pickpocket, she had a kind personality. She only targeted wealthy men, and even left 20% of the money in the wallet instead of taking them all. She also distributed her earnings to her friends who were poor and in need of money.

She was also headstrong, and didn't flinch even when confronted with the yakuza.

She was so kind to her grandson, Seigi. According to him, she was scary when she became angry. She had a different air than the grandmothers in his friends' homes. However, she always delightedly welcomed him whenever he visited.

She had something resembling a guilt complex regarding the ring she had stolen. She always used to say "You mustn't do bad things, because there will be punishment". She was so frantic about it, like she couldn't be released from a curse that was put on her until she told it all away until the end.

Marriage & Sons
She was born before the World War II, and eventually married a war veteran afterwards. He had just barely returned with his life from the South Pacific, and had no home or family. Everyone around him had burned to death in the air raids. She probably thought that she could continue living with her husband, while sharing the same sorrows. He suffered from PTSD, and he drank and beat his own wife. He had a cycle of finding work and then getting fired. Neither of them had any relatives that they could rely on, and his military pension was their only lifeline. The two of them had two sons, but neither of them lived for long.

Daughter's Birth & Moving To Tokyo
She endured it for a long time. However, she finally strengthened her resolve when her third child, a daughter was born. She probably thought "At least this child". She decided to abandon her marriage life without a future, and live in Tokyo.

It was around the 60s in Tokyo, a time where illnesses caused by pollution frequently occurred on the other side of prosperity. The mother and daughter lived in a four-mats wide or less tenement house, where the bare light bulbs were always flickering. She had no relations, and was a singly mother with her daughter. Thus, she couldn't find any job where she can work while raising a baby. The bare minimum days when even food was hard to come by continued. She eventually made a decision to work as a pickpocket.

Becoming A Pickpocket
She was a genius at stealing. She first started on the transit buses, and gradually the Yamanote Line became her workplace. She only targeted wealthy men, and only stole watches and money. She also left 20% of the money in the wallets instead of taking it all. Her nickname amongst the police was "Swiping Hatsu". The moment she stole a wallet from a purse was so skillfully masterful, that one couldn't even see it. She used the stolen money to nourish and raise her daughter.

Meeting Miyashita Tae & Incident
It was the early morning of a certain spring. She was waiting for a job opportunity in the station throng, and saw a young woman waiting for the train all by herself. The woman was revealed to be Tae. She boarded the same train as Tae. In the time it took for the Yamanote Line to reach the next station, the former's ring became hers.

She usually didn't keep what she stole, and pawned them off. However, that night, she put the ring on her finger and gazed at it. It was an era where getting a ring when one got married was only for rich people. She wouldn't have had any opportunities to be fashionable for a long time.

In the morning, she still hadn't taken the ring to the pawn shop, and kept it in the rice bin. About noon on that day, the train suddenly stopped while she was working. When she asked about the commotion, she learned that Tae had jumped out of it. As soon as she heard about the incident, she ran home, and was thinking of getting the ring. However, right before she finally reached home, she was caught by the police who had been chasing her. The items she had "earned" that day were still in her pockets, thus there was no room for excuses.

Imprisonment & Release
She was sentenced to 5 years in prison. The sentence for merely pickpocketing was an uncommonly long one. However, maybe her "earnings" weren't a sum small enough for them to overlook, reasons like having a young child or being a woman. It might have also meant to serve as a warning towards her other friends.

When she returned from the women's prison, she was over 40 years old. Her old friends gave her a welcome-back present upon her release. It was Tae's ring wrapped in oil paper, and was the only thing the police hadn't found and didn't take with them in the end.

Contacting Dementia & Fate
It was when Seigi was in the second year of middle school. Kanou began showing signs of dementia. She wandered aimlessly late at night, prepared food in the middle of the night, and spoke to herself in a loud voice. Hiromi introduced the former to live in her family house. However, possibly due to the change in the environment, her condition took a sudden turn. She incessantly cried and screamed, reaching a point where she was hitting her head against the wall. She was admitted to the hospital Hiromi works at.

However, she passed away in the hospital during the summer of Seigi's first year in high school. A modest funeral ceremony was held, with the attendants being only her, Seigi, and their neighbors who helped them. Hiromi stubbornly refused Kanou's old friends entry at the funeral.

Abilities

 * Pick-pocketing: Hatsu was a genius pickpocket who was able to steal from people without them noticing her.

Seigi Nakata
Hatsu's grandson. Hatsu loved her grandson and was the one who suggested his name. She did not want him to repeat his mistakes, so she often told him to not do anything that would hurt others.