Backstory
Frankly, Otthild’s an only child who didn’t grow up with her birth parents, at least memorably. Her birth mother left early on, perhaps to spite her undisciplined father and hopefully teach him responsibility. Well, it only provoked him to search for someone else to raise his kid. Being behaved enough to convince a promising lady to marry him, he did make sure him and his daughter lived comfortably. Otthild’s stepmother was the breadwinner, but she eventually learned it wasn’t worth it.
With little memory of her birth mother, Otthild simply called her stepmother “Mom”, in fact feeling that she was her single present parental figure. After all, her father was an awful spender. Not so much gambling and the like, just splurging on unneeded “necessities” and ignoring/forgetting to pay things that followed; bills, credit lines, taxes? When collectors came by and picked a fight with Otthild’s father, Otthild’s Mom had enough knowing this all happened around a kid.
Despite not being biologically related, she got custody of Otthild who was around 7 at the time. From then on, with the money secured in her savings account, Otthild’s Mom moved to another city in Germany. Always having been goal oriented and accomplished, she climbed social ladders and easily enrolled Otthild in a private school. Otthild knew every decision her mother made was for her own good, and eventually something she would like even, but she was intimidated when she started in a new setting.
She was much more masculine than her prim peers, but they thought that was admirable and cool. Some were even jealous that she acted that way, although the teachers were strict. Otthild never slept at natural times when she lived with her father, due to him staying up watching sports games. He didn’t interrupt her sleep through the noise, rather, Otthild was distracted watching the games from her door. Of course, her mother made her correct her sleep schedule when teachers noted her sluggishness, but she couldn’t quite get Otthild to be better about her schoolwork in general. She passed, sure, but B’s and C’s without a single A wasn’t very good for the tuition they paid. It would take one seriously studious girl to fix that, and that’s when Otthild met her first crush.
Made to attend a one on one study session with a teacher who’s class she was failing, Otthild loitered the halls and stairways of the grand school as she waited for her ride. Walking around an empty school was pretty calming, but one glance at a dark haired passerby had Otthild fall in love at first sight. She could barely see her face as they went up the stairs, but her hair was lovely in the afternoon glow and she could smell something sweet in the air. When she was done being in awe, the girl had already left. She came to school the next day and tried to look for anyone similar to her, and when she thought hope was lost, she remembered the girls golden ribbon. Those with golden ties or ribbons, rather than the usually assigned blue, were part of the student council. Ambitious, she stormed into the council room one afternoon, but all she saw was a girl in glasses and two tightly knit braids, Alfajor.
“….Otthild. Are you looking for something?” She asked, perplexed.
To be fair, Otthild never bothered to remember classmates faces, let alone this girl too. She admitted she was looking for a girl with wavy black hair, and Alfajor pieced that she needed to speak with Satie, the president at the time. Ah, it was the last day of school for seniors though. If she wasn’t found then, Otthild might never find her. In a hurry, with Alfajor joining, they went to look for her before she was far from the school grounds. Told which way she leaves the buildings, where she crosses the street, and even the shops she stops by for errands, the pair couldn’t catch her at many points, but eventually found her. Encouraged by Alfajor to not be intimated by the president, Otthild stood behind the girl with silken hair. But something wasn’t right…
She was way taller than she remembered first off. When she turned around and got a chance to speak with her, Satie was very confused and explained she didn’t even go down that staircase the day before. As if things couldn’t get any more embarrassing, Satie admitted she had a boyfriend already, a darkly dressed boy in shades sitting nearby, who casually laughed at the whole ordeal. Shoulders slumped, exhausted, Otthild walked back to Alfajor who forgot all about Satie’s relationship. She tried hard to assure Otthild it must have been the wrong person all along, suggesting they hang out a little longer and get drinks from the nearby vending machine. It was summer, the heat adding to Otthild’s flustered face, Alfajor even feeling the weather mess up her braids. Figuring she might as well style it again, she undid them and pushed her hair behind her. And yet, in that mundane moment between them, Otthild found the girl she was looking for all along. Waves so neatly grouped, as if they were free from a braid rather than the messier look of natural wavy hair, this had to be her. And the way her purple eyes matched that of the evening sky that day, she could have sworn she was even more dazzling that evening. Of course, Alfajor was taken aback at the realization and prompt confession, but getting to know a girl who she thought was just some delinquent, she was fun to be around. Sheepish that their outing that day couldn’t be a date calculated in advance, they settled on hanging out the next day for a proper date. Even so, with a sky that purple… the unusual color is typically a sign of a storm coming, and so a typhoon rolled in the day of their scheduled date.
Spending the day talking on the phone instead still sufficed for the two, and they officially became a couple shortly after. Just to see her, Otthild became study buddies with her and even joined the student council to be by her side, her teachers and mother confused about the sudden change, but she was otherwise as reckless as always. From that point on, Otthild was eager to go to school, and not just because of Alfajor at one point too. One underclassman caught her eye, one ridiculously good at running and baseball as if it was natural.
Intent as always to get her way, Otthild hunted down and pestered Peppin into joining the baseball team. She negotiated by pointing out the girl’s lack of clubs as is, lack of friends and duties, and then she noticed she wasn’t someone who wanted to stay home either. Eventually learning of her circumstances, Otthild became that of an older sibling figure towards Peppin, another only child with a difficult family life, so baseball became a big part of their bond. Taking her under her wing, Otthild was a good influence on her growth, but also very critical of Peppin’s father. Projecting her experiences with hers, she would try convincing Peppin to not care about her father entirely, but the circumstances were much more complex than the surfaced showed. By the time Carambola came to their town, Otthild wasn’t very fond of her either, despite how much Alfajor insisted she was some cryptid in disguise. With Carambola being Peppin’s real sister and wanting to mend her family together ultimately, Otthild becomes a foil to those ideologies, and eventually lets Peppin make her own decisions.
