Yukie Saito (斉藤 由紀江 Saitō Yukie) is the wife of Mr. Saito, the mother of Shuichi Saito and the second victim to die of the spiral curse.
Appearance[]
Yukie after her phobia of spirals develops
Yukie is a woman in her middle ages, and has wrinkles around her forehead, eyes and mouth. Before the spiral curse, she has black hair pulled back into a bun, and often wore dark mature clothing with a knee-length skirt. After her psychosis develops and she becomes deathly afraid of spirals, she is admitted to the Kurôzu hospital, her wrinkles deepen considerably, her hair is shaved and she cuts off her fingertips. She often wears a hat, gloves and hospital gown because of this. After stabbing herself in the ear, her body is unidentifiable from being wrapped entirely in bandages.
Personality[]
Yukie Saito is a reasonable woman by nature, but her psychosis and extreme phobia cause her to become uncharacteristically panicked and irrational. She cares very much for Shuichi and her husband, wanting to get Mr. Saito professional help so that he might get better and be able to return to work, and to become less of a source of stress for herself and her son. When unprovoked, she is docile and calm after her husband's death.
Plot[]
The Spiral Obsession[]
Yukie is Shuichi Saito's mother and the second person to become cursed by the spirals. When her husband's obsession becomes so severe that he stops going to work, she throws out his collection of spirals to try and "bring him to his senses." They have an altercation which is broken up when Shuichi arrives home with Kirie Goshima. Yukie's husband later kills himself out of a desire to be a part of the spiral and she and Shuichi discover the body causing her to develop a psychosis, having hallucinations triggered by spirals. In every spiral, she sees her late husband's corpse telling her "Yukie, come join me in the spiral!" Her paranoia about spirals becomes a manic phobia. She cuts her hair so it can't curl and she cuts off her fingertips because her fingerprints are spirals. Shuichi and the hospital staff take precautions not to trigger her phobia and so they wear gloves and hats. Shuichi discovers the existence of a spiral in the ear - the cochlea - and does his best to make sure his mother doesn't find out about it, for fear of her hurting herself again. Yukie has a hallucination upon seeing a dead centipede curled up into a spiral. The apparition of her husband tells her there are spirals in her ears, and she is deluded into believing it. Eventually, Yukie stabs herself in the ears, she is alive for a time, but in a constant state of vertigo from damaging her sense of balance and she ultimately dies.
Etymology[]
- The name Yukie means "reason, case, cause" (由) (yu), "chronicle" (紀) (ki) and "bay, inlet" (江) (e).
- Yukie's surname Saito means "religious purification/purification, Buddhist food, room, worship, avoid, alike" (斎) (sai) and "wisteria" (藤) (to).
Trivia[]
- Yukie is the only known character to succumb to the Spiral by trying to avoid it.