Kanae Yajima

Kanae Yajima is a character in Aoharu × Machinegun.

Kanae is Hotaru's friend, and is one of the three who knows of Hotaru being a girl.

Apperance
Kanae has long light pink hair and light brown eyes with a fair skin tone. She is seen wearing a white blouse and a dark colored skirt with matching thigh high socks and an over-sized grey-lilac cardigan at school.

Personality
Kanae has a very feminine and lively persona. Although her actions and words can be perceived as immature and spontaneous, she genuinely cares about the well-being of others and is very encouraging.

Relationships
Kanae has been friends with Hotaru for more than a year now and is to be considered her best friend. She's shown to have great concerns over Hotaru, even encouraging her to act more feminine and dress more girly so that people don't think of her as a boy. The strong care and concern are mutual between the two as shown when Hotaru was angered when she found out Kanae had used her money for a Host club (which was indirectly pointed out as a force by Hotaru's mistake).

After participating in Survival Games, Kanae was even mistaken to be Hotaru's girlfriend by Yukimura. Kanae supports Hotaru a lot in what she does but after hearing of her upset when Toy ☆ Gun Gun lost, she found that it wasn't good for her. During Episode 9, Kanae expressed her concerns for Hotaru, listening to her troubles. Though Hotaru told her that she was going to quit Survival Games, Kanae found that it was important to her from the tone of her voice. She, being worried about her friend, searched up what Survival Games do and even though it could harm Hotaru, she knew that she had to find a way to get Hotaru to feel better.

A year back, when Kanae and Hotaru were in their first years, their class had to play dodgeball against another class which had classmates that specialized in the sport. They lost every game they played but Hotaru encouraged her classmates to keep trying. Kanae didn't understand why Hotaru thought what she said because it was just P.E. but she still kept it in mind. Referring back to a year back, Kanae helped Hotaru by challenging her in a race. She lost every time but never gave up. Hotaru, even though she didn't remember what she said in the past, wondered why she was so determined. Kanae said that what she did was "cool" and that confused Hotaru until she explained that Hotaru told her that "Giving up before you even try is kind of uncool". With her support and help, she was able to get Hotaru to keep trying and keep playing Survival Games.

Even though it is not specifically shown, after Hotaru cupped her cheeks and wiped off the mascara from her cheeks, also calling her cute, Kanae ran off giving her full support, hinting that she may have developed a tinge of romantic feelings for Hotaru. However, Hotaru doesn't notice these feelings at all and wondered what was wrong when she ran. Surprisingly, her speed had shocked the boys that had stayed to watch their competition.