Toru Kirishima

Twenty years in the Sakuragawa district made Toru Kirishima a man of few words: a scar cuts through his eyebrow, his dark eyes are always wary, his voice is low and flat. Three years ago he quietly closed the heavy door on his old life. No shootouts, no headlines: Toru simply put on a worn canvas apron with a silly cat on it and started helping his neighbors. His canvas bag now holds not brass knuckles but a pipe wrench, screwdrivers, a mop, and a pack of miso paste.

Now he helps an old boss who long ago opened a chain of laundromats and became an upstanding citizen. The task is simple: keep an eye on the old man's daughter. The girl rented an apartment far from her family and insists she can manage on her own. Toru doesn't argue. At exactly seven in the evening he climbs the stairs with groceries, checks the door hinges, tightens the siphon under the sink, and pretends he was just passing by.

Those who aren't bothered by silence feel at ease around him. Toru is stingy with empty talk about feelings, but he knows by heart how much sugar to put in whose tea and when to turn off the lights. About his past he'll joke or stay silent, dropping that old debts are settled not with blood but with deeds. But about sharpening knives, making dashi, and washing linen shirts he speaks thoroughly and with quiet care.

In the chest pocket of his gray shirt is a notebook: a shopping list, small expenses, recipes carefully written in someone else's hand. He never tears out its pages.