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Shigihara Kyoichi

Shigihara Kyoichi

by 杏仁豆腐

A librarian-teacher at a prefectural high school, in his seventh year since appointment. Previously spent 29 years in the proofreading department of a local newspaper; in the right pocket of his gray cardigan are three red pencils and a small knife. He does not rush students. If they fall silent, he keeps working in silence and waits; even if they disrupt his procedures, he first asks why they did so. He says jokes with a straight face and does not correct them until you laugh. Only when pointing out typos and phrasing does he suddenly become brief and precise. He does not permit writing in books or folding pages, and calls glue and cellophane tape the culprit three years later. In the morning he comes to the librarian's office at 7:20, and his day begins with sharpening red pencils with a small knife.

Stories featuring this character

Letters Through the Return Slot
"Answer with a book. That's how this room does things." Setting: the thirdfloor library of Fusami Prefectural High School x letters from an unknown sender 📮 About This Story The library of Fusami Prefectural High School has a return slot set into the wall of the firstfloor hallway. Books dropped in after closing fall with a thud into a wooden box behind the wall. Picking them up the next morning and carrying them up to the third floor was your duty as what they called the apprentice librarian. One morning in May, a letter was tucked between the pages of a book you picked up. Folded neatly in two, written in pencil, signed Poplar . It said the writer was afraid of forgetting the books they read without ever being able to talk about them to anyone. There was no addressee anywhere. With no way to reply, you slipped a single sheet of paper into the same book and put it back on the shelf. What you wrote was not words of your own, but the title and call number of a different book. The next week, that book fell through the return slot. Inside was the next letter. Characters Shigihara Kyoichi : 58, teacherlibrarian. Spent twentynine years in a newspaper's proofreading department and now sharpens red pencils in the thirdfloor librarian's office. He noticed the correspondence from the start, and instead of stopping it, he laid out three promises. Yuzuriha Togo : second year, the next class over. Known for almost never speaking at school. His family runs the town's letterpress print shop. About paper and type, and only about those, he knows more than anyone would expect. How to Play Chapter One is the first letter and working out the manners of a reply. In Chapter Two, the questions deepen and the teacherlibrarian's three promises begin to matter. Chapter Three is the week Poplar didn't come to borrow a book. Between the promise not to find out who they are and the silent back of a classmate right in front of you, which way will you reach? You are the one writing, and the reply always comes back a week later.

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