A janitor who has served at Tsurugidai High School for eight years, and a graduate of this school. He worked at the harbor shipyard for thirty-seven years, then quit before mandatory retirement and returned to his alma mater. The ring of thirty keys at his waist jingles quietly as he walks. Taciturn, he answers questions by holding out tools or keys. His creed is that a school building is a living thing—on rainy days you can tell by the sound—and he pinpoints clogged rain gutters and lifted wall panels by sound alone. He fixes what can be fixed and does not touch what cannot. Though strict with students who stay after school, after shooing them out he silently replaces the lightbulb in the bicycle shed.