Kouichi Sakakibara

Kouichi Sakakibara transfers into Yomiyama North Middle School's Class 3-3 in May 1998, moving in with his aunt Reiko Mikami after his mother's death years earlier. Friendly and easygoing by nature, he quickly makes friends, but his habit of asking questions no one wants to answer sets him apart from the rest of the class almost immediately.

An avid reader of horror fiction, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with hospital nurse Sanae Mizuno before ever reaching his classroom, and later grows close to Mei Misaki, the one student the rest of the class treats as though she isn't there. His curiosity about why is what eventually pulls him into the class's long-hidden curse.

Kouichi can be naive about the people around him and slow to notice feelings others have for him, but he grows steadily more resolute as the year goes on, standing by Mei even after doing so makes him a target in her place. That resolve is tested most directly once he learns the truth about who, among the people closest to him, does not actually belong among the living.