Keita Oe

Keita is a young man of slight build whose look carries no menace at all, with pale hair, dark eyes, faint brows, and freckles scattered across his cheeks. Around the time he was arrested, his hair hung roughly to ear length.

Jail changed that; the buzz cut he wears by his first trial came from having his head shaved during his time locked up.

Meek and naive, Keita is the kind of person who keeps tumbling into dreadful situations through no real fault of his own. His mild temperament could not be further from a killer's, and his trouble is simply turning up where and when he should not, while being easy for others to use. His live-in job stopped him from phoning the police when he came across a murder weapon, although he honestly intended to turn it in, and it was concern for his cat that sent him running from the officers who later caught him holding the bloodied knife.

All through the nightmare he never wavered in insisting on his innocence, even as the trial ground him down. He spent most of his sessions with his lawyer in tears yet always spoke the truth, and Higuruma's belief in him meant a great deal. The disappointment that filled his face at the guilty second verdict carried all the weight of that faith having been let down.

Police had already harassed Keita unlawfully once, questioning him merely for knowing a drug user. He held a live-in caretaker post at a nonprofit operating an elderly support shelter, paid no actual salary beyond New Year's pocket money plus boxed meals and groceries, and was nonetheless forced to cover fifty thousand yen in rent each month.

March 2016 saw a mother and daughter stabbed to death inside their Morioka City home. When patrol officers questioned him, Keita ran, which sent them after him to his home, where a bloodied knife carrying DNA that matched the victims was discovered, and he was arrested for suspected murder and robbery. He told Higuruma he had fled fearing his cat would die under the no-pet rule if he were jailed, and that he had planned to surrender the knife once his job allowed it. Higuruma's efforts secured an acquittal, yet the prosecution appealed immediately, a second trial pronounced him guilty in spite of the proof, and he drew a life sentence. Seeing the despair in Keita's eyes was the final push that broke Higuruma, whose cursed technique stirred to life as he called for a retrial.