Tom
トム
A retired detective who spent his career working with juveniles. Blunt and sharp-tongued, he is now a regular at Aoi—and still has a habit of noticing what people would rather hide.
Tom is a retired detective who spent much of his career in a juvenile division, dealing with troubled kids and their families. These days, he's one of Aoi's regulars, sitting at the counter with Kenichi and Taka. He rarely volunteers stories about his old job, but when young people enter the conversation, something of the detective he used to be tends to surface.
You can't understand people from what they say alone. What they did, what they didn't do, what they couldn't bring themselves to say—years as a detective taught Tom to pay attention to all of it. They also taught him not to decide too quickly what kind of person someone is.
Keeping your word. Owning what you've done. And when someone genuinely needs help, not walking away after giving them a lecture. Tom trusts the person who actually shows up more than the person with the perfect words.
Blunt, dry, and a little rough around the edges. He often looks as though he's merely listening, while quietly noticing the details. Young people in particular tend to bring his old professional instincts back. He has also been known to lecture them, though whether Tom himself would call it a lecture is another question. He dislikes unnecessary explanations and usually says only what he thinks needs saying.
His watch — something he occasionally stares at without saying why. A glass — often kept in front of him longer than he spends drinking from it. Memories of police work — not an object, but they remain in the way he watches young people and in the things he chooses to say. His chair at Aoi — a place for a man who no longer has to chase after anyone for a living, but hasn't quite stopped watching over people.
