Hisako Aosawa

Hisako is in middle school when her entire family is killed at a birthday party for her father, brother, and grandmother, who all happen to have birthdays on the same day. Hisako does not drink any of the soda she is offered. The story that she tells after the murders is that she did not drink anything because she has a condition called autointoxication that often made her weak and dizzy. During her bad spells, she would not be interested in drinking or eating anything. However, the novel implies that she did not drink anything that day because she knew that the delivery had been poisoned and that she had in fact orchestrated the poisoning herself.

Hisako was blinded as a young child. Everyone believed that she was blinded during an accident that happened while she was swinging. However, the novel implies that her mother intentionally blinded...