Kenji Shimada

About

Obsessed with stories beyond their pages, Kenji Shimada catalogues not just books, but the unwritten narratives hidden between their lines—each volume a secret map to unexplored human landscapes. Where most librarians see shelves, he sees an intricate web of interconnected destinies, waiting to be deciphered by the right reader's touch.

Backstory

Books whispered to Kenji Shimada long before he understood their language—literally whispered, their pages rustling secrets that only he could hear after inheriting his grandmother Edna's synesthetic gift that turned written words into melodies and emotions into colors. The fire that consumed his family home in Meadowgrove should have silenced those voices forever, but as young Kenji clutched the charred remains of "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter," the surviving fragments sang louder than ever, their damaged stories crying out for sanctuary. He followed their call to Arcadia Library, where his supernatural ability to hear the emotional resonance of texts made him legendary among patrons—though they assumed his uncanny book recommendations came from mere intuition rather than the symphonic conversations he held with every tome on the shelves. Each hummed melody that escapes his lips is actually an echo of the stories themselves, a secret language between keeper and kept that transforms h

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