Mayuko Shiraki

Mayuko is good-humored but forceful. She tolerates ordinary teenage behavior up to a point, then responds decisively when students become disruptive. Kyou in particular discovers that she is perfectly willing to block an escape from class or break up a fight herself.

Her sternness is balanced by genuine concern for her students. Mayuko pays attention to their circumstances and wants them to graduate with realistic plans rather than drifting without direction.

In her personal life she is more emotionally vulnerable than her classroom manner suggests. She has experienced relationships in which affection, friendship and timing failed to align, leaving her cautious about pursuing what she wants.

Mayuko has no supernatural abilities. She is an experienced teacher with enough authority and confidence to manage a class containing several unusually strong personalities.

She also helps at her parents' bookstore during school breaks. Literature suits her temperament closely enough that Natsuki Takaya suggested in supplementary commentary that she imagined Mayuko as the sort of teacher who would teach Japanese literature, though the manga does not formally specify her subject.

Mayuko is physically assertive when necessary, famously using a bucket of water to stop a fight between Kyou and Hatsuharu Souma.

Mayuko provides an adult presence in the students' everyday school lives, dealing with exams, career plans, classroom discipline and the ordinary concerns that continue alongside the Souma family's supernatural problems.

Her personal storyline connects her to Kana Souma, Hatori Souma and Shigure Souma. Mayuko was close to Kana and met the older Soumas through her, developing feelings for Hatori while he and Kana were together.

Mayuko later dated Shigure despite knowing that neither of them truly loved the other. After Kana moved on and Mayuko encountered Hatori again, the possibility of a relationship between them gradually reopened.

Hatori Souma is the man Mayuko has loved for years. She initially suppresses those feelings because Kana Souma is her close friend and Hatori's partner. Years later, Mayuko and Hatori finally begin moving toward a relationship of their own.

Kana Souma is Mayuko's close friend. Mayuko refuses to interfere with Kana Souma's happiness even while privately loving Hatori.

Shigure Souma is Mayuko's former boyfriend. Their relationship lasts only briefly because both understand that Mayuko's feelings lie elsewhere and Shigure is emotionally attached to someone else.

Tooru Honda, Yuki Souma, Kyou Souma, Saki Hanajima and Arisa Uotani are among Mayuko's students, and she takes their education and future plans seriously.