My mother keeps reminding me of the word over and over again, "Ikigai". It means "your purpose in life", even my dad asks me "what is your purpose in life? What is your goal?". I don't really care much for that word but the more my parents repeat it the more I wonder to myself, "what is my goal?". Life is hard to live, especially when there are people who just don't care about your future. I live my life trying to understand people and how they work, and I think I got it down? Well either way my name is Kyousuke Matsuo, I'm a 17 yr old kid going to Summerfield high school right now. I always have the feeling that I'm that quiet main character. Now that I think about it, I might be, well at least according to me, but alas I'm just an average guy, long messy black hair, brown eyes, sleep deprived eye bags I can't surprisingly get rid of however amount of sleep I get, and to top it off going to a school which I very much do not like. Alright then, as much as I know readers hate the flashbacks of a character because it's long or boring, I don't care. Our past makes the people we are now, so I find it kind of useless to skip the good part. Anyways let's talk about the young Kyousuke's character development. I was originally born in Japan hence the name, but I moved to Korea after a year and honestly, I don't know the reason, nor did I care much for it. Skipping to Kyousuke in grade 2, I kid you not I was a pretty big menace to society, the generic bully in a young school people just gotta assert their dominance, though I had no purpose for doing so except for seeing people suffer. Cutting the hairs of other kids, bullying kids, and calling them out. If that doesn't tell you much about my atrocities, I have moved schools five times because of what I've done, and one of them was a boys only school. Anyways obviously with these atrocities came an immense amount of consequences, and my parents were there to deliver them. My Dad isn't the type to beat me, but when it comes to my mom. It can't be explained. Let's just say that I still have a scar until today. I can't say I didn't deserve them, but over the years one just gets used to the pain. This behavior continued throughout my grade two and three year, then we decided to move back to Japan for a few weeks or so, saying our "goodbyes" to family and relatives. I didn't know the reason for the goodbyes until we had arrived at the airport. America, huh? Didn't sound too much of a bad idea, obviously I didn't know what it was. Mid Summer 2011, the day we had stepped into the US, a new life in a new place, new people to meet, more food to eat and more games to play. It all sounded like a dream come true. Coming to a country where everyone spoke English and you were the only one who was illiterate was not fun in any way, well I was only in grade three so expectations were just non-existent. Making friends at the school wasn't that hard considering how I was, and if you're wondering why I'm not saying the name of the school, it's because I don't remember. That's all. February 2013, was still considered kinda cold, and so was I. Maybe it was a Monday because I know I chose violence that day. Obviously as a 9 or 10 year old you'd expect some amount of maturity but no. Not from me. I stayed the same even after everything that happened at the schools in Korea. In any case what happened really changed how I thought of this new world. It was a sunny but cold day, kind of bittersweet if you think about it, I was hanging out as usual with my friends, when another one of my friends were passing by, I felt the need to greet them so I told my-, wait this is getting confusing let's name each of our characters. So friend#1 is named Bob, he was a light skinned african american male, he was the type of guy to wear those collared short sleeved shirts with jeans, I wouldn't say he was a smart one but i'll give him that he was really brave and reckless. Friend#2 is named Tim and he was a hispanic male. He had a darker skin tone than mine, and he would be the guy who would wear those buttoned shirts with either jeans or formal pants. And I'll say this guy was a lot smarter than a good amount of people. And finally I'm named Kyousuke because I'm not creative whatsoever and illiterate so don't expect much. Either way I told Bob to go towards Tim and "beat him up" obviously playfully right? Well I don't think Bob took it playfully. And there I was.. Watching on the sidelines as one of my friends gets brutally kicked and punched with no regard for safety, I was wondering to myself in my head, "why am I smiling? Am I really enjoying this? Have I really gone that deep? While observing and thinking to myself, a teacher was passing by the hallway luckily for Tim and saw us. They held us back from Tim and took us all to the office; I had been suspended for a week, and Bob had been suspended for a lot longer than me. I returned back to school just to find out that Tim was actually receiving an award for being an honorable student. All I felt that day was guilt and remorse and I also found out how cruel the people and the world are.
