Life was nothing more than a series of repetitive routines for me; day in, day out. In short, life seemed far too boring to live. I don't know why or how I managed to live through such unremarkable circumstances. But, deep inside, I wanted something more than this. I wanted something to happen. I wanted something to change in my life. Who knew that this change would come at me so soon?
My name is Shinjiro Murasame. I'm just your average 17-year old highschool student from Kyoto Prefectural High School. I have slightly above average yet unremakarble grades and I'm pretty average in sports. I lost my parents in a massacre that occured 10 years ago at my home town of Osaka. The only family I have left is my 13-year old little sister, Nanami, or as I fondly call her, Nana-chan. The suspects of the massacre have yet to be arrested up to this day. Normally, in manga, people with a background like mine usually have some sort of grudge welling up inside them or a strong desire to serve justice with their own hands. But not me. I somehow buried those feelings deep in my heart and just learned to accept reality. They died while Nana and I were away for a school trip. There was nothing we could have done. We had only heard of the news when we arrived from the school trip. It was devastating. Especially for me. Nana was still in preschool then and had no idea what was going on. I didn't know how to say it to her. In the end, she cried, "Mama...Papa..." Her cry struck my heart like a blade and I too ended up crying. No matter how hard I tried to stay strong, I couldn't hold back the pain.
After the incident, we moved to Kobe with my grandparents until I finished middle-school. They were very kind and caring for us and somehow managed to fill in for our parents. But I didn't want to burden my grandparents any more than I had to. Nana and I decided to move out and went to where we are now, in Kyoto. My grandparents still promised to shoulder our school fees. I thought it was too much but they insisted so I had no choice but to accept their offer with the condition that they should only shoulder our school fees, everything else would be up to me. They agreed to it. In Kyoto, I took a couple of part time jobs to put food on the table, as well as pay the rental of where we were staying. Luckily, the landlady was a very sweet old lady, much like my grandmother and would sometimes invite us over for dinner which mean some savings on food expenses. Somehow, Nana and I managed to go on with life without a hitch.
Well, that's my life in a nutshell. Nothing really special here and there; plain as an empty canvass. Well, at least it used to be empty. I don't know how but someone managed to splash random colors into my empty life. And the first color was red.
