Kenji had never owned a life of his own; it had belonged to the family. Life was an on-and-on-doing; it must have felt terribly morbid for him.
Kenji had risen tired and had gone to bed even more tired.
His father had passed away, leaving behind bills and memories; Kenji was left to fend for the household. A big responsibility for one so young.
His sister, Hana, was bright and had to go to school. And school costs money.
That was money that Kenji had to find.
Their mother was sick. She had become weak in her body, and the sickness was trying to take over. Medicine was needed to fight it-and the medicine was very expensive.
So Kenji worked. Any job he could get. He had no time for friends. He had no time for any fun. He just wanted to earn money.
In the mornings, he worked in a bookstore. The store was tiny and had the smell of very old paper. He helped in putting out books on shelves and helped customers.
In the afternoons, it was not home for him but off to the parks or libraries to his second job. This job had higher pay; this job was responsible for keeping his family alive.
He did the full-on comic drawings for the manga. Every week, some bizarre author would send him scripts. Kenji had never met the author. He had never even heard the man's voice.
The stories arrived in a nondescript brown envelope. Instructions were always short and clear. Draw that. Turn it into a picture. Pay was always good.
This author was a ghost. A rich ghost that paid Kenji to be his hands. It was hard work with long hours.
But Kenji needed the money too much to say no.
With his drawings done, he subsequently rushed off to his third job; ramen shop shifts in the evening; loud and hot.
He scrubbed unendingly at the stacks of bowls with sore and wet hands.
He served orders to merry and laughing patrons. He felt like an observer behind a thick glass wall.
Home-bound late at night, the apartment was always dark. He would check on his mother's state.
Her breathing was thin and low. Then on to his sister's room; she slept quietly holding her books.
Seeing them gave him the strength to do it all over again the next day. This was his life. Work, worry, and a deep, soft pain. He felt more like a machine than a human.
The story was famous: the hero saved the world. But Kenji did not like the story. To him, it felt wrong. It felt nasty.
The author simplified that world. Good people win, and bad guys lose. There is no room for fault. There is no room for forgiveness.
Kenji truly hated the villain Azrael Ashveil. The author depicted Azrael as the worst from the outset, labeling a black soul with no light.
But to Kenji's mind, Azrael was a boy who had been hurt by this world. He was not born a monster. The world made him one.
Azrael had led a tough life-his parents were dead-and the only living relation was his elder sister who now was the head of the family.
She seemed frigid and somewhat detached. Kenji knew the truth: she loved him; she just did not know how to express it. She sheltered him lightly.
Azrael fell in love with a girl, the one ray of sunshine in his life. He told her that he loved her. He opened his heart out to her.
"No," she said. She went for him, the hero, good, handsome, and strong. Azrael was just a sad boy coming from a dark family. Her rejection broke something within him. Soon afterwards, he was expected to marry. He was just eighteen. It was a political marriage, a deal his parents made
Before they passed away. His sister made sure he'd go through with it so they could keep their family's standing. His wife was a young girl from another noble family.
Forced into marriage just like him, she was scared of him. She was always quiet and sad.
Azrael was bitter. The rejection, as it was, and the forced marriage had sucked him of the little remaining hope. He began to behave like the villain everyone thought he was.
He just said bad things about the hero. He was jealous and angry. He made small, stupid plans to make the hero look bad.
He tried to cause trouble for the girl who rejected him. He was a bitter, heartbroken boy. He was not a great villain. He was just a minor problem. He did not try to take over the world. He did not kill people.
But the rejection and marriage forged by force really made Azrael bitter. That little bit of hope he had was no longer.
He began acting as the villain everyone thought he was, but in reality, he was not too big a villain; just a minor nuisance, not trying to conquer the world or kill people.
It was the author who wanted Azrael to die for petty offenses. Not to mention, this punishment carried a maximum penalty: death. The hero considered that he had to be stopped.
Easy defeat for the hero. Azrael was not a good fighter. He was just a sad noble. He was brought down in front of everyone.
The worst part was seeing who stood with the hero. The girl Azrael loved was there. She held the hero's hand and glared at Azrael in contempt. She was the happiest at seeing him.
Then he saw his wife. She stood behind the hero. She looked scared yet relieved. She was cheering that he was being put down.
He was being thrown away, and the two women in his life were there to watch. It was the ultimate betrayal. It destroyed him completely.
Slowly, he had been changing. Living with his quiet wife, he began feeling something for her. He understood her pain, for it felt similar to his own.
But never got the chance to know that feeling.
This moment made it clear to him that he was the only one in this world. The world never gave him a chance. Villain was in demand, and villain he became. Time was now ripe for the villain to die.
Azrael knelt. Even as he prepared to die at the hands of the hero, Azrael was much less of a villain now; he was but a man in tatters.
Looking to the sky, he begged for help from God, and for another way. This last time, he asked God for just small happiness.
When the hero's sword came down, God did not answer. Azrael's life was over.
Last picture by Kenji. His hand trembled, the image of Azrael's face, glowing by pain and regret, burned in his mind, making him feel toward the story furious.
Actually, I felt that strange tie with Azrael. Both were trapped. Both were tortured in a world that never cared.
That night, something indeed strange happened to Kenji. The room started to spin, all voices from the street outside faded, and his body suddenly felt weak and light.
He sank to the floor. Dying because of working too hard was the first idea that came to his mind. Then he closed his eyes, waiting for the end.
But he opened his eyes once again, not lying on the floor of his apartment but in a huge beautiful room. He lay on a soft bed.
He sat up and observed his hands. While examining his hands, he discovered that they were not actually his hands, not rough and full of cuts; rather, they were soft and clean.
He walked to a huge mirror placed at the wall. His reflection back to the guy was not his own. That face belonged to Azrael Ashveil. He was now in the story.
The villain, and then everything went black.