Prologue
My world began that day.
The day I met you—the one who accepted me when I had nothing—was the day I truly started to live and breathe.
I was just another drifter. Without even enough money for shoes, I picked through garbage dumps barefoot. Glass shards would pierce my soles, but I barely felt the pain anymore.
There wasn’t time to dwell on pain. Survival mattered more.
I scavenged trash heaps for scrap metal to sell to junk dealers and survived by begging on bare pavement without even a sheet of newspaper to sit on.
The world must be full of color, but all I could see was gray.
Spring came, bringing life. Winter arrived, taking everything away. That never changed.
Living in that gray world, I’d sometimes wonder:
What am I living for? Is there any meaning to this? Should I even… be alive?
But despite those thoughts, I kept going.
I didn’t know why back then. Looking back now, maybe it was so I could meet him.
That day, I was searching through the dump again with my battered feet, trying to find something useful to survive the winter.
My hand caught on a discarded piece of glass. The sting rushed in sharp and sudden, but the cut wasn’t deep, so I ignored it and kept digging through the trash.
Soon after, I found an old television that looked like it’d fetch a decent price. This would bring in some real money. I’d just picked it up, joy flickering in my chest as I started to walk away, when—
A voice stopped me.
“Hey, you. Look over here.”
Sharp as that piece of glass. I stopped, feet itching to run, and slowly turned my head. A group stood there staring at me, vile smiles on their faces. Each one held a weapon.
Old wooden clubs. Rusted pipes. Too young to be called adults. I understood immediately.
I’d been hearing rumors lately—drifters forming gangs, using fear to carve out territory. Looked like I’d gotten unlucky this time.
Before the thought even finished, fists came raining down. The sudden violence slammed me to the ground. My body crackled and thudded under the beating.
To them, I was an insect. And insects? You stomp them flat so they never come crawling back.
When the iron pipe struck my head, my consciousness started slipping. Breathing hurt as boots trampled my stomach.
“I think this bastard passed out.”
One of the young men who’d been kicking me spoke up. I wasn’t unconscious—not really. My eyes were just too hazy to focus.
At his words, the one who seemed to be their leader clicked his tongue and turned away. Losing interest, apparently. I heard footsteps retreating.
Listening to those rough sounds fade, I shifted my gaze toward the sky.
My consciousness was going. Something cold fell across my entire body.
Snow? The year’s first snow, and I’d be greeting it like this. At this rate, I’d surely die.
But apparently, it wasn’t my time yet.
Unfamiliar footsteps approached. At first, I thought someone was just passing by, but the owner of those sounds stopped right in front of me.
“Is it a corpse…?”
A man’s muttering voice scraped against my ears. I waited quietly for him to leave, but instead, the stranger came closer.
“Still alive… Well, if he dies, I can use him for cover.”
With those words, I felt arms embracing me. The first warmth of another person I’d ever felt. My closed eyes opened involuntarily. I lifted my heavy eyelashes.
“Lucky. Looks like I won’t have to deal with a corpse after all.”
The first thing I saw was red eyes. Red like the blood I’d shed. Above them, black hair. Black as the night I saw when my vision closed.
That was the first color I ever saw. For the first time in a life dyed gray, I understood what color was.
Because of this man.
After that thought, I must have lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a bed more comfortable than anything I’d ever known.
