I've always been curious about how Adachi became the cynical character we know him as. So I decided to try my hand at writing a short story exploring his past. As always, do give feedback about how I can improve :)


Backstory

Jump to 1st February 1990. Tokyo. It is the boy's sixth birthday and his parents spend it fighting. The man is yelling in the next room, shouting something about a whore and a bastard. The door slams open and the woman storms out of the house, screaming curses back at the man. She has a large suitcase with her and she leaves the house. She does not even glance at the boy. When the woman is gone, the man slumps to the floor, sobbing. The boy does not understand, and he holds his father's hand, tears flowing down his cheeks.

When the father has calmed down, he fixes a meal for the boy. Rise with cabbages and potatoes; the only thing he knows how to make. The boy is red-faced as he eats. The man tells him never to trust a woman. "They're all just gold-diggers. All bitches and whores."

Jump to 1992, summer. The boy is teased for having a slut of a mother and a wastrel of a father. The boy can't do anything but cry. By this point in time, the man is unemployed and he has gambled away whatever savings they had left. The divorce has taken its toll on the man. The boy returns home from school one day to find his father sprawled on the living room floor, blood seeping from a bullet wound in his stomach. The boy knows that this, all of this, happened because of his mother. He does not cry. He sits down, next to his father's body and grips his hand tightly.

Jump to the year 2000. The boy is now sixteen years old. He has dropped out of high school. Education means nothing to him because the world is full of shit. He knows now that he has no talent, that he will never make it big. His grades have never been good and he knows now that there is nothing he can do to change that fact. He decides to go for the next best thing. He decides to study to enter police academy. To hold a gun, to have the power in one's hands to decide a person's fate. The boy wants power. He is tired of being the victim. He is angry, and he is sick of everything. The memory of the woman haunts him every day, the injustice done towards his father, and he is sick of it.

Jump to the year 2006. The boy, acing his theory exams and having done sufficiently well in the field tests, is now a patrol officer in Tokyo. He carries a pistol and he looks sharp in his uniform. He takes his job seriously at first, though it is unclear why, even to himself. Perhaps enough time has passed to dull the pain that nags at him. Perhaps, through the course of his police training, the boy has been blinded by a false sense of faith in the concept of justice. Perhaps he is beginning to believe that he can do good in the world, that he is finally ready to move on from the dark memories of his past.

Of course, all that changes when he sees her again, after sixteen years. The woman has aged and she does not recognize him. The boy delivers the young five year-old girl back to her house after being separated from her parents for a few hours. He rings the doorbell and there she is, happily married with a young daughter. And she does not recognize him. The woman's face betrays no hint of any past pains from her previous marriage. Is she even aware of the man's death? The boy nearly tips his cap and walks away. He has his usual cabbage dinner at night and he resolves to become a man, someone of worth. He continues to display aptitude in his work and his superiors see it.

Jump to the year 2009. The boy is now a detective. And this is where it all falls apart. His superiors mock him for having a failure of a father. They belittle him. They decide to send him to some shithole called Inaba. And the boy is no longer a boy. He works hard but he only receives injustice. The boy is now a man. He is a man because he finally knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the world is indeed full of shit. He does not have a choice in anything, he has no hope. He will never achieve anything but whatever spoils the world decides to throw at him. He will never receive any form of recognition. The memories of his parents still haunt him. He has no hope.

Jump to Inaba. The place looks like a dump. It is the lousy countryside, after all. The man stops his car at the gas station as he comes into town. Just to fill up the tank, just to get a feel of the place. The station attendant, some grey-haired female, approaches him and makes unnecessary small talk that he does not need. Then she shakes his hand and says with a smile: "Welcome to Inaba."

For the first time, after twenty-six years of his life, Tohru Adachi opens his eyes.