Shinya Fujioka

Shinya’s mother got pregnant when she was relatively young. She was in the final months of high school before graduating when she realized. She did her best to keep it a secret, but after she graduated, her parents found out and kicked her out. Her boyfriend, a much older man, took her in, and not too long after she gave birth. Things were okay for a month or two, but after a while, everything went sour. Having a baby around was expensive, so Shinya’s mom had to find work. Shinya was sometimes left alone to cry and scream for long periods of time, not sure why no one was coming to help him.

When he was four, his father began to drink. He was emotionally abusive and manipulative toward his mother, and she began to struggle with this. Eventually his father began to abuse Shinya as well, telling him all kinds of terrible things that a toddler shouldn’t be subject to. Shinya went to his mother for support, but she began to spout the same things, trying to play along with her boyfriend’s game.

Shinya became more and more quiet and insecure as he grew up. His mother began to leave him alone for extended periods of time to spend time with her boyfriend instead. She would frequently lock Shinya in a room by himself to get him to leave her alone. The first few times this happened, he would sit and cry for hours, but as it happened time and time again, he became used to it, and would instead lay and stare at the wall.

When Shinya was 8, his mother discovered that his father was cheating on her. All Shinya remembers was the screaming and crashing of things being thrown as he hid under his blankets, sobbing. After that, when Shinya tried to ask his mother where he went, she slapped him across the face. He tried again and again to learn what happened to his father, but gave up after realizing his punishments were just going to become more severe.

Shinya began to mostly avoid his mother at one point, instead spending a lot of time doing anything but being at home. When he would come home, he would be assaulted with all kinds of abuse: things such as “I hate you,” “you should have never been born,” and “do me a favor and kill yourself.” His mother became increasingly more and more unstable until he came home one day, at age 10, to find her dead, having overdosed on drugs. He didn’t know what to do; he was scared to call the cops, and he didn’t have any other adults in his life that he could get ahold of. He went to his neighbor’s apartment, and the woman next door tried to hold and comfort him while her husband called the police. Shinya screamed and screamed and refused to be touched, but his neighbor still did her best to comfort him. His grandmother was contacted, and she drove over to come and get him. He was terrified, and cried for hours.

Living with his grandparents was hard for him. He was very quiet and detached most of the time, but after nearly a year, he warmed up a little to his grandmother. She was a doctor, and he took interest in her work. She would tell him stories while he sat in silence and listened. She took very good care of him, buying him anything that would make him smile, but it was very rare to see him show much emotion at all.

Shinya became interested in reading medical books and watching videos as he grew older. He studied it extensively from his grandmother’s textbooks, which she had an abundance of. When he graduated high school, he immediately decided to become a medical examiner. He was cheered on by his grandmother, who he’d become very fond of. However, when he was about to start his first semester at school, his grandmother suddenly had a heart attack and died. Shinya fell into a massive depression, becoming bitter and hateful. He rarely talked to anyone other than his grandfather, and did nothing but study and spend time by himself. Not too long after, his grandfather passed on as well. They left Shinya a large sum of money to continue his schooling and achieve his dreams.

After the passing of his grandparents, he started to become unhealthy. He would skip meals or not eat right, growing rather thin and frail. He had no friends to speak of, and no desire to have any. He had no interest in relationships, but would hook up with men who just wanted one-night stands. He wanted to be treated poorly by them, begging to be hit, beaten or choked in the heat of the moment. The pain gave him a sort of reprieve. He began to harm himself not too long after realizing that, and started to bandage up his arms and wear longer sleeves to hide that. He didn’t need anyone’s sympathy or concern.

When he finished with pre-med, Shinya received a letter his grandmother had set to be given to him after graduating from a friend of hers. Shinya was destroyed emotionally by the letter, missing his grandmother more than anything. He longed for that kind of human contact where he could feel safe and happy, but he knew that with how he was pushing people away, he couldn’t have that. Shinya began to search for new hobbies or interests to get to know more people. This is when he took up an interest in rap. He enjoyed singing, and found he was good at this, too.

Shinya continued on his path until he was hired at a medical examiner’s office in Ginza. He tries his best to make friends, but they often don’t stick around too long or are weirded out by him and/or his morbid sense of humor. When he met Hokuto and Seiichi, he was thrilled to be making actual friends, but still held them at an arm’s length, afraid of getting too close and hurting himself.