I have to trick them—trick them quickly and smoothly. “Hikikomori? Ha ha ha! How could someone like me possibly be a hikikomori?!”

Am I completely stupid? Saying something like that just made me look even more suspicious. I had to trick them more convincingly—and fast. I needed to trick them now or come up with some excuse … something. Come on, I begged myself.

“Hey, th-there's no way I could be one, right? Right! I mean, no way could someone like me have spent almost a year not speaking to anyone. Or have a hikikomori life so extreme that I had to drop out of college with no job, no hope for my future, and nothing left. Or be in a state of abject despair. Or anything like those things, right?”

The older woman backed away from me. Naturally, my thoughts continued to drift idly, with no end in sight. Someone, please stop me.

“That's right! You're stupid, lady, so very stupid. And how rude! What do you mean by, 'The hikikomori life is attacking our youth. Are you safe?' Besides, if prayers could fix being a hikikomori, no one would suffer like that, right? And what do you people know? Even I don't understand it, so how could you people possibly get it?!”

That was it. Now, I was finished. The missionary was thoroughly frightened. She looked ready to do an about-face and place an immediate call to the police. “There's a crazy person in the apartment over there! He's dangerous!”

Ah, I am definitely dangerous. Quite dangerous. I even surprise myself! In fact, I'm stunned by my own idiocy, which caused me to overreact horrifyingly to an ordinary, everyday, pamphlet-pushing older woman. I can't take any more.

It's time for me to die. Someone like me, having disgraced themselves so badly in front of a religious person, should die as quickly as possible.

“It's fine now, ma'am, so please go home quickly. Take the girl and go away.”

Oh, it's no use. It's over, it's over, it's over for me! Yeah, I'll buy a katana tomorrow. Then, I'll commit harakiri. Rather than exposing myself to any further disgrace, I'll expose my innards and prove myself as a warrior. That's right, I'll do that… I wonder where they sell katana.

I thought of asking, “Hey, ma'am, do you know where? You don't? No, of course not. It's fine. That's not something you need to know. It's fine, so just go away. Yeah, right, right, I am very sorry. I am a hikikomori. A top-class, high-level hikikomori. There are hardly any hikikomori out there who can claim to be as worthless as I am. I'm unemployed. I'm trash. I'm a hack! I don't want you people to help, though. I'm fine, so just go away. See? Look, I'll give this back. I'll give back your two pamphlets. So, please, just go away as fast as you can, right now!”

“W-w-well then, please forgive me for bothering you at such a busy time.”

Hurriedly averting her eyes, the older woman turned abruptly and prompted the girl behind her. “We're going now, Misaki. Let's walk back to the assembly hall, okay?”

Yeah, go home, go home. Go home right away. You too, Misaki, disappear quickly!

Hm? What, Misaki? What's that expression for? Even though the old lady's already left, why are you going out of your way to lower your parasol and stare into my face? What, you have a problem with something, huh? Hey, what's that look for? What the hell are you looking at? What are you laughing at? Are you making fun of me? Are you laughing at me…?!

Indeed, it appeared that I was being thoroughly ridiculed by a religious girl I didn't even know.

For just a second, she raised her parasol and looked directly into my face; She was smiling brightly. It was an adorable, mocking smile. And I wanted to die.

Because I was being laughed at by someone as crazy as a cult-loving girl; because I was being completely looked down upon; and, more than anything, because her smile was unnecessarily cute, for those various reasons…

I can't go on. I'm seriously going to die.

Goodbye.

Goodbye, religious, middle-aged woman.

Goodbye, Misaki, holding your parasol.

Goodbye, goodbye, everyone.

I'll be setting off on my journey. I'll shut my apartment door, turn the lock, draw the curtains, and set off on my journey.

Sitting on my bed, I stopped myself from breathing. I tightly covered my mouth with both hands to stop my breath. That hurts. It hurts. But soon, I'll die. I'd been holding my breath for thirty seconds. Surely, I had to die momentarily.

However, my moment of death wouldn't come. The reason was because breath was leaking in through my nose.

Nothing in the world works the way we want. Someone, please do something.

Despite everything, I had come back to life, my depression deeper and direr than Lake Baikal or the Mariana Trench from yesterday’s confrontation.

For the first time in months, I ventured outside in broad daylight and headed to the lively city. It was such a brave and heroic act, it truly deserved a shower of applause from the whole world. I wanted to praise myself.

But everything was in vain.

All that remained was hopelessness. I can't go on like this!

Returning to my apartment, I holed up in my room and started drinking to erase the painful thoughts. Seated at the kotatsu, I tried shouting, “Sake! Bring me more sake!” That itself, however, was nothing more than an empty phrase spoken to myself, and in the dim evening, in that six-mat room, it echoed in dreary misery.

Several empty beer cans already were rolling around on top of the kotatsu. Increasingly irked by the anime songs blaring from the room next door, I rashly indulged in even more alcohol.

My head spun terribly, and I grew dizzy.

Just a little more. I'll forget everything after just a little more.

That morning, having picked myself up after the previous day's low spirits, I had decided to escape my hikikomori life as quickly as possible.

That's when it hit me. I'll find a part-time job today.

Why not? If I couldn't begin a career, I could start with a part-time job. If I did that, my title would shift from “hikikomori” to “freeter.”[15] Both terms implied being useless, but freeter sounded far healthier than hikikomori. So, I decided to search for a part-time job right away.

I headed to the convenience store and bought a part-time employment information magazine. Walking home quickly, I started seriously perusing the material.

Which one? Which part-time job would suit me best?

I dismissed the idea of heavy labor. After all, I wouldn't want anything that would make me tired. Furthermore, the idea of working at a convenience store made me recoil, too. No way could I qualify for that sort of customer-service job.

Then … oh!

“Manga cafe, 700 yen per hour.”

There was no mistake: This job suited me perfectly! There shouldn't be too many customers coming to a small-town manga cafe, after all -and when I was bored, I could read manga at the register. It seemed like a really simple job. This would be the best thing for me.

With that in mind, I wrote up a resume and triumphantly left my apartment.

The manga cafe was in front of the subway station, behind a McDonald's. Heading there, I plodded and stomped through a residential area in the cool April air. And as I walked through the city by day for the first time in several months, I again was interfered with by “them.” The N.H.K. interference operatives mocked me cruelly as I walked, my shoulders slumped, trudging along the sidewalk's edge.