These were fierce interference measures.

“Hey, look at that. It's so gross.”

“It's an unemployed hikikomori. The worst kind.”

“You should go back to your apartment. This town is no place for people like you.”

The passing housewives, high school girls, and older women all murmured these things each time I passed. I turned completely pale.

Oh, I want to go home.

I wanted to go back to my dim, comfortable, six-mat, one-room apartment, to sink into my warm bed, close my eyes, and not have to think of anything. But I couldn't. That would be no good. After all, if I did that, it would just go to their heads even more. I must bear it. This is a battle in which I must do my best.

In reality, I had some idea that this would happen, I knew from the start that there was no way they would leave me alone once I began my return to society. That's why I couldn't lose. Forcing myself to suppress the anxiety that grew with every step, I approached my destination at a brisk pace.

Finally, I reached Break Time, the small, cozy-looking manga cafe behind the station that would become my place of employment from now on. I resolved to work here every day, starting tomorrow.

My escape from the hikikomori life was imminent.

While it troubled me that I had become this anxious just from walking around the city during the day, I probably just needed to get used to it. If I could become a freeter, my overabundance of neuroses should disappear in moments.

Yes, it was finally time.

I had to be brave and take my first step inside. Forcefully, I banged open the door and entered the shop. I visualized offering my resume to the girl at the register, announcing energetically, “I heard you're hiring part-time workers here.”

I began to speak, but my sentence broke off, midstream.

For behind the counter, where ashtrays, hot pots, and coffee makers were lined up in an orderly fashion, a lone female employee sat in a chair, reading manga. Her profile and the intent look in her eyes as she flipped through a shoujo manga brought back a strange feeling of having seen her before.

Actually, I had met her just the previous day.

Standing before the register, the words “part time” dying on my lips, I felt my body stiffen. She lifted her face from the manga in her lap, sensing me.

Our eyes met.

It was the young religious solicitor, Misaki.

Unlike the day before, she was dressed in jeans styled like what other young people wore. She didn't have a recognizably religious aura. The second I recalled her true identity, my heart started beating at ten times its normal rate. A swirl of thoughts circulated wildly through my brain.

Why would a religious person work at a manga café? Wouldn't that violate some sort of religious precept? No, no, that's of no concern to me - does she remember who I am, though? If she did, that meant I was completely ruined. There couldn't be anyone where I worked who knew my secret. There was no way I could ever work with someone who knew. If she does remember, what should I do? I have to run! As this is a reasonable and logical conclusion, for now, I should just run!

However, right as I began to turn tail, the religious girl called me back. Dropping her harsh expression, she looked at me, the same smile of derision as the day before flitting across her face. In a small voice, she asked, “Do you work part time here?”

Clearly, I could see the vast difference between how she questioned me and the way she probably dealt with normal customers. Evidently, the girl had realized that I was the crazy hikikomori from yesterday. Cold sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I wanted to run. I wanted to leave that place as quickly as possible.

Even so, I had to answer her question and properly retract the words I had spoken earlier. As casually as possible, as utterly natural as imaginable, I had to say something.

“Bi-bi…”

“So … you like … bikes and stuff?”

What the hell am I saying?

“Oh yes, I really do … like bikes—motorbikes, that is. You can fly like the wind.” A few of the customers sitting in the back began to pay attention to me. “I just love the pulse of the engine! Well, what do you think? Would you like to come riding with me some time?”

I'm done for!

“That is … I mean, I've never actually ridden one before! Ha ha ha ha ha ha…! Okay, see you.”

I couldn't leave the store quickly enough.

On my way home, I stopped at the convenience store and bought beer and shochu.

Let me die. I'll just die right now.

Except I won't die. The weather is too nice. Instead of dying, I'll just drink a whole lot of alcohol to forget everything. Just forget.

Alcohol… I'll drink alcohol…

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. I wanted to cry.

Everything was her fault. Because of her, my great plan to escape my hikikomori life had ended in miserable failure. At that moment, I wished for the power to bestow deadly curses. That bitch … that bitch! G-G-Goddammit! I imagined them laughing at me right about then. I was sure that I'd become a laughingstock.

“Boss, today, a crazy hikikomori came to the store.”

“Huh, really, Misaki?”

“It seemed he planned on working here part time. But for God's sake, he's a hikikomori. Like, know your place!”

“Absolutely. There's no way an unemployed, disgusting, hikikomori college dropout could join society”.

They were using me as the punch line for their sardonic comments. Argh, how can this he? It's hard to forgive. No, I can't forgive them. I need to take my revenge … must take my revenge now! I swear I'll punish you….

As a hikikomori, however, I couldn't think of any really effective ways to get back at them. Thus, I decided to give up momentarily and think of something different, something to make myself feel better. I wanted to forget the bad stuff and just think of good things.

Speaking of fun things, there was still the N.H.K.

Yeah, if I were feeling pain or suffering, I had merely to think of the conspiracy that the N.H.K. was engineering right beneath the surface.

If I did that, I might feel at least a little better.

N.H.K., N.H.K….

“I see! I understand!” I shouted. “That girl is a special operative for the N.H.K.!” I kept making these declarations loudly.

Despite my earlier resolve, I didn't feel better at all.

“Dammit”, I cried before I finished my beer and shochu.

My head hurt, and the anime songs ringing from my next door neighbor's apartment were fiercely annoying.

Before I knew it, I had somehow ended up violently drunk. My mood was headed, full tilt, toward negativity. Once again, the future held no hope whatsoever that I could detect. I suspected that, at this rate, I was just plummeting toward death—isolated, lonely, and looking like an asshole.

“That's it. This is the end. This is the end!” I chanted.

And still, the anime songs echoed from the room next door. In the lyrics, words like “love”, “dreams”, “romance” and “hope” recurred continuously—ironically. For someone like me, having lost my optimism, it all sounded very much like mean-spirited sarcasm. The words racked me with rage and self-pity.

For one thing, this was the first night my neighbor had played anime songs at such a loud volume. Usually, he played them only during the day, but it was already the middle of the night.

Then, it occurred to me: Might this not be some new harassment meant for me? Harassment toward me! Someone so pathetic and stupid that he couldn't even become a freeter!