Chapter 03
The Meeting
Part One
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
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35
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 tide 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 café, 700 yen per hour."
Welcome to the N.H.K.
36
There was no mistake: This job suited me perfectly! There shouldn't
be too many customers coming to a small-town manga café, 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 resumé and triumphantly left my
apartment.
The manga café 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.
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, dose 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
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37
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 café
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 resumé 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.
Welcome to the N.H.K.
38
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 It 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?"
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39
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-GGoddammit!
I imagined them laughing at me right about then. I was sure
that I'd become a laughingstock.
Welcome to the N.H.K.
40
"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 be? 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
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41
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!
If so, I couldn't allow it. I tried punching the wall. There was no sign
that the songs would stop. I kicked at the wall. No reaction.
How dare you make a fool of me? They're all—every one of them— making
a fool of me. Dammit. Just watch, I'll make you regret this.
I drank, got even drunker, drinking to deaden my senses. . .
I'm going, and I'll show you! You're the ones at fault.
Rising unsteadily from the kotatsu, no doubt looking like I was
about to fall on my ass, I stumbled to open the door.
I tottered to room 202 and repeatedly attacked the doorbell. "Ding
dong, ding dong, ding dong. . . "
No answer.
I tried punching the door.
No answer. The only sounds from inside were anime songs. This
Welcome to the N.H.K.
42
particular number was the theme song to Fancy Lala: "I am Fancy Lala. . . "
In my anger, blood rushed to my head.
I twisted the doorknob. The door wasn't locked, and I no longer
cared what might happen.
"Hey!" I shouted, losing myself in fury. Flinging open the door, I
screamed, "It's too loud!"
At that very second, I saw him. A man sat at a computer desk in the
back of the room, facing the speakers against the wall. Acknowledging
the surprising arrival of a visitor, he slowly swiveled around in his
spinning chair so he could look at me over his shoulder.
He was. . . crying.
Tears silently streamed down his cheeks.
On top of that, and even more unbelievable, I knew exactly who he
was. Speechless, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Wiping his own eyes, he gazed at me in disbelief. Thrusting himself
forward, he stared into my face. Finally, after a momentary silence, he
stammered in a trembling voice, "Sa-Satou?"
There was no mistake. It was Yamazaki.
After four years, this was an incredibly unexpected reunion.
Part Two
In high school, I had been in the literature club.
Even so, that didn't mean I liked novels or anything of that sort.
Rather, during the new-member recruitment fair, an awfully cute
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upperclassman had invited me. "You there, join the literature club."
Without thinking, I had nodded. There was really nothing else I
could have done. Despite being a member of the nerdy literature club,
and despite being a year older than I was, the girl was as cute as a pop
idol.
Unsurprisingly, having joined the club for such a stupid reason, I
ended up playing solitaire through every meeting. And during any group
free time, I played cards in the crowded office with the upperclassman.
What in the hell were we doing? Obviously, we could have been focusing
on other, more important things.
Well, that doesn't matter at all anymore. The past is the past.
Anyway, it happened after school on one of those club days. My
classmate and I were walking along the first-floor hallway that faced the
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