Tatsuhiko Takimoto - Welcome to the NHK!

“What do you mean by ‘problems’?”

That’s what really bothered me. Young girls these days didn’t know anything. Go study a little more! I wanted to yell at her; of course, that would be impossible to do. The awful, useless traits acquired through several years of hikikomori life—my agoraphobia, fear of eye contact, and all my other anxiety disorders—now held me down with considerable power.

Hm… Did I lock my apartment door? Was I certain I’d put out my cigarette? More important: Misaki, don’t look at me like that with those adorable eyes! Not to mention, stop being so silent. Stop watching me without saying anything! It makes me unbelievably nervous. My stomach really does hurt.

I had to say something fast. “By the way, Misaki, do you like snacks?” What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

“No.”

“Usually, girls around your age always are eating some kind of snack, twenty-four hours a day, right? Just like a little animal… crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. What’s up with that? Is it because they’re young and have fast metabolisms, so they continually have to replenish their calories or they’ll die? That’s got to be it, huh?”

Should I just die?

She didn’t say anything.

Should I just die?

“I won’t die! And that’s because I’m an energetic man! This overflowing energy is the best! I’m only twenty-two! My future stretches out before me! ‘A neeew toooomorrow is here, one of hopesssss…’” I sang.

Misaki clutched my shirt sleeve.

“Hm?”

“Let’s go into the city, the day after tomorrow”, she said, continuing to pull on my sleeve, “near the station, maybe. Together. Someone important once said long ago, ‘Throw out your books and go to the city’, or something like that. That’s not a lie. It was written in a book I read recently, so it’s about time for us to go into the city. If we do that, I think you’ll definitely head in a good direction. Okay?” Without thinking, I nodded.

Misaki’s request had instilled a new fear within me. To go into the city, in broad daylight, with a mysterious girl whose true identity I still didn’t know… No question, this rash action would put an unbelievable amount of pressure on me. Completely overwhelmed by it, I undoubtedly would do something embarrassing once again. There was no chance that I would avoid doing something incomprehensibly pathetic. Ah, I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay locked up in my room.

Regardless, a promise is a promise. I reminded myself that the first step to being an outstanding member of society would be to faithfully honor my promises to others…. I wasn’t a member of society, though; I was just a hikikomori.

Anyway, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. The tension and unrelenting impatience reminded me of the feelings I used to have the day before a test. For someone whose will was weak like mine, this pressure weighed down heavily on me with a palpable force.

However, just as Dostoyevsky or somebody had written in a story, along with pain that exceeded normal bounds also came an undeniable pleasure. In essence, when stress surpasses a particular limit, humans get high on it for some reason. Getting extremely run down, for example, might make a person rashly agreeable. This feeling, in turn, would raise the excitement and the enjoyment.

“Right, Yamazaki?”

“Yes, sure. I have no idea what you’re talking about, though.”

Today, as usual, Yamazaki had been grinding away at his game since the early morning. His body language somehow suggested that he might be enjoying himself in some ghastly way.

“Let me see how far you’ve gotten”, I said, but he blocked the computer with his body. He must have been making an especially erotic game.

Well, whatever bizarre erotic game Yamazaki was working on meant nothing to me now. I decided I should be eating breakfast right about then and opened the fridge.

“Huh? What, Yamazaki, you’re out of food?”

“Hey, you! Don’t eat someone else’s food every day as though it’s yours! And in their own apartment, no less!”

“No matter what you say, because I sold the fridge in my room to that secondhand shop…” Trying to make suitable excuses, I took some instant ramen from its usual place in the cabinet.

Just then, the doorbell rang. A visitor?

Yamazaki slowly stood up from his computer desk and opened the door in the front hall. Standing there were two religious solicitors. However, today’s solicitors weren’t Misaki and her aunt but a young man around twenty, wearing a suit, and a roughly middle-school-aged boy in a navy blazer. I wondered whether perhaps the routes had been changed.

Either way, the solicitors’ actions remained unchanged.

“Um, we’re handing out these magazines….” The solicitor handed two pamphlets to Yamazaki. “Uh, see, we’re spreading the word about our religion….”

Yamazaki tried to chase the solicitors away with some appropriate speech.

Watching them, I suddenly had a wonderful idea. Joining them at the front door, I pounded Yamazaki as hard as I could on the back before interjecting, “What are you saying, Yamazaki?! Earlier, didn’t you say that you were interested in such literature?”

“Huh?”

Ignoring Yamazaki, who had turned to give me a look that meant, “What are you talking about, you idiot?” I faced the solicitors and rattled on, in one breath: “Actually, we’ve been interested in your activities for a while. Could we possibly convince you to let us attend one of your meetings?”

Last night, when we parted, Misaki had whispered, “Tomorrow, it’s my turn to present at missionary school, and I don’t want to.”

“What’s that?” I asked, and Misaki falteringly described it.

Missionary school was apparently a kind of assembly where “research students” could perfect their skills at “service activities.” The following day, she would have to give a speech in front of everyone.

She used so many technical religious terms that an outsider like me couldn’t really understand what she was talking about. When I tried to get her to explain more fully, Misaki quickly got up from the bench to go home. She left, saying merely, “Anyway, as I have this thing that I have to do tomorrow, we’ll have to go into the city the day after that. Don’t forget your promise.”

That was last night. Today, Misaki’s religious group would hold a meeting, and at that meeting, she would have to play a really difficult role. Having put all this together, an idea struck me. Today was the perfect opportunity to find out who Misaki really was! Summoning my courage, I begged the solicitors, “Please, take us with you and allow us to observe!”

Apparently, it was a rule that normally, outside observers first had to attend the “literature research” that took place every Wednesday. Thus, the two solicitors appeared uncertain what to do with me. I continued to entreat them, “It must be today! Please, take us to the meeting today!”

After I begged them for a few more minutes, they finally gave in. They disclosed the location of the “Imperial Hall” and the meeting time. “It starts at six o’clock in the evening. If you tell them you’ve come ‘on Kaneda’s sponsorship’, you'll be allowed to enter.”

It was early evening. Having disguised ourselves in strange clothing, we quickly walked up the road toward the Imperial Hall.

My reason for infiltrating the meeting was to observe Misaki’s private life, so I could figure out her real motivations. This was the reason that I decided to disguise myself. In the beginning, Yamazaki stubbornly resisted my attempts to get him to join me, but I finally convinced him. “Infiltrating a religious organization is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you know! It’ll be interesting!” Eventually, he yielded to my half-assed argument and, in the end, happily disguised himself.