Tatsuhiko Takimoto - Welcome to the NHK!

“What?”

“It's fine. Let's just drink.” I handed a beer to Yamazaki. “It's okay. The day when you can escape from being a hikikomori definitely will come.”

Truthfully, I was noisily professing my own desires. “It's okay, Yamazaki. I'm a professional when it comes to being a hikikomori. As long as I'm with you, your situation can't get any worse!”

With that, we drank. We turned the anime songs back on and got drunk enough that consciousness evaporated. Our party continued late into the night. Once the anime CD ended, we started singing our own songs. Because we both were incredibly inebriated, we might have just dreamt that these were wonderful songs.

Even if it was a dream, that's fine. I sang with vigor.

Because I had used the pornographic comics as a pillow when I fell asleep on the floor, I woke up with a terrible headache. Yamazaki had dozed off, resting his head on his desk.

I gently shook his shoulders. “What about school?”

“I'm taking today off.”

Saying this, Yamazaki closed his eyes again.

Returning to my own room, I sprawled across my bed. I swallowed an aspirin and went back to sleep.

The exit was blocked. I could see no hope. There was nothing I could do. And because of some stupid daydream about the N.H.K. as the evil organization that controls the world, I had lost even the means to divert myself.

It was a spring of unending, depressive anxiety for me—the kind of spring that made me want to imitate Vincent Gallo in Buffalo 66. Entering the bathroom, I grasped my head and moaned, “I just can’t go on living”.

I need to die.

Today was already different from every other day, though. Something surprising had happened earlier.

After waking up at one in the afternoon, I found an unfamiliar slip of paper in the mail slot. Picking it up, I examined it.

It was the resume that I had written several days earlier for the part-time job at the manga cafe. I had written it for that particular job application, a memory that I now wanted to forget completely. Why? Why was it in my mail slot? I hurried next door to Yamazaki’s apartment. Yamazaki was taking the day off from school again. Seated at his computer, he was playing some sort of game.

I asked, “Did a religious solicitor come by today?” “Hm … they came about two hours ago. I got some of those pamphlets. I just love the word-for-word translation. Why? Didn’t they go to your apartment, too, Satou?”

I suddenly saw the frightening truth behind Yamazaki’s testimony. Apparently, I had left my resume behind in the manga cafe. I could no longer remember if it had fallen from my pocket or if I automatically had handed it to Misaki. Because of the massive shock, my memories of that moment were muddled.

Only one thing was certain: While making her religious rounds, Misaki had gone out of her way to bring me the resume. In other words, when I had asked, “Do you like bikes?” in a clumsy effort to conceal that I had, indeed, come to apply for a part-time job, I had failed utterly. Realizing this, nothing at all seemed to matter anymore. When humans run into an extremely embarrassing circumstance, it seems their emotions go numb.

“Who cares?” I whispered, heading to the trashcan to throw away the paper. As I did, the back of the resume caught my eye. A message was written there in black ballpoint pen: “You have been selected for my project. Please, come to the Mita Fourth District Park tonight at nine o’clock.”

Eh? My mouth had fallen open as I squatted in front of the trash can.

Now, objectively considering it, I saw that this was an earth-shattering situation. I had received a mysterious letter from a girl I had met twice. Really, it was so incredibly incomprehensible that I had no idea at all what was going on. So, I obediently went along with it.

The park was only a two-minute walk from my apartment. It was already night. The roadside trees grew at even intervals. There was the old jungle gym, the bench with flaking paint, and the towering streetlights in front of the swings, illuminating everything with a dim blue glow. I liked this park.

On my weekly, nocturnal supply trips to the convenience store, I always made sure to stop here. Empty, the space belonged to me alone.

I enjoyed the cool night breeze. Seated on the bench, if I looked up at the sky, I could see the faintly waving branches of the trees and, through them, the moon and the stars. It was a place to relax and release my worries.

Tonight, the park wasn’t just my personal space, though. Someone else was there.

I didn’t call out. In fact, my stomach felt hollow.

What are you trying to do? What are you thinking? Who on Earth are you? These questions accompanied a growing rage, yet my mind remained clear for some reason. I was even calm, my thoughts moving in an orderly manner, with no threat of spinning out of control.

This may have been a form of resignation. Perhaps I had finally accepted my current situation. It was wholly possible I had quietly admitted to myself that I was a hikikomori, a person with no future, someone who should just die. Yes, that had to be the explanation.

Lately, I had been living in the past. Every night, I dreamed of long ago: the hometown I yearned for, friends, family, things I hadn’t liked, things that had made me happy, other various memories— fragments of all these things. My nightly dreams were gentle and melancholy.

Indeed, the future had ceased to be a problem. It already had been decided, which was precisely why I needed to exist in the past—in my wonderful, comforting memories. While this was obviously an extreme form of backward escapism, I didn’t care anymore.

Yes, that’s right. I am a hikikomori, a worthless person with a weak spirit. Is that a problem? Just leave me alone, and I’ll disappear quietly. I’m fine! It’s all over!

“No, no, no…” I sat on the bench, head in hands.

“’No’, what?” the girl inquired. She was rocking in one of the swings near the bench. Her almost shoulder-length hair blew lightly in the wind. Tonight, too, she was dressed like an average teenage girl—no parasol, no pamphlets, and no discernible religious atmosphere.

However, I forbade myself to let down my guard. More than anything about her, the very strangeness of the situation spoke vividly of how truly odd she was. I had to deal with her calmly, but with total caution.

Right then and there, I decided to think of her as an ASIMO, the bipedal robot developed by Honda. If I did that, it would keep me on an even keel. Why not? Nowadays, robot technology is really coming along. No matter how I examine it, it looks exactly like a person.

Rocking slightly back and forth in the swing, the robot asked, “Why did you run away earlier? We’re short-staffed right now and could really use the help. We would have decided to hire you right away.”