At that second, my line of sight casually passed over the word “Awaken!” decorating the cover of the pamphlet I held in my right hand.

On that same cover, in black, gothic letters, was printed: “The hikikomori life is attacking our youth. Are you safe?”

The woman, noticing my gaze, further brightened her pious smile. “This is our special report for the month. We’re investigating the hikikomori issue from a Biblical standpoint. Are you interested?”

It would be downright impossible to fully express the fear that ravaged me then.

Could they see through me? Was it possible this woman already knew that I was, in actuality, a hikikomori, myself? Was that why she’d gone out of her way to give me this pamphlet? It was an extremely frightening idea.

The thought that I was already identified as a worthless hikikomori by people who didn’t even know me incited violent fear, chills, shakes—culminating in a confusion that was terribly hard to endure. Regardless, I had to calm down.

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.