With that in mind, I wrote up a resume and triumphantly left my apartment.

The manga cafe 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, 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.”

Part Two

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.