Finally, in an unnaturally cheerful voice, I said, “By the way, why were you crying?”

“I haven’t been going to school lately. I didn’t really blend in with the other students, I didn’t have any friends, and I just started living alone. In despair, I was playing my CDs as loud as I could…”

“You’ve been shut in here all the time these days?”

“Th-that’s right.”

I stood up quickly. “Wait just a second”, I said, and I went back to my own room.

I returned to Yamazaki’s room, carrying beer cans in both hands. “Let’s drink!”

“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.

The Hikikomori Song

Lyrics and Music by Satou Tatsuhiro

The freezing cold, six-mat, single room—

Oh, this apartment:

Even though I want to leave, my escape is still distant.

I lie on the bed, even while awake, and sleep sixteen hours a day.

Near the shadows of the kotatsu,

A cockroach is hiding.

When I eat, I have one meal a day,

And I lose weight every day.

Sometimes, I head to the convenience store,

The gazes of others frighten me, though.

A cold sweat even springs forth,

Telling me how hard it is to escape my apartment.

N.H.K., which seems like a fantasy—

I here is emptiness in searching and not finding it.

Today, when the sun sets, I go weakly forth

To lie down in my damp bed.

My tired and heavy brain—

Oh, I can’t go on. I can’t go on!

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.

Chapter 04.
Road to the Creator

Part One