“Good girl. I’ll give you some canned food, okay?” Misaki pulled cat food out of the bag on her back. Apparently, she’d been feeding the cat every night. “Cats are great, don’t you think?”

“What’s great about them?”

“Cats just seem to be content wherever, whenever, even if they’re alone.”

I didn’t quite comprehend what she meant, but I tried to answer her appropriately. “Cats don’t really understand gratitude.”

“I know.”

“It’ll forget all about you soon, Misaki. Investing in cat food is such a waste.”

“As long as I give the cat what it wants, it’ll be fine. She’ll remember me. Don’t be cruel. You’ll come to the park every night, right?” She gently stroked the cat’s back as it gobbled down the food. When it finished eating, it slowly strolled away into the bushes.

We sat down on the bench. Misaki took her “secret notebook” out of her bag. And so, tonight, the first counseling session on escaping from hikikomori life began.

Misaki had called it “counseling.” From the very first, her actions and words had been more than strange, so I totally thought it was some kind of joke. However, it seemed she’d been serious.

“You’re late. It says in the contract that you’ll come after eating dinner, remember?”

“I just ate dinner—“

“My family eats dinner at seven o’clock.”

How the hell should I know that?! I wanted to yell, but I held it back.

“Well, starting tomorrow, come a little earlier. Anyway, we’ll begin your first ‘escaping hikikomori life’ counseling session now, okay? Here, have a seat.”

I moved next to her on the bench, as instructed. Misaki sat beside me, turning to face me.

The park at night… no one else was there. What in the world was about to start? What did she plan to do? I was a little nervous. Misaki put down the huge bag she carried and started rummaging around inside it.

Whispering something like, “Oh, here it is, here it is”, she pulled out a college-ruled notebook. On the cover, “Secret Notebook” had been written in black marker.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A secret notebook.”

“Like I said, ‘what’s that?’ ”

“Uh… it’s a secret notebook.” Misaki opened the secret notebook and flipped through pages she’d marked. “Well then, I’ll start the lecture now.”

Backlit by the street lamps, her face wasn’t visible. The tone of her voice was serious, though. Not understanding what was going on, I gulped deeply.