Misaki started her lecture. “Um… I’ll begin with an outline of the hikikomori. Okay, what causes someone to become a hikikomori? Do you know, Satou? Hm? You don’t? That’s what I thought. You dropped out of college, so there’s no way your mind could answer this difficult question, Satou. I know. I’m smart, after all. I’m studying for my GED right now. I study five hours every day. Good of me, right? Ha ha ha…”

She laughed a little more before she continued, “According to the results of my research, not just hikikomori, but all emotional problems are caused by an inability to conform to one’s environment. Basically, because you can’t get along well with the world, various difficulties arise.”

Misaki turned to the next page. “Long ago, we humans thought of many different ways to get along with the world. For example, take the idea of gods. There are all kinds of gods. Even in Japan alone, there are eight million… Huh? Eight million? That’s a little excessive, isn’t it? Is this true? W-well, anyway, there are many gods in the world, and it seems they ease the suffering of quite a lot of people, like those at a church gathering. Those people who can’t be saved by Gods think of other means. For example, philosophy.”

Misaki began digging around in her bag again. After sticking her head inside the enormous bag, she finally found what she was looking for, “Oh, here it is. Here you go.” Pulling out some sort of book, she handed it to me. The title of the book was Sophie’s World.

“This is kind of hard, so I didn’t really understand it, but it seems that this one book can teach you everything you need to know about philosophy. I borrowed it from the library, so read it by tomorrow, okay?”

Nonplussed, I took the book. I was at my wit’s end over what to do while Misaki’s lecture droned on. “Um, well then, after philosophy, we have psychoanalysis! It seems to have been popular from around the nineteenth century, after some guy named Freud thought of it. People say that if you undergo psychoanalysis, your problems really do disappear. For instance, do you remember any dreams you had last night? I’ll analyze them for you. Tell me what happened in your dreams, Satou.”

I told her. “A really huge, strong snake appeared. It dove into the ocean, and I stuck a thick sword into an apple. Also, I blasted away all around me with a black, shining, amazing gun.”

Upon hearing this, Misaki withdrew another paperback from inside her gigantic bag. This one was entitled Dream Analysis: With This Single Book, You Easily Can Grasp the Depths of Your Psyche!