Anyway, for that night, I tried smoking to calm myself down in front of Misaki. My hands, now prone to shaking, took out a cigarette and lit it, using a cheap lighter. Damn—it was running out of fuel! How can this be? This sucks! I didn’t know what to do with the tobacco and lighter I was holding, but I’d do anything possible to avoid the humiliation of having to put them back in my pocket. I kept trying as hard as I could to light it. Click, click, click, click… I kept struggling and, finally, I succeeded—thank heavens!

I immediately turned away from Misaki and, instead, focused too much on smoking my cigarette. I just kept smoking away, wasting five yen with every puff. My lungs hurt and my guts hurt, too. The end of my cigarette was shaking rapidly. On the back of my neck, a cold, sticky sweat—

“What’s wrong?” asked Misaki. As was usual for our counseling sessions, we faced each other at night on one of the park benches.

“The problems caused by my chronic illness!” I replied.

“What do you mean by ‘problems’?”

That’s what really bothered me. Young girls these days didn’t know anything. Go study a little more! I wanted to yell at her; of course, that would be impossible to do. The awful, useless traits acquired through several years of hikikomori life—my agoraphobia, fear of eye contact, and all my other anxiety disorders—now held me down with considerable power.

Hm… Did I lock my apartment door? Was I certain I’d put out my cigarette? More important: Misaki, don’t look at me like that with those adorable eyes! Not to mention, stop being so silent. Stop watching me without saying anything! It makes me unbelievably nervous. My stomach really does hurt.

I had to say something fast. “By the way, Misaki, do you like snacks?” What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

“No.”

“Usually, girls around your age always are eating some kind of snack, twenty-four hours a day, right? Just like a little animal… crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. What’s up with that? Is it because they’re young and have fast metabolisms, so they continually have to replenish their calories or they’ll die? That’s got to be it, huh?”

Should I just die?

She didn’t say anything.

Should I just die?

“I won’t die! And that’s because I’m an energetic man! This overflowing energy is the best! I’m only twenty-two! My future stretches out before me! ‘A neeew toooomorrow is here, one of hopesssss…’ ” I sang.

Misaki clutched my shirt sleeve.

“Hm?”