Whenever possible, I tried to work nights. Nighttime traffic control was the best job. To be a security guard, you needed to get registered by taking a four-day legal training course; once you finished that, however, no other work was easier.

In the middle of the night, I waved the glowing red guide stick back and forth at construction sites far from human habitation. The only thing I could hear all night long was the echo of construction equipment operating behind me. On the nights when I worked as a guard, I was alone. Sometimes a car would pass, but all I had to do was wave the guide stick appropriately and caution, “Look out, slow down.”

Because I almost never needed to speak to others while working, I felt the same as when I holed up in my apartment. I just relied on my conditioned reflexes to wave the guide stick, back and forth, back and forth. The night wind was a bit chilly, but my pay for this was ten thousand yen per night, counting my travel fare.

I’d work, and then I’d shut myself away—earn my living expenses, and then shut myself away. This lifestyle continued and, with frightening speed, time went by. While I kept working, it turned to winter.

It was the winter of my fifth year as a hikikomori. This year felt thoroughly cold—probably because I had previously sold off my kotatsu to the secondhand shop. Even covered head to toe with a blanket, I still was freezing, always shivering uncontrollably. At that point, in place of a body warmer, I decided to try using the laptop computer, which Yamazaki had left behind when he moved.

“It’s an off-brand Pentium 66 MHz notebook computer. I didn’t want to have to carry it, so I was going to throw it away. But seeing as I have it, I’ll give it to you, Satou”, he’d said.

He’d left with those words.

I set the laptop on my stomach and turned on the power. A noisy whirring indicated that it was operating, and an anime wallpaper appeared on the liquid crystal screen. Being an older machine, it generated an amazing amount of heat. Soon, I warmed up and began to grow sleepy.

Just then, I recognized a familiar icon displayed on the computer’s desktop.

It looked like the executable file for the erotic game that Yamazaki had been making. Positioning the cursor on the file, I clicked to open it. The hard disk started groaning. After a long loading period, the game began.

I played it for several hours. And then, I understood… I understood that this was a terrible, terrible game.