Welcome to the NHK!

Part One

It actually might have had something to do with a hormonal imbalance in my brain. Like crashing and receding waves, my mania and depression alternated, and that was how every day went. Just when I thought I felt better, I wanted to die so bad the very next day that I wasn’t good for anything.

Despite using drugs to force myself to be more energetic, I couldn’t carry on once again after they wore off. Shame about my past and anxieties for the future, as well as many other fears, assaulted me simultaneously. This ensuing depression was a rebound from my ultra-high-energy periods and, as such, was completely, horribly severe.

Even Misaki’s nightly counseling, which I should have grown accustomed to by then, remained frightening. Anxiety of an unknown origin had enfolded me, and the very uncertainty of that origin fanned my fear even more.

The initial, readily noticeable symptom was that my gaze stared to wander and I would become unable to look others in the eye while speaking to them. Oh, I was just like some overly self-conscious middle school kid. I felt embarrassed from the bottom of my heart. And because I was aware of that embarrassment, my behavior would become even stranger and more suspicious. It was a vicious cycle.

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?”

“Let’s go into the city, the day after tomorrow”, she said, continuing to pull on my sleeve, “near the station, maybe. Together. Someone important once said long ago, ‘Throw out your books and go to the city’, or something like that. That’s not a lie. It was written in a book I read recently, so it’s about time for us to go into the city. If we do that, I think you’ll definitely head in a good direction. Okay?” Without thinking, I nodded.

Misaki’s request had instilled a new fear within me. To go into the city, in broad daylight, with a mysterious girl whose true identity I still didn’t know… No question, this rash action would put an unbelievable amount of pressure on me. Completely overwhelmed by it, I undoubtedly would do something embarrassing once again. There was no chance that I would avoid doing something incomprehensibly pathetic. Ah, I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay locked up in my room.

Regardless, a promise is a promise. I reminded myself that the first step to being an outstanding member of society would be to faithfully honor my promises to others…. I wasn’t a member of society, though; I was just a hikikomori.

Anyway, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. The tension and unrelenting impatience reminded me of the feelings I used to have the day before a test. For someone whose will was weak like mine, this pressure weighed down heavily on me with a palpable force.

However, just as Dostoyevsky or somebody had written in a story, along with pain that exceeded normal bounds also came an undeniable pleasure. In essence, when stress surpasses a particular limit, humans get high on it for some reason. Getting extremely run down, for example, might make a person rashly agreeable. This feeling, in turn, would raise the excitement and the enjoyment.

“Right, Yamazaki?”

“Yes, sure. I have no idea what you’re talking about, though.”

Today, as usual, Yamazaki had been grinding away at his game since the early morning. His body language somehow suggested that he might be enjoying himself in some ghastly way.

“Let me see how far you’ve gotten”, I said, but he blocked the computer with his body. He must have been making an especially erotic game.

Well, whatever bizarre erotic game Yamazaki was working on meant nothing to me now. I decided I should be eating breakfast right about then and opened the fridge.

“Huh? What, Yamazaki, you’re out of food?”

“Hey, you! Don’t eat someone else’s food every day as though it’s yours! And in their own apartment, no less!”

“No matter what you say, because I sold the fridge in my room to that secondhand shop…” Trying to make suitable excuses, I took some instant ramen from its usual place in the cabinet.

Just then, the doorbell rang. A visitor?

Yamazaki slowly stood up from his computer desk and opened the door in the front hall. Standing there were two religious solicitors. However, today’s solicitors weren’t Misaki and her aunt but a young man around twenty, wearing a suit, and a roughly middle-school-aged boy in a navy blazer. I wondered whether perhaps the routes had been changed.

Either way, the solicitors’ actions remained unchanged.

“Um, we’re handing out these magazines….” The solicitor handed two pamphlets to Yamazaki. “Uh, see, we’re spreading the word about our religion….”

Yamazaki tried to chase the solicitors away with some appropriate speech.

Watching them, I suddenly had a wonderful idea. Joining them at the front door, I pounded Yamazaki as hard as I could on the back before interjecting, “What are you saying, Yamazaki?! Earlier, didn’t you say that you were interested in such literature?”

“Huh?”

Ignoring Yamazaki, who had turned to give me a look that meant, “What are you talking about, you idiot?” I faced the solicitors and rattled on, in one breath: “Actually, we’ve been interested in your activities for a while. Could we possibly convince you to let us attend one of your meetings?”

Part Two

Last night, when we parted, Misaki had whispered, “Tomorrow, it’s my turn to present at missionary school, and I don’t want to.”

“What’s that?” I asked, and Misaki falteringly described it.

Missionary school was apparently a kind of assembly where “research students” could perfect their skills at “service activities.” The following day, she would have to give a speech in front of everyone.

She used so many technical religious terms that an outsider like me couldn’t really understand what she was talking about. When I tried to get her to explain more fully, Misaki quickly got up from the bench to go home. She left, saying merely, “Anyway, as I have this thing that I have to do tomorrow, we’ll have to go into the city the day after that. Don’t forget your promise.”

That was last night. Today, Misaki’s religious group would hold a meeting, and at that meeting, she would have to play a really difficult role. Having put all this together, an idea struck me. Today was the perfect opportunity to find out who Misaki really was! Summoning my courage, I begged the solicitors, “Please, take us with you and allow us to observe!”

Apparently, it was a rule that normally, outside observers first had to attend the “literature research” that took place every Wednesday. Thus, the two solicitors appeared uncertain what to do with me. I continued to entreat them, “It must be today! Please, take us to the meeting today!”

After I begged them for a few more minutes, they finally gave in. They disclosed the location of the “Imperial Hall” and the meeting time. “It starts at six o’clock in the evening. If you tell them you’ve come ‘on Kaneda’s sponsorship’, you'll be allowed to enter.”

It was early evening. Having disguised ourselves in strange clothing, we quickly walked up the road toward the Imperial Hall.

My reason for infiltrating the meeting was to observe Misaki’s private life, so I could figure out her real motivations. This was the reason that I decided to disguise myself. In the beginning, Yamazaki stubbornly resisted my attempts to get him to join me, but I finally convinced him. “Infiltrating a religious organization is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you know! It’ll be interesting!” Eventually, he yielded to my half-assed argument and, in the end, happily disguised himself.

I wore the black suit I had bought when I entered college so that I would look like a prize recruit. I pulled a tulip-pink hat down low over my eyes and donned dark purple sunglasses. Even I thought I looked ridiculous.

For his part, Yamazaki wore platform shoes to make himself about four inches taller, put green contacts in his eyes—and on top of all that, bleached his hair gold. I had no idea why he even owned such an idiotic thing as platform shoes. Still, it was the perfect disguise.

Yet, I remained a bit anxious. I was afraid that our voices might expose our true identities. “What do you think, Yamazaki? There’s no way we can change our voices, is there?”

When I expressed my worry on this point, Yamazaki dragged me into the department store near the station, and we headed toward the fourth-floor toy store. At the party goods section, he picked up some helium gas. It had been popular a while ago because if you inhaled it, your voice would sound like a duck.

“Ah! You’re smart!” I thumped Yamazaki on the back.

He stuck out his thumb and grinned. He was having a great time.

In this way, we completed all our preparations and triumphantly headed toward the Imperial Hall, which was located at the edge of the shopping center near the station. People passing us—clearly a shady pair, squeaking in high “duck” voices—threw perplexed glances in our direction. Normally, we would have been intimidated by their stares; but only for today, we weren’t scared of other people. My dark glasses blocked the glances, and I had a friend in Yamazaki, who bravely walked beside me.

More than anything else, the “energy-giving drug” I had bought through the mail was working quite well. Only half a day earlier, I had been suffering from anxieties I couldn’t imagine escaping—but now, I was suffused with energy. Apparently, just a few milligrams of generic drugs could drastically change people’s emotions.

“Is this it?” Yamazaki asked in his duck voice once we had exited the narrow alley that ran next to the tracks, pointing at a four-story building next to a convenience store.

I checked the map the solicitor had drawn for me. The information board at the building’s entrance also announced, “Third Floor, Imperial Hall.” There was no mistake; this was it. It was great that we had arrived at our destination, but I felt unexpectedly let down.

Contrary to its powerful-sounding name, the Imperial Hall was a rather worn-out old building that rented out office space to small businesses. The first floor was a real estate company and the second floor housed a tax attorney's office, leaving only the third floor to be occupied by the religious group. Colored red by the sunset, the rental space looked even more faded. I had imagined a huge temple decorated in gold leaf and the like, so I was taken by surprise.

Still, it was about time to start our infiltration. “L-let’s go, Yamazaki.”

“Yeah, let’s, Satou.”

Fortifying our will, we climbed the narrow stairs of the building.

In the end, our infiltration of the hall succeeded easily.

No one we passed even obliquely mentioned our strange disguises. Although I had told yet another gigantic lie: “Actually, my eyes are so bad, I need my sunglasses.” I said this despite not having been asked. And everyone said, “Oh my, how terrible”, and took pity on me.

That’s right: They were actually good people.

“Good evening.”

“Welcome.”

“Thank you for coming.”

A housewife, a female middle school student, and a businessman greeted us with invigorating smiles on their faces. Bowing our heads to them, we continued up the narrow stairs and stepped into the meeting hall. And once again, we tasted disappointment.

The interior of the hall lacked any religious atmosphere. Adornments such as candles, crosses, and altars were nowhere to be found. Instead, inside the room, a podium like those found in school auditoriums occupied center stage, faced by rows of evenly spaced metal folding chairs. The room could accommodate about one hundred people. The floor and walls were painted uniformly in a soft cream color, and the fluorescent lighting was bright. This relaxed space, the meeting room, basically resembled a normal town hall.

For now, we sat in folding chairs at the very back, hunching down to make ourselves as invisible as possible. However, that attempt soon failed miserably. Yamazaki and I were surrounded by hospitable, smiling people—young and old, male and female. It looked as though the young solicitor we’d seen the previous day had told everyone to expect visitors beforehand.

“I hear you’re interested in the Bible”, said a housewife with a child in her arms. “After all, faith is an issue that everyone has to face.”

A young man about my age said, “Please, take your rime and watch.”

A high-school-aged girl said—

They were all speaking to us at the same time.

Returning their greetings in my duck voice, I felt increasingly anxious. This is bad. At this rate, we’ll stand out. Or rather, we’re already standing out plenty, Misaki doesn’t seem to have arrived yet; the way it’s going, though, it’s only a matter of time before she sees through our disguises.

For the moment, we decided to retreat temporarily. Asking the housewife where the bathroom was, we hurried from the meeting hall.

“This is no good, Satou.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it, Yamazaki?”

We caught our breath while relieving ourselves in the sparkling clean bathroom.

“Why are those people being so friendly to shady people like us?”

“I’m kind of moved.” I was somewhat surprised by myself. This was the first time in my long life that I had ever experienced anything like this. A large number of people had openly welcomed me with smiles on their faces. I had no idea how to deal with it.

“Ha ha ha, maybe I should convert!”

I heard Yamazaki, who had gone into the private stall, suddenly burst into laughter. Next came the sound of toilet paper unrolling. I heard him blow his nose, and then he came out of the stall. The pupils of his eyes had dilated behind his colored contacts. White powder stuck to his sleeves.

“How about you, Satou?” Yamazaki held out a plastic packet filled with the drug. I gently refused. As my espionage activities were about to begin, I couldn’t afford to lose my level-headed judgment.

Putting tissues inside my mouth, I changed the contours of my face, creating an even more perfect disguise. Yamazaki, an off-the-chart smile plastered across his face, meanwhile busied himself walking in circles around the bathroom.

A short time later, we heard a choral hymn coming from beyond the bathroom walls. The assembly seemed to have begun.

Casually, we headed toward the meeting hall.

As I mentioned, the meeting hall’s interior lacked any sort of religious atmosphere at all. It looked like a youth training center. Even so…

Why had I gotten goose bumps up and down my spine? I was moved. It might have been a side effect of the drugs I’d taken before leaving the apartment. My emotional amplification might have been nothing more than a side effect. But…

Almost one hundred people had gathered in this hall, and they were singing without hesitation, with remarkable spirit. Older men, older women, young men, young women—they had turned in unison to face the lectern and single-mindedly sang a hymn praising God. Here, I could certainly feel holiness. Oh, this is true religion! This is wonderful!

Anyway, wrapped up in the hymn, I moved quickly along the wall of the meeting hall and arrived back at a seat along the very edge. When the hymn ended, a middle-aged man standing at the podium began to pray. He seemed to be the most important person there.

“Great Creator, who made the heavens and this Earth, too, along with us humans, may praise and glory be returned to your great name.” Everyone looked forward, listening attentively to his prayer. No one looked at us.

It was going as planned.

Or so I thought. As he was finishing his prayers, the important man at the podium said something like, “Thanks to the aid of the Holy Spirit, you were all able to gather here again today. Many children, as well as new people…”

New people? Who? Who are they?

They were us.

Everyone’s gazes immediately turned toward us. I pulled the tulip hat even farther down over my eyes. Yamazaki, as though competing with everyone else, flashed his insane smile.

At the edge of my peripheral vision, I could see Misaki. She was in front of me, in the seat closest to the pedestal. She hadn’t realized we were there. Relaxing, I stopped Yamazaki, who was trying to wave to everyone.

“Well then, we give you all our thanks in the name of the Son, Lord Jesus Christ, and give you our prayers.”

“Amen.” The congregation spoke as one. Only our duck voices stood out terribly in the chorus.

The purpose of this meeting was to improve proselytizing techniques. This was why it was called “missionary school.”

First, a veteran male follower stood at the podium and spoke as an example to follow. After that, the missionary students expounded on various subjects for six minutes at a time. At the end, the “director” gave a three-tiered assessment (“good”, “work harder”, or “needs improvement”) to each student’s discussion.

At least, that's how the housewife sitting next to me explained it.

Bowing politely to her, I casually assessed the scene. Even though it was a weekday evening, a decent number of people had gathered. What caught my eye first was the huge number of housewives. They were all extremely normal, middle-aged women, like the kind you’d find shopping at any nearby supermarket. In addition, there were businessmen, coming straight to the assembly on their way home from work. Finally, there were young people on their way home from school. A wide variety of people had gathered in this meeting hall.

The more senior male followers wore serious expressions at the podium, and I was fascinated by their discussions. Some people even wrote down the contents of these lectures in their notebooks. The speeches once again contained the sort of vocabulary that made normal peoples heads hurt. “Armageddon” and “Satan” and other such wonderful terms kept coming up, and so my stomach began to ache.

At any rate, I was certain that there were about one hundred people gathered here, and that they were all very, very serious.

“The birth of mankind was six thousand years ago.”

“Noah’s Ark is on Mount Ararat.”

“Satan’s war will begin soon.”

“According to the Book of Revelations…”

Are you all from Gakken Mu?![25] I wanted to yell, but Yamazaki and I were vastly outnumbered.

Finally, the first lecture ended. In summation, this was its message: The decay of this world is spreading visibly. Political corruption is unending, disputes break out ceaselessly around the world, and brutal urban crime just goes on and on. Youths are addicted to licentious relationships, adults seek only material worth, and morality falls further and further by the wayside. In short, this is Satan’s doing. Those in this world ruled by Satan are unaware that they do his bidding, and this is precisely why Armageddon draws near. Before Armageddon arrives, we must save as many people as possible from damnation. This is the goal of our mission.

Apparently, an antagonism between God and Satan existed, and those without faith would fall into hell.

The student lectures that followed seemed to have similar themes. “Praise God, hate Satan” appeared to be the general policy. They all seemed to have practiced quite a bit for this day and skillfully referenced passages from the Bible, speaking without hesitation. I could see some signs of nervousness; even so, they spoke proudly. Each time the bell rang, marking the end of the allotted six minutes, everyone clapped. I clapped, too. Continuing in this way, eventually, the young people’s speeches ended.

Next… Yamazaki and I exchanged glances: Misaki’s turn had come.

I was expectant. I wanted her to use ridiculous lines like those I heard each night at counseling. I wanted her to make me laugh and feel cheerful.

However, Misaki, at the podium, was shaking slightly, her face pale. During the entire time, she had nothing interesting to say. In a vague, flat monotone, she merely gave a passable speech about the Bible, staring at her shoes the entire time.

She seemed to be in pain. Her demeanor reminded me of a girl who, from elementary school on, everyone had bullied.

Missionary school ended.

After a ten minute break, a “service meeting” was scheduled. During the break, everyone chatted amiably—a group of housewives, boys, and young men. Each group gathered together, talking and smiling happily.

“Kazuma is in Bethel—“

“—servants volunteering—“

“Anyway, in the reclamation work we did before—“

“—the Satomi sisters finally were baptized.”

Specialized, technical terms were used often, so I couldn’t really follow the conversations well.

I looked toward the corner of the meeting hall where Misaki sat alone, stooped over on a steel chair. She was making herself small, trying as hard as she could to not stand out. There, in the corner of the room, she was destroying any trace of herself. She really was pale. Each time someone passed her, Misaki looked downward. It appeared as though she feared someone might try to talk to her. During the break, no one spoke to her. That seemed to be what she wanted.

In the friendly meeting hall, she alone stood out from the surroundings.

“Let’s go home.” I nudged Yamazaki toward the door.

“What are you saying, Satou? The service meeting is about to start!”

Yamazaki’s eyes were bloodshot, and I had some idea why. In the technical terms we were most familiar with—that is to say, in the vocabulary of erotic games—service was defined as “a special type of loving massage that a maid in an apron performs for her master.”

“This is a service meeting! Those girls over there will perform their services for us!”

“There’s no way that’s going to happen!”

Putting the angry Yamazaki into a full nelson, I muscled him outside. As we approached the building’s main exit, a voice called out from behind, “Hey, you!”

It was the younger of the two solicitors we’d encountered earlier, the middle-school-aged boy. His hands thrust in his blazer pockets, he glared at us. “You guys are really here just to make fun, right?”

Suddenly, Yamazaki took off. He ran away without even glancing back. Once again, I was left alone.

However, the boy didn’t yell at me. In fact, we started walking along the dark road together. Even though it was already summer, the night wind was unseasonably chilly. The boy was smoking a cigarette. He exhaled, “Ah…”

“That’s against the commandments, I think.”

Forestalling me, the boy drew a Zippo from his pocket and lit another cigarette with what seemed to be a practiced hand.

Walking on my right side, he explained, “Sometimes, people like you want to see something weird, so they come to observe the meetings. Stupid students, like you guys. Well then, what did you think? Was it funny?”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m not doing this religion thing because I like it, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s my parents. Both my mom and dad love religion. In our house, I’m the only one with a decent head on his shoulders. If I ever said that I wanted to leave the church, what do you think would happen? I once said to my mom, ‘I want to join a school activity, and I want to play at friends’ houses.’ When I did, that old hag started screaming, ‘You devil!’ She wouldn’t even make me lunch for days.”

The boy laughed. “I go along with my parents enough for them not to get mad; and then, when I’m outside the house, I do what I want.”

He spent his time at school like a normal kid, I concluded, and while at home, he lived as a devout, religious person. He was living a double life.

“What I’m saying is, you guys should be sure not to make the mistake of joining up.” He sounded serious. “Everyone made a fuss over you today, right? Everyone seemed happy, right? You probably thought something dumb like, ‘maybe I could get along with nice people such as these’, right? You’re wrong. That’s their trick. They’re not acting out of any kind of selfless love. It’s a way to get you to convert.

“Once you’re on the inside, it’s just like any other normal society. Everyone wants to be the leader. Everyone wants to go to the holy land. My father is desperately trying to set things up for himself to advance—sending presents to the leaders, trying to raise his position, no matter what. It’s really idiotic. You saw what happened today, didn’t you? That girl who presented last was just a nondescript researcher until recently, but her family kept telling her to enter missionary school until, finally, she did. When she, a family member, presents at the missionary school, her aunt gains status.”

I fished for more information about Misaki.

“Eh?” The boy blinked. “Well, that girl just recently became a researcher. She’s a normal girl—an adopted child, or some kind of ward of that older woman. The uncle seems to have no interest in religion, which might prove to be a saving grace. No, I guess she’s torn between two things, which is even harder. She always seems troubled, for some reason.”

I was deeply grateful to the boy for this inside information.

When we parted, the boy admonished, “Like I said, don’t do it. You absolutely must not convert. Well, I don’t really care if you convert; if you do, though, don’t have kids.”

I nodded slightly and returned to my apartment.

Part Three

The next day, Misaki and I walked through the city streets. The sky was a cloudless blue. As it was Saturday, there were a lot of people near the station, and it was all a little dizzying for me.

As promised, I’d met her at the neighborhood park at one o’clock in the afternoon, and we’d gone straight to the station. About two hours had passed, and we were still walking. We just kept walking. Although Misaki walked in front of me, ostensibly in the lead, I got the feeling that we’d been walking around and around the same roads for a while.

Still, Misaki’s footsteps remained steady.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Um, where are we walking?”

Misaki turned around. “What?”

“I mean, what’s our destination?”

“We can’t just walk like this?”

I rolled my eyes toward the sky.

Misaki stopped and folded her arms, deep in thought. “Hm. Now that you mention it, it is kind of strange. Thinking about it more carefully, I guess most people do try to go somewhere.”

I had nothing to say.

“Hey, where do you think people normally would go?”

It’s not like I have an answer. To begin with, what in the hell were we doing? It was Saturday, in the middle of the afternoon, and we had met to walk around in the city. Who in the world are we, anyway? If I could answer that question, maybe our destination would change.

At any rate, I asked, “Misaki, is there anywhere you’d like to go?”

“No.”

“Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Not yet.”

For the time being, we decided to go to a nearby family restaurant.

As we entered the family restaurant, Misaki said, “This is the first time I’ve eaten at a place like this.”

I smoked a cigarette. The tip was shaking slightly. It was painful for me. I wanted sunglasses. If I could just have sunglasses, I wouldn’t have to worry about strangers staring at me.

Misaki ordered the lunch special. She ate with vigor while I sipped my coffee.

Dammit, I thought. The caffeine was making it even more difficult to stay calm. Soon, I would start acting suspiciously.

Misaki was rather cheery, however. She looked like she was having fun making some sort of origami from the paper napkins set up on the table.

“Look, it’s finished. Isn’t it amazing?” It was a crane.

“It is amazing. You’re very skilled.” I praised her.

My stomach was starting to hurt, so we left the family restaurant.

We walked for about another half hour before heading to a cafe. I drank some black tea, and Misaki ate cake. I was trying to remember the original reason we were meeting like this.

On that night, Misaki had said, “Let’s go into the city. If we do that, I think you’ll definitely head in a good direction.”

Oh, right. In short, this was another part of the hikikomori escape program, and it didn’t mean we were on a date or anything. And then, there was the previous night. After watching Misaki last night, I was oven more mystified by her true identity. For starters, the evening had erased my theory that all this was just a covert religious recruitment on her part. Given how little she had fit in with the surroundings at the assembly, it was unlikely that she’d zealously try to convert strangers.

In the end, who was she? Even now, she remained a huge mystery. What should I do, hanging out like this with such a mysterious girl? What should I do? Finally, with no idea what else to do, I simply kept silent.

Misaki pulled another book out of the bag that she always carried. This one was The Many Words That Guide You: A Collection of Proverbs That Will Echo in Your Heart. Another strange book… I was no longer surprised.

Moving her cake plate aside, Misaki opened the book on the table.

“Let it be.” Saying this, she intently looked at me. “It seems to be a saying by a man named John. What do you think this means?”

“L-let things be as they are.”

“Ah, that’s a great saying!”

Eventually, our meandering took us back to the manga cafe where Misaki worked occasionally. The man sitting at the register nodded at her. Acting like a regular customer, I took a receipt. Then, we sat down in the very back of the room.

The place was basically deserted.

Drinking free cola, I concentrated on reading manga. Misaki, who sat across from me, watched me and drank orange juice. I was incredibly distracted, but there was nothing I could do about it. I felt like a hole was about to open in my stomach.

Finally, I couldn’t put up with it. There was no way I could read manga like this. I tried speaking. “Misaki?”

“Hm?”

“There aren’t many people in this manga cafe, are there?”

“It’s because of the recent downturn in the economy.”

I looked over at the man behind the counter. “That man, how is he related to you?”

“He’s my uncle. I’m always causing him trouble; but because I’m leaving before long, I think he’ll forgive me.”

It sounded like they had some sort of complicated family dynamic; however, I didn’t want to hear that story, so I changed direction. “Anyway, Misaki, do you enjoy your religious activities?”

“Not really. I trouble people all the time.”

“Trouble?”

“You know—how to phrase it? I disturb the atmosphere. Well, my presence there depresses a lot of other people. Actually, it would be best if I weren’t anywhere.”

“You could just leave the group.”

“I can’t. I have to do something to repay my aunt.”

“Misaki, you don’t really believe in God, do you?”

Misaki put her cup of juice on the table. It made a small clank. “I do think it would be nice if God existed. If I could, I’d like to believe, but it’s rather difficult.”

She sounded disappointed. In a discouraged tone, she gave an abrupt hypothesis. “To start with, if God really existed, He would have to be a terrible villain. Thinking about it comprehensively, I’ve come to that conclusion.”

“Huh?”

“Well, for human beings, the ratio of painful things to enjoyable things has to be about nine to one. One time, I wrote it all down in my notebook and calculated it.” Misaki took out her secret notebook and spread it open on the table.

“See, there’s the pie chart. If you look, you can see clear as day that the happy times—the times when you think, ‘How fun! I’m glad I’m alive!’—don’t make up even one tenth of life. I worked this out properly with a calculator, so there’s no mistake.”

I rather wondered what kind of calculation methods she’d used, but Misaki didn’t show me any other pages. I had no intention of going out of my way to infringe on her privacy further.

Misaki continued, “That’s why. Any God who would purposefully create such a painful world must be a really terrible guy, don’t you think? It’s a logical conclusion, isn’t it?”

“Misaki, didn’t you just say that you wanted to believe in God?”

“Yeah. I do want to believe. I think I wish that God did exist. I mean…”

“You mean?”

“If that type of bad God did exist, then we could go on living in good health. If we could push the responsibility for our misery onto God, then we would have that much more peace of mind, wouldn’t we?”

It was a complicated discussion. I folded my arms and pretended to think deeply about it, but my mind wasn’t working properly.

To begin with, Misaki, how serious about this are you? You’ve been smiling bizarrely for a while now. From start to finish, I felt as though I’d been trapped in a deceptive fog.

In the end, though, her words sounded honest and heartfelt. “If I could believe in God”, she whispered, “I could become happy. God is a bad guy; even so, I know I could become happy.”

“The problem is”, she continued, “the problem is… I have a poor imagination, so I can’t believe in God very easily. Look, couldn’t He create some really showy miracle for me, just like He does in the Bible?”

She was the kind of girl who said these unreasonable things.

After we chatted for about an hour longer, I decided it was about time to leave. When I went to pay, the man behind the register said, “Don’t worry about it. Please, be kind to her.”

I felt that this was a strange thing to say to a guy getting to know a girl Misaki’s age, but the man’s weary expression was strangely compelling. I bowed my head slightly and hurried for home.

Back at my apartment, I was incredibly surprised.

In the middle of my room, a life-sized, mannequin-like doll had been set up. Wobbling with each step, Yamazaki circled the doll.

“Welcome back, Satou! This is our object of worship.”

I was speechless.

“The other day, I heard that a school acquaintance’s older brother had a Ruriruri[26] life-sized figure he bought a long time ago that he didn’t know what to do with. Right away, I did everything I could to get it! Please, Satou, you worship her, too—this pale, young, little, adorable Ruriruri!”

The doll seemed to be some anime character. Yamazaki was prostrating himself before a life-sized doll that was modeled after a girl in the upper years of elementary school.

Looking around, I saw that the metal tin where we kept our drugs was empty. Yamazaki had finished all the rest.

“Yes, I believe I did use the drugs! I experienced the greatest trip of this century. Yes! This time, I had a real epiphany. Indeed, Satou, I’ve seen the very structure of this world.” After rubbing his forehead at the feet of the doll, Yamazaki suddenly stood up and faced me.

“I just kept thinking and thinking, ‘what are we missing?’ There’s something missing from us. There’s a big hole in our chests, so I wanted something to fill that hole. I wanted something to make me content. That’s it. Yesterday, our religious observation reinforced my meditation on the subject. Everyone is uncertain. In this incomprehensible world, we want to be ordered around by someone else, and that’s why we made God. The dual antagonism between God and Satan explains the world more easily. You see? That strong, simple story! I honestly was affected!

“Unfortunately, that God isn’t suited for us because that God is incredibly frightening. As you can see from the illustrations in ‘Awaken!’—he is incredibly realistic and not at all cute.” Yamazaki picked up the pamphlet lying in the corner of the room and held it out to me.

“Please, look at the special feature for June, ‘Guardian Angels: They Are Always Protecting You.’ In their religion, angels look like this.” Yamazaki had opened to a page featuring a realistic illustration of a muscular man with wings on his back.

Yamazaki ripped the pamphlet into pieces. “I don’t need an angel like this!” he screamed. “What is he, some kind of bodybuilder? When you say ‘angel’, I think of something more, you know, beautiful and moe moe and loli loli…”

Many, many memories of erotic games where an angelic girl appeared as the heroine flashed through my mind.

“That’s right! Don’t you see, Satou? Now is the exact time for religious reform!”

I was still speechless.

“Our object of worship is this Ruriruri doll! And I am the founder of the sect!”

I gently tapped Yamazaki on the shoulder.

Shaking off my hand, Yamazaki continued ranting. “Those who believe will be saved! We must make something we ourselves can believe in order to bring meaning to our lives! And the meaning will be how we live on with our incredible new religion!”

Stalking around and around the room, he raised his fists, howling. He was screaming about anything that came to mind.

Eventually, Yamazaki ended up clinging pathetically to the life-sized doll. “I can’t keep living like this”, he whispered. His eyes were open wide.

I made him some hot coffee. Yamazaki drank his coffee, tears in his eyes.

I, too, felt like crying.

“By the way, Yamazaki, what are you going to do with this doll?”

“I’m giving it to you, Satou. Do whatever you want with it.”