Final Chapter
Welcome to the N.H.K.!
It became spring.
Of course, I was holed up in my room.
Why?! Why am I holed up?! Get hold of yourself! Do some honest work! I
tried taking out my anger on myself in this way; of course, it"s never so
easy to escape from being a hikikomori.
I still suffered from the neuroses that attacked me, the desire to kill
myself that would boil silently to the surface, and all the other sorts of
problems I faced (my rent being raised or my favorite convenience store
closing). On top of all that, I had my security guard job tomorrow. It
was a complete pain in the a.s.s.
I was depressingly worried.
Regardless, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom outside my
window. New college students walked past the front of my apartment. I
felt as though I had been abandoned by the whole world, as though I 
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227
were being mocked by the entire human race.
For example, Yamazaki had sent me a postcard recently. A
photograph printed on the card showed Yamazaki, smiling widely, with
a beautiful girl. He"d written, "Oh, I think I might be just about ready to
get married. My parents have been bothering me for a while to get set up
with someone. (In the countryside, we get married early.) And because I
didn"t really have a choice, I had a meeting arranged just once, and look!
She"s perfect!"
It seemed to have become an age in which even an erotic-gameloving
lolicon could be blessed with happiness.
Die. Go to h.e.l.l.
Next was the New Year"s card sent by the female uppercla.s.sman:
"Our house is a huge mansion. We"re in love. I"m about to have a baby."
She really seemed happy.
Go to h.e.l.l.
And on top of all that, Misaki"s life, too, now was moving in a truly
upward direction. When she had returned to her uncle"s house,
naturally, she had been severely scolded. She seemed to have sunk into a
reflection about the incident that was deeper than the ocean. Eventually,
at some point, she came to talk to me about it. "How do you think I
could apologize properly?"
"Shouldn"t it be enough for you just to live a healthy life?"
"I"ve caused more trouble than I can even completely understand, so
that just won"t cut it, okay? I need something to, you know,
wholeheartedly demonstrate my grat.i.tude and apologies."
"Your uncle is a rather wealthy man, isn"t he? If so, then what about
studying and going to college? Thinking back, didn"t you pa.s.s your 
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college entrance exams?"
I just gave her some appropriate advice without thinking about it too
deeply. Then, several months after that, my advice had become part of
her reality. She was planning to begin college starting this spring. Of
course, the school was obviously one that even I could have attended
based on exam percentile, so it wasn"t that much of a surprise, but. . .
Either way, that girl would be a college student while I remained a
freeter and a hikikomori.
Ah, I can"t take it. Go to h.e.l.l, all of you!
They say that curses come home to roost. So, I forced my feelings
back down and tried wis.h.i.+ng for everyone"s happiness, "Even if you fall
into h.e.l.l, keep trying, all of you."
I, too, planned on trying, little by little.
The reason for that was on a sc.r.a.p of paper I had here.
It was a contract, made from a page ripped out of the secret
notebook. To fulfill the contract, I had no choice but to try.
That night. . .
I had jumped, and then I"d landed abruptly. I had landed on top of
the wire netting set up around the cliff to prevent accidents. The frame
had been buried into the rocky cliff itself, making a hook shape. As
expected for a sightseeing spot, they had gone out of their way to mount
the fence in such a way that the beautiful view was left unspoiled. And as
expected for a sightseeing spot, there was absolutely no fault to be found
with the safety measures. 
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I wanted to cry.
I cried.
I wanted to die, but I couldn"t die. If I could step out with only one
foot, then this time, I could fly for sure. It was impossible. I couldn"t do
it. Both of my legs were shaking violently, and the sound of my heart
beating was ridiculously loud. I felt terrible, I was nauseated, and I didn"t
want to be there anymore.
I was crying out for someone to do something. I was crying that I
wanted to die. Kill me right now, I thought. I wished for someone to push
me.
I didn"t want to go home and shut myself up in my apartment, and I
didn"t want to see Misaki"s face. I didn"t want to think about anything
confusing, and I didn"t want to experience any more pain. I just wanted
to die right then.
I scratched my head, curled up my body, and then I bent backward.
It was humorous and pathetic. I looked like an idiot. Each time the wind
blew, I dropped to all fours and clung to the fence. I was frightened. I
was scared of falling. I got chills just from looking downward.
Below the netting was the Sea of j.a.pan. The waves were rough. Help
me! No, don"t help me. Don"t laugh at me. What should I do? Don"t screw
around with me! Don"t look! Don"t look over here! Why are you crying? I"m the
one who wants to cry.
Misaki stuck her face out over the edge of the cliff and looked down
at me.
I covered my face with both hands. I didn"t know what to do. I didn"t
want any more disgrace in my life.
Stretching herself out over the cliff edge, Misaki held out her hand. 
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She was trying to save me. The look on her face said that she pitied me.
Swiping away her outstretched hand, I put my leg on the rock wall and
climbed up the cliff by myself. I slipped on frozen sections several times,
landing on my a.s.s in the netting each time. On my third try, I succeeded
at climbing about seven feet up the cliff.
I collapsed on the edge. Misaki stood in front of me.
Grabbing my hand, she pulled me toward the highway as hard as she
could. She was trying to get me away from the edge as quickly as
possible, and I ended up dragged along the top of the snow.
When we arrived in front of the bench, where we had been sitting a
few minutes earlier, she started hitting me. She hit me over and over. In
the end, I also suffered a shoulder tackle. I rolled onto my back, and
Misaki leaned over me. She buried her face in my chest, letting out sobs
that weren"t even words.
My right hand, which had been slashed by the box cutter, started to
hurt. The bleeding wouldn"t stop.
Misaki grasped my palm. I roughly pushed away her hand, and a bit
of blood splashed onto her cheeks. She didn"t even try to wipe it off.
Sitting on top of me, she was crying. I tried to push her aside, but she
wouldn"t break her hold on me. She pushed down my shoulders and
stayed like that for a long time, trembling. Still shaking, she raised her
fists, punching my chest. She hit me over and over and over.
In the end, my face got beaten up, too.
She knew no limits. My consciousness was fading.
Raising her fist again, Misaki said, "You can"t die."
I was silent, without any answer. So, she hit me in the face once
more. "Please, don"t die." 
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231
As I didn"t want to be punched any more than this, I had no choice
but to nod. So, I nodded and somehow managed to make myself smile.
Next, I thought of telling her some kind of joke. But that was
impossible.
Letting out a noise, I cried.
Misaki didn"t look away from me. She just kept staring and staring.
Eventually, we returned to ourselves. At this rate, we were going to
freeze to death, so we decided to put the cape behind us for the time
being.
Life is painful and difficult. A lot of things really will get the best of you.
It"s actually rather hard.
Having made it back onto the road, I realized something terrible:
How would we get back to the station?
"It took almost an hour by taxi, which means. . . "
"Yeah, if we walk to the station, it"ll take until morning."
I felt a wave of despair.
Misaki pulled at me. "There"s an abandoned home nearby, but. . . "
"An abandoned home?"
"My house."
After about a ten minute walk, we came to the abandoned house.
The window panes were shattered, and a large hole had opened in the
front door. We spent the whole night in a house that looked about ready
to collapse. Surprisingly, though, I don"t remember it being all that cold.
We talked and talked about all sorts of things in that house, where 
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there was a missing floorboard with every step. Misaki told me about her
memories of that house. Most of them were tragic, but a few were kind
of nice, too.
"My first rather. . . I don"t even remember his face, but he named me.
Because there"s a beautiful cape nearby, he called me "Misaki," meaning
"cape." It"s been a rather appropriate name, don"t you think?"
I laughed.
Eventually, I grew a little tired. After I had fallen into a few seconds
of sleep, Misaki suddenly shook me lightly. "In the end, what"s the
N.H.K.?"
As it would be a long discussion, I didn"t repeat my explanation.
Misaki got out from under the coat she"d been using as a blanket, and
she pulled her secret notebook from her bag.
"I thought of an N.H.K., too."
"Huh?"
"It"s dark, so can you use your lighter? Oh! It"s okay, I can read the
letters, even in the darkness," she said quickly, as she started writing
something in her secret notebook with a ballpoint pen.
"Um, okay, it"s finished." She tore out the page and handed it to me.
The only light came from the moon s.h.i.+ning in through the window.
Lying face up, I forced my eyes into focus to read the contents of the
paper. 
Welcome to the N.H.K.!
233
Contract for Members.h.i.+p in the N.H.K.
(Nihon Hitojichi Kokankai)40
The purpose of the Hitojichi Kokankai:
Members will exchange hostages with each other; you offer your
lives to each other, as hostages. In other words, it means, "if you die, I
die, too, dammit!" If we agree to this, then we will be unable to act, like
nuclear powers, glaring at each other during a cold war. And even if we
want to die, we will be unable to.
If the situation turns into, "I don"t care, even if you die," then this
group"s system has failed. Let"s make sure that it doesn"t become that
way!
President of the N.H.K., Misaki Nakahara
Name: _____________ Member #: _______________
"Look, sign it quickly."
I took the ballpoint pen from her. I was troubled by it for a while. In
the end, nothing at all had been resolved. It wasn"t as though anything
had changed.
"Let"s look forward in life"? Are you an idiot?! We have dreams, so we"re
okay? We don"t have any kind of dreams! 
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I wondered if I would have to go on living every day, whispering to
myself, I can"t take it anymore.
Is that okay? What do you think?
I worried back and forth about this for a little bit; in the end, though,
I just signed the contract.
Meanwhile, Misaki, shutting the contract back in her bag, grabbed
my shoulders and pulled me close. Our eyes met at point-blank range.
And then, in a loud voice, she declared, "Welcome to the N.H.K.!"
Her overly enthusiastic expression struck a humorous chord.
Fending off a fit of stifled laughter, I thought to myself, I don"t know how
long this can continue, hut I"ll try as hard as I can.
I made this small decision.
N.H.K. Member #1, Satou Tatsuhiro, had been born.