Okay, I'm going outside. Time for me to say goodbye to all that hikikomori stuff. See you.

Goodbye.

For some reason, the door to my apartment didn't open. Why? Why wouldn't the door open?

Anxiety consumed me. Someone was trying to interfere with my escape.

“That's right. Mr. Satou, if you leave, you won't be a hikikomori any longer”, my speakers informed me.

So?

“Someone is getting in your way.”

The complete shock I received from that one phrase, transmitted by my speakers, was absolutely indescribable.

Interference.

Now that they mentioned it, I was reminded of the time when I first started my life as a hikikomori.

It had been a painfully hot summer day.

I stomped along, trudging up the slope to my school. Sweat dripped constantly and uncomfortably down the nape of my neck.

There were very few people on the road—maybe a couple of housewives heading home from shopping and some young people heading for the same school I was. I passed very few, though.

However, my journey to school that day was decidedly different than it had been every other day. Everyone I passed looked at me. And I was absolutely positive that though it was very, very quiet—almost so quiet as to escape my hearing—each one of them let out something akin to a giggle. Of this, I was certain.

It's true.

I'm positive.

They each saw me and then began to ridicule me! The housewives and then the students, they all noticed me and laughed.

I was astonished. Why? Why should they laugh at me?

“Hey, look at that guy. There's something wrong with him, huh?”