Prologue
I was a thirty-four-year-old man with no job and nowhere to live. I was a nice guy, but I was on the heavy side, didn’t have good looks going for me, and was in the midst of regretting my entire life.
I’d only been homeless for about three hours. Before that, I’d been the classic, stereotypical, long-time shut-in who wasn’t doing anything with his life. And then, all of a sudden, my parents died. Being the shut-in that I was, I obviously didn’t attend the funeral, or the family gathering thereafter.
It was quite the scene when they kicked me out of the house afterward.
My brash behavior around the house hadn’t won anyone over. I was the sort of guy who’d bang on the walls and floors to get people’s attention without leaving my room. On the day of the funeral, I was halfway through jerking off, my body arched in the air, when my brothers and sisters barged into my room in their mourning garb and delivered their letter formally disowning me. When I ignored it, my younger brother smashed my computer—which I valued more than myself—with a wooden bat. Meanwhile, my older brother, the one with a black belt in karate, stormed over in a blind rage and beat the crap out of me.
I just let it happen, sobbing uselessly all the while, hoping that would be the end of it. But my siblings forced me out of the house with nothing but the clothes on my back. I had no choice but to wander around town, nursing the throbbing pain in my side. It felt like I had a broken rib.
The biting words they hurled at me as I left our house would ring in my ears for the rest of my life. The things they said cut me to my very core. I was completely, totally heartbroken.
What the hell had I even done wrong? All I did was skip out on our parents’ funeral so I could spank it to uncensored loli porn.
So, what in the world was I supposed to do now?
I knew the answer: look for a part- or full-time job, find myself a place to live, and buy some food. The question was how? I had no idea how to even begin looking for a job.
Well, okay, I knew the basics. The first place I should check out was an employment agency—except I seriously had been a complete shut-in for over ten years, so I had no idea where any of those were. Also, I remembered hearing that those agencies only handled the introductions to job opportunities. You’d then have to take your résumé to the place with the job on offer and sit for an interview.
And here I was, wearing a sweatshirt caked in a mixture of sweat, grime, and my own blood. I was in no state for an interview. No one was going to hire some weirdo who showed up looking like I did. Oh, I’d make an impression, for sure, but I’d never land the job.
Moreover, I didn’t know where they even sold résumé paper. At a stationery shop? The convenience store? There were convenience stores within walking distance, but I didn’t have any money.
But what if I could take care of all that? With some luck, I could borrow some money from a loan company or something, buy myself some new clothes, and then purchase some résumé paper and something to write with.
Then I remembered: You can’t fill out a résumé if you don’t have an address or anywhere to live.
I was hosed. I finally realized that, despite having come this far, my life was completely ruined.
It started to rain. “Ugh,” I grumbled.
Summer was over, bringing with it the autumn chill. My worn-out, years-old sweatshirt soaked up the cold rain, mercilessly robbing my body of precious heat.
“If only I could go back and do it all over again,” I muttered, the words slipping unbidden from my mouth.
I hadn’t always been a garbage excuse for a human being. I was born to a well-off family, the fourth of five children, with two older brothers, an older sister, and a younger brother. Back in elementary school, everyone always praised me for being smart for my age. I didn’t have a knack for academics, but I was good at video games and had an athletic bent. I got along with folks. I was the heart of my class.
In junior high, I joined the computer club, pored over magazines, and saved up my allowance to build my very own PC. My family, who didn’t know the first thing about computers, barely gave it a second thought.
It wasn’t until high school—well, the last year of junior high, I suppose—that my life got all messed up.
I spent so much time fixated on my computer that I neglected my studies. In hindsight, that was probably what led to everything else.
I didn’t think I needed to study in order to have a future. I thought it was pointless. As a result, I wound up going to what was widely considered the worst high school in the prefecture, where the lowest of the delinquents went.
But even then, I figured I’d be fine. I could do anything I set my mind to, after all. I wasn’t in the same league as the rest of these idiots. Or so I thought.
There was an incident from back then that I still remembered. I was in line to buy lunch from the school store when someone cut in front of me. Being the morally upstanding young man I was, I gave him a piece of my mind, getting all up in his face, striking an awkward, humorless, and self-conscious pose.
But as my luck would have it, this guy wasn’t just an upperclassman, but one of the real nasty ones, vying to be the school’s top dog. He and his buddies pounded my face swollen and puffy, then hung me from the school gate, buck naked, practically crucified for all to see.
They took a ton of pictures, which they circulated throughout the school like it was some simple prank. My social standing among my classmates plummeted to rock bottom overnight, leaving me with the nickname Pencil Dick.
I stopped going to school for over a month, holing up in my room instead. My father and older brothers saw the state I was in and told me to keep my chin up and not to give up and other patronizing things like that. I ignored it all.
It wasn’t my fault. Who could bring themselves to go to school under circumstances like mine? Nobody, that’s who. So, no matter what anyone said, I remained steadfastly holed up. All of the other kids in my class had seen those pictures and were laughing at me. I was sure of it.
I didn’t leave the house, but with my computer and my internet connection, I was still able to kill plenty of time. I developed an interest in all sorts of things thanks to the internet, and I did all sorts of things as well. I constructed plastic model kits, tried my hand at painting figurines, and started my own blog. My mother would give me as much money as I could cajole out of her, almost like she was supporting me in all this.
Despite that, I gave up on all of these hobbies within a year. Anytime I saw someone who was better at something than me, I’d lose all motivation. To an outsider, it probably looked like I was just playing around and having fun. In reality, I was locked inside my shell with nothing else to do during my time alone.