Short Story "Emotional Weirdo Emo-yama" (8) Emo-part-time

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I had only gone to the bathroom.

One night.
When I returned feeling refreshed, the woman in front of the PC was just about to fire off this tweet.

"Stop it."
I tried to brush the woman's hand away, but I was too late.
The woman posted the tweet, and 326 likes came back in an instant.

Clap clap.

"What is so good about it!"
I thought such an emo tweet should be deleted, but even as I thought that, the likes kept increasing.
Watching in silence, the likes eventually exceeded 1000, and I felt the hidden potential of Emo-yama's 50,000 followers.
That potential overlapped with the strange restlessness that the woman in front of me exuded.
Always trembling somewhere, as if her image was flickering, as if she were grainy.
If you look closely, she is a human being.
But if you just look at her roughly, you start to feel like she isn't human.
I feel like a grainy human shadow is approaching step by step, clapping, clap clap, separately.
I feel like they might even devour my residue.

Clap clap.

That said, I am also human, so I didn't feel like deleting the likes that had exceeded 1000.
I felt like if they wanted to eat my residue or whatever, they could eat as much as they wanted.
I even felt a pleasure in being devoured.
While being eaten, I clap my trembling hands together.

Clap clap.

"Well, that's fine."
I sat down on the floor and beckoned the woman over.
It was my first labor since being fired from the company.
My knees, having lost muscle strength, were shaking quite a bit.
Is this what it means to work?
My eyes must be sparkling right now.
The woman who snuggled up to me also looked at me with a smile, and
"What shall we do today?"
she even said something that sent shivers down my spine.
Although there were parts of her I couldn't help but dislike, I liked this part of her.
This woman corrupts me.

Finding out my last 50-yen coin was a fake, and having my final 4 yen of electronic currency stolen by this woman, I
left the Emo-yama tweets to her, and had to go out to work to earn real money, starting from absolute zero.
I looked at a job site I opened with trepidation, squinting.
I placed my thumb on the smartphone screen and scrolled through the job information that appeared one after another.

Words that seemed to be lined up in a slave market were too stinging to the eyes of a former genius boy, and it took some time for my eyes to get used to them.

However, I had to sell this body.

I had to refresh my feelings and decide where to sell this body and flesh.
Fresh fresh.
Like myself.
However, I don't really know myself. Other than being a former genius boy and having no money, I am completely lost. If I don't know myself, no one else can possibly know me.
"Where am I?"
I muttered while scrolling through the job advertisements.

What I wanted to focus on when looking for a job was 'topparai', which means daily payment. And I don't like manual labor.
It absolutely has to be office work with daily payment.
And what I found was an NPO.
"Interest Relationship Investigation Committee"
My thumb stopped there. My thumb tapped that string of text.

It was a done deal.

The email that came back immediately after I applied stated that an interview of sorts would be held. The date and time was 9:00 AM the next day.
The interview would be held within the committee facility, no belongings required, and clothing was free.
The only thing I was worried about was the location. I had applied without even knowing where the "Interest Relationship Investigation Committee" was. Being broke, I couldn't even ride the train, and the only way to get to my destination was by walking or borrowing money. This is what it really means to have no money; it forces you to generate time, physical strength, and interest that you wouldn't have to waste if you only had money.

Fortunately, the investigation committee was near my apartment. A 5-minute walk from JR Yamanote Line Oimachi Station. This was a fact that could be called a gospel. I even thought that maybe I was lucky.
Because this fact was an advantage for me and also an advantage for the other party. An employee who doesn't demand commuting allowance would be valuable to the organization. I already felt like I had passed the interview.

They say clothing is free for the interview, but appearance is the most important thing in an interview. Originally, I don't care about clothes as long as they aren't too cold or too hot. Clothes are things that hide what should be hidden. If I had to name the part I most need to hide right now, it's obvious. It's "being unemployed."
There is only one choice for what to wear to hide the fact that I have no job.
A suit.
The navy suit that had been hanging in my room had dust piled up on the shoulders of the jacket, making it look a bit like Christmas.
It looked like a father who had a little snow piled up on his shoulders after it started snowing.
The dress shirt was huddled in the corner of the room. It looked like an old white dog sleeping in front of a fireplace. It had grown old and hard of hearing, and hadn't noticed yet that the father had returned home in the snow.

In other words, the dress shirt had been left in the same shape as when I took it off on the night a few months ago when I was fired from the company.
There were no wrinkles on the non-iron dress shirt. This, too, could be called a gospel. I thought I was really lucky.
Just in case, I checked the smell, but it wasn't that strong. It's okay. I spread out the dress shirt and noticed a slight yellowing around the collar. Even that yellowing looked beautiful to me. The yellowing created by sweat is an organic relic created by what you might call my residue, and the fact that the color changes due to sweat means that there was some kind of biosphere here. That an organic function occurred. That an organic microcosm spread. Since the possibility cannot be denied that the Earth we live on is also an organic microcosm for something much larger, I will not hate the yellowing I created.
I saw the universe in the dress shirt, drew a heart in the dust on the jacket with my finger, blew it away with a sigh, and made a wish.

"Interest Relationship Investigation Committee" was in a building just before entering the alley of the bar district from Oimachi Station.
While kicking away the crows loitering at the garbage dump, I triumphantly climbed the building stairs to the 6th floor all at once, and while panting, I opened the frosted glass door.
The committee office, surrounded by shelves packed with yellow paper files in a narrow room, had several gray steel desks, all of which were piled high with yellow paper files. Peeking out from between the files were a middle-aged man and woman wearing black-rimmed glasses.
I was led through the yellow paper files to a small back room, and the interview began.

"My name is Misogi Numata,"
the woman bowed across the conference desk and pointed to the man next to her.
"This is Nick."
"I'm Nick."
The man bowed with a smile.

Opening the yellow file on the desk, Misogi Numata clicked her ballpoint pen to extend the tip.

"Oh dear,"

with her eyes still on the file, Misogi Numata leaned her head toward Nick.

"Why is he panting?"

Nick shifted his gaze to me, and from his puzzled look, I realized that the words were directed at me.
I answered while panting.

"I'm sorry. I came up the stairs."

My physical strength is declining.
However, words like 'decline in physical strength' should never be spoken in an interview.
I knew that much, so I kept panting in silence.
I should have brought water.
Don't they serve tea at interviews?
Would it be rude if I took off my jacket?
The trouble was, my heart wouldn't calm down.
The light coming in from the window drew a diagonal line across the brown conference desk, dividing us.

(Continued here)