Mail Delivery
This is a story from back when I was working a part-time job delivering mail while attending night school. At that time, I was at the very bottom of despair. I had been dumped by my girlfriend from school.
She was a girl who worked at my older brother's part-time job. She had been dumped by her boyfriend and was feeling down, so my brother introduced us. After two or three months of emailing, we started dating. I remember running around the school building screaming "Yessss!!" when I received that one text message asking me to go out with her.
Male students attending night school share a common longing: to date a girl who wears a regular school uniform.
For us, who couldn't attend daytime school due to various circumstances and spent our nights like dung beetles in the dark, girls in uniforms were the very embodiment of the "radiance of youth." I used to watch them with a complex gaze mixed with envy and longing.
I once asked her to kill time in front of the station because she wanted to walk home together, and I skipped club activities to meet her at the convenience store in front of the school. I remember looking back when I suddenly felt a gaze, only to see my classmates staring at me with the resentful eyes of demons from hell. Honestly, I felt quite proud.
But those days came to an end. On Valentine's Day, while she was handing me chocolate, she suddenly broke up with me. It wasn't just a bolt from the blue; it was a bolt from the abyss. With no room to even plead my case, my romance came to an end.
Because of that, I fell into the depths of despair and spent my time at work like a dead man. Just then, a part-timer in the next section quit, and since I had just gotten my moped license, I was transferred there.
On my first day of the transfer, a senior colleague carried the mail and showed me the target area. Navigating an unfamiliar delivery route is extremely nerve-wracking and tiring. While thinking, 'I hope this ends soon,' I followed my senior as he pointed out the location of each mailbox, when we suddenly arrived in an area that looked familiar.
“Oh.”
I let out a sound. Isn't this place trouble? Could it be? My heart rate increased on its own, and my hands began to tremble.
“I'm getting way too close...”
I muttered to no one in particular, my mouth set in a grim line. And then, the moment finally arrived. The place my senior pointed to with a snap was my ex-girlfriend's house.
“Are you kidding me?”
My future looked bleak. Items that were too big to fit in the mailbox or registered mail needed to be handed over in person. And since I used to visit her house often, I was acquainted with her mother, father, and siblings. What kind of face was I supposed to make?
During a drink break, I confessed to my senior.
“That house there, it's my ex-girlfriend's.”
The senior just spat out his drink and laughed. It was no laughing matter. Because of that, every morning when I sorted mail into the grid-like sorting shelves, I began a daily routine of praying, 'Please, no large packages! Please, no registered mail!'
And then that day came. I had to deliver registered mail. I wanted to avoid a face-to-face delivery at all costs, but there was no helping it now.
I pulled my helmet down low and, keeping my head down, pressed the intercom with trembling hands. The voice that answered, "Hi," was her mother's. Thinking, 'She's home, huh,' I lowered my voice as much as possible and said, "Registered mail."
When I said, "Please sign here," to her mother who came out of the entrance, her mother looked at me with suspicious eyes, saying, "Huh?" I reflexively apologized, saying, "I'm sorry..."
My mind went completely blank from that point on; all I remember is screaming "Waaaaaah!!!!" on the way home, drowned out by the sound of the 50cc engine roaring like a lawnmower as I pushed the RPMs to the limiter.
And now, please listen to Otoma's "Zundoko Bushi of Despair."