Starting a Night Shift Part-time Job at a Convenience Store.

Chapter 13.10: Woman With a Downcast Look X

I didn’t want any more sorrowful beings like Hyuga, whom nobody noticed.

“Please…”

I pleaded with my head on the ground.

“Please don’t die.”

The fact that I was pleading in a tearful voice, being pathetic about my unfulfilled regrets, and being unable to deal with this issue on my own made me realize that I was not cool, but I still was an idiot that did not want to back down.

“Please don’t die… you mustn’t die…”

I simply kept on repeating it. This was the only word I could find.

It was impossible for me to wrap my arms around her feelings in such a state. I was not skillful enough to reassure her of someone else’s sentiments.

But that didn’t mean I could simply let her leave. I couldn’t leave her alone.

…Sorry. Sorry that this was the only thing I could say.

If I claimed to grasp how daunting it was for you, it would be a falsehood. Your suffering was not something that I could fully understand. If anything, I doubted that a convenience store staff like me could understand it.

Sorry. But still…

Dying was not good. Dying was horrible.

Please don’t die.

I don’t ask you to live.

Just don’t die, please.

I had to stop this somehow, I had to do something.

I had to, I had to, I had to―

“That’s… enough.”

How long had I been doing this? Her voice regained a little bit of composure, and this time I raised my head.

“…”

Her face was still a mess, and she had red eyes with puffy eyelids. She nonetheless shut her tear-filled eyes. She said to me in a small voice, “It’s been a long time… That someone looked me in the eye… and spoke properly to me…”

I am sorry… I simply said, and staggered to my feet, powerless.

After getting up, another large drop of tears spilled out of her eyes.

“Dying to be at ease… I thought it would reset things and make me a different person. The moment of death may be painful and agonizing, but if I could just endure it for a moment and end it all… I thought it would be totally fine… Because I’m a no-good, stupid, good-for-nothing… person who is inevitably mocked… and no one will ever really say a word to me… I’m not worth living…”

Her nose was running with snot on top of crying.

“But you… a staff member, a complete stranger to me, was able to say the proper words… to me. I could feel your desperation… it was amazing… I didn’t think I, such a trash, would be told… not to die… I’m still… still alive, even though I’m still a… useless trash of society…!”

Over and over again, I nodded my head. I didn’t need to say anything; my look was enough to convey everything.

She looked at me and began to shed tears again, her voice stifled, as if she was trying to squeeze out her painful feelings.

I stood up too. Without saying a word, I just watched her.

It was painful not to be able to put my hands on her shoulders, which were trembling slightly.

She cried for a long time, and her teardrops finally ceased. In a voice that had become faint from shouting at the top of her lungs, she thanked me in a small voice.

She handed me the convenience store bag with the vinyl strings and utility knife in it.

“Can you… dispose of those… I don’t… need them anymore…”

She rubbed her tear-stained eyes before stumbling onward. With swollen feet, she walked in the opposite direction from where she had come.

While watching her off, I couldn’t completely be reassured.

I wondered if she was really okay. The distance to the town on foot from here was significant. Perhaps I should talk to Hirai and take her home on my own motorcycle.

She shook her head and said, “I can’t let you do that much for me,” as I insisted but she argued, “Well, how can I ride a man’s motorcycle so simply after all the difficulties I’ve gone through?”

“The feeling of ‘I have to live hard’ hasn’t kicked in yet… But society is not so lenient… I told myself that, and I’m going to try… a little harder… I will manage my boss by myself, too… Don’t worry, if I think it’s really dangerous, I’ll go to the… police.”

She spat out, frantically trying to maintain her energy, which was about to break down at any moment. Her body was trembling as she clenched her teeth and restrained it.

She told me that she would hang on a little longer.

I clutched the convenience store bag and watched her until she was out of sight from the road.

Over and over in my mind.

Don’t lose.

I repeated it as if I was praying.

Translator: MadHatter

“Senior.”Not shared on aggregator sites

The woman disappeared from my sight. As I stood there, a voice came from behind me.

In the darkness of the bushes amidst the sea of trees, Hyuga was standing there as I turned around.

Her mouth hung in the shape of a crescent moon as she looked at me with bloodshot eyes. She was wearing her school uniform, the same outfit she wore when she committed suicide.

“Come with me.”

After a blink of an eye, she was gone.

My brain memorized something ominous.

No matter how many people you stopped, your mistake will never return to zero from here on out.

Don’t forget that.

Was that what you meant?

Hyuga.

[…Earlier today. A woman (20), an office worker, was discovered dead after a resident reported that she had hanged herself in an apartment in XX City. According to the police investigation, the corpse had been there for several days and based on the suicide note and other evidence found at the same time, it is suspected that she had been sexually assaulted by several of her bosses. The case is being investigated as a possible suicide―]

Several days have passed since then.

I was under the assumption that everything had been settled neatly.

But…

My body, which had been feeling at peace, was paralyzed by the news broadcast that I had been watching on a random TV channel that I had turned on since this morning.

Because the words that appeared in the coverage were all too familiar to me. My mind was racing with vivid memories of that day.

XX City.

A place fairly close to my local area.

An office worker, a woman.

Age, 20 years old―

Sexually assaulted by several bosses.

Suicide note―

In her apartment…

Suicide by hanging―

[I’m going to try… a little harder…]

No way.

No way…