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

At dusk, the area before the station was swarming with people in the rush hour to head home. To escape from the oppressive air, I parked my bike at an appropriate spot and entered the coffee shop where I was to meet Takenaka. Within the moderately air-conditioned space, the perspiration on my forehead instantly cooled down.

In the small, stylish store, deliberately dimly lit, were a group of high school girls on their way home from club activities, a university student-like youth with his educational supplies spread out, and a woman sipping coffee while operating a computer with one hand. Takenaka did not seem to have arrived yet.

At the counter, I ordered an iced coffee and a cranberry scone, which looked remarkably appealing through the showcase before choosing a table at the back of the store and sitting down. Ordinarily, this kind of place wasn’t the sort that I would casually enter, which made me nervous, so I inserted the green straw and sucked on my iced coffee feeling strangely uneasy.

What should I say to Takenaka initially when he showed up?

Shall I apologize or thank him first? Neither of them mattered, for that was not the main issue.

When I noticed my pathetic face reflected in the coffee, it made me involuntarily smile bitterly. Until yesterday, I never suspected that I would wind up in such a situation.

“…”

The coffee spreading in my mouth felt unexpectedly bitter, so I took a pack of gum syrup and drizzled a small amount into the iced coffee before stirring it. I raised my head and glanced around the entire store to check whether Takenaka had arrived yet.

At that juncture, I became aware of something incongruous. It wasn’t the staff nor the décor of the store.

What was strange was, you see. Usually, “customers” would be occupying chairs, right? Despite there being so many vacant tables and chairs, there was a customer standing in the store, not even choosing to be seated. A man stood unsettlingly close to a woman who was playing with her laptop, his head hung abnormally low.

Was I the only one who thought that was bizarre?

Whether he was an acquaintance of the woman’s remained unclear, however, the man was silently looking down at her, whereas the woman was either disregarding him or sipping her coffee with no concern for the highly suspicious man.

Not only the woman, but the other customers and the staff as well; nobody looked at the man suspiciously or even regarded him despite the apparent eccentricity of the situation.

A little while later, the woman shut her laptop, tucked it away in her bag, got herself ready, and rose from her seat. She headed for the doorway, followed slightly behind by the man. When the automatic door opened, the woman left the store with the man following her at the same time.

What was that… I mean, somebody would normally have found it peculiar, apart from me, so why didn’t anybody look at him? Even the staff didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

While I was gazing at them blankly, Takenaka, the person I was meeting, arrived.

Takenaka, the woman, and the strange man all crossed paths at the entrance. For some reason, even though nothing particularly unusual had unfolded, Takenaka turned around to face the woman and cast her a meaningful look. He subsequently went through the automatic door.

What was the meaning of what he had just done? Despite being clueless, the sense that I had witnessed a surreal phenomenon lingered, so I took a sip of my iced coffee to drown it out.

Before I could signal Takenaka where my seat was, he noticed me seated in the back of the store. When our eyes aligned, he gave a light nod, ordered an iced coffee from the counter, picked it up, and took a seat across from me.

“H-Hello.”

“…Sorry for being late.”

“Oh, no. Don’t be concerned, I likewise got here a while ago.”

I greeted him nonchalantly, and Takenaka was the first to apologize for his tardiness and explained to me exactly about his delay. Apparently, he had an ill-timed part-time job after the night shift and it was dragging on. Or rather, working a part-time job after the night shift was remarkable—not to mention that he met with me afterward.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Nodding his head, Takenaka looked slightly sleepy with dark circles under his eyes. I supposed any human being would have that appearance after working continuously. He was worried about me in his e-mail but I was more concerned about him.

“Um, if that’s the case, I am totally fine with changing our meeting date to…”

“…No, I am alright.”

“On but…”

“If you’ve experienced a full-fledged spiritual affliction in that place, I must speak to you at the earliest opportunity.”

“Spiritual… affliction?”

It was probably a technical term… While it was a word I never heard of, I immediately fell silent and waited for Takenaka, who was staring at his coffee and beginning to show a complicated expression.

“The term ‘spiritual affliction’ refers to the influence of Hakamada being interfered with by spirits.”

“Hah…”

“I see that you don’t understand what I am saying huh.”

“…A little.”

Takenaka, perhaps sensing my reaction, drew out a small sigh.

“I am conscious that what I am saying is unbelievable, but even so, I can’t help but say it…”

Looking at me as if he had to, Takenaka gave me a look that said he must do so.

“People felt even creepier when I told them this story and the majority of them didn’t believe me, stating they didn’t understand it or didn’t want to be involved.”

“Did you warn everyone?”

“Yes. Everyone I considered to be in danger.”

“…”

How many people had he shared this story with and how many people had believed him? I wondered whether other people shared my view of him. To some extent, I understood now why this man was so quiet and his manner of speaking was somewhat awkward.

“Please share the story with me.”

This time, I would listen to you properly.

When I said so, Takenaka paused momentarily and began to speak, though showing a hint of hesitation.

What took place that night? What was that place actually about?

From what Takenaka told me, the location where the convenience store was erected was in a significantly unfavorable position, beyond what the eye and the senses could perceive. A complex combination of the thoughts of those who dreaded it as a suicide spot and those who had indeed taken their lives there formed a space so sinister that its influence on the living was detrimental.

That space was called “spiritual magnetic field” in a technical sense.

Simply put, the spiritual magnetic field was like a powerful, gigantic barrier, and the more it affected people, the stronger the barrier grew and the more it expanded its power. To further magnify the power of the intense barrier, it can capture the living, or even the souls of those who have died there, and confine them within the barrier.

As a result of being bound to the latter, those who were imprisoned roamed around, attracted by the energy of the living, who in turn produced the subsequent victims.

In other words, a vicious negative cycle had developed. I did my utmost to grasp that much.

“So that convenience store has been constructed in the spiritual magnetic field… right?”

A silent nod was followed by Takenaka’s response.

“Most of the spirits and people’s thoughts that accumulate there are those who committed suicide or were swallowed up and lost their lives. For those spirits that harbor grudges and unresolved feelings, there is no one they envy more than a living person. That convenience store is an ideal feeding ground for the spirits and they find it highly alluring.”

“Feeding ground…”

“The convenience store is well-lit and open every day of the week, 24 hours a day. While some spirits pass by or simply casually enter, some are filled with envy and loathe the living, bringing their nefarious ways with them.”

The flashback of the woman in tattered clothes outside the convenience store staring at me with bloodshot eyes and the face of the man yelling incomprehensible words into the security camera’s full view brought back goosebumps and shivers all over my body.

“Those spirits haunt living people and try to drag them down with them. To make us suffer the same fate as they did―”

The reason for this was far too inhuman, and horror washed over me.

“Then that man I saw was…”

“He was someone who… committed suicide in a swamp deep in the sea of trees.”

“Ue… f-for real?”

The handprint sticking to my uniform… The sound of realistic water…

Any further thought of it would lead me to throw up…

“How do you know so much about this…”

“Because that person has frequented that convenience store so many times already.”

“Ugh…”

“Are you feeling sick…?”

“No, I’m fine… Please continue… Why is that person targeting me?”

“I assume that he was trying to possess you since you are a living person, Hakamada. The reason is as I said before. At that time, weren’t you extremely exhausted?”

“Ah…”

Speaking of which…

“Those kinds tend to target mentally and physically vulnerable people first because that way it is easier for them to take advantage of them…”

“Um…”

Having been told that much, I asked Takenaka, indicating with my hand to indicate that I was going to speak up.

“I guess I still don’t fully believe in spirits and stuff after all… but I do acknowledge that what happened at that time was serious… If I hadn’t been saved by… you at that time, what would have happened to me?”

“You want to… know?”

“Could it be that I would have died or something…”

“It would have been ugly…”

It was said with a straight face.

So it was real.

“No, no, no, but that kind of thing! Dying is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it!”

I tried to say something like that, but Takenaka’s eyes were dead serious.