Chapter 43: A Completely Ordinary College Student Seeks “Destiny” Even in a Part-Time Job
“It Seems I’m Going to Have to Get a Part-Time Job”
The event to determine Meiko’s rightful claim as my childhood friend had finally come to an end, and summer was now entering that oppressive stage where the heat seemed intent on testing the limits of human endurance.
It was late June.
The season when eating lunch in the academy courtyard or on the cafeteria terrace had become an act of self-inflicted suffering. The battle for air-conditioned indoor seats was growing fiercer by the day, students rushing to claim them the moment lunch break began.
At the moment, the four of us occupied an entire rectangular table meant for four people.
Having already finished my 300-yen curry, I spoke before the cafeteria staff could silently pressure us into vacating our seats for the next wave of hungry students.
It was meant as nothing more than casual conversation.
“Apparently, I’m going to have to get a part-time job.”
“So you’re finally doing it, huh? After being terrified of it for so long.”
“I wasn’t terrified,” I replied immediately. “I simply lacked the necessary resolve.”
“Funny. Around campus people keep calling it ‘the one thing Kirishiro feared above all else.’”
“What exactly is that Kirishiro supposed to mean? You make it sound like I’m some special case instead of an utterly ordinary university student.”
The one throwing those jabs was my best friend, Taketsuru, seated beside me.
He constantly lectured me about common sense while wearing the face of a perfectly reasonable human being.
In reality, however, he was a man who had once been transported to another world and saved it.
In other words, among everyone gathered here, he was by far the biggest abnormality.
Both in terms of life history and actual abilities.
The man could literally use magic.
“But seriously, why now?” asked Kuwashima from across the table. “Ah! Don’t tell me it’s to fund our Ordinary Society summer trip?”
“That has nothing to do with it. Besides, we haven’t even decided where we’re going. Talking about travel expenses before there’s a destination is putting the cart before the horse.”
The speaker was Kuwashima, my female best friend.
A tragic girl who had spent her youth under the effects of a self-inflicted chuunibyou curse brought about by mistakes she’d made as a child.
Now that she had finally escaped that curse, she was desperately trying to reclaim the past she felt she had lost. Lately she had been enthusiastically proposing club activities and plans, though none had actually materialized into anything concrete.
She constantly talked about wanting to enjoy summer to the fullest.
The problem was that she had virtually no experience with “summer activities” to begin with.
A woman powered entirely by enthusiasm and absolutely no planning.
“Well, honestly, Gouto-kun kind of brought this on himself.”
“‘Brought it on himself’ is usually used for unfortunate outcomes, Meiko.”
“That’s exactly why I’m using it.”
The final voice belonged to Meiko, my childhood friend.
Or rather, the person who knew the circumstances behind this situation.
Not merely seemed to know.
She genuinely knew.
After all, she was the one who had informed me of the situation in the first place.
Meiko was one of those rare individuals in Japan—a country where everyone was, metaphorically speaking, a very thinly disguised ninja—whose ninja coloration happened to be unusually dark.
Apparently she possessed all sorts of traits involving superhuman physical abilities and actual ninja techniques.
I didn’t pay much attention to any of that.
The only important fact was that Meiko had now been officially recognized as my childhood friend.
That was what mattered.
“So what’s the actual reason?” Taketsuru asked again. “Why the sudden need for a job?”
After the conversation had made its rounds, the question returned to me.
I nodded heavily.
Then, wearing the expression of a man carrying the burdens of the world, I explained.
“You remember Meiko’s Childhood Friend Derby the other day?”
“Yeah.”
“After everything was settled, the event ended up operating at a loss. I covered the deficit myself.”
“Oh right, that debt thing. Wasn’t it something like two billion yen and fifty thousand?”
“Correct.”
“I still think the fifty thousand is basically rounding error compared to the two billion. Rich people really do care about every last decimal place.”
“The fifty-thousand-yen portion was collected immediately.”
“…What?”
“My allowance next month is apparently being reduced to thirty thousand yen.”
“You can’t even pay rent with that.”
Exactly.
That was the problem.
Due to various circumstances within the Kirishiro household, I was currently living the life of an ordinary university student.
An ordinary apartment.
An ordinary life alone.
And the monthly allowance supporting that ordinary lifestyle amounted to eighty thousand yen.
From that sum I paid rent, utilities, communication expenses, food costs, and social expenses.
The budget was already balanced on a careful edge.
Naturally, when money disappears, so does freedom.
Even if inspiration struck and I suddenly wanted to organize an event, ideas alone couldn’t cover expenses.
A while back, I had casually mentioned this issue to Meiko.
That conversation had somehow escalated into the Nekoyanagi family contacting my parents.
The result had been a peculiar arrangement:
The funds would be provided.
But they would be recorded as my debt.
Thus, after accounting for operating costs, sales revenue, and various cooperation fees, the final deficit became fifty thousand yen.
What I had failed to realize was that the repayment deadline was not four years from now.
It was next month.
“Um… isn’t that less a debt and more just borrowing from your future allowance?”
“You can call it whatever you want,” I said. “The important part is that if my finances collapse, my university life gets forcibly terminated.”
No one had ever clearly defined the conditions under which university life officially ended.
Still, I suspected failing to pay rent or utilities would result in consequences of some sort.
And thus, to protect my perfectly ordinary university existence, I had finally reached the point where a part-time job was necessary.
Of course, there were countless ways to make money if one wasn’t picky.
Unfortunately, I was explicitly forbidden from earning money through investments or gambling.
“So that’s the situation.”
I folded my arms.
“I must get a job.”
“Well, now I get it,” Taketsuru said. “Sounds rough, but plenty of students work their way through school. It might actually be a good experience.”
A good experience.
The phrase made me think.
Until now, I had dismissed such scenarios as unrelated to me.
But if one examined the educational light novels I had studied, protagonists struggling financially were actually fairly common.
Some worked part-time jobs to pay both tuition and living expenses because of difficult family circumstances.
Others endlessly chased money because their hobbies consumed absurd amounts of it.
The archetype certainly existed.
I possessed the necessary knowledge.
Which, naturally, created another problem.
“But Taketsuru.”
“Yeah?
“Those protagonists rarely introduce themselves as ‘an utterly ordinary high school student found anywhere.’”
“They do not?”
“Usually they say things like ‘This is normal enough.’ They generally recognize that their circumstances differ from everyone else’s.”
“I don’t know about ordinary high school students,” Taketsuru replied, “but ordinary university students working themselves half to death at part-time jobs are pretty common. So relax.”
I see.
Well, if Taketsuru said so.
Setting aside his experience saving another world, he generally provided useful advice.
And once everyone fully understood my circumstances, Meiko suddenly turned toward Taketsuru with an apologetic smile.
“Taketsuru-kun… can I ask you for something?”
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard it yet.”
“Don’t need to.”
“Come on.”
“Not happening.”
His rejection was instantaneous.
Absolute.
He refused before hearing a single word.
Watching from the side, Kuwashima tilted her head.
“Shouldn’t you at least listen?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s only one thing she could possibly be asking in this situation.”
Apparently Taketsuru could read Meiko’s thoughts.
For one fleeting moment, I wondered if he too had begun seeing hallucinations.
While I entertained that ridiculous possibility, Meiko ignored his resistance and barreled forward anyway.
“Would it really be so bad?”
“Yes.”
“All I want is for you to introduce Gouto-kun to your workplace.”
“SEE?!”
Taketsuru practically exploded.
“I knew it!”
He pointed dramatically at me.
“I refuse! Absolutely refuse! There is no way I’m letting Kirishiro infiltrate my peaceful workplace and drag his version of ordinary into it!”
“My version?”
“Yes! My workplace will become some bizarre supernatural wasteland!”
“It’s just a normal Italian restaurant! And I want it to stay a normal Italian restaurant!”
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
Meiko surrendered instantly.
To be fair, she had admitted from the start that it was a long shot.
“Meiko,” I said, “there’s no need to worry. Even I have no intention of failing at a job ordinary university students perform every day.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“I’m worried your presence alone will throw the workplace into chaos.”
“No such thing will happen.”
I answered confidently.
“I will perform only the labor expected of an utterly ordinary university student. Chaos is impossible.”
“That statement somehow makes me even more nervous.”
“Unnecessary concern.”
“Maybe I really should work there with you…”
Meiko worried too much.
Ironically, she probably possessed more part-time job experience than anyone here.
She had apparently spent most of her high school years working.
Yet despite that, she seemed strangely restrained lately.
From what I understood, someone higher up had instructed her not to interfere too heavily with my decisions.
If I invited her, she would probably join the same workplace.
Otherwise, she was expected to simply watch over me from a distance.
“By the way,” Kuwashima asked, “have you actually decided what kind of job you want?”
Of everyone present, Kuwashima seemed the least likely to have any part-time work experience.
Then again, until recently she could barely speak anything except her Kumamoto dialect.
Given that situation, few employers would have eagerly hired her.
“I haven’t decided on a field.”
“You haven’t?”
“No.”
I nodded.
“As an utterly ordinary university student, I am confident I can achieve utterly ordinary results in any profession.”
“The confidence level is incredible for someone who’s never worked a day in his life.”
And with that, lunch came to an end.
Lingering too long would only inconvenience other students waiting for seats.
As for my future workplace—
I decided I would start by gathering information.
Then I would choose.
Or so I thought.
◇◇◇
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
After our fourth-period lecture ended, we parted ways.
Taketsuru headed directly to work.
Kuwashima rushed home to watch a stream she had been looking forward to.
Meiko had family matters to attend to and left earlier.
For the first time all day, I found myself alone.
In my hand was a free local job magazine I had discovered among the university co-op materials.
Absentmindedly, I flipped through the pages.
Private tutors.
Cram school instructors.
Call centers.
Family restaurants.
Event staff.
Apparel work.
Data entry.
Resort jobs during school vacations.
And countless others.
Hourly wages.
Employee meals.
Transportation reimbursements.
Working hours.
One-time jobs.
Short-term jobs.
Long-term positions.
An endless list of conditions and requirements filled every page.
Yet none of them stood out.
Nothing felt special.
Nothing sparked anything.
If that was the case…
Shouldn’t I simply choose the highest-paying option with the shortest hours?
No.
That wasn’t right.
I stopped turning pages.
Then reconsidered.
Think carefully.
Would an utterly ordinary university student really choose a job that way?
A part-time job was more than employment.
It was a symbol of daily life.
A fleeting yet irreplaceable fragment of youth.
The sort of memory that remained in one’s heart even before a battle deciding the fate of the world.
Naturally, something so important could not be decided by conditions alone.
Perhaps it would be a bizarre establishment where no one understood how the protagonist ended up working there.
Or a shop on the verge of bankruptcy.
Or an office secretly connected to the demon world.
Or maybe there would be a sudden staffing crisis, forcing the protagonist to step in and help because they simply couldn’t ignore someone in need.
That was what made a part-time job truly a part-time job.
Wasn’t choosing solely based on wages and benefits practically an insult to ordinary life itself?
Otherwise, there would be no reason for stories to include workplaces at all.
“…I suppose it can’t be helped.”
I closed the magazine.
An utterly ordinary university student sought destiny even in part-time employment.
Therefore—
As irritating as it was—
Just this once, I would play along.
With the sweet temptation offered by the hallucination that had appeared beside the magazine.
────────────
“Job of Destiny”
Destination: Campus Bulletin Board No. 2
Time Limit: 7 Minutes
Target: Someone standing there, desperately troubled while holding a smartphone
────────────
In other words—
The path toward my perfectly ordinary part-time job began with helping that troubled person.