I don't quite know what I'm writing anymore, it starts off so nice like The Dark Years but somewhere along the lines I just have no idea what I'm doing.
Who knows maybe I'll never get around to finishing it.
Oh I lost the original file too...
Hikikomori [1/?]~~~~~~~~
The world was a lot different than it was before, something that I had realized from the vague excerpts of history books that they would allow us to read. Of course, in the current system as it is things would have to be held back. The streets are empty, and most of the people soulless, what has the formerly glorious nation come to. I remember my grandparents asking when I was younger, they had disapproved and as I grew older I started to understand.
The system they used to have failed on them because they changed it too much, they had become so desperate to fix the economy that they had resorted to such extremes.
I'm fortunate to be born a girl in this age, because a little later and it might just be like those turbulent times in history.
The rise in hikikomoris - shut ins was the first thing.
The rise of the women the second.
The rise of entertainment the third.
These had much too drastic consequences on our society.
I would guess that many of us don't really realize it though; us younger ones have grown up in such a system and wouldn't even question it. The older ones may remember but they also remember the terror and fear that followed what happened.
We are born into a generation of shut ins.
This isn't by choice; the system has bred us like this instead of trying to fix the problem they tried to work around it.
Japan had been facing a dwindling population and they had become desperate to maintain their economic standing. They implemented things that shouldn't have been. Perhaps you can say they revolutionalized their whole system to force the shut ins into participating in the labour force without them even leaving the safety of their own homes. Perhaps at that point in time people might’ve spoken of how it would be deemed ‘immoral’, but for a country with such pride it meant nothing if for the sole purpose of lifting their country to former glory.
They enacted one policy that they would regret. Test tube children, that's what most of them were now. The future would become increasingly dominated by them as many of the other countries faced the same problems as Japan did. It solved the problem of a dwindling population, but it had produced much more.
Morality had been the biggest debate for the last half century, with all these new implementations and global pressure; there just wasn’t a way to tell right from wrong anymore. Japan had forsaken the morals placed upon them by their Western counterparts, they had done what they felt would be best for their country. In such, perhaps they derived a sense of pride knowing that they would be willing to sacrifice for their country. At least this time they wouldn’t be sacrificing lives in order to attempt to attain a distant goal.
Men especially had become increasingly bitter as they found themselves outnumbered and out positioned by women in the system. They had blamed it on a generation that had been captivated by idols and entertainments, failing to sustain their masculine dominance in the system of Japan, much different than things were merely 200 years ago.
Perhaps that was when they had first turned against things like entertainment, blamed it for all the troubles that the country was facing. The increasing amount of shut ins who found comfort in things like anime and idols. They probably managed to blame the population crisis on it too. The entertainment system had become a scapegoat for everything that had gone wrong with the country.
We don't learn about things like entertainment anymore, and you barely hear the sounds of music floating on the now empty streets. Sure they existed but, tight reins were place upon them to make sure things stayed the way it is. Rumors were that at one point society had been dominated by them.
In a way they had sacrificed things like entertainment in order to turn their country around from the doom that it had been heading towards.
I sigh as I continue down the street mumbling about the system that we were now in, of course I have no right to be saying anything. After all I am part of that generation of shut ins, and I am more than okay with things staying the way it is. Is it wrong to like stability, to avoid the trouble of changing things again? Perhaps, that's why the people speak up and try to 'reform' our country.
They of course fail; the old men that have regained their hand on high end politics like stability. Most of all they like the stable economy where money flows into the pocket without them actually having to do things other than suppressing those who 'voted' them in.
Corruption was rampant. That's the rumor on the streets of course, the streets run by reformers because no law abiding citizen would or should ever be roaming on the streets when they didn't have to.
I roam the streets only because I have been assigned one of the few social jobs left. Not exactly what I had been hoping for. Perhaps I am to blame, but perhaps it's this school system.
Ever since I had been of age all I remember is being stuck in my room where I would have to watch the daily streamed lessons from what might have been my teacher. It was hard for 6 year olds to stay calm and sit through such things, math, science, business all those things that they would leave for older kids back in the days. It's all fine of course, they don't promote it but we know that our DNA has been tampered with.
Test tube babies born to be compliant shut ins.
Perfect for the education system they had developed, consisting of daily lessons streams, yearly group examinations and rankings. Of course this was only for those that didn't belong to the rich. This was a cost saving system and they would have no of that. They opted for the older social schooling system; a way that they claimed allowed their children to make all the right bonds with the other rich kids. It was a way to propel them into the best future, or so they claimed. Naturally they were also exempt from our type of examinations and rankings that pretty much determined our future.
It was a competitive system, and no matter how hard they try they couldn't make us all geniuses. This was their way of making sure that what little money they put into the education be used best. Yearly, starting from age 12 50% failed to make it into the next schooling year. And as the year progressed, only a smaller and smaller amount made it to the next, they singled out the geniuses.
Examinations were a funny thing, all you see are stoic faces that you should know but you don't. That's because all you know are their names from the few times you need to do group activities in order to further promote your knowledge. Of course, that was all done in the comforts of our homes.
If you didn't get into the next schooling year, they assigned you to your jobs. I have been shortlisted, among the top of rank 3 they had placed me into this job while they sorted out cases of alleged cheating.
It wasn't a bad job, but it involved interacting with people and I barely knew how to interact with the same people that lived in my house. They were my parents. I used to have grandparents but they passed away, perhaps that why I feel such fondness towards the elderly that fill this senior home.
I found myself enjoy my times with all but one, the cranky old lady that seems to be always staring outside her window. Perhaps she was waiting for someone to come back to her; many of the elderly were like that. She scares me, and she's always emotionless. The only time her face seems to even twitch is when she is humming to herself.
The song's name is Heavy Rotation, a really famous song from almost 100 years ago. There isn't much beyond that, the records of the group have been blacked out like many other groups. That says much about the age of that woman, the oldest at the senior home. It always seems like she's just waiting for her time to come, perhaps that is actually the best for her.
I was eventually moved up to Rank 2, barely safe but I still returned to the senior home daily. It had been a welcomed break from the stress of learning. I liked it there, to be able to hear stories of how our society was before. Of course, many of them haven't lived nearly as long as that old cranky woman who now occasionally changes the tune that she hums. I don't bother to ask, it's irrelevant, and I'd rather not have to look at her emotionless face up close.
My seniors ask of a funny thing from me, they tell me to try and get closer to that old woman. They sigh telling me that about how she has nobody left, and her time is soon coming to an end. That ever since she had entered the system she has been reclusive and no matter how hard they just couldn't bring her back. All she does is stare out the window and hum her songs, something that they've concluded were valuable to her. After all, they were among the forbidden songs. Songs that the government had subtly oppressed seeing it as a challenge to their iron tight rule. Entertainment inspires the power to revolt, perhaps that had been what they thought.
It took a while for her to even notice me, all she does is look out her window then again it doesn't even seem like she's looking at it. Who would want to look at that bleak sky that had been contaminated by human exploitation? Rather, it would be more fitting to say that she was in her own world. If you look long enough you can sometimes see her smile. Emotions, I guess she really did have some of those. Sitting in her room, felt almost as if I were doing a bad thing. Not only was a staring at some old lady and trying to get their attention but at the same time I was hearing all of these forbidden songs. These were things that reformers would listen to, and I really didn't like the idea of being grouped with them in any way whatsoever.
The old woman, her name as Shimazaki Haruka a former member of one of the top idol groups during the period of entertainment dominance.
Topic: [Oneshots] Baking [Shimazaki Haruka & Yokoyama Yui] (Jan 10) (Read 57989 times)