What I like about convenience stores is that you can buy anything, anytime, and no one’s going to say a thing.

Correction — I liked.

Everything changed that morning. I’d just finished “work” — in quotes because it was just me trying to sell merchandise online unsuccessfully — and strode…

“I’m going to buy a lot of groceries,” Sumire said. “I need you to come with me.”

I sprung from the sofa. True, I’d accompanied Sumire to the supermarket many times before. True, I was free today. True, I enjoyed this kind of modern food hunting with my wife.

But…

Trigger warning: suicide is depicted in this story.

I’m being haunted by a monster. She doesn’t want to kill me. Worse than that, she won’t let me die.

I first met her on a gray winter evening. Well, maybe not gray; I had no way of telling what the color…

I was driven by impulse. Curiosity. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I cared more about the effect than the cause.

So I created an account on the freelance platform. Username: Mr. Rental. Role: Service provider. In the About Me section, I wrote that I was a thirty-two-year-old bachelor living in…

Mio caught Sora’s hand right before he could slide it under her jeans.

“Too fast?” He unlatched his lips from hers and sat on the edge of the bed.

She joined his side, her head lowered enough to make her bangs hide her eyes. “That’s not the problem.”

“It’s an…

Manabu had been standing in front of this convenience store for almost half an hour. His feet shuffling. His heart rattling.

He wasn’t going to rob the cash register. Or hit on the clerk. Or buy condoms. This feat would be more daunting than any of those.

It was okay…

“You’re sleeping again?” Risa petted Neku, who was curled up in her cat bed like a donut, one caked with chocolate and caramel.

Neku had been sleeping a lot lately — more than the average cat, that is. Risa would wake up, and she’d be asleep. Risa would come back…

The first item of The Pile was Masao’s electricity bill.

He was on his way out of his apartment when his eyes veered to the mail catcher. He tucked his hand inside, expecting something dreadful like a wrong delivery, a legal document, or —

The electricity bill. Right, it was…