Day Two: Journal of Hikikomori

Being the diary of David Merton, a hikikomori, created using the free pen-and-paper solo RPG, Hikikomori.

It’s been a pretty weird day today. I woke up late, in the middle of my perfect graph of the number 233, coughing and spluttering as usual. The pain’s still quite bad, but it doesn't feel like it's got any worse. I think that it’s part of what’s keeping me here, what ties me here… the path to enlightenment is precarious, the pain is a mark of my devotion, even if others mock me.

So I started work on the next graph, 239. What I like best about this is that it starts on the floor by the corner of the room and then goes partly up the wall, treating the floor and the wall as one plane. It’s by no means finished yet but it looks beautiful. Staring at it now, reminding me that it’s all I have, all that’s worthy of consideration, at least.

It’s true: earlier the thought that some outside entity was thwarting my efforts to achieve… whatever is to be achieved with the graphs… became unbearable. I’d closed the curtains but the poison from the outside seemed to be seeping in. So I did something that seems crazy when I look back on it now: I went outside.

There’s only one large window letting light into the front room of the apartment, and outside, on the balcony is a large sheet of plywood. Some builders left it there months ago: it’s partially rotten but perfect for what I required. I took the hammer drill and, with an uncommon resolve, stepped outside into the harsh light, and began to mount the board against the wall.

The young father from downstairs came out of his house and started shouting up at me in Cantonese, angrily. I had no wish to converse with him, but when he saw it was me, he came up. Kept asking me, in English, what was wrong with me, what I was doing, where I’d been… it didn't stop, the questions were relentless. Luckily I only had one screw to go: I drove it home, calmly pulled my goggles off and screamed at him to leave me alone.

At first he was taken aback, but then he just laughed, maybe because I didn't stop screaming. I ran back inside and have been drawing ever since.

There’s nothing for me out there. I have the graphs, after all. They’re so perfect… it seems unlikely that someone like the neighbour would be capable of thwarting their power. I feel better now that the window’s blocked, although somehow, more hopeless.  

--MECHANICS--

At the start of each day, the player most roll for each trait. Only three traits can have an effect on the characters behaviour in one day, these being the three traits that rolled highest:

DAY 2 STATS

HOPE:                            3d10

TRAITS:                         

Health Problem               (4d10)       20

Obsessive Hobby:           (3d10)       19

Delusion (paranoid)        (3d10)       18

---------------------------------------------------

{Delusion (illogical)       (1d10)         7}

TRAIT ACTIONS

• Health roll, cause pain, result 13, no other effect
• Hobby: 24- indulge in hobby, lose 2 actions, gain 1 die
• Delusion roll- 22, hope roll 17 difference -5.
• Lose one die of hope.

Just looking at this now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have used the original rolls (i.e. the ones which traits were acting on David) rather than re-rolling. The game would have been very different! Oh well, 20-20 hindsight and all that...

PLAYER ACTIONS    

Just one action, because of my hobby...

• Combat paranoia 16 hope vs 14 paranoia
• YES! Surely hope wins… (reduce paranoia by one die)

Read the third journal entry here.