MAPH 1

I hate this intersection.

In the bright morning sun, women in high heels and men in tight business suits rush past my windshield. I turn my face away to avoid making eye contact with them.

The sign at this three-way intersection to the hospital where I work seems to give pedestrians a few extra seconds. Therefore, the stopping time feels a little longer. Add to that, the side of this area, where the benches and coffee shops are always full, making the streets look even more crowded.

I'm an impatient person. I'm almost always mean to my fellow drivers and start speeding like crazy, making them barbarically honk their horns. When the vehicles in front of me are trucks and start moving, I'll immediately step on the gas pedal while thinking, "F*ck it!" or "Oh dear good driver, just kill me!", and before I know it, half of my car has stopped and I'm in the middle of the crossroad because the traffic sign was blocked by the trucks' body. That's why office workers would frown and stay away from the nose of my car.

Oh, I'm even worse at parking. I'm not good at turning right, reversing, braking, and almost always end up in the opposite lane. In short, I don't deserve a driver's license in the first place. Or well, maybe I'm actually entering a stage where I think I'm not suited for literally anything.

You see, in my entire life, in the thirty-seven years I've been born into this world, I feel that I've never been able to do anything interesting.

And no. I don't think it's my fault either. It's just that I'm not very good at living. For example, I've only been to a karaoke shop once in my life. And that was because of a welcoming party for a new doctor.

When I had just started working in a very large specialty area, a coworker came up and asked me to come to the welcome party.

"It's just a few people," he said. "No one's gonna listen to you sing if that's what you're worried about."

Sometimes I'm a very cooperative person, so I said, "Why not?"

I don't like parties but I like to get drunk. And karaoke shop usually provides various types of liquor!

Unfortunately, I can never relate to this mysterious phenomenon called socializing and having fun with other humans. I could see that the others were jumping in front of me, exclaiming, "It's fun!" I don't understand why people can be this excited, so happy to laugh out loud. I don't understand why I can't laugh as free as them? Why am I so bad at enjoying life? Anyway, many people are uncomfortable with me. Every time I went to a drinking event, everyone would choose to stay away from me.

At that time, I just felt like there was something inside me. Like a fuse that was thinning and will eventually run out. Oh, how long until the fuse explodes?

A karaoke shop in my mind looked like a karaoke shop in a western teen movie. Where people who want to sing hold a microphone close to their mouth and awkwardly follow the lyrics that appear on a tiny screen. That kind of silliness. Well...I love to sing but I avoided the mic as much as possible. All I did was sipping tea and clapping my hands in the corner of the room.

I really regretted attending the welcome party that night. I had a grudge against my mom for shoving me with sweet teen movies that were far different from reality.

"Yuge! You have to sing!"

At the final moment of the party, a large, thick palm patted my poor shoulder again and again. It was the palm of Kawagoe, one of the interns and a former rugby captain. His pat was so violent that it shook my entire body, to the point where my glasses were almost knocked out of its place. My brain was suddenly jammed and my tongue was suddenly tied. Shortly after realizing what was happening, that it wasn't my imagination, I was held, analyzed from head to toe, and forced to stand up.

"Yuge, is it true that you like pop groups?"

"Are you going to sing something modern?"

The others seemed pretty eager to see me sing. What inspired them to like that? I had no idea at that time and still have no idea now. Why would they want to talk to me? My appearance was very nerdish. I always wore a clean, ironed shirt, a neat travel bag, a backpack with shoulder straps, and plain trousers. Pen in hand, name badge, disinfectant... My figure is prominent, my face is pale, my eyes are small. And do you know what I do every weekend? I always drown myself in misery.

I'm a single guy who doesn't know how to dress up, how to drive, or how to have fun. I don't know what women like because I don't f*cking even know what I like myself.

I don't go to Akihabara to buy imported goods. I don't smoke. I've never liked anything to the point of being delusional. I think my only hobby is shooing away other living beings who try to get close to me. All in all, compared to my peers, who have good physic or intelligence, I'm more like a complete otaku package. I still love reading and watching movies... Vacation for me is all about doing a little research and housework. Watching law and order, occasionally going for a walk in the nearby botanical gardens, petting people's dogs, or hanging out (though not as often anymore) with some friends who also loathe all Resident Evil movies.

I know that my boss and my colleagues disliked me. Well, perhaps my mother too, regretted bringing me into the world.

I often dreamed of myself as someone talented and socially sophisticated. Someone naughty who would proudly say, "I did all the bad things a man can do!" and maybe have s*x with a nurse on a free bed. Flexing off my muscles or just being one of those people who complains about a newly purchased foreign car? Of course, no matter how much I want to, I know I can never be like them.

Perhaps to the party-goers at the time, my hesitation was something they took a liking to.

"Don't hide," Kawagoe looked very excited. "I've chosen a good song for you."

Everyone knew this famous girl group song. It was a song that the students at my high school used to hype. They sang it, danced to it at the end of the holidays, at the end of the year, at the beginning of the year...

One of the people grabbed the microphone and threw it to the front. The rest looked at me sighing, succumbing, and finally agreed to stand right in the middle.

Then applause and cheers. It felt like a cheer of malice and mockery.

I turned red.

This was where fire finally bursted out of my face. My hands were shaking. I didn't know where to look. Maybe I had to go ahead and sing all the Girls Generation hits with choreography included? It felt so cruel to have someone reveal your secret as a teen group fan. More so when you're a young man with no social life. One who can't hold a woman's hand without starting to have an anxiety attack. I am weak and can't even hold some old lady's hand to cross the street! But I admit I used to be interested in idols. An acquaintance once showed me a video and I said, "They're nice". And so it was. I bought a lot of magazines and collected posters of some girl groups. PussyCats Dolls, Spyce girls... That was during my school days and eventually, all these things were sent to the paper waste collection. Maybe I should have loved the all-male groups from the beginning, The Gazette or, maybe Ricky Martin who sang Maria.

How embarrassing.

"I'm sorry, I don't know the song... Uh, I can't sing..."

"Huh? I can't hear you! What did you just say?"

"Finish the song, man! Everyone has sung their parts and you're wasting our time, we're not leaving until you sing!"

"But I..." An explosive sound echoed as I inadvertently bring the microphone up to my mouth. I was surprised by my unusually shaky voice. "I really can't."

"Sing!"

Someone laughed.

And for about three minutes until the song ended, I continued to entertain them as if I were a clown.

Until today, that brutal memory will always come whenever I accidentally pass in front of a karaoke shop. Even though that karaoke shop is not the same karaoke shop where I thought I wanted to die...but the light sound of the music, the dimly lit store with strangely gaudy wallpaper, the smell of cigarettes, the awkward face of my boss who came back from the bathroom... His immense pitiful face! Those humiliations are permanent.

I drive into the parking lot, leaving the car as far away from hospital's door as possible.

It's a sunny summer morning and surely there's no one as depressed as I am. I've been thinking about changing my travel route, but in the end, there's a karaoke shop everywhere. To my grave, the memory will never change. I need to get used to it.