Dead Hours — The Last Working Microwave, Page 9
By Suha · Published
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Transcript
The old man finally takes his dish and shuffles away. The microwave sits open, and Kaito’s trembling hand reaches toward the door while he holds his bento in the other hand. A tracksuit regular slides in first with a rock-solid frozen brick of food. No visible dialogue appears. The page turns Kaito’s fragile hope into a new, worse obstacle.
Image description
Kaito reaches for the free microwave, only for the tracksuit regular to arrive with a rock-hard frozen brick of food.
About this chapter
3 A.M. One of the store's two microwaves dies with a pop and a curl of smoke, leaving a single working unit — and a slowly forming queue of night-shift oddballs who each need to heat something, each taking longer than the last: a salaryman's coffee, a student's family-size gratin, an old man who keeps opening the door to check and restarting, and the tracksuit regular microwaving something frozen solid on max time. Kaito just wants to heat his own bento and watches his turn get pushed further and further back, holding the cold box in the same dead-eyed spot as the queue grows. At dawn the delivery guy fixes the 'dead' microwave in two seconds (it was unplugged) — but Kaito's shift is ending and Rin has already eaten his bento cold on camera, because it was never getting warm anyway. She wins, he gets nothing.