57: A Conversation About Hobbies

What is ‘self’?

For someone like me who isn’t involved in club activities, my days pass by with ‘part-time work’ and ‘lectures’.

I feel like I should do something, find something to do— but I find it difficult to have a ‘hobby’.”

N/A

For example, when introducing ‘A-san’ to someone, how would you say it? You wouldn’t continue with words like ‘an 18-year-old male, whose hobbies are–‘, would you?

Academic achievements, athletic ability, personal history… they are important, of course. However, when you think, “Let’s introduce these two people to each other,” it’s undeniable that ‘hobbies’ become an important starting point.

From noble mtl dot com

“He’s Rex. His hobby is overseeing the production of BL doujinshi.”

Wait a minute.

I was introduced to a newcomer in Karina’s circle, around the time of the approaching winter festival.

The town was adorned with illuminations in preparation for the Saint Maiden’s Festival the following week, but in the stark space of Karina’s university circle room, we sat face to face.

It seems the newcomer joined around spring, but I couldn’t attend the summer festival this year due to my part-time job, so the introduction happened now.

But isn’t the introduction of “hobby is overseeing the production of BL doujinshi” a bit much?

I’ve never heard of such a hobby, and it’s not like overseeing production is my hobby either.

I’m just doing it because there’s no one else to manage the schedule.

Even for me, who has been involved in overseeing the production of a couple of BL doujinshi, it was a bit disconcerting to be called a ‘hobby’.

“So what is your hobby, then?”

Yes, that.

Karina’s reasoning contains a terrible unspoken assumption.

Namely, the assumption that ‘people naturally have hobbies’.

Her attitude, unconsciously asserting that it’s unthinkable not to have a hobby, made me a little uncomfortable.

First of all, it’s strange to say “if you don’t have a hobby, overseeing the production of BL doujinshi is your hobby”. Why is it a choice between “having other hobbies” and “overseeing the production of BL doujinshi”? I don’t understand this.

I don’t have any particular hobbies.

And I’m not overseeing the production of BL doujinshi as a hobby.

It’s more like, um, it’s a sense of duty that arose from a very legitimate necessity, namely, ‘there’s no one else but me who can do it’…

“Is overseeing the production of BL doujinshi Rex’s mission?”

That’s not it either!

No, this is bad. It’s a quagmire. No matter what I say, I end up being seen as someone who places overseeing the production of BL doujinshi in an important position in life.

Certainly, it seems there are people nowadays called “fudanshi” who purely enjoy BL regardless of the gender of their romantic interests, so it’s understandable that the looks from the two newcomers directed at me are sympathetic, but…

I was troubled.

To be honest, there would be no disadvantage if it were thought that overseeing the production of BL doujinshi is my hobby. I should just let them think that—however, I want to correct that misunderstanding.

It was like a detour in life that was unnecessary.

It was my ‘obsession’, so to speak, that I didn’t want to yield to something that was unnecessary in living.

At that moment, I realized.

What my hobby is.

—

Indeed—Is it not about ‘correcting people’s mistakes’?

Imagine this.

“I’m Lex. My hobby is correcting people’s mistakes.”

…No way.

I sense the presence of a dictator.

Which is a better evaluation, a person whose hobby is directing BL doujinshi creation or a person with a dictator’s mindset?

Hmm.

…That’s right! My hobby is directing BL doujinshi creation! I’ll do my best to lead!

And thus, I stepped into an irreversible quagmire.

But I no longer feared the quagmire.

Because I was already in the swamp.

Once again, the hellish schedule for doujinshi production begins—