NOVEL NEXT chapter 45
45: The Path of Excrement
I was thinking about baby poop.
Poop is dirty. That’s true both physiologically and microbiologically.
It’s waste material, something that the body deems “unnecessary” and expels. Some organisms even eat their own poop for nutritional purposes, but if someone says, “I’m human, I eat my own poop,” I would honestly feel nauseated and try to avoid getting close to them.
Poop is dirty. That’s an indisputable fact.
But what about baby poop?
Seeing feces alone is enough to cause discomfort. It’s only natural to feel unpleasant about someone else’s feces. Public restrooms, forgotten flushes… I’ve had experiences I’d rather not remember, and while watching the water flow after pulling the lever, an indescribable sense of emptiness filled my heart.
But as I change diapers, I don’t feel that way.
Of course, I have no intention of eating or touching feces. However, it’s not unpleasant… that feces was truly mysterious.
“No way…”
When I brought up feces talk with Martin, that was the response I received.
It seems that in society, infant feces and adult feces are both just feces, all on the same level.
Here, I saw potential.
In other words, my sensibilities are ‘outside’ of the ‘world’.
“If feces are dirty, it doesn’t matter what kind of feces it is.”
If this is the general sensibility, then my feeling that “infant feces are not so bad, and changing diapers is not a hardship” is not general, but specific to me.
Being ‘outside’ of society was a situation to be avoided, from my perspective of ‘not standing out’.
That’s why I gracefully changed the subject without pursuing infant feces talk with Martin, and instead had a conversation that was neither harmful nor beneficial, about something unrelated to feces…
Behaving as if something is general, and distorting the content to fit the ‘general’, are different.
I did not feel the need to correct my sensibility that ‘infant feces are okay’. Instead, I considered it an invaluable trait.
In other words, resistance to infant feces is my deficiency or strength – my ‘unique sensation’, or rather, what can be called ‘talent’.
I’ve lived my life without discovering my ‘talent’.
There’s also the fact that I had given up from the start, thinking, ‘I don’t have any talent’. In a million lifetimes, I never acknowledged having any talent.
It was unfortunate. I lacked luck. A life without talent or luck cannot go well, and I’ve often thought, ‘Life is made up of (talent + effort) × luck, and without luck and talent, no matter how much effort you put in, you cannot grasp success’.
However, I had talent.
Feces!
I thought I could only follow the rails that my parents had followed for my future. No, I even stumbled against the walls of luck and talent at some point.
However, here my talent was revealed, and a new rail appeared before me, something I had never considered.
That is, to enter the path of feces.
Yes, a childcare worker.
One cannot be a childcare worker if they dislike other people’s infant feces.
It seems that the habit of three-year-olds caring for children under one year old continues, and it seems that three-year-olds often change diapers as well. However, childcare workers do not completely avoid that kind of care.
There are likely some barriers to becoming a childcare worker, and there will be many barriers to overcome after becoming one.
Of course, those barriers are not only ‘resistance to caring for other people’s children’s feces’ – as someone who is okay with feces, I have already cleared one of several barriers.
I thought this could be a significant advantage in aspiring to this path.
And the new rail that appeared before me was not just one.
There is one more path where I can utilize my talent for being fine with baby poop.
That is to say – a full-time househusband.
Taking care of someone else’s poop is not the case here. It’s my own child’s poop. There’s no reason for me to be disturbed by it.
This is the same skill that I’ve been secretly working on, and it can be directly applied to the “freeloader” that Karina and the others praised me for being “suited” for.
I can do housework. I can take care of a baby. Indeed, being a full-time househusband is a profession that requires the same skills as a freeloader if you think about it.
Above all, freeloaders don’t sign contracts, but full-time househusbands do… just considering that one point alone, stability is several levels higher for a full-time househusband than a freeloader.
I will add two new options to the list of occupations that I should aim for in the future.
Of course, only “teacher” and “childcare worker” will be shown to others, but in the top spot on my private future plans that I won’t show anyone will be a change from “freeloader” to “full-time househusband,” and as a result, “teacher (then cram school instructor)” will fall to fourth place.
Although the entrance exams are approaching next year, I no longer need to study for them.
Most of the schools I want to attend can be entered through recommendations, and if I continue to progress through the school’s university program in an escalator-like manner, there shouldn’t be any problems.
In that case, I must make use of my third year of high school for the sake of my future.
Yes – “freeloader” and “full-time househusband”… to take on these two occupations, I must overcome a difficult challenge.
That is the “partner.”
I have to find someone who can financially support me (even in the future) and be employed by that person.
And so, I will begin the search for a wife.
I have no idea how I will go about it specifically… I can’t even imagine.