Citizens permitted to reside in a city were either Grade 1 or Grade 2, but the gulf between them was enormous.
Grade 3 citizens, who gathered in separate provincial communities, were treated like people from another world. Grade 2 citizens, by contrast, occupied a position in which they were constantly compared to Grade 1 citizens. With bitter self-mockery, they called themselves ‘beggars’ or ‘country bumpkins.’
Since the insane rent made it impossible for them to live in the center, they retreated as far as possible toward the city’s outskirts. The farther out they went, the closer Grade 2 citizens inevitably settled to the impoverished.
“…Ah, what the hell.”
A man sat up and turned on his phone screen. It was past one in the morning.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, my laundry…”
It must already be completely wrinkled.
“I thought the alarm went off. Why couldn’t I wake up?”
Grumbling, the man collected his laundry from the communal laundry room. A Grade 1 citizen would probably mock him for pretending to care about cleanliness, he thought.
‘We might not have money, but that does not mean we have no pride. We already get cursed at for being filthy. We cannot allow ourselves to become genuinely dirty.’
His tall, decrepit villa stood entangled with the entertainment district. The walls were so damned thin that its residents practically lived with every surrounding noise, and every visible fixture was rusted and creaked. Grade 1 citizens who spent their lives in the immaculate city center would certainly point at it and call it filthy.
But he could hardly go to work looking like a beggar, so this much effort was necessary. The old washing machine had failed to spin the clothes properly, leaving them saturated with water and unbearably heavy.
“Ugh.”
The stairs creaked with every step.
After carrying the laundry basket home, the man went straight to the veranda. The season…