Kuroda

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(Translated and arranged by Saya) 

I still can't make sense of what it really was, but what I am about to tell you is a strange story that involves my childhood friend. 

My friend is a girl (I am male) and let's say her name is Eiko.

It happened 5 years ago. Eiko was 23 years old at the time.

She is quite pretty but a bit weird and uncommunicative, so she didn't have a boyfriend. She would often ask me if I knew any good-looking men whom I could introduce to her.

One day, when I came home from work, I ran into her in front of my house (We are nextdoor neighbours). 

When that happens, we usually stop for a chitchat. 

"Today, I thought I'd better organize my bag, so I dumped all my things inside it onto a table," said Eiko. " There were a lot of things like cumpled up tissue papers, a 100 yen coin, and some chewing gum, but among them I found a small piece of folded paper. I wondered what it was and opened it. Guess what I saw. Look."

She handed over to me a piece of paper.

It looked like a pre-order form for a DVD (the kinds you see in video rental shops), and on the back of it, there was a message. It was messily written with probably a cheap pen:

"I saw you in B____ . I liked you straightaway. 

But I didn't have the courage to go up and talk to you, so I am writing this message instead.

I am 20 years old, and a student at C____ University. People often tell me I look like the singer Hyde from L'Arc en Ciel. *1 I hope we can meet in person. Please call me or send me an email. 090-****-****, Email address ***@***." 

"Wow, creepy!"

I exclaimed unintentionally. 

B___ was the name of a video rental shop; there was one in our neighbourhood and there was another one near C___ University, too. 

Somehow, this self-proclaimed Hyde-kun managed to get closer to Eiko without her knowing, and put this piece of paper into her tote bag which hang from her shoulder.

Hyde the singer

Eiko told me she thought it was interesting and she decided to contact him. 

At the time, Eiko was desperate for a relationship, and she was also quite dumb. Even this creepy gesture seemed to be so romantic to her.

I didn't have any reasons to stop her, so I said, "Let me know how it went later," and left it at that. 

From that day onwards, Eiko would often text me about Hyde-kun.

I got these kinds of texts within the span of a week :

"I emailed him! Hyde-kun is so shy. He is so cute!"

"We decided to start off as friends. LOL."

"I called him for the first time! His voice is so deep and sexy!"

"He was really flirty today. I might see him soon. LOL."

Before long, I ran into Eiko again in front of my house again. 

"Look. This is Hyde-kun!" Eiko showed me a selfie the guy had sent her. 

But it was a picture of me.

"What...? That's me," I thought, but Eiko kept referring to it as Hyde-kun.

She was bubbling over with excitement, saying things like, "it's true he looks a bit like Hyde." 

Confused, I looked at her phone again, but it was definitely my face, no matter from which angle I looked at it. 

But as far as I knew, I had never sent any selfies to her. Moreover, I don't even look remotely like Hyde. 

 

I was so confused and even getting creeped out. So tentatively, I said to Eiko:

"Um... Actually, I think this is a picture of me."

Eiko stared at me, wide-eyed. "What are you saying? It can't be you. It doesn't even look like you." 

She snatched her phone away from my hand, and looked at the picture again. But the next moment, she threw it away with great force, shrieking like a mad woman.  

"What's wrong?"

Her movement was so violent that it sent me into a slight panic too.

Eiko replied, trembling, "The f-f-f-face...The face..."

 I picked up the phone from the ground and looked at it; the face had changed.

It wasn't my face anymore but it had become a kind of repulsively contorted face as if it was feeling really disgusted. 

"Delete it! Delete the picture now!" 

Eiko screamed. 

I was scared but decided to delete it. 

We both broke out in a cold sweat and kept saying to each other,

"What was it?"  "Was it some practical joke?" 

But of course no amount of speculation could get us closer to the truth. 

Although we felt quite uneasy, there was nothing further we could do, so we just said bye and went back to our respective homes. 

After that, Eiko got a call from Hyde-kun again but only for once. It happened around midnight. 

She was too scared to pick it up so she ignored it, but the phone kept on ringing for what seemed like eternity.

In the end, she couldn't stand it anymore and switched the phone off.

The next morning, when she switched it on again, she received a text that said "sEe you agaiN 2:30". 

Hyde-kun never contacted her again.

But this is not the end of the story. 

A year later, one day Eiko suddenly barged into my house, stark raving mad. 

She told me that she found a folded paper again in her bag. I felt a shiver run through me too. 

The message was almost the same as the previous one: "I saw you at ____ and I liked you straightaway so I decided to write this message...etc. etc." 

But this time the place he saw her wasn't in the video rental shop, but it was at an underground train station.  

The paper looked like it was a page torn from a personal organizer. 

The person who wrote it claimed that he was from ___ University, 20 years old and looked like Hyde. It was definitely him again.

As might be expected, Eiko didn't contact him, and luckily nothing bad happened that time. 

I wonder about this incident sometimes, even now.

Why was it a picture of my face?

Why did Eiko look at my face and thought it was "Hyde-kun"? 

I really don't know. I don't have a clue. 

I even wondered if Eiko pulled a prank on me, but she isn't the type of person to do that.

By the way, this Hyde-kun said his name was "Kuroda." *2

If you ever find an unfamiliar folded paper in your bag, and it was from "Kuroda," please be careful. 

Don't contact him just because you are curious; you might regret your decision later. 

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Notes:

*1 Hyde --- a Japanese muscisian known for his androgynous beauty. (Wikipedia)

*2 Kuroda --- written as クロダ in the original text. Here it consists of only Katakana but if it were to be written in Chinese characters it would probably be 黒田, meaning black field. (Japanese surnames always consist of Chinese characters.)