Cursed Letter

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❤️Updating Every Saturday Evening (Japan Time)

I will be taking a break next week! 

The NEXT UPDATE WILL BE ON Saturday 27th May

What’s wrong with this picture?

⭐️Although this story is categorised under “Curse” it is NOT a cursed story. So you can safely read it! 😆

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(Translated and Arranged by Saya)

When I was a junior high school student, 

“Cursed Letter” became popular at school. 

That day, I had just come back from a PE lesson to my classroom, and was trying to take textbooks out from inside my desk, when my hand came into contact with a thick brown envelope.

Typical school chair & desk in Japan 
The desk has a space for textbooks 

On the envelope it was written, with a marker pen:

“Make sure you are alone when you read this.”

I imagined it to be a love letter from someone, and took it home without telling anyone.

After dinner, I went to my own room and opened it.

But the content was something totally unexpected.

“This student in the photo was bullied by his whole class, and hanged himself.

In his suicide note, he wrote that he would turn into an evil spirit once he died, and would curse to death all the students who bullied him, as well as the teacher who was in charge of the class because he ignored the bullying.

The person who reads this letter must offer up an incense stick to the dead student, and keep praying in their heart, “***kun, may you rest in peace (Note: kun is an honourific),” until the incense stick turns into ashes. 

Once you have done that, write down your own name on the other piece of paper, and give this letter, in secret, to another student who has not yet prayed for the dead student.

You can tell your teacher or parents about this, but in that case you will run the risk of not appeasing the spirit of ***kun. 

As a result, you may suffer some misfortunes.”

Those words were written on a dingy writing paper, and the other paper already listed the names of half of my class.

The name at the bottom of the list belonged to a girl in my class whom I had barely spoken to before.

It appeared there was a pattern as to how the letter was being circulated; the person who read it would always pass it on to another person of the opposite gender.

At this point, I could still have just ignored it.

But as soon as I saw the photo that was enclosed with the letter, I felt shivers run through my entire body.

It was an old, faded Polaroid photo, and it showed a ghastly pale face of a boy, with white cotton stuffed in his nostrils. 

For some reason, his eyes were wide open, and his opaque gelatinous eyes were staring at something.

This boy is dead.

But he is staring at something, although I have no idea what.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the photo, and realised that I must do whatever the letter was asking me to do.

I went to the kyakuma (sitting room) and got an incense stick from the butsudan (family altar). *1

And then I prayed for the repose of the boy’s soul, *2 in the privacy of my own room, without the risk of being seen by my family members.

A few days later, I secretly placed the envelope into the desk of another girl in my class.

As I did so, I felt as if a heavy burden lifted off my shoulders.

I immediately went off to talk about the letter to one of my friends in my class. 

I had seen his name on the list and figured it would be harmless to talk to him about it.

“Who wouldn’t pray for the boy after seeing that photo!”

When I said that, my friend responded with:

“A photo? I don’t remember seeing one.” 

A month later, after the letter was passed on to another class, everyone in my class started talking about it.

More than half of the class claimed that there was no photo in the envelope, while some of them said they saw it for sure.

Another strange thing is, 

Two of the girls who saw the photo claimed that they saw a girl in the photo instead of a boy.

In the end, it was never made clear whether the story of  ***kun was true or not.

No one tried to look into it further or suggest we check the letter again.

Because somehow everyone felt that if someone checked it again, that someone would see his or her own face in that photo.

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*1 Watch a Butsudan on YouTube! 

A good video, although it’s not correct to say most Japanese are Buddhists. Many Japanese people do not follow particular religions, although they may follow Buddhist or Shinto practices on important occasions because those are part of their traditions.

*2  prayer for the repose of a soul — this is a translation of the word kuyo (供養). For further information, see the post Otsukare sama.