Tomodachi (Friend)

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HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! 😄

May everyday of the new year bring you happiness, laughter and a THIRST FOR SCARY THINGS! 

(Translated and Arranged by Saya)

I’ve just remembered a strange friend I had when I was a kid. 

Both my parents worked at the time, so I was a so-called latchkey child. 

Having said that, I would usually stay at a daycare centre after school, so I would be alone at home for only an hour or so. 

And that one hour was spent chatting with the “Tomodachi (Note: a friend).” 

He was a ventriloquist dummy that we kept at home for some reason, and he was somehow well-dressed and had an attractive face of about a 15 year-old boy. 

I heard that he was bought at an antique shop by my parents who fell in love with him… 

But anyway, he was very talkative. 

Placed on top of a chest of drawers in a Japanese-style room, he would sit up whenever he saw me come in (it was apparently structurally impossible for him to stand up), crossing his legs and joining his hands on top of them. 

A Japanese-style room

He was a real snob. Very pretentious. 

And then, he would start telling me many stories. 

The stories he told me were usually about his life experiences. 

Like which plays he had been in, and so on. 

(Thanks to this, I became familiar with many fairytales and other such stuff although I rarely read books.) 

Then, one day ——

I was talking to this “Tomodachi” as usual about random things. 

But suddenly, he started saying something strange. 

“Now, it’s nearly time for us to say farewell. 

***(my name) needs to do something quite urgently. 

Prepare for an excursion. Put all the snacks and sweets you have into a rucksack, and place it beside your futon. 

Don’t forget to put all your important things in there too — so that you can leave anytime you want to. 

Make sure you take some change of clothes, just in case. 

What? Me? 

Of course, I am leaving too. 

To somewhere that is more interesting than here. 

It looks like an even more interesting place than where you are going.” 

Those were the kind of things he said. 

Being a happy-go-lucky type of kid, I got so excited about his promise of a trip, and put all my snacks and sweets in my rucksack as he ordered me to. 

My mother thought it was just another one of my childish antics. 

And then, during the night of the same day, when I was sleeping, I was abruptly awaken by my parents and taken to the outside with the rucksack. 

I was asleep and unaware of it but it seemed there had been an earthquake. 

Turns out this was the Great earthquake of Hanshin-Awaji. 

My house crumbled to pieces. 

“Tomodachi” went missing. 

Not even a scrap of his clothing could be found. 

Such a strange tale of a strange friend I once had.