About a Place in the Kinki Region p.7: Reader letters 1
Addressed to the editorial department of the monthly magazine 〇〇〇〇.
Please excuse this sudden letter.
My name is 〇〇〇. I'm a university student currently living in Tottori.
I'm sending this letter because I want your help.
There's a strange man following me around.
I read an article you published on ●●●●● in the past, so I thought maybe you'd have an idea what's going on, hence this letter.
Sorry, it'll be a bit long, but could you please read the whole thing and help me out?
It was around August this year.
While we on summer vacation I, my boyfriend, and a male friend of ours went on a driving trip. We wanted to visit some haunted places, so we decided on going to ●●●●●. Since it's often in magazines and all.
Going there at night-time was a little too scary, so we went during the day.
There's supposedly a haunted apartment complex (condominium I think it's called?) and a haunted house there but with people around in the daytime it wasn't that bad.
We went to that infamous suicide spot called Building 5 and looked at a bunch of abandoned houses to try and find talismans, but nothing happened really.
Just over the mountains there was another suicide spot, the dam. So we decided to drive there too.
To get there, we drove down an old mountain road. My boyfriend was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat.
As we were driving we needed to pass an oncoming car. It was a two-lane road, but it was pretty cramped, so both us and the other car slowed down to pass safely.
I kind of glanced at the oncoming car as we passed, and it looked like the man driving was trying to say something to me. I couldn't hear him, obviously, so I had no idea what he was saying, but I was curious what it could be since he was looking right at me, rather than my boyfriend who was driving the car.
By the time we got near the dam it was already getting dark out, so it was too scary to get out of the car and walk up to it.
Instead we just kept driving to the nearby highway and looked at the dam from there before heading back home.
When we got back to Tottori it was really late.
That's when it started happening.
The day after we got back I was out with a friend, not the same one from before, at a bar near our university.
There were lots of bars and restaurants on the same street, so it usually got really busy at night with all the students and office workers coming there after the day was over.
It was about 9PM. We'd just stepped outside of the bar and were deciding where to head to next.
We were in the middle of a group of people and I was talking with my friend when they asked "who's that?"
They were pointing at a tiny little alleyway squeezed between two buildings not far from where we were standing.
There was a man there, peeking out from the alleyway. His expression was totally blank but he was saying something while facing us.
It was the same man.
I was really frightened. My friend went to take a look, but the alleyway was empty.
They said "it was probably just someone who looks like him." I assumed they were probably right.
But then it happened again around a month later.
I saw him again.
I'd just finished up for the day at university and was arriving back at my apartment around evening time. I live there alone, by the way.
I was unlocking my front door when I noticed my next-door neighbour's door opening.
I assumed they were about to head out so I wanted to say hello but, instead of my neighbour, a man's head popped out from behind the door.
It was him.
Again, it looked like he was trying to say something, but I freaked out and ran inside my apartment and locked the door behind me.
That night I had a friend stay with me.
My apartment building is women-only and, for as long as I knew her, my neighbour lived alone.
I did call the police so they could check it out. Turns out she had a friend over at the time so it was chalked up to a misunderstanding.
But then, a few days later, it happened yet again.
I needed to go to the bathroom between university classes.
The bathrooms tend to be really crowded around break times so I'd often go to the bathroom at one of the research buildings where it was less busy. That time, when I got there, every single stall was empty.
I went to the third stall, the one farthest from the door.
When I was done and left the stall, I noticed the one next to it was occupied.
I started to get a really bad feeling about it since I didn't hear anyone enter the bathroom.
I tried to hurry past it and leave but the stall door slowly crept open and I could see a man's face peeking out. His blank expression suddenly switched to a big grin.
"Come back soon, okay?"
That's what I think he said to me as I passed the stall.
But I screamed as I hurried out, so I'm not sure if that was exactly it.
I haven't encountered him since then.
Instead, he showed up in my dreams.
I was walking up a footpath in the mountains late at night.
The area was dense with tall trees and only a tiny bit of moonlight shone through the treetops.
I kept climbing the steps on the footpath up the mountain.
There were stone lanterns dotted along the path on either side, but most of them were toppled over.
At the end of the path was a torii gate, leaning slightly.
The man was there waiting for me in the gate.
His mouth was wide open.
The freaky thing is, in the dream I wasn't scared at all.
Even when I woke up, I felt weirdly content about it.
Have I been cursed?
Who is the man?
Please help.
A note is handwritten at the bottom of the letter. It appears to have been added by the editorial department.
Received by the editorial department on October 5th 2004. Sender included no contact information, so we have no way to get in touch with them for an interview. Not for publication.
Translation Notes 1-8
The translation notes are organised by part. Please be careful of spoiling yourself by reading ahead.
This is an amateur translation of the web novel 近畿地方のある場所について as posted to kakuyomu.jp by the author 背筋. The web novel is freely accessible to the public, and this translation has no relation to any other adaptions. I claim no rights or ownership of the content presented.