Not scary, but a strange little story. Or I’m just sick.
I’m currently living in Taiwan for work.
My friends sometimes come to Taiwan to visit me because it’s close to Japan and I don’t have to pay for accommodation.
This is a story about those times.
In the first week of February this year, Watanabe (pseudonym) came to visit me. （I think he is a good friend of mine. (Well, read on…)
We had kept in touch by e-mail the week before that, and even called each other to confirm the day before I left Japan.
He arrived on a flight to Taipei at 7 p.m. on Friday.
I picked him up after leaving the office and we had dinner and drinks at a club that day, a typical weekend for expatriates, so to speak.
It was the first time for him to go abroad, so even though he was an adult, he got excited and had a lot of fun.
I have known him since high school and he is my only best friend, so it was really fun to see him after a long time.
The first day we only did the nightlife due to time constraints, so we spent the second day sightseeing in the city.
I have a girlfriend over here, so the three of us went sightseeing that day.
We spent the whole day going around Taipei and its suburbs.
It was on the third day that the strange story happened. It happened on the Sunday when he was going back to Japan.
My girlfriend and I drove him to the airport.
After checking in, the three of us were talking at a restaurant at the airport.
I noticed a Tatoo on the back of Watanabe’s hand.
I had been posted to Taiwan since last July, and before that he had no such Tatoo.
He still works at a restaurant in a certain hotel in Shinjuku, so it was unthinkable that he would put a Tatoo in such a place.
By the way, when I was a student, about four years ago, I was into traveling around Asia.
I had a friend in India at that time who had Tatoo all over his body.
His name is Fujiki (pseudonym), and he has been around the world many times.
Whenever I came back to Japan, I would drink.
I recognized the Tatoo on the back of Watanabe’s hand. It was the same as Fujiki’s Tatoo.
I remembered it because I have a habit of watching my partner’s hand movements when I drink.
So I looked up and saw Watanabe’s face too, and for some reason Fujiki was sitting right in front of me.
I could not understand the situation at all. Until a few seconds before, Watabe was sitting there.
I asked him right then and there.
Fujiki, why are you here?
I said, “Huh? Where’s Watanabe?” I was like, “What’s wrong with that?”
Fujiki and my girlfriend both looked at me for a moment, and then looked at me too, and said, “What are you talking about?” The atmosphere was like, “Oh, my God, what are you doing?”
She insisted that she had definitely hung out with Fujiki on Saturday as well, and Fujiki was not taking his seriously.
I was going crazy.
I had been hanging out with Watabe since Friday.
Whether it was drinking at the club on Friday night or sightseeing on Saturday, I was talking to him.
I remember telling her about my high school days with him.
At any rate, I sent Fujiki on his way.
I asked her several times after that, but she said that as far as she knew (Saturdays and Sundays), she had only seen Fujiki and me.
After that, I was curious, so I went to the club we went to on the first day and asked some of the girls who worked there, but they told me that they had only met with Fujiki and me.
They all remembered Tatoo on the back of their hands.
Still not convinced, I asked her to develop the photos I had taken on Saturday when I was sightseeing, since I was busy with work.
And when I looked at the developed photos, it was Watabe who was in the picture.
Considering the physical evidence, it was still Watabe that I was playing with.
However, according to the stories around me, it was all Fujiki.
What is more strange is that Watanabe sent me the pictures.
Watanabe and I still talk about what we did in Taipei via e-mail.
Furthermore, I learned from a postcard that Fujiki has been staying in India since the end of last year.
Fujiki, incidentally, is completely unaware of my experience.
I still don’t know what’s going on.
