Strange stories with Wakako Masuda

Junko of Gera

TW: mentions of road accidents, death

My grandfather is a psychic, so I can hear and see strange things; I'd like to share my experience with you.

Going back a few decades from the present... 

As soon as I entered high school, I made my first friend. During cleaning time, she saw me dusting with my feet whilst reading a manga. 

"You're too free," she said.

It was Junko who rushed in.

"You're finishing it, right? Miss, it's nice to meet you, let me help you, alright?"*

And that's how we became friends.

"Stop it, I'm from Gera!!"

That's how 'Junko of Gera' laughed at me for my nonsense.

It was an all-girls school, founded before the Meiji era, with strict school rules that are depressing. I used to make fun of the teachers by looking for violations of the school rules with 'Junko of Gera'.

Pinned bangs? Pin-covered head

Don't step on the heels of your shoes? Put your shoes on both your hands

Wearing a petticoat? Layering a petticoat on top of the uniform

We used to have a good laugh when we ran away from the gym teacher yelling at us with a megaphone!

I don't know why I was having so much fun...

I don't know what was so fun about it... I don't know, I just felt like every day was like an eternity.

Then, one day, Junko came into school with a huge grin on her face.

"Waka, is there someone you like?"

"I don't. Do you have someone you like Junko?" 

When I asked her the opposite, she happily and shyly held out a photo .

"That's my boyfriend."

I was surprised by Junko's unprecedently shy demeanour, but I also remember being impressed by how cute she was. I'm jealous you have someone like her.

The rest of my friends were also teasing and making fun of Junko. I was so excited to get to know this unknown place, and I wish I had more time to learn about it.

Then, on a weekend afternoon...

After a boring class, one of the girls on the class committee asked me to have ice-cream with her. We were on the same route home, and sometimes we ate together. On the way to the store, I saw Junko walking slowly. 

"Hey, why don't you buy Junko an ice-cream? I'll split it with you."

The girl was very generous and agreed to my suggestion. I immediately stopped Junko.

"I'm glad I joined this school."

Watching Junko eat the ice-cream so honestly and happily filled us with an inexplicable sense of warmth.

However, the next week... Junko was absent!

She didn't come into school for three or four days.

"You love school so much, don't you?" 

While nodding my head with my classmates, I passed the school gates in the morning, thinking that a week had finally passed and today was the day I could play with Junko...

"Wow."

I was stopped by Junko of Gera... but when I turned around, there was no one there. 

Somehow, there was a dark sensation slowly rising from my feet. 

An afternoon class without Junko was beginning to melt into the routine. In between classes, the usual gym teacher interrupted and began talking.

Junko of Gera had passed away...

She had been in a coma since she was run over by a motorcycle while running errands a week ago. And she had died that morning.

As I listened to the gym teacher's explanation, I remembered the time Junko had stopped me, and her voice. 

Later that day, the whole class attended a farewell ceremony, and the homeroom teacher, the class committee members, and I were to attend the first seven days of her life. Coincidentally, the two people that bought me ice-cream at the end were the ones who were going to tell me Junko's story. 

In junior high school, Junko was a greedy and unruly child. But after entering high school, she started coming to school everyday with a smile on her face and happily telling them about the stupid things she did with her strange friend (me).

That's how she got to know her mother and start helping out around the house...

When her father explained this, her mother broke down in tears next to him.

"It's a good thing I bought you ice-cream," muttered one of the girls on the committee to me on the way home, as if to comfort me.

The accident involving Junko was so bad that they wouldn't let me see her face. She never showed her face to me, even though I was psychic. That happy smile on her face was the last time I saw Junko of Gera.

But then...

After that... a lot of self-proclaimed psychic girls came out like bamboo shoots after the rain, claiming that Junko's spirit was there. 

It became popular to connect anything to spiritual phenomena and get scared. Junko's close friends watched the situation with bitterness on their faces.

"Junko, you look so happy right now."

When I told my pained friends the message Junko had given me, they all rolled their eyes and looked at me. I told them that she didn't hold a grudge against anyone, that somewhere along the line she knew this would happen... I told them what I had heard so far about Junko.

"I was worried about "A-chan". Do you know who she is?"

... A-chan?

From a seat some distance away from my friends who were looking around, a girl came up to me. She introduced herself as "A-chan".

It seems she went to the same junior high school as Junko. She said they had been keeping a distance from each other because they had made friends of their own...

As soon as she said that, she started cry as though she had burst into tears. Since then, the friends started to spend time with A-chan, as if they were supporting her.

And the day before the 49th day... when A-chan was listening to a cassette tape that Junko had given her, at the end of the tape

"Hahahahaha..."

At the end of the cassette tape, she heard a voice laughing as usual.

Junko seems to be happy after all! 

*The exact phrase used is "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" which is incredibly hard to translate into english. This translation is simply assumed from context cues.