At the end of my second year in junior high, I had to move away.
The day before the move, I saw my classmate, M-kun, walking past my house while muttering to himself.
M-kun and I had gone to the same school from kindergarten through the second year of junior high, and our houses were in the same neighborhood, but we had barely spoken to each other since the lower grades of elementary school.
M-kun was a bit chubby, unathletic, timid, and had few friends, so I wasn't very fond of him.
That's why I don't know why I called out to him at that moment.
Even so, I remember the conversation we had back then very clearly.
"What are you muttering about?"
"I made a weird promise… I made a weird promise…"
"Who did you make a promise with, and what kind of promise was it?"
"I can't tell you because it's a promise… But wait, aren't you transferring schools? Then I guess it's fine. I'm going to stop being myself… Ah, no, I shouldn't. It's a promise, so I can't tell you."
And then M-kun walked away.
Last month, there was a reunion for the junior high school I attended until the second year. Even though I had transferred away halfway through, I was invited to attend.
Amidst all the nostalgic faces, there was one I didn't recognize. What's more, he was good-looking.
I asked a friend, "Who is that guy?"
My friend told me, "That's M-kun."
Shocked, I said, "M-kun has really changed. He looks like a completely different person. He used to be so clunky back then."
Then my friend replied, "Huh? M-kun has always been popular since back then. He hasn't changed at all."
Several other friends also said things completely different from my memory—that M-kun was great at sports, a natural leader, very popular with girls, and so on.
I didn't get a chance to talk to M-kun that day.
When I got home, I looked for the class photos and elementary school graduation album where M-kun should have been, but I couldn't find them anywhere.
The only photo I finally managed to find was from kindergarten. It showed a chubby M-kun.
I asked my mother and older sister to confirm if it was M-kun and asked for their impressions, and their memories matched mine.
So, I borrowed a junior high school graduation album from a friend.
In it was the cool-looking M-kun, bearing the exact same face as the M-kun I saw at the reunion.
Even though it was a photo taken only about a year after I last saw him.
My mother and sister were also shocked, saying, "This isn't M-kun."
And the message written by M-kun in the yearbook was:
"I am who I am. It's a promise, you know."
When I told other friends about it, they said,
"You know how some guys just transform and become dramatically hotter when you're not looking? Isn't it just that?"
Still, the discrepancies between my memories and my junior high friends' memories, along with the final conversation I had with M-kun, bother me so much that I can't help thinking about the occult.
So, I'm thinking of asking him directly, but I have no idea how to phrase it.
It would be weird to suddenly ask, "Are you the real M-kun?" wouldn't it?