Back when I was studying for university entrance exams as a ronin, I was stalked by someone at my prep school. I had absolutely no memory of interacting with him, yet in his mind, I had somehow become his girlfriend.
A guy named A-kun, who had been his classmate in high school, happened to become my friend and was attending the same prep school. It all seemed to start one day when he randomly sat next to me in class. (He later told A-kun, "She got close to me because she was after me back then.") Of course, I had never even spoken to him; I didn't know his name or what he looked like.
A few weeks later, during a lecture, an unfamiliar man sat down next to me. It was him. "I'm sitting here," he said, staring with a strangely expressionless look while his eyes darted around, which made me remember his face. During the class, when it started to rain, he suddenly spoke to me, saying, "Want to borrow my umbrella?" (Naturally, I pretended not to hear him.) His tone was oddly familiar, and his attitude was as if we were already acquaintances—a sense of "inevitability" that felt eerie. I just thought to myself that he must have lost his mind while studying for exams, and the impression stuck with me. However, for a while after that, nothing happened. Of course, far from talking to him, I didn't even remember seeing him around.
After the morning classes ended, I was standing near the crowded exit of the classroom to head to the cafeteria, when the man standing right in front of me suddenly turned around and said to me, "Shall we go eat outside today?" With a faint smirk on his face, his gaze was directed about 50 centimeters past the back of my head. Thinking he was talking to the person right behind me, I turned around too. The person behind me was completely absorbed in chatting with someone else entirely. Just as I was wondering, *Who on earth is he talking to?*, he said: "Right, XX-san?"
The man called my name. My mind went into a panic. I didn't know a guy like this. But what he just said sounded as if we always ate lunch together... My thoughts raced in circles. *Ah, it's that guy!* The one who had sat next to me before with that same familiar tone. The moment I realized that, I felt the strength drain entirely from my body out of fear, but pretending I hadn't noticed, I left the spot.
Frightened, I talked to A-kun about this. But A-kun gave me an unexpected reply: "Huh? You guys aren't dating?"
As it turned out, A-kun knew the guy. He said the guy had told him, "My girlfriend confessed to me. But she's shy, so it's a secret." Not wanting to get involved, I decided to ignore him.
However, after that, he would silently try to sit next to me in class. In the cafeteria, he would silently take a seat right beside me as if it were only natural. When I tried to board the train in the morning, he would be waiting, riding right by the door where the train stopped. Inside the train, he would just stand silently close by, and even if I ran away, he would follow me. (Always completely silent.) He would follow me on my way home (getting off just as the train doors were closing, running through crowds—it was a nightmare). He called my mother's workplace (he apparently learned the shop from listening in on a conversation with my friend) to try and get our home phone number. He tried asking my friends for my contact info... and things like that kept happening.
Throughout all this, I ignored him, and every time he got close, I persistently repeated one single, business-like phrase: "You're bothering me, so please leave me alone."
However, his delusions only escalated. He unilaterally bragged to A-kun, "She's just shy. We're taking the same university exams, and she promised that if she passes, we'll go out." A-kun apparently became scared of him too, and didn't have the courage to argue back.
Meanwhile, right around the time of the Common Test, the stalking suddenly stopped completely. I thought it was strange, but feeling a bit relieved that he had finally come to his senses.
Then came the day of the exams. He was aiming for National University A, while I was aiming for National University B. Naturally, there was no way I would be taking the exam at University A on the same exam day. A-kun happened to take the exam at University A, the same as him.
On the day of the exam, A-kun was tapped on the shoulder by the guy, who looked panicked. He reportedly shouted, "Where is XX-san? Why isn't XX-san here?!" Shocked, A-kun replied, "Isn't she taking the exam at University B?" With a dead, unblinking glare, the guy stormed out of the testing venue, muttering, "That bitch! She tricked me!! I'll kill her!!!"
The night of the exam, I got a call from A-kun, and I was terrified when I heard this story.
I'm sorry it's such an anticlimactic story, but A-kun later told me, "It seems he got admitted to a psychiatric hospital." I shudder to think what would have happened if he hadn't been hospitalized. Fortunately, A-kun and I passed the universities we were aiming for, and the guy apparently entered a distant university a year late. I'm just relieved I've been able to live my life without any further involvement with him since then.
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