This happened back when I was still in junior high.
One morning when I got to school, one of the girls came up to me and said, "I didn't know you went to A Academy, [My Name]." A Academy was a cram school in the neighborhood. I'm not trying to brag, but my grades were pretty good back then, and because my family was dirt poor, I didn't go to any cram schools. When I told her, "I don't go there," she insisted she had seen me coming out of A Academy yesterday evening. Even when I told her it must have been a case of mistaken identity, she said she clearly saw my face and even waved at me. My hometown is a rural area where everyone in the school district knows each other, so there was definitely no way I could be mistaken for someone else. But at that exact time on that day, I was without a doubt at home...
A few weeks later, a new second-hand bookstore opened in the neighborhood, so some friends and I went to check it out. The moment we stepped inside, the old man who ran the shop flew into a rage and came running over. He paid no attention to my friends and dashed straight at me. Then, out of nowhere, he yelled, "You've got some nerve showing your face here again! That's it, I'm calling your school!" Thinking, *What the hell?*, before I knew what was happening, I was dragged into the back office. "What do you think you're doing, you old bastard?!" According to the store owner, I had visited the shop the previous week on its opening day, and had stolen manga and adult magazines before running away. "I didn't do any of that! This is my first time here today!" I protested, but he wouldn't believe me, and even my friends started looking at me with suspicion. They decided to call the school, and my homeroom teacher ended up showing up.
My teacher arrived and was extremely apologetic. However, as he listened to the details, he started noticing something strange. "November 7th? Wait a minute, [My Name]. Weren't you over at Kudo's house that day?" Come to think of it, on that day in question, a few of my friends and I had gathered at a friend's house named Kudo to prepare for the school cultural festival. One of my friends hadn't told their parents where they were going, causing their mother to panic because her daughter was coming home late. Using the school's emergency contact network, the homeroom teacher had actually come to pick me up at Kudo's place. "This boy isn't the shoplifter, at least not timing-wise. I can vouch for him," the teacher said, but the store owner wouldn't accept it and got into a huge argument with him. "Well, take a look at this!" the owner said, playing the security footage. The video was in black and white and hard to make out clearly, but the person on it unquestionably looked like me. After that, with a mutual feeling of dissatisfaction, things were brushed aside with a "Well, just this once." However, the "other me" would continue to appear even after this.
In my third year of junior high, I got a phone call from a girl a grade above me. "Hey, do you know a girl named K-chan?" "No, I don't." "Really? She's in the next class, and I talked to her for the first time yesterday. When I told her what junior high I went to, she said, 'I went to the same one as [My Name]!' and brought up your name." "Oh, what middle school is she from?" "Middle school? She's actually from out of town. Apparently, she's been feeling depressed lately because you haven't been contacting her." "I have no idea what you're talking about (laughs). Is she cute?" "You really don't know?! If you're lying, you're the lowest!" "Why are you getting mad?! I seriously don't know her!" "She claims you hit on her last month and slept with her." "What?!" Of course, I had no memory of any of this. So we decided to arrange a meeting so she could introduce us. The next day, I met this girl K. I had never seen her face before, but she was definitely my type. And K knew so much about me. She knew everything. She sobbed, saying she had heard it all directly from me. She wouldn't listen when I told her it wasn't me.
I somehow managed to calm K down, and we agreed to "get to know each other better and become good friends for now." As K and I grew closer and closer—by the time I entered high school—she even came to believe the story about the "other me," and she ended up becoming my girlfriend. Then, in the summer of my first year in high school, something strange happened while I was working a part-time job at a convenience store. I had put my own Purikura photo sticker on a card that read "Staff Recommendation!" and attached it to a product. But only my Purikura photo on the card was covered in scratches. Thinking, *Who the hell would do something like this?*, I peeled the card off, and on the back were words scratched in with fingernails: *That girl was mine first, wasn't she?* Shortly after that, K broke up with me. When I asked her why, she said, "I don't want to get involved with you guys."
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