Story 39
The Ema
It happened nearly ten years ago—
when I was still in middle school, during our New Year’s shrine visit.
Our family went to a shrine about fifteen minutes away by car.
It was a yearly tradition.
Since it was a local shrine, I saw a lot of familiar faces—classmates, seniors from my club—and we exchanged greetings while standing in the long line to pray.
It was the biggest shrine in the area, so it took a long time before we finally got to make our offering and draw our omikuji (fortune slip).
After that, since my older sister was taking university entrance exams that year, my parents bought her an ema—a wooden plaque for writing wishes.
My sister wrote boldly on it:
“Pass the entrance exam for XX University, △△ Department!”
Seeing that, I wanted to write one too.
So I asked my mom, “Can I have an ema too?”
She said, “Well, it wouldn’t be fair if only your sister got one,” and bought me one as well.
I decided to write about my club activity.
In big letters, I wrote:
“Win the prefectural tournament!”
After writing my name on it, I went to hang it up at the area where dozens of ema were tied together.
There was some open space near the bottom. I didn’t really want to hang mine down there, but honestly, I was already satisfied just by writing it—I didn’t really care whether the wish came true or not.
So I crouched down and started tying my ema to the rack.
Then, I happened to glance at the ema hanging right next to mine.
It said:
“I wish that ○○ would die.”
And the name written there—full name—was that of one of my close friends from the same club.
At first, I thought I must be mistaken.
But that friend had a pretty unusual surname, so it was almost certainly them.
And the person who had written the wish—the name signed at the bottom—was unmistakably his mother’s full name.
A shiver ran down my spine.
I froze on the spot.
Someone had written an ema wishing for another person’s death.
And not just anyone’s—someone I knew.
After that day,
I never wrote on an ema again.
