The Black Kimono

One day in Japan, a man wanted to meet up with a girl he had gone to school with named Asako. They arranged to meet a popular location in Tokyo. But, on the day they were to meet, he waited for a few hours. Asako never showed up. He thought she may have forgotten or that it was the wrong day, he went home.

He called her that night and she was mad at him for not showing up. She had been at the meeting place on time, but they had missed each other. It was kind of strange, but Tokyo was big and the meeting spot busy, so the two laughed and made plans to meet at a smaller train station outside of the city.



The man got to the meeting place and waited for hours. He even got the announcers to us the P.A. system to come meet him at the exit. Again, Asako was a no show.

He called her again and she insisted that she had waited at the exit, like they had discussed. She even heard the announcement. She said she was standing at the exit but no one else was around.

Of course, this freaked them out. So, the man decided to take his girlfriend, Yukiko, with him to Asako's apartment and meet her that night. Asako agreed to this, so the man and his girlfriend headed over right away.

The three fun, everything seemed normal, and they lost track of time. The man and Yukiko had missed the last train that would take them home. Asako said that they could stay the night and pulled out the futon for them to use.

About 3 AM that night, the man woke up, unable to move. He opened his eyes and saw Asako looking down at him as she sat on his stomach. Her eyes were as black as night and her face almost pure white. Her long black hair hung in his face. Asako was wearing a black kimono and a headdress that looked like a 3-pronged candlestick with burning candles.

She moved closer, her hair moving with an abnormal wind and it caught on fire. He could feel the heat from her hair, but he still couldn't move or speak. He began to panic, especially when she began to reach for his neck. He tried to get his girlfriend's attention, but his voice refused to come out. Asako squeezed his neck, the whole time whispering something to him, but he couldn't make it out.

All of a sudden, he yelled out and heard someone moving on the bed. It was Asako, sleepy and confused. Yukiko was laying on the floor nearby instead. He refused to tell the girls what had happened. But, two months later, he and Yukiko went to a traditional Japanese play.

One character was a vengeful woman who had been betrayed in her past life. Her goal: To hunt down the reincarnation of the man who betrayed her and kill him. She was pale with long, black hair and wore a black kimono. She also wore a 3-pronged candlestick headdress, and her hair would catch fire from the candles atop it.

Later, the man went to a fortune teller and asked her about his experience. She told him that he had betrayed a woman in his past life and the spirit of the angry woman was reincarnated as Asako. Every they had tried to meet up, his protector spirits prevented them from seeing each other to keep his safe. But, when he stayed in Asako's apartment, he had trapped himself in a place where the vengeful woman could attack him. The fortune teller said he was lucky to be alive.