Today's odd story...

We meet some funny folks in the business of English intruction. Take Masaharu for example. I really wanted to get a picture of him today, but I decided that wasn't too appropriate...maybe next time. He's an unusual cat and today he told me an interesting story about his stalker. Masaharu is 40 years old and has been living in the same apartment in Tokyo for the past 20 years, costing him just over $500 p/m in rent. Sounds cheap, I suggested. He agreed. Well, it should be. There are apparantly no windows and the room's about 4 meters square. Not big...even for a skinny fella like him.
All was fine and dandy until about five years ago when some new guy moved into the apartment above him. I'm not exactly sure how it started but bad blood soon developed between the two. As there was in place an explicit rule that the apartments were for single occupancy only, he grew incencensed that the new guy had a woman living with him, and so took it upon himself to inform the building supervisor. Only, the girl wasn't living there. She just popped over from time-to-time. The reaction of the lofty neighbour was expectedly harsh. According to Masaharu, the neighbour kicked his front door in and threatened him with violence, but did not actually follow through. Lucky for Masaharu. Here's where it gets creepy. The neighbour appartently started loitering around Masaharu's door, and the general vicinity thereof, making prolonged eye contact and generally lurking about the shadowy recesses of the building. Skip to present day.
Masaharu explained to me that the stalker is his neighbour. No surprises there. However, the wierd thing is, the stalking takes place when both of them are at home, tucked away in their respective apartments. As you may imagine, apartments on each floor of most buildings are identical, so as I sit in my room typing away I can tilt my head up and imagine the exact layout of the apartment above me. In the case of the stalker, everytime Masaharu moves from the bedroom to the kitchen, the lofty neighbour makes the same move. Everytime Masaharu takes a piss, the neighbour takes a piss. Everytime Masaharu walks back into his bedroom, the neighbour can be heard padding along the exact same steps above. Everytime he takes a shower, the neighbour takes a shower. And so it goes and has apparantly gone for the past two or three years. Again he called the building supervisor and was not so politely and not surprisingly told this was all in his head.
I asked Masaharu what he's going to do. He said "wakanai". "I don't know either" I replied. Have to say, I wasn't kidding.