When I was a child, I suddenly recalled a scary experience, so I’m writing it down. It might get long, so I’ll summarize the memories little by little.
In September, my great-grandma (whom I called “oobaa”) passed away, and our whole family stayed overnight to attend the wake and funeral. Since my great-grandma was the oldest living relative and our family somehow had strong female authority, many distant relatives also gathered at the funeral.
Among the relatives, there was a boy named Shuu-chan who was just a year younger than me. He was the only one among the relatives with whom I had a close enough relationship to play together. If we were to meet, it would have been after around 15 years.
However, only Shuu-chan’s parents and sister came to the wake, and Shuu-chan, whom I had hoped to see, was not there.
At that moment, I suddenly remembered a similar incident when I was in elementary school. There was another relative’s funeral (I think it was my great-grandma’s husband), and after the funeral, I played with Shuu-chan and had a scary experience.
My paternal family is a bit different. The eldest daughter inherits the family headship instead of the eldest son. My paternal relatives, including my great-grandma, all live in the Japan Sea region, but my father is the third son, so he didn’t live locally. He moved to Osaka, and our family traditions were unrelated to those of the local area. Shuu-chan’s family also seemed to have moved away from their hometown, just like us, and they live in Kanagawa.
Every summer vacation, we would gather at my great-grandma’s house a little before Obon, participate in memorial services, attend local festivals, and spend time together as a family. Shuu-chan’s family and mine were different from other relatives since we had to travel a long way. So, we would stay at my great-grandma’s house for a few nights.
Since my great-grandma’s main house was close to the sea (you could see the sea across the road), Shuu-chan and I would go to the beach from morning until evening, playing together.
During my second or third grade of elementary school, there was a funeral at my great-grandma’s house (it was her husband who had passed away). At that time, my family stayed overnight to attend the wake and funeral. Shuu-chan’s family also stayed over in the same way.
I’ve always been a carefree person (as evident from my previous post), but during that time, I wasn’t thinking about anything at all. All I had in mind was being able to play with Shuu-chan, even more so than the funeral itself.
We arrived in the morning, had a meal, and then the wake began after a while. I only remember it being extremely boring. There was no opportunity to play at all.
The sleeping quarters were located in a separate building at the back, but it was fully occupied because other relatives had also stayed over. So, we ended up staying in the main house. I remember after dinner, some relative murmured, “Why did he have to pass away on a day like this?”
The next morning, when I woke up (it was quite early, around 6 o’clock), my great-grandma, grandma, and other relatives were bustling around. They hung small baskets made of wood or something similar in front of the house and attached strange strips of paper to them.
They hung them on every door and window, all hanging by a single string. I couldn’t help but be curious, so I playfully tapped them with my hand, but my father hit me on the head hard.
After that, they started closing the shutters (or should I say wooden doors), and they used large sheets of Japanese paper to cover the windows in the kitchen, where there were no shutters. My initial impression was that these were customs related to when someone passed away.
The farewell ceremony started early in the morning, and although I don’t remember much in between, it was mostly over by a little past noon. I might have been a heartless child, but all I could think about was being able to play once it was over.
We had lunch in between, but I remember that nobody was talking much. I forgot the exact timing, but quite early on, other relatives started leaving by car, and only our family and Shuu-chan’s family remained in the main house.
I had imagined a lively meal with all the relatives until the evening, like during summer, but I remember getting scolded for just talking a little with Shuu-chan.
We were scolded for playing and making noise inside the house. When I said I wanted to watch the TV because there was a program I usually watched in the evening, I was scolded again. They said, “Just be quiet.” Now that I think about it, neither my parents nor my great-grandma and grandma were talking much either.
I’m writing down memories as they come to mind, so the text has become somewhat rambling. I apologize for that.
Because we were so bored, Shuu-chan and I decided to talk and said, “Let’s go see the sea.”
As I was putting on my shoes at the entrance, my grandma came running with a panicked expression and hit me on the head. She grabbed my clothes and pulled me towards the dining room. Shuu-chan’s father was there, and my grandma and he had serious expressions on their faces.
“You must absolutely not leave today.” “Stay upstairs.”
That’s what they said without much conversation. Shuu-chan and I played Othello or something without talking much, and before I knew it, I was put to sleep upstairs.
I don’t know how long I slept, but I remember waking up feeling cold. When I went downstairs from the second floor, there was a fishy smell (not like a fishing spot, but a slightly strange smell of the sea). I peeked into the living room to check the time and saw my great-grandma and my parents reading the newspaper. Nobody was talking. It felt strangely unsettling. After using the toilet, feeling somewhat uncomfortable, when I tried to go back upstairs, I ran into Shuu-chan in the hallway.
“Hey, someone is coming outside tonight,” said Shuu-chan.
It seems my great-grandma had mentioned something like that this morning, and Shuu-chan seemed to have overheard it. I wanted to check it out, but the second floor was also closed off with shutters, and we couldn’t see outside.
“Should we open the window in the toilet?”
I remembered that the small window in the toilet had frosted glass and no shutters. The toilet was located at the end of the house, on the side facing the sea (the road side), so we decided to go and take a look together.
The toilet in winter was incredibly cold, but because of the imagination that something was there on the other side of the window, I felt a strange mix of excitement, like hiding in a secret base, and a spine-chilling sensation.
“Is it really there?”
I whispered to Shuu-chan, and he whispered back,
“Yeah, my grandma said so.”
The small window was positioned high, and it was beyond my height as an elementary school student to peek through it. Since there was a water supply pipe running in front of the toilet bowl, we would have to put our feet on it and lean over to look through the window. I was the first one to look outside.
Silently, I slid the window open a bit and peered outside.
There was a swinging basket under the eaves. At the edge of my vision, something long extended from the road to the house. I couldn’t quite make it out, but the end of that long object on our side seemed to be slowly moving towards us. After about ten seconds of looking, I suddenly felt a strong sense of fear and shivered, closing the window.
“Was there someone?”
“I’m not sure, but there was something.”
“I want to see too.”
“It seems like something is coming this way. Let’s run away.”
I was probably on the verge of tears. The cold and the unknown terror made me want to scream and run away immediately.
“Can we go back?” I opened the door of the toilet and pulled Shuu-chan’s hand.
“I want to see too. Just a little bit. Just a tiny bit!”
Shuu-chan broke free from my grasp and went back, putting his foot on the water supply pipe. He slid the window open and peered inside. Shuu-chan remained motionless, continuously peering outside.
“Hey, isn’t it enough? Let’s go back,” I said.
“XXkun(my name), this…”
Shuu-chan started to say but stopped halfway, his voice sounding strained as he continued to peer outside. Confused and flustered, I heard a noise behind me.
“What are you two doing?!”
Shuu-chan’s father was standing behind me with an intense expression on his face. Without a chance to explain or say a word, he grabbed me by the collar and threw me out of the toilet, into the hallway. After a brief pause, Shuu-chan was also thrown into the hallway. The toilet door was slammed shut.
My parents and great-grandma, who heard the commotion, came rushing over. My father slapped me across the face, and my great-grandma tried to grab me.
“XX(my name), did you see it? Did you see it!?”
I thought she was angry, but my great-grandma had a face that seemed on the verge of tears. Without understanding anything, I became more and more scared by the forcefulness of the adults around me.
“I looked outside, but it was too dark, and I couldn’t see clearly, so I stopped looking right away,” I replied.
Upon hearing my answer, my great-grandma shouted, “Are you sure? Didn’t you see their face!?” I nodded, and she yelled while crying. Behind that exchange, my father and my grandma, who had come in later, placed a large object in front of the toilet, blocking it off.
Shuu-chan’s father shook his shoulder and said, “Shuuji! What about you!?” I also looked at Shuu-chan, worried. Shuu-chan was smiling.
With a strained expression that seemed like a combination of laughter and tears, his voice sounding like a hiccup, Shuu-chan remained unresponsive even when his father shook him and called out his name.
For a moment, everyone was speechless, and the scene we saw in the dim hallway was so terrifying it sent shivers down our spines.
Shuu-chan had his clothes taken off and was led towards the inner Buddhist room. My great-grandma was making a phone call somewhere. In the living room, Shuu-chan’s mother and sister had pale faces.
When my great-grandma returned from the phone call, she exclaimed, “As soon as the morning comes, take Shuuji to ‘Tou**-san’!(I didn’t catch the ** part.)” Shuu-chan’s parents only nodded incessantly. I was taken by my grandma and parents, and we were led to the second floor. Once again, my clothes were taken off, and I was immediately made to change into different clothes and thrown into the bed with a blanket.
“You must not leave this room today,” my grandma said before leaving. From behind the closed sliding doors, I could hear something resembling a short Buddhist chant.
On that day, my parents stayed with me overnight. I was afraid to turn off the lights, so I clung to my parent’s legs, trembling while hiding under the blanket. Only my hands and feet felt unusually cold.
The next morning, my grandma came to pick me up, and when I went downstairs, Shuu-chan was not there. I was only told, “Shuuji had a fever, so he went to the hospital.”
When I left the room, I saw a basket-like object hanging in front of my room, just like the ones hanging on the entrance and windows yesterday.
While having breakfast, my great-grandma said something like, “You really did something stupid.” It seemed like my parents had finished getting ready to leave, so they ate quickly and soon went back home. I apologized to my great-grandma and grandma as a form of greeting before leaving the house.
The night when I returned home, I had a fever and took a day off from school the next day.
That’s the story from my childhood.
Since the following year, I was never taken to my great-grandma’s house again.
During the summer of my second year in middle school, I visited my great-grandma’s house only once, but even then, there were relatives gathered, and I couldn’t find Shuu-chan anywhere.
“Shuuji couldn’t skip the cram school’s summer course,” Shuu-chan’s mother said.
But at my great-grandma’s funeral in September this year, other relatives mentioned, “Shuuji has indeed become strange.”
I don’t know what Shuu-chan saw back then, and I’m not entirely sure what I saw either. When I asked my father about it, he only said, “There are days when you shouldn’t look at the sea.”
