Back S District
Long story.
This happened in a certain area in Kyushu.
It’s about a place past the mountains of a district we'll call S Ward—a place people used to refer to as the Back S District.
(That name is a veiled reference to what’s known in Japan as a buraku—a historically marginalized community with deep social roots.)
These days, people call the area New S Ward instead.
But the older generation—my grandparents and others—still say Back S District.
The word “back” (“ura” in Japanese) itself carries a pretty negative connotation, often implying something hidden, shameful, or undesirable.
Where I grew up, we often had school lectures about buraku discrimination.
This story takes place in that kind of environment.
(Note: This is based on my personal experience, and I have no intent to discriminate against anyone.)
A few years back, a boy—let’s call him A—went missing.
(They eventually found him. He had taken his own life.)
I’m from S Ward.
He was from what used to be called the Back S District, but we went to the same high school, located in S Ward.
He was my friend.
Or at least, he used to be.
We got along during our first year.
Until the day he started bullying someone.
That someone was me.
No one stopped him. No one helped.
No one even looked.
They weren’t bystanders—they were just absent.
I begged him to stop.
But he punched me. Kicked me.
It started so suddenly, I thought it was just a fight.
I hit back once or twice.
But he was way bigger than me. Stronger.
The next day, he hit me again.
No reason. No explanation.
There was always this faint smile on his face.
And that made it even more terrifying.
Then one day, he just stopped showing up to school.
I’ll be honest—I was relieved.
Overjoyed, even.
But the relief didn’t last.
No one talked to me after that.
Not a soul.
That’s when I learned what it meant to be truly alone.
To be surrounded by people… and still feel completely isolated.
Three weeks passed.
Then one day, a teacher called me in.
This is where the conversation starts.
Teacher: "You used to be close with A, right?"
Me: "Not really..."
Teacher: "Hmm... You haven’t been bullying him, have you?"
Me: "Wait, what? Me?? You mean... A bullying me, right??"
Teacher: "No, I mean you. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Just be honest. This won’t become a big deal."
Me: "You think I was the one bullying him???"
I had no idea what he was talking about.
Somehow, in the teacher’s mind, I had been cast as the bully.
So I decided to tell him the truth.
Me: "I didn’t want to say anything, but...
I was the one being bullied. He hit me. Kicked me. Right in front of everyone."
Teacher: "Seriously? You were? Did the other students see this?"
Me: "Of course they did. Everyone saw.
But... why did you think I was the one bullying him? Did someone say that?"
Teacher: "No... no, forget it."
At that point, the teacher’s behavior was clearly off.
He seemed flustered, for some reason.
We sat in silence for a few minutes—until he suddenly spoke again.
Teacher: "So, A’s been absent, right? We don’t know exactly why.
It’s like he’s refusing to come to school. I called his house, but his parents said he wasn’t there."
Me: "..."
Teacher: "Anyway, I finally got in touch with him yesterday and asked him a few things.
He said... he’s scared of you."
Me: "What?? He’s scared of me???"
Teacher: "Yeah... that’s what he keeps saying. That he’s afraid of you."
Me: "No, that’s totally backwards. I’m the one who’s scared of him."
Teacher: "I see... Alright. Just to be clear—you're sure you haven't been bullying him?"
Me: "Yeah. I'm sure."
And with that, I was finally allowed to go home.
I’d always thought bullying was something a group did to a single person.
That’s what I’d seen back in middle school—several kids ganging up on one, demanding money, stripping them in the bathroom.
That’s what I believed bullying was.
I never imagined that just one person could target just one other person…
and drag in a teacher…
and turn the whole class into bystanders, leaving me completely isolated.
It was the first time in my life I seriously felt homicidal rage.
Not just "I want to punch him."
I genuinely thought, I want to kill him.
Starting the next day, I stopped going to school.
I didn’t have it in me.
Even if I went, I’d be completely alone anyway.
But while I was out, something happened—something I shouldn’t have seen.
And it almost broke my mind.
What happened was a suicide by jumping.
Someone jumped from the building I lived in.
I just happened to be waiting for the elevator in the hallway when it happened.
Suddenly, I heard this bizarre screeching noise—“Geeeeeeeee—”—and a few seconds later, BANG!
They said the person landed on the roof of the bike shed.
When I peeked down and saw it…
I started shaking, crying, gagging—it hit me hard.
Sure, maybe it was just pure fear.
But after everything I'd already been through with the bullying, it carved an even deeper wound in me.
It became a full-blown trauma.
Even now, I can’t ride elevators.
Well, I can manage the kind in office buildings—ones tucked inside where you can’t see outside.
But the ones in apartment buildings, with windows looking out over the city?
Those are impossible.
Because that day, I saw something that absolutely shouldn’t exist.
Right after I looked down at the bike shed, I turned to face forward again—and that’s when I saw the spiral staircase.
There was someone standing on it.
Wearing the exact same clothes, same hairstyle, as the person who’d just jumped.
(Well… the hair was a little different, maybe, but still.)
I don't think I was supposed to see that.
That figure was slowly walking down the spiral staircase.
Head down.
Step by step.
Just… descending.
Looking exactly like the person lying below.
Then—ding—
The elevator chime went off behind me.
It startled me. I flinched. Turned around.
There was someone there, too.
I think there was.
I mean, I can’t say for sure now, but at the time, I was convinced of it.
And right then—right as I turned around—
BANG.
Another impact.
But this time, the sound came from inside the elevator.
Bang.
Bang—
Baaang—
BAAAAAANG.
That did it.
I completely lost it.
I think I passed out after that.
They rushed me to the hospital.
The doctor told me to forget everything I saw and heard.
They gave me meds.
For the next week, all I could do was groan—
“Uuuuuh…” over and over.
After about a week, I seemed to be doing better.
But the truth is, I was faking it.
Fooling my parents, fooling the doctors.
I wasn’t okay at all.
If anything, it was worse.
That "BANG"—it hadn’t left me.
It was still there.
Following me around.
Around the time I finally started thinking about going back to school, I remembered A.
This all started because of him.
If he hadn’t bullied me like that, none of this would've happened.
He was the kind of person who could do this to someone.
If anyone deserved to disappear, it was him.
That’s when I thought—
“I’ll ask the bang.”
Yeah, that bang. The sound.
I thought maybe I could use it.
I know it sounds crazy.
But I was really losing it.
I mean it—
I was seriously asking the thing behind that sound to do it for me.
The next day, I went to school.
During lunch break, I told the teacher I wanted to leave early.
He knew what kind of situation I was in, so he let me go without question.
A was absent again that day.
On the way home, I ran into a man who had come to our school recently to give a talk about eliminating buraku discrimination.
He was A’s uncle, and I’d talked to him a few times before.
But this time… something was off.
At first, he greeted me like normal. Just a casual hello.
But then, right after that, he did a double-take.
He stared at me, and suddenly said,
“Ahh…”
Just that. Out of nowhere.
I thought, “Is this guy saying something to A too?”
My paranoia kicked in, hard.
I ignored him and tried to walk past, giving him a look that said, “What’s your problem?”
That’s when he suddenly started muttering—
chanting something under his breath like a Buddhist prayer.
I froze.
“What the hell?!”
I turned to look at him again.
First that weird “Ahh...” crap,
and now this guy was literally reciting sutras at me.
It was beyond creepy.
That was the first time in my life I ever hit someone first.
I know that sounds like an excuse, but I wasn’t in my right mind. I wasn’t thinking about right or wrong—I was just riding this wave of rage.
The guy crouched down, totally stunned.
“Ugh…” he groaned.
But I didn’t stop.
I kept kicking him.
Just the fact that he was A’s relative had me seeing red.
“What the hell is wrong with your whole damn family?! You people just live to mess with others or what?! You go on and on about discrimination—what, it’s only bad when someone else does it?! Huh?! Say something! You’re all born in that cursed-ass place for a reason, right?! Maybe you’re all just broken in the head!”
I just kept kicking him as I shouted all that.
And then… something completely unexpected happened.
Here’s how the conversation went:
Uncle: "Hahahahahahaha!"
Me: "?! What the hell…? Why are you laughing like that? That’s creepy as hell!"
Uncle: "Ahahaha… So it was you. You’re the one, huh? Hahaha..."
Me: "?? What? What the hell are you talking about? What’s so damn funny?"
I was still kicking him, but not as hard anymore. I was starting to feel weird about the whole thing.
Uncle: "Hahaha… Finally found you. Hahaha, no wonder A turned out like that—hahaha..."
I had no idea what he meant. Not a clue.
And that’s when the fear started to creep in.
Me: "Wait, what? You and your whole damn family planned to screw with me or something?!"
At that point, I stopped kicking him. I was too freaked out.
Uncle: "Hey. You can do whatever the hell you want, but ○○’s in pain. Even if my brother forgives you, I won’t."
Me: "Huh?! What the hell are you talking about? Your whole damn family’s out of their minds or something?!"
Uncle: "○○, just shut up for a sec. Don’t say anything until I say you can."
Me: "What the—?"
THUUUUUUUUD
That sound—loud and deep—hit right next to my ear.
A sound rang out—right next to my ear, out of nowhere.
I flinched hard and spun around.
Standing there was a pale, flat face—long and thin.
It was soaked in blood, twitching and contorted in some awful, jerking smile.
I lost it again. Completely snapped.
What I saw on that face was just… wrong.
People's faces don’t look like that. You don’t see only half of a human face—not like that.
It was like a face on a TV screen, the camera cutting off the other half. One side visible, the other gone.
That was when A’s uncle punched me. Hard.
I blacked out.
When I came to, I wasn’t in my room.
I was lying in my parents’ bedroom, next to the living room. The clock said 8 PM.
I could hear voices—my parents were talking to someone in the next room.
Light spilled in through the door.
I sat up, opened the bedroom door—and the moment I saw who was sitting there, I lunged without thinking.
It was A’s uncle and aunt, sitting across from my parents in the living room.
The moment I laid eyes on them, I flew at them.
My dad grabbed me right away and held me back, but I think I was shouting.
A’s uncle just kept repeating, “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m so sorry.”
But I couldn’t forgive him. I thrashed in my dad’s arms like an animal.
Then suddenly, my mom slapped me hard across the face.
“You need to listen to what they have to say!” she shouted.
That was it.
It felt like even my parents had turned on me. I tore myself free and ran to my room.
Grabbed my coat and my wallet, planning to get out of the house.
But when I slipped my arm into the sleeve—
I felt a hand.
Not mine.
Someone else’s hand, already inside the sleeve.
And I screamed again.
My parents and A’s uncle and aunt came running.
A’s aunt immediately started muttering some kind of sutra under her breath, while A’s uncle grabbed my coat and began stomping on it.
My dad just stood there, pale as a sheet.
My mom pressed her hands together in prayer and stared straight at me.
In that moment, I seriously thought,
“Am I going insane?”
A few minutes later, I managed to calm down a bit.
We all moved into the living room—me, my parents, and A’s uncle and aunt.
During that short walk, A’s uncle kept whispering apologies.
What happened next in the living room, I’ll never forget.
Not what was said, and not what happened.
(From here on, A’s uncle will be called Mr. B, and his aunt Ms. C.)
Mr. B: “I’m really sorry for hitting you.”
Me: “No, it’s okay. I was irritated too… so I’m sorry as well.”
Dad: “Huh? You did something?”
Me: “Yeah… I actually hit Mr. B.”
Mr. B: “Oh, no, that’s on me. I was the one who started chanting a sutra out of nowhere after seeing you. Must’ve creeped you out. It wasn’t your fault—I came on too strong.”
Dad: “I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard about that part.”
Me: “Wait—what are you all talking about? I hit Mr. B, and then he suddenly…”
And then, right there, it all came rushing back to me—
what I saw right before I blacked out.
Me: “Wait... I think I saw something before I blacked out…”
Mr. B: “Yeah, I figured. I saw it the moment I looked at you. That’s why I started chanting—I knew something was there.”
Mom: “Is he going to be okay? What exactly did you see?”
Ms. C: “Hey, do you know why the place we live is called the Back S District?”
Dad: “Well… excuse me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it meant in a discriminatory way?”
Mr. B: “That’s how outsiders see it, sure. But didn’t your grandparents ever warn you? ‘Don’t go near the Back S District,’ right?”
Dad: “Yeah, they did. But I always thought that was just part of the whole buraku discrimination thing. Isn’t it?”
Mr. B: “Yeah, you’re right. But even with all the discrimination, people still keep using the term because the history of the Back S District is... well, it’s a little off.”
Dad: “Well, my wife and I were both born in S Ward, so we’re familiar with that kind of thing. I mean, isn’t that kind of prejudice toward certain communities or hamlets basically the same everywhere? So, yeah, I get what you mean by ‘off.’”
Mr. B: “Haha. See? That’s exactly the mindset people fall into. But the Back S District wasn’t formed because of being a buraku or some group of outsiders. It was made up of people who had lived here since way back—locals from the very start.”
Dad: “I see… but I guess I don’t quite get what makes it so different.”
Mom: “Is it... that thing about the demon gate or whatever?”
Mr. B: “Hm? The demon gate? Maybe. That kind of thing. But you’ve noticed, right? A lot of people in the Back S District share our family name.”
Mom: “Yeah, there are a lot. I mean, A’s family and yours are relatives, so that makes sense, but even so—there really are a lot of people with your surname. You barely see it in S Ward, but among folks from the Back S District, it’s pretty common.”
Mr. B: “That area’s always been called a ‘spirit passage.’ Ever heard of something like ‘Name-○○○’? I forget the exact name, but it’s something along those lines.”
Dad: “I don’t know the name, but yeah, I’ve heard of something like that.”
Mr. B: “Right. That’s just the kind of place it is. Most of the families in our line have always been known to have spiritual sensitivity—at least, that’s what people said.”
Mr. B: “Some of ‘em lost it completely. Others started doing weird stuff outta nowhere. And before long, the whole area was seen as some kind of cursed village. A buraku. People started treating it differently, keeping their distance.”
Mom: “But isn’t the Back S District pretty big? Can one family’s history really define the entire area like that?”
Mr. B: “Yeah, it can. At first, it was just three or four households where people started going off the deep end. But it spread. Little by little, more folks lost their grip. Eventually it was like, what—forty or fifty cases? At that point, the whole region gets marked. You know how people are. Especially back in the Shōwa era, folks were already starting to lose faith in old stories like this.”
Mr. B: “And during the Shōwa era, there weren’t many people left who’d take stories like this seriously, y’know?”
Dad: “Still… does that really make a place into a buraku?”
Ms. C: “Well, in our family, that’s how we were taught. We raise our kids assuming they can see spirits. Some of them can’t, sure. But we teach ‘em the spirits are there anyway.”
Me: “Okay, but what’s all that got to do with what I went through? With what I saw?”
Mr. B: “Hey, kid… hadn’t you noticed anything weird about A lately? I mean, aside from skipping school all of a sudden. Anything else feel off?”
Me: “I dunno… he just started swinging at me out of nowhere.”
Mr. B: “No warning? Didn’t say anything?”
Me: “No, it was totally out of the blue. I had no idea what was going on. Wait... is that what you’re saying? That A suddenly snapped because he started seeing spirits or something?”
Mr. B: “Nah, A was sane. He just didn’t know what to do.”
Me: “Huh? No way he was sane. He started punching me outta nowhere, man—smiling while he did it. Everyone was too freaked out to help me.”
Mr. B: “Hey, when he hit you, he didn’t really hurt you, did he? I mean, don’t get me wrong—hitting you was wrong, I’m not excusing that. But in our family, when we spot a spirit, we smile. That’s the rule. To look like we’re not afraid. Makes us seem crazy sometimes. Normally, we’d just ignore it.”
Mom: “So what you’re saying is... a spirit was attached to him?”
Ms. C: “Yeah. Still is. And hey—○君, do you see anyone on the balcony?”
Me: “Huh? What? The balcony?”
That’s when I saw something—something different from what I saw before I fainted. And I damn near lost it again.
Ms. C: “It’s okay. Whatever that is, it can’t come in here.”
Dad: “Wait, what can’t come in?”
My dad couldn’t see it. Neither could my mom.
Mr. B: “Ah—sorry. Thing is, there’s something clinging to you, ○○.”
Me: “Oh... is it because I saw that person who jumped?”
Mr. B: “No, not exactly. That was probably just coincidence. Just a fluke. The thing you saw on the balcony—that was one thing. But what’s attached to you now... it’s something else entirely. Something that shouldn’t be attached.”
Me: “What?”
Mr. B: “Yeah. That’s the one you really shouldn’t have on you. It’s not exactly a ghost. In our family, we call it ××××. But don’t say that name out loud. Not ever. It spreads fast.”
(He glanced at my parents when he said it.)
Mom: “××××...”
(I don’t remember what she said exactly—something like ‘Bara...’ maybe? The rest is a blur.)
Me: “What the hell?!”
Mom: “If it’s attached to me now, does that mean ○ is okay?”
Mr. B: “No… it doesn’t really work like that. But seriously, please don’t say that word again.”
Mom: “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to my son.”
Mr. B: “Honestly, doing that might make it worse.”
Me: “Okay, can we just stop already? What the hell is this? You’re telling me some ghost’s been haunting me, and A saw it and decided to beat the crap outta me because of it? How does that make any sense? Who does that? And what, laughing while hitting me is supposed to scare it off or something?”
(I was rambling, totally overwhelmed.)
Ms. C: “Sorry… it’s probably because that’s the only way he was ever taught.”
Mr. B: “When we do an exorcism, we’re supposed to laugh while we drive the thing out. Like we’re not afraid at all—like, ‘You think you scare me?’ That kind of vibe. And when you hit the person it’s attached to, the spirit’s supposed to run off. Of course, there’s usually chanting or rituals too, but… I guess he just tried to wing it, copying what he’d seen.”
Me: “But he kicked me too.”
Mr. B: “Yeah… that was over the line. Still, the reason A hasn’t been coming to school is ‘cause he’s scared of you. Or more like… scared of whatever’s stuck to you.”
A few minutes later, after we talked for a bit, Ms. C went out to the parking lot to grab the tools for the exorcism. Mr. B stayed behind, keeping an eye on the surroundings like he was guarding me.
When they finally got everything ready and the ritual started… it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It wasn’t like the stuff you see at shrines, and it wasn’t like a Buddhist priest tapping a mokugyo and chanting sutras either. It was just them laughing—quietly, but steadily—as they muttered what sounded like prayers.
Though even “prayers” doesn’t really describe it right. It was more like a soft, continuous string of murmured butsu-butsu-butsu-butsu, like someone talking to themselves under their breath.
Then they clapped their hands a few times, waved something over my head, and tapped me gently on the forehead.
When it was over, Mr. B looked at me and said, “You’re good now.”
Ms. C added, “See? You can’t see anything on the balcony anymore, right?”
So I forced myself to peek out toward the balcony—nervously, cautiously.
There was nothing there.
From the next day on, I started going to school like normal.
(Well, sort of. I still couldn’t ride the elevator alone, so I always had to go up with my parents…)
But something strange apparently happened to A that same day.
That night, I got a call from A’s dad.
“A’s missing. He didn’t stop by your place, did he?”
Starting the next day, Mr. B and A’s parents began looking for him.
It turns out A had left a note at home—something that sounded like a runaway letter.
Because of that, the police didn’t file an official search notice. They considered it just a voluntary disappearance.
The reason A’s dad had called me?
My name was written all over that note. Again and again.
Even though I’d been told that some spirit had possessed me, that it wasn’t A’s fault...
I still hadn’t forgiven him.
Not even close.
So honestly, I didn’t care.
On the morning of the third day after A went missing, I was jolted awake by a loud, echoing THUD.
I thought I was done with that kind of thing.
But when I woke up, I was drenched in sweat, my whole body trembling. I immediately ran into my parents’ bedroom.
After a while, I convinced myself it had just been a dream.
—Or rather, I forced myself to believe it was.
Later that day, I found out A had committed suicide.
He had jumped from somewhere that morning—around the same time I heard that sound.
From that night on, I couldn’t sleep alone anymore.
They found a note, so there was no question it was suicide.
And in the note, there was a message addressed to me:
“I’m sorry. I was really awful to you.
Maybe it’s true that our family line… being from a buraku… has a lot of people who just aren’t right in the head.
I hate to blame my family for what I did, but I was wrong to hit you.
I’m sorry.”
The following night was the wake.
I didn’t want to go. Not at all.
But my parents insisted.
“You should at least show up for the memorial. Who knows what kind of bad stuff might happen if you don’t?”
So I ended up going with them, reluctantly.
The wake itself was... off. Really off.
There was no portrait of A like you’d usually see at these things.
Instead, there were sheets of paper with A’s name written on them, plastered all over the sides of the coffin.
The whole setup radiated this deeply unsettling aura—just looking at it made me want to turn around and leave.
B-san told me:
“See, if we put up a photo, the face in it starts to distort.
And what it turns into... it’s so disturbing we can’t even describe it.
That’s why, in this region, we do it this way.
Covering the coffin with papers bearing his name—it’s proof.
It says, ‘This is A. Not that.’”
I couldn’t make sense of it.
It was too weird. Too creepy.
And it chilled me to the bone.
Then A’s father came up to me and spoke.
“Sorry for all the trouble,” he said, and handed me two things—
the letter A had written before he ran away, and his suicide note.
I’d already read the part in the suicide note.
I didn’t want to see it again. I really didn’t.
But the letter—the one he left when he ran away—
that had something else written in it:
“That thing... it was attached to ○ (my name). It kept watching me, trying to kill me.
Uncle (he meant B-san) said he got rid of it, that the exorcism worked, so now it’s safe.
But I think it moved over to me instead.
Dad, you can’t exorcise it, right?
So I’m going to Mom’s family’s house.
If it follows me along the way, I’ll try somewhere else.”
A’s parents were separated, so apparently, he had been trying to get to his mother’s side of the family.
But after that, he disappeared.
Still, for some reason, the police treated it purely as a runaway case.
Not a missing person. Just a kid who’d run away from home.
I remember thinking, I really wish I hadn’t seen that.
He called it “that thing,” like I wasn’t even human.
It didn’t make any sense, and just reading it brought all the unreal, nightmarish stuff back to the surface.
I started shaking with fear again.
The fact that A had died in the early morning—that part made it all the more terrifying.
I seriously wanted to get the hell out of there.
I started thinking—I’m not the one who’s messed up. These people are.
They’re the ones who are completely insane.
There was no chanting, no incense.
Just a strange, one-story building, and a coffin laid out in the middle.
Slips of paper with A’s name were plastered all over it.
And then I noticed something even more disturbing—some of A’s relatives were actually smiling.
I’d heard creepy stories before, like how in Korea or somewhere, they hire professional mourners to cry at funerals.
But this funeral...
This wasn’t just creepy. This was way beyond that.
It was straight-up wrong.
Even my parents looked freaked out.
“Let’s just go,” my dad said, cutting the visit short without so much as a proper farewell.
A few days later, B-san told my parents something that made my blood run cold.
He said the thing that had latched onto me… was A’s grandmother.
In other words, B-san’s own mother.
She had turned into a “××××”—whatever that meant. (He never called it a ghost outright, which somehow made it worse.)
Honestly, I didn’t want to hear any more of it. I didn’t care what it was.
But B-san insisted I should know, so I listened.
Apparently, the person who jumped from the building also came from the Back S District, and had been chased by a ×××× too.
No one could say for sure why that thing had picked me, but maybe it latched on when I visited A’s house a while back.
At that point, I decided to ask about two things that had been eating away at me.
The first—
That face I saw before B-san punched me unconscious.
The second—
The person I saw on the stairs after the jump.
The one who looked just like the body down below,
who was slowly walking down the steps.
Who—or what—was that?
When I asked about the second thing—the person on the stairs—
B-san responded without hesitation.
“People who die... they often don’t realize they’re dead.”
“So maybe... he saw himself lying there and was trying to go retrieve himself.”
Then he added something that sent a chill through me.
“But when someone interferes, that’s when the curses start.”
I jumped in, almost reflexively.
“I didn’t interfere though!”
That’s when B-san's tone suddenly changed—sharp, cutting, almost angry.
“You called the elevator, didn’t you?
That ping sound? That was the interference.”
I nearly leapt out of my skin. My parents stiffened beside me.
B-san didn’t soften.
He kept speaking in that same cold, low tone.
Then B-san suddenly muttered, almost like he was talking to himself—or to something else.
“You, man… you’re not supposed to look. I can, but you’re not. Don’t look.
Don’t look at me.
You hear me? Huh? You listening? Hey?”
It was seriously creeping me out.
That’s when my dad snapped.
Dad: “What the hell are you doing?! Don’t scare him like that!”
B-san flinched hard.
“Ah—sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. It was… just something came close for a second, and I thought I should try asking it something. I’m really sorry.”
His voice and tone suddenly went back to normal.
Then, like he was trying to reassure himself more than us, he said:
“Even if it was something you weren’t supposed to see… it’s not like you looked on purpose, right? So it’s okay now, okay?”
He repeated the words to himself again.
Then finally, turning to me, he said:
“You’re safe now. I swear. I’m really sorry. That guy who died, he was being chased by that thing, too.
And the one that had latched onto you—it pissed him off. That’s why he came to you.”
As for the first question I’d asked—about that face I saw before B-san hit me—he finally answered:
“That was the ××××.”
(I remember thinking at the time—Is that even Japanese? Or maybe it’s a dialect word?)
He went on to explain that A’s grandmother had turned into one of those ×××× after her death.
And that A’s father, even knowing this, had refused to perform a proper exorcism.
“It didn’t sit right with him,” B-san said,
“to get rid of his own mom like that.”
But once A had died, he finally made up his mind.
They held the exorcism the day before, apparently.
We thanked B-san as he got ready to leave. I walked him to the door, said goodbye, and watched him step out of the house.
And then—
Right after B-san stepped outside, I heard it.
“Ahahaha… hahaha… hahahahahaha…”
That laughter. Again.
I flinched—like my whole body snapped—and collapsed to my knees.
Dad muttered through clenched teeth,
“I knew it. Those people... there’s something seriously wrong with them.”
It wasn’t clear if it was fear talking, or real anger.
Mom, tears welling up in her eyes, said,
“Let’s not see them again, okay? Just… let’s not.”
We’d just been talking about all that weird stuff.
Even knowing they laughed during exorcisms, it still didn’t prepare us.
Who the hell walks out of someone’s house—after that kind of conversation—and just starts cackling?
It was unreal. Like they weren’t even the same species.
“Ahahaha... hahahaha...”
It wasn’t until the laughter finally faded that the three of us could move again. We headed back to the living room.
I said,
“Those people are seriously messed up. There’s no way they’re normal. Do you think... do you think he took the elevator to leave?”
Dad snapped back,
“Don’t call him ‘that guy.’ He’s still older than you. Show some respect. …Jeez. Just don’t get involved with them anymore.”
Then he got up to lock the door.
And then—
“JUST GO HOME ALREADY!!”
a voice shouted outside, so loud it nearly stopped my heart.
Mom gasped,
“Hii!”
and clutched her chest.
Turns out, right before Dad could lock the door, the evening paper had been shoved halfway into the mailbox. He reached to pull it out from the inside but it got stuck at the top, so he opened the door to grab it from outside.
That’s when he saw B still standing by the elevator hall, grinning.
Dad totally lost it.
“I’m calling the cops, you hear me?!”
(I think it was fear more than anger.)
Neighbors started peeking out of their doors. B stammered,
“Eh? Wh-what? I was just about to leave. What’s going on?”
But right after saying that, he burst into giggles again and stepped into the elevator.
And left.
Dad slammed the door and shouted,
“Get the salt! SALT!”
Then he just started flinging salt everywhere like a madman. Honestly, I bet the neighbors thought he was the crazy one.
After that, my parents and I visited a well-known shrine to get a proper cleansing done.
We moved to a new place afterward.
We didn’t leave S Ward entirely, so we were still in the same general area. But my parents transferred me to a different school, away from where everything had happened. Since then, I’ve never gone near the Back S District again.
They call it "New S Ward" now, but honestly, nothing’s really changed.
My cousin goes to a school in S Ward, and he says they still have "Dowa" education classes—lessons about discrimination toward buraku communities. But they don’t mention the actual district by name. In fact, if a student says “Back S District,” the teachers freak out and quickly correct them:
“We say New S Ward now.”
That kind of thing.
(I guess that’s part of the whole human rights sensitivity movement in Kyushu, pushed by groups like Nikkyoso and such.)
As for B…
We cut off all contact with him after that.
No idea what happened to him since.
Up until all this happened, my parents didn’t have any prejudice toward the Back S District.
They really didn’t think anything of it.
But ever since that whole ordeal, they’ve completely changed—they avoid the people from that area and pretty much cut off ties wherever possible.
As for me… I haven’t had any more supernatural experiences.
But I still can’t ride elevators alone. And—yeah, it’s pathetic—I still can’t sleep by myself. My wife teases me for it constantly.
Right after everything ended, I was so scared I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without waking up my parents.
And I was in high school. High school.
Now, whenever I hear that someone’s from the Back S District, I don’t feel hatred or bias.
Just fear.
The kind that floods your whole body and makes it hard to even speak.
Anyway, thanks for sticking through this messy and way-too-long story.
Thought I’d leave it here as a real experience, for what it’s worth.
Respect to anyone who made it to the end.
