I don't know where else to post this, so I'm writing it here. Whenever I looked at this gravestone, I always thought something was strange about it. Secular name: Yukinori (pseudonym) – October 12, 1952 – Died at age 49. Child (？） – October 12, 1952. I remember the funeral, but the only person who died was my uncle (my father's younger brother), and my uncle had two daughters who were both still alive. This New Year's, I happened to have the chance to meet with one of those daughters—my cousin—and brought up a question I'd had for years. "Hey, did you guys have another sister?" She caught on immediately and told me the story.
My cousins had always wondered why their father never took a bath with them or swam with them when they went to the beach. Of course, you'd understand if they were grown-up daughters, but they apparently had no memory of ever seeing their father naked, even from when they were toddlers. One day, they finally mustered the courage to ask him, but he gave them a vague, evasive answer. After a while, they asked their mother. At first, her mother played dumb with a "Who knows why?", but eventually caving to their persistent questioning, she told them: "Your father has a growth on his stomach, and he just hates letting people see it." The young sisters seemed satisfied with that explanation.
The following summer, the younger of the two sisters came home from playing outside and found her father lying down wearing only his underwear, which was unusual. Remembering the story about the growth, she suddenly got the urge to see it. As she crept closer, she noticed a mole-like lump about the size of a quail's egg on his right flank. However, it didn't seem to be on top of the skin, but rather just underneath a thin layer of it, and looking closely, she saw it moving slightly. She felt a sudden urge to touch it, and just as she slowly reached her hand out, she heard someone's footsteps come running patter-patter from outside the room, and she was shoved hard to the ground. When the little girl, sitting on her bottom, looked up, she saw a boy of about three years old, wearing a dark blue kimono and a white obi, gently stroking her father's flank as if to protect it. "That hurts! What are you doing?!" the girl shouted loudly. Actually, right here, her memory cut off. Neither her father, mother, nor older sister took her seriously, telling her, "You must have just had a dream." Even the younger sister, who wasn't one to think deeply about things, thought "I guess so" and forgot all about the incident.
Some time after that, her uncle began complaining of feeling unwell and was immediately hospitalized. Although his post-surgery progress was smooth, he ultimately passed away without ever coming home. He was only 49 years old.
Returning to this year's New Year's conversation: "Our father was originally supposed to be born as a twin," her older sister explained. "What was diagnosed as a sarcoma was actually the sibling who was supposed to be born with him. Of course, it didn't take human form, but it reportedly had a few centimeters of bone resembling a spine, and something like undeveloped limbs. It seemed to stay inside our father's body the whole time, inside a sac-like tissue, almost as if it was saying, 'I want to get out, I want to get out.' I never heard that it had a face, though." As the older sister said this, the younger sister chimed in: "That's why, at our dad's funeral, they decided to hold a joint memorial service for both of them."
Her uncle's cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver. The sarcoma itself wasn't the cause of death. "I remembered that day when I was in high school. For some reason, right in the middle of class. My dad's growth... it was almost like an eyeball. Rather than being scared, I couldn't help but wonder why there was an eye there. And the boy who suddenly appeared back then—he didn't have any eyes. That area was just a stretch of skin. Maybe, just maybe, it was that boy's eye. If I told Mom, she'd definitely start crying (they were a very close couple), so I only told my big sister. You're the first outsider I've ever told."
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