This happened more than 25 years ago, back when I was still in my teens. Having eloped with my husband, I was working a live-in job in C Prefecture. We saved up some money and decided to rent an apartment. The going rate around that area was about 70,000 yen at the time. Even though the bubble economy had burst, rent was still quite high. Then we found a place that cost only 37,000 yen, with no key money, no deposit, and just one month's advance rent. I figured it was cheap simply because it was right next to a graveyard, and we moved in.
Shortly after moving in, I found out I was pregnant. I was already seven months along by the time I realized, so the birth came in a flash, and I was soon consumed by childcare. We lived on the second floor, but the old man living on the floor below us was an absolute nightmare. He would storm up and scream at us over the sound of footsteps in the hallway, the toilet flushing, or taking a bath. Even using the washing machine drew his wrath. When he came back from work, I couldn't even leave our room, and if I used the toilet, I had to hold it until morning before flushing. On weekends, I was too terrified to stay in the house. I was pushed to the brink mentally and felt like I was losing my mind.
We didn't have a balcony, but there was a ledge-like fall-prevention railing just outside, and because the old man parked his car right underneath it, my laundry fell down there several times. Every time I went to retrieve it, my heart was pounding with anxiety. Sometimes in the daytime, I would hear a creaking sound of weight pressing down near the fall-prevention railing. Being a cat lover, I'd go check several times thinking a kitty had come to play, but there was never anything there. I figured they must have just hidden themselves, and I hoped I'd get to see one someday.
Around the time my daughter turned three, my father back home collapsed, and I was told to return as he didn't have much time left. I would finally be free from that old man. Honestly, I felt relieved. We hadn't interacted much with the neighbors, but the family living across from us had helped us out with various things, so I went to say goodbye to them before leaving. That was when they told me something unexpected. Before we moved in, a single person used to live there. But further back, families with children had lived there a few times. One day, a little boy from one of those families had climbed over the railing, fallen, and died after hitting his head on the concrete below.
Another family who lived there later also had a little girl climb over the railing and fall. Ever since then, the person living on the floor below started parking his car directly underneath the railing. Apparently, when a single person lived there, he never complained about the noise at all. When I went to say goodbye to the downstairs neighbor as well, he turned out to be a very kind old man. He gently held my child and told me to raise her well.
After my child had grown a bit older, she suddenly started talking about that apartment. She said that a boy named Y-kun and a girl named M-chan used to come over to play with her often. Since no other children lived besides us, I assumed they were neighborhood kids and asked her when they used to visit. She said, "They came to play through the window when it was open." The safety railing on the second floor only covered the bottom half of the window, and there was nothing like a balcony. Even the neighboring window was several meters away. For anyone, even an adult, to peer into a second-floor window like that was impossible. That was when it suddenly hit me: even for a cat, reaching that safety railing was impossible. There was no footing and nowhere to hold on.
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