A girl on a swing… in the middle of the night? This story is about what happened to a group of boys one night…

This story is originally from Haranishi. He is a member of the famous Japanese comedian duo FUJIWARA and shared his experience in one of the TV programs.

From here, I will describe “I” as Haranishi himself for convenience.

When I was in junior high school, there were always three of us in a row. I will not share their real names, but let’s call them Daichi and Makoto for now.

We lived in an area that was not completely countryside but not so urban as well, so there were not many things to do in the way of entertainment. We used to pass the time by slipping out of the house in the middle of the night, hanging out in a nearby park, and spending the whole night talking about things like how cute we thought girls at school were and how we were going to leave this town and become rich in a big city in the future, something like that.

That park was located on a hill and separated into two parts. There was a small park at the bottom where kids can play with a swing and a slide, as well as a small square at the top where you can have a rest on a bench. Usually, we would go on the path next to the bottom park, climb the stairs to the top, and sit on the bench and talk about this and that.

This story is about what happened there one night…

That night, I left the house and headed for the park as usual. 

When I arrived at the top square, Daichi was already there. We talked for a while, but Makoto never came.

Daichi started like, “Makoto didn’t show up at all. Isn’t it weird? He’s usually already here around this time.”

So I replied, “I’m sure he’s just late. Should we go to his house and get him out?”

Because Makoto’s house was the closest to the park among the three of us, we decided to go to his house together.

When we both walked down the hill and were passing by the small park, I had a glimpse of the inside.

There was that old swing and a little girl sitting on it.

‘Whoa, what is that?’
I was screaming in my mind.

You know, a little girl on a swing alone at this time of night. It was just beyond strange. My heart beat faster, and I felt a light panic.

I was trying to hide behind the bush of the entrance and couldn’t move.

At the time, Daichi was walking a little ahead of me and noticed something was wrong with me.

He approached me and asked.
“Hey, What’s wrong? You look a bit pale.”

“No, it’s just over there, on the swing. Is there any girl there? Did you see her, too?”

I was too scared to keep this to myself, so I told him honestly.

“No, I didn’t see any. What do you mean by ‘girl’?”

“As I said, a girl on the swing. You can go and have a look.”

Daichi didn’t seem to believe me very much, but my attitude was so serious that he said… “Umm, OK, I’ll go and have a look then.”

I watched Daichi’s back from the bush as he headed towards the park.

When he neared the entrance, I heard him say.
“Wow!”

Daichi came dashing back to me with a little cry. So we both panicked and ran up to the square at the top of the hill.

Out of breath, I talked to Daichi to make sure that it wasn’t a hallucination or something.

“You saw her, right?”

Daichi was also gasping but nodded again and again. “Yes, there was a girl on the swing.”

Neither of us said anything more, but we somehow understood that the girl was not of this world. Being too terrified to speak, there was silence for a while.

Then… “Sorry, my mum caught me, and I was late getting out of the house. Did you wait for me long?”

We heard Makoto coming up to the square. He was late but didn’t seem to feel bad about it. 

When we couldn’t say anything, he continued… “Hey, are you mad at me? I told you I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not that. But have you seen the swing in the park down there?” Daichi asked.

“Swing? I didn’t see it, why?”

“You didn’t see the girl there?”

“What girl? What do you mean?”

I gave Makoto a brief explanation of what we had just seen.

“Are you serious? You aren’t trying to scare me off, are you?” Makoto was sceptical when he heard our story.

“No, it’s not a lie.”

After several back-and-forth exchanges like this, Makoto became more and more irritated. And said…

“If you insist, let’s go and see it all together.”

I definitely didn’t want to go back. But before I could tell him that, Daichi said.

“Sure,  let’s go.”

By the way, he is the type of person who can’t be stopped when angry. So he probably said that without thinking much.

Anyway, there was nothing more I could say. The three of us then returned to the park at the bottom of the hill.

When we reached the bush next to the park entrance, we all stopped.

You know Daichi and Makoto. They were trying to be acting cool, but the girl could still be on the swing. That imagination made them so tense that they became silent as they approached the park.

“Umm, shall we watch it together at the count of three then?” I asked them, and they nodded silently.

“OK, then, let’s go. ‘One, two, three…..”

“Gyaaaaaaa!!” All of us screamed and ran all the way back up the hill again.

=================================

“Did you see it?”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“It was a girl, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, 100% sure.”

We were confirming that what we had seen was not mistaken.

Daichi continued, “It’s too weird to see a girl on a swing with her head down at this time of the night”

“Yeah, It’s not normal at all” I quickly agreed.

But Makoto looked at us strangely and said…

“Was she looking down? No, that girl was looking at me and smiling.”

“What?”

So, to summarise, the girl that Daichi and I saw was on the swing while looking down, so we couldn’t even see her face. But the girl that Makoto saw was looking at him and smiling while on the swing.

We were almost arguing again. But we stopped immediately this time. In fact, everyone was too scared to even talk about it again.

After all, we decided to go home for the time being and talk about it again tomorrow at school in the light of day. So we went down the opposite staircase to the park to avoid seeing the swing.

The next day, Makoto did not come to school. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he couldn’t.

On his way to school, he was hit by a truck, and he died.

Decades have passed since then, and Daichi and I are still friends and see each other about once a year.  

Every time we see each other, we always talk about that night.

What was it that Makoto saw? Is it like his death has something to do with the girl smiling on the swing? We couldn’t find any answer to this. We probably never will…

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