“And her laughter was exactly the same as…”
Who was the woman coming to save me that day?

Today’s story is about a deeply sad but mysterious event experienced by a woman, originally told by Ryokichi Iyama.

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The original story is from Ryokichi Iyama. He is a comedian but also a famous Kaidan teller. He is one of my favourite Kaidan tellers, and I featured another story of his in episode 8, Tyre Tracks. So please check it out as well if you haven’t listened yet.

Today’s story is what he heard from one of the staff members at Thriller Night, which is the Kaidan bar in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The name of the staff member is Hana.

She is still young like around her early 20s, but she has quite an interesting job history already.

She used to work as an assistant in a porn video production in Hokkaido, the most northern part of Japan. She helped with the camera operation and make-up stuff during filming.

One time, they decided to shoot a video project, but they couldn’t find an actress.

Well, the content of the project was a bit too much tough. But also, the shooting spot was in Hokkaido and it is only reachable by plane travel from other areas in Japan. So they had to keep the schedule for several days if they invited someone from outside of Hokkaido, which could also be the biggest reason why everybody was no willing to say yes.

In the end, the production company decided to cast a chat lady, an amateur girl who was doing that kind of things in front of the web camera, as an actress for the project.

Let’s call her Eiko here for convenience. She was a very cheerful person. She laughed a lot, and she liked the sound of her own laughter as well.

On the day of the shooting, they started filming, and it was time for a break after a while.

Hana has always loved Kaidan stories. You know, she even works in Kaidan bar now so you can feel her enthusiasm for it, right?

And it’s the nature of Kaidan tellers to ask people they meet if they have any scary stories.

At that time, Hana also tried it on Eiko.

Hana asked, “Umm, I actually like Kaidan scary stories, do you have any like that?”

Then, Eiko replied.

“Scary stories? Oh, I think I’ve got one!”

Her voice was still cheerful, but what she talked about afterward was so heavy that it was hard to imagine from her character.

She was born and brought up in a family without a father. It was probably a divorce, but anyway, she was brought up by her mother.

But the worst thing is, she was abused by her mother when she was a child.

Her mother had even prepared a room for her to be abused, where she was beaten frequently.

So her days were like, she was brought to that room, beaten by her mum, and when her mother got tired and went to bed to sleep, she would finally be let go.

She said it was just a living hell of those days.

Then one day. Even though it was still daytime, Eiko was taken by her mother to the abuse room.

She was beaten there as usual, and her mother got tired of beating her and went to sleep, and she was finally released.

However, the pain was worse than usual that day and she could not even get up. As she lay there, unable to move.

Then, there was a balcony next to that abuse room, and she could see someone standing there. It looked like a woman.

This woman opened the window and came into the room.

She was directly going to her mum, and started choking her.

When Eiko saw that, she was not sad or scared or anything. She just thought, “Oh, finally mum will die.”

While she was looking at it, she lost consciousness.

When she woke up a while later, she was in a hospital bed. And also, she was surrounded by a lot of police officers.

One of them said.

“I’m sorry, this is going to be very shocking. Your mother has been murdered. You’re covered in wounds too, what happened?”

Well, as for the wounds, she explained that her mother had done it. At that time, Eiko felt that even though the police officer told her about her mother’s death, she still only thought that she was really dead. No sad feeling, or rather it was more of a relief.

In the end, the murderer was never found.

After that, she was taken in by a relative or something and became an adult and started working as a chat lady at that time.

However, when she kept thinking back to the events of that day, she suddenly realised something.

The woman who killed her mother that day was choking her mother while laughing for some reason.

And her laughter was exactly the same as her own laughter of Eiko and the way she laughs now that she has grown up.

At the end of the story, Eiko told Hana.

“You know, that’s why I’m going to save my childhood self one day, and kill my mother.”

After this, the break time ended and filming restarted, but Hana did not have a chance to speak to Eiko again afterward.

But the impression of the story was so deep, then even after a while, Hana couldn’t forget the story at all. Then Hana desperately wanted to see Eiko again and ask more questions.

So she asked someone from the production company.

“Do you have a plan to cast Eiko in your films again?”

Then, the production company employee replied with a slightly gloomy look on his face.

“Ah, Eiko. Ummm, actually we can’t work with her anymore.”

When she asked him why, he said Eiko committed suicide.

When Hana heard that, she thought.

“Maybe Eiko’s gone away to help her past self?”

↓You can check out another story originally told by Iyama Ryokichi, “Tyre Tracks”!

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