The End Of A Love Affair

This happened when my aunt was living in a flat in Tokyo. My aunt was then studying to be a seamstress and when she came home it would always be well past midnight. Her apartment building was an old type, built with wood and iron stairs set outside which made clanging noise whenever my aunt used them to go up to her room on the first floor.

There was a room on the ground floor just beside the iron staircase, and through its window my aunt would often see, on the way to her own room, a silhuetto of a young woman with a braided hair. The young woman always appeared busy cooking and doing some houseworks in spite of the very late hours.

A year and a half had passed and my aunt's lifestyle had remained unchanged. She would come home late every night and saw the young woman's silhouette through the window, and heard noises coming from there, although she never got to see the young woman face to face.

One time my aunt was late paying her rent, and her landlord came to her room for collection.
They had a little chat, and while at it my aunt casually mentioned to her landlord about "the young woman on the ground floor."As soon as her words were out she noticed her landlord's face had gone pale; he left her then and there, as if he was running away, completely forgetting what he had come for.

It was sometime later that my aunt got a chance to hear a proper explanation from her landlord; he said that the young woman whom my aunt saw was probably a ghost of a woman who committed suicide, after she had an affair with a married man which ended very badly. That room on the ground floor, he said, had been empty for years. The young woman's lover often visited her after midnight so she would often prepare meals for him around that time.

People should never have affairs. Don't you think?

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The photograph is just an image and is nothing to do with the story.