This is a story I heard from a TV producer at a popular network. There's a show where the crew approaches random pedestrians in front of train stations, offers to cover their travel expenses, and asks to follow them home. Director Oyama was standing near a station somewhere in Saitama, scanning the passing crowd for someone to talk to, when a middle-aged man caught his eye. The man looked completely ordinary, but there was an unmistakable shadow cast over his somber face that piqued Oyama's interest. To put it bluntly, Oyama pegged him as a guy with a past.

He approached the man right away, and he replied that he was on his way home. When Oyama explained the pitch—offering to pay for his cab ride if he could tag along to his house—the man readily agreed. He said he was familiar with the show and admitted he was shocked that someone would actually pick him. During a quick chat in the taxi, the man introduced himself as Morita (a pseudonym), forty-five years old. He lived alone with no family, and though he had worked as an office employee for a long time, he was currently unemployed.

After a thirty-minute taxi ride, the clock had passed 11:00 p.m. Morita's house was tucked away in a quiet residential neighborhood located in the relatively distant suburbs of Kanagawa Prefecture. The single-family house he led them to showed a fair amount of age. Faintly illuminated by the streetlights, the house seemed to radiate the same lonely atmosphere as Morita himself, Oyama recalled.

Stepping through the front door revealed a pitch-black hallway. When Morita flicked on the lights, the living room came into view further inside. Clutter was strewn all across the entryway and hallway; it couldn't be called clean by any stretch of the imagination. Still, Oyama figured that was par for the course for a bachelor living on his own.

"Sorry for the mess, but please, make yourself at home." They were ushered into the living room, which didn't look much cleaner, but they settled in there for the time being.

"Are you living in this house all by yourself right now?" "That's right." "And you're currently out of work?"

"I'm embarrassed to admit it, but yes, I'm unemployed." While digging deeper into the story Morita had shared in the cab and listening to his background, Oyama's eyes happened to drift to a framed photograph hanging on the wall behind the couch Morita was sitting on.

"Is this your family, Mr. Morita?" "Yes. I used to have a family, once upon a time." Morita brought it up himself as Oyama gazed at the photo on the wall. In the picture, Morita was standing alongside his wife and two children—a boy and a girl. The little girl bore a striking resemblance to Morita.

"Because of the economic downturn, I was pressured into taking early retirement. They boosted my severance pay, but I just couldn't find my next job. While I was struggling with that... I ended up losing my family." Morita took down the photo and stared at it in silence.

"She was truly a wonderful wife. I left all the housework to her while I did nothing but work, yet she never complained once. When I couldn't find a job, she always told me not to rush. And the kids were so bright and cheerful—they were truly good children."

"Where are they living now?"

"Somewhere... Yes, they went somewhere far away. It's all my fault. Everything... it's all my fault." Morita muttered, his eyes glued to the photograph.

Given his solemn expression, Oyama couldn't pry any further, but he assumed Morita's family had simply fed up with his unemployment and walked out on him. While he was indeed a guy with baggage, just as Oyama had initially sensed, he felt the story lacked punch. Oyama thanked Morita and took his leave. As they said goodbye,

"It's been a long time since I've had a chance to talk to someone. It was really nice. Thank you so much." Morita bowed his head deeply.

A few days later, the crew was reviewing archived footage while planning the show's structure. Oyama picked up Morita's tape. "It's a bit weak for the broadcast... We're tight on screen time anyway, so maybe we don't need to use it," he thought, but he decided to play it just to check. The footage began with the encounter at the station. It continued with them boarding the taxi and heading to the house while chatting.

"What the hell is this...?"

Oyama gasped when the video reached the arrival at the house. What was captured on screen was a charred, burnt-out ruin. Oyama could be seen entering the dark, abandoned house right beside Morita. With dutiful manners, he even took off his shoes at what looked like the entryway before stepping inside. As Oyama watched the footage in utter shock, the two of them began conversing in what was presumably the living room.

Static slowly crept into the video, distorting the screen. Morita's voice during their exchange could barely be made out through the noise.

"Where are they living now?" "Somewhere... Yes, they went somewhere far away. It's all my fault. Everything... IT'S ALL MY FAULT, AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"

Morita shrieked. There was no way such a scene had happened. The blood ran cold in Oyama's veins at that scream.

"I'M SO SORRYYYYY! I'M SO, SO SORRYYYYYYY!!! DADDY DID ITAAAAAAH! IT'S ALL DADDY'S FAULT, AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! UAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"

Through the static-laced video, Morita could be seen falling to his knees and screaming at the top of his lungs. After that, the tape captured Oyama exiting the abandoned house alone, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The final words he had exchanged with Morita were nowhere to be found.

Completely bewildered, Oyama headed back to Morita's house. What he found upon arrival was the exact same ruined house he had seen in the video.

"What is the meaning of this...?"

A charred ruin on the verge of collapse from a fire stood there in total isolation. It bore no resemblance whatsoever to the house Oyama remembered entering, leaving him completely speechless. Just then,

"Excuse me, sir. Are you a relative of Mr. Morita's or something?" A voice called out from behind. It was an elderly woman who appeared to be in her sixties or seventies. "No, I'm not." "Oh, then are you with a real estate agency?" Oyama handed her his business card and explained that he worked for a television network.

"I'm so sorry. I naturally assumed you were a relative or a real estate agent." "If you don't mind me asking, could you tell me a bit about this house?" The woman began to talk as if she had been waiting for Oyama to ask that exact question.

"The Moritas were such a lovely family. The husband worked for a respectable company, and his wife was a friendly, beautiful woman. The two children were very polite, too."

The woman continued. "It was about six months ago, I think, when the husband left his job. Was it a layoff, perhaps? After he stopped working, the fighting between him and his wife never ceased. You could hear shouting day and night. We had never heard them raise their voices before, so the neighbors were getting worried. And then came that fire..." Both Oyama and the woman turned their eyes toward the ruined house. "The fire broke out in the middle of the night. Because of their troubled marriage, Mr. Morita was sleeping on the first floor. He noticed the fire and managed to run outside alone, but his wife and two children sleeping on the second floor lost their lives. The neighbors had to hold Mr. Morita back with all their might as he tried to rush back into the blazing house... It was heartbreaking to watch." "What caused the fire?" "Word was that it started because he didn't put out his cigarette properly." "So... where is Mr. Morita now?" "He passed away. He took his own life." "Suicide...?" "And to make matters worse, both he and his wife lost their parents early in life, so no relatives could be reached. I feel bad for Mr. Morita, but leaving the house like this gives everyone the creeps. We really wish someone would tear it down soon." The woman muttered as she stared at the burnt-out shell.

Oyama returned to the station and disposed of Morita's tape. "Somewhere... Yes, they went somewhere far away. It's all my fault. Everything... it's all my fault." Oyama said the image of Morita muttering those words with sorrow-filled eyes as he gazed nostalgically at the photograph was burned into his mind.

"You know how people say that when someone commits suicide, they become an earthbound spirit and can't pass on? I think that applies to Morita. That's probably why he can't go to where his family is. When I heard he committed suicide, I thought, 'There was no need to die.' But living on alone is its own kind of hell, too. If it's hell whether you're dead or alive, which one do you choose? What I recorded might have been a glimpse of one of those hells. When you think about it that way, hell might actually be much closer than we think. And then there were those final words Morita said to me:

'It's been a long time since I've had a chance to talk to someone. It was really nice. Thank you so much.'

If he truly felt that way, I'm genuinely glad. I can't help but pray that a day will come when he finally finds salvation." And that was how Oyama concluded his story.