three times

I documented it three times. And all three times, it was different. Three Times I saw it exactly three times. And all three times, it was different. The first was on a night road in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The second was inside a taxi in Osaka. The third was in the hallway of a ryokan in Kyoto. Over the course of five months. I still don’t know what I actually saw, and that’s why I’m writing this down. I worked in quality control at a chemical materials company. Business trips to Japan were normal for me, two or three times a year, enough that I considered myself a seasoned traveler. In September 2023, I flew into Narita to visit a client’s factory in Shinjuku, Tokyo. That evening I had dinner with Tanaka, the client contact. We had two beers at an izakaya, and around 10 PM I decided to head back to my hotel. Tanaka said, "Your hotel’s near Shinjuku Station, right?" "Yeah." "Then take the south exit and..." I followed his directions and started making my way through the streets. Shinjuku is bright even at night. Neon signs, vending machines, storefront lights. People kept passing by. I had my map app open and was following the route. That’s when it happened. At the far right edge of my vision, something moved. I turned my head. At the mouth of a dark alley, there was a woman. Dressed in black. Her back bent. No—"bent" isn’t the word. Her body was shaped like a question mark. Her waist was folded over, her arms hung long, her neck curved to one side. As if the skeleton itself had been twisted. I looked at it for three seconds, five at most. Then I turned my head and walked toward my hotel. I didn’t look back. Back at the hotel, I took an hour-long shower. Not because of the strange woman, of course. I’d been on a long flight. Lying in bed, I kept replaying the image. The black clothes. The bent posture. "Probably a drug addict, or someone with a disability." That’s what I told myself, and I fell asleep. The second time was a week later. I was at a different client’s factory in Osaka. On the last day of the trip, I took a taxi to do a night inspection. The driver was a man in his sixties, and the destination was about twenty minutes from the factory. Around 9 PM, we were passing through a stretch of road on the outskirts. A quiet section. A few cars went by, and the traffic light changed. That’s when I looked at the road ahead. A crosswalk. Empty. Except one person was standing there. A woman. Black clothes. From the front, it was clearer. Her arms weren’t right. Too many joints. It looked like she had three elbows. And her waist—as if the spine had snapped forward. The taxi slowed down. The driver picked up his phone. "That’s strange..." A few seconds later, the light turned green. The taxi pulled away. I looked back through the rear window. The woman was still standing at the crosswalk. Wait. Was she there? In the mirror, all I could see was dark, empty road. "What did you see?" the driver asked. "Oh, just... there was a strange person." "Mm. You get that sometimes these days. Sick, lonely people." He said that and went back to focusing on the road. The third time, I didn’t see it. I only heard it. I was staying at a ryokan in Kyoto. The end of the trip. Around 11 PM, I stepped out of my room and was walking down the hallway. It was the corridor with the ice machine. I heard footsteps. A dragging sound. I turned around. At the dark far end of the hallway, something was moving. In that bent posture. I tried to get to the lit area. In that instant, the footsteps got closer. I walked fast. Almost running. I didn’t look back. I came home to Korea. And I started acting like something had taken hold of me. I searched online. Japanese ghost stories. Kunekune. The Eight-Foot-Tall Woman. Shapeshifters. I went into Japanese internet communities. I dug up 2channel archives. [Kunekune] If you see a bent woman, pretend you don’t. It’ll keep following you. I read posts like that all night. But none of them clearly explained what I saw. They were all vague. Plenty of sightings, but every one of them was different. Six months passed. I went back to Japan. Not for work this time. I went on purpose. That alley in Shinjuku. That crosswalk in Osaka. That hallway in Kyoto. I visited all of them. The Shinjuku alley had a nondescript building and some houses. Ordinary. The Osaka crosswalk was a residential area. When I passed through it at night, there was no one. The Kyoto ryokan. I stayed there one night. I walked the hallway back and forth. There was nothing. Then, by chance, I learned one thing. In a few Japanese medical communities, I read posts about a rare genetic disorder. One where the spine twists abnormally and the joints are excessively flexible. A type of collagen dysplasia. I saw the photos. People with curved spines. Arms bent past where they should bend. It overlapped with what I’d seen. I tried to find the name of that Osaka taxi driver. I called the company. But they said they couldn’t release a driver’s personal information. I looked for a hospital or care facility that might be near that alley in Shinjuku. There wasn’t one. I asked the staff at the Kyoto ryokan, "Are there any guests who walk the hallways at night?" They laughed and said no. In the end, I decided to think of it this way. What I saw was real. But I would stop wondering what it was. It could have been a sick person. It could have been a trick of my eyes. It could have been something else entirely. But I don’t wander night roads anymore. I cross crosswalks quickly. I stay out of dark ryokan hallways. And sometimes, at night, on the street, I look behind me. There’s nothing. There’s always nothing. And still, I see it. Something standing in that bent posture. Not three times. Continuously.