My friend's house had a zashiki-warashi. We didn't know what that meant until it left.

So back in middle school, my friend's house was straight up haunted. Like actually haunted.

Every time I visited, you'd hear footsteps from rooms where nobody was. Books flying off shelves randomly. The kitchen faucet just. turning on. by itself. right in front of me. His little sister's bedroom window would slam shut with this HUGE bang out of nowhere, and the stairs would creak all night like something was just going up and down, up and down.

I was such a scaredy-cat that every single time something happened I'd swear 'okay that's it I'm NEVER coming back here.' And then his friend would invite me again and I'd just... show up. Every time. I don't even know why honestly.

One afternoon, four of us were up in his room reading manga when we heard it. Slow, heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Thump. Thump. Thump. And at the same time, this scratching sound along the wallpaper. Then this sweeping noise, like someone dragging a broom across tatami mats. It went on for like five whole minutes. Then the scratching again, and the footsteps heading back down.

I turned to one of the other guys, completely pale, and whispered 'did you hear that??' He just nodded. Face white as a sheet.

But the weird part? The friend who actually LIVED there looked completely unbothered. So I finally asked him once, like 'bro doesn't it freak you out living here?' And he just goes 'not really?' He said he actually felt kind of... fond of whatever it was. And apparently his whole family felt the same way.

That's when it clicked for me. Zashiki-warashi¹. It was sweeping the rooms. Playing little pranks. But it genuinely seemed to care about that family. They were doing well, happy, comfortable. I figured that was why.

Me and him stayed close through high school but drifted apart in college, different lives and all that. Last time I saw him was at his wedding. I was a little tipsy and finally asked 'hey, does the zashiki-warashi still show up at your place?' Because it had been on my mind forever.

He got this weird look and said 'oh, about that. it's been gone lately. like recently it just... completely stopped.'

Fast forward four or five years. I'm married now, living about two hours by train from my hometown. I went back for Obon² and ran into another childhood friend completely by chance. We grabbed drinks nearby and started catching up on everyone.

He'd stayed in town the whole time so he knew everyone's business. 'Oh she has three kids now,' 'this guy got sick,' all of that. Then I asked, 'what about the guy from the haunted house? He's the eldest son right, is he still living there?'

My friend made this face like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'Wait, you didn't know? His family went bankrupt. They just. vanished. left in the middle of the night.'

Apparently after he joined his dad's company, right around the time of his wedding, right around when the zashiki-warashi disappeared, his dad's business just. collapsed. Overnight. A company that had been totally fine for years just cratered out of nowhere.

That family I used to look up to as a kid. Gone.

In the Tono Monogatari³, it says the zashiki-warashi disappears when a family's fortune starts to fall. Every single weird thing I experienced in that house fits the description exactly.

Was it actually real?

I still think about it.