79 - Don't Drop Me This Time

【今度は落とさないでね、kondo wa otonasai dene】

A beautiful couple had a child. The child was the legitimate offspring of the couple, but he bore no resemblance to either of his parents and was hideously disfigured. The child caused a rift in the couple's relationship, and they decided to kill the source of the fissure. In other words, they wanted to kill the child.

The couple takes their six-year-old child to the lake under the guise of a trip. With the happy child in tow, the couple boarded the ferry. When the child suddenly complains of the need to urinate, the couple pushes the child from behind, drowning him in the lake.

A few years later, the couple had another child. Unlike the previous child, this one resembled the couple and was very beautiful. One day, when the child was six years old, the child suddenly asked to go to the lake. The couple headed for the lake as the child wished. It was the lake where they had drowned their first child a few years before.

While on the ferry, the child complains of the need to urinate, and the couple tells him to go to the lake to do his business. The child does as his parents tell him and heads for the lake. At that moment, the child suddenly muttered,

"Don't drop me this time."

His face--- was the same as the child who died six years prior.

In similar rumors, an unmarried couple has a child and kills them in distress. Later, they get married and have another child. The setting is a little different, but the end result is the same.

This story, in fact, has existed since ancient times. A man kills a traveling monk for his money and goods, and later, a child is born to him. One night, the child goes outside and unexpectedly turns to his father and says, "It was a night like this when you killed me, wasn't it?" The child's face had changed to that of the monk.

Koizumi Yakumo, known for his ghost stories, also left a similar story in his "Unknown Faces of Japan". In the story, a parent kills his child out of poverty, then is denounced by the figure of their own child.

In the Edo period, it was not uncommon for people to leave their children in the mountains because of poverty. This has changed in the present day, where people abandon their children because they have "had it with them". This story alone is a direct expression of the state of society, manifested as a rumor.