I purchased and moved into an old, large, inexpensive house with a mix of Japanese and Western styles, which had been recommended by the real estate agent.
I seem to recall the agent mentioning that its low price came with special conditions, but I’d never experienced any supernatural phenomena before, so I didn’t worry about it much.
I thought I’d struck a bargain, but from that night on, every day at two o’clock in the morning, I could hear someone walking upstairs.

Creak… creak…

Slowly.
Never running, never stopping.
That’s what the real estate agent had said.
“When it hits two o’clock, please don’t leave your first floor.”
Feeling frightened, you made the hidden room—one often found in such grand houses—their bedroom each night, holding their breath as they slipped under the covers. (The very existence of that hidden room was cool and one of the reasons they bought this place.)
The footsteps reached right above the ceiling and paused for a while.
Then they started walking again.

One night, overcome by curiosity, you climbed just one step up the stairs—and the footsteps stopped.
Silence.
And then, in the next instant,

Creak—

They came closer, one step at a time.
Terrified, you tumbled down the stairs and fled back into their room.
All that night, there seemed to be a presence standing outside the door; by morning, it had vanished.

The next day, the protagonist decided to move out.
While packing their belongings, they discovered an old newspaper from thirty years ago beneath the floorboards, its headline reading:

“A person who lived here thirty years ago has gone missing.”
Alongside was a photograph.
At that very moment, footsteps echoed from upstairs.

Creak… creak…

The protagonist held their breath.
But those footsteps weren’t directly above them—they were heading toward the front entrance.
As if fleeing from “something” inside the house.