If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but this tale of deception has a double-twist ending.

Much like in English, scary stories are said to have a “chilling” effect in Japanese. That makes summer the traditional time for ghost tales and horror movies here, since that shiver running down your spine is also supposed to provide a bit of relief from the sweltering heat.

But Twitter user @toshibou decided to buck tradition on the evening of January 31, tweeting “Since it’s a cold night, here’s a scary story,” and what he had to say had readers frozen in shock.

Relating an incident from his past, @toshibou says:

“I was drinking at a bar, and this girl I didn’t know said hi to me. So we started chatting, and ended up drinking together. Then, as we were talking, she asked me to spend the night with her.”

For many single guys, that’s a pretty enviable scenario. But despite having gone to the bar by himself, @toshibou was already in a steady relationship.

“At the time, I had a girlfriend, so I told the woman there was no way I’d spend the night with her and left the bar soon after turning down her invitation. Then, once I got home, I got an email from my girlfriend, saying ‘I knew I could trust you.’”

But wait, if @toshibou’s girlfriend wasn’t with him at the bar, how did she know about his gallant act of fidelity? Because…

“It turns out the girl at the bar was my girlfriend’s younger sister.”

The chance encounter at the bar turned out to not be so random at all, though it’s unclear exactly how the plan came about. Maybe the younger sister just happened to end up at the same place as @toshibou, recognized him from a photo she’d seen, contacted her sister, and the two hatched the plot on the spot. Or maybe the girlfriend knew where her boyfriend was going for a drink on his own, and dispatched her sibling to work her wily temptations on him.

Either way, it’s clear the sisters coordinated on the plan, and while @toshibou doesn’t mention how long he and the younger sister talked, it sounds like she at gave up a decent-sized chunk of her time that night, so hopefully Big Sis at least reimbursed her for the cost of her drinks.

But wait, in telling the story, @toshibou says he had a girlfriend “at the time,” which was roughly 10 years ago. So what caused their eventual breakup? Well, as with many relationships, things fell apart when commitment waned and the illicit lure of a secret lover became too hard to resist…for @toshibou’s girlfriend.

“She ended up cheating on me, and that was the end of our relationship,” he recalls.

Just goes to show that if someone sets up elaborate ruses to test your loyalty, that might say more about their own lack of commitment than anything else.

Source: Twitter/@toshibou via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Pakutaso