The loud ringing of an alarm clock jolted Asa awake. She sat up and looked around, completely startled. The morning light was already bleeding in through the thin curtains.

“Jesus christ”, she whispered to herself and picked up her phone. The time read 9 AM. 

“Wow , Botan mumbled as he stretched in his bed, “was that your alarm?”

“Yeah?”

“Since when do you set alarms?”, Botan smirked. Asa was never the type to set alarms. Sometimes even for important appointments. If she woke up, she woke up. 

She rolled her eyes, “Today is a big day, remember?” 

“Yeahhh”, Botan sighed, “Man, the shit I get myself into. This summer I just wanted to chill, have some drinks, eat some good food, and have a good time.”

“Why are you complaining? Weren’t you the one who first suggested we go look for Takashi?”

“Yeah because I felt partly responsible. Like you said we got him involved in this. But we never wanted this in the first place.”

“You could have just said no and backed out at first then. But no, you had this whole noble purpose of not letting your friends down.”

Botan scoffed, “Well, then why didn’t you back down at first??”

“I didn’t want to. I wasn’t the one who complained just now”, Asa smiled sarcastically and got off the bed. She straightened out her t-shirt and shorts and tied her hair back. “Come on, let’s go wake that moron up” 

Daiki’s room was on the opposite side of Asa and Botan’s, a little bit to the left past the stairwell. Since the door was already half open, his bed was partially visible to whoever was facing it. For the few seconds it took to get to Daiki’s room, Asa noticed how his bed looked weirdly empty. Only for a second though, because soon the door was fully open and they were standing in the middle of Daiki’s empty room. 

“Huh? Where the hell is he?” Botan asked, scratching his head. Asa squinted her eyes and focused. She’d had a hunch ever since she got a glimpse of Daiki’s empty bed, that something was not right. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she remembered feeling odd about Daiki not coming to their room first and shaking them awake to prepare for their big plan.  

Botan looked around suspiciously, “Maybe he went to eat already?”. But Asa wasn’t convinced. She dove and looked under Daiki’s mattress.

“Huh. It’s gone”, she said.

“What’s gone?”

“The plan and the map. They’re missing”

Botan’s eyes widened, “You think..?”

They bolted out of the room and down the stairs in a rising sense of panic, to be greeted with the smell of breakfast cooking.

“Oh you two, good morning. Where’s Daiki-dono? Still asleep?”, Kaede said in a sing-song voice that reflected her usual morning cheer. She sometimes referred to Daiki as dono as a playful way of chiding him for always having his own way. Asa and Botan exchanged glances. 

“N-Nakamura-san”, Asa began. 

“Yes?”

She looked at the two kids, stammering, struggling to get a word out, struggling to look at her, exchanging furtive glances that gave away more than they’d wanted. 

“N-Nakamura-san, Daiki is not in his room”

Kaede’s face changed from a blissfully ignorant smile to a suspicious frown, “What do you mean, he’s not in his room? Where is he then??”

“Well–”

“Well, we don’t know that yet.”, Botan interrupted, “He could be around here somewhere to be honest. Daiki!! Daiki!!!”

Asa nudged him in the ribs. “Dude what are you doing? He’s not here”, she whispered. 

Within seconds, it dawned on Kaede that her son might be in danger. She began calling his name and running around the house and the garden. This commotion soon woke everyone else in the house. Junichiro ran down the stairs, half-asleep but strangely alarmed. He had come back home around midnight after filing a missing persons report for Takashi with the city police. When his bewildered wife had opened the door for him, only a brief explanation was given on their way to the bedroom, before he fell fast asleep.

“What? What?? What’s wrong? What’s all this commotion??”, he yelled. 

His wife ran up to him, tears forming in her eyes. “Daiki..”

“Daiki? Why, what’s wrong with Daiki??”

“He’s gone”

Junichiro blinked. For a second he felt as if he expected this to happen; let it, even. Deep down he knew that Daiki was the reckless type, who took decisions on a whim. And he'd still trusted his son to lock up and go to bed. Fear and guilt suddenly flooded his heart. 

“Have you looked everywhere??”, he asked.

“Inside the house and the garden. Everywhere”

“You didn’t hear him go out in the morning?”

“No, I can see the f-front door very well from the k-kitchen. And it was locked too. The k-key was right where I put it last night, after you got back home.”, Kaede replied between sobs.

Junichiro heaved a sigh. 

“He must have left after I went out with Genji”, he muttered and sat down on the couch, head buried in his hands. 

“Where has he gone, Junichiro??”, Kaede demanded.

“I think he’s gone to look for Takashi”

Asa and Botan exchanged looks. Junichiro noticed them standing in the corner and turned to them. “Do you kids know anything about this?”, he asked.

Botan froze in place and looked at Asa, who stared back at him. Then they proceeded to stammer in unison while making awkward gestures with their hands.

“W-well”

“We..”

“We.. were just”

“We don’t really know anything…”

“You know us..”

“Yeah we’re just here…”

Junichiro sighed and nodded, “I want you kids to be careful. I don’t wanna have to answer your angry and devastated parents. You understand?”

“Y-yes Junichiro-san”, they replied. 

“Kaede”, Junichiro said, looking at his distraught wife, “I’m going out to gather a search party to look for Daiki and Takashi. We can’t wait around for the police. We..”, he paused for a second and continued, “We might go into the mountains if we have to”

Meanwhile, a few kilometres away, deep in the mountains, Daiki was lying on the ground, on top of a tarpaulin that he’d brought along to set up a tent. Exhausted from a steep climb, he lay panting next to his backpack and a long stick he’d used for climbing.

“Fuck this mountain”, he yelled into the canopy.

He had been packing up his tent to set off on another search for Takashi when the fatigue had finally caught up with him. 

“Why the fuck am I so tired after all that sleep???”, he took out his phone and checked the time, “Wow. Okay so I’ve just slept 3 hours. STILL!”

The wind blew strong from time to time, making the tall trees sway. The occasional howling noise managed to scare Daiki at first but now he’d gotten used to it. It didn’t sound anything like wild animals, so he’d attributed it to the wind. However, the same cannot be said about the strange crackling noises and flashing lights that he saw through the night. They were distant but discernible. Then there was his phone. The thing went crazy and switched off, froze, or crashed from time to time. In fact it was still happening in the morning. Not even a minute after Daiki had checked the time, it switched off again. 

“Tch stupid fucking phone. Thank God I brought a flashlight with me or goodbye hiking at night.”, he said to himself as he packed everything up and got ready to set off again. He took out the map that his friends had made using Google maps and obscure tourist reviews. “Ko..jima.. Pass..” he managed to identify a spot about a few kilometres away. It was written inside a large circle outside of which trees were abundant, but inside it there were no landmarks. Daiki trusted Asa and Botan’s unverified cartography skills and imagined it to be a large open space. 

“Weird…”, he muttered. The mountains were populated by large, tall trees everywhere that a large empty plain was unimaginable. Nevertheless, Daiki decided to check it out. 

Bright rays of the sun peeked in through tree branches and descended like spotlights onto fallen leaves on the ground. Daiki closely studied the narrow pathway that he walked on, to check if anything suspicious or even remotely interesting had been dropped and left behind by someone who went missing; not just Takashi, but anyone who disappeared before him as well. 

He noticed that there were not many birds. One thing that Daiki remembered about his old forest expeditions with Junichiro was that, every time he came there, the whole forest was drowned in a cacophony of bird calls. Loud chirps rang incessantly for hours during their whole time there. But now it was much, much quieter. Almost disturbingly quiet. How come all the birds just disappeared? Daiki wondered. 

The place was lonely with an air of being haunted by something. For hours, he also hadn’t been able to shake the feeling of being watched. Suddenly, Daiki heard an odd rustling noise next to him. The trees were thick so he couldn’t see much but in the distance he spotted traces of a figure walking towards him. 

He gasped and took a step back. The figure seemed to walk fast and mindlessly, but as he watched, he could make out a familiar height and build through the trees. 

“T-Takashi”, he mumbled to himself. 

The rustling moved closer and closer. Daiki placed one leg behind the other and turned his body to get into a fighting stance. He held the walking stick in front as a weapon and waited for the figure to appear at any second. 

Then the rustling stopped. 

“Dude! Are you trying to attack me?? Put that down.”, a voice said – Takashi’s voice. Daiki frowned. 

“Takashi?”, he called out, “Dude is that you?”

“Yeah duh”

The figure walked out from behind the trees onto the pathway where Daiki was standing, pale and tall, dark clothes and heavy framed glasses – It was Takashi in the flesh.

“Dude what are you doing here???”, Daiki demanded, still bewildered.

He shrugged – Takashi’s shrug. 

“Just came to look for my drone”, he said in Takashi’s voice. 

What has happened to Takashi?? This is Takashi right? Daiki asked himself in his head, over and over again. But for some reason he seemed off. Daiki just couldn’t put his finger on it. 

Was it that Takashi was way more casual and relaxed than he would have usually been? 

Would Takashi really just leave so casually to look for his drone in the mountains?? 

Well, Takashi was a crazy gadget fanatic so it can’t be ruled out entirely. 

He thought the same things again and again and finally gave in. Kojima Pass – something told him to check out the mysterious spot, either way. And it felt good to have company in this creepy place. 

“So uhhh did you find it?”, Daiki asked.

Takashi shook his head and sighed, “Nope. I thought that weird creature might have taken it here or something. I guess we should check with Fujisaki-san again. Yua-san might be home in a few days.”

Daiki exhaled in relief. He suddenly felt much more comfortable. 

“Alright. I-I thought you might be in trouble. Everyone did!!”, he yelled.

“Ah”, Takashi scratched his head, “I guess my folks might be pretty messed up.”

“Dude, you think??? I can’t believe you’d do something so reckless!”

“Well I guess that makes two of us now”

Takashi smiled faintly. Daiki smiled back. It suddenly dawned on him, how much he’d missed the old Takashi. He wanted to invite his friend so they could both go check out the pass together. But for the first time, he felt reluctant. 

“You should probably get home..”, he said.

“Just me? What about you?”

“Uhh I-I have something to do first. But I’ll be back soon so you can go ahead. I mean, you should”, Daiki muttered. 

Takashi walked towards his friend and gently punched his shoulder, “Wow, who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”, he laughed.

Daiki joined in with a more nervous laughter. “Haha I could say the same about you.”, he muttered again.

They stood in silence for a couple seconds before Takashi put a hand on Daiki’s shoulder and said, “You came all this way to look for me. So I’m gonna be here to see you home”. 

Daiki smiled awkwardly. “Alright”, he said and opened up the map. He followed the pathway with his finger and pointed to their destination. “Kojima Pass”, he declared.

Takashi looked at his friend, visibly confused, “What’s that?”

“That, my friend, is our destination”.