“Thanks for helping me”, the guy mumbled, looking down at his feet dangling over the edge of the platform and at the rail tracks beneath them. His hair was black with striking red highlights on one side. There were multiple piercings on his ears, one on his nose and two on his lower lip. His eyes were half-closed and looked weary.

“Why’d you try to do it?”, Daiki asked, not taking his eyes off the guy sitting next to him. He didn’t answer. A train sped past them on the next track. 

Daiki looked away and sighed silently. His heart was racing and there was a slight shake in his forearms. He’d exerted his arms generously to pull the guy up onto the platform a few minutes ago. So they were either just tired or recovering from the shock. Probably both. He didn’t notice until the silence but he was plenty shocked himself. 

“Did I scare you?”, the guy asked, still staring down. 

“Yeah”, Daiki admitted. 

The guy scoffed, “Well that’s me, I guess. Always scaring people, worrying people, abandoning people”

Daiki furrowed his brows and stared at the platform opposite them. There was no one around. After all, it was a little late. 

“Sometimes, I think, it’s good to be scared”, he said, thoughtfully. The guy looked over at Daiki whose tone was more curious than profound. “What do you mean?”, he asked.

“Mm it’s like this. I get really REALLY sleepy during Kurohito-san’s lectures. I mean, the guy himself is like half asleep most of the time. So what I do is, I take my phone, connect my earbuds, and watch some jump scare videos. That snaps me right outta the sleepiness.”

The guy stared at Daiki in total confusion. He couldn’t tell if Daiki was joking or serious. How could anyone joke in this situation? Would someone really do that?, he wondered. Unexpectedly it made him feel the tiniest bit better. The fact that this complete stranger had not only saved his life, but was also just sitting there and making jokes with a straight face – like he goes through incidents like this everyday. Was he really joking?

He scoffed at Daiki’s revelation, “That’s weird, man.”

“It works”, Daiki clapped back.

“Hey”, the guy looked at Daiki, “Do you go to the same uni as me? You mentioned Kurohito-san”

Daiki stared at the guy in disbelief, “Wow, dude, we literally go to the same lectures”

“Ohh. Sorry I hadn’t noticed you”, he looked back down at the tracks.

“It’s okay”, Daiki gently punched him on the shoulder, “you’re easier to notice because of your hair. Red, huh? It’s cool. I’d like to get blonde or orange highlights”

The guy tightened his lips and smiled politely. “Thanks. But I hate it.”

“You do??” Daiki's eyes widened, “It’s really cool though. Well if you hate it you shouldn’t keep it. It’ll make you wanna jump onto the tracks again”, he chuckled.

The guy looked over at Daiki again. This guy is so weird. Seriously, who jokes around at a time like this?? Deep down he felt the faintest need to laugh. He hadn’t felt that way in months; he’d only felt isolated in his own world. But somehow, on the day that he thought would be his last, he felt companioned.

Huh, he thought, I guess there are other people in this world that I haven’t gotten to know yet. 

“I’m Daiki, by the way”, Daiki stretched out his hand, going for a fist bump. The guy stared at it for a few seconds; his eyes still weary and his breath still slightly ragged. Daiki noticed him exhale quietly. He then adjusted a bit and cleared his throat. Looking back up at Daiki he managed a faint, polite smile.

“Botan”, he said, returning the fist bump. 

A shooting pain ripped through Daiki’s head as soon as he woke up. It felt like there was an injury there – a tear or a hole, on the right side of his skull. He was scared. Truly, genuinely terrified; too terrified to feel his possible wound, too terrified to try and make sense out of what’s going on. 

The last time he was fully awake was when the bird creature had revealed to him that the Takashi that he’d been hanging out with in the forest was in fact one of them, disguised as Takashi. Oh and then the coffee, he remembered, the coffee was drugged or something too. 

Daiki sat up, despite the pain, and tried to focus. Sometimes, it’s good to be scared, his own words kept ringing in his mind over and over again, like a broken record. He wondered why he suddenly thought about the day that he and Botan became friends. Was it a dream? No, it was more vivid, cohesive, and true to reality, than a dream. Was it a memory just flashing before his eyes? 

He looked around to find that he was sitting on some sort of bed; soft and cushiony. There was a small neat-looking pillow on one end of the bed, and two pads of cloth on either side of the other end. One side of the room had a wall installed with what resembled a long polished wooden slider. It looked like the door to some type of cupboard. Below the slider, was a long extension of the wall that curved into about five small seating pods; like a wooden couch with instalments. On the other side of the room, was a long rounded compartment, fixed to the ceiling. There were seams on it that indicated a door, through which a blue fluorescent light bled out. Everywhere Daiki looked inside the room, everything was made of dark polished wood and had a deep brown, save for this light. 

“Whaaat the actual fuck”, he whispered to himself and tried to get up. The pain in his head returned and shot right into the spot where it hurt before. Daiki reached up to try and touch it, ever so scared and anxious. When he did, there was nothing. No wound, no cut, no hole; it just hurt like one, but his head was perfectly fine. He placed one foot in front of the other and began stumbling forward. At first his steps were unsteady but he quickly got the hang of walking on the unusually soft and cold floor. Daiki eagerly walked over to the door and tugged at its knob. He had to find out where he was. Was he still inside the mountains? Or was he far far away in a lonely abandoned building? How much time had passed between then and now? Was it a few hours? Days? Weeks? Months?

Daiki tugged at the door knob a few times but it wouldn’t budge. It seemed to have been locked. Duh, he thought, who would NOT lock the door when imprisoning someone? He stepped back in frustration and looked over his shoulder, taking in the room again. There weren't many objects to work with but two things caught his curiosity – the wooden slider on the wall to his left, and the compartment with the fluorescent light on the wall to his right. 

Eenie meeny miny moe

The slider first. Nervously he walked towards it with desperate hope that he’d find some clue about what was going on, where he was, and how he could get out. Even if he did get out he couldn’t just go home. He had to find Takashi. If Daiki’s kidnappers disguised themselves as his friend to get to him, then it was obvious that they’ve already got Takashi on their hands. He just didn’t know where. With a slowly racing heart and a shaky hand, Daiki reached out to the slider’s finger pull and tugged.

“Whoa!”, he exclaimed as it opened easier than he’d expected. A bright light filled the room and Daiki was surprised. The slider didn’t open up to a cupboard – it was a window. It opened up to the outside. He scrambled over towards it and looked; a green meadow stretching out for as far as the eyes can see, the blue sky strewn about with fluffy white clouds up above – Daiki tilted his head to get a better look – a lush stream of water running down from the left corner of his view. It was breathtaking. 

It was something straight out of a picture. A few apple trees stood scattered around the meadow. Am I dreaming? Is this a dream? Or am I dead? Is this heaven? Would I even go to heaven? Daiki thought as his eyes moved rapidly taking in the scene before him over and over again – taking in every detail. For the first time since waking up, he felt a slight sense of relief. He’d expected to be in some creepy abandoned building in a dark neighborhood, but this was much different. It looked surreal and out of this world and somehow presented some warmth that he hadn’t anticipated. 

“Wheeere the fuck am I??”, he muttered to himself in total disbelief. He tried to get an even better look by putting his head out through the window, but to no avail. It was too narrow. Daiki stood by it, his shoulders slumped, trying to think of a way out, when he suddenly heard something behind him. He jumped and glanced back. Something was rustling in the compartment with the fluorescent light. Daiki felt a chill and his heart started to race again. Was he not alone? Was there someone or something inside the compartment? Was it another yokai? At this point Daiki wasn’t even sure that they were yokai. He expected them to be different. Much different. He thought yokai were just traditional legendary spirits who just wanted to scare people or attack them in a very predictable way that holds true to their legend. But now the yokai seemed to have banded together to kidnap people. And they even talked like normal people did. What the fuck is going on??, he wondered as he stared at the compartment frozen in his tracks. It was still rustling endlessly. Daiki stepped back, agitated and anxious and held on to the window behind him. Something was struggling to get out. Soon the rustling was replaced with loud thuds. Whoever or whatever was inside was trying to bang its door open so it could come out. 

Daiki’s heart beat louder and a million things ran around in his head. What is it? Is it gonna kill me? Are they gonna torture me?? Am I gonna die today without even saying goodbye to my friends and my family? He looked around the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. Anything. A sharp object? A big and heavy object? Or perhaps something that could be used as a shield? Or both? Nothing. The thuds got louder and it felt like something would fall out of it any second now. Daiki scurried over to where he was lying before and picked up the pillow off the bed. “Oh thank God”, he whispered desperately when he realized that it was firmer and sturdier than he had expected it to be. 

With a couple more loud and impactful thuds, the compartment door fell open along with the thing that was inside it. Daiki watched holding the pillow up to his face, shaking all over, as it stood up – a humanoid creature about the same height as him. It looked pretty angry, kicking the fallen door and spewing out what sounded like curse words, in a language that Daiki couldn’t understand – perhaps the same one that his kidnappers were using before. Then it calmed down, put its hands on its hips and stared at Daiki. They looked at each other in silence for a couple minutes. The creature looked more human than the ones that Daiki had seen before – the humanoid bird and the one in Yua Fujisaki’s backyard. This one had a human build with two arms and two legs, mild pastel pink skin and short white hair. Its eyes were long and mean and had pink irises; weird white eyebrows and very thin lips – almost non-existent. It was wearing what looked like a turquoise windbreaker and matching pants.

“Huh, I guess you woke up.”, it said. Is it a girl??, Daiki wondered, still backed up against the wooden couch and holding up the pillow in defense. The creature paced towards Daiki’s bed, hands in pockets, with a snobbish look on its face.

“W-where am I?”, Daiki managed to ask.

“It’s not my place to say. I was only stationed here to guard you.”, it said, sitting down on the bed.

Daiki began breaking out in a cold sweat, “G-guard me? F-from what??”

“Pfft” , the creature scoffed and laughed out loud. “From you, silly. From you running away”, it said cheekily, adding in a wink. Huh?, Daiki thought, in what world do yokai wink?? 

Daiki stared at the creature, too scared to move, too confused to say something. He did the only thing that he could do in that situation – hold tighter onto the wooden couch and the pillow. But the creature’s friendliness surely caught him off-guard. He realized that maybe he could make small talk or ask simple questions to understand what kind of a situation he was in. 

“C-can I a-ask you something?”

The creature smiled, “I don’t know, can you?”, it laughed again. Daiki nervously laughed along, not having a clue as to what it even meant. 

“I-I don’t know either, haha, c-can I?”, he asked again, stumbling over his words. 

“Nope”, the creature winked and playfully rested its chin on its palms, “I’m Nolowi, by the way”

Nolowi??, Daiki thought. He’d heard this name before. In fact, he’d heard it very recently. 

“W-weren’t you the one who was disguised as Takashi?”, he asked.

“Mmhm”, Nolowi said, “Wasn’t that one hell of a performance?”

Daiki managed an agitated smile and nodded, “Haha sure it was…” He looked down at his feet, dangling over the edge of the wooden couch. Feelings of hopelessness and fear began creeping up his body and finding their way back to his head. 

Was he gonna die soon? Was he ever gonna get out? What did these creatures want with him? Where was Takashi? Were these creatures really as friendly as they looked? He wished for answers, desperately. If only Takashi was around. He was a really smart person, no matter how unwilling he was to help sometimes. When it mattered, he always came around. And he always had the answers. Daiki wished that Botan and Asa were there too. Botan was a good friend. Daiki knew that he hated doing crazy, daring stuff most of the time, but that he was there for him almost always, to make sure Daiki never felt alone doing the stuff that he liked to do. Asa hated when people did stupid and ridiculous things so she was always around to draw the line and make sure they didn't end up in jail or, worse, dead. But this time he’d defied Asa and left behind the both of them so he was pretty sure that he just might end up dead. 

While Daiki was immersed deep in his reflective thoughts, a loud bang on the door shook the room violently. Nolowi and Daiki jumped and glared at it as it opened up with another loud bang. The bird creature walked inside. They like banging on doors a lot huh, Daiki thought wearily. When he was not speaking, the bird creature still looked quite intimidating to Daiki. Sweat began to form under his arms as his heart began to thump.

The bird creature looked at Nolowi and put its claws on its forehead, shaking its head. Then it said something in their language and pointed at the broken door of the compartment that Nolowi had fallen out of. Daiki deduced that it was scolding her. Nolowi stood up and yelled something right back at the bird creature, gesturing with her hands. She then groaned in frustration, tugging at her hair and plopped herself down vigorously on Daiki’s bed, with her arms crossed. She kept staring into nothing with an angry pout on her face. The bird creature sighed and then turned to Daiki. 

Confused, Daiki prepared himself mentally for whatever was to come. 

“Daiki..san”, it said in its low deep voice, “I hope you’re feeling alright”

Alright??, he scoffed in his head, I feel a lot of things but alright is far far from it! Daiki managed a timid smile, as the bird creature approached him. He flinched ever so slightly. 

“You’ve been here for 4 days in your time”, the creature said.

 Daiki felt strange. What did he mean by “your time”?? Did yokai have a different time zone than us?? But the fact that he’d been there for just 4 days brought him some relief. He was anticipating months, or even years. 

The creature continued, “Maybe the drug was a bit too strong. We apologize”

“You mean “I apologize”? Cause the drug was definitely your idea, Zakuvo.”, Nolowi interrupted, still angry. Zakuvo. Daiki took in the bird creature’s name. So it’s not “kotengu”? Maybe that’s what humans called him, he thought. 

“Yeah you guys just wanted to knock him unconscious with a bat. Nice idea.”

“Sure as hell beats tricking the guy with his best friend’s disguise and potentially poisoning him!”

Nolowi and Zakuvo began their bickering again and Daiki felt exhausted. I just need some answers, he pleaded in his head. 

“E-excuse me”, he mumbled, afraid to say anything out of place but desperate beyond self-control, to make some sense out of this situation, “C-can you just t-tell me why you b-brought me here? A-are you gonna k-kill me?”

Nolowi and Zakuvo looked confused and exchanged glances with each other.

“Kill??” Nolowi blurted out and laughed, “Why would we kill you, silly? Although I admit from your point of view this must be pretty terrifying”

“Seriously, Nolowi you’re one apathetic piece of crap”, Zakuvo shook his head and inched closer to Daiki, who flinched and backed up further against the back of the couch. His heart was in his ears. 

“You don’t have to be afraid. We just need your help”

Daiki furrowed his brows and looked at the two creatures standing over him. Help?? They need my help?? What??? If he was confused earlier, he was now bewildered. What could he possibly help a bunch of yokai with?? Terrorizing people?? Daiki tried to gather his thoughts and follow what the two creatures were telling him.

“H-help with what?”

“We will explain that to you on our way”, Zakuvo said matter-of-factly.

Daiki got increasingly curious and scared at the same time. But a familiar feeling of subtle excitement unexpectedly crept up his heart.

“On our way?”, he asked, “W-what do you mean? O-on our way to what?”

Zakuvo smiled underneath its unusually large beak. It wasn’t an evil, sinister smile, or a deceptive and manipulative one. It looked like a sincere and encouraging smile. Daiki felt the knot in his stomach go away. It had been there so long that he hadn’t noticed how truly scared he was until now. But his limbs were still shaky and his heart still beat fast. Zakuvo looked over at Nolowi who nodded. Then he glanced back at Daiki and extended his claw towards him.

“On our way to meet the person who requested that we bring you here – Your friend, Takashi”.