Haruma was supposed to be waiting by the school gate.
Shuuji checked his watch for the third time, irritation prickling beneath his skin. Parents were already pulling away, children waving as cars disappeared down the road. The afternoon bell had rung nearly fifteen minutes ago.
Still no Haruma.
“Maybe he went to the library,” Sasaki said, though her voice lacked conviction. She stood beside the car, scanning the thinning crowd, her eyes jumping from face to face.
Shuuji dialled home.
No answer.
A knot tightened in his chest.
Yuma had stayed home that day, feverish and pale, left in the care of their grandparents. Haruma had gone to school alone, grumbling lightly that morning as he slipped on his shoes, promising he’d be back before dinner.
Shuuji ended the call and started the engine.
They drove through familiar streets at first — the route Haruma usually took home, the small park he liked to cut through, the convenience store where he sometimes stopped for snacks. Each place they passed without seeing him made the silence heavier.
An hour passed.
Then two.
Sasaki’s hands trembled as she clutched her phone, redialling home again and again, her breath shallow each time the call went unanswered. Shuuji drove faster now, eyes darting to every pavement, every alley, every child-shaped shadow.
Something was wrong. They both felt it.
When they finally returned home, the house greeted them with a terrible stillness.
Haruma wasn’t there.
That was when they called the police.
Officers arrived quickly, their calm voices cutting through the panic that had begun to claw at Sasaki’s chest. Questions followed — what he was wearing, who he spoke to, whether anything unusual had happened recently.
“Do you think he ran away?” someone asked gently.
Shuuji shook his head at once. “He wouldn’t.”
Yuma listened from the staircase, his body heavy with fever but his mind painfully clear. He understood what the adults were trying not to say. Haruma hadn’t come home. Haruma hadn’t been seen.
Haruma was missing.
The house filled with people and equipment. Phones rang. Officers moved in and out, their footsteps echoing like thunder. Yuma sat quietly beside his grandparents, his hands clenched in his pyjama sleeves, his heart pounding so hard it hurt.
Then the phone rang again.
Everyone froze.
Shuuji answered.
The voice on the other end was distorted, cold, deliberate. The words were brief, precise — a demand for money, an amount so large Yuma’s grandmother gasped aloud when she heard it.
The caller hung up before the police could trace the signal.
They waited.
Another call came, this time with proof — a photograph sent to Shuuji’s phone. Haruma’s face stared back at them, pale but alive, his eyes wide with fear.
Sasaki collapsed to the floor, sobbing.
The police advised cooperation. The money was prepared. Shuuji followed instructions exactly, placing the ransom at the designated location while officers watched from a distance.
The money was taken.
Haruma was not returned.
Days blurred together after that. Searches intensified. Volunteers joined in. Tips came and went, hope rising and falling with each one. Yuma stopped asking when Haruma would come home. He could see it in everyone’s faces — the fear they no longer tried to hide.
A month passed.
Then, finally, a lead.
An abandoned building. A name. A mistake made by the kidnappers.
The police moved quickly.
When they found Haruma, it was nothing like the photograph.
Yuma wasn’t there when it happened, but he would later hear the word used in hushed voices, spoken as if saying it too loudly might break something fragile.
Unthinkable.
That was how they described the sight of his brother when they finally brought him home.
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