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“Well, that was a pretty good movie,” Kaito remarked as the final shot cut to the credits sequence. He took his phone out of his pocket, and with just a few taps, the movie stopped, and his preferred slideshow of space photos began to play on the wide-screen television. He turned toward his friend. “Whaddaya think, Rantaro?”
The Ultimate Adventurer smiled politely. “I quite liked it.”
“Glad to hear, bro.” Kaito returned his gaze to his phone. “Up for another one?”
“Hmm.” Rantaro considered this for a moment. “I think I could go for one more.”
It was a Friday night during the spring break, and they were at Kaito’s house for a movie night. They didn’t call it a sleepover, although they’d wordlessly agreed that Rantaro would be staying the night, since they probably weren’t going to go to bed until 2 in the morning anyway. Despite the fact that school wasn’t in session, they’d both been quite busy, and they hadn’t had the chance to hang out until tonight. For the moment, they were sitting up side-by-side on Kaito’s futon, but Kaito had arranged a small inflatable mattress for Rantaro to sleep on… whenever they were going to go to sleep.
“Let’s see here…” Kaito murmured as he scrolled through the collection of movies available. His eyes lit up as he caught sight of a James Bond film. “Ooh, there’s a really cool action movie right here! We gotta check it out!”
“But we just finished an action movie,” Rantaro pointed out. “Maybe we should watch something else this time.”
Kaito’s grin faded a little. “Guess you’re right. Hmm… you into kendo at all? There’s a really funny flick right here about a kendo club.”
“That does sound interesting,” said Rantaro, “but I’m not sure if it’s my cup of tea.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t real keen on that either,” Kaito agreed. He was silent for a moment as he continued scrolling, eyeing the titles that appeared on the screen. Then he looked up at Rantaro with an enthusiastic glint in his eye. “Aha!” He held the phone up towards Rantaro, giving him a perfect view of the screen. “A mystery! It’s about the mysterious disappearance of some guy’s younger sister-”
His words died on his lips as he noticed the subtle way Rantaro’s lips had curved downwards, how his eyes had narrowed slightly. The gravity of his mistake hit him like a ton of bricks, and he quickly put the phone down beside him. “Shit! I’m sorry, bro… I shoulda realised…”
“It’s alright,” said Rantaro. “It was an honest mistake. I understand.”
“Yeah, but man… I feel so bad now,” Kaito admitted. “I mean, this is real heavy stuff, y’know?”
“It’s really nothing to worry about,” Rantaro insisted. “No hard feelings.”
“I dunno, man…”
It wasn’t exactly a secret to Kaito that the disappearance of his 12 younger sisters hit Rantaro much harder than he let on. How could anyone just take their siblings’ disappearance in stride? Kaito didn’t have any siblings of his own, but if he did, and anything had happened to them… no matter how annoying they were, no matter how much they drove him up the wall, he’d feel terrible, and miss them deeply. After all, they were family, and families were supposed to look out for each other.
By now, it had been about four years since Rantaro’s sisters had gone missing - five since the youngest, Aki, had. Kaito had never met any of them, but Rantaro had spoken about them so often that it felt as though he’d known them forever. And he hoped that, one day, he really would get to meet them all in person.
The two boys were silent for a moment. Fuck. Kaito had really done it now, had he? He should’ve known better than to show Rantaro that stupid movie. Of course it would hit too close to home for him, no matter how much he’d try to hide it. He supposed there wasn’t much he could do except clean up this mess.
“They gotta be out there somewhere,” he said. “Anything could’ve happened in four years.”
“Make that five,” said Rantaro. “Six for Aki. I can’t go look for them until I graduate, remember?”
“Oh yeah? What about summer vacation?”
“That’s nowhere near long enough to explore every nook and cranny of the world. They could be anywhere. Besides, it’s gonna be our final year at school, and I hear that the workload’s nothing to smile about.”
“Is now really the time to be worried about schoolwork, Rantaro? Your sisters - they could be anywhere! Whaddaya think they might be doin’ right now? There’s no guarantee that they’re having a good time. They need you now more than ever!”
Rantaro turned away from Kaito and lowered his head. “I can’t,” he murmured. “I can’t just pack my bags and go right now, even if I wanted to.”
“Why not!?” Kaito demanded, slamming his fist against the surface of the bedside table. “No one’s holdin’ a gun to your head! You’re a rich dude, aren’t ya!? You can afford all the plane tickets and hotel bookings you could ever want!”
“It’s not that…” Rantaro sighed. “My family are just… adamant about me finishing school and getting really good grades. They really want me to just move on and give up on the search. They’ve already accepted that my sisters are all gone, you see… but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to life without them. I wanna go out and begin my journey, too, don’t get me wrong, but…” He trailed off.
“Hey.” Kaito outstretched his hand and placed it firmly on Rantaro’s shoulder. Rantaro looked up, his expression weary and tired. “If your sisters could see you right now, they’d be so damn proud to have a great big brother like you. You’re not giving up on them. You have faith in them. You reckon they’re still out there somewhere, waiting to finally come home.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe your folks just wanna sit back and twiddle their thumbs thinkin’ they’re already long gone.”
Rantaro shrugged. “I can’t blame them. They’ve spent a fortune on search parties. The official investigation stopped a few months ago. It’s such a waste.”
“Your sisters don’t need a damn search party with no one who has a clue what they’re doing,” said Kaito. “They need you. ”
“Me?” Rantaro averted his gaze again. “I’m the one responsible for Aki’s disappearance.”
“Seriously?” Kaito gritted his teeth. “I told ya a million times, Rantaro, the adults on the ship were the ones responsible for her!”
“They had to look after the other eleven girls, too.”
“How many adult family members were there again? Dad, stepmom, grandma, grandpa, uncle - that’s five, unless I’m missing somebody. And they weren’t even the only ones who came along for the trip. You can’t tell me that they couldn’t watch over 12 little girls.”
“Grandpa is blind,” Rantaro reminded him. “Grandma had dementia, and at the time she couldn’t even remember any of our names.”
“But they were still capable of looking after children, weren’t they?”
“Regardless, I should’ve noticed Aki behind me. I didn’t. How did I never notice her behind me?”
Kaito shrugged. “Bit much to ask for an excited preteen boy living in the moment to pay attention to anything behind him, don’tcha think?”
Rantaro hesitated. “...I suppose.”
There was a silence that lasted about a minute, but to Kaito, it felt much longer. He was glad that Rantaro was opening up to him a little more, but at the same time, he hated to see his friend blaming himself for what was, ultimately, an accident. On the other hand… even if he couldn’t do it right away, Rantaro was determined to go out there and spearhead his own search for his sisters. He never gave up on them, even when everyone else had. He was disheartened because he wanted to just hurry up and do something. And Kaito loved his go-getter attitude. This was a cause that he could get behind.
“I’m gonna go on the trip with you.”
Rantaro’s eyes widened. “You really don’t have to-”
“I know. But I wanna help you out. You could always do with an extra pair of eyes.”
“But… don’t you wanna go outer space after school?”
With a confident grin on his face, Kaito leaned a little closer to Rantaro and slung an arm around his shoulder. “That can wait, man.”
“Ah…” Rantaro smiled, beginning to relax. “Thanks.”
Kaito chuckled. “Anything for my bro!” He released Rantaro and picked up his phone, opening up the movie library once again. “We still gotta pick somethin’ to watch, bro.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Rantaro leaned back against the headboard and studied the film titles displayed on the screen. “You know, I feel like watching some kind of adventure flick - something to do with a quest.”
Kaito’s eyes lit up. “Like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief? ”
“Yeah, that could work.” Rantaro lifted a finger to his chin. “Come to think of it, I haven’t been to Greece yet…”
“We’ll go together,” Kaito proposed, grinning broadly.
Rantaro smiled at him. “I would like that.”