[Akira Koizumi Akira]



Brother, it's morning!

　That day, Koizumi Akira woke up at the sound of his sister's voice.

''Shut up....''

　I rubbed my eyes as I sat up and saw my sister's face smiling innocently at me.

'Come on, get up. We're going to be late.'
It's a very noisy morning.

　His younger sister Saya wakes him up forcibly every day.
　This is Akira's daily life.
　He feigns a languid expression and voice, but his sister is irreplaceable to him.
　Even the mornings are different when he sees Saya's cheerful smile.
　Saya also adores her brother.

*

Aki-chan, you need to eat your vegetables.

　At his mother's urging, Akira tapped into a green pepper he didn't like.
　He took a bite and put it back on his plate.

Aki-chan, I'm going to be late today, so take care of Saya for me.
Yeah, I get it.

　Koizumi's parents worked together.
　His father would leave home early in the morning.
　That's why they were always together.



Off I go!

　After finishing breakfast, Akira finishes getting ready and leaves the house with his sister.
　While Akira goes to school by bicycle, Saya walks to school.
　So they go out together, but they always separate in front of the house.

　Saya waves to her brother as she runs away.
　Saya is in the first year of junior high school.
　Saya's mother is worried about her mother, who has been in elementary school until the other day.
　Her brother eases her fears.
　Akira Koizumi is a good older brother at home.

　Akira gallantly runs out of the house today and heads to school.



【Tachibana Takeshi】.



'It's Takeshi's favorite hamburger today!

　Takeshi ate his breakfast, delighting in the menu for dinner.
　There was nothing that Takeshi didn't like, he ate anything he could eat.

　Everyone in the Tachibana family is a glutton.
　That's probably why the three people in the living room have the same body type.
　But the older brother, who moved to Tokyo and is no longer with the family, is somehow slimmer.

　Living with his mother and father, Takeshi was happy to have the food he wanted to eat every day.
　More than anything else, he loved hamburgers, and on days like the day he received a warning from his mother, he would come straight home without stopping to eat.

　After finishing breakfast, Takeshi prepared himself as usual, put his lunch in his bag for the last time and left home.
　The mornings are relatively easy for Takeshi, who used to cycle to school.

　This was Takeshi's daily routine.



[Tadokoro Teppei]



　Teppei's father owned a motorcycle shop.
　There was a shop and a factory right under his house, and his father worked there every day.
　When he came home from school, his father, whose hands were stained black, would wave at him and welcome him home.
　That was Teppei's daily life.

'Teppei, when you come home from school today, I'm going to teach you how to replace your blinker switch.'

　Teppei's father says this very occasionally.
　But Teppei is not interested in motorcycles.
　Teppei's hobbies are anime and video games. At school, he's always reading books.
　Perhaps because he knows this, Teppei's father speaks to him only occasionally.

　Teppei gave a tepid reply.
　He won't tell me anyway, and his father won't tell me anyway.
　They know each other. That there is no point in this conversation.
　But my father occasionally throws in those words as part of his communication.
　We don't hate each other, we just don't like each other. We just don't like each other's interests.
　Teppei is an indoor man who doesn't talk much.
　My father is an active man who has loved motorcycles since he was young.
　Their conversations were always tenuous.

"Teppei, I've packed a lunch in my bag.
'Yeah...'

　Teppei responds gloomily to his mother as well.
　No one cares.
　It's not that he has any bad intentions, it's just a matter of character.

　Teppei finishes getting ready and gets on his bike to head to school.
　This was Teppei's daily life.

*

　The three of them meet in front of the get-up and head to the classroom, talking to each other appropriately and talking about anime.
　After reaching the second floor and going down the hallway for a while, the classroom came into view.
　Hidaka Masamune could be seen from the front.
　The three of them, with Koizumi in the center, sneakily grinning and whispering something to each other.

　As they walked past, both of Masamune's shoulders hit Akira and Takeshi.

''Ouch!''

　Akira exaggerates his voice.
　If you're walking normally, it's not normal to bump into someone like that by accident.
　Of course, this was on purpose.
　Akira and Takeshi bumped into each other's shoulders, pinning Masamune to the ground.

　Masamune fell on his butt.
　The two men looked down at the scene and smiled at each other.
　Teppei had a sardonic look on his face and smiled so much that no one could tell.

'Hey, isn't that Hidaka? Maybe it's because he's so desperately stained, but I didn't notice.'

　These days Masamune is so tired of the daily bullying that he is no longer even alive.
　He even doesn't change his expression to the extent that he is buttocks-crushed.
　His lack of response to pain is proof of this.
　It was on this day that Masamune committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the school building.

''I'm.......sorry.''

　Masamune looked at me like I was a dead fish.

'That's disgusting, don't look at me like that,'
I'm sorry...

　With a small apology, Masamune stood up and left.

'Haha!　You were as listless as ever, weren't you? Did Saeki do something to you again?
I don't know. He doesn't talk at all. I don't know what he's thinking.

　Takeshi nodded his head.

'I'm not interested, as long as I'm having fun.

　Teppei replies with a muttered reply.

'It's funny because you never get angry at me no matter what I do. It's only recently that I realized why Saeki is so concerned about it. In short, he's a sandbag, a way to vent his frustration. He's a sandbag, to vent his frustration.

　Ming said, "Isn't that a good analogy? I grinned.

'That's not the point, let's go to class. First period is P.E., we need to change quickly or else we'll be in trouble.

　The three of them hurriedly made their way to the classroom.

*

　The three of them were always together.
　They would talk about anime and video games, and in between, they would torment Masamune.
　It wasn't as bad as Saeki's, but it wasn't light either.
　There was a definite malice there.
　In other words, he liked to see Masamune hurt.
　Masamune would not be touched.
　The three of them were always playing with Masamune.
　Whenever they passed each other, they did something unbecoming.

　The noon chime rang in the school building.
　It happened all the time.
　Masamune was being serviced by Saeki.
　Then Kawachi appeared and gave Saeki a pep talk.
　In addition, "Why don't you talk back? Masamune also pestered Kawachi.
　The three of them watched the scene with a grin.
　Akira and the others were not amused.

　After a while, Masamune left the classroom.
　Akira and his friends forgot about Masamune's departure and stuck their desks together to have lunch while chatting happily about anime.

　They didn't know that Masamune was planning to commit suicide by jumping off the roof.

　But a few minutes later, that light enveloped the classroom.
　It's the light of a heroic summoning.
　The three of them are caught up in the otherworldly summoning and are summoned to the Grayberg Kingdom in the Vanome Continent.



　Koizumi will never see his sister Saya again.
　Saya would also never see her beloved brother again.

　On this day, Saya would eat dinner alone in the fridge as she waited for her parents to return and her brother to return.
　But that was just the beginning.
　Saya would be alone from now on. Her brother would never come back.

　Tachibana Takeshi is no exception.
　His mother must have been at home making hamburgers and waiting for him.

　That night, there was an untouched, wrapped hamburger on the table.
　Takeshi would no longer sit in that seat.
　There would be no more forks and knives in Takeru's hands as they were placed on the table.
　Takeshi would never again eat his mother's hamburgers or homemade food.

　The same goes for Teppei.
　Teppei will never again be greeted by his father, whose hands are blackened with soot and oil.

　That day.
　Teppei's father was looking at the end of the road with a bit of concern, tilting his head, saying that it wouldn't be surprising if he usually came back.
　But Teppei doesn't appear there.
　My father would never talk to Teppei about his motorcycle again.
　Teppei and his father would never again be around breakfast.
　Teppei would never again learn how to change a blinker switch from his father.

Akira Koizumi, Takeshi Tachibana, and Teppei Tadokoro.
And so the three of them disappear from the world.



　The rusty nameplate says "Koizumi" in scuffed letters.
　The first thing you see when you open the front door is a dimly lit hallway and staircase.
　All the small windows were sealed with duct tape.
　The door on the left opened to reveal the living room.

-- 'A mass panic, for example. Isn't it possible that this is the case?''


　A spilled TV sound.


-- 'I don't know, maybe it's possible...'


　Windows and curtains that are closed off.


-- 'Because many at this age are prone to mass panic.'


　Day after day, the press ring the intercom and stake out the front of the house.


--'Initially, the kidnapping was very likely, but the security cameras didn't show anything, did they?

　A mother who has become ill.
　The daughter does not come out of her room.
　There is a cold side dish in front of the door and hardened rice in a tea cup.

-- ''To begin with, kidnapping 21 students at the same time is not an easy thing to do. It's impossible without an entire organization. Some people on the Internet say that they may have disappeared voluntarily, but someone must have seen them anyway. But no one has seen him. No one saw the security cameras either. There are no security cameras inside the building, so they are probably still in the school building.

　Empty beer cans piled up on the table.
　Abandoned garbage bags.

--The police are still investigating the scene, aren't they?

　The warm curtains, reddened by the sunset.

-- 'You mean there was no disappearance itself?'

　Crows cawing.

--I can't think of anything else. There were several cameras in the neighborhood, including a convenience store. If none of them were caught on camera, it means that the students weren't moving.

　A dimly lit room.
　The stagnant moldy air and the stench of raw garbage.

--The air is stagnant with mold and the stench of raw garbage. The disappearance of a group of students from Tateyama East Second High School, however, the whereabouts of the students are still unknown.

　A reporter waiting to come out looked up at the cawing of crows blocking the blazing red sky.