Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Statement of Momota Kaito, given December 8, 2018

Statement begins:

I've been sick for most of my life. Let's just get that out there. I know what is and isn’t normal for me, and I’m telling you this isn’t normal. This isn’t me getting worse, either. I’m pretty sure coughing up mud isn’t a ‘natural progression’ of my condition.

I don't tell a whole lot of people about my illness because I don't want them spending their time worrying over me, but, yeah, hacking up my lungs isn't exactly new to me. It started some time in elementary school and it was one of those things that I was so sure would go away if I just waited it out, but weeks turned into years and I was still coughing up blood in the middle of the night. These days I’ve gotten to the point where I can manage the symptoms and keep ‘em from slowing me down, though.

A big part of that has been keeping up my physical fitness, of course! I can already hear my sidekicks saying that ‘exercise isn’t a replacement for medical treatment’ but it has its own way of helping, y’know? Aerobic exercises like running and swimming increase your VO2 max, so even if I lost some lung capacity to the crud that's building up in there I wouldn't lose my physical stamina and can still go about my day. Hell, I was still able to pass the physical for JAXA’s astronaut program!

That's been my dream, y'know, ever since I was a lil' kid. I've been on the sea and even captained my own boat for a bit, and any old guy can traverse the land, but not a whole lot of people get to the sky, or beyond the sky. That's where I wanna go explore. That's the great new frontier, and I want to be right there on the cutting edge of it, no matter what it takes.

My hard work is really close to paying off, too! I'm officially an astronaut trainee, and spend most of my time in one JAXA facility or another doing drills, undergoing tests, or just studying up for my team's proposed mission. One of these days we're gonna be up there with the stars!

I hear them whispering sometimes, though, when they think I can't hear them. My sidekick, Shuichi, said that he thinks the staff could be keeping me in the running because they want to study the effects zero-G has on my illness. I keep telling him that's bullshit, and I'm there because of pure ability, but whenever I have a coughing fit so bad I have to thump my chest to dislodge a particularly stubborn glob, a part of me starts to wonder whether there's any truth to what he's saying. And, honestly, I'm not sure that I would care anyway. If I'm gonna die anywhere from this disease, I'd rather die up there than down here looking up. Who knows, maybe the low gravity environment would actually cure me.

[At this point, there is a brown smudge on the side of the paper. It is much darker than dried blood.]

I wouldn’t be here if it was just my illness getting worse. I’m not exactly thrilled at the idea of going back to the doctor on a normal day, but I’m worried if I told them what I’m about to tell you they’d put some mental shit on my record and my career as an astronaut would be up in smoke. It’s just… weird.

I’m pretty sure it started a few months ago - I was doing push-ups. I do push-ups regularly, and lots of them - they’re a great full body workout that you can do anywhere, and sometimes I really get in the zone so it’s kind of a mental thing too. When I do my sets, sometimes I imagine I'm pushing the weight of the world from me, kinda like that Greek myth of Atlas, y'know? It's all about relativity, of course, so with a frame of reference shift it isn't that tough to visualize. And it gives ya a pretty big confidence boost. Try it sometime!

But what’s weird was partway through my set, my hands just sunk into the ground. It was like, where my hands were planted, the ground just turned to honey, and suddenly I was wrist deep in solid concrete. It legitimately felt, in my mind, like I had pushed too hard on the earth and it had refused to move. I tried to scramble to my feet when it happened, of course, in case the cement had melted or some freak thing and I didn’t want to get it all over my clothes, but just like that it was solid again and I was stuck. It seriously threw me off balance, and I... might have face-planted real good on the pavement. I definitely got a nosebleed. I felt my nose start to run once I got back onto my knees once those first few splatters of blood hit the pavement it just… melted right off the tops of my hands. It was horrifying, actually. It felt kinda like a tongue running over the back of my hand... eugh.

And that was just the first time something like that happened! A week later, I was out jogging, and I had kinda got lost in my thoughts, as you do when you get in the groove, y'know? Makiroll had complained that she was having a hard time talking to Tenko but was interested in learning more about Neo-Aikido, and I had to take some time to brainstorm ways to help her. I know she can handle herself just fine, of course, but it’s a hero’s job to help his sidekicks with any problems, no matter how small! And she doesn’t open up about wanting to make friends with the rest of the class that often, so I can’t just let this opportunity slip by to help her get closer, even if… Tenko tends to make things difficult when any of us guys get involved. 

 I swear I was ALMOST at a solution, so of course that’s when the toes of my shoes got stuck in the asphalt. I’d switched out my running shorts for joggers as we headed into those cooler fall days, and they’re practically unusable now ‘cuz they have a huge gash and bloodstains on the right knee from where I fell on it. That time, the ground let up almost immediately, but I swear my feet were halfway submerged in the asphalt before it did. I checked and the road was completely solid afterwards, which makes sense because there was no way it would have been hot enough to melt that late in October, but I almost convinced myself it was just a freak thing that had a logical explanation.

It happened a couple more times like that, even in front of my sidekicks. I’d just sink into the ground without warning. I tried my best to play it off like I was just clumsy and I think they believed me, ‘cuz Makiroll just rolled her eyes each time. Shuichi kept suggesting I go home and rest, but I’m not a quitter like that! And… I’m really worried Shuichi has started to catch on to my illness, and I gotta prove to him that I’m fine! Really! He’s worrying for nothing!

…I know I should probably tell them about my diagnosis at some point, but it can at least wait ‘til after graduation, right? They have bigger things to focus on, and I don’t wanna distract them ‘cuz they decided to worry about me. Shuichi is still building up his confidence as a Detective and Makiroll is still finding her own path outside of the talent Hope’s Peak Academy assigned her, and I’m really proud of how far they’ve come. 

It was in November when I really got worried, I guess. I'd been doing jumping jacks when… the best way to describe it is the ground opened up under me and I sunk up to my waist in dirt and gravel. It was so fast that I didn't have time to react, and then my legs were completely immobilized. I tried pulling myself back up for... probably a couple minutes? I think I even screamed for help after a while, and that's probably what started me coughing. I'd been pretty good and hadn't had an episode in a while, but I think the dirt pressing on my diaphragm and the exertion of trying to wiggle myself out, on top of… being a lil freaked out in general, I think I wasn’t thinking about how I was breathing and jostled something in my lungs. That set me off, bad. It was one of those episodes where I can't quite get enough oomph to clear my airway and the pressure builds and builds behind my eyes until my sight is blacked out and... I've only passed out once, but I do my best to avoid that. And then... I dunno. I finally got a clot dislodged and spat it out and suddenly the ground was letting me go. That's when I started putting the pieces together, of what actually gets it to stop.

It would always bang me up enough to draw some blood and it would always let me go as soon as I'd shed a couple drops, and that's like, a pattern, right? Whatever's going on, it wants blood.

Ugh, this sounds so stupid. I don't believe in ghosts or any of that occult stuff, so that's definitely not what this is, but this shit ain’t normal - and once I started trying it, it worked. It actually worked. If I found myself stuck, I’d find somethin’ sharp to draw some blood or, in a pinch, try to dislodge some from my lungs to… appease it I guess? I even thought about asking Angie for my blood back - she’s asked everyone in our class to give a blood sacrifice in the beginning of her first year, and I thought that was just a funny way of saying she was running a blood drive for her island, so I said yes. My doctor was pissed at me, actually, because my hemoglobin counts didn’t go back to normal for months, but I gotta help out where I can! Kokichi claimed she just kept it in her lab this whole time, which I was pretty sure was just more of his bullshit, but I asked Shuichi to investigate just in case and… it was just sitting right next to her paints. I didn’t ask him to grab it, of course, because that would have just raised more questions from him. He’s a little too sharp for his own good sometimes, haha. But it would’ve been useful.

I was able to manage without it for almost a month, actually, until earlier this week. I was just starting out on another run when the ground opened up again, and this time I was almost up to my neck when it solidified around me and I was just fuckin… encased. I couldn’t move my arms or my legs, and it was tight enough around my chest that it was hard to breathe, let alone get a good enough cough going to get me out of there. I tried wiggling around again, hoping for some stupid reason this time would be different and maybe I could get a hand free or something, but this time it was like quicksand and moving just made me sink deeper. Before I knew it I was up to my chin and was struggling to keep the dirt out of my mouth.

I’m not a religious man, but thank God, Angie’s Kami-sama, whoever, that Korekiyo walked by right then. I had inhaled enough dirt and… I don’t want to admit it but I was so panicked that all I could manage was to tell him “blood! It wants blood!” And to his credit, he didn’t even blink as he pulled a knife from somewhere in his uniform and sliced his palm. That should probably freak me out more, ‘cuz he’s already kind of a creepy guy, but after this week he’s a pretty solid dude in my book. He literally saved my life without question.

I ended up rambling to him about all of the freak accidents I’d been having while he bandaged up his left hand, and asked for his advice 'cause he knows a lot about folklore and stuff, and he directed me to you guys. Said a lot of his fellow anthropologists run in with you at some point or another. Honestly, I was going to completely ignore his advice because I refuse to believe this is some fuckin’ supernatural thing but… I’m running out of options. 

Ever since Korekiyo helped me out earlier this week I’ve been trying to clear the dirt I inhaled and it just won’t clear up. I don’t actually think it’s possible to have that much solid matter in my lungs without having other, more serious problems, but every morning I’m spewing more mud into my sink. I should probably go get checked out but, well… I still don’t have a good, sound explanation that someone sound of mind would give and if they find anything else wrong with me I can almost guarantee they’ll take me off the launch in January and… I’ve worked too hard to let that happen. I finally got the news I’ve been waiting for my whole life - a private company wants to send me as a ride-long on a space station resupply, and I’ll officially be the youngest person ever to go to space! I was already pretty nervous about the extensive health checks they scheduled for me before and after the mission, so I really have to make sure I put this whole dirt thing behind me before winter break.

You guys can help, right? Korekiyo thinks you’ve seen cases like this before, so you gotta have some idea of what’s going on with me? Normally I’d just, yknow, handle this kind of thing myself, but it’s… really starting to worry me. I might not make it to January.

I’m not afraid to die, of course. I’m not a coward. And when you’ve spent as much time in and out of hospitals as I have, it becomes an inevitability that it’ll come sooner than later. I just… I just need another month. I can’t die before I get to space, after all.

Statement Ends. The remainder of the page is obfuscated by large, dark brown stains.

Follow-up on this statement has proven difficult due to the sealing of Momota Kaito’s medical records by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency following his death, but there is a wealth of information due to the public nature of his education and untimely end. It is well-documented that he had been admitted to Hope’s Peak Academy after passing JAXA’s notoriously difficult astronaut exam at the age of 15, and the following scandal of allowing a teenager without the required secondary education to remain an astronaut trainee. Momota-San was on track to graduate in the spring following this statement, and school records indicate his grades were excellent despite a large number of absences for both training and ‘medical reasons’. Further inquiries into these absences were rebuffed by school staff as they ‘do not maintain medical records of deceased students due to previous incidents’. These incidents were not elaborated on but may refer to the Hopes Peak Reserve Course Parade and subsequent Mass-Suicide which made international news, and is touched on in statement #0101125.

Saihara Shuichi and Harukawa Maki were reached out to for additional statements on Momota Kaito’s time at Hope’s Peak Academy. Saihara-san rejected any further communication, stating he does not wish to relive that chapter of his life. It is advised that Harukawa-san not be contacted any further out of safety concerns for our staff. Shinguuji Korekiyo was found to have left Japan shortly after graduation, and is currently uncontactable.

The January 8th, 2019 Pinnacle Aerospace launch failure in which Momota Kaito perished was a highly publicized incident, and is almost certainly the mission he refers to in this statement. Southern Tanegashima was hit by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake at 9:39pm, precisely at T-2 of the launch sequence, resulting in failure to launch. Witness accounts disagree on an exact sequence of events due to the large amount of debris and rocket plume surrounding the scene at the time of the incident, but it is widely agreed that the rocket was ‘swallowed up’ by either a fissure or sinkhole in the launch pad. All excavation attempts have failed due to the sedimentary nature of the local geology and apparent depth of the rocket in the sandstone, well below sea level. The effort was abandoned in early 2020 due to financial concerns from the private company.

After some searching, I was able to locate statement #0190108 from Souda Kazuichi, a mechanic who had been on standby for the launch. His statement suggests that the rocket did, in fact, achieve liftoff, but apparently flipped midair in a drill-like maneuver before boreing into the ground.

Regardless, bodies of Momota Kaito and his two teammates were never recovered, and are thought to still be hermetically sealed inside the launch capsule despite the crushing underground pressure differentials.

Chapter Text

Statement of Saihara Shuichi, given 7/24/2024

Statement begins:

You wanted a statement from me about Kaito, right? You contacted me a few years ago, and at the time I didn’t want any other reminders of what happened to him. I didn’t think I could talk about him without breaking down all over again. These days, though… it’s hard to block out those memories when he’s living with me.

When the Pinnacle Aerospace rocket appeared beached on the shore of Kagoshima, across the strait from Tanegashima, they had requested three of my upperclassmen from Hope’s Peak Academy - Kirigiri Kyoko, Souda Kazuichi, and Tsumiki Mikan - to aid in the incident investigation led by JAXA. Kirigiri-san had a conflict with another large case she had been working, and asked that I go in her stead. I reminded her that I’m really only a specialist in domestic disputes, but she pointed out that I’d seen and investigated my fair share of crime scenes with dead bodies. On a more personal level… I was curious. I wanted to know what happened to my best friend, what his final moments were like. Even if it was horrible.

I was flown down from Tokyo that same week. The rocket itself had been transported on a cargo ship to Uchinoura Space center, which was lined with media personnel when I arrived. I was told that they would be prohibited from entering the center’s premises until the investigation concluded ‘out of respect for the astronauts’ families’ and even my cell phone was confiscated - ah, I mean stored for privacy reasons, but I was allowed my camera set after explaining that I may need to take photo evidence for my own analysis. 

The rocket itself was surprisingly intact. Even the metal surface was largely undamaged, aside from rows of fine striations running clockwise down the length of the fuselage. There were certainly no signs of the manned capsule being breached. Souda-san was quick to point out that the discoloration on the rocket burners indicated that the rocket had reached final ignition, but they had all been bent in odd directions, no longer pointing directly ‘downwards’.

I probably walked in circles around the rocket for 2 hours, before admitting to myself that I couldn’t put it off any longer. We had to open up the capsule chamber. I remember Tsumiki-san explaining that the environmental seal and low underground temperatures likely meant that they would not be decomposed, so there would still be a good chance at performing an autopsy. I’m not sure if that was intended to make me feel better, or…

But nothing could have prepared me for what we found inside. As the capsule hatch was removed, a wet, rotting wall of air rolled across us, and we could see that the capsule was solidly packed with dirt. The smell alone made me want to retch.

It took a half hour of debate between the engineers to decide how to start excavating, and just as long to obtain a shovel and some canisters ‘for preserving the evidence’ before the first acrid clump of soil was removed. It reminded me of a swamp, and I suspect it was similarly acidic. As the bodies of Kaito’s companions were unearthed, they appeared shriveled and tanned, not dissimilar to images Korekiyo had showed me of Northern European ‘bog bodies’. He had explained once that the properties of a peat bog could preserve human remains, including organs, for centuries. That would be a stretch, given the fact that the rocket was supposedly stranded in the ocean for the past 4 years, but I could not help but to draw the parallel.

It was perhaps another hour before one of the staff unearthed a tuft of purple hair. At the far back end of the capsule, they started slowly and carefully dusting away the dirt, eventually revealing the top of his head, then his face. I had been watching, unable to look away despite the smell that still permeated the area, and when they finally brushed clear one of his eyes, it… opened. It was probably me that screamed, but soon the whole scene was in chaos as we realized - good god, he’s alive in there.

The excavation went pretty quickly after that, as I’m sure we were all feeling rushed to get Kaito out of there as he spewed and retched mud and grime from his mouth. At some point I rushed over, intending to grab him by the arms and drag him out of the dirt, but one of the staff blocked me while Tsumiki-san explained that it might be dangerous to move him until we saw the state of the rest of his body. Ultimately, once they removed the last of the earth from his legs, it was determined that he was physically fine, if a bit atrophied and pale and horribly malnourished. Honestly… if it weren’t for the fact that we’d also found the mummified remains of his crewmates I would call him the closest thing I’d seen to a dead body in a very long time. I’m grateful, of course, that he survived, but seeing him in that state was… difficult… at least compared to how I remembered him the last time I saw him. 

Through our time in high school he was always this shining star with seemingly limitless energy, and I guess I’m not afraid to say he brightened my day just by being around. He only seemed to mellow out slightly during our second and third years at Hope’s Peak but certainly our first year he was nearly impossible to keep up with. He had initially dragged me and one of our classmates, Harukawa Maki, into doing training sessions after our classes - we’d do things like sit ups, running, and of course lots of push-ups - but the three of us got pretty close outside of the training sessions too. We even traveled together internationally one summer, when I was engaged on a case in Novoselic. 

We were watching his launch live, of course. Kaito made us promise.

It was hard to imagine that someone like him could die just like that. Maki and I were watching it together and when it happened, neither of us could comprehend what we saw. Just like that, the cheery guy who was always so full of life - ah, if you’ll forgive the expression - was gone in an instant, so that’s how he stayed in my mind for the past 4 years.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, seeing him like that, emaciated and vacant, was like watching him die a second time. He was almost completely unrecognizable. But I guess he was the same Kaito as always - I knew it was him, and I know he recognized me too. He couldn’t seem to speak after being so freshly unearthed but once they sat him up and allowed me to actually approach him, I saw him mouth my name before throwing himself - or rather, falling - into my arms. I suppose that part wasn’t out of character because he’ll bear hug anyone who lets him, and I know out of our class I was the most frequent recipient in our later years. No - it was the fact that I felt him start sobbing almost instantly. I had only ever seen him cry when he was well and truly angry, so it was a bit startling.

I can’t blame him, though. He was alone for 4 years in conditions I couldn’t even imagine, trapped with no escape and watching his crew die... 

Thankfully, the rest of the team let us be while they closed out the inspection of the capsule, and I did my best to comfort Kaito as he cried what I could only describe as years of stress, fear, and grief.

Finally, someone came in with a stretcher. Tsumiki and I helped secure Kaito before he was lowered out of the capsule and taken inside the facility ‘for further assessment’, and that was the last time I was allowed to see him for weeks. I asked, of course, but I was told something to the effect of me ‘needing to focus on the investigation while he recovers’, so I was sent back to look over the capsule, then shuttled back to Tokyo with my photos and very little further instruction aside from being made to sign an NDA for anything I may have seen while on the base.

I’m breaking that by speaking to you, by the way. It probably doesn’t matter because of what I’m about to tell you, but… I don’t know, maybe I would have come to you sooner if I hadn’t?

4 weeks after I was flown down to Uchinoura and no word about Kaito or his health, I get a pretty aggressive knock on my door that can only be one person. I open up to see him standing there - hair down and stubbled chin, wearing jaxa t-shirt and sweatpants and those socks you only see in hospital wings, and somehow completely caked in dry dirt - but undoubtedly Kaito Momota. I asked him if he was finally medically cleared to leave and he waved his hand dismissively and asked if I’d ever seen an American movie called “Escape from Alcatraz”. I still haven’t had a chance to track it down, but I’m assuming that meant he snuck out of the facility somehow, because he next asked me if he could ‘crash at my place for a bit until the heat dies down’. I explained that I only really had a futon I could offer but he was more than welcome to it, and that I could see about getting him some spare clothes, and would he like a shower? And he responded by clapping me on the shoulder and saying “I knew I could count on you, sidekick,” 

And that’s how Kaito started living with me. 

He asked if he could call Maki almost immediately, and if we still talked - of course we do, but more rarely as time went on and I got busy with my practice and she got busy with her position as the Prime Minister’s personal bodyguard. Kirumi offered her the job shortly after we all graduated. Some of the class was a bit surprised she didn’t make the offer to Tenko instead, but my understanding is that Tenko can get a bit… overzealous… when it comes to protecting people she cares about, and Kirumi needed a bit more discretion due to her diplomatic role. I can tell Maki enjoys it though - I think she likes being able to use her talent to protect rather than harm.

It was 3 weeks before she could return to Tokyo, and in the meantime I had to get used to having my best friend around for the first time since Hope’s Peak. I was under no illusion that we would go back to the way things were at the academy… I had 4 years of post-graduation life experience under my belt - 4 years of not having Kaito to rely on, though Maki and Kaede made sure I knew I would always have them to talk to if things got bad - and Kaito had 4 years of… whatever happened to him. 

Ah, about that… I never got a complete story from him. The first few times I had asked, I had tried to be casual… he had a tendency to change the subject if you asked him anything directly back at the academy, and I assumed that wouldn’t have changed much. Of course, every time the topic came up, even in a roundabout way, he got this vacant look on his face and would just mumble. I couldn’t string together most of what he said, but multiple times I caught the words ‘dirt’ and ‘blood’ and ‘suffocating’ and finally… ‘I couldn’t save them’. The next few times were the same, but one time I had asked more specifically what it was like to be ‘adrift in the ocean’, and something about that wording got a new response. I finally saw that familiar spark in his eye, the one he got when he was about to tell a story of some kind, and he told me a fantastical tale of how he had washed up on a tropical island and had to fight to survive while being unable to contact the outside world. The details changed as the story went on, but I didn’t have the heart to correct him because… it was one of the few times I could see a bit of the ‘old Kaito’ I had memorialized in my mind.

I tried my best to coax that spark out of him during the weeks we lived together, but I was mostly unsuccessful. I think the worst time was when I tried to convince him to go stargazing with me. He seemed unsure, at first, and I thought it was just nervousness about leaving the apartment and possibly being caught despite me telling him that we’d be out well after sunset and only going to a nearby park, but we hardly made it to the main road before he suddenly froze up, gaze trained at the handful of stars scattered in the city sky. His breathing had gotten shallow, and even in the dim light I could see he was shaking. 

In retrospect, it must have been a panic attack. I talked with Kaede about it, and I was an idiot not to realize that he would have had a lot of trauma surrounding the failed launch and… it honestly explained a lot about his demeanor. He seemed… directionless, I guess, after losing his drive to get to space. I think he was depressed… not that he would ever admit it.

I tried to give him grace and help him as best as I could, after that. I knew he wouldn’t accept help outright - at the academy he was fiercely independent despite his insistence that Maki and I could always come to him with our burdens. I cleared out my office to serve as a makeshift bedroom for him, I tried my best to get his favorite foods (though I’m starting to remember that all foods are his favorite foods), I got him a few new sets of clothes when he refused to go visit his Grandparents to collect the things of his they had saved (in a rare moment of honesty, he admitted he wasn’t ready for them to see him), and I even refrained from commenting when there would frequently be dusty footprints leading to the bathroom shower and muddy footprints leading away. At least that hopefully meant he was getting outside for some fresh air while I was away at my job, right? 

Actually, while he was living with me it seemed as if the whole apartment would quickly acquire a layer of dust and grime, faster than it had when I was living alone, and certainly faster than I could clean it. I didn’t want to ask him for help cleaning, given his mental state, but there was evidence he was trying, regardless - I overheard him, once, hacking into the sink in the middle of the night, and the bathroom had gone from slightly grungy the day before to spotless the morning after. 

I did eventually figure out where the dirt was coming from. On a particularly rainy day, I had been working from home - my workstation was temporarily relocated to the living room - and Kaito breezed past me with a simple ‘I’m headed out, sidekick’. I held myself back from interrogating him - Maki told me it’s a bad habit of mine - and replied with a simple ‘I’ll be here’. That didn’t stop me from peering out the window as he made his way out the front entrance of my apartment complex, and I noticed despite the downpour he had neglected to grab an umbrella. I was just about to grab mine and run down to catch him before I saw him stop at a particularly large mud puddle in the front lawn and just… topple face-first into it. He didn’t try to catch or stop himself, and the only conclusion I could draw was that he had fainted as his body disappeared beneath the surface of the brown water.

I ran down to the lawn as fast as I could to pull him out before he drowned or caused more damage to his long-suffering lungs, but as I got out into the rain and searched around in the puddle with my hands, I discovered it to only be a few centimeters deep; Kaito was nowhere to be found. 

I wasn’t able to find a trail of footprints in the rain, and after some frantic looking around the small grounds there was no sign of him, so I reluctantly trudged back to my apartment, doing my best not to track rainwater through the building.

It was a few hours later when he finally came back to the apartment, sopping wet and thoroughly muddy to the point where it was difficult to see the purple of his hair and outfit, but with that easy smile of his on his face. He made an off-handed comment along the lines of ‘that was refreshing’ before making his way to my bathroom to shower. I tried my best to wait patiently while he cleaned up and slipped into his temporary room to change, but when he didn’t reappear for nearly another hour I decided I’d had enough and knocked on his door to get an explanation. He didn’t respond, but the door, which I guess he didn’t shut all the way, swung open to reveal what may as well have been a crime scene.

The white walls of the room were closer to dark beige as mud and dirt caked every available surface - especially the futon I had pulled in to serve as a makeshift bed. It was practically buried, covered in mounds and mounds of soil, and in the center… Kaito was dead asleep. 

Well, not dead asleep. I must have made some kind of noise because he startled awake, and when he noticed me in his room he had the gall to not even look a little sheepish when he greeted me with an ‘oh, hey, Shuichi!’.

All I could manage at the time was a single question - ‘Kaito, what is all this?’ - and he explained that he was having trouble sleeping, but the dirt seemed to help, and he promised he would clean it all up, and I must have looked mad - it was a rental after all - because he ended his explanation with a final ‘my bad’ as he scratched the back of his neck. 

I guess… I can’t even begin to understand his thought process. I would have assumed that after having been literally dug out of his space capsule that he would have just as much of an aversion to being buried in earth as he apparently did to the sky, but… trauma can do funny things, and if he was comforted by it, then I couldn’t come up with a reason to disallow the mess without feeling like a terrible friend.

Luckily, it was only a few more days before Maki was scheduled to return to Tokyo. I could tell Kaito was excited to see her - I tried to hint that she would want to see that he was doing well, and that seemed to get through to him because when she finally arrived he was mostly cleaned up and almost back to his old self - there was still that empty directionlessness that hovered beneath the surface, when he thought our attention was directed elsewhere. I could tell he was trying to put on a good face for Maki, but she could see through it just as well as I could. We worked together to drag him out of his depression bit by bit, until one day he came up to me out of the blue with the first genuine glint of determination I had seen in him in 4 years.

He had a new goal, he declared. I was relieved, actually, because that was probably what he had been missing since his goal of getting to space had been put on indefinite hold, until he explained what it was: he wanted to be the first person to dig to the center of the earth.

I couldn’t suppress my chuckle at his announcement because it sounded so… childish. Any number of kids get the great idea to dig to Brazil when they learn that it’s on the opposite side of the earth from Japan, but any reasonable person would know that’s impossible. Especially Kaito, who I knew was better educated on planets than most young adults. But once he had dragged me and Maki to a secluded part of the apartment grounds, where he had stored 3 shovels, I realized he was serious. Or at least as serious as someone could possibly be about an impossible task. 

Maki rebuffed him immediately, storming off for the day muttering ‘how stupid can you get’, but I elected to at least sit by him once I realized my protests of rental agreements and possible electrical hazards were falling on deaf ears, and honestly… I didn’t want to extinguish what little flame he had reignited inside of him from this hare-brained idea. 

So I watched him dig, telling myself that I’d help him fill the pit back in once he got tired out, but… he dug faster than I expected. Within an hour he was up to his shoulders in the ground, and as the sun set I warned him that it would be difficult to climb out of the pit he’d dug himself into, but he waved me off and told me he wasn’t worried about it, so when he showed no signs of stopping I elected to turn in for the night.

The hole was filled in the next morning, and Kaito was nowhere to be found. I was worried that it had suddenly collapsed on him, but a panicked call to Maki pointed out that if the grass on top was completely undisturbed without any signs of digging, it was impossible for there to have been an accident, and was I really sure that Kaito had dug there at all because even professionals had difficulty replacing the topsoil so cleanly after it had been removed, and I remembered the incident with the puddle and somehow convinced myself that he was probably fine and decidedly not buried alive and I just had to wait for him to come home again, probably with dirt under his nails and that easy smile that he wears so rarely nowadays. It would be fine.

It’s been a week, and he still hasn’t returned.

I can’t call him in as a missing person because legally, he’s still dead, and Maki pointed out that, as morbid as it is, even if we wanted to dig to find a body it would be impossible to guess the depth he reached while he was out overnight, but… I remembered that I still had your contact information from a few years ago when you had first come to me about Kaito’s death and at this point, I guess I’m at a loss for what to do. Maki says all we can do is wait for him to come back but I can’t just accept that! I already lost him once… I can’t lose him again.

I understand you deal primarily in paranormal investigation, and as much as I am hesitant to believe there is anything but a logical explanation for Kaito’s behavior and disappearance… he should be dead. Logically. I’ve gone over the evidence with Tsumiki-san and Kazuichi-san repeatedly and their life support systems and food stores would have been depleted in just over 2 months. I know Kaito claimed to have spent time on a deserted island, but… the capsule was still completely sealed just as it had been for launch. He never left.

You had mentioned he gave you a statement shortly before his launch, and if I could read it… I’ll help your investigation in any way you need. If you can just help me get Kaito back.

Statement Ends.

The assessment Saihara-san provides at the end of this statement mirrors the official investigation report published by JAXA. The Pinnacle Aerospace rocket was equipped with life support, including oxygen and water reclamation, as well as electrical power for minimal usage, rated to last thrice the scheduled length of the mission - 22 days. The same report gives condolences to the families of the astronauts on the mission, whose “bodies were recovered from the sealed capsule”. The death certificates of all three astronauts list the date of death as early morning of April 11th, 2019, roughly 68 days after launch.

The remainder of the statement would thus be difficult if not impossible to verify due to the legal status of the person it centers on. Saihara-san, for his part, was true to his word and assisted in the investigation to the best of his ability, though no testimonies or other evidence were able to verify the presence or length of time of a guest at Saihara-san’s residence. It must be noted that one possible lead was neglected, as it is still advised that Harukawa-san not be contacted any further on this matter due to ongoing safety concerns and credible threats against staff members.

There was one thing of note during a tour of Saihara-san’s apartment and the area surrounding: he pointed out where he had last seen Momota-san. The area was obscured by several large hedges, but the ground was not undisturbed as Saihara-san had said in his statement. Rather, there were 3 freshly-dug rectangular holes side by side, roughly the size of graves.