You Don't Have to be Alone Anymore

You Don't Have to be Alone

"Ssst, Shuichi"

"Huh?" He glances over his shoulder, and sees Kaito looking at him from behind the hallway entrance wall. He makes a gesture with his fingers, signaling for Shuichi to come closer, which he does. Once the two were behind the wall far enough is when the pause of silence breaks.

"Why are we trying to be quiet?"

"I know, it's odd, but I just don't want Gonta hearing in on this."

"...Why?"

"I'm getting to that, alright?" Kaito said, sighing a little. "It's just... I'm worried about him right now. Have you noticed he seemed more on edge today than usual?"

"... You know," Shuichi starts after a moment of though. "I think I know what you mean. He has been a lot more... alert, and maybe even anxious about something since this morning, and when I went to ask him about it, he sort of just brushed it off."

"Well, good to see that hasn't changed." Kaito gave a chuckle, though it was clearly a half-hearted one. "But really, I have no idea why he seems so off today. We're not going anywhere, nobody is coming over, and we're not expecting any sort of important event today or coming soon... So what could be going on?"

Shuichi takes his hand to his chin, thinking a thoroughly as possible as to what the possibilities were. No appointments, no visitors, it seems like he came to a dead end... Until his face snaps out of focus and into a realizing, almost disturbed look.

"Kaito, important event?"

"Uhh, yes...?" He replied, confused on why Shuichi repeated that to him. But before he could question him further, Shuichi quickly walks past him and into the second room on the right, not saying another word. Kaito decides to remain put in his place, and after a few minutes and some distance shuffling, Shuichi reappears with a plastic, light blue binder and was nearly stuffed to the brim with lamented papers and fliers. He cracked it open and started flipping through it, until he reached a little more than half way through the pages. Once he reached to the page he needed, Shuichi held it to himself, looking back up to Kaito.

"Kaito, can you tell me what today's date is?"

"Uhhh, August 6th, right?"

Shuichi nodded, and moved so the lamented page was both in his and Kaito's view. It looked to be an old newspaper, with the right including a picture of a little boy, properly seated with a little smile on his face. To the left was the main article, which read the following...

BREAKING NEWS, MISSING/ENDANGERED CHILD

A three year-old boy by the name of Gonta Gokuhara has been announced missing as of August 6th, at approximately 3:47 pm that day. Both of the parents, Kaiya and Junichiro Gokuhara, stated that their family was having a day out at the Shirakami-Sanchi forest when their son wandered off into the deeper parts of the forest. Despite all of their attempts at searching for him, the two were unsuccessful at finding any signs of their son.