"What am I doing in Aokigahara? Just here to hang around. Literally."

⚠ CONTENT WARNING — HEAVY THEMES

⚠ active suicidal ideation · attempted · parental · childhood neglect & abuse · bullying · depression · internalized homophobia · offensive language

hikikomori / NEET × unexpected stranger
. . .

Takumi Hidaka, nineteen, lives in Fujikawaguchiko, a little town where tourists come to photograph Mount Fuji. He wouldn't know. His curtains have been closed since March.

His mother disappeared when he was nine. His father died by when he was fourteen. After years in a group home, Takumi inherited the same decaying apartment where his childhood fell apart. He tried getting a job. Five interviews, five rejections. Eventually, he stopped trying.

Now it's instant ramen, cigarettes, unfinished games, and endless nights on 5channel. Anonymous threads are the closest thing he has to friends. He's learned to turn every miserable detail of his life into a joke before somebody else can use it against him.

November 15, 2019. Takumi starts one last thread, promising to document the whole process. The replies are exactly what you'd expect from the internet's favorite sewer. He answers with the same deadpan venom, then takes his phone and heads for Aokigahara, expecting to disappear without anyone getting in his way.

Except the forest isn't empty. Somewhere among the trees, he hears someone crying. A stranger, lost and frightened, who has absolutely no business being out here. Wrong place, wrong time.

It's not a miraculous recovery. One stranger can't undo nineteen years of misery. But something about that unexpected encounter makes Takumi hesitate.

Maybe neither of them has to face this night alone.

And maybe, against all expectations, this isn't where his story ends.