Around 7:30 p.m. on April 20, 2017, Saori Fukuura returned home to her apartment in Nagasaki City after work.

She lives with her son Hayato, a second-year high school student at Kaisei Gakuen, a private school. She has to prepare dinner quickly.

“I’m home,” she said as she walked into the house, the lights were on in the living room. Hayato’s empty lunch box was sitting in the kitchen.

However, he was not there, and his smartphone was left on the living room table.

Normally, he would be home by this time, so Saori started preparing dinner, expecting him to be home soon.

However, no matter how long she waited, there was no sign of him returning. She called the mother of one of Hayato’s close classmates, who said that the classmate had said that Hayato should have already gone home. She also contacted her husband, Daisuke, just to be sure, but he had no idea where he was.

Saori called a nearby bookstore where she thought Hayato might be at and checked out convenience stores near their home. Just a few days before, Hayato had been out without his smartphone and had returned home after 8 p.m.. At the time, he said he had gone to the convenience store to buy some comic books.

With no clues, the clock was ticking toward midnight.

His dream was to work at Disney

The Fukuura family consists of four people: mother Saori, father Daisuke, older brother Naoto, and Hayato, who is two years younger than Naoto.

Daisuke has been working away from home in Fukuoka Prefecture for the past two years, while Naoto, a first-year university student, graduated from Kaisei Gakuen High School and just started living alone in Kyoto, where his university is located, in the spring of 2017.

Naoto entered Kaisei in high school, but Hayato started attending Kaisei in junior high school before his brother.

He enrolled in April 2013. Hayato took the junior high school entrance exam because he wanted to study hard for his future.

Hayato dreamed of working at Tokyo Disney Resort.

Hayato has always had the opposite personality to his older brother Naoto. While Naoto is lively and likes superhero shows, Hayato is calm and likes cute characters. He was particularly fond of the Disney bear character Duffy. He has always treasured the Duffy stuffed toy he bought when he visited Tokyo Disney Resort with his family.

Although Kaisei was not Hayato’s first choice, his mother, Saori, was happy that he was eventually accepted there.

Kaisei used to be seen as an all-boys school with a strong athletic reputation, but recently the rate of students going on to prestigious universities has been increasing. She believed it would bring him closer to his dream of working at Disney, a popular company.

Additionally, Kaisei has a school cafeteria. Most private junior high schools in Nagasaki don’t provide lunches, so students have to bring their own lunches every day. Kaisei’s cafeteria is available to junior high school students, so it was an ideal environment for Saori, who works full-time.

Above all, she had heard that bullying was common in public junior high schools in Nagasaki City, so she was relieved that if Hayato attended a private school, he would be able to spend his time without being bullied.

Mother’s Day flowers chosen by Hayato 

Hayato’s father, Daisuke, began working away from home when Naoto was in his first year of junior high school and Hayato was in his fifth year of elementary school. This was a time when his sons were very impressionable. That’s why Daisuke made an effort to stay in constant communication with his family.

He returned to Nagasaki every month to spend time with his family and talk one-on-one with his sons. He also went on family trips several times a year. It was customary for him to use a family photo in his New Year’s cards every year.

Saori was also busy with work every day, but she still saw her children every day, had meals with them, and the three of them talked about the day.

On the days when Naoto would call to say he was going to dinner with friends, Saori and Hayato would often go to the conveyor belt sushi restaurant “Wakatakemaru.” Hayato loved fish, but Naoto didn’t like sushi, so it was difficult for the whole family to go there together.

When Saori said, “Nao isn’t here today, so let’s go to Wakatakemaru,” Hayato was delighted. Hayato’s favorite sushi were salmon and natto rolls. He even ate several plates of salmon.

Hayato would tell Saori everything. He would tell her about what happened at school, including the names and personalities of his classmates. Every year, his sons would give her carnations on Mother’s Day. According to Naoto, Hayato was the one who took the initiative. He would eagerly choose flowers that would please his mother.

Even though everyone in the family was busy, she felt every day that they were connected with each other.

Note found by police officer

On April 20, 2017, the date was about to change, but Hayato still hadn’t returned home.

Saori went to the local police station, but since it was empty, she explained the situation over the phone inside the station.

A little while later, four police officers showed up at the house. It was unclear whether it was a crime or an accident. The officers asked for photos of Hayato and turned the house upside down searching for clues. The situation became very dire.

Shortly after the date changed, one of the police officers discovered something. It was a piece of paper. It was covered in something closely written in Hayato’s handwriting.

The note was written about how his classmates had teased him about his stomach growling, how they had pointed a tablet at his stomach to record the sounds, and how these actions had caused his body and limbs to shake.

It was written about a month ago.

The morning the rice cooker broke

Saori learned for the first time that Hayato had been pushed to the point where his body and limbs were shaking.

She remembered an incident that happened a year and a half ago though.

One day, Hayato came home from school and said, “My stomach started growling during class and everyone teased me.”

At the time, Hayato was in his third year of junior high school. Saori assumed that his appetite was growing and needed more food, so she decided to give him rice balls in addition to his lunch.

However, one morning, the rice hadn’t been cooked. The rice cooker was broken.

Hayato then became enraged and shouted, “What are you going to do?”

Saori apologized, but nothing seemed to calm him down. On the way to drop him off at school, they made a stop at a convenience store and bought some rice balls.

Hayato calmed down, but Saori became determined to never let him run out of rice.

Hayato has a gentle personality, and Saori has never seen him so angry and panicked.

Thinking back, that was the only time she had ever seen Hayato look angry. It was so striking that Saori remembered it.

Based on the contents of the note and a search of her home, the police concluded that there was no sign of a crime. After a while, they left.

The morning came without a wink of sleep

Left alone in the house, Saori couldn’t sleep a wink.

It’s already light outside.

She called Kaisei High School to notify Hayato would be absent.

Around 9:30 a.m., the phone rang.

It was from the police.

“A child dressed similarly to your son was found dead.”

To be continued.

(Originally published in Japanese on November 27, 2025. Translation by Mana Shibata.)

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