Author's Note: I finished the anime series in a single sitting and i couldn't help but start a fanfic afterwards. Uhh this chapter is kinda slow bc it's introductory but it'll speed up by chapter 2, I promise! ;u; Haha, enjoy, please rate and review~ If you wanna jump ahead on my most recent chapters, go to my profile and visit my website! (;

"Dad, say hi to the camera!" I sang in English as I directed my camcorder towards him.

"Making another one of your videos again, Sayumi?" he inquired, responding in fluent English as well. "Hello, Sayumi's followers. Please teach my daughter that it's not exactly safe to be interviewing me while I'm driving!"

I giggled as I reluctantly withdrew the camera from his face, facing it towards me instead. "Since you guys have wanted to see what my dad is like, there you go! He seems like he doesn't wanna be recorded, but trust me, dad has always been the camera-hogging type."

I heard my dad scolding me in Japanese from beside me and laughed. "I'm kidding! Anyway, it's all thanks to my dad that I even have a blog, much less a successful one at that. Dad travels a lot and so sometimes he brings me along with him. It's because of him that I even have a video camera like this and get to do the things I do. Thanks, Dad."

Dad glanced at me briefly from where he sat, smiling at me gently. "You're welcome, Sayumi."

"Well, I'm on the way back home now! Everything I bought while we were in India is still in my luggage so as soon as we get settled back at home, I'll update you guys on what kind of great things I bought and saw while there. Until then, stay safe!"

I ended the video there and instantly began uploading it onto my blog. As you can probably tell, I'm a blogger. Ever since I was young, I was fascinated by photography and travel. Even when I got older, my love for those things didn't change, so I started a blog. I never would have anticipated that within a few months of starting, I would hit fifty-thousand followers, all from different parts of the world. I blogged mostly in English, since my followers spoke it, but occasionally I would post in Japanese, my first language. I had picked up English as a child, having lived in America for about two years with my mom before I decided I wanted to stay with my dad instead.

Three years after I began my blog, I now had over two-hundred-fifty-thousand followers from all over the globe. I didn't even expect very many people to enjoy what I posted, much less hundreds of thousands of people. It was still hard to believe to this day how many amazing (and not so amazing) people I had met through my blog.

We reached our home within five minutes and began to unload our luggage from the trunk of the car, noisily rolling the suitcases up the front porch where we dropped them off by the door. Our neighbor, Mrs. Ochi, waved at us as she swept her porch, her cat, Maki, stalking away from her while she was distracted. She noticed him gone and ran to catch up with him, her son, Daichi, emerging from the house after hearing all of the commotion.

"Daichi!" I hollered.

He looked over at me, tiredly rubbing the back of his head as he approached me, stopping a few feet away due to the wall that separated our two houses. "Sayumi, back from India already?"

"Yeah. I got you something. Come over for dinner later! Oh, and invite your mom, too. I'm sure she'll love what my dad's making tonight."

"Alright. So how was it?"

"Great. It was my first time there, but thanks to my handbook I was able to walk around by myself. It's a beautiful country. I'll take you there one day," I said. "What have you been up to for the past three days?"

"The usual."

"So... nothing."

"Right."

"Well, don't forget to get yourselves over here by seven o' clock tonight. I have some unpacking to do," I reminded, saluting him and returning to assist Dad with unloading the car.

Daichi had been my best friend since elementary school - he was tall, with jet black hair (which he occasionally dyed red, inspired by his favorite game character), bright green eyes, and a lazy attitude. In spite of being one of the top students at our school, he was known for slacking off in and out of class, ditching school to hang out at the arcade or even just to take a walk around the city. Daichi was a bit out there, but I liked him that way. He had always been a good listener and was honest and reliable, though he was sometimes unwilling to work unless he saw a purpose in the task.

Dad and Mr. Ochi, who was away on a business trip in Kyoto, had known one another since high school, and when they found out they would be living next to one another, they were thrilled. The Ochis were like family to us - thus I called Mrs. Ochi "Auntie" while Mr. Ochi was "Uncle". The relationship between Daichi and I closely resembled Dad and Uncle's friendship. If my mom was still married to my dad, I was certain she and Auntie would be close as well.

I dragged my heavy luggage upstairs to my bedroom and began to unpack, recording what I bought and the story behind each item. When I had finished my video batch, I saved it to my camera to edit later on and worked on putting my new objects into my closet, which had been reserved for all of the neat objects I had picked up from all over the world, each country with its own tier and labeled by cities and dates. The India shelf, which had previously been empty, now was full of colorful souvenirs. The labels I had made on the flight back home were simply taped to the spaces in between each item. I let out a sigh as I walked through my mini gallery, amazed at how merely looking at something I had gotten years ago brought back so many memories.

I booted up my laptop, instantly plugging in my video camera and uploading my new files for me to edit. Having edited videos hundreds of times before, only ten minutes had passed by the time I had finished splicing them together. I logged into my blog, uploading it and going through the hundreds of new comments already posted onto my video with Dad.

'Your dad is so adorable!'

'I wish I had a dad like that.'

'Tsk tsk, Sayumi, listen to your dad and be more careful!'

'You and your dad should make more videos together. - Mr. Fujimoto's Number 1 Fan'

'Good genes run in the family, I guess.'

'Sayumi, can you please adopt me into your family? I want to travel with you two!'

After going through comments and replying to ones that stood out, I went to take a bath and journeyed into the kitchen, grabbing a purple apron and helping Dad out with preparing dinner. We were going to have shabu shabu tonight with the Ochis, so we needed to wash and chop the veggies and get everything set up on the dining room table.

"You know, Dad," I said as I popped a cherry tomato into my mouth, "you have a fan club already. Now everyone wants us to make more videos together."

He chuckled as he chopped the bamboo shoots. "Well, whenever I have free time we can. But for now, let's focus on dinner, shall we?"

I giggled, agreeing with him. "Sure."

A few weeks later, I drove Dad to the airport, sending him off on his trip to Hong Kong. I wouldn't be joining him this time, since he wanted me to stay home and rest, so I dropped him off, hugging and kissing him goodbye. The traffic officer snapped at me to hurry back into the car, so I hastily drove off before she could fine me for dwindling so long. Instead of going straight home, I headed to the local street fair, where I met up with Daichi. We had gone to the fair every single year, never missing a single one since we were five years old. It was sort of a tradition for us to go together, so that was one of the reasons why Dad encouraged me to stay behind, knowing how important it was to me.

After playing around and winning nearly every game there, I received a phone call, allowing Daichi to take over the dart game for me as I walked to a more secluded area to pick up. The laughter and screams of children were still loud where I stood, so I was forced to cover one of my ears to filter out all of the noise.

"…Hello?"

"Hello. Is this Mr. Fujimoto's daughter?" a man asked me in English. "My name is Marcus Lin, and I work for the Hong Kong branch of Narita Tech."

"Yes, this is Fujimoto Sayumi speaking. How can I help you? Are you an associate of my father's?"

"Yes, I am in charge of the sales department in Hong Kong. I called this number after going through Mr. Fujimoto's contacts and this number happened to be the first one on the list. I'm sorry but I have some bad news, Miss Sayumi. Your father is missing."

"Wait... what?" I froze up in disbelief. "But… how is that possible?"

"His flight landed here in Hong Kong an hour ago. He was supposed to come and find me, and I would take him to his hotel," the man replied. "He has not picked up any of his calls and his luggage is missing as well. We have Hong Kong local authorities scouting the area for any sign of him, but he has not contacted us back in any way."

"But that's crazy," I stated. "Where could he have gone?"

"That's what we're trying to find out. I'll contact you with any updates. Please call me back on this number if you hear from him, Miss Sayumi."

Once he had hung up, I dialed my dad's number five times to no avail. Feeling suddenly sick to my stomach, I returned to Daichi and told him what was going on. We reluctantly left the fair early and went back home, where Auntie and Uncle learned about my situation. They assured me everything was going to be okay, that my dad would probably show up unharmed and probably confused as to why the police were out searching for him, but I found it hard to believe my dad would do something like wander off in a foreign country without notifying anyone beforehand.

I posted a notification and a picture of my dad onto my blog, hoping that if anyone in Hong Kong did see him, that they would contact me immediately. After three hours had gone by, no one had. I called Marcus Lin, the man who had originally told me the news, only to receive an answering machine. Fearing the worst, I lay in my bed and cried until I fell asleep.

I was jerked awake when my cell phone suddenly rang. I quickly picked it up, hoping it was my dad, but instead, it was Mr. Lin. He told me the police had checked airport security footage and discovered my dad taking his luggage and leaving the airport, getting into a taxi and driving off. The taxi driver who had given a ride to my dad told authorities he had dropped my dad off at a hotel by the beach, but when the police checked the hotel register, there was nobody by the name Fujimoto on there. They were currently tracking other leads, but it looked as if my dad had just simply vanished into thin air.

"We think he may have been kidnapped," Mr. Lin solemnly reported. "Most likely by local gangsters scouting for anyone with money. Hopefully that isn't the case, but… we will tell you if we find anything useful."

"Thank you. Please do call me back soon." I swallowed the lump in my throat as I ended the call. Just where had my father gone?

Two weeks had gone by and there was still nothing. No new leads, no new witnesses, nothing. Everyone was already beginning to fear the worst. I tried to keep my hopes up, having received support from the Ochis, family friends, and people online, but I could only lie at home, moping around hopelessly as I prayed for a miracle. A month flew by and even the Ochi family showed signs of accepting the fact that my dad was most likely gone.

One day, I received a letter in the mail addressed from Narita Tech, my dad's company. The letter was from the CEO and contained his sincerest apologies and condolences over my loss. It contained over ten-thousand dollars in cash and a detailed description of what was going to happen within a week's time. The CEO encouraged me to pack everything I could and leave the home. He stated that the police were going to investigate the house over the next few months and so I would have to stay elsewhere until everything had been thoroughly examined.

The next day, as I was packing, the delivery man came to the front door with an envelope addressed to me. I opened it up to find it contained nothing but a slip of paper and a single, golden key. The paper contained an address for a home somewhere I couldn't recognize and a short message: 'A driver will pick you up tonight at 7 p.m. to take you to your new home.' There was no return address, but I assumed it was the CEO who had found somewhere for me to live.

I packed everything I could, and as soon as 7 p.m. came I was ready to leave. The driver, a quiet, mysterious man, picked up my luggage and put it into the trunk as I went to say my goodbyes to the Ochi family. It was difficult to leave, but I held in my reluctance, knowing that within a few months, I would be back.

"Don't die," Daichi smiled, patting me on my shoulder as I headed down their front steps.

I stuck my tongue out at him playfully. "Idiot, I won't. And if I do, I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you for jinxing me like that," I teased as we both laughed. "See you in a few months, Daichi!"

"See ya."

"Miss Fujimoto, are you ready to leave?" the driver inquired as I came back towards the black vehicle. I nodded, climbing into the backseat, gazing longingly at my home as we drove away.

"Do you know who it is that I'll be staying with?" I asked the man.

"The Sakamaki family," the man replied as we stopped at an intersection. "They have children your age that you can make friends with. I'm certain you'll be in good hands there."

I felt relieved by his words, my tense shoulders immediately falling down as I relaxed. "Thank goodness," I breathed. "By the way, sir, are you their personal driver or something? You came faster than I expected – you were at the front of my house exactly at 7 p.m."

"You could say that," the man said, turning to smile at me through his dark green hair, his crimson eyes shining kindly. "Anyway, I know the Sakamaki family very well. You'll enjoy it there."

I smiled as he began to drive, the drumming of the rain outside my window soothing me. "I'm glad..."