From the plane window, Tokyo yawns gray and endless. At this altitude, it all seems still, like a diorama. Despite the serenity of this quiet scene, I can’t shake this twinge of panic that haunts me every time I get on a plane.

It’s been some time since I was last in Japan. One day I’d like to visit without any interviews, no all-nighters spent hammering out a first draft, counting the difference between JST and PST on my fingers like a nervous tic. Among Tokyo’s millions, I hope to find one man. A man who doesn’t know I exist, but whose work and the questions it leaves unanswered have shaped the course of my life indelibly. I need to ask him how he made something that shouldn’t be possible.

The only problem is that Yusei Takeda disappeared twenty-three years ago.