‘I Saw Him as a Brother’

They had not seen each other in years.

When Hiyu Shikari finally reunited with his childhood best friend James “Weston” Higginbotham over dinner in Shinjuku, Tokyo, it felt like no time had passed at all. The two 20-year-olds had grown up together in the United States before Shikari relocated to Japan in 2019 — and that night, sitting together at a restaurant in one of Tokyo’s most vibrant neighborhoods, everything felt exactly as it always had.

They talked about politics. They talked about artificial intelligence. They talked about the world.

“When I first met him, I felt like nothing has changed,” Shikari recalled. “He was such a nice friend.”

Neither of them knew the clock was already running out.

A Family Trip. A Typhoon. A Disappearance.

Weston had come to Japan with his family for a special reason — to celebrate his younger brother Grayton’s high school graduation. The trip was meant to be a milestone, a memory, a chapter the family would look back on for years.

Instead, on May 29, Weston went for a hike in the Yamashina section of Kyoto — an area of dense forests and mountainous trails — and never came back.

He was last seen that same day. His cell phone last pinged shortly after.

Before vanishing, Weston had been in a minor argument with his mother, Nancy, over her use of ChatGPT to plan the family’s itinerary. He had raised concerns about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence — a detail that paints a picture of a young man who thought deeply about the world around him.

The search that followed was immediately complicated by Tropical Storm Jangmim, which struck on May 30 with 75 mph winds and torrential rainfall. Rescue crews wading through waist-high mud in Yamashina pressed on — but Weston was nowhere to be found.

The Text That Never Delivered

Back in Kyoto, Shikari had been following the news of the approaching typhoon with growing unease.

He pulled out his phone and typed a message to his best friend.

“Good evening! How’s the stay going? Hopefully y’all are having a good time in Kyoto! Lmk if you need me to recommend any places.”

The message failed to deliver.

It was never answered.

“Right after I met him, I tried to contact him on how he was doing,” Shikari told the US Sun. “And that was after he went missing. I didn’t get any contact with him after I met him.”

Their last real exchange — just days before — had ended with Weston sending back a single heart emoji in response to Shikari’s warm goodbye message.

It was the last sign of life his best friend ever received from him.

Still Searching. Still Hoping.

Shikari has since thrown himself into spreading awareness about Weston’s disappearance — sharing information across social media, speaking to outlets, and refusing to let the story fade.

“I’ve been doing what I can to spread awareness,” he said.

For the Higginbotham family, the search continues. For Shikari, every unanswered message is a reminder of the friend he is still waiting to hear back from.

“I saw him as a best friend, a brother,” he said simply.

A heart emoji. A failed delivery notification. And somewhere in the mountains of Kyoto, a family’s answer still waiting to be found.

Source: Compiled from various sources