How my co-worker disappeared from my Japanese company

One day he was debugging code next to me, the next day his desk was completely empty. No goodbye, no announcement, no trace. In Japan, there is a quiet phenomenon where people simply vanish from their corporate lives. This is the story of how my co-worker disappeared overnight from our Tokyo software company, and how the office acted like he never existed. A silent, atmospheric look into working as a software developer in Tokyo, Japanese corporate culture, and the loneliness of the big city.