by Shin Towada
“How the hell is this fine?”
Touka’s rebuke made Yoriko jolt in surprise. Touka slapped her hand over her mouth without thinking, and Mayuhara smirked, looking at her like she was sizing her up.
“Kirishima, you just got mad at Kosaka, didn’t you?”
“What?!”
I got frustrated, but you’re the one to blame, Touka thought. However, Mayuhara kept on.
“You guys are so different. I bet you get frustrated with her a lot when you’re together, don’t you?”
“Just shut up …”
“And I mean, when you eat Kosaka’s cooking you just always look so grossed out.”
“What?”
Touka was thrown for a moment by this attack from an unexpected angle. That’s because I can’t eat human food. But I can’t tell you that.
“Kirishima, you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t need anyone but yourself, and there are lots of boys who’d go out with Kosaka. But I heard you two are going to the zoo together? So childish. You can’t really be into that.”
Touka looked at Yoriko. She had gone pale. Without a second thought, Touka grabbed Mayuhara by the collar. The other girls who were nearby screamed.
“If you say one more word …”
“But I don’t hear you denying it. I hit the nail on the head,
didn’t I?”
Mayuhara’s words hit Touka right where she was most sensitive—her identity. She couldn’t say Mayuhara hadn’t the nail on the head.
“How nice of her to stick up for you, Kosaka,” Mayuhara said to Yoriko, who was only able to stand there, pale-faced, and look on. Yoriko’s eyes were brimming with tears. Touka once again tightened her grasp on Mayuhara’s uniform collar, her fists pressed against the girl’s chest.
“Seriously, if you say one more word—” I’ll kill you.
The words were on the tip of her tongue. But before she could say them out loud, she heard a man’s voice in the classroom.
“What are you girls doing?”
It was their history teacher, Mr. Tsuruda. One of Mayuhara’s friends had gone to get him.
“Ouch! Stop, please, I’m sorry, forgive me!”
The first to react was Mayuhara. She threw herself to the floor, coughing violently, her hands clasped to her chest.
“Wha—”
“Kirishima! What did you do to her?”
Naturally, Mr. Tsuruda put the blame on Touka.
“No, sir, it wasn’t like that, Touka was just …”
“Ow …” Mayuhara whined. “Mr. Tsuruda, sir …”
Yoriko again started to leap to Touka’s defense, when Mayuhara started wailing.
“Nothing makes me cry! Kirishima, you’re just awful!”
“Mayuhara, are you all right? Are you in pain?” Mayuhara’s friends got her to stand up as if they were supporting her weight, providing cover for her. All the girls were sharp-tongued. The way they talked, whatever Touka tried to say would come back at her ten or twenty times worse.
“No, it’s not—Touka was just …”
“Kirishima, staff room—now!”
Mr. Tsuruda grabbed Touka’s arm and began pulling her after him.
When they walked past Mayuhara, she said, just loud enough for only Touka to hear, “Hilarious.”
There was only malice in her words.
“Touka!”
When Mr. Tsuruda’s sermon was over and Touka stepped out of the staff room, Yoriko was pacing confusedly along the wall in the hallway. Did she follow us?
“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault …”
“You did nothing wrong, Yoriko,” Touka said bluntly. She started heading toward the classroom, but Yoriko stayed glued to the spot.
“Yoriko?”
Her face was downcast; she had her shirt tightly clenched in her fists.
“Seriously. You did nothing wrong. Mayuhara’s the problem,” Touka added. “Anyway, I only made her cry once.”
I hate when people are always fake like that. And she’s the kind of girl that if you turned your back, the same thing would happen again. Before lunchtime’s over, I’m gonna settle this once and for all.
“No, Touka, you can’t!” Yoriko saw what Touka was up to. “Whatever you’ve got in mind, you can’t.”
“Why not? If someone said that to you, you’d hate it too.”
“I did hate it. But maybe it’s kind of true.”
“What? What did you just say? Why would you say that?” Touka heard what Yoriko said as a defense of Mayuhara, and it made her angrier. “Anyway, she’s gonna pay for this.”
Talking won’t get me anywhere.
“You can’t!” Once again, Yoriko put a halt to Touka’s impatience.
Touka paused. “Yoriko, that dumb bitch wouldn’t know something to cry over if it hit her. If we don’t settle this she’ll think she’s won!”
I’m only doing this for Yoriko, so why does she want me to stop?
Her tone of voice, which had ended up sounding like she was yelling, had made Yoriko start shaking.
“I’m …”
Yoriko’s lips were tightly drawn, as if she were holding back something. But a thin film had formed over her blinking eyes, and the corners of her eyes gleamed in a way that wasn’t normal.
By the time Touka realized what she’d done it was too late. Her emotions, running wild in this unexpected situation, started to come back under control at the same speed as Yoriko’s teardrops fell.
“I’m happy you care so much, Touka,” she said, stringing the words together between sobs without even wiping away her tears. “But … but … ”
The tears spilled down her cheeks in heavy drops.
“But whatever you do to her won’t make me happy!”
In my cursed life, the number of people I’ve crushed is uncountable. All the screaming, the rage, the sorrow. I’ve experienced extreme situations with all five senses and come through the other side, but here I am, frozen by the words of a mere human, a powerless girl.
There was one more thing.
Why?
Yoriko’s tears and cries overlapped, in Touka’s mind, with the way she’d seen Hinami cry during the battle with Mado. And Hinami had sobbed, “Revenge doesn’t matter to me, I’m just sad.”
After that, Yoriko’s attitude changed. It wasn’t that she blatantly avoided Touka. It was just that she didn’t have the same smile as before when they spoke. Touka saw signs that she was trying to say something in her own way, but the words didn’t come out.
And it was the same with Touka. She was puzzled by the way Yoriko was distancing herself from her, when she’d always been so gentle and positive toward Touka before.
“Having a pastry again today?” Yoriko asked one lunch hour, seeing Touka opening the plastic wrapper of a pastry from a convenience store.
“Oh. Yeah …”
Yoriko’s expression was somehow hardened.
The conversation ended, and quietly Yoriko started eating her own lunch. Before she would’ve told me I needed to eat more and given me some of her own lunch …
A Ghoul’s body won’t accept human food, so on a physical level, this was all probably for the best. But on a mental level, it was a completely different story.
And there was Mayuhara laughing with her friends as if nothing had happened. She hadn’t really cared that Touka and Yoriko were too close to the boy she liked. When Touka saw her laughing away despite the pain she’d inflicted on them, she was filled with the urge to kill.
Dammit.
It took a day, maybe two, before she saw the solution.
III
“Touka, you’re spilling the coffee. Hello?”
Kaneki saw the coffee overflowing from the cup and interrupted her. Must’ve been lost in thought.
&nbs
p; “Whoa … You should’ve told me sooner!”
“Uh, okay … ?”
Looking frantically for a towel, Touka instructed Kaneki, “You pour the coffee!”
Maybe in time things will improve. If it were me I’d make a very patient decision after a week or so, but the amount of time that’s passed now has really surpassed my expectations.
The awkwardness between us just keeps building, like a pebble tumbling down a wintry slope, growing and growing as it picks up snow.
Kaneki made the coffee instead of Touka, and took it to the customer.
“Huh, I don’t think I’ve seen you working here before. Are you new? What’s your name?”
“Oh … I’m Ken Kaneki.”
The customer who’d ordered the coffee looked at Kaneki curiously, then said, “You have a very particular smell about you.” Realizing the man had sensed he was a Ghoul, Kaneki returned behind the counter.
“That guy’s one of us too?” he asked Touka.
“Yeah … He doesn’t live in the 20th Ward, though. He’s too weak to have a feeding ground in his own ward, so sometimes he comes here to forage. He likes to pry, so it’s better not to say too much,” she said.
“Oh, right … I didn’t know there were so many types of Ghouls.”
Kaneki looked at the other Ghoul with apparent interest. But his attention soon turned back to Touka.
“I forgot to say, thanks for the advice, Touka. I told Hide not to come to the café for a little while.”
“Hmm? What do you mean, advice? I didn’t do anything.”
“Well, no, but you did give me an example from the past.”
Even when I’m cold to him he still smiles back at me. I think he’s gotten a little more resilient. And when Touka’s face changed to an irritated scowl, Kaneki sensed he was on the verge of danger and said, “Well, anyway, thanks,” ending the conversation.
“If you ask me, he shouldn’t come back for the rest of his life,” she said in an outburst at Kaneki, who had turned away.
“What?”
“I told you before: Ghouls come here looking for information. Like him,” she said, nodding her head toward the Ghoul that Kaneki had just brought a coffee. “He takes humans to abandoned buildings or places where nobody else is, and he kills and eats them. Apparently he’s been looking for prey on the Internet lately. But that’s the kind of guy that hangs around here. If you care about your friend you should keep him away from Ghouls.”
Kaneki held his breath, and his eyes slowly drifted downward. My words had more effect than I imagined. Just as Touka started to suspect what he was so at a loss over, Kaneki began to speak in bursts.
“But we’ve always hung out … This might sound like an exaggeration, but he’s like a part of me. If I lost that, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you just tell me I shouldn’t hang out with Hide anymore?”
Touka had only meant to tell him to make Hide not come to Anteiku anymore, but Kaneki had misunderstood. The logic took Touka aback. If, to keep them from harm, a human friend needed to be kept away from Ghouls, then the one they needed distance from, first and foremost, was none other than yourself.
Kaneki’s misunderstanding had actually hit at the heart of the matter. So what about me and Yoriko?
“Touka, are you all right?” Kaneki asked, clearly having sensed she was not.
“I’m fine.”
“You haven’t really been yourself the last few days, though.”
“It’s nothing, I told you.”
Now I’ve gone and made Kaneki worried about me. She felt uncomfortable with his concerned look.
“Is it something to do with Yoriko?”
He’d cut straight to the heart of it. Reflexively she had started shaking. And from that, Kaneki had taken a guess.
“Did you guys have a fight?”
“Just shut up and get back to work.”
Touka started washing out the soaked hand towels. But Kaneki did not go away.
“What’s with you?” Kaneki asked, sounding annoyed. He looked at Touka as if there were something else he wanted to say. “I hope you guys make up soon.” He paused again. “The longer you let things go on for, the more misunderstandings pile up and things get worse. You shouldn’t just leave things as they are, in my opinion.”
Kaneki had his hands clasped together, timidly offering her his advice.
“You never shut up,” Touka fired back. “It wasn’t a fight.”
On her way home after finishing her shift at Anteiku, Touka took out the map of the zoo that Yoriko had given her and looked at it.
It was only a few days until they’d been meant to go to the zoo. Things’ll be back to normal by then, I know it. And if they’re not, if we just go to the zoo anyway, Yoriko will be so happy everything will be just like always.
Feeling more positive now, Touka carefully folded the map and put it back in her bag.
But betrayal comes quickest when hope is high.
IV
“Huh?”
“Like I just said—let’s just forget about the zoo for a while, okay?”
On their break, Touka had spoken to Yoriko, thinking that her friend would talk to her like usual, but instead Yoriko wiped the slate clean, plans and all.
“You changed your mind all of a sudden?”
“Look, I realized eventually that I shouldn’t have asked you without taking your schedule into account,” she said. Yoriko paused. “So next time—next time we’ll go whenever you can take the time. Okay?”
She’d said “next time.” But Touka sensed that the truth was there wouldn’t be a next time if things went on like this.
“No, there’s no need to cancel—can’t we just stick to what we planned?”
“Nope. I can see it now, I was way out of line.”
Touka fell silent, realizing that whatever she said made no difference.
“See, she won’t even say she wants to go,” said Mayuhara mockingly. She had been observing them. Touka turned to look at her. “Oooh, scary,” Mayuhara said, in an affected manner. Her friends giggled.
“Trying to say something to Yoriko again?” Touka growled.
“Of course not. Just saying what I thought …”
Touka made a move toward her, but Yoriko stopped her.
“Next time—we’ll go next time. Right?”
Yoriko’s weak smile made Touka’s heart hurt. She always used to smile at me so warmly.
“Yoriko …”
It can’t go on like this, Touka thought. But she couldn’t get the words to come out right.
“Class is about to start! Get to your seats!”
The teacher appeared before Touka could say anything, and then class started.
After school that day, Yoriko left before Touka, saying she had an errand to run. Touka went and stood in front of Mayuhara and her friends, who were gathered around the window of the classroom.
“Oh, Kirishima, not going home with your little friend today?” Mayuhara asked in mock concern once she noticed Touka was there. The girls were watching Yamamoto’s team play out on the field.
“What did you say to Yoriko?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Mayuhara twirled her hair with her finger, playing dumb.
“I asked you, what did you say to Yoriko?” Touka asked in a low tone tinged with murder. Perhaps instinctively sensing how bad this could be, Mayuhara let her hair slip from her fingers. Her eyes flitted around among her friends.
“Nothing. All I said was that it really didn’t seem like you wanted to go to the zoo,” she said, then paused. “Kirishima, you didn’t really want to go, did you? Because if you’d actually wanted to go, and I said that, then you could’ve easily tol
d Kosaka, ‘I do want to go.’”
The other girls murmured words of agreement and support for Mayuhara.
“The same with the lunches Kosaka makes, and all sorts of other stuff. Anyone can see you don’t really want to be her friend! If you don’t want an outsider calling you out on it, then maybe you should change your attitude? And don’t take it out on m—”
A loud bang rang out. Mayuhara was speechless; her friends were left breathless. Touka’s fist had gone just past Mayuhara’s cheek and connected with the window frame.
What the hell do you know?! Touka was screaming inside. It’s all because I can’t eat, because I could be a target at any time, all because I’m a Ghoul!
No matter how much I try, there’s a wall I can never jump over, and there’s happiness that I can never have. But I’m still hanging on to life. Despite it all.
Mayuhara slid down to the ground on the spot where she’d stood.
“Want to be next?” Touka said, glaring at her and each of her friends in turn.
“I have nothing else to say, so don’t, bitch.”
Leaving Mayuhara crumpled on the floor, Touka left the classroom.
“Didn’t even get to see the baby animals …”
Touka walked alone, looking at the map of the zoo that Yoriko had given her.
Would it have made a difference if I’d said, “But I want to go,” when Yoriko told me she was calling it off?
“Hey, Touka. How was school?”
When she got to Anteiku, Kaneki said hello to her happily, not taking note of her mood.
Irritated, she told him to shut up. Kaneki tilted his head and asked, “What’s up?”
Touka said nothing.
Kaneki watched her for a little while before asking, quietly, “Did something happen with you and Yoriko?”
She was shaking with anger. She balled her hands into fists.
“And what the hell is it to you?” she shouted.
The customers all turned to look at the same time, and silence fell on the café.
“What is going on here, Touka?” This time it was Yoshimura, who was at the counter, who asked.
“Uh … I’m so sorry …”
