A month passes since that day.
I'm sitting across from Meiko at one of the tables in Anteiku, drinking coffee.
Anteiku is the café in the 20th ward, where Yoshi is the owner and the staff serves pretty good coffee. It's quiet at this hour of the morning, since most of the ghouls have already had their coffee and left.
Meiko has both hands wrapped around her cup.
During this past month, she hasn't gone back to school.
That's normal. After what she found out that night, I don't think anyone would have been able to walk back into class like nothing happened.
Shizuka had taken good care of her the whole time, and I came by often to check on her.
At first Meiko barely talked, answering in one or two words, spending most of her days staring out Shizuka's window, and sometimes following me around in silence like a ghost.
But time passes and things get a little better. Now she's eating more, talking more, and every once in a while she even laughs, especially at Shizuka, who can be a bit clumsy and scatterbrained. Though I think this time Shizuka is doing it on purpose to cheer Meiko up.
"Arata-san."
"Mm?"
"I'm going back to school tomorrow."
She says it while looking straight at me. I nod and smile.
"That's great."
"Yeah... I thought about it a lot."
She turns the cup around between her hands a couple of times.
"I don't want to stay locked up forever. My mom... well, that thing... is gone now. But I'm still here. So I have to keep going, right?"
"That's a good way to look at it."
"Shizuka-oneesama said the same thing."
"Oh, by the way."
I remember something and clap my hands together to get her attention.
"About school."
"What about school?"
"You're not going back to your old one."
"Huh? But I just said tomorrow..."
"You're coming to mine. That was the plan before all of this happened, wasn't it? I mentioned it to mom, and all the paperwork is already done."
After my words, the silence stretches out as Meiko stares at me, and then she seems to realize something and looks down quickly. Her cheeks go a little red.
"...Mrs. Takagi did that? But she..."
I took Meiko to the Takagi mansion once, since she was curious about me. She met Saya and mom.
Saya was looking a little sour that day, and in the days that followed I had to take her to a few different spots around the city to cool her down.
Though that twin-pigtailed creature never actually made things difficult for Meiko, and they even talk on the phone every now and then.
She'd ended up feeling sorry for her and worrying about her when she heard what happened, relating to her in her own way. After all, it reminded her of her father, who had been parasitized by a space worm.
Meiko, on the other hand, was intimidated by Mrs. Yuriko. Not like mom did it on purpose.
According to Meiko, Yuriko's presence is overwhelming. A couple of days after meeting her, Meiko told me, "when I grow up, I want to have that kind of presence... Mrs. Takagi's presence."
"Don't worry about it."
Mrs. Yuriko was the kind of person who solved things before you finished asking for them. I suppose that's why she was who she was. I explained Meiko's situation to her, and she already knew what I was going to ask before I got to the end of it.
That's honestly what I like most about her.
Meiko lets out a breath and smiles, a little shy.
"Thank you, Arata-san."
I tap her lightly on the head.
"I've told you before, haven't I? Don't thank me for things like this. It makes us sound like strangers."
"Hehe~"
She laughs that way while sticking her tongue out and winking at me.
I take a sip of coffee and look out the window, letting my mind drift. Or more precisely, I start paying attention to my All-Seeing Eyes.
Specifically the one in Rome.
For the past two weeks I've been keeping watch over the Vatican with one of my All-Seeing Eyes. The eye got there after a pretty long journey.
Slipping it inside the Vatican without anyone noticing was a long job, because they have a lot of strong people. The number of them and the power they have honestly surprises me.
From what I can see, they're much more powerful than they were in the Hellsing anime. If that's the case, just how strong is Alucard?
Well, the All-Seeing Eye can adjust its size, so it got through in the end.
And what I've been watching ever since has been pretty interesting.
Iscariot, which had been very active with its internal meetings after the whole Johannes situation, had slowed down a lot in recent weeks.
'Umu. Looks like they've put the thing with me on hold for now.'
Maxwell keeps showing up to meetings but has been busier than usual. Anderson barely appears at the smaller meetings anymore, only when something important is going on.
The reason is the Hyakuya Sect.
I'd already done a fair amount of research on that organization. The Hyakuya Sect is a pretty large religious organization with people spread across a lot of places.
Here in Japan, their main enemy is the Order of the Imperial Demons. Those two had been fighting for years over who controls the country from the shadows.
After World War II, the Hyakuya Sect settled in with support from the United States. This allowed them to compete directly with the Hiragi family and their organization, the Order of the Imperial Demons, and has been the dominant group in Japan ever since.
What caught my attention the most when I looked into it was the level of power that sect holds. All the major politicians in the country depend on them in some way to stay where they are.
But almost nobody on the street knows they exist. Normal people go about their lives without knowing any of this. The country is being moved from the shadows by people who will never appear on any news channel.
That's pretty common in this world, but it still gives you a bad feeling when you see it laid out that clearly.
The point is that lately the Hyakuya Sect wants to expand outside of Japan, into Europe, and that puts them directly against the Vatican.
So it makes sense that Iscariot would have more pressing things to deal with than tracking and investigating a pup in Tokyo. "Pup" is basically how Maxwell have been describing me.
A pup, huh.
They call me a chimera here and a pup over there.
—Slurp.
I take a long sip of my coffee.
This works in my favor. Being ignored for a while is perfect for what I'm planning to do.
"Arata-san, are you even listening?"
My train of thought loses steam and Meiko's voice comes back into focus.
"Yeah. Sorry, I zoned out."
"I was saying that Shizuka-oneesama taught me how to make pancakes yesterday. They came out terrible, but she said they were delicious so I wouldn't feel bad."
"Oh, really? That doesn't surprise me coming from her."
"Mm, she ate all of them anyway. I think she has a really strong stomach."
"Next time you could leave me one, how about that?"
"E-eh... it's embarrassing. They won't taste good..."
"Doesn't matter. I want to try one."
"Okay... then I'll do my best!"
Meiko makes a determined face and clenches her fist.
We stay there whole morning. Meiko drinks two cups of coffee with a lot of milk and I have mine black, and we talk about nothing in particular. School, Shizuka, what kind of student she is. It turns out she's good at math and bad at history.
Then we head out to walk the streets without any particular destination.
It was on that walk, crossing a quiet street near a park.
'I've been feeling it for a while now. This frequency.'
It's a different frequency from parasytes.
That said, I'd already felt it before, several days ago, and it always seemed to show up close to wherever I was.
I hadn't worried much about it since it was just me, but now Meiko is with me.
With my vampire vision, I can see the silhouette of a human, which is honestly not what you'd expect to find on someone giving off parasyte like frequencies.
While I'm considering sending an All-Seeing Eye over to get a better look, I stop because they're walking from the corner of the street and is about to step out.
"Arata-san?"
Meiko stops too and follows my gaze toward a dark-haired girl stepping onto the sidewalk across the street.
She looks the other way. Is she pretending to wait for a bus?
I walk toward her. Meiko comes along beside me.
And when I get close enough to see her face clearly, I recognize her.
Ah.
The girl who was part of the group that was bullying Meiko. That day she didn't do anything. Afterward we were introduced, and before she left she showed some curiosity toward me. I remembered her face because her frequency had caught my attention.
"Kana."
I raise a hand and greet her.
She blinks a little.
"...You remember me."
"We were introduced."
Before I can say anything else, Meiko makes a sound at my side.
I look at her. Her face has gone rigid, eyes fixed on Kana.
"You..."
She says those words in a flat voice.
"What are you doing following Arata? Wasn't it enough to bully me? You didn't do anything, but being there with them is enough."
I raise my eyebrows a little.
I wasn't expecting this. The Meiko from a little while ago, quietly holding her coffee cup with both hands, is gone. This Meiko has still eyes and a heavy voice.
Well. If I remember that the grown-up Meiko from Prison School walks around with a whip making half the school shake in their boots... I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This shy version is the current one. The other one is tucked away inside and slowly making its way to the surface.
"Meiko."
I say her name, and at the same time I raise my hand and stroke her silky hair.
"Let's hear her out first."
Meiko calms down under my touch and nods, though she doesn't take her eyes off Kana.
I look at Kana.
"Why are you following me?"
She takes a moment to answer, and before she does, a small smile crosses her lips.
"I was curious."
"Curious about what?"
"Since I met you, I can sense you from far away. I have a rough idea of where you are. I started following you to figure out what it meant. And now I'm pretty sure I know what it means..."
Oh no, does she think I'm a parasyte?
While Meiko looks at me without understanding, Kana speaks again.
"This connection we share... we're meant to be."
Ah.
This girl is an idiot.
×××
Two more chapters until the huge time skip