Kanazuki Genshiro, the 38-year-old homeroom teacher for Class 3-B at Seihara High School, was facing a very awkward situation.
It was morning homeroom, and he had just stepped into the classroom. He could feel the strange atmosphere hanging over the entire class.
Normally, the students would have noticed their teacher entering and quieted down, but instead they were whispering among themselves without even realizing he was there.
The students in the back row had all fixed their eyes on one seat by the middle window on the right, and the students in the front kept sneaking glances at the same spot as if they couldn‘t help themselves.
Genshiro followed their gazes and looked at the student sitting by the window.
It was Takaki Koma, who had been absent for the past two days with a cold. Since he was back at school, it seemed the cold had finally cleared up.
Takaki Koma was a quiet student who had never caused any particular trouble in school life.
He liked novels and games, but not so much that he would get caught playing them in class.
Because there was nothing especially memorable about him, that was about all Genshiro remembered about Takaki Koma.
And on Takaki‘s desk was something that was drawing everyone‘s attention with overwhelming force.
“Da~ bu~”
It was a baby.
Not the novel Takaki usually carried around, not a handheld game console, but a living baby.
Wrapped in a white cloth that covered its whole body and even its head, its right side was hard to see, but even from the left side alone, it was a cute baby with lovely eyes and cheeks so soft they looked like they‘d be squishier than rice cakes.
The baby was reaching out with both hands, trying to grab the pen Takaki was spinning so flashily with one hand, as if fascinated by the sight.
Takaki, who had been looking down at the baby with a warm smile, noticed Genshiro standing dumbly at the entrance instead of coming into the classroom and spoke up.
“Teacher? Aren‘t you going to start homeroom?”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that!!!!”
If there was some ultra high-tech teacher who could calmly run homeroom in a situation like this, let him step forward.
Of course, Takaki had no choice but to be called to the staff room for a one-on-one meeting with the teacher.
“Whose baby is that?”
“It‘s a relative‘s baby.”
“Why did you bring it to school?”
“Something unavoidable came up, so I had to leave her in my care.”
“Do your parents know?”
“As you know, my father is so busy that I can only get in touch with him once a month.”
“Even so, bringing a baby to school is...”
“Are you telling me to leave this little one alone in an empty house!?”
“N-no, that‘s not what I meant, but... why am I the one getting scolded here!!”
The meeting dragged on for over two hours.
To cut straight to the conclusion: Victory. It was incredibly fortunate that Mr. Kanazuki was the kind of guy who easily got swept up in the flow of an argument.
After much deliberation, I decided that the best option was still to bring Eto to school with me directly. That way felt safer.
I was a little worried that my homeroom teacher might contact my father because of what happened today, but the chances of actually getting through were slim.
My mother had died long ago, and my father was so busy because of “certain circumstances” that even I could only reach him once a month.
Anyway, after that long argument, I returned to the classroom holding Eto.
Since I‘d been allowed to bring Eto to school as long as she didn‘t interfere with class, the remaining hurdle was the flood of curiosity from my classmates.
“She‘s a girl. So cute~”
“Her name is Eto?”
“How old is she?”
“Ah, she looked this way.”
“Eek~! I want to bite her!”
Especially exhausting was the way the girls, who normally had no interest in my existence, kept crowding around my desk.
Damn it, maybe I should‘ve built up some experience with the opposite sex more often.
“Mmmn~...”
Eto seemed frightened by the crowd that had suddenly gathered, and she clutched my collar tightly with a face that looked like she might cry.
Ah, stop it. Don‘t come any closer. You‘re going to make the kid cry. Couldn‘t they suppress that maternal instinct right now?
“Can I hold her just once?”
Then one of the girls said that and reached out toward Eto.
Seeing the fingers stretching toward her, Eto forgot her fear of the crowd for a moment and opened her mouth with sparkling eyes.
Huh? That‘s exactly the motion she makes when she bites my finger and sucks my blood...
“Don‘t touch heraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Boom! Boom!
As I wrapped Eto in my arms like I was shielding her and shouted from atop the desk, time froze in the classroom.
Not only the girls around me, but even the students who hadn‘t been interested at all stared at me with their mouths hanging open, wondering what the hell had just happened.
With all those piercing stares on me, my overheated head cooled off quickly, and I became aware of what I‘d just done.
Trying to figure out how to escape this embarrassing situation, I muttered a pathetic excuse, slung my bag over my shoulder, and ran out of the classroom.
“M-my baby seems to have made a mess, so I‘m going to change her diaper and be right back!!”
My classmates saw me sprinting toward the restroom with bewildered expressions.
After going through the incident that led to disgraceful rumors spreading among the girls that I might be a pedophile, I went up to the rooftop during lunch break.
I grumbled to Eto while remembering the moment from a few hours earlier when things had nearly gone terribly wrong.
“Honestly. You can‘t just try to eat people all of a sudden. That was almost a disaster.”
“Buu~”
“What do you mean, ’buu‘? What are you, Majin Buu? Do people look like cookies to you?”
With a sigh, I tilted the bottle at an angle that made it easier to drink from. Inside was my blood, brought in a blood transfusion pack.
What should have been a pure white liquid that seemed to heal the heart had instead become a bottle sloshing with blood, transformed into something straight out of a horror movie.
The contrast between that eerie blood-filled bottle and Eto happily sucking it down was pretty extreme.
“Mm, I‘m starting to think it doesn‘t matter anymore. This is dangerous. I really might turn into a total doting father.”
“What‘s going to happen?”
“Hm? Ah.”
Whoosh!
The moment I recognized the figure that suddenly appeared after opening the rooftop door, Eto hurled the bottle she‘d been sucking on with all her strength.
As the blood-filled bottle arced over the railing and disappeared, Eto, shocked at having her delicious meal snatched away, started crying.
“Waaah~!”
“Ack! Sorry! I acted before I could think because I was in such a hurry!”
Panicking, I soothed Eto while quickly wiping the bloodstains from around her mouth.
Meanwhile, the figure who had come up to the rooftop looked at me calming the crying Eto and spoke in a startled voice.
“Oh! So the rumor that you suddenly came to school carrying a baby was true.”
“H-Hitokawa, was that you...”
The sturdy, good-looking boy who had come up to the rooftop was Hitokawa Tomoru.
We were in different classes, but if you asked who my closest friend at school was, it would definitely be this guy.
“Where‘d you get a baby? Don‘t tell me it‘s yours?”
“As if.”
“Well, after that elementary school recital dance, you haven‘t even held a girl‘s hand, have you?”
“That‘s true.”
“Hahaha.”
We traded pointless jokes, and Hitokawa sat down leaning against a nearby railing.
Eto had already stopped crying by then.
But perhaps because she had just been tasting blood, [Kakugan] had surfaced in her right eye.
If Hitokawa saw that, it would be dangerous.
I casually covered the right side of Eto‘s face with the cloth and thought about how to steer Hitokawa‘s attention elsewhere.
Then I noticed the bandages wrapped around Hitokawa‘s hand, even more than before.
“Your hand‘s got more cuts on it.”
“Hm? Ah, this? Stuff like this is just part of everyday life.”
“Is your dream still that?”
“Yeah. I know the goal is high. So if I want to make that dream come true, I have to work this hard.”
“I see...”
I turned my head away so he wouldn‘t notice my darkening expression.
Hitokawa, whose stubborn bond with me had started back in elementary school, was my closest friend.
If possible, I didn‘t want to hide anything from him.
If I could, I wanted to tell him about the troubles I was going through and share them with him.
But I couldn‘t.
At least not with him...
“Don‘t worry too much. Sure, being a ’Ghoul Investigator‘ is dangerous work where you never know when you‘ll die... but it‘s still a cool job, protecting your family and friends and taking down Ghouls! I‘m definitely going to become a Ghoul Investigator.”
Maybe he thought my expression was because I was worried about him taking a rough path, because Hitokawa forced out a bright smile as he said that.
And to Hitokawa, I couldn‘t bring myself to say it.
If you go down that path, you and I will inevitably end up opposing each other.
Swallowing those words, I held Eto a little tighter, as if protecting her.
Hitokawa was only the beginning.
As long as I was holding this child, I would lose more and more in the days ahead.
“This really is way too hardcore a quest for me, Mister Kuzen...”
I complained to Mister Kuzen, who wasn‘t here, and looked up at the sky.
A single owl, completely out of place in the middle of the city, was flapping its wings and rising into the air.