It had been about fifteen minutes since I left the house with reluctant steps after the manager's threatening phone call.
"Ugh..."
I was sprawled on a bench in a nearby park like a homeless man, suffering in silence.
No, I hadn't actually planned to ditch my part-time job. Up until halfway here, I really had been walking while thinking, Since it's come to this, I might as well do my best.
Then I ran into an unexpected problem.
At some passerby's words of, "What's that?" I reflexively turned my head and... found a cat's corpse lying in the road.
If this had been me a few days ago, it wouldn't have been a problem at all. But after spending longer than usual staring at corpses in order to procure more meat than usual, the stress had come back to bite me hard.
"Hrk...!!!"
Just seeing a single dead cat triggered a panic attack.
My breathing locked up, cold sweat broke out, and dizziness hit me. Even while standing still, I felt seasick, like I'd been on a boat for hours.
My hand instinctively went to the anti-anxiety pills in my pocket, reaching for the tablets before stopping halfway.
The pills would ease the anxiety for a little while, but I couldn't forget this: even if they were used for treatment, they were close to narcotics. If I overused them, I'd become dependent, and I had no idea what kind of damage they might do to my body.
Besides, I'd already taken two earlier that dawn while gathering corpses.
When the doctor prescribed them, he warned me that the proper dosage was one a day. But I'd been dealing with panic disorder for a long time.
Maybe because I'd built up a tolerance, one pill no longer did much to calm the attacks.
So I'd used two, but then the effect got so strong that I'd occasionally see hallucination-like images and get startled half to death.
In the end, all I could do was wait for the anxiety attack to subside on its own, so I headed to the park in search of somewhere to rest.
Then I found a suitable bench and lay down, which brought me to this moment.
The homeless man who seemed to own the bench was giving me a sharp look. Sorry. I'll be done soon and move along...
"...I really am pathetic."
Once the panic attack eased, self-loathing filled the empty space instead.
I wasn't even sure what exactly I hated. I just knew that in this moment, I felt unbearably pathetic, and that made me hate myself.
Maybe it was pathetic that I was trembling over a dead cat. Maybe it was pathetic that I was so useless I had nothing to give Eto unless I ruined my own body.
If I had more money, if I knew more about Ghouls, if I had the kind of "strength" that could raise Eto safely....
I searched for what I lacked and tried to find the reason to hate myself in that emptiness, but in the end I realized those things were only part of the reason.
"Damn it..."
The problem had no answer, and I cursed at it. Realizing that the curse was ultimately aimed at myself only made me feel worse.
When I moved my arm away from my eyes, I saw a sky full of clouds.
If the clouds thickened a little more, it looked like it might rain, but for now they were blocking the harsh sunlight, so it was nice to be able to look up at the blue sky in comfort.
Flap
A bird cut across that sky.
A pigeon? But it was bigger than a pigeon. Its shape was different too....
That was....
"...An owl?"
An owl that didn't belong in the city's forest of buildings instead of an actual forest.... I felt like I'd seen one before.
Then, as if covering that owl from view, a plastic bottle filled with mineral water slipped into my line of sight.
What was this? Was some homeless old man offering it because he couldn't stand watching me suffer?
"Ah, thank you."
Taking the bottle, I thanked him and sat up, turning to look beside me.
A black coat that didn't suit the summer heat at all, a fedora pulled low over his head. He wasn't a homeless old man.
I recognized him.
He had more wrinkles than the last time I saw him, and his hair had gone even grayer, but there was no mistaking him.
"...You've gotten a lot older, Mister Kuzen."
"You've gotten a lot thinner since I last saw you, Koma."
It was Kuzen, Eto's biological father.
"Was the last time we saw each other three years ago?"
"About that. We only met for a minute or two then, since something came up right away."
"What a shame. You left before you could even see Eto for long."
We sat side by side on the park bench and talked.
The homeless man who'd owned the bench had vanished on his own after being intimidated by Kuzen's sharp gaze. It wasn't intentional, but I felt a little bad.
"How's the matter with the 'organization' going?"
"It's finally nearing the end. I just finished dealing with the key people among the main strike force that had been chasing me."
So that was it.
I looked into the inside of Kuzen's coat with understanding.
I caught a glimpse of his hand pressing down on what looked like an injured area, along with a faint smell of blood.
"Is it a serious wound?"
"Nothing much. A Ghoul heals from this kind of injury quickly."
"For something like that, you look pretty exhausted."
"That's not something you should be saying."
"...Is it that obvious?"
"You look like you could collapse on the roadside any second."
How embarrassing.... Eto only suspected a little, but I'd still managed to hide my expression well enough to fool Hitokawa.... So age really couldn't be cheated, huh?
"...Is Eto's 'meal' difficult?"
Kuzen asked carefully.
"Mm.... ...A little."
"I see...."
"But it's fine. I can still manage."
"By relying on medicine?"
I swallowed a groan.
How did he know? Ah, he must have already spotted me when I saw the cat's corpse. He'd seen me hesitating over whether to take the pills.
I considered brushing it off as vitamins, but gave up. Maybe I could fool Hitokawa or someone else, but there was no way I could fool this man.
"...It's a little dangerous."
"..."
"The doctor said he doesn't know what kind of mental stress I'm under, but I need to stop right away. Otherwise, it'll get so bad later that I won't even be able to live a normal daily life."
"...Koma."
"But—"
Kuzen seemed to be about to speak heavily, but I could already guess the rest without hearing it.
So I cut him off first and kept going.
"I can still raise Eto."
"...There's no need. My matter with the 'organization' is almost finished...."
"If that were really true, you wouldn't be sitting here injured and running into me on the street. You'd have come home in one piece."
I grinned playfully at Kuzen, who couldn't finish his sentence.
Hey, Mister Kuzen. You don't know me that well, do you?
I may not be able to fool you, but you can't fool me either.
"There's still a dangerous 'variable' out there, isn't there? A 'variable' that could swallow up not just you, but Eto too.... That's why you haven't been able to properly bring Eto back for five years."
"...But if this keeps up, you'll—"
"Ah, I've been curious about this for a long time.... Ukina-san."
Ukina.
Kuzen's wife, and Eto's biological mother.
The human who accepted Kuzen, a Ghoul.
"You said a child can't be born between a Ghoul and a human, right? Because there's no way to get nourishment.... How did Ukina-san do it?"
"...You know that a Ghoul only has one source of nourishment."
"Right? Then I can do it too."
"Koma...."
I patted Kuzen's shoulder, unable to wipe the shadow from his face.
"Trust me. I'm the nephew of the woman you loved, after all."
"..."
Kuzen said nothing and stood up.
Then, after walking a few steps, he spoke with his back turned.
"You really do resemble Ukina. ...But you're not as strong as she was."
"Mm~ That's one thing I'm disappointed about too. If she was sunlight, I'm at best moonlight?"
"So I'm asking you."
Kuzen walked away, his black coat fluttering behind him.
He left only one murmured sentence behind.
"...Don't die."
"I'll keep that in mind."
I waved Kuzen off as he left.
When I looked up, the owl crossing the city's buildings was already gone. Lowering my gaze, I saw that Kuzen had vanished as well.
"Well then... shall I get going?"
My panic attack had subsided, and after standing up and stretching, I started walking again.