There was a district in this city that was a fortress safe for humans and hell for Ghouls.
It was the First Ward, where CCG headquarters stood.
As if proclaiming its presence to every Ghoul hiding in the city's shadows, the CCG headquarters building rose so high it seemed to pierce the sky.
Hitokawa spotted a man standing at the main entrance, smoking, and hurried over.
"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Hajimoto!"
"No, you're right on time."
The man who noticed Hitokawa took out a portable ashtray and stubbed out his cigarette.
Shinichi Hajimoto, Senior Ghoul Investigator.
He looked young enough to be Hitokawa's age, but appearances were deceiving. He was a veteran with seven years of investigative experience and countless battlefields behind him.
He had been promoted to Senior Ghoul Investigator two years ago, and for a full year he had guided Hitokawa, a rookie who had only just become an investigator. He was both a senior and a mentor.
"So what's going on? You called me here all of a sudden."
"Hmm... About yesterday's murder case, there's something bothering me, so I thought I'd look into it."
In Hajimoto's hand was a file on the Ghoul-related murder case that had been handed over from the police to the CCG the day before.
So that was it. It was the case where Koma was being suspected as a key suspect. Between the pages, Hitokawa caught a glimpse of that composite sketch that looked like Koma, but not quite.
Hajimoto held up the sketch and said, "This composite sketch... I think it might be someone I know."
"Huh?"
Hitokawa had been about to bring up the sketch himself, and now Hajimoto had said the exact same thing first. He couldn't help but be taken aback.
"Mr. Hajimoto, do you know Koma?"
"Hmm? Koma... You mean Takaki Koma?"
What was this? It was hard not to think the world was absurdly small.
The first superior he had met after becoming a Ghoul Investigator turned out to know a friend of his.
"Ah, right. That guy's father was a Ghoul Investigator..."
Strictly speaking, he had been a Ghoul Investigator. Not anymore.
There was no way a dead man could keep a Ghoul Investigator's post.
For Hitokawa, who had once hesitated to become an investigator after seeing how badly Koma had suffered when his father died, it was not something he could easily forget.
"He was the son of my former superior. ...He passed away in the line of duty, and that's how I ended up meeting him over funeral arrangements."
So that's how it connects...
Now that he understood, Hitokawa took the opportunity to mention that he had just seen Koma a little while ago.
After hearing the story, Hajimoto shook his head with sympathy. It was the pity of a man mourning the death of a respected superior and the hardship it had left on his child.
"So he was suffering from that kind of mental illness... That's unfortunate, but there's nothing we can do to help. Problems like that can't be solved unless he overcomes them himself. Interfering would only make things harder for him."
"I suppose so..."
"But if that's the case, then this does get strange."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I understand that Takaki-kun isn't a Ghoul. The fact that he couldn't handle the police questioning and ran because of a mental disorder... that's a little odd, but not impossible to understand. Then what exactly was the 'human blood' found at the spot where Takaki-kun was?"
"...!"
Come to think of it... Hitokawa had failed to ask the most important question and silently blamed himself for it.
He didn't think that blood had anything to do with Koma, but precisely because of that, he should have confirmed it properly. To prove that the blood had nothing to do with Koma, he should have asked for the details of what happened at the time.
"After analyzing the blood, we confirmed it wasn't the victim's blood from the murder case. It belonged to someone else. Judging by how dried it was, it likely formed at the time Takaki-kun fled from the police questioning, with an error margin of about ten minutes either way. Was Takaki-kun injured at the time?"
"...I didn't see any obvious injuries."
"If he wasn't injured, then it's unlikely to have been Takaki-kun's blood. Then who did it belong to, and why was it there? That's what interests me."
Listening to it like this, even Hitokawa found it troubling.
There were too many strange points to simply conclude that this case had nothing to do with Koma.
"And according to the police statement at the time, it says he ran when they tried to check the contents of the guitar case. Does Takaki-kun have a guitar?"
"Ah, now that you mention it, he's had a guitar case with him for a while... Hm?"
Hitokawa furrowed his brow and put a hand to his chin.
He had caught a glimpse of a guitar case at Koma's house, but he had never once seen him actually play guitar.
And Koma had said he went to a suicide spot because he needed a change of pace, but why would he bring a guitar to a place like that?
If he had gone to a suicide site and casually started playing rock music, then he really did need to be taken to a psychiatric hospital.
"What is it..."
The more he thought about it, the stranger it felt.
The beginning and end of the story did not connect smoothly.
It was as if something had been cut out in the middle, or distorted somehow...
Cut out? Distorted? Distorted by what, exactly?
The more he thought, the less the answer seemed to appear.
Seeing the troubled look on Hitokawa's face, Hajimoto seemed to read his thoughts and spoke up.
"Shall we go? To Takaki-kun's house."
Hitokawa nodded readily.
It seemed they would have to visit his friend again and confirm things for themselves.
"Koma, what exactly are you hiding?"
My part-time job was at a tavern called "Fireworks Bursting in Your Stomach." If you want to complain about the naming sense, blame the manager.
According to him, it was meant to be a metaphor for a bomb cocktail, but for someone like me, who saw corpses all the time, it only brought to mind the image of a person dying with fireworks exploding in their stomach.
I can say with confidence that if my panic disorder gets any worse, this shop's name will definitely share some of the blame.
Even though it was still broad daylight, I came to work at the tavern because it also functioned as a restaurant.
In fact, apparently it had originally been a restaurant when it first opened. The manager was the type who would never get up in the morning no matter what, so he found opening early too much of a hassle and simply turned it into a tavern.
Even so, they still served food, so there were plenty of people who came by to eat lunch.
The manager's brain was questionable, but the drinks, side dishes, and other food were good enough to make people exclaim in admiration, so there were plenty of regulars.
One of those regulars was my father.
He seemed to have been high school classmates with the manager here. He couldn't drink, but he often brought me here to eat because he worried about me being alone as a child, and that was how he got to know the manager.
And after my father passed away, when I was looking for work, he took me in and hired me at this place.
During the day, I helped with the restaurant side of the business, and at night, after finishing the tavern preparations, I handed the rest over to the night part-timer and went home.
If I worked through the night, I'd get paid a little more, but then Eto would have to spend the night alone at home and handle dinner by herself. That was something I could not accept.
At the very least, I knew better than anyone how lonely it was to eat alone.
After parting with Mister Kuzen, I arrived at the shop.
As soon as I opened the sliding door, I saw a woman in her forties inside turn toward me. She had a sturdy build and sharp, upturned eyes that made her look perpetually irritable.
Kazama Tokie.
The manager of "Fireworks Bursting in Your Stomach" spotted me and barked at me.
"Hey, you little brat, Koma! Why are you so late? We already started work!"
"Yes, yes. But I'm here now, aren't I?"
"You've got the nerve, just like your old man. Makes me want to hit you!"
"Could you refrain from violence in front of the customers?"
To begin with, even her playful hits came with a heavy impact.
The last time, she had slapped my back as a joke, and it left a dark bruise.
When Eto found that bruise while I was bathing, she had teared up and said, "Daddy, are you being bullied at work?!" But that's beside the point.
I didn't want to get hit, so I quickly put on my apron and started helping with the cooking while taking orders from customers.
While I was handling onions, I grumbled as I remembered a complaint about Tokie-san.
"At the very least, please don't call my house with threats. Eto gets scared."
"Hah? What are you talking about?"
Tokie-san, who was playing with pots and flames as flamboyantly as a Chinese chef from an old manga, raised one eyebrow and made her already fierce face even fiercer.
"I didn't call your house today."
I froze.
The knife I was using to slice the onions stopped halfway through.
What had I just heard? I turned back to Tokie-san to make sure.
"You didn't call my house today?"
"That's right. How many times are you going to skip work with the excuse that you're busy taking care of Eto? I was just going to let it slide."
"...You didn't call Eto?"
"I said I didn't. Why do you keep asking? Hey, why are your hands idle? Can't you see the orders are piling up?!"
The manager shouted at me, but I wasn't listening.
I remembered what Eto had said at home earlier today.
"When Daddy wasn't home, the manager at your workplace called the house."
That meant... a lie?
Eto? Why? What reason would she have to lie?
Questions piled up, and I sorted through them quickly.
For what purpose? To make me leave the house.
Why? I still didn't know.
What was the trigger? The trigger...
The conversation I had with Hitokawa outside, because Eto didn't want to hear it.
Did she... hear it?
Probably by using a Ghoul's hearing far sharper than I had expected.
Probably crouched under the hallway railing so I wouldn't notice her.
She heard that conversation.
She heard it.
Whoosh!
"H-hey!? Koma!!"
Ignoring Tokie-san's call, I ripped off my apron and bolted out of the shop.
I ran.
I ran back the way I had come.
The road I had walked so casually just moments ago now felt disgustingly long.
The apartment building where I lived came into view.
I pressed the elevator button. The numbers were dropping too slowly.
Unable to wait, I sprinted for the emergency stairs.
First floor, second floor, third floor... I emerged into the hallway on the fifth floor.
The nameplate with my name on it came into view.
I stopped in front of the door and turned the handle.
"Eto———!!!"
Before even stepping into the entryway, I thrust my body forward and shouted her name. And then...
..................
Only silence inside the house greeted me.