Fortunately, the [Kakugan] I'd absentmindedly exposed because I was hungry first thing in the morning hadn't been noticed by the woman.
Eto brought me some water, and I wet my throat with it. The coolness spread through me in a calm, lingering wave.
After setting the glass down, I steadied my slightly relieved stomach and looked at the person in front of me.
"Aaah~ My head hurts~ Hey, give me something to drink too. Oh, do you have iced tea?"
There was a woman rolling around in my house as if it were her own, complaining that her head hurt.
She looked about my age, maybe a little younger.
Her long brown hair had a natural wave to it, rippling like water, and beneath it was a face so clear and pretty it would have drawn men's eyes if she'd walked down the street.
Too bad her behavior ruined the effect completely.
Rolling around on the wooden floor had ridden up one leg of her jeans and the sweater on top, so frankly, she looked anything but neat.
Eto, who had brought over the water on a tray, twitched her cheek with a smile at the woman's shameless demand for a drink after not only taking over our floor but doing it so brazenly.
"Dad, can I hit this woman?"
Crack.Crack.
Her grip tightened, and a crack ran through the bamboo tray.
Calm down, Eto. If you hit her, a normal human will die instantly.
To soothe her, I beckoned her over and sat her on my lap. Eto, still pouting, slowly relaxed as I stroked her head.
Once I was sure she'd calmed down, I turned back to the woman.
"Anyway, who are you? You're definitely the one I drank with yesterday, right?"
"Huh? I already told you yesterday, didn't I? You don't remember?"
The woman, who had been pressing her face into the floor, lifted her head to look at me. At the very least, she could sit up first.
"I downed way too much hard liquor at once, so I blacked out. I don't remember anything."
"My goodness! Then you forgot the hot night we spent together too!? You heartless man!"
"What night did you and I spend together? For the record, we were definitely both wearing clothes. My belt was absolutely maintaining the peace and safety of our household."
"I mean, I'm joking~☆ I was just teasing you because I thought maybe you really didn't remember. Dehet."
"..."
She tapped her own head with a tiny fist and stuck out her tongue. Watching that, I seriously considered letting Eto hit her just a little.
Eto's expression was fierce enough that if she'd shouted "Bite her!" she might have transformed into a hunting dog on the spot.
Don't get angry. Our Eto is good, she's a good girl~ ...Okay, she's calm now.
"Enough joking. I'm asking seriously now: who are you, and why were you sleeping in our house?"
"Hmm~? Where should I start? First, my name. Shinaoto Minami. Call me Minami-chan~."
"Fine, Shinaoto. Why were you sleeping in my bed?"
"Oh? Cleanly ignored me? Well—anyway, it was when both you and I were completely drunk..."
And so her explanation of the night I couldn't remember began.
The night before....
"So it really was stolen ammunition..."
Click.
Hitokawa held the revolver loaded with [Q Bullet]s and looked up toward the ceiling.
His desk was covered in all kinds of documents, and on top of the pile was a report with the same serial number as the [Q Bullet], printed in red.
He'd said it would take a day or two, but the trace came back surprisingly fast. That was because it was already an item the police were frantically searching for.
The revolver delivered to his friend Koma had, in fact, been stolen six months ago from the Metropolitan Police Department's firearms storage.
There were signs of a break-in, but the culprit couldn't be identified, and the method was still a mystery, so the police were having a hard time with it.
And that kind of thing had been delivered to Koma... Why?
"Should I report this...?"
This was a far more troublesome case than he'd expected.
A police theft case with no identifiable culprit. Since it had been delivered, Koma was practically involved whether he liked it or not.
Even without thinking too deeply, it was obvious something annoying was going to happen to him.
That said, it was hard to just close his eyes and let it go. After all, a weapon capable of harming people had been put into circulation.
"What should I do..."
Worrying about it wouldn't solve anything.
For now, Hitokawa decided he'd meet Koma again tomorrow. He shoved the revolver into the drawer and locked it tightly.
When he checked the clock, it was already past one in the morning. There was no one else in the office besides him.
He made sure to turn off the lights, threw a thick coat over himself, and left the CCG building.
"Brrr... It's still a little cold."
He trained his body every day to help exterminate Ghouls, but the February night wind was still cold enough to make him shiver.
He was rubbing his arms as he walked down the street when he noticed it.
The entertainment district where young people gathered would probably be noisy, but in this area, where rigid buildings like the CCG office were packed together, human shadows were hard to find after midnight.
Step. Step.
...Someone was following behind him on that street. From the sound of it, there were two of them.
They were clearly closing the distance toward Hitokawa on the wide road, not just passing by.
They definitely had business with him.
...Could they be Ghouls?
He wondered if there could really be some lunatic attacking a Ghoul Investigator near a CCG branch, but the footsteps approaching him were irregular.
Evidence that they were staggering, as if drunk on something.
If they were Ghouls who had lost their minds, or Ghouls who hated Ghoul Investigators enough, they might well have targeted him walking alone in the middle of the night.
There was no one around, and it was one against two. Hitokawa was clearly at a disadvantage.
The footsteps came right up beside him. Hitokawa tightened his grip on the metal case.
Taah!
One set of footsteps kicked off the ground as if timing the moment and lunged at him.
But the movement was sluggish. Hitokawa moved his hand to the opening switch on the metal case, preparing to swing it open.
"Hitokawaaa~~!!"
"Huh!? Koma?!"
And just as he was about to open the case, what appeared before him was the face of his friend, flushed bright red as if he were completely drunk.
Reeking of alcohol and grinning ear to ear as he charged in, he... immediately stretched out his arm and unleashed a flashy pro wrestling lariat.
WHAM!!!
"Gehk!?"
Still dumbfounded as he stared at Koma, Hitokawa took the blow to the neck from the sweeping arc of his arm and rolled across the ground.
As his vision spun, Hitokawa desperately tried to make sense of the situation.
'Huh? What? Fine, Koma came looking for me, but why the hell did he open with a lariat? Is he drunk? A drunk lariat? What's the reason?'
To begin with, he didn't often see Koma drinking.
Even when he did, Koma said he was weak to alcohol and only drank just enough not to get drunk. Hitokawa had never once seen him truly wasted.
Then Hitokawa remembered something.
It was something his former superior, Hajimoto Shinichi, had said.
"Takaki-san, when he drinks, he sometimes gets a bizarre drinking habit where he uses pro wrestling moves on people he's close to. I heard that back when his family life was peaceful, he regretted not being able to play with his son often, so even when drunk he'd wrestle with him as a way of spending time together... By any chance, does Koma-kun have the same kind of habit?"
"What kind of father and son both have weird drinking habits like that!!"
Hitokawa shouted in outrage and tried to get up from the ground, but Koma's next move was faster.
It was a body press, slamming his whole body down on the opponent.
"Hey, you bastard! This is a concrete floor... Ghk!!"
WHAM!!
Hitokawa's desperate scream was cut off as Koma crushed him to the ground.
Koma immediately chained into the next technique, wrapping Hitokawa's neck and applying a triangle choke. It was a perfect hold even a Ghoul Investigator couldn't easily escape.
"Azaaaah!!"
"What do you mean 'aza'—Muuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaagh!!!!"
As Hitokawa screamed, a woman suddenly burst out. She was another woman reeking of alcohol like Koma. She had a lovely face, but there was no room to appreciate it with the pain he was in.
Just like Koma, the thoroughly drunk Shinaoto Minami knelt beside the two of them and slapped the ground with her palm as she shouted, "One! Two! Three~~!! Takaki Koma wins!!"
"Yeeaaah~!!"
Minami grabbed Koma's arm and hoisted him up as if praising the victor. Caught up in the mood, Koma raised one hand and flashed a V sign.
Hitokawa, groaning from the sudden assault, finally managed to steady himself and stand.
"Koma, you bastard... What the hell do you think you're doing right now...?"
"Mm! For some reason, after drinking I started overflowing with energy, so I was testing how far my limits went! Thanks to you, I just hit a ten-win streak!"
"That means there are nine other victims who got ambushed like me!? You're going to get reported, you idiot!?"
"It's fine~. I was hot and took my clothes off, but we definitely wore masks and fought fair and square~!"
"That makes it worse! What did the people you attacked do to deserve that?! No, wait, who the hell are you!?"
Hitokawa asked after noticing Minami's presence, but neither of them was listening at all.
"Wow~. Still, the manager I knocked down first was the toughest opponent~."
"I kind of smashed a table and just walked out. I wonder if that's okay? Yeah. It'll be fine, probably."
"Wait! You beat that beast-man manager!? You're the type whose combat power goes up when you drink!?"
What on earth had happened at the shop where Koma worked? He was almost afraid to find out.
"All right~ I still have energy to spare~! Tonight, let's go for a hundred wins!!"
"Yay~! Sounds fun!"
"Stop, you idiots!! How many more people are you planning to victimize before you're satisfied!? Hey, hey! Don't stop there! Wait for meee!!"
Hitokawa ran after Koma and Minami as they headed off to find their next prey, trying to stop them.
"...Hold on a second."
As I listened to Minami's story, I stopped her and covered my face with both hands.
...What the hell have I been doing?
Sure, back when I was on good terms with my father, I used to imitate pro wrestling moves I saw on TV all the time, but how did that become a drinking habit?
Guilt for the victims of Hitokawa and the late-night dojo storming welled up inside me.
No, wait, she said the manager got hit too, right? How am I supposed to face the manager tomorrow? Am I even going to survive this?
While I was buried in regret and anxiety, unable to lift my head, Eto's voice came from my lap.
"Dad! Wrestle with me too!"
She must have gotten interested in pro wrestling after hearing that story. Of course, absolutely not. My life was literally on the line.
"...Eto. Pro wrestling is a dangerous sport, so you can't just do it carelessly."
"Eh? But the magazine I saw back then didn't look dangerous at all. You know, that pro wrestling Adam and Eve did."
"..."
Never in my life had Eto's memory felt this dangerous.