"Haaah..."
He let out a heavy sigh. He was so sleep-deprived from pulling an all-nighter that he felt like he could die on the spot, but his mind was too restless to let him sleep.
Hitokawa lay face-down on the cold desk, cheek pressed against it, narrowing his dark-ringed eyes and rolling his pupils around.
Random paperwork was scattered across the office desk.
Half of it was reports on damage caused by Ghoul incidents. The other half was a collection of information on various Ghoul criminals—their habits, appearance patterns, usual locations, and details about their Kagune.
A Ghoul Investigator lives every waking moment facing vicious Ghouls.
Sometimes they even show up in dreams, so it was practically a twenty-four-hour war.
The "war of nerves" of enduring each other's threatening presence, the "psychological war" of tracking down their hiding places and chasing them when they tried to flee, the "slaughter war" where, the moment they met, all mercy was thrown away and one side had to keep fighting until the other died....
That was why Ghoul Investigators were required to receive regular psychiatric counseling. Fighting Ghouls was no different from real war.
He had seen countless people retire while carrying trauma heavy enough to crush them.
Forty percent of rookie investigators couldn't bear the pressure and quit.
But Hitokawa had survived that and climbed all the way to second-rank investigator. There was only one way to escape the pressure.
Blind faith.
Ghouls were the source of all evil. Humans suffered because Ghouls existed. Only exterminating Ghouls could set the world right....
Without an almost brainwashing level of suggestion, no one could endure it.
Hitokawa had believed that and exterminated Ghouls.
And then something like today had happened.
Eto was a Ghoul.
He didn't know the circumstances, but the child his old childhood friend had cherished and raised was a Ghoul. The shock was beyond words.
Even in the middle of difficult battles, Hitokawa sometimes drew strength by recalling one particular scene.
On the way home, exhausted after being dragged into the war of paperwork.
The place he stopped by was the shop where that bastard Koma worked. What he ordered was the manager's special oyakodon. The manager, calling it a regular-customer service, piled on plenty of egg. Whenever he was eating that, Eto would appear.
She would cling to Koma as if launching herself into his arms, chat with the manager like they were women sharing secrets, and treat Hitokawa with the cool distance of a wary cat... and smile while doing it. Everyone would talk at once.
He liked that everyday life.
Because he liked that everyday life, he wanted to protect it.
And because he wanted to protect it, he hated Ghouls even more and kept exterminating them, never knowing when they might ruin that ordinary life.
But....
"Don't make me laugh, damn it..."
He was furious at himself for not knowing anything, disgusted, and clawed at his own hair.
Then a cold voice came flying down over his head and stabbed into him.
"Oh? Have you developed a hobby of ignoring your superior's summons and cursing while self-harming, Hitokawa-kun?"
"Huh!? N-no, sir!"
Hitokawa shot upright on reflex and snapped to attention.
His superior, with his sharp, unpleasant-looking eyes, tossed a document envelope onto Hitokawa's desk.
"The materials we requested from the police station where the pistol and Q Bullet were stolen have arrived. CCTV footage from the theft and a suspect sketch. This is the case you're handling, right?"
"Ah, yes! Thank you very much!"
"Though shouldn't this be the complaints team's job? The field team must already be busy enough just running around on-site."
"It was a friend's... request."
"Hmm. Don't let it interfere with your main work. You've got dark circles under your eyes."
His superior, who looked fierce but was actually the type to take good care of his subordinates, gave Hitokawa a warning and left.
"Hoo... come to think of it, this was here too."
The origin of the pistol and Q Bullet delivered to Koma. He had completely forgotten about it because he hadn't had the mental room to think about it.
He still didn't have the room to think about it now, but he figured he should at least check the suspect sketch first, so Hitokawa tore open the envelope.
Just as he was about to take out the papers and photo inside—
Ring ring ring!
"Hm?"
The office phone rang. The number displayed on the handset was definitely the one for the reception desk at the first-floor entrance.
Hitokawa set the envelope down and picked up the receiver.
"This is the first-floor reception desk. Are you Mr. Hitokawa Tomoru? We have a visitor requesting an interview."
"An interview request? Who is it?"
"Well... it's 'a girl who looks to be around ten years old.' She says she has something important to discuss and wants you to come down."
"...!!"
A girl around ten years old...? A bad feeling crept over him.
"Um... could you tell me what she looks like?"
"Hmm... she's wearing a boy cap and red-rimmed glasses. Ah, and she has a bandage on her left cheek."
Boy cap, glasses, bandage... Those weren't just any child's features.
'No way, no matter how young she is, she wouldn't come here if she had even a little sense.'
Trying to calm himself with that thought, he grabbed his suit jacket and headed down to the first floor to meet her once.
He left the envelope with the photo and sketch sitting right on top of the desk.
And when he arrived on the first floor and faced the child who had asked to meet him, Hitokawa's cheek twitched violently.
"...You really do love betraying other people's trust."
"If you mean the last time, I have nothing to say. If you mean now, then it's just that you misunderstood on your own, old man."
Sure enough, it was a girl wearing a boy cap, glasses, and a bandage on her left cheek.
It was just that the girl in question was Eto.
Eto had always been the type to save up her allowance instead of spending it, so she had plenty of money on hand. With that, she had stopped by a gift shop and bought a disguise cap and non-prescription glasses.
The bandage was something she had put on after reading in a book that sticking one on your face could interfere with other people's perception.
Hitokawa sighed and looked down at Eto coldly.
"Do you even know where you are?"
"A tiger's den."
Hitokawa's brow twitched, and Eto continued boldly.
"I came to catch the tiger. You, Hitokawa old man."
"Why? Since only I know your identity, are you trying to silence me?"
"Not with the violent method you're imagining."
Eto held out a neatly wrapped box from the paper bag in one hand.
It was manju made by hand from a famous nearby wagashi shop.
"I came to talk. Dad and you, Mr. Hitokawa, need to talk. Which means the two of us also inevitably need to talk. This is a gift. You can even think of it as a bribe. We can eat it while we talk calmly...."
"Cut it out!!!"
Thwack!
He swung his hand and knocked the manju box away.
The box fell from Eto's hand and rolled across the floor, the pretty wrapping getting ruined as several pieces of the contents spilled out.
"What are you plotting!! Did Koma send you!? No matter what tricks you pull, I don't trust you bastards!! Get out of here right n...!!"
What shut Hitokawa's mouth before he could shout "Get out!" was none other than the large tears welling up in Eto's eyes.
"...I waited for an hour."
"...What?"
Hitokawa could only stare, mouth hanging open.
"I waited in line in front of the shop for an hour to buy it... A kind old lady even gave me her place, so I barely managed to get it... I used up all the allowance I'd saved for this...."
"H-hey, wait?"
"Hic! Hic! ...Will you talk to me?"
Eto finally burst into loud tears. Hitokawa was the one who panicked at the unexpected turn.
And then he realized that everyone in the lobby had turned their attention to them.
The middle-aged man sitting nervously in the waiting area, maybe having come to report a Ghoul sighting, the security guard standing rigidly by the front entrance, the cleaning lady moving along the floor with her mop—all of them were throwing stones of judgment at the miserable adult who had made a child cry.
Especially the reception women, whose looks were like they were staring at living garbage, were something else entirely.
While Hitokawa was coming down, they had been talking with Eto, and in that short time they had already fallen head over heels for her cuteness, so their coldness was even sharper.
Hitokawa thought that when Koma, after turning into a daughter-obsessed fool, went ballistic over anything involving Eto, the atmosphere had probably been exactly like this.
"...Hey. Don't socially kill me, save me. This is my workplace."
"Hic! Hic! ...Will you talk to me?"
"...I said I would."
"...What about the manju?"
"......I'll eat it."
Eto wiped her face hard and gathered up the box and manju that had fallen to the floor.
For a moment, Hitokawa caught a glimpse of the corner of her mouth lifting in a grin, as if she had never been crying at all.
Then he suddenly remembered what his superior had said while drinking with him: "Sometimes, a woman who can control her own tears is scarier than a Ghoul."
Koma, what kind of monster are you raising?