by Shin Towada
She was shocked by the way they insulted her.
“Right?”
“I even invited you along to the group date thinking you’d make a good match with him, you know.”
“I don’t know about that.”
They still didn’t realize Kimi was listening, so they said everything they wanted to.
“She was so down after the accident, but lately she’s a lot better. Some girls just don’t care about anyone but themselves. But who cares? At least we don’t have to worry about her killing herself now. It’d look really bad if someone in our department killed themselves.”
The two of them passed by. Kimi was left there twisting her fingers around themselves nervously.
Kimi herself still wasn’t sure why Nishiki wanted to go out with her. She thought there were better options too. She was no stranger to harsh self-criticism.
But the last thing that Itose had said wouldn’t leave her mind.
Lately she’s a lot better. The words weighed heavily on her.
“Kimi, what are you doing?” Nishiki asked, head tilted. She was still leaning against the tree.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, looking up at him.
“Well, okay then. Do you have plans? Do you wanna come over to my place?”
“Sure,” she said.
Kimi walked beside him. Sunlight filtered through the trees along the path, falling at their feet, and each time the trees were rocked by the wind, the light wavered. It was so beautiful it made her smile.
“Nice weather today,” Nishiki said, looking up at the sky. Sharing my feelings with you makes me happy—and sad.
With him by my side, I can be positive as I deal with my painful memories. But I think about my family less and less. And it makes me feel heartless.
When they got to Nishiki’s house, Kimi took the pastries she’d bought on campus out of her bag and they had a light snack. Nishiki had also bought some bread at a convenience store.
Unlike Kimi, who loved to try all sorts of new things, Nishiki didn’t know much about food. He survived on simple meals—simple enough to make Kimi worry that he wasn’t getting enough vitamins.
Often the things he bought would end up expiring before he got around to eating them. Kimi had noticed food left in his refrigerator like an objet d’art time after time, which wasn’t like him in many other ways.
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
When he finished eating, Nishiki got up, put on some music, and went into the bathroom. She was sitting there listening to the music when he came back with a canned coffee in his hand. He always drank black coffee.
They kept talking for a while, but eventually Nishiki touched his hand to her cheek as if to stop her speaking. Kimi felt herself leaning into him.
I feel at ease when I’m with him.
She had often wondered why that might be. And the word that always came to mind was “boundaries.” Just as he set his own boundaries, he never tried to cross over Kimi’s impenetrable boundary—he had never asked about her family. He never spoke about his own family either.
Does he know not to go there? Or is it just a coincidence? Or—does he share the same pain?
When it was over, Nishiki took a sip of his coffee. Kimi looked up at him, wrapped in a blanket.
I want to be with him. But I can’t forgive myself for trying to move on.
After the accident I wished that I had died with my family. I don’t now.
Maybe if I had gone on the trip, my dad would’ve come to Tokyo to pick me up. He would’ve taken a different route. The timing would’ve been different. And my family wouldn’t have been there at that moment, at that place where the accident happened.
It was a series of what-ifs. But those what-ifs appealed to her. She wondered if her own choice not to go had led to her family’s death. So she could not forgive herself. Not ever …
“You have a nice name.” The words took her aback.
“Huh?”
She looked back up at Nishiki, who was fumbling for words.
“It means ‘precious future,’ doesn’t it?”
“My parents gave me one character each from their names. It wasn’t really supposed to have a meaning.” Before she would have easily explained.
But Nishiki’s words had shaken her to her core.
Precious future. What my mother and father gave to me.
Until this moment, when she had remembered her family, she had pictured them as they were in the morgue. But now she saw them as they had been when they were alive.
Her father was grinning, her mother was smiling kindly, and her brother looked slightly fed up, but they all smiled as they looked at Kimi. Their eyes said to her that they would always be there, and encouraged her to hurry up and move on.
On to the precious future that her name suggested.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Kimi covered her face with her hands. “No,” she said. But she couldn’t stop crying.
All the guilt she was hanging on to, all the ways she’d been punishing herself, all of it slowly and quietly slipped away with her tears.
Thank you, Nishiki.
You saved my broken heart.
Thanks to you I’m still here, not lost forever. I want to be with you until you tell me to go away. No matter what happens, I want to be by your side.
This desire was the start of a painful pathway. But that made it no less colorful.
“Nishiki, you saved me … that’s why I’m still here.”
It’s all right, I’m alive.
It doesn’t matter who or what you are.
As long as you’re you, that’s fine with me.
A bridge between Ghouls and humanity.
I know. I know you all want to know about my past.
Once there was a group of Ghouls, based in the 20th Ward, that killed investigators in every ward. They wore big hoods and monkey masks with one fang sticking out, and they swung their Kagune around to show off their power.
In general, Ghouls are solitary creatures. Especially the stronger ones. But nevertheless the Apes were strong, and they were united as one. But their leader was the strongest of them all, the major power behind the Apes—Devil Ape.
Even with his monkey mask on he had incredible strength, and stealing people’s lives was like a game to him. If his enemy was a good match, then he enjoyed himself even more.
The CCG took measures to combat the Apes, of course. In particular, to try to destroy Devil Ape, who was the nucleus of the group, they tried to set a two- or three-layered net to catch him. But Devil Ape just slipped right through the net like their work was laughable to him.
The body count was ever growing. There was nothing for the CCG to do but to create a big, sweeping strategy. Talk had started going around stations about their plan.
And then Devil Ape suddenly disappeared.
Did he decide to hide out after hearing what the CCG was up to? Or did he die in a conflict with another Ghoul group? Everyone was speculating but the truth was not yet clear. Where had Devil Ape gone?
The answer lay within a coffee shop in the 20th Ward.
“Whoa, even dust runs in fear of the Devil Ape’s fists!”
“Koma’s got a mop in his hands. That’s why the dust is going everywhere.”
The man’s name was Enji Koma. He had a big nose that made an impression, and small, round, sharp eyes. It would be beyond flattery to say that he had a nice appearance, but there was something charming about him anyway. He was the man they called Devil Ape, the one who was feared by CCG investigators.
And he was currently mopping floors in a café.
It had all begun when he met Yoshimura, the owner of the café. He had suddenly appeared to Koma and told him to end this futile conflict.
It took a real moron to try to tell Devil Ape what to do. Koma bared his fangs and told him he was going to regret that, but Yoshimura was prepared for this laughably quick rejection. Yoshimura had a rare sp
irit for a Ghoul.
What hit Koma next wasn’t a Kagune, although he was prepared for a battle to the death.
“Let’s just have a conversation, shall we?”
Yoshimura hit him with a gentle suggestion.
Yoshimura told him that he wanted to live in human society, without unnecessary killing. It was strange to wish for such a thing while holding the power of a Ghoul. But Koma found something strangely attractive about the idea. He wanted to try to see what Yoshimura wanted to see. So he decided to follow him. It is no exaggeration to say that this is where the second chapter of Koma’s life began.
Next he came to Yoshimura’s café, Anteiku. It was a café for both Ghouls and humans. They sold coffee, of course. One of the few things that could be shared by Ghouls and humans.
“Mr. Yoshimura, what can I do for you? Should I make coffee?” Koma asked excitedly, clad in a uniform. He’d never made coffee before, but he would try. His enthusiasm would have moved any living creature under the sun.
He didn’t know how to act around humans, but he didn’t imagine there was much interaction between a clerk and a customer anyway. Besides, he just wanted to make coffee. He wanted to make his debut as a master barista.
But Yoshimura handed him a mop and a bucket, two items that had nothing to do with coffee.
“But Mr. Yoshimura, this is …”
Never mind, he thought, I can show off my creative dance skills with the mop and bucket, to bring in customers. It’ll make me stand out, and people might like it too.
But Yoshimura’s reply was very simple.
“First I want you to clean the shop.”
Koma’s round eyes widened. Cleaning is boring, shitty work that anyone can do. Is he really making Devil Ape do that?
Once upon a time Koma would’ve killed him for the insult. But he realized something now: the real reason why Yoshimura had given him the task of cleaning.
“Oh, yes, of course …”
Koma grinned and took the mop and bucket. “Got it!”
And he started cleaning, something he was unfamiliar with.
“Got a new guy working here?”
It wasn’t long until the first customer of the day came in. She looked like a young office worker, stopping in on her way to work. Human. She looked at Koma with curiosity in her eyes.
It was a new expression for Koma, who was more used to seeing humans trembling in fear.
“Oh, pay no mind to me, miss,” he said.
“Then quit swinging that mop around and splashing water everywhere! That shouldn’t happen in a restaurant, you know, you should have your pay cut!”
Her response was cold. He immediately thought about killing her, but this was Yoshimura’s place. Koma restrained himself and picked up the mop again.
“I’ll have my usual,” she said to Yoshimura, turning away from Koma quickly. There was nothing cute about this human.
Koma grew fonder of Yoshimura’s way of life, but he still had absolutely no attachment to humans. She doesn’t deserve my special coffee, he thought, and went back to cleaning. He decided to maintain indifference, but customers kept coming, one after another. First a man on his way to work, then an old lady who ran a sewing shop in the neighborhood, followed by a young man who stopped in by chance, and a woman who seemed to be Yoshimura’s friend. There were both Ghouls and humans there. Ghouls and humans sat side by side, across tables from each other, simply spending their time as they pleased.
Koma watched all of this as he wiped down the window with spray and newspaper.
II
“Devil Ape! My brother! People are talking about you!”
He had been working at Anteiku for a few weeks. Whenever he saw a member of the Apes, they all looked very serious and said something similar.
“You guys know how Devil Ape always loves to be the center of attention!” Koma would tilt his head as if to suggest they must be confused about something, but then his friends would say, “Nah, man!”
“Can you believe Devil Ape’s mopping the floors at Anteiku? Don’t make me laugh!”
Everyone else would nod.
“I was ready to knock some heads for spreading that bullshit! But then I went down to Anteiku and saw him doing that shit myself … Our brother should not be sweeping a café floor!”
They could not control their anger. They stamped the ground.
“That bastard Yoshimura, making our brother work like that! He’s got it coming!”
Their anger seemed to have turned on Yoshimura now. But Koma looked at them sharply.
“Hey, don’t talk bad about Yoshimura.”
Koma’s words only ratcheted up the tension. But he was glad to know that his comrades’ feelings for him were still strong.
“But Devil Ape! My brother!”
Koma looked around at his former comrades, who had come here to beg and plead with him to return. After a long pause, he finally spoke.
“Do you guys know what ‘baking soda’ is?”
“Baking … soda?”
They all looked at each other.
“Is that one of those drinks humans like?”
No, that’s just soda. But none of them were going to deliver the punchline. Koma continued.
“I thought so too at first, but actually, it’s something else. It’s a magical powder that gets rid of even the toughest grease stains.”
They started to get excited.
“You mean those really sticky, greasy ones?!”
“Yeah. But that’s not all. It also has a deodorizing effect, and it neutralizes the smell of sweat.”
“Are you sayin’ it fights stains and bad smells too?!”
“Yes, it also eliminates foot smells from your shoes.”
“Even the smell of feet?!”
Several of them held up their feet. They seemed to know something about having smelly feet.
“Devil Ape, is this some kind of miracle drug?”
He looked at his comrades, in shock at all the things that baking soda could do, and he shook his head.
“Now this is the most surprising part. Humans can eat it.”
“They can?!”
“That’s right. There are different kinds of baking soda, and some of them are used in food.”
He explained that it was what made pancakes fluffy, among other things. Ghouls had almost nothing to do with human foods, but everyone was still surprised by all that baking soda could do.
“Yoshimura told me all about it when I was trying to clean the ventilation fan with two feathers. And he originally learned about it from a human. I thought cleaning was a boring, pointless job too, at first. But there’s a surprising amount to it. It’s not as easy as it looks. And,” he added, “I know some of you have been saying how horrible Yoshimura is for making me do the cleaning. But that’s really just a mark of prestige for Anteiku and Yoshimura.”
When Yoshimura had asked him to clean, Koma had freaked out. He thought that Yoshimura was sacrificing him to improve Anteiku’s standing in the 20th Ward.
“It’s true, Devil Ape, our brother. Everyone thinks Yoshimura’s a real bastard …”
“I know. If one of these other Ghouls who only care about looking cool were in my position, there’s no way in hell they’d do it. But I’m not like that. Mr. Yoshimura trusted me with this mission. This kind of dirty work is no big deal.”
His spirit of self-sacrifice was moving. The other Apes were impressed.
“You’re a good guy, my brother! Still out there doing battle, just with stubborn grease stains!”
Tears fell from his comrades’ eyes as they lamented their own lack of maturity and forward thinking. One clapped Koma on the shoulder.
“Does baking soda do anything for ape tears?”
It was a joke meant to make everyone feel better. And it worked; everyone smiled.
“You don’t have an enemy in the world, my brother!”
III
“Cleaning again?” laughed the young la
dy who looked like she worked in an office, seeing Koma out sweeping in front of the café again. Koma had worked at Anteiku for a few months now, and he always started the day by cleaning.
“Oops, you caught me. Morning, Tsubasa. You’re sharp as ever today.”
“And you’re as thickheaded as ever today, Koma. All you can do is clean … is what I’d like to say, but actually, it’s pretty nice to watch you when you’re at it.”
Although leaves from the trees along the road were everywhere, there were none in front of Anteiku. But the outside of the café wasn’t the only thing that was spotless—the inside was too. It gleamed thanks to Devil Ape’s special cleaning techniques.
Koma, who had been cleaning ever since he was first entrusted with the task, had become better at it than any army of housewives or professional cleaners.
“It looks like you just tipped a bucket of water on the floor, but that can’t be true.”
“Oh, Tsubasa, don’t tell me you want to know my secrets.”
“I don’t care.”
“No need to restrain yourself!”
“Oh, Mr. Koma, enough already!”
Her words were stinging but the expression on her face was joyful. She looked like she enjoyed talking to Koma.
“Oh, and you polished everything today, too!”
And Tsubasa wasn’t the only one who liked to talk to him. Many customers at Anteiku would seek him out for a conversation.
“All the coffee cups should be much shinier today.”
“Oh, I must pay attention to my cup, then.”
“Be on the lookout!”
She laughed.
This human, who would’ve been terrified of Koma before, actually smiled at him now. And she told him things. About her family, work, school. She had a lot of stories about things Ghouls could never experience.
And so, eventually, Koma was not the only one who could meet humans naturally.
“My brother! With everything you taught me I got a part-time job of my own!”
Now the rest of the Apes could too.
“I have to clean up at work too, but I’m really not any good at it. So everyone helped me! And while we were talking we really hit it off! I mean, I can’t go out for food or drinks with them but it’s still fun!”