He had been far too complacent.
He never imagined that Eto would hide her hunger from him.
For a Ghoul, the need for “meat” begins in infancy, coinciding with the growth of their first teeth.
At first, a small amount of finely mashed meat, similar to baby food, was sufficient. From there, he had gradually increased the portions to keep pace with Eto’s growth.
His method was simple: provide a standard amount, and if Eto mentioned she was hungry, he would increase the serving.
According to the knowledge about Ghoul children he had once received from his father, this was the standard approach.
But yesterday had taught him that even this method was flawed. As she grew, her nutritional requirements exceeded his expectations.
He had noticed she hadn't been asking for more meat lately, but to think she had been forcing herself to endure the hunger... He felt pathetic for failing to see through such a child's act.
He knew why Eto had hidden it. It was undoubtedly for his sake.
She had begun to realize, little by little, what it cost him to procure “meat.”
While he was grateful for her thoughtfulness, it was a dangerously naive decision.
If Eto’s suppressed hunger had continued to build until it finally exploded, it would have led to an irreversible disaster.
He took all the “meat” he had been saving in the refrigerator and gave it to her.
He needed to find a way to procure more, and more often.
Beep-beep-beep-beep...
Click.
He silenced the alarm and woke up earlier than usual.
It was 3 a.m. Though the summer days were long, dawn was still a distant prospect.
Looking out the window, a hazy wall of grey obscured the city skyline. It seemed the forecasted morning mist had arrived. It was perfect weather for moving unnoticed.
Eto was still asleep. After gently pulling the blanket back over her, he grabbed the backpack and the large guitar case he had prepared the night before.
“...”
Before leaving, he paused to look at a small cylindrical case on the shelf. It was tiny enough to slip into a pocket.
He hesitated. If possible, he wanted to handle things without resorting to it, but... he couldn't afford to fail this time. He took it.
Slipping the case into his pocket, he stepped out of the apartment, careful not to wake the child.
He descended to the first floor of the villa, retrieved his bicycle from the storage area, loaded the backpack onto the rack, and strapped the guitar case tightly to his shoulder to keep it from shifting.
“Huuuu...”
Smack!
He took a deep breath and slapped both cheeks hard.
The sting jolted his half-asleep brain awake, sharpening his focus and clearing his gaze.
“All right. Let’s go.”
Muttering to himself, he began to pedal, melting into the silent, sleeping streets of the city.
***
Ghouls eat human flesh. Without it, they cannot survive.
This truth applied to Eto as well, despite her being only half-Ghoul.
It wasn't that she was entirely unable to consume human food. Unlike ordinary Ghouls, who experience a horrifying, otherworldly repulsion the moment anything other than human flesh touches their tongue, Eto could eat human food.
But that was the extent of it.
While she could swallow it, she derived no nutrition from it, nor could she taste it. According to Eto, it felt like chewing on some strange, flavorless, inorganic object.
At the very least, this meant she wouldn't be suspected for refusing food in public.
After all, one of the primary methods a Ghoul Investigator uses to identify a suspect is observing whether they can eat human food.
Eto still needed human flesh.
But did that mean he should just hunt and kill random people? He was the one raising a Ghoul, so it felt hypocritical, but he simply didn't have the stomach for murder.
In an absolute worst-case scenario, perhaps he would have no choice, but he refused to even imagine such a possibility. He could not kill.
At one point, he had considered approaching the yakuza, knowing they often cut off the fingers of members leaving the organization. However, he figured that if he asked for such a thing, they would likely cut off his own fingers with a sashimi knife on the spot. That was out of the question.
Ultimately, he decided to obtain the flesh of those who had “thrown away their own lives.”
To be fair, it wasn't his original idea. He was merely implementing a method he had heard from Yoshimura Kuzen; after falling in love with Ukina, Kuzen had become reluctant to kill and had turned to the flesh of suicide victims instead.
Flap.
He unfolded his map.
Red circles marked the various suicide spots he had discovered by scouring websites dedicated to those seeking death.
Three were within biking distance, while four required longer travel via train. There were surprisingly many. He wondered if that many people truly felt such profound disillusionment with the world that they chose to leave it.
His plan was to check the nearby spots first. If he found nothing, he would take the train as soon as it was light enough to visit the remaining locations.
The first location was a steel bridge spanning a wide river.
He arrived at the downstream bank, where the entire span of the bridge was visible.
In this area, the current typically carried the bodies of those who jumped from the railway bridge toward a specific stretch of the shore.
As he approached the bank, he immediately pinched his nose and grimaced.
“...This won’t do.”
There was a body, but it was far too old.
The decomposition was so advanced that it was impossible to tell who the person had been.
Judging by the clothing, it might have been a woman. The water surrounding the rotting corpse was a murky, polluted stain. Just a few steps closer, and he felt the bile rising in his throat.
Sanitation workers occasionally found bodies here, but it seemed they had been late this time.
“...!”
Whether it had been birds or fish, the eyes were gone, leaving empty sockets filled with nothing but darkness. He felt a sudden chill, as if a gaze composed of pure death was staring back at him.
He immediately retreated and climbed back onto his bicycle.
That corpse was useless.
Just as humans prefer fresh food, freshness is critical for Ghouls. Feeding that to Eto would likely make her sick.
With the first location a failure, he headed straight for the second.
The second spot was a small abandoned house in a slum district. It was riddled with holes and looked as though a single strong gust of wind would knock it over.
Whether due to the land or some lingering haunting, the place had a history of tragedy. It was notorious as a gathering point for those intending to commit mass suicide.
It seemed a "meeting" was taking place today. He knew this because...
“You can’t do this here!!”
“Let go of me!! I’m dying here!!”
“That’s right! We shall die and be saved by Lord Arkarma, the God of Death!”
“Don’t just die in a residential area! Think of the nuisance to your neighbors!”
“I don’t care what happens to this wretched world!!”
“Just let us die!!”
“Because you people keep doing this, the landlord is calling us complaining that the property value is plummeting!!”
...the police were currently dragging out a group of suicide hopefuls who had already set up their charcoal briquettes.
He suddenly locked eyes with a policeman who was staring at him with a look of suspicion. The officer's expression seemed to ask, “Are you one of them too?”
“Keep up the hard work,” he called out.
Acting like a completely disinterested bystander, he pedaled away with all his might.
***
“...Found one.”
The third location was a success.
He had obtained meat here once before; it seemed he had a strange affinity for this place.
Atop a sheer cliff, he spotted a lone car in an empty parking lot and hurried down the path.
There he found him. A man dressed in a sophisticated suit, perhaps wanting to look his best for the end.
His age was impossible to determine because the face required to do so simply did not exist.
He must have fallen headfirst, as everything above the neck was gone. In its place, brain matter, bone fragments, hair, teeth, a tongue, and crushed eyeballs were scattered across the ground, forming a grotesque abstract painting.
The impact had been devastating; his spine was snapped, and his limbs were twisted into unnatural angles. From the side of his torso, intestines had spilled out like squeezed sausages.
The blood had not yet dried. He had died recently—likely still alive when he had passed the railway bridge.
“Ugh...”
Had he not come out on an empty stomach, he would have added his own vomit to the scene. The previous body he'd found had only had burst organs; this one made that look pristine by comparison.
Despite the number of corpses he had encountered while providing for Eto, he could never get used to the visual manifestation of death. Nor did he want to.
He forced down the stomach acid threatening to surge up. The smell of the corpse was already foul; adding the scent of vomit would make it a true hell.
Though he suppressed the nausea, his head continued to swim. Even without running, his breathing became ragged, as if he had just finished a marathon. As the colors of the world began to warp and distort, he hurried back.
Ah, this is dangerous.
He instinctively knew that his body's distress had crossed a critical threshold.
He rushed to his bicycle, grabbed the bottled water from his backpack, and pulled the cylindrical case from his pocket. He popped two pills into his mouth.
Gulp, gulp!
To an outsider, he would have looked like a madman waterboarding himself. Then again, after seeing that corpse, he felt half-mad anyway.
He poured the water down his throat so violently he couldn't tell if it was going into his mouth or his nose, but he finally managed to swallow the medication.
“Hah...! Hah...!”
He leaned against the bicycle, sitting in silence until his breathing gradually steadied.
The first time he had tried to harvest meat, it had been even worse. He had given up and gone home multiple times. If he hadn't seen Eto suffering from hunger, he would never have succeeded.
“Phew... I'm okay.”
Once the dizziness faded, he steadied his resolve and set down the guitar case.
Inside was no instrument. Instead, there was a transparent plastic raincoat that covered him from head to toe, a mask, rubber gloves... and a double-edged saw.
His toolkit.
The raincoat and gloves ensured no blood splattered onto his clothes, and the mask blocked the metallic scent of blood and the various odors of decay.
As for the saw... that required no explanation.
“...Shall we begin?”
Fully geared up, he gripped the saw and walked back toward the body.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register