Lunch Boxes

Swaying and trembling on the thin, thin wire of a seemingly endless tightrope.

The first Touka heard from Yoshimura, the manager of Anteiku, that there were suspicious characters in the area was not long after her battle with Mado, the Ghoul investigator.

Touka was taking a break at work when Yoshimura asked her about it.

“What do you think they mean, ‘suspicious characters’? Investigators? Do they mean Ghouls? Or humans?” Touka asked.

“I’m not entirely sure. But I do often have the strange feeling I’m being watched, you know. Just something to keep in mind for now, I guess,” he said.

She said she didn’t know what he was talking about, but Yoshimura couldn’t tell whether Touka really hadn’t understood, or if she had understood but was keeping quiet.

If she’d told him that she knew she might not have gotten any more information from Yoshimura, who had ended the conversation and disappeared into the back of the shop.

“Suspicious characters … Maybe I’d better tell Hide not to hang around here for a while.”

And Kaneki, who had apparently heard the same thing, seemed worried for his friend who was a regular at Anteiku.

“Why should I care?” Touka retorted. Kaneki looked openly disappointed. Whatever, thought Touka. She turned away and pretended not to notice.

“It’s just, with all this talk about suspicious people, Hide might get interested in it, which is a scary thought. But if I don’t say anything and something happens to him, that can’t be undone …” Kaneki rambled on.

God, he’s like a girl, Touka thought. But at the same time, she realized just how important Hide was to Kaneki.

Touka felt a spark of humanity within her.

“What if you told him the manager said to make himself scarce for a while?” she said quickly, her back turned to Kaneki.

“Huh?” he said, not having heard her. Why don’t you ever listen? She cursed him in her mind.

“Stuff like this happens, you know. The manager mentioned suspicious characters hanging around, it’s a dangerous situation, blah blah blah, so with that in mind you’re warning him to take care. The most troublesome things can happen at times like this,” she said. “I should’ve just kept my mouth shut,” she added, then got back to work. Kaneki chewed over her words.

“Back to work!”

“Oh! Sorry!”

You guys are lucky. Things are still good.

She took down orders on her notepad and kept up the faux innocent smile she always wore at work as she tried to go about her usual business, but from time to time a shadow crept over Touka’s heart. As she poured a cup of coffee, a memory came to mind.

“Whatever you do to her won’t make me happy!”

Her eyes were full of tears, remembering how her friend had looked when she screamed that.

II

It had all started the week before.

“Hey, Touka, tomorrow’s a national holiday—we should go somewhere.”

Touka Kirishima, sophomore, general track student, Kiyomi High School—that was my position in human society.

I got up every morning just like a person, went to school just like a person, and studied just like a person. Everything I did was perfectly normal. Anyone who said I was a Ghoul would’ve been laughed at.

Our mere existence was abhorrent to people. And if our identities were discovered we’d lose it all, just like that.

But in the middle of my nerve-racking daily life, where I had to be so, so careful, there was someone whose presence was as encouraging to me as a warm spring breeze: Yoriko Kosaka, who was my friend.

She was sitting across from me at the desk, taking her lunch bag out, when she asked me to hang out.

“Where’d that come from all of a sudden?”

“Well, it just came to me!” Yoriko set her elbows on the desk and put her head in her hands. “What’s with you? You’re always so busy with your after-school job, so I thought you might like a change once in a while …” she said.

Touka lifted her chin, which had been pressed into the palm of her hand. Now that she thought about it, something had been worrying Yoriko lately.

But all it did was make Touka feel like she was being confronted with a reality she didn’t want to see. She started worrying about me after my battle with Mado. You could say that the fight’s just being prolonged.

That sort of bastard just deserved to die.

Every time she tried to rationalize it away like that, the image of the wedding ring nestled on his finger underneath his glove came back to her. Even he had a family.

“I mean, am I right? Let’s go somewhere!” said Yoriko.

“Yeah.”

“Anywhere you want to go? The aquarium, an amusement park?”

Seeing Yoriko’s excitement, Touka put her hands to her face. Could Yoriko see it on her face?

“Oh, no, nothing comes to mind …”

In response to Touka’s vague equivocation, Yoriko said, “Oh,” as if she’d realized something. “I guess you go on dates when you have a day off,” she said. She’d kept incorrectly thinking that Touka and Kaneki were going out.

“What? I told you, it’s not like that!” Touka hit the desk as she rose out of her chair. “Okay, okay, let’s go somewhere! We can go somewhere!”

“But …”

“It’s fine! Just tell me where you want to go!”

Touka ran her hands through her black hair, and her eyes flitted around. Then she hit on the bunny character from the Zakku-C series that hung from her phone.

“The zoo.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s go to the zoo.”

The aquarium mainly involved walking around inside, and at attraction parks you had to ride the rides, but at the zoo all you had to do was walk around outside and look at animals. This, she felt, she could deal with much easier.

“The zoo … what a great idea!”

“Right?”

“Yeah! And maybe we can see some baby animals too … Oh, and they’ll have somewhere we can sit outside and eat lunch!”

“Yeah.”

“Okay! I’ll make the lunches!”

Yoriko was suddenly in action. Touka’s face started twitching beyond her control. This has all gotten completely out of hand.

I’m gonna have to scout out where the toilets are beforehand, and …

“Let’s meet at the station, then! What time’s good for you? I wonder what the entrance fee is … Oh—is there any animal you really want to see, Touka? And any lunch requests? Just let me know!”

Yoriko looked happy, miles away from Touka’s unease. She was overwhelmed by Yoriko rattling off question after question, and she felt self-conscious.

How can she be so damn cheerful? Touka thought. But at the sight of her friend being so excited, Touka naturally broke into a smile.

Touka reached over and flicked Yoriko’s forehead right between the eyes.

“Ow!” she exclaimed, pulling her body up straight again and still smiling happily.

“A trip to the zoo with you.” She giggled. “I really can’t wait.”

“Whoa, they have those too?”

The next morning, when they got to school, Yoriko passed her a map of the zoo that she’d printed from the Internet. “Look!” she said.

Yoriko had come over to share what she’d found out at home: this animal had recently had babies, that animal wasn’t on view due to renovation work.

“My dad even printed us some discount coupons.”

The coupons had been printed nicely on thick paper, just like a real ticket.

“Wow, you went all out.”

“That’s what my mom said too.”

So she’s been talking to her parents about going to the zoo with me.

“She told me, ‘Now don’t get too carried away and put Touka in a tough spot.’ And that I shouldn’t overdo it with the lunches. The menu I came up with was, like, enough to feed five people.”

“Five … ?” This is terrifying.

“Oh, you guys are going to the zoo?” Touka heard a voice behind her ask, pulled in by Yoriko’s words. She turned around to see a few boys from their class looking down at the map of the zoo spread out on the desk.

“Oh, yeah, maybe.”

“Taking lunch to the zoo, huh. Hey, Yoriko, you can cook?”

Embarrassed by the group of boys, all Yoriko could do was mutter, “Oh, um, yeah,” quietly. Touka thought the conversation would end there, but one of the boys continued.

“Yoriko is a good cook. I’ve eaten her cooking before,” he said, jumping in.

“Yeah? How’d that happen?”

“Well, we were in the same class in sixth grade. It was in home ec. She was so good at it, our whole group was totally relying on her. Right?”

“I-it was really no big deal.”

She’s being humble, but she must be pretty good to have someone compliment her like that.

I can’t share that feeling, and I hate my body for it, but hearing someone say Yoriko’s great makes me so happy; it’s like it’s me he’s talking about.

“Totally. Yoriko wants to be a chef,” Touka said, speaking for Yoriko, who was getting flustered.

“You already know what you want to do—that’s amazing,” the boys said. Yoriko was increasingly uncomfortable at so much praise.

When the boys had gone away, Yoriko put her hand to her chest and said, “I was so nervous just then!”

“What did you have to be nervous about?”

“Talking to that many of them at once! But whoever you talk to you always sound like yourself, Touka. I wish I could be like that.”

“But you shouldn’t be nervous about talking to our classmates, you know?”

“I know. You can just say what you want to say to anyone—classmates, teachers, or even strangers. It must be nice …” Yoriko said, looking downcast.

Yeah, I can speak my mind, but does it really need to worry her so much? Touka puzzled it over. Then she pointed to the map of the zoo spread out on the table.

“Anyway, Yoriko, what do you want to see while we’re there?” she said, forcibly changing the subject.

Yoriko seemed to be regrouping herself as she looked down at the map, tracing the illustrations of animals with her fingertips.

Touka hadn’t noticed them until then—the eyes glaring at the two of them, trying to keep them restrained.

It happened at lunchtime that day.

We were eating at the same desk as usual, when the group of boys who’d talked to us in the morning appeared again.

“Hey, look at that—Yoriko, did you make that?”

Again, Yoriko was too embarrassed to speak, so Touka said, “Yeah, and?”

“So amazing. Give me some—just a piece,” he begged, his hands clasped together. For some reason, Yoriko looked to Touka.

“All right, I mean, I don’t care,” Touka said without thinking deeply. As if whatever Touka said went, Yoriko passed a little piece of fried chicken to the boy. He stuffed it in his mouth, eating it in one bite.

“Whoa, that was so good!” His eyes were gleaming.

That’s one face I’ll never be able to make.

“Hey, is it really that good?” Another boy came over, lured in by what the boy who’d eaten the chicken had said.

“Knock it off, Yoriko won’t have anything left to eat.”

As the boys scattered, Touka thought, Making someone that happy with her cooking must make Yoriko happy, too.

But Yoriko’s face was stony, and her eyes were downcast.

“Yoriko? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing …”

“They say you’re a great cook, how nice!” A girl’s voice cut in. Touka turned to look and saw three girls from their class. Although her words sounded in praise of Yoriko, the way she’d said them as if she were insinuating something made Touka furrow her brow. The girls said nothing more but quickly averted their eyes and began whispering among themselves.

“What was that?”

“That group of boys is popular with the girls, so that might be it.”

Now that she said it, they were all good-looking guys, and what’s more, every single one of them was active in clubs and sports.

“But c’mon, that can’t be it. I mean, we had nothing to do with them coming over,” Touka said with a confidence drawn from thinking everything was fine.

But Yoriko could only murmur weakly, “Maybe you’re right.”

After lunch, Touka went on her own to the bathroom, vomited up everything in her stomach, and gulped down some water.

When she returned to the classroom, nearly empty since most students had left during lunch, the girls that had been glaring at them earlier were gathered around Yoriko. Just as she wondered what they were talking about, she heard their voices loud and
clear.

“You looked so happy when they were telling you how great you were. Is that why you cook, to get boys to like you?”

“Even you oughta know that Mayuhara likes Yamamoto. So what are you trying to say?”

“That was so affected, though!” The girl laughed.

“But, I didn’t—I never meant to—”

Mayuhara was the girl who had been staring at Yoriko and Touka the most. And Yamamoto was the boy who had eaten a piece of Yoriko’s fried chicken earlier.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Touka rushed over to them and started interrogating Mayuhara, the leader, in a firm tone of voice. The other girls flinched at Touka’s sudden arrival, but Mayuhara did not move. Instead, she looked at Touka and laughed.

“Oh, Kirishima, you came back.”

“I asked you, what do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you mean, what? We’re just talking. What about it?”

Her faux innocent act made Touka’s expression even sterner.

“I heard everything you guys said to Yoriko,” she said.

“If you heard everything then you didn’t need to keep asking what we were doing, now did you?” Mayuhara replied, only adding to Touka’s anger.

“Huh?”

“God, she’s scary. Hey, Yoriko, your little friend’s boiling over, can’t you do something?”

“Oh, uh … Touka, I’m fine, so don’t …”

“How the hell is this fine?”

Touka’s rebuke made Yoriko jolt in surprise. Touka slapped her hand over her mouth without thinking, and Mayuhara smirked, looking at her like she was sizing her up.

“Kirishima, you just got mad at Kosaka, didn’t you?”

“What?!”

I got frustrated, but you’re the one to blame, Touka thought. However, Mayuhara kept on.

“You guys are so different. I bet you get frustrated with her a lot when you’re together, don’t you?”

“Just shut up …”

“And I mean, when you eat Kosaka’s cooking you just always look so grossed out.”

“What?”

Touka was thrown for a moment by this attack from an unexpected angle. That’s because I can’t eat human food. But I can’t tell you that.

“Kirishima, you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t need anyone but yourself, and there are lots of boys who’d go out with Kosaka. But I heard you two are going to the zoo together? So childish. You can’t really be into that.”

Touka looked at Yoriko. She had gone pale. Without a second thought, Touka grabbed Mayuhara by the collar. The other girls who were nearby screamed.

“If you say one more word …”

“But I don’t hear you denying it. I hit the nail on the head,
didn’t I?”

Mayuhara’s words hit Touka right where she was most sensitive—her identity. She couldn’t say Mayuhara hadn’t the nail on the head.

“How nice of her to stick up for you, Kosaka,” Mayuhara said to Yoriko, who was only able to stand there, pale-faced, and look on. Yoriko’s eyes were brimming with tears. Touka once again tightened her grasp on Mayuhara’s uniform collar, her fists pressed against the girl’s chest.

“Seriously, if you say one more word—” I’ll kill you.

The words were on the tip of her tongue. But before she could say them out loud, she heard a man’s voice in the classroom.

“What are you girls doing?”

It was their history teacher, Mr. Tsuruda. One of Mayuhara’s friends had gone to get him.

“Ouch! Stop, please, I’m sorry, forgive me!”

The first to react was Mayuhara. She threw herself to the floor, coughing violently, her hands clasped to her chest.

“Wha—”

“Kirishima! What did you do to her?”

Naturally, Mr. Tsuruda put the blame on Touka.

“No, sir, it wasn’t like that, Touka was just …”

“Ow …” Mayuhara whined. “Mr. Tsuruda, sir …”

Yoriko again started to leap to Touka’s defense, when Mayuhara started wailing.

“Nothing makes me cry! Kirishima, you’re just awful!”

“Mayuhara, are you all right? Are you in pain?” Mayuhara’s friends got her to stand up as if they were supporting her weight, providing cover for her. All the girls were sharp-tongued. The way they talked, whatever Touka tried to say would come back at her ten or twenty times worse.

“No, it’s not—Touka was just …”

“Kirishima, staff room—now!”

Mr. Tsuruda grabbed Touka’s arm and began pulling her after him.

When they walked past Mayuhara, she said, just loud enough for only Touka to hear, “Hilarious.”

There was only malice in her words.

“Touka!”

When Mr. Tsuruda’s sermon was over and Touka stepped out of the staff room, Yoriko was pacing confusedly along the wall in the hallway. Did she follow us?

“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault …”

“You did nothing wrong, Yoriko,” Touka said bluntly. She started heading toward the classroom, but Yoriko stayed glued to the spot.

“Yoriko?”

Her face was downcast; she had her shirt tightly clenched in her fists.

“Seriously. You did nothing wrong. Mayuhara’s the problem,” Touka added. “Anyway, I only made her cry once.”

I hate when people are always fake like that. And she’s the kind of girl that if you turned your back, the same thing would happen again. Before lunchtime’s over, I’m gonna settle this once and for all.

“No, Touka, you can’t!” Yoriko saw what Touka was up to. “Whatever you’ve got in mind, you can’t.”

“Why not? If someone said that to you, you’d hate it too.”

“I did hate it. But maybe it’s kind of true.”

“What? What did you just say? Why would you say that?” Touka heard what Yoriko said as a defense of Mayuhara, and it made her angrier. “Anyway, she’s gonna pay for this.”

Talking won’t get me anywhere.

“You can’t!” Once again, Yoriko put a halt to Touka’s impatience.

Touka paused. “Yoriko, that dumb bitch wouldn’t know something to cry over if it hit her. If we don’t settle this she’ll think she’s won!”

I’m only doing this for Yoriko, so why does she want me to stop?

Her tone of voice, which had ended up sounding like she was yelling, had made Yoriko start shaking.

“I’m …”

Yoriko’s lips were tightly drawn, as if she were holding back something. But a thin film had formed over her blinking eyes, and the corners of her eyes gleamed in a way that wasn’t normal.

By the time Touka realized what she’d done it was too late. Her emotions, running wild in this unexpected situation, started to come back under control at the same speed as Yoriko’s teardrops fell.

“I’m happy you care so much, Touka,” she said, stringing the words together between sobs without even wiping away her tears. “But … but … ”

The tears spilled down her cheeks in heavy drops.

“But whatever you do to her won’t make me happy!”

In my cursed life, the number of people I’ve crushed is uncountable. All the screaming, the rage, the sorrow. I’ve experienced extreme situations with all five senses and come through the other side, but here I am, frozen by the words of a mere human, a powerless girl.

There was one more thing.

Why?

Yoriko’s tears and cries overlapped, in Touka’s mind, with the way she’d seen Hinami cry during the battle with Mado. And Hinami had sobbed, “Revenge doesn’t matter to me, I’m just sad.”

After that, Yoriko’s attitude changed. It wasn’t that she blatantly avoided Touka. It was just that she didn’t have the same smile as before when they spoke. Touka saw signs that she was trying to say something in her own way, but the words didn’t come out.

And it was the same with Touka. She was puzzled by the way Yoriko was distancing herself from her, when she’d always been so gentle and positive toward Touka before.

“Having a pastry again today?” Yoriko asked one lunch hour, seeing Touka opening the plastic wrapper of a pastry from a convenience store.

“Oh. Yeah …”

Yoriko’s expression was somehow hardened.

The conversation ended, and quietly Yoriko started eating her own lunch. Before she would’ve told me I needed to eat more and given me some of her own lunch …

A Ghoul’s body won’t accept human food, so on a physical level, this was all probably for the best. But on a mental level, it was a completely different story.

And there was Mayuhara laughing with her friends as if nothing had happened. She hadn’t really cared that Touka and Yoriko were too close to the boy she liked. When Touka saw her laughing away despite the pain she’d inflicted on them, she was filled with the urge to kill.

Dammit.

It took a day, maybe two, before she saw the solution.

III

“Touka, you’re spilling the coffee. Hello?”

Kaneki saw the coffee overflowing from the cup and interrupted her. Must’ve been lost in thought.

“Whoa … You should’ve told me sooner!”

“Uh, okay … ?”

Looking frantically for a towel, Touka instructed Kaneki, “You pour the coffee!”

Maybe in time things will improve. If it were me I’d make a very patient decision after a week or so, but the amount of time that’s passed now has really surpassed my expectations.

The awkwardness between us just keeps building, like a pebble tumbling down a wintry slope, growing and growing as it picks up snow.

Kaneki made the coffee instead of Touka, and took it to the customer.

“Huh, I don’t think I’ve seen you working here before. Are you new? What’s your name?”

“Oh … I’m Ken Kaneki.”

The customer who’d ordered the coffee looked at Kaneki curiously, then said, “You have a very particular smell about you.” Realizing the man had sensed he was a Ghoul, Kaneki returned behind the counter.

“That guy’s one of us too?” he asked Touka.

“Yeah … He doesn’t live in the 20th Ward, though. He’s too weak to have a feeding ground in his own ward, so sometimes he comes here to forage. He likes to pry, so it’s better not to say too much,” she said.

“Oh, right … I didn’t know there were so many types of Ghouls.”

Kaneki looked at the other Ghoul with apparent interest. But his attention soon turned back to Touka.

“I forgot to say, thanks for the advice, Touka. I told Hide not to come to the café for a little while.”

“Hmm? What do you mean, advice? I didn’t do anything.”

“Well, no, but you did give me an example from the past.”

Even when I’m cold to him he still smiles back at me. I think he’s gotten a little more resilient. And when Touka’s face changed to an irritated scowl, Kaneki sensed he was on the verge of danger and said, “Well, anyway, thanks,” ending the conversation.

“If you ask me, he shouldn’t come back for the rest of his life,” she said in an outburst at Kaneki, who had turned away.

“What?”

“I told you before: Ghouls come here looking for information. Like him,” she said, nodding her head toward the Ghoul that Kaneki had just brought a coffee. “He takes humans to abandoned buildings or places where nobody else is, and he kills and eats them. Apparently he’s been looking for prey on the Internet lately. But that’s the kind of guy that hangs around here. If you care about your friend you should keep him away from Ghouls.”

Kaneki held his breath, and his eyes slowly drifted downward. My words had more effect than I imagined. Just as Touka started to suspect what he was so at a loss over, Kaneki began to speak in bursts.

“But we’ve always hung out … This might sound like an exaggeration, but he’s like a part of me. If I lost that, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you just tell me I shouldn’t hang out with Hide anymore?”

Touka had only meant to tell him to make Hide not come to Anteiku anymore, but Kaneki had misunderstood. The logic took Touka aback. If, to keep them from harm, a human friend needed to be kept away from Ghouls, then the one they needed distance from, first and foremost, was none other than yourself.

Kaneki’s misunderstanding had actually hit at the heart of the matter. So what about me and Yoriko?

“Touka, are you all right?” Kaneki asked, clearly having sensed she was not.

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t really been yourself the last few days, though.”

“It’s nothing, I told you.”

Now I’ve gone and made Kaneki worried about me. She felt uncomfortable with his concerned look.

“Is it something to do with Yoriko?”

He’d cut straight to the heart of it. Reflexively she had started shaking. And from that, Kaneki had taken a guess.

“Did you guys have a fight?”

“Just shut up and get back to work.”

Touka started washing out the soaked hand towels. But Kaneki did not go away.

“What’s with you?” Kaneki asked, sounding annoyed. He looked at Touka as if there were something else he wanted to say. “I hope you guys make up soon.” He paused again. “The longer you let things go on for, the more misunderstandings pile up and things get worse. You shouldn’t just leave things as they are, in my opinion.”

Kaneki had his hands clasped together, timidly offering her his advice.

“You never shut up,” Touka fired back. “It wasn’t a fight.”

On her way home after finishing her shift at Anteiku, Touka took out the map of the zoo that Yoriko had given her and looked at it.

It was only a few days until they’d been meant to go to the zoo. Things’ll be back to normal by then, I know it. And if they’re not, if we just go to the zoo anyway, Yoriko will be so happy everything will be just like always.

Feeling more positive now, Touka carefully folded the map and put it back in her bag.

But betrayal comes quickest when hope is high.

IV

“Huh?”

“Like I just said—let’s just forget about the zoo for a while, okay?”

On their break, Touka had spoken to Yoriko, thinking that her friend would talk to her like usual, but instead Yoriko wiped the slate clean, plans and all.

“You changed your mind all of a sudden?”

“Look, I realized eventually that I shouldn’t have asked you without taking your schedule into account,” she said. Yoriko paused. “So next time—next time we’ll go whenever you can take the time. Okay?”

She’d said “next time.” But Touka sensed that the truth was there wouldn’t be a next time if things went on like this.

“No, there’s no need to cancel—can’t we just stick to what we planned?”

“Nope. I can see it now, I was way out of line.”

Touka fell silent, realizing that whatever she said made no difference.

“See, she won’t even say she wants to go,” said Mayuhara mockingly. She had been observing them. Touka turned to look at her. “Oooh, scary,” Mayuhara said, in an affected manner. Her friends giggled.

“Trying to say something to Yoriko again?” Touka growled.

“Of course not. Just saying what I thought …”

Touka made a move toward her, but Yoriko stopped her.

“Next time—we’ll go next time. Right?”

Yoriko’s weak smile made Touka’s heart hurt. She always used to smile at me so warmly.

“Yoriko …”

It can’t go on like this, Touka thought. But she couldn’t get the words to come out right.

“Class is about to start! Get to your seats!”

The teacher appeared before Touka could say anything, and then class started.

After school that day, Yoriko left before Touka, saying she had an errand to run. Touka went and stood in front of Mayuhara and her friends, who were gathered around the window of the classroom.

“Oh, Kirishima, not going home with your little friend today?” Mayuhara asked in mock concern once she noticed Touka was there. The girls were watching Yamamoto’s team play out on the field.

“What did you say to Yoriko?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Mayuhara twirled her hair with her finger, playing dumb.

“I asked you, what did you say to Yoriko?” Touka asked in a low tone tinged with murder. Perhaps instinctively sensing how bad this could be, Mayuhara let her hair slip from her fingers. Her eyes flitted around among her friends.

“Nothing. All I said was that it really didn’t seem like you wanted to go to the zoo,” she said, then paused. “Kirishima, you didn’t really want to go, did you? Because if you’d actually wanted to go, and I said that, then you could’ve easily told Kosaka, ‘I do want to go.’”

The other girls murmured words of agreement and support for Mayuhara.

“The same with the lunches Kosaka makes, and all sorts of other stuff. Anyone can see you don’t really want to be her friend! If you don’t want an outsider calling you out on it, then maybe you should change your attitude? And don’t take it out on m—”

A loud bang rang out. Mayuhara was speechless; her friends were left breathless. Touka’s fist had gone just past Mayuhara’s cheek and connected with the window frame.

What the hell do you know?! Touka was screaming inside. It’s all because I can’t eat, because I could be a target at any time, all because I’m a Ghoul!

No matter how much I try, there’s a wall I can never jump over, and there’s happiness that I can never have. But I’m still hanging on to life. Despite it all.

Mayuhara slid down to the ground on the spot where she’d stood.

“Want to be next?” Touka said, glaring at her and each of her friends in turn.

“I have nothing else to say, so don’t, bitch.”

Leaving Mayuhara crumpled on the floor, Touka left the classroom.

“Didn’t even get to see the baby animals …”

Touka walked alone, looking at the map of the zoo that Yoriko had given her.

Would it have made a difference if I’d said, “But I want to go,” when Yoriko told me she was calling it off?

“Hey, Touka. How was school?”

When she got to Anteiku, Kaneki said hello to her happily, not taking note of her mood.

Irritated, she told him to shut up. Kaneki tilted his head and asked, “What’s up?”

Touka said nothing.

Kaneki watched her for a little while before asking, quietly, “Did something happen with you and Yoriko?”

She was shaking with anger. She balled her hands into fists.

“And what the hell is it to you?” she shouted.

The customers all turned to look at the same time, and silence fell on the café.

“What is going on here, Touka?” This time it was Yoshimura, who was at the counter, who asked.

“Uh … I’m so sorry …”

Knowing she was really in for it, Touka apologized. Yoshimura glanced around the café, then said, “Take a little break.”

“Wh—I’m fine!”

“Take a look in the mirror.”

Touka was dogged in her refusal, but Yoshimura shook his head from side to side. It was a quiet action, but it had a profound power.

Sandwiched between them, Kaneki looked at them both and said, “I think perhaps you should take a little break too.”

Touka was about to raise her voice again to say, “I don’t need you to tell me that,” but she felt Yoshimura’s eyes on her.

“Dammit.”

Touka defiantly turned her back and went into the back room.

“God, my face looks awful,” Touka muttered without thinking as she looked into the mirror in the living room on the second floor. She had a worn-out expression, as if all the exhaustion in her heart were showing on her face.

“I brought you a coffee, Touka.”

Despite her outburst at him, Kaneki had appeared carrying a tray with coffee, acting the way he always did.

“I made it myself,” he said, setting the cups on the table then sitting down on the sofa.

“Get back to work.”

“Yoshimura told me to take a few minutes.”

Kaneki gazed at the coffee, steam rising from it, as he asked, calmly, “Think you guys will make up?”

Touka said nothing. Kaneki chose his words carefully.

“Hey, the thing is, you’ve obviously got a lot more experience than me in the Ghoul world, and you’ve taught me a lot, but when it comes to the human world … I’m the one with more experience than you.”

Silence.

“So, I might be helpless as a Ghoul, but maybe I could be of some use to you in this situation. Just an idea I had.”

Kaneki just didn’t know when to quit at moments like this.

“How the hell could you be any use?”

“M-maybe you’re right. But maybe talking about it would make you feel better, anyway?”

No matter how much she pushed him away he wouldn’t leave. Touka was the one who’d run out of patience.

“Go to hell.”

She’d lashed out at him again and again, and yet Kaneki still approached her. And she spat words of abuse at him.

She paused.

“If you laugh, I’ll kill you.”

Touka started to tell him a rough version of the past few days’ events.

“Oh, right … that’s a tough situation you’re in,” Kaneki said softly, with a very serious look on his face.

“You really think so?”

“I do! You know how Yoriko is—she must be pretty upset right now.” He paused. “And it’s not exactly right to call this a fight, but when you have had a serious misunderstanding like this, you can’t help but think the worst.”

So is that why he said we should hurry and make up?

“But tell me, Touka—how are things, I mean really?”

“How is what?”

“Her sharing her lunch, or the thing with the zoo. What I mean is, what do you think about it?”

I can’t keep a poker face when I have to eat human food, and with the zoo, part of it is like Mayuhara said—Yoriko asked me, so I agreed.

But …

“I dunno.”

“Right,” Kaneki murmured, faced with Touka’s inability to provide an answer. “This is something I’ve felt myself, so some of it might be a little off the mark. But the thing about you is, you always act decisively. For you to feel so lost over something as small as this shows just how big Yoriko’s presence is in your life.”

Touka said nothing.

An objective, outside opinion. But one at total odds with Mayuhara’s.

“So obviously I think you should make up with her. Also, you should go to the zoo. I think if you don’t, you’ll regret it later.”

Originally, the two of them were supposed to go to the zoo the day after tomorrow. But Yoriko had told Touka the plan was off.

“Uh, well, you might be right …”

Kaneki cared about Touka and was seriously worried about her. What a gullible-ass idiot. Touka traced the rim of the cup of lukewarm coffee with her fingertip.

When they’d first met, he had been screaming and criticizing Touka for being a Ghoul, but before long, when faced with his own tragedies, he’d started to take them to Touka.

“Oh, yeah! Is there anything you could do for Yoriko that would make her happy?”

“Make her happy?”

Kaneki clasped his hands, delighted at what a good idea it was, and made his suggestion.

“Yeah. Yoriko’s been hearing all sorts of things from people over this, and she’s probably losing confidence. Which is why if you tell her how you feel, as if none of that matters, it’ll all be resolved.”

Thanks for laying it out for me. This stuff is so not my strong point.

“But what should I do?”

“Hm … you could give her some kind of present, or write her a letter telling her how you really feel.”

“No way. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Oh. I thought that was a good plan.”

Kaneki seemed disappointed, and he looked up at the ceiling. Touka brought the coffee to her lips, turning it all over in her mind.

Something that would make Yoriko happy.

What on Earth could that be?

IV

Tomorrow’s a holiday—the day I was originally going to go to the zoo with Yoriko.

Looks like my threat got through to Mayuhara and her friends because they’re keeping quiet, but Yoriko’s still not herself, Touka thought at lunchtime as she ate a terrible sandwich.

When she was given people food it was painful for her to digest it, but she had loved how sweet it was of Yoriko to give her part of her lunch out of concern for how little Touka ate.

Then there was the zoo. Perhaps Touka didn’t really care about going to the zoo itself. But going with Yoriko, seeing her look happy—that would’ve been enough for Touka. And so they’d settled on going to the zoo, and Touka had loved seeing Yoriko so excited.

“Oh, right.”

I did actually want to go to the zoo with her. Maybe it was a different kind of wanting to go from what Yoriko desired, but still, I wanted to go. That’s why I’ve been hanging on to the map she gave me, carrying it with me everywhere.

I should’ve said I wanted to go when she told me the plan was off.

I’m bad at sorting out my feelings, and although I try to put on a good front I’m just so incredibly immature. And I hate that about myself.

Well, it’s not a conspiracy, dammit. If you want to do something, do it yourself, bitch.

The image of her brother, Ayato, who’d left home, flashed in Touka’s mind. I should’ve said something then, too.

School ended, and the two of them left school at the same time. Yoriko was talking about something inoffensive, as if trying to avoid anything to do with the zoo.

“Right, well, this is where I turn …”

They stood at a crossroads. This was where Yoriko said goodbye. She had always turned off here with a cheery “See ya,” but today neither of them was moving very fast. Yoriko seemed to be waiting for Touka to say something. If I’m going to fix this, now’s my last chance.

But the words just wouldn’t come.

“Well then, bye, Touka,” Yoriko said, then dashed off, as if she were running away from the silence.

“Yoriko!”

When the words finally came out, Yoriko was already far away, and Touka’s voice didn’t reach her.

Gripping the strap of her bag, Touka started walking toward Anteiku.

If I use my kagune I can soar so easily, like a bird, like a butterfly. But my feet couldn’t be any heavier right now.

“Why am I so …”

Thoughts of Yoriko, Hinami, and Ayato ran through her mind, and Touka found it hard to breathe. All I do is upset people.

“Oh, and they’ll have somewhere we can sit outside and eat lunch!”

She remembered Yoriko’s smile. Touka stopped walking and looked back at the road she had disappeared down.

People suck. They’re bound by stupid laws, have an idiotic love for groups, and, convinced that they’re in the right, they lump together those they hurt and drive them out.

But though they’re weak, some of them care about others; they may be fragile, but they show love to the people who are important to them; they may not have claws or fangs, but they will fight to defend someone.

Do Ghouls do that? Do I?

Is it really just the boundary between Ghouls and humans that keeps me and Yoriko apart? Or have I actually been the one keeping us apart?

“Is there anything you could do for Yoriko that would make her happy?”

Kaneki’s words came to Touka’s mind. Something simple that a human or a Ghoul could do. And I can’t do that because … I’m the weak one?

“Shit!” Touka yelled, and began to run toward Anteiku.

“Hey, you!”

As soon as Touka walked in the door, she shouted at Kaneki.

“Y-you could at least call me by name, Touka.”

“Come with me after work!” Touka ordered Kaneki, interrupting him. Kaneki rolled his eyes, but despite Touka not explaining anything he must have sensed what it was about.

“Okay,” he said in agreement.

“Boss, I’m sorry, but could we possibly finish a little early today?”

She was much more polite to Yoshimura when she asked than she had been to Kaneki. Like Kaneki, Yoshimura did not ask why, but smiled and said, “I’ll let you this time, since you’re always such a hard worker.”

With Yoshimura’s blessing, Touka and Kaneki left at a much earlier time than usual. Kaneki followed behind Touka, who clearly had a destination in mind.

“Hey, Touka? Where are we going?” Kaneki asked, starting to get worried.

“Just shut up and follow me,” Touka said. He’s only here because I asked him, so what’s with the attitude? Touka wondered to herself.

But Kaneki looked like he was used to it. “Got it,” he said.

“This is where we’re going?”

It was about fifteen minutes’ walk from Anteiku. They had arrived at a supermarket—a place that held no importance for Ghouls. Touka went in. The smell of human food made her feel like she was going to throw up, but she ignored it and pushed forward.

She stopped in the middle of the supermarket and looked back at Kaneki.

“So what should I buy?”

“Huh? Why would you …”

“I need stuff to put in a lunch!”

Kaneki stared blankly at her for a second, then immediately began laughing.

“Don’t laugh!”

“S-sorry! Okay, I get it, I understand.”

She hadn’t told him everything, but he still seemed to get the idea.

“We need something you can manage to eat that’s also rich and luxurious. There’s usually a few cooking magazines in the magazine racks at supermarkets, so maybe we should start there,” he said, and started walking with the idea that Touka would follow. Kaneki looked authoritative then, if only a little.

“Wow, guys, what’s all this?”

Hinami, who had been waiting at home, was wide-eyed in surprise at the sight of Touka and Kaneki, their arms full of bags from the supermarket.

“I’m going out tomorrow so I’m making packed lunches.”

“Lunches?”

“We’re going to make great ones. Uh, Touka, we’d better make what we can now. It might take a while, so maybe we should get started.” Kaneki pushed up his sleeves and opened the cookbook they’d bought, checking the instructions and arranging the ingredients.

“Can I help you guys?” Hinami said, sounding enthused. Touka passed her some ingredients, along with a large lunch box she’d bought.

“Okay, can you wash this for me?” she asked. Hinami nodded emphatically and turned on the faucet.

“Let’s start with the fried chicken.”

Kaneki measured the spices out and mixed them in a bowl. He added the chicken and covered it in the seasoning. His movements were clumsy, but he seemed to be following the book’s directions.

“Touka, can you get the potato starch ready for me?”

“Potato starch?”

“It’s that stuff. You put it on a plate.”

Touka, moving more clumsily than Kaneki, picked up the potato starch and nervously poured it out on a plate. She held the plate out to Kaneki, who grinned. He carefully took the chicken out of the marinade and rolled it in potato starch.

Watching Kaneki’s profile as he cooked felt somehow nostalgic to Touka.

As Touka and Kaneki kept cooking despite being out of their element, the dishes came together one by one.

“I feel like we’re doing pretty well at this.”

There were sandwiches, asparagus spears wrapped in bacon, an omelet, battered fish, and fried chicken.

The biggest difficulty was that they couldn’t taste any of it. But with who knows what in mind, Kaneki picked up a piece of the chicken and popped it in his mouth.

“Wait!”

“Kaneki?!”

“Whoa!”

And he spat it out immediately.

“Gross!”

“Are you all right?!”

Kaneki wiped at his tongue with a tissue handed to him by Hinami.

“I thought it looked so good! But it was awful—the batter was like mulch that’s been dragged through slime, and the meat was like chewing on a big, fat earthworm …” he groaned.

“Why on earth did you think it looked good?”

It was already past midnight, and the three of them had filled up the large lunch box with their cooking. Hinami rubbed her eyes occasionally out of sleepiness.

“I guess I was just remembering. Hah,” Kaneki muttered, looking at the lunch they were putting together. Before Touka could ask what he’d remembered, she saw his face. He looked like he was yearning for something, but it was deeply tinged with sadness.

They sat in silence.

It wasn’t so long ago that he had a very, very normal life as a human. Maybe this is the kind of lavish lunch he ate before it happened.

Who has it worse—someone who was never equipped with a function, or someone who had it and lost it?

Touka sighed, blowing air through her nose, and did not continue the conversation.

“There we go, all done!”

By the time everything was in place it was already one in the morning. Sleepiness had gotten the best of Hinami, who was asleep on the sofa.

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

It was the kind of phrase that could have started it all over again, but Kaneki smiled and said, “It’s all right.” He paused. “In this book I just read …”

“Don’t give me that. I want to hear what you think.”

They got along well, but that was the one thing in their way. Kaneki scratched his head and changed tactics. “Okay, well, it’s a line from a movie, but have you seen the movie Giant? It’s an American movie about a Texas ranching family. One of the characters says, ‘The best part about quarreling is making up.’”

Touka stared at him.

“I guess the movie’s based on a novel by a female writer called Edna Ferber.”

“And here we are back to books again!”

She gave him a kick instinctively, and Kaneki yelped in pain. But his expression softened and he spoke again.

“Hide and I used to fight over stupid stuff too. But we’re still friends. I hope it goes well tomorrow.”

Thanks for the encouragement. With those words, Kaneki left Touka’s house.

Touka lifted Hinami up from the sofa and carried her to bed. She listened to the sound of her breathing as she slept and smoothed her hair, then went back to the kitchen and looked at the finished lunch.

“God, that was a lot of work.”

How many hours altogether did we spend on making this lunch? And people do this day after day, three meals a day?

Is this how much time Yoriko always puts into her cooking?

Touka put the lid on the lunch box and closed her eyes. I can’t tell her how I feel in words, so I hope I can get it across in this form …

VI

“Looks like she’s home.”

At eight the next morning, Touka stood in front of Yoriko’s house. There were signs someone was in, but Touka couldn’t tell whether it was Yoriko or not. Nervously, she rang the doorbell.

“Helloooo … Touka?”

Yoriko’s mother answered first. Judging by her very surprised tone, Yoriko had probably told her that the planned zoo trip was off. Touka quickly bowed her head.

“Is Yoriko in?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, but she’s still asleep. Just a second, I’ll go wake her up.”

Yoriko’s mom padded off. Not a moment later, she heard a voice say, “Touka’s here?!” then a few minutes later, Yoriko appeared in her pajamas, combing through her hair with her hands.

“Touka?” she said, unable to hide her surprise. Touka said nothing and held out a bag to her.

“What’s this?”

“Lunch.” Yoriko looked up from the bag in surprise. Touka didn’t know how she should look as she met Yoriko’s eyes, but somehow she looked her straight in the eye.

“Let’s go to the zoo,” she managed to say. But unable to bear the emotion of the situation, she looked down. She waited for Yoriko to say something, but she gave absolutely no reply.

She’d thought that if she did something to make Yoriko happy then things would go back to normal, but perhaps it wasn’t that simple. Maybe I’ve made things worse, she thought, quickly feeling embarrassed by her own selfish behavior.

When she looked up out of anxiety, Yoriko was also looking down. Maybe things can’t go back to the way they were before anymore.

A drop fell onto Yoriko’s cheek. The light in her eyes was the same that Touka had seen when, in her fury in the hallway at school, she’d wanted to fire back at Mayuhara.

“Yoriko …”

Her teardrops kept dropping, like rain just beginning to fall.

“I’m sorry.”

Yoriko opened her mouth, breaking the silence.

“Mayuhara … told me all I did was annoy you, Touka. What if that’s what I was doing, if I was just being too pushy? The idea scared me …”

Her hands tightly gripped the bag with the lunch in it as she started to open up to Touka about the feelings she had been burdened with.

“I wondered, what if you really did hate me? And I, I got scared, it scared me …”

The idea that she thought that far … Touka shook her head. It’s not true, absolutely not.

“You’re always so cool and collected, Touka—all the things that I’m not, the ideal girl, but … But I can’t speak my mind to people like you can, and I’m dumb, and there are a lot of things I don’t pick up on, and all I do is drag you down. I’m so useless …”

Don’t think that. I’m so much more imperfect than you, and I make idiotic mistakes, and I’m oblivious to the pain of others because I’m too used to pain myself.

But you’re not like that, Yoriko. I feel calmer just being around you—that’s the kind of presence you have. You’re so, so many of the things I’m not.

“I … had some suspicions about you, I guess. I kind of couldn’t believe we were friends, even though we were. But then you were so nice to me, despite everything about me … I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Touka. I’m sorry …”

So many emotions welled up in the pit of Touka’s heart. There were so many things she wanted to say to Yoriko, but she couldn’t get a single word out through the frustration and the pain. She opened her mouth to try to speak, then closed it without saying anything, before repeating the same action.

Say something, say something now!

Her irritation with herself took her even further away from being able to speak. God, I just want to cry now.

But it was then that Yoriko raised her head.

“Touka …”

She looked straight at Touka’s face and, wiping her tears with the palm of her hand, she smiled.

Yoriko grabbed Touka’s hand tightly.

“Oh … you never can hide your feelings, can you?”

It’s okay, the message got across, Touka felt like she’d heard her say.

“Look, Touka, there’s a baby lion!”

Afterward, they went to the zoo together. Yoriko happily and excitedly ran ahead on her own. Touka chased after her.

In the petting zoo they found a rabbit, and Touka carefully reached out to try to touch it. But the rabbit slipped through her hands and got away. When she seemed sad about it, Yoriko picked the rabbit up in her arms and let Touka pet it.

“Wow, this looks great! Did you really make all of this?”

At lunchtime, they spread out a blanket on a grassy patch and opened their lunchboxes. Yoriko’s eyes gleamed with surprise when she looked inside. Touka struggled for words for a moment before saying, “Sort of.” Kaneki had made most of it, but it didn’t really matter.

“I never knew you could cook like this, Touka … It’s so delicious! And perfectly seasoned!” That was Kaneki’s doing too.

“I won’t be outdone!” Yoriko said, her eyes burning with competitiveness.

Touka laughed drily as she picked up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks and held it out to Yoriko.

“What?”

“Open up.”

Touka tried giving a bite to her, like Yoriko always did. She seemed embarrassed to have it done to her, and she opened her mouth a little shyly.

Just then, they heard footsteps on the grass—someone was approaching.

Touka caught a snippet of their conversation.

“But nobody thought you’d be reassigned to the 20th Ward on an extraordinary basis, Yanagi.”

“It was Rank 1 Investigator Mado’s decision, so nobody can do anything about it.”

Touka dropped the chicken from her chopsticks in surprise. But it landed perfectly in Yoriko’s waiting mouth. Yoriko hadn’t taken note of the men; she was busy chewing. Touka kept her body toward her friend, moving just her eyes to look at them. She saw two men with attaché cases staring right at her.

Ghoul investigators!

No way have I ever run into these guys in a place like this. But on second thought, they have to do patrol routes through the places where people go too. What if the suspicious person that Yoshimura was talking about was this Ghoul investigator, Mado’s replacement?

If he realizes I’m the “Rabbit” this place’ll be a battlefield in an instant. And right in front of Yoriko’s eyes …

A chill ran down Touka’s spine. Her heart started pounding. The investigators still had not taken their eyes off her.

“The fried chicken is so tender!” Yoriko said, her hand pressed to her cheek, breaking Touka’s sudden tension. Involuntarily distracted by this, Touka was open to attack. Dammit, she thought, and focused all of her attention on where the investigators were.

“Doesn’t this place just warm your heart?”

The investigators, however, were at ease.

“It’s peace like this we’re bound to protect. Ready to go, Toujou?”

“Yessir.”

With that, they left.

Dumbfounded, Touka was watching the men leave in stunned silence when Yoriko broke in to ask, brightly, “So which do you think is your best creation?” To those men, Touka had looked like nothing but a happy schoolgirl sharing jokes with a friend.

“Well, I’d say … the chicken?” Touka said, smoothing all traces of the investigators from her heart as they walked into the distance.

“I knew you’d say that.” Yoriko nodded, then laughed quietly as if she’d just thought of something.

While Touka wondered what it was, Yoriko picked up a piece of chicken and held it out to Touka.

“Your turn.”

It was a scene just like always, part of their unchanging daily life. Although Touka was a Ghoul and couldn’t stand human food, Yoriko’s smile brought calm to her heart.

Touka took a bite of the chicken. As always, it was the worst thing she’d ever tasted, but Touka lifted the corners of her mouth and gave a faint smile.

“No, yours is.”

“Mine is what?”

“The fried chicken you make is better.”

Human relationships are full of lies. But that’s also how Touka, by making an effort, was able to hold on to her own normality.

“Today was really fun,” Yoriko murmured softly, reluctant to admit their day was over. They were in the train on the way back, and the sun was just beginning to set. Touka nodded, gazing at the red-tinged world out the window.

For a moment, at least, it feels like we’ve gone beyond the divide between humans and Ghouls, like we’re sharing the same feeling.