Yoshida

Even Kazuo is alive.

This is the story of Kazuo Yoshida’s lifetime of struggle, until the final curtain fell on his life at the age of forty-one, struck down by Nishiki as collateral damage when Kaneki, freshly minted as a Ghoul and lured there by the scent of death, stumbled into his feeding spot, panicked, and screamed.

“Okay, everyone, I want those thighs up! And down. And up again, high as you can! Right, here we go—one, two—one, two!”

In the 20th Ward, not far from the main shopping street, was the fitness club where Kazuo worked. It was a busy place full of people coming and going. Kazuo was a member of the staff there, primarily making his living by teaching aerobics.

If one had to say one thing about his face, it would be, “too bad.” But if nothing else, his build was fantastic from working there. His limbs were long, his torso was ripped, and even his butt was tight. His coworkers frequently praised him, saying, “If it wasn’t for that face!”

“Kazuo, you really do have a fantastic body, you know. I wish mine was like that,” said Manami, a woman who had recently joined the gym. She spoke to him during the break in aerobics with a dreamy look on her face. She apparently worked as a receptionist at a big company, and she was charming and cute. Plus, every time she came to the gym, she complimented Kazuo.

“I think that girl’s into you, Kazuo …” said Saotome, one of his friends at work, once all the customers had gone home and just the staff was left.

“I—I really don’t think so,” Kazuo said, and laughed nervously.

“But she doesn’t even look at me or anyone else. Looks like the flowers are finally in bloom for you too, Kazuo.”

Saotome was mainly in charge of the gym, and he was a popular, attractive guy with a muscular body and something a little bit wild about him. He was much younger than Kazuo, but he had been at the fitness club for longer, so Saotome spoke to him without mincing words. Kazuo was used to it.

“It’s just that I’m easy to talk to. She probably only talks to an old guy like me out of pity,” Kazuo said in an unassuming way.

“You’re probably right!” Saotome agreed straightaway. I wish he’d tried to deny it.

But the idea that anything could happen with me and such a young, cute girl … Kazuo didn’t feel bad about it.

One day, he left the fitness club after work and was heading home when, out of nowhere, he heard someone yelling. The yells seemed to be coming from the parking lot at the club. Maybe there’s a fight happening.

It would be horrible if there were a problem on the club grounds. Kazuo ran toward the voices.

When he got there, he saw Manami, the girl who always spoke to him. And right by her was a dodgy-looking guy with crimped hair and a goatee. The man had been yelling at Manami.

Kazuo’s face might’ve been a shame, but he was a Ghoul. He was seldom outdone by a human.

“Knock it off!”

Kazuo jumped out.

“Oh? Who the hell are you?”

But the man threatened him and Kazuo backed away.

“P-please stop. It’s dark now and you’ll disturb the neighbors …”

Kazuo had lost his initial momentum and become flustered. The man clicked his tongue.

“Get me that half a million now!” he yelled, then left.

Half a million yen?

“I’m sorry, Kazuo …”

“Don’t be. What was that … ?” Kazuo didn’t know if he should ask her about what he’d heard.

“The truth is, my mother is sick, and in order to come up with the money for all the hospital bills, I had to go to a loan shark,” said Manami, without him even asking. “But I’ve got everything under control now! I’m sorry for causing you trouble.” She paused. “I’m so glad you came to help me.”

“Oh?” he said, sounding nervous and hollow. Manami turned away and left before he realized it. Kazuo thought about the faint blush of her cheeks just then, and squatted back down to the ground for a while.

Some people do terrible things. Imagine the kind of guy who’d try to wring money out of an innocent woman like that.

Once he got home, Kazuo lamented to himself about the absurdities of the world as he did sit-ups.

A guy like that will come back to threaten her again. It might be at home or at work, or even somewhere she likes to hang out, like today. It doesn’t matter. To dare causing a scene like that by making somebody scream in public, you’ve gotta have something wrong with you mentally. Is Manami always in that kind of trouble? Kazuo couldn’t let himself think like that. He directed all his anger toward loan sharks.

“Anyone who does that really oughta be killed! I’m gonna kill ’em!”

I mean, I’m a Ghoul, if it comes down to it I could just eat them. Kazuo’s eyes turned red, and he started doing his sit-ups even faster. That day, he was so angry he kept doing sit-ups for hours.

II

“Excuse me, Kazuo? I just wanted to say thank you, for before.”

A few days later, when the aerobics class had ended and everyone was leaving, Manami got changed quickly and came over to Kazuo to talk.

I did a thousand sit-ups with you on my mind, he thought, but knew it wasn’t something he could say to her, so he refrained and said, “Don’t worry about it. I hope you’re all right.”

“I brought a little something for you, to say thanks,” she said, and pulled a large lunch box out of her bag. The stench of human food drifted out.

“Is it a …”

“It’s a lunch box. You work out all day, so I thought you must be hungry. I made lots!”

Sometimes concern takes the form of a one-two punch.

But Kazuo said, “Thank you.” This was evidence of her gratitude. Can I just pretend to eat it? No, no I can’t.

“Take care, have a good day, Kazuo!”

When he got home, Kazuo steeled himself and ate the food. Awful, awful, awful, all of it awful. But I ate it. I ate the whole
thing.

Then he slept for two days.

A week after that, Kazuo was still in poor physical condition from the shock to the stomach Manami’s food had given him. Work was finally over and he was leaving the fitness club when he heard someone shouting in the parking lot.

“Not again!”

He rushed over to find Manami being threatened again by the same man from the other day.

“I said, leave her alone!”

“Not you again …”

The man clucked. “Half a million, I told you, half a million!” he spat at Manami, then left.

Then, Kazuo ran over to her.

“Manami, are you okay?”

“Oh, Kazuo!”

Manami collapsed in his arms, clinging to him. Kazuo stood up straight in surprise.

“Oh no, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away as she apologized. “What is there to like about a woman like me … A useless woman like me, hounded by collectors with my mother in the hospital—I’m no good for someone like you!”

She ran away in a flood of tears. Kazuo could only stand there, flabbergasted, and watch her leave.

“I’m really gonna kill ’em, gonna kill ’em for real, this is not a metaphor, this is for real!”

For days, Kazuo was shaking with anger when he thought of Manami. In order to calm himself, he went to Anteiku for coffee.

But one day even having a coffee at Anteiku didn’t do it for him. His anger toward the loan shark was still burning within him, his hair was falling out, and his forehead felt like it had gone dry.

The relatively mild-mannered Kazuo was spitting out his violent mantra, like a drunken human.

Suddenly, Touka Kirishima, the evening shift waitress, emerged from behind the counter and came over to him. She stood beside Kazuo and gave him a grin.

“There are humans and other customers here, I will kill you for real.”

Her voice was chilling, a voice that was unimaginable from looking at her smile.

Her kind of ‘kill’ goes way beyond mine, the most real of the ‘for real,’ a demon’s ‘for real.’

Kazuo went silent and started drinking his coffee, because he valued his life.

However, once he had finally calmed down, Kazuo made a decision. It’s time to show that guy.

III

“Oh, what’s this for?”

It was a thick brown envelope. Manami’s eyes widened when Kazuo suddenly gave it to her.

“Open it up,” he said to her.

She looked inside the envelope cautiously.

Kazuo watched her clasp her hand over her mouth in surprise. He nodded, slowly and quietly.

Inside the envelope was 500,000 yen.

It was the amount she had borrowed from the loan shark.

“You can pay back your loan with it.”

“Oh no, Kazuo, I couldn’t! I just couldn’t let you do something like this!”

“It’s okay, really.”

Kazuo put both of his thumbs up, forming little brackets.

“I want you to be free from all this.”

Manami’s eyes were full of tears, which fell silently onto her cheeks. Then she ran off.

Yes, Kazuo thought. Run, run as fast as you can, run to your freedom!

After that, Manami disappeared.

Although she was meant to come to two lessons per week, no one had seen her at all.

Maybe she got into a dispute with the loan shark and got in some trouble—

Kazuo regretted not going with her to take care of it.

He snuck a look at her fitness club membership application form and tried to call her on her cell phone. But she did not answer.

Next he went to her address, which was also on the form. But there was no apartment building there.

Where on earth has she gone? Kazuo was visibly exhausted from worrying over her pointlessly.

“Hey, man, what’s with you? You haven’t been with it lately.”

His coworker, Saotome, was worried about him. He and the other staff had found Kazuo standing alone in the aerobics room, staring into the mirror. “You can always come to me about things, you know,” he said, and smiled, showing his perfect white teeth.

“That’s right, Kazuo. If you keep this up your body fat will be down to zero percent.”

“We’re friends, right? You know you can talk to me about anything.”

His other coworkers also gave him worried looks and gentle encouragement.

They’re right. It’s too much for me to handle on my own now.

“The thing is …” Kazuo said, having boldly decided to tell everyone what had happened. His coworkers listened to his story with serious expressions on their faces.

But one after another those expressions hardened.

“… so I think what happened is, Manami has had something terrible happen to her.”

“Kazuo …”

As he was finishing his story, Saotome said his name and grabbed him by the shoulders, cutting him off.

“I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say,” he said as a preface.“A woman who has borrowed 500,000 yen and whose mother is in the hospital doesn’t come to a fitness club.”

It was a shock. “What are you saying?” he laughed. But Saotome’s words had hit him hard and wouldn’t go away. These words floated in his mind: He’s absolutely right!

“Kazuo, she put on a cute act, but she’s going out with a rough-looking guy … With the permed hair and the goatee, he’s definitely a yakuza.”

He hadn’t realized she had a boyfriend. Much less one that sounded just like the loan shark who had yelled at her that time—could they be twins?

“And to begin with, if you work for a big company you could pay back 500,000 yen easily.”

“I have no idea what’s a lie and what’s true anymore …”

His coworkers started to tell him, one after another, things they had wondered about while they listened to his story. They mentioned minute details Kazuo hadn’t noticed. Finally he got the full picture.

Money had been her reason for joining the fitness club in the first place. Her plan had been to find an easy mark, and she’d singled out gullible Kazuo.

“Kazuo! You have to report this to the police! You still have rights, no matter how inexperienced you are with women!” Saotome yelled passionately, his hands balled up into fists. But Kazuo shook his head.

I mean, I want to report it too. I want to take Manami and all of them down. But if I go to the police and something gives me away as a Ghoul while they’re taking down the details, I’m screwed—they’ll kill me.

Lately, all he could do was cry himself to sleep.

The world blamed everything on Ghouls, but humans aren’t perfect either. And what have I done? Sure, I kill and eat people, but I wish they could see past that.

Kazuo had sunk from sitting to lying down. He had made himself small and rounded from the shock, like a pill bug. He could not move.

“Kazuo,” Saotome said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s dance.”

With his forehead against the floor and his hands on each side of his knees, Kazuo looked just like he was in the yoga position called child pose. He turned his head to look at Saotome.

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten this fitness club’s motto … ‘Hard times and sad times may come but …’”

Saotome reached out to Kazuo to give him a hand up. All his coworkers stood as well and joined voices to say, “‘… but if you get out of breath and sweaty …’”

Kazuo looked up at them. Everyone was smiling at him.

He clenched his lips together, took Saotome’s hand, and stood up.

“‘… all your problems will float away!’” Kazuo shouted. Saotome’s white smile gleamed as he pointed upward.

“Okay, put some music on for Kazuo, guys! Kaz, you’re gonna be in the middle, of course! Show me some aerobics with soul!”

Kazuo nodded intently and took his place in the middle. Someone put some fast-paced music on.

“All right everybody, I want those hands up! Be careful not to hit your neighbors!”

“Okay!”

“Now take a deep breath, then release. And then one more time!”

“Okay!”

“Right, everybody ready? One, two, one, two, one, two, three, four!”

Kazuo danced.

He danced with all his might. Sweat was flying off of him, and he was drenched in it. But his coworkers didn’t point this out to him. They just kept yelling, “One, two! One, two!”

Kazuo was wounded. But somehow, it didn’t matter to him so much anymore. Tomorrow he might feel down again, but for now he was happy.

The next day, he was sobbing his eyes out over a coffee at Anteiku. Sure enough, Kazuo wanted to die every time he thought about the 500,000 yen he’d lost, and to keep his sanity he had latched on to his mantra: I’ll kill ’em, seriously one day I’ll kill ’em.

“I heard there’ve been suspicious sightings in the area.”

“Again?”

That’s when he overheard the staff talking about something dangerous. He looked over and saw the meek expressions on their faces. Did something happen?

Just then, the manager, Yoshimura, passed by.

“Has something happened? I keep hearing all this talk about suspicious people around …”

Yoshimura stopped. “Don’t worry,” he said, with his usual gentle smile. “They will not be seen near you.”

They won’t be seen near me? What does that mean?

But Yoshimura just grinned and did not say anything else.

Somehow, he felt like he’d been told not to intervene any further. Kazuo laughed drily for a long time, then turned his gaze to the window.

Even I got tangled up with Manami and a suspicious character, but I doubt anyone would pay attention if I told them.

Even I keep on living with all my heart.

Such were his thoughts on a balmy late afternoon.