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.