“Cleaning again?” laughed the young lady 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!”
They all seemed to have been inspired by seeing their leader, Devil Ape, sweating and working his fingers to the bone.
The Apes, who had the strongest sense of togetherness of all the Ghoul groups, had followed a strict hierarchy that served them well in human society.
And as they got to know people more their knowledge grew. Some of these discoveries shocked Koma.
But then the next blow was lessened, and the next, until it was just a minor reverberation in his stomach. Sometimes the pain rose up within him and made his chest ache.
“Those Ghouls are at it again … better be careful out there,” Tsubasa said looking up at the TV as she drank the coffee that came with her breakfast as usual one morning. Koma was usually talkative, but at those moments he never knew what to say.
“Getting sentimental in my old age …”
When his shift was over, Koma changed out of his uniform alone, lost in thought. There was a pall hanging over him that he could not shake off. This isn’t like me, he thought. But wait. Do I need to shake this feeling off in the first place?
“Mr. Koma …” He heard a soft voice behind him.
“Mr. Yoshimura.” Koma turned around.
“Do you have a moment?”
“For you, Mr. Yoshimura, I would go anywhere or do anything,” he said lightheartedly, forcing himself to cheer up. Yoshimura led the way.
They went into the café. The place looked sad with nobody in it. No, I’m the one who’s sad when nobody’s in there.
“Have a seat.”
Yoshimura gestured toward the seats at the counter. Once Koma sat down, Yoshimura went into the kitchen and started making coffee.
“How’s work treating you, Mr. Koma?”
“The dust is so afraid of my cleaning it hardly shows its face around here anymore!” Koma always loved to exaggerate. Yoshimura nodded in agreement.
“You clean so well every day that it’s always sparkling in here.”
Yoshimura set a cup of coffee down in front of Koma. The steam rising off of it brought the rich aroma to his nostrils. When Koma thought about it, he realized that he’d never relaxed and enjoyed a cup of coffee in his life.
“Here at Anteiku we’re all friends, and helping each other out is our motto,” Yoshimura mumbled as Koma picked up his cup of coffee. “And you’re being helped,” he said, then fell silent.
Yoshimura seemed to have picked up on Koma’s conflict. Perhaps he knew the reason, the cause, everything. And perhaps he shared the same pain, despite his desire to coexist with humans.
Koma took a gulp of the coffee Yoshimura had made for him. And as he drank he gave into the warmth of the steam, and realized he was about to cry.
“This Devil Ape will do his best to help you from here on, Mr. Yoshimura. It would be my honor.”
Yoshimura smiled softly.
“Then you’d better get started learning how to make coffee.”
“Coffee?!”
Koma jumped to his feet, taken off guard by this unexpected proposal. Koma had dedicated himself to cleaning and now saw the art of coffee making as something in the realm of the gods. It was something special that not just anybody could do.
“You know, Tsubasa whispered to me the other day, ‘I wish I could try Mr. Koma’s coffee.’ ”
Surely this wasn’t the same Tsubasa who always insulted him.
“I’ve had other customers ask about you as well.”
Anteiku, where friends help each other out. How broadly was the term “friend” defined?
“So I can’t let down those customers who want to try Devil Ape’s coffee!”
Each of them could have pointed at the other if they were asked to say which one wanted to help and which one needed to be helped.
From that day, Yoshimura started teaching Koma to make coffee. How to roast the beans, how to pour the hot water—every step had a role in making great coffee. After each lesson, Koma practiced what Yoshimura had taught him on his own, and he also made coffee for the other Apes.
Then, finally, the day came. Tsubasa entered the shop as usual to find Koma behind the counter, waiting.
“What’s going on? The cleaner’s behind the counter!”
“I thought we’d have Mr. Koma help us out making coffee from now on,” said Yoshimura.
“What? Don’t tell me he sloshes coffee around like he does that mop bucket.” As she grumbled, Tsubasa took her seat and asked for a cup of coffee, “made by Mr. Koma.”
“Coming right up!”
Coffee is a delicate thing. I don’t understand everything that goes into it myself. It’s just detailed procedure after detailed procedure. But that’s pretty much what it takes for Ghouls and humans to live together.
“Enjoy,” he said, setting the cup down. A cup full of passion.
“This better be good,” Tsubasa teased him as she picked up the coffee and brought it to her lips. The coffee swelled over her lips and disappeared over her tongue. “It is.”
These two honest words fell from her lips, which usually had nothing but poison on them.
Naturally Koma felt pride that the coffee he’d made was good, but to hear those words from her gave him a feeling of excitement.
Tsubasa smiled and looked happy. A smile from a customer—and a human. It looked like a dazzling light, and it made him unbearably happy, as well as hurting him tremendously.
The more Koma got to know people, the more this feeling sprouted in him, and the more he understood the root of this pain.
Light not only illuminates all creatures, but it also casts shadows. And those shadows also tell of all the crimes I have committed.
The more he started to like humans, the more he realized just what he’d done to them in the past.
He remembered people who had fallen to the ground, screaming, “I have kids, I have a family, I don’t want to die, help me!”
There were people who had confronted him so their friends could escape.
I wonder if they had a nice life like this. If they had happy moments. The pain grabbed at his insides ruthlessly.
I met Mr. Yoshimura and he got me thinking about wanting to live with humans. But I don’t think I have the right to live with them. These two conflicting feelings pushed up against each other, colliding within him, and the impact was hard to bear.
“Mr. Koma? Mr. Koma?”
He realized he was standing there, frozen. Tsubasa kept saying his name in a confused way.
“Oh, sorry. I was just overwhelmed by emotion there.”
“Overwhelmed by your own coffee? You are a strange one.”
Tsubasa looked amazed but she smiled nonetheless. Other regulars who came in after her also found Koma standing behind the counter, and they joked about how he’d finally graduated from cleaning.
These shadows, these things he did in the past, would continue to cause him pain. He still wasn’t sure whether living was atonement for them, or if death would be a better atonement. All he could do was try to understand the magnitude of the crimes he had committed.
I need time to think. So just for now I’m going to keep on living. Those shadows may bring me suffering, but I want to see all the brightly colored, blossoming things this world has to offer that I’ve never seen before.