I was being far too complacent.
I never imagined Eto would hide her hunger on her own.
A Ghoul begins to need meat during infancy, when their first teeth start growing.
At first, a small amount of finely minced meat—like baby food—was enough. From then on, I gradually increased the portions as Eto grew.
I'd feed her the usual amount and then add more whenever she signaled hunger.
According to the Ghoul childcare guidelines I'd once gotten from my father, that was the standard approach.
But yesterday taught me that even that perfectly sound method wasn't foolproof. As she grew, the nutrients she needed far exceeded my expectations.
I had felt she hadn't been asking for more meat lately, but she'd just been forcing herself to endure her hunger... I could only shake my head at myself for not noticing that childish performance sooner.
I understood why Eto had hidden her hunger: she clearly meant to protect me.
She was starting to piece together what it meant for me to go out and procure meat.
I was grateful for her gesture, but it was a dangerously naive move.
Had her suppressed and accumulating hunger triggered an outburst, the consequences would have been irreversible.
I took all the meat I'd been rationing from the fridge and gave it to Eto.
Now I needed to procure much more meat.
beep beep beep beep beep...
click
I shut off my phone alarm and got up earlier than usual.
It was 3 a.m. It may be summer and the days are long, but dawn was still far off.
Looking out the window, a dense wall of mist obscured the cityscape. They'd forecast a morning drizzle, so I suppose this was it—perfect weather for going out.
Eto was still asleep. After tucking the dropped blanket back around her, I grabbed the backpack and the large guitar case I'd prepared last night.
I hesitated before leaving as I glanced at the small cylindrical case resting on the shelf. It was tiny enough to fit in my pocket.
I wasn't sure if I should take it. I wanted to solve this without using it if possible... but I couldn't afford to fail this time. I pocketed the case.
Careful not to wake Eto, I slipped out the front door and headed down to the bike shed on the first floor of the building.
I lifted my bike out, secured the backpack in the cargo rack, and tightened the guitar case strap over my shoulder so it wouldn't wobble.
deep breath...
smack!!
I took a deep breath and slapped my cheeks with both hands.
The reverberation from my palms jolted my not-yet-fully-awake brain, sharpening my focus and bringing my eyes alive.
"All right. Let's go."
I muttered to myself and pedaled into the still-sleeping streets of the night.
Ghouls eat human flesh. Without it, they cannot survive.
That fact applied to half-Ghoul Eto as well.
It wasn't that she couldn't put any human food in her mouth. Unlike normal Ghouls—who say that the moment they taste anything other than human flesh they experience an indescribably terrible flavor festival—Eto could eat regular human food.
But that was it.
She might eat it, but she gained no nutrients from it, and she couldn't taste any flavor. From what Eto said, it felt like chewing on some bizarre, flavorless mass.
At least that meant she wouldn't arouse suspicion among other people by refusing food,
since one of the main ways Ghoul Investigators determine if a suspect is a Ghoul is by watching whether they eat human dishes.
Eto needed human flesh.
But did that mean I should just hunt down any random human and kill them? Though I raise a Ghoul, I'm not that reckless.
I couldn't imagine committing murder unless it was the absolute last resort. I wasn't that brave.
There was a time I'd even considered asking the Yakuza—after all, they sever a finger when leaving the family—maybe they could spare me some finger meat. But once I thought about the consequences, I realized they'd probably cut off my finger first if I asked.
In the end, the solution I came up with was to obtain the flesh of those who'd willingly abandoned their lives.
Well, that idea wasn't originally mine. I'd heard from Mister Kuzen—who'd fallen for Ukina—that he'd been too hesitant to kill humans himself, so he resorted to feeding on the flesh of suicides. I was merely following his lead.
flutter
I unfurled my map.
The red circles marked on it showed the well-known suicide spots I'd found by rummaging through forums.
Of those, three were reachable by bike and four required taking rapid transit. There were more spots than I'd expected. Or perhaps it just showed how many people, disillusioned with the world, choose death.
I planned to check the bike-accessible sites first, and if I didn't find any bodies there, I'd take the train at first light and visit all the rest.
The first spot was a steel railway bridge spanning a wide river.
I'd made my way to the downstream side, where the entire structure was clearly visible.
They say bodies that fall from the bridge drift downstream and usually wash up on a particular bank.
I headed to that bank and soon pinched my nose, grimacing.
"...This won't do."
There was indeed a corpse, but it was far too old.
The decay was so advanced that it was impossible to tell who the person had been.
From the tattered clothes, it looked like a woman. The water around the bloated body was murky and polluted. Just a few steps closer almost made me vomit.
Apparently cleanup crews sometimes stumble across bodies here, but they must have been late this time.
Suddenly, an empty eye socket—the work of a bird or fish—stared back at me. The hollow gaze, devoid of anything but death, sent a chill down my spine.
I immediately backed away and climbed onto my bike.
This corpse wouldn't work.
Like fresh food for humans, freshness mattered for Ghoul flesh. Eating this would only make Eto sick.
I moved on to the second spot.
The second was an abandoned house nestled among rows of shanties. Its walls were peppered with holes, and it looked like it would collapse in a typhoon.
They said it had a bad reputation—either cursed or haunted—and that many tragic incidents had occurred there. It was notorious as the place where suicide groups held gatherings.
Apparently one was happening tonight, because suddenly I heard voices.
"Don't do this here!"
"Let go of me! I'm going to die here!"
"Yes! We'll die and be saved by the god of death Arcarma!"
"Don't die recklessly in a residential area! It's a nuisance to the neighbors!"
"I don't care what happens to this shitty world!"
"Leave us to die in peace!"
"The landowner will report us for lowering property values if we do this here!"
…And sure enough, the would-be suicides who'd already started briquette gas began getting hauled away by the police.
My eyes met those of an officer eyeing me suspiciously, as if to ask, "Are you here to off yourself too?"
"Thanks for your hard work."
I pretended to be a concerned passerby, greeted them, and pedaled away as fast as I could.
"...Got one."
At the third spot, I hit the jackpot.
I'd also found meat here last time, so it seemed I had a special connection with this place.
It was a parking lot built atop a sheer cliff, and I hurriedly found my way down when I spotted a lone car parked there.
Then I saw him: a man dressed in a sharp suit, as if he wanted to look his best for death.
I couldn't tell his age—because the face needed to judge it simply didn't exist.
Either he hit head-first or the fall sheared off the upper part of his neck. In place of a head sat nothing but brain matter, bits of bone, hair, teeth, tongue, and a smashed eyeball—components of a face scattered in a grotesque abstract painting.
Despite his head being obliterated, the impact had twisted his spine, bending his limbs at unnatural angles. His entrails protruded from his side like sausages being pulled out.
I could still see blood—not yet dried. He must have been alive as recently as when I crossed that bridge.
ugh...
Had I not emptied my stomach before coming out to procure meat, I'd have added my own vomit to this horror. Previously, I'd seen a victim whose chest cavity had burst, but this was so much worse that the other scene would look intact by comparison.
Despite having collected meat numerous times for Eto, I still couldn't get used to the 'visual form of death.' I didn't want to get used to it... but I forced myself to swallow the rising bile.
If the stench of a corpse weren't bad enough, adding vomit would have turned this into pure hell.
Though I quelled the bile, the dizziness in my head refused to subside. My breathing became labored, as if I'd run a marathon without moving. As the world's colors began to shift into grotesque hues, I sprinted away.
'This is bad.'
I sensed instinctively that my body had exceeded safe limits.
I rushed back to my bike, grabbed a bottle of water from my backpack, and popped two pills from the small case in my pocket.
gulp! gulp!
An onlooker might think I was some lunatic water-torturing myself—though I half felt like one, thanks to the corpse.
Only after dousing myself so thoroughly that I couldn't tell if the water was going into my mouth or my nose could I finally swallow the pills.
"Huff...! Huff...!"
Propped against my bike, I sat for a moment until my breathing calmed.
When I'd first tried to get meat from a corpse, it had been even worse. I'd nearly given up and walked away several times. If I hadn't seen Eto writhing in hunger, I'd never have succeeded.
"Whew... It's working."
As the dizziness faded, I steeled myself and set down the guitar case.
But it wasn't a guitar inside. It held my work gear: a transparent plastic raincoat large enough to cover me head to toe, a mask, rubber gloves... and a double-edged saw.
They were all my tools of the trade.
The raincoat and gloves would protect my clothes from splattered blood on the way back. The mask was to block the bloody stench and other awful odors emitted by a corpse.
The saw... needs no explanation.
"Shall we begin?"
Suiting up in my gear, I let the saw dangle at my side and headed back to the corpse.