Who was it that said humans are creatures of adaptation?
It had been nearly a month since I took Eto in, and parenting had seamlessly entrenched itself as my new daily reality.
To supplement my rapidly hemorrhaging living expenses, I had taken up piecework at home, assembling artificial flowers. Relying on my naturally nimble fingers, I assumed I'd breeze right through it, but I was dead wrong. The work was agonizingly tedious. How on earth did mothers manage to juggle side hustles like this while raising a child? A profound new sense of respect blossomed in my chest.
At one point, fascinated by the rustling plastic petals, Eto had gleefully swan-dived into a massive pile of finished flowers. Instead of earning a paycheck, I nearly ended up owing them compensation for ruined goods—but I digress.
Oddly enough, it seemed I wasn't the only one adapting to Eto's presence.
Take my school, for example...
"Waaaaahhh~!"
"Sir! Eto is..."
"Does she need a diaper change? Go right ahead."
...Or.
"Waaaahhh~!"
"Sir!"
"Is she hungry? Go on."
...Or even.
"Hnnggh~!"
"Si—"
"Go."
Somehow, the teachers had developed a borderline supernatural clairvoyance, accurately diagnosing Eto's exact needs from the subtle variations in her cries. Oh, right. Most of them were married, weren't they? Was this the sheer majesty of seasoned adulthood?
Regardless, I felt a pang of guilt toward the faculty and classmates who had grown so attached to her, but as of today, I had officially met the minimum attendance days required to graduate. It was a shame since Eto seemed to enjoy the socialization, but keeping a Ghoul infant surrounded by humans was an incredibly reckless gamble. At least until she was old enough to consciously conceal her nature.
From tomorrow until graduation, I planned to manufacture a string of excuses, halt my attendance, and dedicate myself entirely to my side jobs and raising Eto.
Stepping through the school gates, a hollow, suffocating weight settled in my chest at the realization that this was the absolute last day I would spend with my classmates.
"Yo! Koma!"
The moment I exited the gates, Hitokawa Tomoru, who had been leaning against the exterior brick wall, waved at me. But as soon as he got a clear look at my face, he recoiled, utterly baffled.
"...Why the hell are you wearing sunglasses?"
"It's fashion."
"Does Eto really need to wear them too?"
"It's fashion."
Hitokawa's bewilderment was entirely justified. Eto and I were both sporting massive, obnoxiously oversized sunglasses that didn't suit either of us in the slightest. Rocking shades with a high school uniform was eccentric enough, but forcing them on an infant? Especially when the sun wasn't even glaring today? It looked ridiculous.
But there was a reason. Eto had zero control over her Kakugan. It ignited without fail whenever she was starved, but it was just as liable to flare to life at complete random. Thus, the sunglasses. A physical barrier to conceal the crimson eye whenever it decided to manifest.
However, a baby wearing sunglasses indoors naturally drew suspicion. People would intuitively sense I was trying to hide something.
So, I wore a pair too. That way, rather than looking like a guy harboring a dark secret, I just looked like an eccentric weirdo forcing his bizarre fashion sense onto a baby. It had resulted in intense, daily verbal sparring matches with the Dean of Discipline, but... that, too, ended today.
"Anyway, why the civilian clothes? Did you skip school today?"
I had been wondering why I hadn't seen him around the halls. Seeing Hitokawa dressed casually confirmed he hadn't attended class. For a guy vastly more diligent about his attendance than I was, it was highly unusual.
"I just came back from submitting my application to the CCG Academy. Turns out the deadline for the application forms was today. My homeroom teacher warned me yesterday, so I barely made the cut. I panicked, called in absent, and sprinted over there to drop it off."
Hitokawa. For as long as I could remember, he had nurtured a burning dream to become a Ghoul Investigator.
Half of me desperately wanted to cheer on the friend chasing his dream, but the other half felt a crushing sorrow. The distance between a boy raising a Ghoul and a boy training to exterminate them was expanding into an insurmountable chasm.
Swallowing my anxiety, I forced a bright, eager tone.
"Whoa, it's finally time for the exam? When is it?"
"Written exam is in three days. The practical is a week after that. I heard the difficulty of the practical exams has absolutely skyrocketed lately."
Naturally. No matter how brilliant your mind was, surviving against a Ghoul ultimately came down to pushing your physical limits in the field.
"So I'm taking tomorrow off to cram like a madman, review everything I've learned, and take the test. I'll let you know how it goes when I come back to school the day after!"
...Ah, right.
I wouldn't be able to run into him at school anymore, either.
Hitokawa's house was quite far from my apartment, meaning our interactions were almost entirely confined to the school grounds. I had told everyone I was simply watching a relative's child due to complicated family circumstances, but...
"...I'm not coming to school starting tomorrow."
"What?"
Just a little bit... giving him just a fraction of the truth couldn't hurt, right? At the very least, it would serve as a proper farewell to the friend who had stuck by my side since childhood.
"Actually, this child isn't a relative. She's the daughter of an acquaintance. I can't go into the exact details, but... I have no idea when her father will return to claim her. So for the foreseeable future, I'm dropping out of normal life to focus entirely on raising her."
Hitokawa couldn't mask the utter shock on his face.
"Raising her...? You're just a student! We're right on the verge of graduating! You're choosing the most critical period of preparing for adulthood to raise a kid?! That's completely..."
That's completely throwing your life away. ...Hitokawa cut himself off, but the unspoken words hung heavy in the air. I didn't need to hear them to know what he meant.
"I have absolutely no intention of giving up on my life," I replied firmly. "I'll find my own path while raising her. I've just bumped up the survival difficulty a bit compared to living alone, that's all."
"A bit?! Is this acquaintance of yours completely insane?! How could he just abandon his daughter so easily—"
"It wasn't an easy decision."
My voice dropped, turning glacial, cutting off Hitokawa's mounting rage. I knew he was only getting furiously angry for my sake, but I couldn't let him insult Kuzen.
"He didn't hand his daughter over on a whim. He was cornered, hunted, and pushed to the absolute, suffocating brink before he made that choice. And I was the same. I understood his desperation, I agonized over it, and I hesitated countless times before finally resolving to take her in. So..."
I paused, letting out a weak, self-deprecating chuckle.
"...Please don't yell. You're scaring Eto."
Startled by my words, Hitokawa finally noticed Eto's trembling lip and the tears welling up beneath her oversized sunglasses. He flinched guiltily.
After gently rocking Eto to soothe her, I looked back up.
"I appreciate you getting mad on my behalf. Thank you. Anyway, given my situation, it's going to be hard for us to meet up for a while. Try to understand if I can't be there to send you off for your exams."
Muttering a quiet 'See ya,' I turned to walk away.
"Wait!"
There was a fierce resolve in his voice. Confused, I glanced back over my shoulder.
Hitokawa suddenly yanked his wallet from his pocket. He turned it upside down, shaking out every last crumpled bill and stray coin he had. He grabbed the wad of cash and shoved it toward me.
"Take this. Buy some formula or something."
"What? I don't need this."
"Just shut up and take it! We just had our youngest born at home, I know exactly how much money it bleeds to raise a baby!"
Closing the distance in two massive strides, Hitokawa forcibly jammed the money into the pocket of my uniform, completely ignoring my protests.
"And stop acting like we're never going to see each other again! You haven't forgotten our promise, have you? When I pass the CCG Academy exams, we're throwing the celebration party at your place!"
Ah, that's right. We did promise that.
Ever since Eto crashed into my life, the sheer chaos had completely wiped the memory from my mind.
"I'm going to walk through your door holding my acceptance letter, so you better be waiting! You hear me?!"
Pointing a declarative finger straight at me, Hitokawa spun on his heel and marched confidently down the street.
I stood there for a long time, staring at his retreating back, feeling as though I had just been struck upside the head. And then...
"Pfft!"
A laugh suddenly escaped my lips. I couldn't help it. The sorrow I had been harboring—the fear that the distance between me and the future Ghoul Investigator was expanding into an unbridgeable void—suddenly felt utterly ridiculous.
"Pfft-hahaha!! Ahahahaha!!!"
Regardless of what I was raising, and regardless of what he was becoming, that idiot and I were still best friends. Realizing that, the hollow weight suffocating my chest dissolved, leaving behind a profound, refreshing warmth.
"Da? Daa!"
Eto stared at my sudden outburst of laughter with wide, curious eyes, before breaking into a bright, bubbling giggle of her own.
Oh, and for the record, this is something I only found out much later...
"Dammit, I gave him my train fare too... How the hell am I supposed to get home?"
My best friend was a genuinely incredible guy, but he was an absolute idiot.