—Tap! Tap! Tap!
Rei's footsteps echo against the asphalt as she runs.
She doesn't know exactly where she's going, but her legs seem to have decided they're heading home, so she lets them.
Touka isn't chasing her. In fact, that idea hasn't even crossed her mind.
She just needs to get away. She needs distance between herself and that wrecked room, because she feels like if she stays in there one more minute she won't be able to think about anything at all.
She needs to think.
—Tap! Tap!
She crosses a street without looking properly and a car honks at her. She raises a hand in an automatic apology and keeps running.
Kagunes?
That's what those things were.
Rei isn't stupid and she doesn't live in a bubble. Not to mention that her father is a police officer who often warns her about monsters, she's seen plenty of reports on television. Even though the footage they broadcast is censored, the doctors who specialize in that kind of monster explain what to do if you see a monster in human form with those appendages.
Leave the area immediately and call the CCG's number to report the monster's location.
Ghouls.
Touka is a ghoul. Rize is a ghoul.
"..."
But she has no intention of reporting the location or the identity of those two girls to the CCG.
She wipes her face with the back of her hand and finds it wet. She hadn't noticed she was crying, which she finds annoying. Is it sadness she's feeling right now? No. What she has is confusion.
She starts going back over things as she runs.
They often get together at Saya's house playing video games until two in the morning. The nights when the five of them stayed up watching shows until they fell asleep on the couch. The exams they studied for together, with Saya explaining everything with a superior expression. The absurd conversations about absolutely nothing that lasted hours.
"Bitch." "Pink brat." "Idiot."
Those are the kinds of insults she often hears said by Saya, Touka, Rize, Meiko, and by herself.
But Rei knew that was part of how their friendship worked. Not one of them ever took those words badly, not even once. In fact, she liked having a group where you could say anything to each other and be sharing ice cream a minute later.
And in all that time, in all those years...
She never noticed.
That the friends beside her were monsters.
That she was right there, next to them, every single day and didn't see a thing. That's what has her upset right now.
Rei slows down until she's walking. Her chest is burning.
Then, once she pushes all those thoughts aside, room opens up for the question that's been chasing her since she went out that door and that she's been avoiding on purpose.
They met each other through him.
Whether it's Touka, Rize, Saya or Meiko. None of them had any reason to be in the same room as the others. In fact, Rei has seen Rize and Touka look at each other in a way that clearly means that if it weren't for Arata, one of them would have killed the other by now.
The only thing connecting them is him.
So...
"What are you, Arata?"
On an empty street, even though it isn't directed at anyone in particular, her voice comes out loud.
Maybe for that exact reason, because there's nobody there who could answer that question, the ache in her chest grows.
"Hah... Calm down, Rei..."
She lets out a heavy sigh while closing her eyes. Then suddenly she opens them again and grabs her head.
"There's no way I can calm down!"
Even so, somehow her mind manages to build a train of thought stretching from old things she never gave much importance to, to new things that suddenly have a different shape.
"Ah... That time."
You could say that was when she first started to suspect. The time Saya dragged her along to follow Arata. Back then, she herself was curious about her childhood friend, who never talked much about himself.
They were still children then, when by spying on him in secret, they found out where Arata lived. An abandoned place with no life in it.
Ever since Arata was adopted as Saya's brother, that situation was never brought up again.
But looking back, there's no way a child that age could have survived there.
And that leads her to the second suspicious point, which is the reason he was living abandoned.
His skin was very pale. Like a corpse. She remembers that when they were small, the other kids used to call Arata a ghoul, something Rei hated. Even now, she hates thinking about it every time it comes to mind.
When she hugged him or took his hand, she was always surprised by how cold it was. She considered it normal, considering her own mother is like that. But maybe it isn't as normal as she thought?
As they grew up, his skin gradually stopped looking sickly, until one day his pale, sickly skin suddenly turned very white, like freshly fallen snow, and even his grayish hair took on a dark, healthy tone.
She accepted it at the time. They were still children, after all, and she used to accept anything from Arata.
She also remembers a lot of strange events. If she was feeling a little lonely, he would call to keep her company, or even come visit. There are times he called her on the phone to ask if she was all right after cutting herself with a knife in the kitchen, or after hitting her foot while sweeping the house.
Those are things he isn't supposed to know, but somehow he's aware of her even though they live far from each other.
Are those a ghoul's powers? From what's known, that should be impossible.
Rei's mind keeps turning, remembering all those moments when a plate full of food or a cup of coffee was about to hit the floor because of her clumsiness, but he always caught them in midair, even though the contents scattered through the air and in the end not a single drop splashed.
She used to think it was because he was very athletic. But for a human, those reflexes and that kind of maneuver should have been impossible.
She also remembers the times he disappeared for entire days with the excuse of being busy.
Rei stops in the middle of the sidewalk.
"..."
So was all of it a lie?
That idea holds her for a few seconds and then evaporates, because it doesn't fit.
Because she remembers snatching the comb out of Touka's hand to help her get ready, jealous down to her bones. She remembers Saya staying up until three in the morning explaining math to her, even while complaining with that smug brat expression. She remembers Meiko carrying her on her back when she twisted her ankle and walking twenty minutes without saying a word. She remembers Rize making her a cake for her birthday.
That was real. Rei can accept a lot of things today, but she isn't going to accept that that was fake.
So the question "Was all of it fake? Have they just been using me?" disappears from her mind, making way for the next one.
"Why..."
Her voice breaks a little and she has to breathe before finishing it.
"Why did none of you ever tell me?"
From there, inevitably, her thoughts jump back to him.
If the girls knew, he knew, since all of them are in his orbit, all of them came through him.
Which means Arata has been at her side for years, in her house eating at her table and sleeping in the room next door, knowing everything and never saying a word to her.
Rei clenches her fists.
"How long have you been hiding this from me, idiot?"
Then, in a lower voice, she adds:
"What else don't I know?"
—Tap... Tap...
Footsteps come from up ahead, and slightly alarmed, she lifts her eyes from the ground. When she sees the person approaching, her eyes go wide.
Ahead of her, a tall, handsome boy with both hands in his pockets stops about five meters away.
On his face Rei can't find his joking or smiling expression. Instead, it's a face with no emotion on it.
But having spent so much time with him, she knows he wears that kind of face when he's worried.
Neither of them speaks for several long seconds, during which Rei can hear her own heart beating. The idea of turning around and running away surfaces in her mind too, but biting her lip, she pushes those thoughts aside.
She can't run. She has to know the truth now.
Then Arata raises a hand.
"Hey, Rei."