Mourning Doves | Tokyo Ghoul

7 | T e n d e r n e s s

It had been hours since Ichijou had left, and an unpleasant prickling feeling stirred within her gut. Etsuko sat impatiently in her bed, fidgeting and twiddling her thumbs as if she were some prisoner in an insane asylum. Her eyes reflected that of someone mad, glimmering psychotic flames but harboring a dullness that was blunt and dry like sand. Despite her weakness, she paced around the apartment slowly, every step treated as though it could potentially shatter half the bones in her foot. Still, she paced, and continuously twisted her snowy hair over her twitchy index finger, gnawing on her bottom lip and trying to contain the anxiety that gnawed at her in turn.

In the hours of his absence, she had wandered into the kitchen several times, her gnarling belly taking authority over her brain in terms of movement and actions. In those quiescent, painfully slow hours, she had tried eat the remaining coffee beans in her cabinet in desperation, experimenting with them in different forms as an attempt to ease her starving belly. However, whether they were whole, ground, mashed, scorching hot or freezing cold, no matter how much she manipulated the beans, she would end up feeling sick enough to vomit, just as if she had eaten any other morsel of human food.

She was anguished, yearning for nourishment. Anyone could see it in her dying eyes that she was in need of something of substance to satisfy her monstrous appetite. The coffee at home wasn't good enough anymore - at least, at this point in time. She hadn't had a bite of flesh for such a long time, and though she had endured such traumatizing tragedies over the course of her rather short life, she could conclude confidently that this hunger was the epitome of all torture. Nothing felt so uncomfortable and agonizing than starving as a ghoul, and she had been oblivious this feeling up until now. Her parents had always kept her well fed, even if the flesh they had offered to her was revolting and bitter in both morals and taste. She would choose cannibalism over starvation without any hesitation, unconditionally; this was just too much.

The hours Ichijou had remained out felt like days, and the seconds grew to feel like centuries as more time ticked by. She grew restless still, and her pacing became more violent. Her eyes were wide, bulging out of her skull like billiard balls and her cheekbones sharp like ridges. She was close to snapping, if she hadn't already, and the skittishness built up inside her until it grew too unbearable.

Her hypersensitive ears pricked up at the sound of familiar heavy shoes tapping up the steel stairwell, and she practically flew to the door right before he had even reached the second level. She remained there with her eyes trained on the large figure, her nostrils flaring as she sucked in a violent breath, her belly spiking and snarling and fighting against her skin so brutally she wobbled in place and collapsed against the doorframe.

"Etsuko-chan!" Ichijou called out to her, the sound of jingling keys and frantic footsteps growing louder as he rushed to her side. He knelt beside her, a large but gentle hand resting upon her bony shoulder. "Why aren't you in bed?"

"I..." she started, but her voice failed her as the smell came back, and her hands gripped the wooden frame so hard it splintered a little under her ribbons of fingers.

So that's where he was all this time.

"Let's go back inside," Ichijou said, his voice soft. "It's freezing out here."

Etsuko only nodded weakly, allowing his strong hands to lift her from her underarm. He assisted her back inside the apartment, a plastic bag tightly gripped in his other hand.

He helped her into a seat at the kitchen bar, setting the bag gently on the table in front of her. Her eyes lit up, staring blankly at the four steaming cups of coffee in those plain white cups, the white plastic lids pure and untouched. She could see them through the bag, along with some other human goods, resting in a cardboard cup holder.