For When Your Heart is Broken

Letter: The Gourmet's Story of his King's Absence

The Day You Left:

⠀⠀⠀That day when Anteiku was raided by the Doves and I attempted to stop you… I knew I had failed before I even tried.

Whenever I established those feelings, I didn't understand them, therefore I could not act accordingly or control myself.
I have always been emotionally numb.
I have no pity nor any respect for life.
Well… before I met you, that is…

Ganache told me I would die.
I knew he was right.
I didn't care.
I barely heard his voice.
I didn't want to live anymore.

I couldn't possibly live…
Not without you…

I stayed there.
Flat on my goddamn face.
Rain cut down to my bones.
It was unbelievably cold…
…I couldn't feel it, though.
I was already numb inside.

I didn't leave on my own.
I had not the strength to stand… let alone return home.

⠀⠀⠀Little Mouse had to retrieve me.
She's a friend I've had since highschool.
{I compared her to a mouse back then because I thought of her as a pet.}
{Don't ask why, I was an idiot.}
She's a human.
I didn't want to eat her.
I still don't want to.
Nor will I ever.
She is dear to me.

After that, things are very faint…

Hori fetched Kanae, and they dragged me back to the manor.

I remember lying in bed.
Afterwards…
I didn't get back up.
I stopped eating.
I couldn't.

I wound up turning into what was basically a skeleton.
My skin clung to my bones.
My tendons tore through my flesh.
I had not an ounce of muscle.

Then… I would eat anything for a while. Human. Ghoul.
It didn't matter. It didn't fix me though.

⠀⠀⠀Being a cannibal doesn't have the same effect on me because of a history of bad genetics. Consanguineous marriages within the Tsukiyama lineage makes our RC cells easily interfered with, says Papa. Beauty comes with a price, even genetically, it seems. {Haha}

⠀⠀⠀In short:
I cannot become a Kakuja.
⠀⠀⠀Therefore I didn't.
Cannibalism didn't help curb my desires either.
I wanted food, I wanted good food, passable meals.

Poor food was disgraceful.

I am The Gourmet!
What sort of filth was being served?
It was intolerable. Sickening.

⠀⠀⠀My Kagune would oversaturate, growing beyond control, and I would attack my servants without knowing or remembering. I was forcibly restrained and drugged…

I was dying.

Whenever you left, I slowly began to die.

Three years.
That's how long my state deteriorated to that point.

Until one day…