What would time be without the humans' involvement?
Nothing, for the thing is, time means nothing to any other living organism on the planet. They don't need to know how many hours had passed since the middle of the night to know it was time to eat. They knew when they have to eat because their body tells them, not some ransom concept that doesn't exists. Any other creature lives by the day, for that have no reason to plan ahead, except maybe for the weather and the winter. They lived by a concept that is the strongest get to eat and the weakest get eaten. They didn't care when the days that they lived turned into weeks, months and years. All they cared about was surviving another day in the harsh world that was only normal for them.
That's why ghouls were strange.
That too think in the way that the weakest are trodden on by the strongest, but they too plan and adapt with the humans. They too believed in the concept of time and that everything had a before and an after. They were animalistic, hunting for the very survival of their own lives, but they cared on how the world worked and they thought with their mind and fought with their emotions like humans did. They acted like a human, with instincts of an animal.
What does that make a half ghoul, living but not belonging in either world?
Time had flown for the two friends, and they were very much aware of that. The past was now a blur, mixed with important information about each of their pasts that define themselves.
It wasn't long before the youngest hit 10 years of age, an important mark in a child's life. However, only two people noticed it, and his mother want one of them.
She died a month later.
The black-haired boy never told his elder friend exactly how they died, but she didn't not care to ask. She was used to death, and was confused by the emotional attachment. She still comforted him though, for that's what her friend needed and as she was still stronger than him, though it was to be expected despite the improvement in his physical level in the passing moths that quickly turned to years, and as she was stronger than her little human, then she must protect him.
She wondered when she became so attached to the young boy that she called her only friend.
Her reading and writing skills had improved too, but at a much fast rate that the younger's skills in fighting. She had taken into practicing in her own time, writing short stories that she came up with into a small but empty notebook she found about nine months after her friend's mother's death. In there she decided the lives of real ghouls that she knew or heard about in the 24th ward as horror stories, for that what ghouls were to humans.
The smaller boy, who, all this time was growing and was slowly, but surely, getting closer and closer to her height, was a weird human though. He still didn't care for what happened to get him killed, not really. Nowadays she could threaten him with murder but all he did in retaliation was shrug his shoulders and get back to his book. She didn't understand his disregard for life. It confused her. Did he have no plans further than coming here every weekend?
They continued with their routine of coming here anyways, despite any, what should she call this emotion that she had yet to feel? Confusion? Concern? Anyhow, things were normal for them, as they slowly let loose to the other how their world worked and why somethings that were acceptable in one were not in the other, though they both had a hard time explaining it when the 'whys' came. But not only did they teach the other of how their world worked, but they were slowly realising that the world was wrong for the both of them and that something needed to change soon, otherwise, it would stick to the same sad world that it was now.
Not that they didn't have some good times together, for they did. Due to the improvement of the girls writing, the boy gifted her a note book that she could write her own stories, something she seemed eager to do. She was writing her first one now, telling the younger boy that it would be a horror, like the many books that the two children would read together. She was very excited to see other people, other humans, read something that a ghoul with no formal education wrote. The small black haired boy didn't tell her how hard it is to get a book published these days, but didn't say anything due to the genuine smile that came onto her face, no matter how little it appeared. When they first met, there was little humour from the girl. However, as the weeks turned to months which turned into years, the green haired child laughed about things that maybe the little boy found a bit grotesque, but it made her happy, and so he was happy.
What surprised him was when he got a gift from the green haired ghoul. Abet, it was some knifes, ones that can harm ghouls, but the gesture was nice and it was the first proper gift that was given to him, even if she scavenged them off some dead investigator that she then went on to eat (it wasn't really nice thinking of it like that to the human liked to keep it out of his mind as much as he could). In the last few years his fighting skills had immensely improved, in spite of his original protests, and adding the knifes to it meant that he and this female friend could practice together, slowly putting use her kagune so her friend could get better at fighting ghouls. He was getting better, his reaction time was getting faster and faster, not that he noticed in the first place but his friend took note of it. The small human didn't know why he was getting this sort of training, it wasn't like he was going to become an investigator himself or something, but his green haired friend said that this sort of protection would be good if he wanted to visit other wards that he wasn't familiar with or that were dangerous.
She never did find out who really bruised him.
One Saturday, things began to change for the both of them.
In the girl's hands was a book, some sort of diary that the boy doubted was his friends, for she wasn't really the type. She had a puzzled look on her face and curiosity and sadness in her eyes, something that scared the human boy. She looked up and smiled, some of his fear disappearing. So, she wasn't going to kill anyone, at least with him present. However, he still would be going where she wanted to go, for he was her friend, in spite of the differences the two held.
"Hey, Ken, would you help me find my father?" She asked, fingering the delicate pages that the diary held. Family was normally a tough subject, due to the fact that the half ghoul never really knew who gave birth to her and that the human's parents were both dead, so there wasn't really a lot to talk about. However, if his friend thought that she knew where her father was, or that he was even alive, then he was going to help her.
"Do you have any ideas where he is?" he asked the half-ghoul. She now had a determined and cocky look on her face, the same face that he saw when he taught her to read, and when she taught him a new attack with his knifes.
"Who do you take me as?" She asked him rhetorically.
"Of course I know where to look for him, and I'm very certain that he's in this ward! You do have your knifes on you, right, because I'm very certain that my father is a ghoul and works with other ghouls, so we don't know what might happen." The boy nodded his head in agreement. He didn't think that he has met any other ghoul before, other than his green haired friend, due to the fact that he was still living and breathing.
"Okay, where do we start?"
The human boy was so glad that he brought some money with him, because he didn't understand how quickly the green haired girl could drink coffee, despite how hot it is. He himself had ordered a latte, something that his green haired friend hand never heard of, and a slice of carrot cake.
"So, Eto, you're telling me that you've never drank coffee before?" He asked while he looked around. The coffee house that he was in wasn't what he expected ghouls to work at, due to the fact that ghouls couldn't really eat normal food, but here they were, selling baked goods with, what he had to say was brilliant coffee, and it seemed that Eto really enjoyed it black, no sugar or milk, just crushed coffee beans with hot water. He stored that away in his memory. His friend wasn't the most normal of ghouls but it seems that all ghouls could enjoy good brew of black coffee, if the couple near the windows, who both had the same as the girl in front of him and nothing to eat was any indication. The ghoul in front of him shook her head, not that he was surprised due to her reaction the beverage. She put her almost empty cup down.
"Okay, so I'm pretty sure that all the workers and some of the customers here are ghouls. This means that this is absolutely the place." She looked across to her black-haired friend.
"They're also responsible for making this ward so peaceful, they make sure that the other ghouls get food if they can't kill and they make sure that territories battles are short and quick. They also separate other unclaimed land for the weaker ghouls." She explained while the human across from her. He nodded, showing his understanding. She then pointed to two of the staff.
"Those two, the man and the woman, they're in charge of the two main gangs that are based in 20th ward." She added. She looked at the television, the channel being the news. At the bottom right hand corner was the time, not that the female ghoul could read it. She looked back down at the diary she brought with her. She had left it out on the table, just in case her father came out, because she knew that he was here, the rumours said so.
"Would you like a refill?" The female ghoul looked up to see an older man, one that hadn't been serving them earlier. His hair was greying and his posture screamed to her that this person was old and weak, however, he smelled like everyone else who was working here, meaning he was everything but that. She looked back at her friend, who nodded his head slightly. What was she supposed to say? Do you say yes please, or was there a different way to say it and were you supposed to complement them for the coffee because if you were, what do you say for that? The man didn't even serve them earlier, so what happens if she only said yes and she got a latte instead and what if-
Her human friend kicked her in the shin.
"Yes please" Her friend responded for her smiling towards the older man.
"And done mind her, she's still a learner with human etiquettes." The man nodded his head and took both the cups away. After watching the man go back towards the bar, she turned towards the friend.
"Why did you do that for?" Her friend then only went on the laugh at her.
"It's not funny!"
"Is to, and it's not like you really know any human etiquettes in the first place. The most human thing you know how do is read, and you don't know every single kanji there is in the world, you probably only know about 1000, maybe less. There's a lot you don't know about humans and the way they live their everyday life." He said, taking a bite out of his cake, looking thoughtful.
"To be honest," he muttered, "we're better of going places so you can fit in and not panic like you just did there." The green haired girl gritted her teeth.
"I did not panic!" She muttered angrily. However, the look on the black-haired child's didn't seem to agree.
"Here you go." A cup of steaming coffee was placed in front of her. She looked up to see the same man from before. His eyes seemed to twinkle and he smiled.
"I hope you learn a lot from you're friend here." But before he turned away his eye caught the diary. "Is that yours?" he asked. The green haired half ghoul looked back the diary, with the aging pages and almost breaking the seams of the journal.
"No, it was my mothers." She said with a smile. The man didn't smile back.
"Of course, it is." He muttered and went back to the bar.
"That's him." She muttered. The black-haired boy raised his eyebrow, and looked back at the man at the bar. He was talking to someone else, another man, probably another ghoul, with longish white hair.
"I think you might be right."
