"Do you want to hear about that world?" Louis asked curiously.
Hinami still seemed very afraid of Louis. Whenever she spoke, she averted her eyes, not daring to look at him directly.
"I want to try... making friends with you..."
Friends...
Louis suddenly realized that the word might still be unfamiliar to Hinami. In the past, her father and mother had been her entire world. Now, circumstances had forced her to come to Anteiku, where she had heard the word "friends" from Louis.
And just last night, Kaneki seemed to have helped her understand what it meant.
Since Hinami wanted to listen, Louis told her stories. After finishing his own story about the Special Ability Army, he told her stories from all kinds of novels, manga, and TV shows.
"In the end, the white-haired boy awakened the strongest special ability and shattered the dragon's core, destroying the enormous creature that could have wiped out the world! It brought the war that had lasted hundreds of years to a perfect conclusion."
After finishing, Louis picked up his glass of water and drained it in one gulp. In a roundabout way, he had told Hinami how this world would end.
He really had underestimated how much Hinami loved novels.
It reminded him of his elementary and middle school days, when there hadn't been much to do for fun, and his greatest pleasure had been reading one novel after another.
"What else? What else? What happened to the white-haired boy and the girl in the end?" Hinami immediately asked eagerly. She seemed more interested in the romance than the spectacular battles.
Sure enough, girls here preferred romantic stories too.
"Those two?" Holding his glass, Louis cast a guilty glance at Kaneki, who was reading nearby.
"Although they went through all kinds of hardships, they finally got what they wished for. They moved in together and had a baby, and the baby's uncle even helped look after it. They lived happily ever after as a family."
It was clear that Hinami genuinely loved listening to stories. Having never attended school, she seemed to have a special attachment to stories and novels.
"What does... 'happily ever after' mean?"
"It means... a wonderful, complete kind of happiness..." As he said this, Louis looked at Hinami, suddenly remembered something, and stiffened.
"Is this how you write 'happily ever after'?" Hinami showed Louis the words she had written. After spending the morning together, they had quickly grown closer. They were no longer unable to exchange even a single sentence as they had been before. That was their biggest achievement.
The only thing that left Louis a little embarrassed was that any ghoul who came near him, including Kaneki and Hinami, would occasionally sniff him. It was so instinctive that they didn't even notice themselves doing it.
"Uh... I can't read either. Kaneki, you take a look." Louis waved Kaneki over.
Just then, someone suddenly pushed the door open and walked in.
"What a harmonious scene. Humans and ghouls getting along so amicably. How truly magnificent."
The three people in the living room all turned to look.
The newcomer was a purple-haired man in a neat suit, but his elegant gestures and strange tone made people uncomfortable.
Louis recognized him at a glance.
[Shuu Tsukiyama, kagune type: koukaku, S-Rank Ghoul, codename: Gourmet. Overall combat ability: S]
Shuu Tsukiyama was a gourmet who looked like a gentleman and was a "gentleman" on the inside. He was highly skilled in human cuisine, and his passion for delicious food bordered on fanaticism.
After meeting Kaneki, he had taken an enormous interest in him. It could be described as an obsessive, perverted love.
An S-Rank Ghoul and troublemaker from Ward 20, he had opened the [Gourmet Club] in Ward 7, serving human dishes of various types and prepared through different methods of death. He slaughtered people on the spot to please his ghoul customers, and had a habit of peppering his speech with Italian, French, English, and musical terminology.
Louis's gaze darkened. If there was one ghoul in Ward 20 he wanted to avoid most, it was undoubtedly the Gourmet.
The members of the [Gourmet Club], including Big Madam, who had dined with him yesterday, were all the sort Louis couldn't bring himself to like. They no longer ate humans merely to survive.
"I heard there was a human here willing to live alongside ghouls. What sensational news." Shuu Tsukiyama's gaze swept over the three of them before finally settling on Louis.
There were also quite a few humans in the Gourmet Club who lived "peacefully" with ghouls, but most were humans they kept like livestock for their entertainment, to be eaten whenever necessary.
Louis only hoped these perverts wouldn't set their sights on him.
Hinami tucked her head closer to Louis. She seemed to dislike the Gourmet's demeanor too. Of course, she might simply have been shy around strangers...
"So it's you..." Shuu Tsukiyama leaned closer, apparently wanting to sniff him too.
Louis dodged him with a tactical lean backward.
"Could you stop looking at me like I'm food...?" Louis glared at him.
"Ah, sorry, sorry. It's my first time meeting someone so special, and I couldn't help myself." Shuu Tsukiyama gave an elegant yet polite smile.
"I'm truly sorry. May I buy you a cup of coffee to make amends?"
Like hell you can.
"I'd rather not." Louis hurriedly shook his head. "Someone offered me coffee yesterday too, and I nearly got killed."
With the previous incident as a convenient excuse, Louis could now openly refuse these ghouls he wanted nothing to do with.
Although the Gourmet invited him again, this time suggesting they go downstairs, Louis still flatly refused.
Left with no other choice, he turned his attention to Ken Kaneki, who had only recently joined the café. One glance was all it took for him to find himself unable to look away. He seemed to have caught Kaneki's unique scent.
In the end, after his enthusiastic invitation, Ken Kaneki eagerly trotted off with the Gourmet.
"..." Louis merely watched it happen. The fight with Shuu Tsukiyama in the church hadn't claimed any lives. Instead, it had spurred Ken Kaneki's growth, so he had no intention of interfering.
More importantly...
Louis turned his gaze back to Hinami Fueguchi.
[Hinami Fueguchi, ghoul, kagune type: hybrid (rinkaku, koukaku), ghoul rank: S, overall combat power: A]
Louis hadn't expected this harmless-looking girl, only fourteen years old, to already be an S-Rank Ghoul.
Still untrained, her overall combat power was only A.
But... Louis glanced at his own panel again.
[Louis, special ability user, overall physical attributes: A, overall combat power: A]
"..."
That was talent for you. This frail-looking little girl could rip the top of his skull right off if she got angry.
Before you continue