Chapter 31: omake 3: holidays and underwear

During the first February after Ken, Kuro, and Shiro had moved in to the twentieth ward.

It was mostly empty right now at Anteiku. It was still just a little too early for the dinner crowds to come in. Only about seven or so customers, all ghouls, were simply enjoying the quiet peace of the café at this time. Among them was the rather unpopular binge eater named Rize Kamishiro. She had taken a seat at the counter where Ken was working at. Since the customers wouldn't be interested in any food here, he only had to sit by the coffee making supplies and wait for anyone who'd need a second cup.

While he waited he got into some small talk with Rize. His relationship with this woman was a bit complicated. He didn't want to believe that she and he were related but at the same time he couldn't really say he disliked her too much. They liked a lot of the same things and talking with her could be most pleasant. Not to mention that she could be depended on to help when things got bad for Ken. Such as the couple of times she had dealt with doves who had gotten to close to him or his sisters. Mostly he just was just sick of dealing with her bad traits and cleaning up her messes from time to time. They also had vastly different views on how to deal with humans currently that had gotten them into a few arguments. So he decided to ignore the bad and enjoy the good while occasionally gripping about her. Also making for sure his young sisters didn't start copying her too much.

They talked about some new novels at first but had eventually reached a conversation over horror movies. They discussed whether or not to watch one and if Ken was willing to let Rize get the snacks, as she called it. As they continued though, the door opened and three young girls came in. Ken started to make three cups for them while Rize waved them over. Of course Touka looked displeased at Rize's presence but the other two happily came over to her and gave Rize a quick hug.

"What are you doing here?" Touka asked with a bit of venom in her voice. But Rize just laughed lightly at her and answered, "What do you mean Touka? Just enjoying some coffee here. Nothing more. I don't think I've been banned from Anteiku. Have I?" Touka just glared back at the annoying woman until Ken intervened. He put down some coffee for the three new arrivals. "Calm down Touka. She isn't hurting anything by just sitting here so just relax and have some coffee. Getting agitated won't help anything," he assured her.

With a bit more grumbling the upset she-ghoul finally sat down with the Shiro and Kuro; though with the twins in between her and the gluttonous purple haired ghoul. All three of them crowded around a book and started to discuss what sounded like cooking instructions. Curious, Ken asked, "What are you guys discussing?" Kuro answered, "Chocolate. Since Valentine's Day is only about a week or so away, Yoriko wants to make some together with all of us." Immediately after hearing this both Ken's and Rize's faces fell in disgust and both started to grumble about the stupidity of the holiday. This peeked Touka's interest. Granted a holiday that was mostly about giving the disgusting concoction called chocolate to someone that you held affection for wasn't well received by ghouls in general. But the way these two acted seemed to imply that they had some issues with it that went beyond chocolate.

As if to answer her, Shiro asked the two, "You guys aren't still upset about that idiotic thing you two guys did on Valentine's two years ago are you?" This only made Touka even more curious while Ken, apparently trying to save face, countered, "Of course not. And it wasn't idiotic. It was a legitimate protest against this pointless commercialized holiday." Rize nodded her head in agreement. But Kuro, not missing a beat, replied, "Oh? You still claim that. Despite the fact that afterwards we found both of you passed out in a tree with a couple pairs of Rize's underwear over your heads?"

Touka spat her coffee out in shock while Rize just covered her face in shame and Ken weakly answered, "I…couldn't find my mask." Now Touka had to hear the story behind this. And so, after a bit of prodding she finally got Shiro to tell her.

"You know how our older brother is somewhat popular right? Well because of that he usually gets a lot of chocolate from his admirers around this time. Now normally it would just end with him getting some chocolate and trying to dispose of it in some way unnoticed. But a couple years ago, for some reason, nearly half of the girls who gave him some forced him to try a bite when they gave it to him. So by the time he got home he was feeling irritable and sick. It just so happened that Rize had come over that day as well and she started to tease him about it. Deciding to get back at her for it, Ken crushed up some of the chocolate and snuck into her coffee when she wasn't looking. Needless to say, she wasn't too happy after she took a sip of it and the both of them started arguing till it came to blows and both of them ended up knocking each other out with a cross counter."

Touka could already barely hold in her laughter but she motioned for the story to continue. So Kuro now took over the story with, "Well after we put them both in the bed to sleep it off, me and Shiro went out to get some more meat. But while we were out, the two of them woke up and apparently shared a bottle or two of fermented blood that Big brother had hidden in his room somewhere. They actually got so drunk that the two of them decided to "protest" the holiday by putting Rize's underwear over their heads and going out with the chocolates he had gotten that year. They then spent the whole night shouting obscenities about Valentine's Day while throwing said chocolates at people and even a couple doves they came across before finally, as I said before, passing out in a tree in the yard of some abandoned building. It was real pain to drag them home before the Dove's found them there."

Shiro facepalmed and added, "Thank god the CCG didn't put two and two together and instead just decided that they were two new low ranking ghouls. It would have been a disaster if that incident had been connected to the great Eyepatch and fiendish Binge Eater." Now Touka let herself laugh. Ken, coming over to give the twins another cup, grimaced as he saw her laughing so hard that she was having trouble breathing. "It's not that funny," he sullenly said.

While this was happening the next show on the channel the shop's television was on started. It was frankly a propaganda show for the CCG that was a children's anime about some cliché hero group fighting some evil ghoul supervillains. With practically everyone here being offended by this show's very existence, Ken grabbed the remote and got ready to turn it off but before he could the episodes villains came on. They were apparently two ghouls with panties on their heads who were planning to destroy Valentine's Day. Ken, in both embarrassment and rage, flung the remote at the tv that had provoked his ire; smashing the screen with it just the manager entered. Ken realized he was in trouble when Yoshimura cleared his throat asked to speak with him for a bit in the back. Whatever the manager said to him, Ken was quiet and meek for the rest of the day and bought a replacement tv the day after. Meanwhile his hatred of the holiday only grew.