All For You (p2)

Dead or Alive?

A normal day at Anteiku... No, it's not normal anymore, as they miss the appearance of Kaneki.

It has been 1 week since the TV announcement shocking news, that Kaneki had died in a raid into Dr. Kanao's base, coincidently, CCG was also attacking in, and Kaneki didn't manage to survive. Everyone was sad about that, but it's life, they have to move on no matter what.

A silent and dark atmosphere haunted Anteiku, no one talked and everyone just kept doing their work silently, with sadness in their eyes.

"Manager!!" Suddenly a customer shouts loudly, asking for a manager to complain about something.

Everyone flinches and gives the man an annoying look, and knows there's a problem. All of Anteiku's workers are worried about it.

"Yes sir, how can I help you?" Yoshimura politely comes and asks.

"Who made this coffee?! It tastes awful"

"Ummm.." Yoshimura stops for a second of worry, "We are sorry for our mistake, I'll make you a new one right now" He quickly reassures the customer "And no charges for this coffee, as for our apologies"

Touka standing behind the counter sees it and heaves a sigh. She was the one who made that coffee, a slight of worries running through her.

The customer's eyes soften, "Ok, I'm a familiar customer of this shop anyway. I know it's just a mistake, I won't mind it this time"

Yoshimura bows one more time, apologizing for the mistake. Then he takes the cup of coffee and goes behind the counter.

Touka nervously avoids his eyes, bending her head down, letting her long bang cover her face, and keeping up making coffee.

"Touka.." 

"I'm sorry" She weakly said. Right when Yoshimura calls her name, he is cut by Touka's voice. Touka knows what she just did, she still wasn't brave enough to look up. 

"Look, I'm not going to objurgate you..." He pauses for a moment, choosing the right word to say as he knows Touka is fragile at this time. 

Having her go to work is already the best thing. When Touka heard that news, she locked herself in her room for 2 days straight without eating anything. Luckily, everyone has tried their best to talk to her and help her light up her mood a little bit.

"Touka, your health is very important. Feel free to take a rest, as I know you're in a very bad state, I won't force you to go to work" Yoshimura calmly and softly told her, with the purpose of convincing her to go to rest.

Touka just nodded in reply

Going to work was Touka's own decision, she decided to work more as she thought it was a way to distract her from sadness. But she was wrong, she just messed everything up.

"I'm sorry," Touka said again, she didn't know what to say more than that. Slowly walks into the staff room and changes into her ordinary clothes. Then walk up to her apartment to rest as it's right above Anteiku.

Other workers such as Irimi, Koma, and Nishiki share the same sadness with Touka. But they don't have that 'special feelings' like Touka has for Kaneki, so they manage to keep up even though it's truly very sad.

*****

9 PM

Anteiku has been closed, and everyone is starting to clean up and ready to end the day. 

Everyone was extremely tired today. The absence of Kaneki and Touka makes them have to work more to serve customers

"Koma, we're out of coffee beans, would you mind going buy some, please"