Guardian of Memories

Chapter 4

Today makes five years; five wonderful years with my family. As of today, I am nine years old. In the early days, right after I started going to Anteiku, we had found out that I was about a year younger than Kaneki. We decided that the day I was found, which was November the eighth, would be my birthday.

"Happy birthday, Faye!" Ken screamed, shaking me awake.

"Why so early?!" I moaned, pulling the cover over my head. Kaneki pulled it right back down. We ended up playing tug of war until I finally gave up. He threw it in the floor and jumped on my bed.

"It's already noon!" he whispered in my ear. I sat up quick, head-butting him in the process.

"Ow!" We both groaned in unison.
I started laughing as I slipped out of bed and opened the curtains; light filling up the room.

"What did you do that for?" He was still rubbing his head.

"Why didn't you wake me up sooner?"

"Well, I wanted to let you sleep in a little. Plus, Okasa woke up late and couldn't make you breakfast before work. I would've made it, but I didn't want to burn the house down," he explained.
I left the room and entered the kitchen with him right behind me.

"That's okay. I'm never hungry in the mornings anyway, remember?" I smiled at him as I sat down at the kitchen table.

"Oh yeah. Well, what are you going to do today?" he asked, leaning against the edge of the table next to me.

I'm getting kind of hungry.

"I thought maybe I would run by the café really quick and say hi to everyone. Other than that, I don't have anything planned."

"Good, because I do!" he smiled as he ran to get something from the study. He came back with a small box in hand.
"Starting with this. Okasa told me to hide it until your birthday. It's a present from her."
He handed me the box and I smiled. I untied the red ribbon around it and lifted the lid. "It's so beautiful!" I gasped. It was a golden necklace that had a small, blue pearl in the middle. "Will you put it on me?"

"Sure." He went behind me and grabbed both ends of the necklace. Once I lifted my hair, I heard it clasp. I ran to the bathroom to look at it in the mirror before running back and hugging Ken.

"Why are you hugging me? Okasan is the one that got it for you."

"Because she isn't here." I replied, my face against his chest.

He stayed silent, but ended up wrapping his arms around me and embracing my excitement. We stayed like that for a moment before I pulled away to speak.

"I'm going to run to Anteiku really quick. I'll be right back!" I grabbed my bag and went out the door. I am kinda of young to have a bag for anything useful, but mama gave it to me for when I had to bring my food home. Sometimes I wouldn't finish it all at the café, and would bring it home to finish it later. I had to hide it from Kaneki, but it wasn't too hard since he never touched the freezer.

"Just hurry home! Remember, I have something to do with you!" Kaneki yelled as I closed the door. I shook my head as I walked down the road.

~

Luckily Anteiku isn't that far from our house. I got there in about twenty minutes. Usually it took longer, but I was in a hurry because it was really cold outside. Stupid me forgot to grab my coat.

I entered the warm café with a huge sigh of relief. There were only two customers in the shop right now and the scent of coffee was making my mouth water. It had been only a few months since I actually started drinking coffee. Mama said that I'm too young to drink it, and that it will stunt my growth. Irimi-san convinced her to let me have some every now and then since it's the only human sustenance us ghouls can actually enjoy. Now I drink it every time I go.