"Wah! What a cute little boy! What's your name? Want to come over to Nee-san's house and play?"
The woman's eyes looked as if she had just spotted "prey."
"No, I..."
Washuu Nimura tried to explain himself.
"Don't be shy~ Nee-san's house is pretty big, and there's lots of delicious food and fun things to play with."
But the woman didn't give him any chance to explain. She directly grabbed his hand and tried to pull him away, it looked like she was planning to forcibly take Nimura home with her.
At first, Nimura didn't resist, worried that his strength might hurt her.
But just then, a tall, white-haired man appeared.
Of course, this white-haired man wasn't Uchiha Byakuya or Arima Kishou, rather; it was Yoshimura Kuzen.
Perhaps due to going too long without eating fresh human meat, his appearance had aged quickly. Even ten years before the original timeline, Yoshimura Kuzen already looked like this.
"Sorry, he's a child from our household. He got lost by accident."
Yoshimura Kuzen said with a warm smile.
"Oh, okay then."
The woman had no choice but to give up.
After the woman left, Nimura immediately turned to Yoshimura Kuzen and said, "Thank you."
Clearly, he didn't actually know who Yoshimura Kuzen was as they had never met before.
"It's nothing."
Yoshimura Kuzen replied with a kind smile.
But Yoshimura Kuzen knew who Nimura was, or rather, he knew that Nimura was someone from the Washuu family.
He had just happened to be passing by and noticed that Nimura was in a bit of trouble.
What he did could also be considered protecting the woman as after all, whether it was a ghoul or a half-human, the strength difference against an ordinary human was overwhelming.
"By the way, do you happen to know where the 'Anteiku Café' is?"
Nimura quickly asked Yoshimura Kuzen.
"I do, since I happen to be the manager of said café."
Yoshimura Kuzen replied.
"Eh?"
Nimura blinked in surprise, clearly he hadn't expected that the man in front of him was actually the café's manager.
"Come with me. Are you here to find someone?"
Yoshimura Kuzen then led Nimura toward Anteiku.
"Yeah, I want to see Byakuya-nii."
Nimura nodded and said.
"Byakuya? Perfect, he's at the café right now."
Yoshimura Kuzen said.
Not long after, Yoshimura Kuzen brought Nimura to Anteiku.
"Byakuya, there is a child here looking for you."
As soon as he walked in, Yoshimura Kuzen called out to Byakuya.
"Oh?"
Byakuya turned around and saw that it was Nimura. "So it's you, Nimura. I thought you guys had already left for Germany."
"No, my dad was about to take me, but I wanted to bring Rize with us."
Nimura said, looking a bit troubled.
"So… did something happen between you and Rize?"
Byakuya suddenly remembered that he hadn't seen Rize around the Washuu family residence as of late.
Normally, those two little ones were practically inseparable, but now they'd been apart for quite a while. It really did seem like something had gone wrong between them.
And it probably wasn't just a minor disagreement, otherwise, with Nimura and Rize's relationship, it wouldn't have turned so cold that easily.
"Yeah…"
Washuu Nimura nodded.
"So what exactly happened? You came all the way here to find me, you must be hoping I can help, right?"
Byakuya asked.
"It's like this…"
Nimura immediately began summarizing the whole story of how he and Rize had ended up "going their separate ways."
Not just Byakuya and Yoshimura Eto were here, all the other café staff members were also present inside the shop.
Now that, all of a sudden, a little boy who knew Byakuya came to the café to talk about some emotional drama, of course, everyone was quite interested.
Especially Hoito Roma, whose expression was particularly vivid, obviously she was one of the rare few who could recognize Washuu Nimura.
She even knew that the current "King of the Washuu" was in fact, Nimura.
Their Clown organizations intelligence-gathering abilities were still top-tier, though now the "Clowns" were purely just people chasing amusement and fun.
They basically didn't stir up any trouble anymore, and would even occasionally help deal with the Dragon Oprhans.
At the very least, they absolutely weren't stupid enough to go against the TSC, led by Byakuya.
Besides, the Washuu clan hadn't been destroyed either, Byakuya's forces were simply too powerful. But more than anything, the most terrifying part was still Byakuya himself.
"Kids these days are really mature, huh? Watching them makes me suddenly feel old."
At this moment, Kirishima Himari gently touched her own face and sighed.
But in truth, she was only in her twenties and not even thirty yet.
"Speaking of which, Renji isn't that young anymore either. Aren't you thinking about finding a girlfriend sometime soon?"
Suddenly, Hikari's gaze turned to Yomo Renji.
Yomo Renji was caught off guard for a moment. He hadn't expected the topic to suddenly shift to him.
"I'm not good at that kind of thing… Living alone still feels more comfortable for me."
Renji said with a blank expression, looking away.
"If you're not good at it, then that's all the more reason to give it a try. Most people aren't good at it in the beginning. You can't stay single your whole life, right? Don't wait until Touka and Ayato are married and you're still all alone, then I, as your big sister, will have a headache."
Hikari immediately started lecturing Yomo Renji.
Renji sighed inwardly, he never had a temper whenever his sister scolded him.
Hearing the conversation between Hikari and Renji, Byakuya couldn't help but recall that, in the original story, Renji really did stay single all the way until Kaneki Ken and Kirishima Touka got married.
Even when their daughter, Ichika Kaneki, had grown up, Yomo was still single. But then again, his friendship with Uta had practically surpassed any form of romance.
Thinking of this, Byakuya also suddenly remembered that although the current Kaneki Ken would no longer become an "artificial half-ghoul," he and Touka's future child would probably still be a naturally born half-ghoul, Ichika Kaneki.
Because in the original story, Kaneki Ken was essentially still a human, only after being modified into an "artificial half-ghoul" did his RC cells become so high that he couldn't eat normal food.
Later, when he lost his memory and became Haise Sasaki, the CCG used methods to suppress his RC cells, and he could eat normal food again as well.
But a true ghoul couldn't consume normal food through such means.
So no matter what, Kaneki Ken's essence was still human. A child with Kirishima Touka would still likely be a naturally born half-ghoul.
By this point, Nimura had already finished recounting the entire situation.
"Maybe it's because I insisted on staying with the Washuu family at the time… and that made her angry."
At this moment, Nimura did some self-reflection and came to that conclusion.
"Pretty much. It feels like you didn't clearly explain things to Rize."
Byakuya said, "Just go talk to her properly. You might not even need to apologize, once everything's been said, things might just go back to normal."