Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Do you remember the day I found out you were dying?

We were younger then. I was sixteen. You were nineteen, your cheeks still round and smooth and boyish. You had just started University a year back. The winter before, we’d celebrated you getting into Kamii, out in the streets with sparklers like we were seven and ten instead of almost-adults. You were so happy, weren’t you? I was just as happy for you. 

You had your whole life ahead of you.

Do you remember how clear the sky was that day? Not a single cloud in the autumn sky, not a drop of rain. It didn’t feel like Autumn. It didn’t feel like you were dying either.

We were walking when you collapsed, your coffee slipping from your grasp and spilling a small stream down the sidewalk. The impact of your head against the concrete made me start. You’d think your skull was too thick to actually crack, except the tiny rivers of blood that flowed to join your spilled coffee said otherwise.

Do you remember me on my knees, trying gauge out where exactly the blood was stemming from, my hands stained crimson, my voice calling your name? Then, you’d looked at me from under heavy lashes, and the stupid, idiotic thing that you are, you smiled at me.

You needed stitches. Five, to be exact. I know because I had to fill out the insurance form for you. It was just a surface wound, the doctor would tell us later, after he’d given you your five stitches and a bandage to go around your head. What was alarming was how fast your health was deteriorating, he would say, drawing up blood reports and pointing out grey areas on printed film. The cancer was advancing too fast, which was causing peripheral symptoms like sudden loss of consciousness and loss of balance. Are you sure you didn’t want to reconsider chemotherapy? It might significantly increase your life expectancy.

“No,” you answered so easily, so casually. You might as well have added Thankyou after that, for it sounded like you were declining something as trivial as a drink.

“Very well. If that is your wish.” your doctor said, every bit the compliant medical practitioner. “If you change your mind, Ken, you just have to give me a phone call.” 

And I stood there, in my blood-stained shirt, feeling like someone had pulled the Earth from right under my feet. We’d only come here because you’d fallen down, I wanted to say, everyone falls down sometimes. I have tripped on occasion. It didn’t mean I was dying.

You were my best friend. How could you keep me in the dark like that? How could you not have told me? 

“How long have you known?” 

I know you felt guilt then. I saw it in your face when you opened your mouth and said, “Touka.”  It sounded like a plea. 

“How long?” I was aware of my voice getting louder. I was aware that this was a hospital, that the people in the ER were starting to look at us, but at that moment, I didn’t care.

“A couple of months,” you mumbled, looking down, your hands curled into fists around the white sheets of the hospital bed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I felt so betrayed then, so furious with you, “Why aren’t you on chemo?”

You didn’t answer right away. You took your time, fumbling with the bandage on your arm, swinging your legs over the bed and pulling your shoes on. It made me want to yank at your hair, to smack you in the face. Finally, all you said was, “What difference would it make?” 

You sounded so defeated then, so sad, that my anger drained right out of me. 

You don’t like to talk about yourself; you hardly ever do. Maybe I would never have found out if you hadn’t collapsed when you had. But I like to think that you would have told me, eventually.

You insisted on getting home first, before you explained any further. I could see how tired you were from the pallor of your skin, from the shadows under your eyes, but you were adamant we take the subway instead of a taxi. It was almost like you were rebelling against what your body demanded of you. As if by pretending you didn’t need rest, you would make it so. 

I make better coffee than you. I do not brag; it is a simple truth. This time though, I let you brew. You always took your coffee with a good amount of sugar and milk. I take mine black. Black like your soul, you used to joke. That you set a cup brimming with pale, milky-white coffee in front of me should have clued me in on how shaken you were. That I didn’t notice it until I’d taken a sip and tasted the acrid taste of sugar affirmed that I was just as unsettled. 

“I had leukemia as a child,” you said, after I’d poured myself a glass of water and we’d both sat down. “It went away with chemotherapy. I never thought- it never even occurred to me..” you trailed off, gaze on a point above my shoulder, “It was too late when I found out this time. It had already spread to other organs.” 

“But the doctor said- chemotherapy, it would help you.” I had meant to keep quiet, to let you finish. But as much as I wanted to know what was going on with you, the words spilling out of your mouth were not words I wanted to hear. “People have cancer all the time. They get better all the time, they get cured all the time.”

“Not every time,” your voice was gentle, “Chemotherapy won’t help me much. It will give me a couple of months more at most, maybe. And it will make me sick. I don’t want to spend the last of my days tubed up in a hospital bed.”

“But-”

“Chemo won’t save my life, Touka-chan. It will just make the rest of it even more miserable. ”

“The doctor said-” I’d never cried in front you before, not in the five years we’d known each other, but I was close to it then. Why couldn’t you understand? Why couldn’t you see that you still had a chance. 

“I know my odds, Touka. Do you think I want to die?” You pushed your chair away, making my coffee slosh in the mug, a little of it slopping over the side, “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d look at me like that.”

Like what? I wanted to ask, but the words stayed in stuck in my throat.  You weren’t quick to get angry, but right then, I’d wager you were a little fed up with me. You’d had a long day. We’d both had a long day. 

“Go home, Touka,” you said. “Go home and study. You’ve got finals tomorrow, haven’t you? Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Did you think I cared about my finals right then? You weren’t fine. You were dying.

When I walked out without as much as a goodbye, did you think I was angry with you? I was, but more than that, I was scared if I opened my mouth, I’d start crying in front of you. Wouldn’t that have been embarrassing?

I was in such a daze that day that I managed to board the wrong train twice before I finally found my way back home. 

It was after that that I began to notice things. How you always looked tired, that you were thinner than before, that your cheek bones stuck out, making your face look gaunt and ill. 

Maybe it was because I knew that I was noticing these things now.

If Yoshimura noticed, he didn’t say anything in front of me. No one did. Perhaps they talked to you in private; perhaps they’d already known you were sick. 

I stopped yelling at you over little mess ups. I let you linger in the break room longer, I didn’t call you down to wash the dishes or to haul boxes of milk off the pick-up. I tried not to get annoyed at your terrible jokes, which was hard. You made an awful lot of jokes, and they were all pretty bad.  

I caught myself studying you all the time, the contours of your face, the pallor of your skin, the resigned way your shoulders hunched down when you thought people weren’t looking. I’d look away when you caught me, pretending to be busy rearranging cups or jotting down orders on my note-pad.

I was worried. I was making myself sick with worry. I couldn’t sleep. I could hardly eat. Everyday, I was relieved when I saw you at work after school. On the days you failed to turn up, I went to visit you. Sometimes, I took food. Sometimes, I took books. You didn’t like the food so much, but I could tell that you liked it when I brought books, even though I don’t think I was very good at selecting them. 

Sometimes, your blond haired friend would be there with you, the both of you sprawled on the floor in front of the monitor with game controllers in your hands. Sometimes, you would cook me dinner, sick as you were, because I was useless at cooking. We’d sit in front of the TV and I’d force myself to keep the food down while you moved your’s around your plate, hardly eating.

As the weeks progressed, you turned up less and less at work, until one day, you told me you’d quit. 

We divided up our time between you, Hide and I. On the days I worked, he would be there, and on the days he wasn’t, I would be. We couldn’t be with you every hour of every day, though. We both had school, we both worked part-time. But, we tried.

It was hard to ignore that you were growing worse with time. Some days, you’d be too feverish to talk, and even on your better days, your skin was bruised purple and your arms were thinner than mine. More often than not, I’d hear you throw up in the bathroom. You couldn’t keep down food most of the time. 

I’d pretend not to see you trip over yourself, pretend your speech didn’t come out slurred from time to time.  Sometimes, you’d get confused about things. Sometimes, you’d get so disoriented that you wouldn’t remember where you were or who I was. Sometimes, you’d ask me for your mother. Those were the worst. That was when I’d press my mouth in a firm line and force myself to blink back tears, when I’d sneak off to the bathroom, turn on the tap, and cry.

I was watching you fade before my eyes, and I felt helpless to stop it.

It was Hide who found you passed out in a puddle of your own vomit. We cleaned you up. We mopped up the floor, and we put you up on the couch and shook your shoulders. 

You were still breathing, but you wouldn’t wake up. 

I watched them load you into an ambulance, watched as it pulled out of the driveway and disappeared around the corner.

It was the day i decided I couldn’t let you go, not if there was even a slight chance that you might live.

I didn’t think straight, not until after it was done. All I wanted was you to be alive. You, to be the person you used to be. You, Kaneki, to smile, to finish the course you’d worked so hard to get enrolled into. To get a job. To realize your dreams.

I wanted you to have a future.

But more than that, I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without you in it. It was selfish of me to do what I did. But I never claimed to be selfless, did I?

Did I ever tell you that we were street children, my brother and I? No, I never would have divulged that sort of personal information. Yet, I accuse you of keeping me in the dark. What a hypocrite I am.

Ayato was just two at the time. I’d just turned five. One day, our father went out and he never came back. Two days later, the neighbours drove us out of our house. We were left on the street, the two of us, with no one to turn to, no where to go. It was hard, of course it was. But we managed. 

During day time, we hung out in the play ground. We liked it there. We could play with the other children, we could play on the jungle gym and take turns on the roundabout, slide down the slides and swing on the swings. In the mornings, it wasn’t so bad. People were wary of us even then. It might have been our haggard appearance; dirty and small with torn clothes and the unwashed hair. Or it might have been something else; something rooted deep in the subconsciousness they couldn’t explain. But something, whatever it was, made mothers warn their children away from us.  

At night, we huddled beside dumpsters, in abandoned buildings, in places where you wouldn’t expect to find two little children. We went hungry for days at a time, and when we did find food, it was scarce enough for both of us. Sometimes, I’d scavenge for food while Ayato slept, and I’d take the bigger half of it before he woke up. I’d feel guilty immediately afterwards, but you see, even as a child, I was selfish.

You were in a coma for two weeks. You’d gone behind our backs again; you’d signed a DNR order too.The doctors weren’t hopeful at all. 

Yoshimura came to visit you more than once. So did Nishio and Yomo. I don’t think Hide slept most nights. I didn’t either. If I spent all my time at the hospital, only half the time was spent by your side. The rest, I spent up in the Hospital Chief’s office. 

I was lucky you’d chosen this hospital. I was lucky Dr. Kanou was there. We discussed, at length, how the procedure would go. He’d done it before, but only a fraction of the patients had survived. It was risky, to be sure, but what did you have to lose? 

Even 20% is a lot more than none.

No one objected when the Chief Surgeon offered a new treatment plan; surgery, 20% success rate, and should the surgery be successful, you’d be completely cancer free. Since you couldn’t make your own decision, it was a team of doctors who decided for you. 

No one knew though, what was actually being done. No one except me, Dr.Kanou, and Uta’s friend, Nimura. You know Uta, don’t you? He owns that art shop down in the 4th ward. We went there to get lights for the coffee shop, remember? I’d met Nimura there on occasion. It was Nimura who told me about Kanou. Back then, you were still doing fairly okay. Back then, I’d balked at the idea. Who would wish to condemn someone else to a life like ours? I’d thought. It would be unforgivable.

But when, we found you that day in your living room, your fingers and mouth tinged blue, I realized I’d turn you against your own kind if it meant you’d live. You, who’d lived your whole life as a human. You, who didn’t even know about us. You, the kindest person I knew. You, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

I’d been born this way. I’d lived my whole life like this. For me, I did what I had to survive, just like humans. For me, it was normal, because I hadn’t known anything else.

For a human, it would be a living hell. And I was serving it up to you.

It was unforgivable.

But I won’t ask your forgiveness. 

(Would you believe me if I said I did it out of love?)

Chapter Text

There are a lot of myths surrounding our kind. It differs from place to place. But a lot of it isn’t true. It doesn’t even make sense, if you think about it. 

I wonder who came up with the ridiculous notion that sunlight burned us. It doesn’t. I’m not crisp, am I? We are not immortal either, although we are not as prone to sickness as humans. We don’t stay young forever. We are born, just like you are, and we grow, the same as you. If you passed us by on the street, you would never know. 

You never knew, did you, although you were surrounded by us? Maybe, on the most basic, primitive level, you felt it, just like the mothers had on he playground, that there was something off about me. About us. But you never looked closely enough. I don’t think you wanted to, either. At a level that was beyond conscious thinking, you knew you wouldn’t like what you found. 

They call us vampires up in the west. Down here, they just call us ghouls. We must have other names in other places too, although I never really dug deep. Perhaps you would know more than me now. You always did like to read, didn’t you?

I suppose the garlic myth does have some truth to it. But it is not just garlic we have an aversion to. Imagine if you put a raw slab of chicken in front of a human. Would they eat it? Most certainly not. I know enough about humans to know that it wouldn’t agree with their taste buds or stomachs. But could they eat it, if they forced themselves to? Yes. It is the same with us. We are carnivores. We don’t eat human food because we aren’t designed to do so. We don’t have the digestive enzymes for it, and therefore, it doesn’t agree with us. 

The one thing everyone always gets right is that we feed on humans to survive.

But you know this by now, don’t you?

You despise me for it.

I wasn’t there to see you wake up. I think I was a little scared to face you. But, in the end, I had to see you. I did this to you; I threw you into my world without so much as a warning. You were my responsibility now, in more ways than one.

I was going to tell you, that first day that I saw you. But you looked so happy that I couldn’t. You were smiling for the first time in a long while, your eyes sparkling with hope, with life. I didn’t want to take it away just yet. Besides, I didn’t think it would hurt to wait a few days. Until you were out of the hospital, at least.

So I ignored the uneasiness at the pit of my stomach and I smiled back at you. I told you how glad I was that you were alive, I said all the right things, nodded at all the right times. I let you tell me about Takatsuki’s new book, laughed about how much homework you have waiting for you, but inside my chest, it hurt. Because I knew this was probably the last time you’d smile at me like that. 

Yoshimura knew. I don’t know how he found out, but he knew.

“What have you done, Touka?” he said to me the day after you woke up.In all my years since I’d come to live under his wing, I’d never seen him look as disappointed in me as he did then.

“I don’t know,” I said. I wanted to slink away from his knowing gaze and bury myself in my blankets back in my room. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. 

“Sometimes, it is better to let people go, child,” he said. It was worse that he wasn’t angry with me, worse that his voice was kind. “What you did was not right for the boy.”

“I know.” I felt like I was going to cry.

Hide called me in the middle of the night.

“Touka,” he sounded urgent, worried, “I think something is wrong with Kaneki. He told me to call an ambulance. Can you go there? I called an ambulance, but I’m not in Tokyo.”

I was out of my room before he finished talking.

You were trying to kill yourself when I found you.

I remember, still, like it was yesterday. You, near your kitchen counter, tears streaming down your face, a kitchen knife in your hands, bent out of shape by the force with which you must have stabbed yourself.

“They did something to me, Touka,” your eyes were wild, “they put something inside my body. Look.” You lifted your shirt to show me the area under your ribs, where a nasty scar stretched diagonally down your stomach. “They did something to me.”

“Kaneki,” I said, “Put the knife down.”

You laughed then. A mirthless, maniacal sound that made my heart sink even more.“It doesn’t do anything, Touka,”  you say, waving it around, “Look at it, it’s bent out of shape because I can’t pierce my skin with it. With this. Look!” You slashed the knife across your arm and hold it out to me. Your arm, with its intact skin.

“Please,” I didn’t know what else to say. So instead, I made a grab for the knife and surprisingly, you let me have it. Then you sank to your knees and pressed your hands to your eyes, your shoulders shaking silently. 

When the sirens came, I left you there to go downstairs. I sent the ambulance away because a hospital wasn’t what you needed. When I came back in, I noticed the state of your house- half-empty packages of food spilled all over the place, milk seeping onto the carpet from a bottle that looked like it had been thrown, cornflakes crunching under my feet, and to a lesser extent, shards of glass from plates, and in the midst of it, you.

“It will be alright,” I told you, “It will be okay.” I sat beside you in your kitchen, and I comforted you with lies.

“I’m so hungry, Touka,” you said through your tears, “I’m so, so hungry but I can’t eat anything. Nothing tastes right. And when I see people- when I see-” you stopped suddenly, as if afraid to go on. “I think I’ve gone crazy, Touka-chan.”

“You’re not crazy, Kaneki,” I said, shaking my head. 

“I’m seeing things, Touka-chan,” you said desperately, “I’m feeling things- thinking things- that aren’t normal. I must be crazy.” I think right then, you’d have preferred to be crazy than think what was happening to you was real.

Oh, Kaneki. What have I done to you? 

“Come on,” I said, helping you up like I had a hundred times before. I made space on the living room couch and I sat you down. Then I made us coffee. And for the first time, I didn’t put milk and sugar in yours.

You shook your head when I handed you your mug. “I can’t,” you said, shaking your head. “Food doesn’t taste right.”

“This will,” I said, “Drink.” I don’t know how I manage to sound as authoritative as I did, when I feel cold and jittery and unsure. Back when you were still sick, I’d only thought as far as making you better. I hadn’t really thought about what would come after, how it would make you feel to find your world upside down. How unprepared I would be to see you like that.

It must have been my voice, or maybe my presence, but you took the mug from me, finally. When you finally took a sip, I could see the surprise on your face. Then you drowned the entire mug. “It tastes like coffee,” you told me. You sounded amazed.

“Yes,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Kaneki, I have to tell you something.”

“How could you do this to me?” your voice was so soft that it was barely above a whisper, but it carried with it all the hurt you felt, the betrayal. Right then, you looked like someone had taken your heart, thrown it to the ground, and trampled it.

I was wrong to think I’d ever be ready for this. I didn’t want you to keep looking at me with that expression on your face. But there was nothing I could say that would have made it better.

“You should have just let me die,” you said, “I’d rather die than be a monster.”

You called me a monster. If the circumstances were different, I’d have been furious with you. But as it were, I had no right.

I leave you packages of food by your door. I know you must be hungry. I know you wouldn’t be able to go long without blood, at the very least. 

Each time, they remain outside your door, right where I left them. Unopened. Untouched. 

Nishio finds you on the street, half crazed, half starved. He stops you from attacking your friend. He brings you to Anteiku.

I’m glad it is him who finds you. 

Hidden away in the stair well, I hear Yoshimura talk to you. He tells you what you need to know, what you must. He calms you down, comforts you where I couldn’t.

You’ve been dealt a hand you never wanted, he tells you, but it is up to you to make it count. Turn it around, Ken, he says, in whatever form it is, you have been given a chance at life, whether you want it or not. But now that you do have the chance, don’t waste it.

Yoshimura puts you up in the extra rooms we have for emergencies. It is there that you meet Hinami. I think her presence calms you down, reminds you that you still have things you can look forward to. 

She tells me you’ve been teaching her to read. She tells me you tell wonderful stories. Nii-chan, she calls you.

You won’t speak to me. You won’t even look at me. And I don’t blame you for it. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

You look much healthier now. But you don’t look happy. You don’t make jokes anymore. You don’t talk much either, except with Hinami. Even then, your smile only for her sake.

I never thought I’d actually miss your awful puns.

Yoshimura makes me take you to Uta’s shop. You need a mask, he says, if you are going to be out and about. We all have masks. I suppose it is time you got one made for you.

It is the first time we’ve been alone since that night in your apartment. I want to say something, anything, but by the time I muster up the courage, we’re already at HySy. 

I pretend to look at the masks while Uta talks to you. I can see he makes you uncomfortable. His appearance alone would make someone want to edge back, but you’re being a good sport. He pokes at you with his measuring tape and prods you with questions he has no business asking. 

“Stop pestering him,” I say finally, having heard enough, “just take the measurements.”

“I don’t need you to speak up for me.” Your voice takes me by surprise. You are staring straight ahead, your head held high. But it is the first time you have spoken to me since that night at your apartment.

“Well, well. If it isn’t a lover’s quarrel!” Uta says gleefully, clapping his hands together, “Say, kaneki, what do you make of Touka? Do you like her?”

Before, you might have blushed and looked flustered. You might have looked at me awkwardly and stuttered out that we were just friends. But today, your voice is hard and cold.

“No.” 

Today, your voice is like steel. 

You leave us the day Uta brings you your mask.

That is the last I hear of you for a year.

Did you know Himani’s parents are dead? Murdered within days of each other by the CCG. They are tracking her too. They almost found her, one day, when she wandered off on her own. 

It was a good thing we got their in time. 

She’s a strong girl, our Hina. She takes comfort in books, just like you. She reads to me sometimes, but I can tell that she misses you, especially now.

We all miss you.

I hear about you long before I see you again. Stories spread, you see, when you leave a trail of carnage in your wake. 

I didn’t know, at first, that it was you they whispered about.

Eyepatch. 

The one-eyed ghoul. 

Centipede.

You’ve made quite a name for yourself, haven’t you? They fear you, the ghouls who come through Anteiku. They warn us about you. I hear mothers tell their children, do you want the centipede to gobble you up? You’ve become a cautionary tale for children.

I don’t believe it. Of course I don’t. I know you, and the person I know is completely at odds with the persona they associate you with. They say you like to play with your prey first, that you’re crazy. They say your appetite is insatiable, that the binge eater is nothing compared to you. Except the binge eater didn’t attack ghouls. You, on the other hand, only attack ghouls. 

They must be exaggerating a lot. 

The you I knew, even after you became a ghoul, was gentle. The you I knew didn’t take pleasure at someone else’s pain. The you I knew taught a ghoul child to read, discussed science with Nishio, asked Yoshimura for advice. 

The you I knew couldn’t stand the sight of blood. 

I don’t believe it, until you find me.

Fighting pits are not my thing. I suppose I’m not blood thirsty enough to make a sport of men unequally pitched against each other. This time, though, it is different (or so I tell myself). This time, it is personal. 

The man they drag out is one of the investigators who’d been responsible for Fueguchi-san’s death. If only I’d gotten to him first. But I hadn’t, so I’m left watching some Self-proclaimed Aogiri pit-fighter take my vengeance for me. 

At first, I’m surprised that they allow him his quinque; a sick mockery of our own kagune, harvested and modified to bend to the will of humans. 

The crowd goes wild when the fighting starts. The investigator is young, and he is quick. He wields his quinque like it is an extension of himself. Without it though, the fight would have been over within minutes. I realize why he’d been allowed his weapon then; this wasn’t so much about killing an investigator as it was about entertainment. They would give him his quinque, they would even let him get in a few hits, and in the end, they would make his death as drawn out and agonizing as possible.

This isn’t a fair fight; just a mockery of one. 

I find myself remembering that night a few weeks back, when I’d had my own little match against an investigator. It was only after he’d died that I found it, his wedding ring. It was such a small thing, but it made me stop. It made me think. Somewhere, there was a wife waiting for him to come home. Perhaps even a child. And I’d stolen that from them, just like he’d stolen that from Hinami.

I wonder if this investigator has anyone waiting for him. A mother. A girlfriend, perhaps, or a wife. 

Suddenly, I feel sick. 

I can’t watch this fight anymore; I have to get away. I push my way through the crowd, heading towards where I think the exits are. Why had I come here in the first place? Had I thought it would be fun?

The arena is in a huge abandoned warehouse. The signs over the exits are long out of commission, and in the thong of people, I have a hard time finding any that aren’t barred off already. When I find an empty corridor off the side that leads to the restrooms, I take it. 

The chaos starts in the short period of time it takes me to wash my face, dry it, and head back inside. Perhaps it started before that, perhaps no one had heard it over the roar of the crowd. It takes a mangled arm nearly hitting me in the face for me to realize that the screams from the crowd are that of fear.

Ironically enough, fighting arenas are badly designed for attacks on them. Few doors, a large, darkened space and a frightened, confused crowd, and you have a perfect formula. With so many people around, it is hard to pinpoint the enemy at first. Even if you do, how do you attack a single enemy when you are getting trampled by those around you? The element of fear and surprise are strong weapons to have on your side. 

Everything is a blur of bodies and noise. I try to get enough purchase to leap up on one of the beams, but there is no space to unfurl my kagune without seriously injuring the people around me. It is all i can do not to get trampled. Finally, I get close enough to a raised platform and use that to leap up, grabbing onto the piping on the ceiling and pulling myself up on them.  From here, I can see the crowd better. From here, I can see the terror that is ravaging them.

I recognize your rinkaku first, before I see your mask. You tear through the crowd like an animal on the hunt, tearing through them, splattering blood everywhere as you go. I’m much closer to you than I had initially thought, and if you look up, I know you will see me.

I hope that you don’t. 

I hope that you do.

Below me, you tear your mask away from your face and cast it aside. You scream, loud and inhuman.

It makes the hair stand at the back of my neck.

Then, as I watch, you begin to transform. Your Rinkaku retreats back on itself, elongating to form a spiked, metallic looking spine along your body. It creeps down your face, obscuring it and ending in a long, horn-like mask. It extends past your legs, ending in what I can only describe as an insect-like tail. Legs, I realize, the sharp projections are legs.

This is why they call you Centipede.

“What is one thousand minus seven minus seven minus seven MINUS SEVEN AAAAAGH!” You scream, holding someone up by their arm. “THAT IS WRONG. WRONG WRONG. WRONG.” You bite off their arm as they scream. Then you turn to the next person. “What is one thousand minus seven minus seven minus seven minus seven minuuuuuus SEVEN?”

This is not you, I think stupidly, as I watch you toss people this way and that like they are toys. This is not you.

“944.. 937..930…923…” you sing,  “I’ll cut your fingers off first, then I’ll cut off your toes. Decide. Decide. DECIDE.” You sound crazy.

You are crazy.

This is what I’ve made you into. This is the monster I created. 

I have to stop you. 

Oh, Kaneki. Would you believe me if I told you I am so, so sorry?

I leap from the ceiling before I’m aware of what I’m doing, letting a shower of sharp crystals rain down on you as I do so. You whirl around as I land, hissing as some of them find their marks. Enough to anger you, but not enough to do any real damage. 

I manage to duck the tail that zooms in towards me, crouching down and rolling on my belly before stumbling to my feet and aiming another round of crystals at your back. This time, you manage to evade them all, and you come racing at me head on. I leap up, but you’re faster, way faster than I expected, because you catch my by my leg and throw me to the ground. In less than a blink, you are hovering over me, your hands curled around my throat, nails digging into my skin. This close, I can see that it isn’t a trick of light; your hair really is white.

“I’m going to break her little neck,” your voice is almost gentle, “Choose. You have to choose.” Your hand tightens around my neck. I can feel blood oozing out between your fingers. But what scares me far more than the thought of you killing me is the state you are in. 

“Kaneki,” my voice is thick with unshed tears, “Kaneki please, stop this. This is not you.” 

You falter. “Kaneki?” you say, peering at me from behind your hideous kakuja mask. “Who’s Kaneki?”

“You. You are Kaneki,” I say, my voice desperate, “Don’t you remember me? I’m Touka. We were friends. Don’t you remember who you are?”

It seems to work, somehow. Your grip loosens from my neck, and you retreat a few steps. I sit up, rubbing the blood off my neck with sweaty fingers. Around us, the hall is considerably emptier than before, and I can now see that most of the floor is taken up by the dead, the ghouls you’ve killed in just one night.

They weren’t lying, were they, when they warned me of you?

When your kakuja shell retreats, I’m half expecting to see someone else, but it is you who stands, staring me in the face. You and your shocking white hair, splattered with blood that isn’t yours.

“Touka.” there is recognition in your voice.

“Yes,” I say, getting to my feet, “Kaneki, what happened to you?” 

Someone walks up behind you just then, as if they’ve been waiting for this moment., taps you on the shoulder. I recognize Tsukiyama by his mask. “We have to go, Kaneki,” he says, then turns to address me. “Thanks for snapping him out of it, mon chéri. We’d have had a hard time getting him out of here with that crazy on. What? Don’t look so shocked, Kirishima. Did you think Kaneki here could do all this alone? ” 

No, I want to say, I didn’t think Kaneki could do any of it. 

“C’mon Kaneki, the rest are waiting for you outside.“

“I’ll be there,” you say, without so much as looking at him. When Tsukiyama leaves, it is just you and me. You’re looking at me with an odd expression on your face. 

“Touka,” you say finally, “If I ever see you again, it won’t be like this. If I see you again, I’ll kill you. Remember that.” You crack your knuckles, as if to prove your point.  Then, you walk away, leaving me alone in the sea of dead that you’ve created.

What have I done, Kaneki? What have I done?

Chapter Text

How many years has it been since the stories stopped? How many years since people stopped whispering your name in fear?

In my dreams, you ask me, what is one thousand minus seven? In my dreams, you hold me down by my throat. In my dreams, you laugh as you tear me to pieces. Why would you do this to me, Touka? Why?

Koma told me you were there that night, the night Anteiku burnt. Koma told me you fought for us, that you helped them escape. That you met the reaper in V12. That was the last anyone heard of you, for a long time.

Nishio tells me you are alive, that you are well. You call yourself Sasaki now. You’ve joined the CCG.

I see you the summer after I turn twenty-two. It must be by coincidence that you chose our shop. Maybe you were on your way home and you fancied a cup of coffee. Maybe you thought out little corner store looked charming. 

“Hello,” you say, smiling. It is a wonder that I don’t drop the mug I’m holding. Even then, it takes me a moment to gather myself enough to answer.

“Wel- Welcome to :re,” my voice doesn’t sound like my own. Dimly, I wonder whether this is some sort of sick joke. Whether it isn’t just coincidence, whether this is just some ploy to lower my defenses before you strike. But there is no malice in your voice when you ask for an Americano, no recognition in your gaze when you hand over a few bills to pay, and then walk to sit at a table in the mostly empty cafe’.

My hands are shaking as I make my way to your table. I pray that I don’t spill your coffee. 

“Thank you,” you say when I set the mug on your table. The smile you give me is bright, unguarded; the sort of smile you might have given me before, back when you had reason to trust me. 

I ought to be making my way behind the bar. I ought not be staring, but my feet seem to have frozen where I stand. My eyes won’t move away from you. You have grown; ofcourse you have. One cannot expect years to pass and yet to stay the same. Your hair is still the same length, but where it was only white before, I can now see black roots. Your face has lost the roundness of your youth, giving you a more defined jaw line, making you look more mature.

If you think it odd that the barista is standing next to your table watching you, you give no indication. Instead, you take a sip of coffee and look at me, your grey eyes meeting mine. There are tears in them.

“This coffee,” you say in wonder, “It is really good.”

After that, I see you more often. Sometimes, you come alone. Sometimes, you bring your coworkers. 

A few times, you bring a beautiful young woman.

I gather that you have some form of amnesia, that you don’t remember much of your past at all. The CCG had to have done something to you, when they took you in and gave you a whole new identity. I wonder if they were able to reverse the ghoulification. You still take your coffee black, no sugar. You never eat anything else. But you do seem happy.

For that, I am happy.

Do you think I don’t see the way you look at me? The way your eyes light up when you see me? I’ve seen that once, long before. You used to look at Rize like that, remember? You used to fawn over her. Even asked her out on a date. You’d likely have been ghoul food if I hadn’t warned her off.

Still, I’m surprised when you say, a blush tinging your cheeks, “Would you like to have dinner with me?” 

Yes, I want to say. Yes, definitely! Absolutely! But how can I, when your feelings for me a re based upon a lie? When I know that if you remembered our shared past, you would be looking at me much, much differently. You most definitely would not be blushing. Nor would you be asking me out.

“No,” I force myself to say, “I can’t.”

I’ve already taken so much from you. I can’t take this too.

You don’t come to the cafe’ after that. I suppose I should have been prepared for that, but I miss you. We never interacted much anyway, I tell myself. You didn’t even know who I was. 

Nevertheless, it was nice to see you. It was nice to have you drink my coffee, to have you smile at me. To see you so grown up.

It was all I had wished for, once, back when I thought you were on the edge of death; for you to have a future.

I mean to warn them, Hinami and my brother. I mean for them to get away before your back-up arrives, before the Doves turn the Auction into a mass graveyard.

I am too late. I cannot find Hinami. Nor can I find Ayato. 

Instead, I find you, within an inch of your life, weeping tears of blood from empty eye-sockets while an Aogiri recruit stands over you, taunting.

“Are you trash?” I hear, “Or Treasure?” then, “I’m going to eat you for dessert then.”  I leap down, knocking into the hooded ghoul, sending him flying, and before he knows what hit him, I have you in my arms. 

“You’re Kirishima’s sister, aren’t you?” the ghoul peers at me curiously, “Yes. Same hair, same eyes. Go now, be a good girl.” He says, advancing towards us, “Let me eat him.”

I’m ready for him when he advances towards us.

I don’t know how you healed so fast. 

How is it that you’re standing in front of me with two good eyes, your Rinkaku extending towards our common enemy, when just half an hour ago, you had just sockets filled with blood? How is it that I’m the one curled up on the ground, my shoulder dislocated, my clothes slick with blood from the gaping wound on my side?

Five years ago, I’d seen you fight. Back then, you’d fought without direction, like a mad man who wanted to destroy. Right now though, right now it looks like you know what you are doing. You hit and parry, duck when you have to, your eyes never leaving your opponent, your movements fast enough to appear as a blur.

When it is over, when the ghoul flees, you turn towards me, your Kagune retreating back into your body. I would run, but I don’t think I will make it very far even if I try. It is just not you and me here, now. There are doves flocking in, carrying their injured, dragging in the bodies of  ghouls they have managed to slaughter. With dawning horror, I realize why. 

Quinques, I think numbly, the bodies are going to be harvested to make quinques.

I’ve only every heard of the Reaper. Whispers. They say you only see him when you are about to die.

Perhaps it is dilirium that makes it seem so, but the Reaper comes into my vision like an apparition through fog and smoke. Everything about him is just so white in contrast to the blood and grime of the space we are in. 

This is where I die, I think.

I hope Hinami and Ayato made it out. I can’t bear to think them facing the same fate as me. 

I wait, almost patient, too dizzy from blood-loss to think clearly enough to panic. At least, it occurs to me as the Reaper aims his Quinque at me, the Reaper is beautiful. 

A shadow steps between us. 

“Haise,“ I hear someone say. That is what you call yourself now, but you already know that, don’t you?

“Arima,” I recognize your voice, “I cornered this girl. Can I have the ownership rights over her?”

The last thing I see before darkness overtakes me is your silhouette, standing in front of me like a shield.

But that can’t be right, can it?

I wake up in a cell, dressed in a gown that does not belong to me.The room is plain; small, with a bed on one end and a toilet bowl in the corner. The shackles on my wrist are chained to the wall. There is a glass window on one side, but it is kept covered with a dark screen from the outside.

They keep me drugged down with RC supplements. I see no one, except for the masked guard who comes with my food every week, a thick concoction of grimy looking sludge that leaves my throat feeling raw.

It is terribly boring in here, an so awfully lonely. But what is worse is waking up every day, not knowing when you are coming for me, for surely you are.  There are two reasons I can see that ghouls might be kept alive; for intel and to harvest their Kagune. 

It is only a matter of time, isn’t it?

Your hair is jet black when you finally come to see me. When you draw up the black screen of my window, I cannot help but stare. 

“Touka,” you say in greeting, and I know that you remember. I know that you’re not Sasaki Haise anymore. 

An old fear curls in my stomach.

“Your time is almost up,“ you say, “I will come for you in a few days.”

“Kaneki,” my voice comes out in a whisper. If you hear me, you give no indication. “When you kill me, please don’t harvest my kagune. Please don’t make me into a weapon against my family.” I force myself to look at you as I say this. 

Please, I beg silently, please.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

You come to me in my dreams, stepping into my cell in the cover of darkness, finger pressed against your lips. You unshackle my wrists and beckon me to come with you.

“Touka, we have to go,“ your voice is urgent, “Touka. Now.”

In a distance, I hear the alarms blaring. Then , you are dragging me out of the door, our feet making tap tap taps as we run down the hallway. I see guards slumped in their positions, I hear screams. I see blood splattered on the walls. I can feel shattered glass digging into my bare feet as we run.

This is not a dream, comes the realization, this is really happening.

You lead me through a maze of tunnels, up ladders and dwon crawl spaces that are barely wide enough to crawl through. Finally, we come out an opening that is tall enough for us to stand in. From the smell of it, I deduce that we are standing in the sewers. 

We walk for what seem like hours before I can’t stand it any longer.

“Why?” I find myself asking.

“Why what?” you don’t even pause.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” you shrug, finally coming to a stop and turning to face me. Although, in the darkness, your expression is lost on me.

“Do you remember, Kaneki?” I ask.

“This isn’t the time for this, Touka,” you sound irritated, “we have to keep moving before the back-up arrives.”

I stay quiet for the rest of it, following you though the winding paths of the underground until at last, you lead me up several rungs of metal and we finally breathe in the clean, night air.

“Do you hate me?” I say as you help me up the final steps.

“No.”

Later, I learn that you have been planning this for months. That the only reason why no one came after us was because there was no one to come after us. You’ve betrayed the entire CCG to save me.

Your face is everywhere, from TV to internet to billboards on the road. We have to keep you hidden. I stay hidden too, even though they haven’t broadcast my picture. I’m sure the CCG is smart enough to have put two and two together. 

For two people hiding in the same building, we don’t see each other at all. It doesn’t take me much to figure out you are avoiding me. It takes me all of two weeks to finally muster up the courage to seek you out. Not a long time, I suppose, all things considered.

I corner you one night, when you come down to the bar long after everyone is asleep and the shop is closed for the night. I half expect you to go straight back upstairs, but maybe I’m only imagining that you’ve been avoiding me, because all you do is take a seat at the counter.

“Hey,” you say, a small smile playing upon your lips.

I place a cup of coffee infront of you and you take a sip.

“Kaneki,” I say, “Thank you. For saving me.”

“You’re welcome,” you say.

For a while, we sit in silence, sipping our coffee. I’m the one to break it.

“Do you.. do you remember? What happened before?” i ask tentatively, “Everything?”

“Yes,” you say. This time, when I look into your face, it isn’t shroud in darkness. This time, I can see that your eyes are not full of hate. Perhaps that is why I say what I say next.

“I’m sorry, Kaneki,” I say, despite my earlier vow to never ask your forgiveness, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. It was selfish of me. I.. I didn’t think, I just wanted to save you.” I can feel tears gathering in my eyes. “I’m so, so sorry, Kaneki.”

“I know,” you say, “I know.” I feel your hand on top of mine, the material of your glove rough against my skin. “I’m sorry too. For a long time, I was angry with you. But more than that, I was scared. I had no control over myself in my kakuja form. I wanted to keep you away.  I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d let you die, Touka-chan, so I understand why you did what you did.”

It is the Touka-chan that finally makes me cry.

You tell me everything is going to be okay. You tell me you could never hate me, even when you were so angry with me. That you love me too much for that to happen.

You tell me you forgive me.

You take my hand in yours, and you promise to never leave me.

And you don’t.

I marry you in a white dress the spring I turn twenty-four. Things have escalated since we escaped from the CCG. Now, we live deep underground, in the ruins of the 24th ward. They call you King now, our leader, our hope against the ongoing war. There is so much to be done, battles to be won, enemies to be defeated, but right now, you hold my hand and I hold yours as the crowd cheers in celebration.