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It went unsaid between the four of them that neither Kaneki nor Akira are allowed to be handcuffed, nor are they allowed to be so in a chair.
For Kaneki, it was obvious; he had spent months in a chair, unable to move, while Yamori had taken his toes and fingers one by one, each time they grew back. He's been forced to count backwards from a thousand, typically in subtraction of seven, and he had screamed and cried, and had been shaken in sheer terror as the ghoul continued to make do with him. It had hurt each time, and he's always been awake for most of it, and the now white-haired ghoul had wanted it to stop. The days spent down in Yamori's lair were endless, and Hide had more than once woke up to the sound of Kaneki screaming as his Kagune withered about, curling up in a defensive position, until Hide had to calm him down, wary and careful of the things spouting from Kaneki's back.
With Akira, it was bit different, but all the same.
When he'd been caught, it was obvious that the police had purposely beaten him up, and tortured him. Granted, not to the same lengths' as Kaneki's torture, but the markings were still there. He had arrived back in Sojiro's place with a bruised cheek, rumbled up uniform, and, in the private room with Ryuji, bruised ribs as if he'd been punched and kicked. The dyed blond had been furious when he saw that, and the aftermath was the same as Kaneki's torture; the blond would find himself waking up to the sound of Akira moving in the bed and a whimper escaping from him, and every time he'd woke up, there were tears in the boy's eyes and it broke Ryuji's heart.
And it became painfully obvious that there were two things Akira and Kaneki had both develop a fear of; handcuffs and chairs.
Handcuffs were understandable. They restrict movement, and it must've remind them both of their moments of capture; scared, unable to move, unable to fight back as they were beaten and abused, Kaneki again and again, Akira within his time behind bars. Every time they caught the sight of it, neither of them were able to hold their reactions; Akira flinching, and Kaneki cracking his fingers, a habit he'd developed thanks to Yamori. As soon as it was made clear that they had a fear of them, Hide and Ryuji decided to try to keep them out of sight as much as possible, ruling out being tied down in case they wanted to spice up their bedroom acts, and even if they'd suggested, they usually offered being tied down instead. Still, they would rather not do it in the first place if they knew how much trouble their lovers had with it.
The chair was a little bit harder.
When they were tied down, it was obvious they had been sitting in a chair. Of course, the fear of them didn't happen right away - after all, there were places that only had chairs that they needed to sit in, and they couldn't very well stand up the whole time. Still, it never left Hide's nor Ryuji's eye that both of their lovers were hesitate when it came to the four-legged furniture. They look at it as if it would jump out and attack them, before looking around the room to see if there's anyone else there, before they decided to sit down. Once they did, their posture was stiff and tensed, Kaneki wary and alert, Akira overthinking and is constantly looking over his shoulder.
Seeing their lovers this way broke their hearts. It also made them want to punch something ("No Hide, you can't! He's already dead!" "Thanks Ryu, but I don't want you to get into trouble because of me.").
With Hide, it was such a heartbreaking scene to see how his best friend/lover's transformation changed him. He was no longer the shy bookworm he'd once knew (although he still kept the 'shy' part, but only around him), the stuttering mess that was always rambling about a new book from his favorite author, and blushing whenever Hide mentions him liking someone. There was no longer a spark of innocence that once dwelled in Kaneki's eyes, no longer looking at him with annoyed affection (except for the few times Hide has done something really stupid), no longer Kaneki. Everything now was met with indifference, the little affection shown was in the privates of his own room or with the other ghouls, and Kaneki thought he could take on the world by himself. It made Hide want to scream, to reach out and say I'm right here, you don't have to be alone. Sometimes he forgets, and sometimes, Hide has to remind him and also remind himself that Kaneki needed him to be who he is - even when he didn't want to. Even when Hide wanted to hate the world for taking his loveable boyfriend away.
With Ryuji, he gets angry when he sees Akira being fake. After all that, he could tell that the abused he'd suffered changed him, yet he's trying to hide it. His smiles becomes fake, the light in his eyes dim a bit more, and he's constantly, almost always, trying to hide his wounds. He can't get a straight answer out of him, whenever he sees Akira flinches from a spot that's tender, a spot he knew a police officer had hit him at, and he can't keep pushing, probing Akira. The leader of the Phantom Thieves would constantly close himself off whenever they ask, and sometimes, he can see when Akira is getting irritated with him, and maybe that's what hurt the most; it feels like Akira doesn't trust him enough to share his pain, doesn't love him enough, and Ryuji would find himself biting back the tears because goddamn it, it was like the situation with his father all over again; any time he'd hit his mom, and whenever Ryuji ask about it, she would lie and say she was fine, but Ryuji knows she isn't, and now he's dealing with the same shit with his boyfriend, a person that Ryuji loves almost as much as his mom, and it just makes him so, so angry. It's even worse because before then, Akira had been confident and a little cocky, a trait that both pissed him off and aroused him. He had wanted to be just like the black haired boy when they'd first met, when Akira had been so brave and witty, and how everyone in their group just gravitated to him, because Akira was that type of guy. And, like Kaneki, after the abuse he's suffered, Ryuji knows he's scared, but he thinks he can handle it - by himself. And it hurts to be shun out like this.
"Look, man, I know what happened to ya is shitty, and ya don't want to talk about it," Ryuji had said, staring in the eye of his boyfriend. He was angry, but he was also hurt, and he needed to let Akira know this. "But...I just want you to know that I love you, Aki. Always will, always have. And that I'm here if ya need me. Please don't turn me away." He wasn't even aware that he was crying until he felt something cold running down his face.
"And, it's the same with me, Neki," Hide said, looking at his boyfriend. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But, I love you and I'm here for you. Please..." Hide tried not to cry. "Please don't push me away either."
The other halves could only stare at the blonds in their life, unable to say anything. It had taken a while before Akira reached over and began wiping away his tears, and Kaneki had pulled his lover into a hug, squeezing him tightly.
"I'm sorry." He said.
"Please don't cry," Akira mumbled, feeling guilty that he made his boyfriend cry. It wasn't often that Ryuji gets so upset that he ends up crying, and that makes this ten times worse - worse than his time in his cell. "Please, Ryu, don't cry."
"Then don't shove me away! Talk to me! Talk to us!" The blond shoved him away and glared at his leader, brown eyes full of tears. Kaneki and Akira shared a look before sighing, giving into the demand.
It hadn't been pretty. Most nights Ryuji and Hide were awaken from their sleep because of their partners need to get close, and/or their defensive attitude, and every time, they would hold them, stroking their hair, until they felt safe enough to fall back to sleep. Hide never missed the protective hold Kaneki had on him, and Ryuji had never missed the way Akira hid his face, and it was because of those actions, along with what they know about their subtle acts when it came to handcuffs and chairs, that they made an revelation.
They were going to be there for their boyfriends, protect them at all cost, and more importantly, make sure that the next time they see a chair or a pair of handcuffs, they'll be able to take their mind off of it, off of their torture.
No handcuffs, no being tied down to a chair.
It was a golden rule that they respected among themselves.