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Kaneki sees his cousin before the man sees him. Kaneki is sitting at a small table with a fresh brew and a new book, and he can't bring himself to stir interest or even surprise. He'd sometimes thought what would happen if he ran into either Yuuichi or his mother. Those thoughts usually ended with a quickened heart rate and sweaty palms, and the unnerving pressure that someone was watching him. In those thoughts Yuuichi was a compact figure in repose, the bright glare of the TV lengthening his shadow so it stretched across the room and made him into something alien.
Now, as he stands in the middle of a café in broad daylight, an expression of bemusement on his face, Yuuichi is the definition of ordinary. His flat black hair rests on his head without any particular style, and his face is smooth but unremarkable. Though in his mid-twenties, he's already started to put on weight, as Kaneki assumes his former, office working classmates also have.
After another page of his book, Kankei feels and smells someone before him. He lowers the book with deliberate slowness and takes a sip of his coffee before he meets his cousin's eyes.
"Yuuichi." He can't put any inflection in his tone.
"Kaneki?"
Kaneki frowns at his cousin's use of 'onii-san.' Are they ten? Is this a manga? He takes in his cousin more fully. He smells like paper and aftershave. He keeps his hands together, squeezes one, then other. Kaneki inhales more deeply. Ah. He sets his book down.
"What do you want?"
Yuuichi startles. He lowers his hands, then his gaze.
"Can I sit?"
No. It's the first word that comes to mind, and it's not his word. It's Yuuichi's, ten years ago, after Kaneki asked if he could join his cousin and play a video game with him.
Stupid. Childish. Both then, and now.
"Sure."
Yuuichi sits, gingerly, as though he's never sat in small, high backed chairs that dotted café floors. Kaneki wouldn't have been surprised.
"I didn't recognize you at first." Yuuichi tries a light tone that turns to lead in seconds. "You look."
Weird.
"Different."
Different. He probably thinks Kaneki's hair and nails are a fashionable affectation.
Hey. Yuuichi. What's 1000 – 7?
Kaneki bites his tongue to stop the quirk of his lips.
"Different isn't bad." Kaneki takes another drink. "You look different too." Fat. Soft. Stupid.
Enough, enough, Kaneki. You're above this.
Oh please. Get your head out of your ass. The only ass you should be up is Hide's.
Kaneki snorts. Yuuichi frowns.
"So what do you want?" Kaneki's tone wasn't unkind. He'd call it linear. To the point.
Yuuichi sighed and bit his lip. He didn't make eye contact with Kaneki, and this. It should have reminded Kaneki of some story because of course someone had thought of an alternate reality where personality and circumstance were reversed.
"My mom is sick. It's something rare, and the health plan covers a lot of stuff but since it's not something a lot of people have…"
"You're asking me for money." It's almost a question, but Kaneki restrains himself in time and keeps his tone and expression neutral.
Is he trapped in another of Sen's novels again? Which character is he meant to be now? He barely survived being gifted the Egg of the Goat, so what will he have to endure now?
Yuuichi clears his throat, and his face is flushed.
What are you implying?
You have time to spend with that Hideyoshi boy but you can't even spare an hour a day to tutor your cousin?
Well isn't it wonderful that you got into your school of choice. I suppose neglecting the only family you have has some benefits
No
No
No
"Well…"
"You're asking me for money." That tone leaves no room for argument. Kaneki's lips thin. He stares at the half finished, cold coffee within easy reach of his hand. If he gripped the cup now he'd shatter it, and he can't ever break any part of Anteiku again.
"Look, I…"
Kaneki stands so abruptly his chair almost overturns.
"I don't have any money." He pulls the largest note he had from his wallet, folds it, and slaps it on the table.
He looks Yuuichi full in his bland, shocked face.
"Have a nice day."
The feeling of pride that grew in Kaneki after he left the café shrivels to ash by the time he returns home. What did he achieve? Did he say 'look, I'm a big man now, I overpay for coffee? Hahaha.'
Idiot.
Stupid, useless idiot.
Yuuichi was 14, 15 when Kaneki first moved in? What could he have done, what could he have known?
Anything. Everything. He wasn't that dense. He could have said something. He could have said anything, but he said nothing. Just like you.
Stupid.
Piece of shit.
Is this what he is now? Still? He was the One Eyed King but he's still a shitty teenager inside.
So what did the shit-head do before he came home? He went to a bar and drank until he could think about himself and his words and not cringe. His insides were still ash.
"Hey." He waves at Hide and falls onto the couch. There are art masks on the wall across from the coffee table, because Kaneki does not want a TV. It's fine if he can stare at alabaster, porcelain and gossamer until the masks look like faces.
"Hey. How was your day?" Hide calls from the kitchen.
"It was." Kaneki waves his hand again even though he knows Hide can't see the gesture. A few seconds later he sees Hide. He looks good, as always. Better since his last surgery, and Kaneki can look at the left side of his face and not start to burn.
Kaneki's eyes widen. In that moment, aided by whiskey and the cinder growing within him, he has a revelation.
"Hide?"
The name is left hanging. Hide sits next to him. He smells slightly of sweat and fresh laundry. He must have gone running right after work and then showered quickly. They'd done the laundry just the day before.
"What's up?" His smile stretches both sides of his face now. The left side of his face twitches as though in pain. No it is pain.
Kaneki's skin is cinder.
"It's too late for me, right?"
Hide frowns. "What do you mean?"
"Hmmm." Kaneki hums. He touches his chin. It's an odd gesture. Out of the blue.
"I mean. I'm not good. I'm not right. And. It's too late to be good and right. Right? But, that's all right, isn't it?"
Hide looks at him. It's not a stare, and even in this state, Kaneki can tell the next words are chosen carefully.
"I think you're twenty six, and you've gone through hell. And if you want, you can be angry, and you can want things to change. And…"
Kaneki stops listening. He remembers one day in spring. It was probably the day he realized he was in love, not with Hide, not yet, but the idea of him, because he was so good, and so solid, and Kaneki was just a stuttering mass of apologies and excuses, and he fell apart and changed at the slightest perturbation. Hide walked him home, but it wasn't really a home, as he realizes now, when his aunt had stared at Hide as though he were there to rob the house, and casually mentioned to Kaneki that since he'd decided to stop by the arcade instead of coming straight home they'd had dinner without him, and there wasn't really enough left. Kaneki had felt Hide stiffen beside him, even as he'd lowered his eyes and mumbled 'sorry.' Hide's face smile hadn't faltered. His hands shook, with what Kaneki thought was fear but now he knew to be rage, and he said 'Oh, no, it was my fault. I told Kaneki we should stop he said that he really needed to get home, but I insisted. He said something about helping his cousin with schoolwork, but I didn't listen.' And then. Kaneki's heart pounded and he smiled, small and secret, but there it was. His heart gone. The thought of Hide leaving brought nothing but terror.
Hide, I'm shit.
"I'm really tired," he says instead, his voice distant. He can't look at Hide's face, can't even look at his pain and he's nothing but a coward.
Hide nods He leans into Kaneki and slowly kisses him. He tastes. Ah. Kaneki can't think. He just returns the kiss until he's breathless.
Hide. You are….
"OK. Let's get you to bed."
Kaneki drifts. He lets Hide guide him down a stream of whiskey. When his body hits the bed, it slackens, and he's dead to the world.
When he wakes, it's somehow day. Kaneki lifts his head and his eyes water as the light from the window hits his face.
He lays back and gropes to his left and right. Hide is gone.
Kaneki's pulse speeds, his breath quickens, and he sits up. He searches around for a clock, and as he re-orients himself, he remembers the layout of their apartment, and immediately looks to the nightstand.
11:05. Ah. Hide is at work.
And Kaneki is.
He exhales before the words can form.
What drove him to the bar yesterday? He knows there's still a deeply rooted, occult urge to drink within him, and that was something he needs to patiently unearth and burn.
Ah. Ah. Yuuichi.
Kaneki closes his eyes. His cousin's dying mother. His aunt. The woman who once made him go without food for two days because he'd been late for dinner.
Eat her.
That was himself, poised and factual, one eye black the other crimson, as he loomed over his aunt's deathbed. No cords of saliva, no trembling lips. Bad meat. Bad blood. But what do you expect from such a shitty human? Eat her, and she'll at least be useful. What was a hospital break in to the One Eyed King?
Kaneki exhales and considers his position. Eat her? No, he'd never do that. But. What would his cousin and aunt do without him, without his money? Would Yuuichi turn to the Yakuza? Drugs? Would he sell his home, if he had one, deprive his possible child of material comfort? Would the hospital simply euthanize his aunt like a lame animal?
Yuuichi's mother would be dead. Let him deal with that. Kaneki had. He'd dealt with that and so much more, and he still stood, however much of a ruin he was. Everyone dies. Everyone rots. And Kaneki's aunt was rotten to start.
If it were Hide.
NO NO NO NO NO
Hide is so much more. Don't compare him to trash. You would burn Tokyo to the ground to see Hide happy and whole. Even if you'd ripped his smile apart with your teeth. Gnaw, rip, chew, gnash, swallow. Ah and it was so, so sweet.
Kaneki bolts out of bed, and nearly trips over his shoes. He showers and brushes his teeth, and makes a brew with the fullest blend he owns. He sits at the kitchen island and drinks his coffee, and his body hums with latent energy. He should run, he should train, he should fuck.
He finds himself back in the bedroom, and he grabs Hide's sleep shirt and inhales. One thing he hasn't admitted aloud is how completely decadent he finds Hide's accumulated scent. That decadence becomes therapeutic now, and Kaneki's pulse slows. Kaneki sinks against the mattress again and reminds himself that Hide stayed with him because he has control, because he works to be good. He stays with Kaneki in spite of his nature as a ghoul, and what separates an awful human from an awful ghoul from a good person?
Control
Strength
He has those traits. He has to. What was he without them?
Monster
Piece of shit
Worthless
Kaneki dials his cousin. He's probably at work, but if his cousin wants money, too bad.
"Kaneki?"
There Yuuichi went with again with 'onii-san.' Well. It was understandable.
"I want you to meet me at Anteiku at 5 today. We'll talk about your mother."
Silence. Is his cousin a fraud? Does he just want money for himself?
Eat him.
Enough.
"OK. I. OK. I'll be there."
Kaneki kills the call and his body slackens. He drinks his coffee in slow sips, and savors the bitter feel all through his mouth.
He was.
He is good.
Yuuichi wears a suit. It's cheap. Kaneki knows that much after spending so much time with Tsukiyama. Ill fitting, coarse fabric. Probably imported from China and made in a sweat shop.
EAT HIM
Kaneki sighs as he sits. He orders a coffee and looks out the window, since he knows Yuuichi won't make eye contact anyway.
"All right. Tell me what's going on."
"Well, I tried telling you yesterday, but…"
"Look, I don't care about any of that. I just want to know the important details." It was fine. He would do this deed, and things would be fine.
Yuuichi somehow looks offended. "Then why did you call me here? If you don't wanna do this, just say so."
"I don't want to do this. I wanted to forget about all of high school, but you came crashing back, so here we are."
Silence.
Why was his cousin so useless? Was there anyone in their family who could just move forward without dragging down everything around them?
I made my choice.
Hide's voice, a clarion call.
You didn't force me I wanted to do it I wanted to give you my strength, my flesh, and I'd do it again.
I don't want to do this.
Hide. I'm terrible.
"Did you know I was in an accident?"
The question slaps Yuuichi out of his stupor. He stares at Kaneki with wide eyes and open mouth like a cow before the abattoir.
No. Cows are smart enough to realize a situation.
"Yes, then." Kaneki's coffee arrives. He blows on it while Yuuichi flounders.
"Kaneki…"
"Cut the crappy honorifics. I'm already here. You don't have to suck up. You knew about my accident, but you didn't care, right?"
"I…" The words die before they're formed. Yuuichi tries to look away, but Kaneki's eyes bore into his.
You're good, Ken.
"Say it."
His cousin starts.
"What?"
"That you didn't care." And his voice doesn't break, doesn't even threaten to crack, and this. This is. Not control, but assuredness, confidence. Even if he is awful, he still has this.
Yuuichi's face morphs into something ugly, like it did when Kaneki made feeble, pathetic attempts to teach his cousin and was met with only indifference and scorn.
"I didn't come here to be humiliated."
"Humiliated?" The world stalls and is pulled toward the word, orbits it briefly, and is repulsed at dizzying speed.
EAT HIM EAT HIM TEAR SHRED CHEW SWALLOW
Instead Kaneki leans forward, and his pleasure peaks when Yuuichi backs away.
"You don't know shit about humiliation. Don't use that word. Ever. Now say it. Say you didn't care that I was almost crushed to death by steel beams. Say you knew and you didn't care enough to even call."
The lion is finally in the room, and Yuuichi is paralyzed. Kaneki can see it, the way his pupils constrict, and he can smell it, the way acrid sweat overpowers thick cologne and musty fabric. The look coupled with the aroma is almost enough, but he won't relent until he hears those words.
This is what I am, this is what I do, this is what brings me pleasure, but it's fine because this man who spits on his family doesn't even deserve my restraint.
"I." Yuuichi swallows. He makes it all look like a false confession.
"You can't even tell the truth, can you?" Kaneki leans back. If he presses harder his cousin may well have a fit in the café, and that wouldn't serve anyone well.
Yuuichi's face is flushed again, this time with what he takes for humiliation. He presses his hands together and tries to compensate for his slouch.
"Mom was right. She told me to go to you first, but I said no, because I knew…"
Kaneki doesn't listen to the rest. Him first? His aunt. She really thought Kaneki would consider her family?
Kaneki hides his bared teeth behind his cup.
Oh shrrreeeed them all Make it as painful as you can
"She really wanted to come to me first?" He barely keeps the warble out rage from his voice. He smiles, and Oh it's soooo sweet to see his cousin shrink back again.
Hide. Hide. Hide. I'm awful
"Yeah. Yeah. She did. I mean. I guess she figured you were pretty upstanding."
Yes. Yes Upstanding. Ha. Glorious.
Kaneki relaxes. He breathes deeply. In. Out. Good Good. Yuuichi relaxes. Good.
Yuuichi gives him the details of his mother's illness. Irrelevant. The money they need. Fine. And the hospital she's in. Yes, yes. Kaneki wants to visit. Wants to pay his sick aunt a kindness. Pay her back in turn.
Kaneki doesn't wear a mask. He enters the hospital wearing a white, button down shirt and a new pair of navy jeans, his shoes freshly polished. He offers the receptionist a smile, a sad story, and a few minutes later he stands outside his aunt's room.
He's calm, and that calm is best related to how he feels in the moments before he confronts an unquenchably violent ghoul in his ward, long past the point of negotiation. And, ah. There it is. Bloody pleasure.
Kaneki opens the door and is greeted by an expected name.
"Yuuichi?"
The door clicks shut in reply.
Kaneki's aunt is propped up in a standard hospital bed, wearing a standard hospital gown. A single IV line leads from a bag to the junction of her forearm and elbow, and a heart monitor is clipped to her forefinger. Her eyes appear half open, narrow slits reflecting the white light from the window opposite the bed.
Kaneki walks to stand next to her bed. He tests the scent of the air. Death. Bad meat, in the purest sense. Why would a predator, why would a king allow into his presence a living corpse? Would any treatment work at this point, or was the doctor just a hopeful idiot or a deliberate coward?
"Oh. You're here. Finally." His aunt's voice holds the same impatience as it always has.
Ah. Finally. As though it were inevitable.
Kaneki takes the buzzer to the nurse station from his aunt's nightstand and holds it lightly in his fist.
"You're dying," he says by way of greeting.
His aunt's eyes open fully and her surprise gives way to something harder.
"That's what you say to me after disappearing?" Her eyes move up and down. "And what, are you part of some band now? Is that why you dropped out of school after you'd wasted so much of your mother's money? We could have used that money now."
We, we. Who's we? You and your lard-source of a son?
EAT. HER. Rip her literal limb from liberal limb Vomit it all back up and she'll be a red mess on the floor and you can let the trash man do his job.
"Yeah, I joined a band. It's great. We drink animal blood on stage and sing about destroying the government."
It's something Hide would say, and Kaneki smiles, then thinks of what Hide might think if he saw and heard Kaneki now.
No, he shouldn't bring Hide into any of this. Just like. Before, when all this started.
Kaneki looks beyond his aunt, doesn't notice the way her face seems to slacken at his words, and he doesn't bother to try and trace her thoughts.
"Oh is that it? I see now, you came here for an apology? While I'm in this state?" She scoffs, and it's that sound that draws Kaneki forward.
"No," Kaneki says quietly. "I'm not here for an apology. I know I'll never get one."
"Please. Enough dramatics. I can't deal with it now." She sighs. "I took you in after your mother died. Fed you, clothed you, gave you a roof." She shrugs, waves her hand. "And it wasn't enough?"
Ten years ago. Ten years and that question made him shrink and nearly cry. He couldn't sleep because he played the words in mind over and over. Because he'd said 'yes, yes of course it's enough.'
"No. No it wasn't enough. It was never enough. You were a terrible guardian, and you're still a terrible person."
Kaneki shudders as he speaks the words. Like he's just ripped a bloody pound of flesh from a warm, live body.
His aunt's face pales with anger, and Kaneki wants to goad her, but her words might be even sweeter.
"Still ungrateful. Still so full of yourself, just because you were always buried in a book and could pass an exam. Never a thought for your family though."
"My family?" Kaneki has to clear his throat. And again. His rage has crystalized in his throat unexpectantly, and it might choke him.
He breaths. Hacks. Wills his kagune to remain within him.
His aunt is paler now, her eyes wider.
Ah Ah that smell that fear It can make even rotten meat sweet.
Kaneki almost bares his teeth in a grin but no, no, that would make the lamb faint.
"You. You. You are not my family. In name, in blood, but nothing else." What are blood and names?
Kaneki moves closer. "You are nothing to me. All you have is yourself, and your pathetic, coward of a son, and you made him that way."
"Enough." His aunt's voice shakes, with fear and anger and.
"Shut. Up." Kaneki whispers the words, but their effect is immediate and his aunt is a small frail body, pale and trembling.
"Everything good in me exists in spite of my blood family. My mother, you, Yuuichi. All of you are so. Ugly." Kaneki's breath is ragged and heavy.
"And I was a coward. Maybe I still am, but back then I should have said something, I should have stood up and told you what you were. But. I couldn't."
Tears are hot and fresh on his face, but this is different, it's clean, it's pure.
Ah ah this is it this is rebirth, this is baptism.
So stupid, so dramatic but Kaneki can't bring himself to care.
"And after all that you sent your stupid son crawling over to me, and asked for money that you think you're owed. Trash."
Kaneki's aunt moves her left hand erratically, patting the blankets and grasping at air. He wordlessly holds up the buzzer, then forms a fist around it.
The air is thick with fear. His aunt is speaking, but Kaneki doesn't hear her. He doesn't have to. Doesn't have to speak to her, acknowledge her, and if he decides that he wants to, he can keep her in terrified suspense, and it won't cost him a thing.
Oh. Oh. This is what it's like. Ten years later and things are reversed, and he's in another story. The control is…heady, a rush, something he can get high off, better than whiskey, but the plunge from that height might shatter him.
His hands shake, his hands sweat, as takes the paper from his pocket. Clarity stills his trembling. He did it. He broke away, he didn't give in.
Kaneki holds the check in front of his aunt.
"This is the money you want. Need. Whatever. This is the money that's coming from me, the nephew who cowered in front of you, who wasted his time trying to teach his dense, lazy, useless cousin how to string a sentence together. But it didn't matter, because he can't even help you now."
Kaneki leans in. He can make out the wrinkles on her skin, how her hair is thinning, from age or treatment. Both. He can smell it, and it's repulsive.
"I'll show you something else, and I hope it snaps whatever link there is between us."
Red and black flood his eye.
His aunt makes a high noise like a trapped animal. She pushes against the bed with her body as though it will yield and allow escape. Her hands flail, and Kaneki is then reminded of a dying animal.
"Monster," she gasps.
And ooooh. She's a hair from pissing herself Wouldn't that be a sweet smell?
Monster. Is that all?
Kaneki steps back. He folds the check and carefully sets it on his aunt's night stand.
"I'm going to cancel that if it isn't cashed in three days. But." Kaneki looms over her again, and his shadow threatens to swallow her.
"Never forget this fear. Never forget I gave this to you. You'll never forget what I am. Monster? There are different kinds. Remember that."
Kaneki snaps the cord connecting the buzzer to its power supply and places the useless button on the nightstand. He takes his aunt in one last time, her pale, sweaty face, her dilated pupils, and he realizes, this is how he'll remember her.
Hide grins when he sees Kaneki enter the apartment.
"What'd you get all dressed up for today?"
"I don't know," Kaneki sighs. He sits on the couch, in front of the masks. He figures at this point the collection is worth more than the money he gave away today.
"Here ya go." Hide sets a cup and saucer on the table. It smells great, but with Hide, things could be deceiving.
Kaneki takes a sip. Not as strong as he'd like, but the flavor was smooth without a hint of burnt grounds.
"Thanks." Kaneki lowers his head as he smiles. It hasn't seemed right to do anything else, almost like rubbing salt in Hide's still very real wounds.
"How are you?"
How's your face? How's your smile?
Hide hums and takes in the wall of masks for a moment. He takes a breath, stops, and his face relaxes in silence.
"Ah, you know. Pretty well." He regards Kaneki, and it's as close to a calculating look as he's ever received from his husband.
Oh.
Oh.
So this is what happens. You piled on the bullshit yesterday because you had to go sit in a bar with strangers instead of going home to your husband and now he wants to ease your burden and pile more on himself.
Stupid, stupid..
Then do something Do it
Ah. That's new
Be better
"Hide."
Kaneki moves across the couch and puts a hand on Hide's waist; the other stroke's Hide's face, just above the bright pink stretch of his still healing graft.
"It hurt today, didn't it?" He speaks quietly and looks behind Hide.
Silence, and then, Kaneki swears he can hear a slow exhale.
"Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't a lot of fun today."
"And yesterday?"
"Not so much either."
Kaneki leans back so he can take in Hide's face. There's no pain expressed in his features, but he's always been so, so good at treating his face like a pliable mold.
Ha ha Yeah if that's what you wanna call it.
"I'm sorry." Kaneki wants to rest his head on Hide's shoulder, but he keeps his gaze.
Hide hesitates again before he says, "I know. I don't regret it though, Ken, you know that. I'd do it again."
"It won't happen again. Ever."
Hide smiles and stops just short of saying 'never say never.'
"I want you tell me these things, Hide. I can take it. I. I'm sorry that I check out. A lot." Kaneki considers his options.
"I did something today, and I still don't know if it was the right thing. It felt good though, and still does."
Ah but it could have been so much better You could still have the blood in the back of your throat.
"Tell me about it," Hide says, and pulls Kaneki closer. Kaneki rests his head in the crook of Hide's shoulder. He smells singular. Hide continues.
"Tell what you did, what you wanted to do. I wanna know."
"I think the cruelty was what I enjoyed most. I pushed as far as I thought I could, and it was wonderful, having that control."
"Kaneki." Hide gently pushed him back so they faced each other. "You can tell me. Whatever you need. Whatever you did."
Whatever happened.
Hide, I can't eat human food
Hide, I need flesh and blood
Hide. I'm a monster.
And if he'd believed in Hide then, what would be different now? Would things be better?
A look at the side off Hide's face answered that question.
"I should have told you everything back then. You were my only friend, and I. I was a coward. I want. I want to be as far away from that scared, cowardly person that I can, and today, I got the farthest I have in a long time."
"Do you want to tell me about it?" Hide asks softly.
"Yes," Kaneki breaths.
I want you to know I'm not awful.
Hide knows. He's known. I just haven't.
"I almost devoured my aunt at the hospital today."
"Hmm. You couldn't find anything fresher?" Hide makes the question innocuous, and Kaneki loves him for that.
"Ha, yeah, well. I was desperate, you know."
I've been desperate my whole life.
"Go on," Hide said. "I'll listen. Like always."
"Yeah, like always," Kaneki whispered.
Hide is here, he's healing, and together, they're fine.