Chapter Text
Hide usually tried to match his route home up with the patrol routes of Ghoul Investigators just as an added measure of security, especially if he was tired. But this evening, after he was done with after-class activities on campus, he paused, feeling the weight of eyes pressing against his back. Normally, this wouldn’t bother him, but there was a different element in the stare. He turned his head, silently cursing how loud his music was and vowing to go easier on the volume, assuming he lived through the night.
A large, fluffy golden-brown dog’s eyes met his own and Hide allowed himself a half-chuckle before crouching in front of the animal. “Hey, buddy,” he murmured, keeping his voice calm and even. He slowly removed his backpack from his back, hoping to avoid spooking the dog. “You’re a big guy, aren’t you?” Hide could swear the dog looked vaguely offended. “Let’s see if I still have any jerky left.” Hide made a habit of keeping some form of snack on him, especially if he knew he was going to meet up with Kaneki. The other boy frequently wore himself out because he forgot to take care of himself properly.
After rummaging around in his backpack, Hide finally found the jerky bag. “Yikes,” he murmured. “I’m sorry that’s all there is, boy.” He pulled the remaining three pieces of jerky out of the bag and saw the dog’s ears perk up. “You can have it, bud,” Hide said, slowly extending the hand holding the jerky toward the dog.
The animal was gentle, careful not to bite the boy as it took the jerky, eagerly lapping up the fragmented pieces left on Hide’s fingers. The boy chuckled. “That tickles!” The dog sat back on its haunches companionably. “May I pet you?” Hide asked, letting the dog sniff his other hand.
The animal took a moment to analyze Hide’s scent and it struck the boy that the dog must’ve been so hungry it hadn’t thought to do so when he offered the jerky in the first place. He smiled, the expression just a subtle little tug at the corners of his mouth, though his eyes were glassy. “It might not be food, buddy, but I can at least give you a good ear rub.” The dog lowered its head, and its ears relaxed, laying almost parallel to its neck as Hide let his hand slide up the side of the dog’s neck. When it leaned into his touch, Hide grinned again; this time his eyes shone brightly. “Yeah? Is that good, boy?” He fluffed the fur around the dog’s ears, letting his face get closer to the dog’s. “How’s a cutie like you not got a home? I’d take you home, but my landlord’s got rules against dogs.” Hide looked at the ground in front of the dog before looking back at the dog’s face. “If you want, I can bring you a whole bag of jerky tomorrow.” The dog’s tail slapped the pavement enthusiastically. “It’s a deal then! Meet back here at about the same time?”
The dog panted in excitement.
“See you then, boy.” Hide’s cheeks hurt from smiling. Something nagged at him as he stood. Through the fluffy fur along the dog’s nape he could see a thick, black leather collar. He knelt again, extending his hand gently. When the dog didn’t shy away, he turned the collar so he could look for identification tags. Instead, he was met with a piece of metal affixed along the leather with a curvy, sweeping, stylized X and no other markings. He frowned, fluffing the dog’s neck fur as he drew his hand back, trying to piece the puzzle together and coming up short. “Whoever owned you didn’t see fit to take care of you, did they?” Why have such a nice dog only to leave it to wander the streets? Hide sighed as he stood, pushing off from his knees with his hands, a habit his fathers told him would be trouble for his joints when he was their age in mock-ancient voices. He inwardly chuckled at the memory as he looked again at the dog, which chose that moment to lay down at his feet, head propped on its paws. “Stay safe, buddy,” Hide said, turning and walking away.
He knew he’d sounded naïve and childish when entreating the dog to meet him in the same spot the next day, so Hide wasn’t terribly surprised to come to the same alley and discover that the dog was nowhere to be found. In lieu of the fluffy creature, there was a boy around his age in a yellow hoodie with the sleeves cut off to reveal the long black sleeves of another shirt he wore beneath it and faded jeans. “Uh… Have you seen a big fluffy golden dog around here?” Hide asked, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his head awkwardly. He’d swear the other boy flinched as if caught off-guard.
The boy in the hoodie looked toward Hide’s face before lowering his gaze slightly. He took a few steps toward Hide and Hide felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Suppressing the urge to run that had saved him from more than one ghoul, he looked into the other boy’s eyes and saw how wide and glassy they looked. The boy cleared his throat nervously. “Take a closer look at me. Focus really hard.”
Instead, Hide lowered his eyes to the boy’s neck. The loose loop of leather bearing a stylized X seemed to stare back at him. Hide followed the other boy’s instructions, wondering if they’d confirm what he suspected now. He smiled when the dog’s face came into focus where the boy’s face had been. “He’s you. You’re him. The dog.”
The boy chuckled. “Wolf, actually. I’m Hige. What’s your name?”
“Hide.”
“Nice. Our friends better watch out. We’re practically the same person.” Hide couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
“I brought the jerky as promised, if you’re still interested.” Hide paused. “I guess this explains why you seemed to understand me so well. But what’s a wolf like you doing around here sporting a collar?”
“Yeah. It got a little hairy recently, so it’s safer to appear like this. No pun intended. Would’ve felt really scuzzy to skip out after you promised a second meet-up. And…” The boy’s demeanor folded in on itself. “As far as the collar.. I don’t know.”
Something about the way the boy said it made Hide think of Kaneki, of the nervous way he’d scratch his face when he fibbed. “You mean someone drugged you and popped it on.”
“Yeah. That’s my best guess.” Hige smiled, the expression looking particularly silly, lightening the mood and Hide couldn’t help but wonder if that was the effect his own smile had on people. While looking at Hige wasn’t quite like looking in a mirror, it was damn close. He was so caught up in trying to piece together the details around Hige’s situation that he almost missed the other boy’s question entirely. Instead, he managed to pick up “…jerky?” and an awkward smile.
“Right!” Hide said, “Sorry! It’s right in here.” He pulled his bag off his shoulders and set it on the ground in front of him. He unzipped it and spent a few minutes fumbling around amongst the books and notebooks (notes for Kaneki, if he ever decided he wanted to come back to school) inside it before grabbing the pack of jerky. He tossed it to the boy, wondering if he managed to scrounge up enough food regularly while living on the streets. Judging from the enthusiasm with which he was shoving jerky into his mouth, the answer was no. Either that or the wolf boy had managed to contract a tapeworm. “Uh,” Hide began awkwardly, unsure if Hige would except his offer if things were as hairy as he claimed, “I know somewhere we could go if you wanna get a burger or something. It’s an American-style place.” Hide realized with a sharp pang that this was probably the first offer of a legal hot meal Hige had had in a while. “It’s called Big Girl. My buddy and I used to go there to celebrate everything.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Where the hell are you, Kaneki?
Hige perked up at that. “Sounds great! I, uh, don’t really have any money or anything, though.” It was his turn to awkwardly scratch the nape of his neck.
“It’s okay. You can pay me in good conversation,” Hide said, realizing that this was the longest he’d talked to someone he felt invested in for a while—for as long as Kaneki had been silent.
“Okay,” Hige said, a touch uncertain of exactly what Hide could mean by that.
Hige took it to mean that Hide needed a friend. The only other person he’d mentioned with any fondness had been this mysterious “buddy” of his. They’d long since finished their burgers and had been talking for a while. Hige was loath to bring it up, but he wanted to hear more about Hide’s presumably only other friend. “So, this guy—I’m assuming it’s a guy—you used to come here with… What’s he like?”
Hide propped his elbows up on the table and eased his cheekbone into a resting position against his upraised knuckles. “Kind like you wouldn’t believe. Naïve, but in an endearing way. Under all that, though, he was the saddest person I’ve ever met. He tried his best to hide it from me, but… we were too close for that.” Hide paused. “I wish he’d just respond to my texts.” His voice was so quiet that the only reason Hige could pick up the words was because of his wolf sense of hearing.
“Whatever’s bothering him, it must be something serious,” Hige mused. “Maybe it’s because he’s afraid for your safety.”
“Yeah. But how hard is it to let your best friend know you’re okay?” Hide hadn’t meant to let the pain into his voice, but it was there, accompanied by a steely anger he wished he didn’t feel. “Doesn’t he know how worried I am, how worried I’d have to be?!” The ache in his chest deepened and Hide fell silent, dropping his face into his hands. “I just want him back.” Hide’s voice was soft, quivering like a frightened animal.
“I’m no expert,” Hige said, hesitating ever so slightly, “but maybe he will when he’s ready.”
Hide looked up, letting his hands and forearms rest on the table for a moment before reaching for his drink and sipping it. “I wish I could believe that. It’s been months.” Now that he’d really gotten started, he realized that he couldn’t stop talking about Kaneki, as if doing so would force his brain to purge all memory of the other boy. “What, exactly, do you know about Ghouls?” Hide asked, an odd intensity in his eyes that made Hige’s stomach clench.
“Uh, precious little. They leave me alone, generally speaking. Then again, I’m not human, so they’d want nothing to do with me logically.”
“Something happened to Kaneki,” Hide said, looking past Hige rather than at him. “The two of us were attacked by a classmate. When I came to, I wasn’t in a hospital room. Kaneki was having a conversation with someone, complaining about ‘not fitting in.’ He’s not entirely human anymore. I know he’s trying to shield me. It’s just impossible to reconcile with my frustrations.” Hide paused, considering something before snapping his fingers excitedly. “Cafés! I need to do stakeouts at cafés. If memory serves, the one thing Nishiki’s apartment and the place I woke up had in common was coffee. If Ghouls can consume it, and assuming Nishiki wasn’t just stockpiling it to pass as a human college student, this opens up a world of possibilities. Someone might mention him.” The wind seemed to leak out of him afterward. “It’s all I’ve got.” He left out the fact that the real reason he even had the idea was because of his dad’s notes—his biological father, that was.
“From what I can grasp, it sounds like a shot in the dark,” Hige said. “I wish you luck.”
“Thanks,” Hide said, meaning it. “So, what about you? How’d you wind up here?”
“I woke up on the street in this city. I don’t know much more than that.” Hige hesitated, trying to find the right way to phrase his next sentence so he’d be telling the truth and free of any eavesdroppers assuming he was either a Wolf or a Ghoul. “My kind supposedly died out. I’m a rare type, getting rarer as things change.” Hopefully that was obscure enough. He was horrible at this. Fuck it. Hige leaned closer to Hide. “We’re allegedly able to open Paradise. Some think it’s literally the end of the world. I don’t really believe in that stuff. Don’t have much use for what I can’t feel these days. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn’t. It doesn’t keep me alive to believe in it, so I don’t waste the energy on it.” Hige noticed he’d been staring at the table unseeingly and redirected his gaze to meet Hide’s eyes.
“Guess that makes sense. If it turns out to be real, I hope it’s the best thing you’ve ever experienced. You’re a nice guy, Hige.”
“Thanks, Hide. If it’s all the same, I should probably get going—I’ve probably stayed in one place too long already. You’ve likely got stuff to do, too. Stay safe.”
“You too. And thanks for the reality check. I’ve never had to be without Kaneki since we met.” It was only partly true. There was another time when Kaneki’d had his phone taken away by his aunt. Hide had nearly had a heart attack worrying about his friend. Luckily Kaneki had managed to meet him at his apartment the day afterward. Hide spent almost two months trying to get together enough money to get Kaneki a new phone, sure that his aunt would keep the one she’d confiscated. Hide didn’t bother to suppress the grin that crept onto his face when he remembered Kaneki’s face when he’d presented the new device to him. He made eye contact with Hige. “You helped me out a bunch.”
Hige returned the smile. “Consider it your repayment for the burger, then.”
Hide chuckled. He hoped they’d be able to meet up again.