Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Touka convinces him to stay. 

‘Convinces ’ might not be the right term, exactly. It’s more like she sees him starting to walk away- turning to leave her - and something in her breaks. She gives chase, catches his arm, slides her palm into his, and begs.

His eyes catch hers. They had always been grey, but they had never been cold. Nothing about him had been cold, not like this . His eyes pass over her without seeing. His nails are ragged and pitch black. His bone white hair practically glows in the low light. She feels sick.

She doesn’t know what they did to him- she can only guess. 

And, maybe it’s selfish of her to ask him to stay after the wonderful job Anteiku did of protecting him, but she doesn’t care anymore. She has so few people in this world that she cares about, she doesn’t think that she could live through another one leaving her. Especially not him, with his stupid optimism for hopeless situations and stubborn compassion for people who don’t deserve it.

And she knows- despite all the evidence to the contrary, she knows that part of him is still there, because when she takes his hand and begs him to come home, he closes his fingers around hers and says, ‘okay.’

---

Everyone welcomes him back with teary eyes and gentle hugs, which he allows, but doesn’t reciprocate. He doesn’t say a word.

It’s only when Hinami, after crying in his arms for ten minutes, asks him why his hair was white, that he speaks. 

“It’s because I haven’t been outside in a while, Hinami,” he says gently, and then smiles.

It’s broken, and sad, and it looks out of place on his lips- but it’s there.

And that’s the moment that Touka, who had been a pessimist her whole life, feels like things could maybe- just maybe - turn out okay.

---

The day after they get Kaneki back, Hide comes to Anteiku looking for him. 

Kaneki is in his room at the time. He hasn’t left since he went up there last night, and Touka can’t stop cracking open his door every hour to check that he’s still there. He is, every time, sitting motionless in a chair in the middle of the room, eyes unfocused. 

(Yoshimura catches her staring at him, because of course he does. He tells her, so gently, to give him time.)

(She doesn’t ask how much.)

Anteiku isn’t open for business that day. So, when he arrives, he finds the door locked and the windows shuttered. He knocks loudly just as Touka is slinking back to her room from her hourly check.

Thinking it’s just an overly dense customer who can’t read the sign, she marches down the stairs into the café and flings the door open, ready to tell whoever the hell it is to ‘get lost, we’re closed,’ but then she actually sees whoever the hell it is.

Hideyoshi Nagachika stands in front of her, soaking wet from the rain, and has the gall to sheepishly smile at her and ask if he can come in. 

She knows that he won’t go away until he gets answers, so she says yes, and steps behind the counter to make two coffees before she knows what she’s doing.

“Making a warm drink for your guest is the guaranteed best gesture of hospitality,” Dad tells her and Ayato from over his shoulder as he makes coffee. 

“But we don’t have guests,” she says, “we never have guests.” Ayato nods enthusiastically, Always following his big sister.

Dad chuckles. He sets three mugs down on the table and ruffles her hair. “You're right, we don’t. But, one day, when it’s safe to, you and your brother might have guests. And a good way to make new friends is to serve them a hot drink, especially when it’s cold outside.”

Hide sits silently at the counter and watches. When she’s done, he accepts his cup with a nod of thanks and takes slow sips without speaking. 

It thoroughly unnerves her. He’s very different. Very quiet. His usual blindingly bright smile is gone. There are bags underneath his eyes and his clothes are dark and inconspicuous. His hair is unwashed, and the dark roots of it are overtaking the blonde-dyed ends.

She can tell he’s just biding his time before he demands an explanation from her. It’s the only reason why he’d be here in the first place.

After a minute of loaded silence, she loses her patience and speaks first. “How the hell do you know he’s here?”

“Oh thank God,” he breathes like it had been punched out of him.

“You didn’t know!? ”

“I suspected. Hoped .” He puts a hand to his chest like his heart is physically hurting him.

“How.” She demands. “He’s still listed as missing. No one has seen him.”

He smirks, but it looks more pained than anything smug. “I saw him. I was there. On the night of the raid. On the sidelines,” he says slowly, carefully eyeing her.

Touka’s blood runs cold as ice and she freezes with it. 

He knows. He knows. He knows.

She mistook his cheery chatter as coming from stupidity, his blinding trust as coming from naiveté. She saw him as Kaneki’s oblivious, loudmouth, human add-on when really, he had been watching and knowing.

“...How long?” She asks with a calmness she didn’t know she had.

“Since the beginning.” His voice is flat, emotionless. “Since the days after his ‘accident.’”

“...Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now,” she says low, deadly. Because really, she should. 

The only reason she hasn’t yet is because...

He meets her eyes without fear when he says, “Because Kaneki is my best friend, and I love him, ghoul or not. I know you won’t believe me when I tell you I have nothing against ghouls, if they live peacefully like Anteiku does. But you will believe me when I say that I would never do anything to hurt Kaneki. So, trust in that.”

And, despite every instinct in her body telling her to kill him, she does. Because she knows, and because she’s the same.

“I’m not going to report Anteiku or anyone to the CCG. I never will. You’re all just trying to fucking live. I don’t think that’s wrong.” Touka eyes him suspiciously, and he sighs. “You’re also Kaneki’s friends, and getting you killed would hurt him. Are you getting it yet? I’m not your enemy.” 

He pauses, and a small, sad grin forms on his face. “I was actually hoping we could be friends. Kaneki cares about you a whole lot. I think he’d like it if we got along… Sooo, let’s start over.” He sticks his hand out, and Touka almost jumps at the sudden movement. 

“I’m Hideyoshi Nagachika, but my friends just call me Hide,” he says, and waits.

Touka methodically, reluctantly, calms the bloodlust in her veins. She breathes deeply, and thinks. Weighs her options. Looks at his outstretched hand, then back into his eyes. He waits. 

Slowly, carefully, she raises her hand and lightly grabs his. 

She swallows past her dry mouth and says, “My name is Touka Kirishima, and I… I underestimated you.” 

It’s so hard for her to admit, it almost gets stuck in her throat. She knows that Hide recognizes it as the olive branch and apology that it’s meant to be because he quickly adds, “It’s okay, most people do.” His smile is wide and genuine.

He shakes her hand once, then lets go. They awkwardly stare at each other for a long time, refusing to mention the elephant in the room. He breaks the silence. 

“He won’t see me, will he.” It’s not stated as a question. 

“No. Not… Not for a while, I think,” she answers honestly.

He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. He looks defeated. 

And maybe it’s because he looks too similar to her own reflection, or because she needs one of them to say it out loud, but she finds herself adding, “He’ll get better. He just needs… Time.”

(He doesn’t ask how much.)

He nods, stands, picks up his bag, and slings it over his shoulder. Touka walks with him towards the door.

“I’ll be back to check in from time to time. Maybe to see if I can pass along some info about CCG movements- because, I uh… I work there,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

She whirls around, ready to yell, attack him, something, but his arms come up in an ‘I surrender’ position and he quickly burts, “AS A MAIL CARRIER, AS A MAIL CARRIER!”

“You didn’t think to mention this sooner!? ” She growls.

“You would have killed me on the spot if I did! Besides, this is a good thing for you- you have an informant now!” He smiles nervously, and it pisses her off. 

But, unfortunately, he’s right on both accounts. Her lips press together in anxiety and glares at him, but she nods tersely. He sighs and lowers his arms.

He stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets and sheepishly grins at her. “Ah… Thanks. For not killing me.” 

She scoffs and crosses her arms, refusing to play nice with him after he caught her off guard like that. “I might change my mind if you don’t get out of here,” she says, and tries to mean it.

“Right,” he replies and steps toward the exit.

Then, as he cracks the door open to leave, he pauses. Over his shoulder, he says, softly, “Thank you for the coffee, Touka. It was really good.”

She blinks in surprise, then looks away in embarrassment. 

“Yeah, Yeah. Get outta here already,” she mumbles.

He smiles and steps out into the rain.

A good way to make new friends is to serve them a hot drink.

Making friends has never been Touka’s strong suit, but she’s willing to try, if it’s for Kaneki.

Chapter Text

Touka can’t read Kaneki anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in there.

He doesn’t speak much anymore, but he still helps Hinami with her vocabulary by writing down the definitions for her in precise, perfect characters. His eyes look clear. His handwriting is the same as before.

He doesn’t take any hours at the café, of course, but he still takes his coffee at 6 a.m. every morning before opening, and sits in silence while sipping it, keeping Yoshimura company as he prepares the day’s food.

He even starts eating with the rest of them, when they get a new body in, and although he doesn’t ever join the conversation, she can tell he’s listening by the way his face will twitch after a joke told, or a story embellished, like he is trying to remember how to smile properly.

His other new habits are more concerning. 

He cracks his fingers almost constantly, and every time he does, he mutters to himself. He spends the long hours of the day in his room, staring deeply into nothing. He avoids most forms of physical contact. Some days, the bad days, he laughs and cries and screams at nothing at all, and the fits can last hours before he comes back to himself. 

The nights are the worst. The first few nights he tries to sleep, he wakes up screaming, unaware of his surroundings, his kagune wildly shredding anything that gets too close. 

It’s Yomo who offers a solution to this problem, after restraining him for the third night in a row. 

On the bad nights, Kaneki could spar with him until he’s gotten it out of his system. 

At first, Kaneki refuses. Touka knows it’s because he’s scared of himself- of his new strength. Everyone in Anteiku can see he doesn’t currently have the self control to hold back. They hear it in his screams during some of his fits- screams of rage so overwhelming it can’t be contained in his body. If he fights, it would be to the death.

Yomo insists he can hold his own. 

After a week of little to no sleep, Kaneki relents. 

Touka and Yoshimura observe, ready to restrain Kaneki if need be, but their presence proves to be unnecessary, in the end. 

Kaneki fights like a man possessed, bloodthirsty and savage, blood dripping from his ignored injuries, eyes unfocussed and murderous, singular in his intention to kill. All Yomo has to do is stay on the defensive long enough for his opponent to tire himself out, and finally, blessedly, collapse from one blow too many.

It becomes an almost nightly routine for them, and Kaneki is finally able to find some amount of restful sleep because of it.

Touka hates it. She feels sick to her stomach every second she sees him like that. She stops volunteering to observe.

But, she continues to shadow him in her free time, and continues to find quiet reminders that the beast she sees when he fights isn’t who he is, deep down. 

Small moments when he softly answers a question from Hinami, when he wordlessly helps her set up chairs in the café in the morning, when he comes down from one of his fits and apologizes to anyone that will listen.

It’s enough to get her feeling hopeful.

---

During the day, while Kaneki is inactive and confined to his room, Hide drops by like he promised. 

At this point, the cafe is up and running normally, so they serve him like any other customer. While she’s taking his order, though, he slips in things like, there aren’t many birds out today, isn’t that weird? And the birds seem to be focused on recovering from that bad storm the other night, not very active these days. 

(The birds, of course, refer to the Doves.) 

He quickly and thoroughly charms Roma with his easygoing, positive personality. He and Koma never stop making bad puns in order to one-up each other. Irimi reserves a fond smile for his visits. He teases Yomo by coming up with a different nickname for him every day. He and Yoshimura have long, pleasant conversations after lunch rush.

Even Hinami, who can only be down in the café after hours, starts a blossoming friendship with him during the times he helps them clean up for the day. They spend an ungodly amount of time perfecting an overly complicated secret handshake.

Nishiki, however, gets agitated when he starts spending too much time at Anteiku. Touka knows it’s because he suspects that Hide knows more than he’s letting on. He’s too much of a paranoid bastard to accept that ‘maybe Hide just likes our coffee, idiot.’ 

The fact that he’s right doesn’t help.

Hide picks up on it, because he picks up on literally everything, apparently. He asks her one day how everyone would respond to him knowing what they are. Touka answers that they would probably kill him. Especially Nishiki.

The dipshit replies that he wants to tell them anyway.

Touka starts trying to explain to him what a stupid idea that is, but then he starts spouting off idealistic shit like, ‘I could help more if everyone knows that I know,’ and ‘I’ve already thrown in my lot with you guys,’ and ‘I don’t want my best friend to feel like he has to hide part of himself from me.’

She wants to hate him for how unflinchingly, stupidly loyal he is, but, unfortunately for her, he’s also way too compassionate in the face of her brashness for her to ever hate him. There are not many people who have seen her full, unfiltered personality and chose to stick around afterwards. She has to keep them where she can find them.

And, she admits, despite being a hopeless optimist, he can also read people like she never could. 

So, when he says there’s a chance it could work out, she lets herself be convinced, and Hide takes the leap two weeks later.

Chapter Text

It’s after hours, but Hide is still at Anteiku, helping clean up. It was a busy day, so there’s a lot of cleaning to go around.

He and Hinami are assigned to wiping down the tables, but Hide makes the task more interesting by starting up a game to see who can get the most pieces of wet napkin to stick to the back of Yomo’s shirt before he notices. 

He jokingly boos when Hinami scores her fourth point in a row. She giggles, and they both quickly scramble to start wiping the table when Yomo pauses sweeping to stare at them. 

(Hide knows he’s pretending not to notice, because on Hinami’s turns, he stays more still than usual, and the corner of his mouth twitches upward when she quietly cheers.)

Touka and Yoshimura are packing away the food, Koma and Irimi are doing dishes, and Roma is wiping down the chairs. Nishiki is on his phone, leaning against the counter he’s supposed to be clearing, and shooting Hide nasty looks when he thinks he’s not looking.

Hinami’s badly stifled laughter is echoing through the room, and Roma is singing to herself quietly. Dishes are clanging, the sink is running. 

Hide never thought it could be so peaceful, to be friends with a community of ghouls. 

He prays that things can still be the same after he tells them that he’s known what they were all along.

Tonight.

Right now.

“So Kaneki says to me, ‘I didn’t want to worry you. I’m sorry,’ as if he could hide a bad case of the flu for more than two seconds. I swear , he’s never thought of himself in his whole life, that’s just the kind of guy he is.”

“Oh my. He was always that selfless, then?”

“As long as I’ve known him,” Hide laughs and pauses to take an enthusiastic bite of his sandwich. Across from him, Yoshimura hums and sips his coffee.

He and Yoshimura are sharing lunch, as usual; a ritual started by Yoshimura asking to join him out of the blue one day. 

(Hide can guess as to why--- a human sticking his nose into things he doesn’t understand in his desperation to find his ‘missing’ friend (who is currently just upstairs from them) is a recipe for disaster. Yoshimura is likely assessing how much of a threat Hide can be through the guise of these lunches, and Hide doesn’t blame him.

It doesn’t hurt that the old guy is actually a really good conversationalist, with surprisingly dry wit to boot. He has a feeling that not much escapes his notice, either. 

Hide finds himself liking him immediately.)

Anteiku is mildly busy at the moment, with the afternoon rush just starting to peter out. Chatter fills the tables around them, and the sunlight streaming in from the windows is making him feel more safe than usual.

Maybe that’s why, when Yoshimura reaches down to pick up his own sandwich, Hide decides to put all his cards on the table, and says quietly, “You don’t need to eat that in front of me, Sir.”

Hide watches him very closely for any negative response. He’s reasonably sure that Yoshimura already suspects Hide knows more than he’s letting on, but he’s read people wrong before, so he mentally prepares himself for any outcome.

All Yoshimura does is pause and raise an eyebrow before continuing to lift his sandwich and take a bite, looking him straight in the eye.

Hide doesn’t know what it tastes like to him, except for the fact that it’s likely worse than anything that Hide will ever taste in his life, and the old man’s face doesn’t even twitch. 

He’s fairly certain he’s being intimidated, and he can admit- without shame- that it’s pretty effective.

Yoshimura puts the sandwich back down on his plate and hums thoughtfully. He says nothing for a long time, and Hide shoves down the fear that is rising in his stomach and acts perfectly normal.

Patience. Hide is really fucking good at patience. 

After a minute, Yoshimura seems to be done thinking. He asks, “Does Touka know where you work?”

Of course the guy knows he works at the CCG. Hide has no idea how he got that information, but he somehow isn’t surprised.

“Yeah.”

“And she still trusts you. Hmm. How exactly did you manage to pull that one off?” His voice has laughter in it. 

Hide isn’t sure if it’s a rhetorical question, so he answers.

“I told her the truth, Sir.”

“And that is?”

“...That I know the world isn’t black and white. I know plenty of humans in the CCG that are bad, and I know plenty of ghouls that are good. I know that the people at Anteiku are just trying to live, and to help others live. You helped Kaneki, Sir. You saved his life- are actively saving his life, right now, by letting him stay. I’m just trying to repay some of it back by keeping an eye out- for all of you- If you’ll let me,” Hide replies, honestly.

Yoshimura nods his head and smiles sadly.

“That’s very noble of you, Hide… But I’m afraid you don’t quite know what you’re getting into.”

“...Maybe not entirely, but-”

“It’s unimaginably dangerous, for a human to enter the ghoul world, and that’s not even taking into account your continued association with the CCG. I’m afraid you would-”

“I won’t stop,” Hide interrupts, and edges steel into his voice. “Whether or not I have your cooperation, I won’t stop. I’ll stay away from your people, if you tell me to, but I won’t stop finding a way to help Kaneki. Helping Anteiku as a whole is just the easiest way to do that.

As for the consequences--- I’ve already been in danger, for doing absolutely nothing. Nishiki almost killed me, with one kick, just to be alone with Kaneki- just because I was in the way.” He pauses to laugh, bitterly. “I’m not under any illusions about my survival rate, Sir. I just figured my odds would be better if I had more allies, and you could benefit from some extra information. A win-win, all around.”

Hide finishes his piece and leans back in his chair. Yoshimura waits until he’s completely finished and levels him an unimpressed look. 

“That self-deprecating pragmatism is quite unnecessary, young man. Additionally, It’s rude to interrupt when another is speaking.”

Hide feels his anger spike at the dismissal, hot and heavy, but he keeps his mouth shut and his face neutral.

“Before you interrupted me as you did, I was about to warn you against the possible dangers involved in your continued pursuit of this path, yes, but I was not about to refuse your offer outright,” He says. 

Hide’s eyes widen and his anger is gone in a second, replaced quickly by hope swooping into his stomach. He leans forward in his chair.

Yoshimura continues, “I have kept this place safe for a long time.” His gaze roams around the café, fondly taking in the atmosphere. “One of the ways I have done so is trusting in my instincts. Recently, my instincts are telling me that a major change is coming. I do not know if it will be for the better or worse, but it’s coming all the same… And I feel almost certain that Kaneki is the catalyst. He’ll need all the support he can get, and that support needs to be unified.”

Hide swallows. “Does this mean… You’ll let me help you by spying on the CCG?”

“Yes, but you sell yourself short, my boy,” He answers. “I’m saying that you’re one of us now.” 

Hide doesn’t quite follow. “What?”

Yoshimura lifts his coffee and smiles. “Welcome to Anteiku.”

So Hide knows, at the very least, he has Yoshimura’s acceptance. 

It’s the others he’s worried about.

His thoughts are interrupted by Yoshimura meeting his eyes from across the café. One of the old man’s eyebrows raise, inquiring. 

“If you wish to tell the others, I can guarantee your physical safety, but not their acceptance. They might distance themselves from you, or maybe even lash out, in fear. Are you willing to accept the possibility that you may lose their trust?”

Hide breathes deeply, then nods back, once. 

“Despite how much lying I do daily, Sir, I never liked it much. I’d rather not lie to my friends any longer, even if that means losing them.”

At his nod, Yoshimura politely clears his throat, and the café falls silent as all eyes turn to him.

“Everyone, I believe Hide has something to say,” He announces, and all eyes turn to Hide now. 

His first instinct is to look towards Touka. Distantly, he realizes she looks terrified, like a rabbit caught in headlights.

An odd sort of calm overtakes him, then. His face falls into a bright smile, his old familiar mask, and he sees the lines in her brow waver and smooth out, for just a second. 

He keeps his eyes only on her when he takes a deep breath and says, “I know everyone in this room except me is a ghoul. I’ve known for… A long time now, and-”

He gets no further before something rushes towards him, a flash of shining blue emanating from somewhere and overtaking his vision- 

But then Hide is being yanked back, abruptly, and he ends up with a table at his back, elbow resting on it to catch himself, and Touka standing next to him. She’s still clutching his forearm where she grabbed it to pull him by. Her eyes… Her eyes are black, with blood red veins spider webbing like cracks out from her equally blood red pupils. 

He’s never seen a ghoul’s eyes in person before, and for whatever reason, his first thought is ‘ beautiful.’

Her face is pulled into a snarl, but it’s not directed at him. He’s never seen that before either.

When he turns his head towards the source of the commotion, the first thing he sees is Hinami’s back. She’s standing directly in front of them, arms spread out wide and blocking them from Nishiki’s reach. She’s shouting at him to leave Hide alone. 

Nishiki himself is being held back by Yomo, who is restraining both his arms behind his back with little effort as Nishiki kicks and curses, his shining blue kagune flailing wildly. His eyes are like Touka’s, and Hide is surprised he can still read the fear in them.

Lots of people are yelling at once. Koma is trying to gently pry Roma off of his side where she is clutching desperately and wailing in fear. Irimi is watching Hide, eyes narrow and body tense, but unmoving.

“Enough.” Yoshimura’s voice cuts through the chaos like a knife, and everyone freezes.

He continues, “Nishiki, when Yomo releases you, you will not harm Hide. You will let him speak and listen to what he has to say.”

“But he’s-”

“You will not harm him . Need I remind you why you’re standing here in the first place, Nishiki?” His voice is low and uncompromising.

Hide sees the moment Nishiki visibly pales. His eyes flicker to the back door leading to the upper level, where he knows Kaneki is at this very moment. Hide bites back a bitter smile.

“Okay, okay, fine . Let the walking liability have the fucking floor. Whatever,” He relents, sneering directly at Hide. Yomo releases him, but he doesn’t stop trying to commit murder with his eyes.

Then, it’s silent, and everyone is once again looking at Hide. Touka tightens her grip on his arm, minutely, and his fear is pushed back by resolve.

“I want to help you guys. Anteiku, I mean. I work… I work as a mail carrier at the CCG-” He ignores Nishiki’s growl, “-and I have access to some information. General movements of the Doves, case files on Aogiri, stuff like that. I can be your information source, maybe even help keep the CCG off Anteiku’s back,” He says, and pauses to assess reactions.

It’s Irimi who speaks next, surprising everyone. “How do we know we can trust you?” Her tone seems neutral, as opposed to accusing, so Hide counts that as a win.

He’s deliberating his word choice when Hinami answers for him.

“We can trust him because he’s- he’s… Hide . He’s Kaneki’s friend, and he’s our friend, too… Right?” She punctuates her question by facing Hide and slowly reaching out, offering her hand to him, palm up.

Hide looks into her big, hopeful eyes, and she smiles, small and tentative. His throat closes up without his permission. He slowly raises the arm not being held by Touka and takes her hand in his. It’s so much smaller than his, the breath leaves his lungs.

“Oh come on ,” Nishiki sneers.

From beside him, Touka announces, “I trust him.”

Nishiki points an accusatory finger at her. “You knew . You knew all this time but you didn’t say a damn thing because of course you’d trust your boyfr-”

“Finish that sentence, Nishiki. Go ahead and see what happens,” Touka interrupts, and Hide feels the temperature of the room drop by a few degrees at least.

There’s silence as they stare each other down.

“Good enough for me,” Koma interjects, either oblivious to the tension in the room or just uncaring. “In my youth-” Irimi lets out an exasperated sigh, “-I may have been the wild Devil Ape, not trusting anyone or anything, but I’ve learned since then to make allies where I can. I say we give Hide a shot ,” He says, and gives Hide exaggerated finger guns. Irimi sighs louder.

“Yeah, we all know Hide,” Roma squeaks from where she’s peeking from behind the counter, “He’s practically been part of the crew for a while already!”

Both Roma and Koma look to Irimi next, and she sighs a third time and rubs at her temples.

“I always figured you were too smart for your own good, kid,” Irimi says, “But now I know I was wrong. No human with any amount of smarts would want to involve themselves in this.” She drops her hand and looks into Hide’s eyes. “I guess I’m stupid, too, for trusting you to know what you’re doing.”

Hide smiles at her, and it’s nervous, but genuine. She smiles back.

“Oh, come the fuck on ,” Nishiki yells, but Hide can tell some of his anger is rapidly being replaced by desperation as he loses ground. “Is everybody deciding to jump off this fucking cliff? ”

“Yes,” Yomo replies, deadpan. 

“It seems we are all in agreement, then,” Yoshimura announces.

“Hello!? I’m fucking not ,” Nishiki screeches. “You are all going to die horribly!”

“I think you mean we are all going to die horribly, Nishi-bear,” Irimi cooes. Nishiki yells and tears at his hair, spewing insults at random. Everyone just observes his ranting with varying levels of amusement.

Hide would laugh his ass off if he wasn’t so emotionally exhausted. As he is, he’s able to huff out a chuckle. 

It comes out more watery than he intended.

Hinami laughs along and swings their linked hands ever so slightly. Touka slides her hand down the length of his arm and finds his other hand, and when Hide looks up at her in surprise, she’s looking at the door to the second floor. There’s a far away look in her eyes. 

Ah. Right. There’s a much harder conversation ahead of him, hopefully sometime soon.

Hide waits for the all-too familiar ache of Kaneki’s absence to envelop him, like it always does if he stops to think about it. And it does--- but it’s different , this time. There’s sadness there, like always, but it’s also so much less hopeless than it used to feel. 

He has allies and a plan and two people he cares about holding each of his hands and actual hope for the future.

He’s good at being patient. He can wait a little longer, if he has to.

Chapter Text

On the days she doesn’t have work or school, Touka gathers her study materials and pads silently into Kaneki’s room. 

In the first week that he’s back, she doesn’t dare try to speak to him, or acknowledge him in any way. She just sits at his table and studies as he mumbles to himself and stares through her (if he looks towards her at all). 

Even then, she likes to think that having company helps him stay rooted to the present. There are times, increasing in frequency the longer she’s there, when it seems like he’s seeing her. Really seeing her.

One day, two weeks since he’s back, she’s struggling her way through an English essay question. Kaneki is in the chair across from her, half-lidded eyes following her pen.

“It’s effect,” He whispers, and she starts so violently she almost falls out of her chair.

She composes herself and clears her throat before answering eloquently, “Wh- huh?”

“The word you want to use there is effect , not affect . Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun,” he tells her, with all the seriousness of a eulogy.

She’s dumbstruck. She doesn’t know what she did to bring him out of his own mind, and she doesn’t know what she needs to do to keep him there. 

She wishes, desperately, and not for the first time, that she was better with people, like Hide. Hide would know what to say to him, in this situation, to make him feel comfortable enough to come a little further out of his shell. She’s seen the effect he has on people. She’s felt the effect he has on people.

But she’s just Touka, and she can’t solve a problem she can’t punch.

She stutters out, “Ah- thanks,” and erases the last line of her writing. He doesn’t respond.

They sit in silence.

Touka, desperate not to lose his attention, blurts out, “How do you spell ‘opposition?’”

He tells her, and his voice is gentle.

In all of her study sessions following, she makes sure to ask him dumb questions that she usually already knows the answer to, and he usually responds with the answer.

---

It’s different now.

It’s almost a month after his rescue, and he’s speaking more and more as the days go by. Their study sessions are more like full conversations than a Q&A. He explains concepts to almost enthusiastically , providing examples and even praising her for getting things right. 

It doesn’t hurt that He’s a damn good teacher. Her English and literature grades have never been higher. Yoriko takes notice, and teases her about receiving secret tutoring from a handsome boy.

(Technically, she’s not wrong, but she still doesn’t appreciate the implication.)

Sometimes, they move to the common room for a change of scenery. Hinami joins them often, asking both him and Touka about the things they learn at school. 

Kaneki’s eyes are so warm , just like they used to be. She’s even seen him smile a few times.

But, there’s always subtle reminders that he’s different now. The dark bags under his eyes, his tight expression when Hinami brushes his arm, the way he sometimes trails off mid-sentence and stares into nothing before coming back to himself. 

But he almost always comes back to himself, these days.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have bad days… They’re just not as often as they used to be.

On the bad days, the days when he locks himself in his room, everyone takes turns checking on him and bringing him food and water during the day. At night, they make sure at least one person is free to come running to his room and shake him awake if he starts screaming.

It’s after one of these instances, one night, that he finally opens up to her. 

She thinks she stopped the nightmare early, tonight. He only let out a strangled yell before she heard him and ran into his room. 

They’re sitting on his bed, and he’s absent-mindedly sipping water from a glass she just pushed into his hand. The only light is from the dim street lamps outside. His window is cracked, letting the cold winter air dry some of the sweat plastering his pale hair to his neck and forehead. He’s staring at the wall. 

“You should be sleeping right now,” He murmurs.

“I tried. Couldn’t,” She replies, truthfully. “S’alright.”

He throws his head back and cackles bitterly, and it startles her.

“It’s not alright.” His voice is emotionless, as if the outburst a few seconds earlier had never happened. “I’m not supposed to be… Like this anymore.”

She’s scared for where this is heading, but she asks anyway. “Like what?”

“Weak. Pathetic. Hiding behind other people and watching them get hurt in my place.”

She bites back her anger. He doesn’t need her anger right now.

“You’re not hiding. You need rest. You’re recovering, Kaneki.”

“And look how well that’s going,” He says, monotone. He begins to run his thumb over the pointer finger of the same hand, preparing to press down and crack the joint.

Fiery determination runs through her, and she grabs his hand in hers.

“You are . You can talk to people again. Hinami even makes you smile sometimes. You only have to get Yomo’s help to sleep once every few days now, and he tells me you are starting to keep your senses while fighting him,” She lists, and prays that any of it is getting through. He doesn’t look at her, but instead stares at their clasped hands. She blushes, but does not let go.

“If you don’t believe me, look in a mirror sometime. Your hair is coming in black at the roots,” She adds.

He huffs at this. Not quite a laugh, but she’ll take it.

She continues, “You don’t need to be strong for anyone right now. Let your friends help you, because believe me, they want to, and let yourself be helped.”

He looks her in the eyes for the first time that night, and he just looks… Lost. His eyes shine wetly in the low light. “That’s the problem. I don’t know… If I know how to do that, Touka,” He says, voice breaking, and her heart aches for him. 

She gives into her impulse and reaches her arms around him. 

He stiffens, at first. But then, she feels his arms move, slowly, to embrace her. 

His face falls into her shoulder the same time his tears finally fall. 

He cries, she knows he does, because she can feel the tears wetting her shirt, and she can feel his shuddering sobs. But, If it weren’t for that, she wouldn’t be able to tell because of how unnaturally quiet he is through the whole process. 

Even now, he can’t bring himself to fall apart fully. 

Her heart breaks, and she starts sobbing loud enough for both of them.

After the tears abate and their sobs turn into deep, shuddering breaths, Touka begs into his shoulder, “Promise you’ll try to let me- us- help you. Maybe- maybe talk to someone about it. Anyone .”

“I… Okay,” He sighs quietly, and Touka’s heart breaks a little more at just how exhausted he sounds, but it’s progress.

---

Touka thinks it’s time. 

She doesn’t think that Kaneki will never be ready , not really, and Hide is refusing to push forward in fear of losing him for good, so it’s up to her to make the executive decision. 

She’s reasonably sure that Kaneki has reached a point where he won’t just jump out a window and run the second he sees Hide, and that’s good enough for her.

With how often Hide’s at Anteiku after hours, they’re bound to accidentally run into each other one of these days anyway.

Besides, Hide’s waited long enough. 

It’s time.

Chapter Text

When he awakes, it's never soft. It's never slow.

Usually it's a jolt, and he thrashes upright, the question of where where where pounding through his veins until he stops and calms enough to see the absence of black and white tile, to feel the freedom of his movement, to smell the savory afterthought of coffee in the air, and sometimes, to hear voices- soft and familiar- outside the dark monolith of his panic, and realize he's not there anymore.

Today, like a few other rare days recently, he comes to consciousness abruptly, but not violently; one second his mind is absent, and the next second it is not.

His first observation is the fog that swirls in his mind and behind his eyes is clearer, today. He feels focused.

Touka would say that's a good thing. Yoshimura would say it's a sign of progress. He's not so certain.

Kaneki has learned from experience that the clearer his thoughts, the more guilt curls throughout his body, molten and heavy, and the more he’s unbearably restless.

He should be out . Protecting them. Destroying their enemies. Tearing apart all who would dare harm them. Ripping through body after body, securing for them a safe future built on rivers of blood and heaps of flesh and castles of bone.

The urge itches .

It's a feeling not dissimilar to the terrible, inescapable wrongness, the crawling burning screaming screaming screaming centipedes inside his- eating his-

Well. Not nearly as bad, obviously, but not dissimilar .

Kaneki picks himself up out of bed despite the grey darkness of pre dawn. He goes through his morning routine mechanically, unthinkingly. 

Take a shower. Cold, because warm feels too much like the slow slide of blood in the darkness behind his eyelids.

Brush his teeth. Twice, because just once never erases the memory of the taste of his flesh, the grit of it coating his mouth as he rips his jaw open wider to consume more of the rancid substance.

Get dressed. Dark colors, because he wants to be as a shadow in the minds of these people, unobtrusive as possible as to not drag them down with him.

He stops in front of the mirror and calls his consciousness to rapt attention to make sure he looks presentable enough to go out. Not for his sake, but theirs.

Touka’s right. His hair is coming in black at the roots. 

The sight of that digs up an old emotion in him- something adjacent to hope, but not as naive. He resolves to let Touka know he’s having a ‘good’ day today, regardless.

He puts on his eyepatch. He doesn’t need it anymore, not since he buckled under the suffocation of the monstrous hunger agreed to eat with the others on behalf of Yoshimura’s urging, but there’s comfort in the familiarity. 

He just has to remind himself, profusely, that he’s not weak or foolish for seeking that comfort. 

He doesn’t believe it, not yet, but maybe he will one day.

He waits until 5:46 a.m. to exit his room, because 545 is 65th in the sequence of counting down by 7 from 1000, and he’s trying very hard not to associate any part of himself with that sequence anymore.

There’s no one in the hallway, blessedly. It’s too small and anyone passing by him has to come closer to touching him than he would like.

He makes it into the café and sits at the counter. Yoshimura is on the other side, already in the process of opening up for the day. When he arrives, he smiles, and Kaneki instantly feels undeserving of the warmth present in the expression, and the ease at which it’s directed at someone like him.

“Good morning, Kaneki. Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough,” He replies, truthfully. Always truthfully. He promised Touka he would let them help, and for that, they need his honesty.

“That’s good to hear,” Yoshimura says, “I’ll have your coffee ready in just a minute.”

Kaneki sits and observes him through the process of preparing the coffee with fluid motions that are no less loving for their efficiency. 

When it’s finished, he sets the white porcelain down in front of him. “There you are,” He says, and he’s smiling again. The lines of his face bend to it easily, naturally.

Kaneki smothers the black guilt crawling up his throat. “Thank you,” He says, instead of ‘ I’m sorry I do this every morning. I’m sorry I’m so pathetic you feel as though you must treat me like a child. I’m sorry I enjoy it.’

It tastes as wonderful as usual, and it quiets his mind like a heavy velvet blanket quiets a sputtering fire.

Touka walks in from the back door, and he meets her eyes in greeting. She’s wearing her waitress uniform. She’s working today, then. He knows she wouldn’t be awake on a saturday otherwise. 

He recalls when she was disturbed from her sleep on her day off, once. The image of her hair (matted and sticking up) and her pajamas (a soft peach color with a rabbit pattern) juxtaposed with her (righteously bloodthirsty) expression has yet to leave his memory. 

Even now, the thought of it warms him more thoroughly than coffee ever will. 

Then, the cloying guilt crawls back up his stomach and sits in his throat when he remembers that he’s undeserving of her warmth, most of all.

She interrupts his thoughts by addressing him.

“Hey, Kaneki, I have an English paper I need to do after work today,” She states, and he knows it’s her version of asking him for help.

“Okay,” He says, and- because he wants her to know he feels ‘better’ today- he smiles. 

It’s not even entirely false.

She stares at him, wide eyed, for a full few seconds, though he’s not sure why.

Even more inexplicably, he swears he can see a featherlight dusting of pink blush coloring her cheeks.

“...Touka?” He calls her, hesitant. 

She blinks, rapidly turns, and marches away, presumably to help Yoshimura finish opening procedures.

Kaneki is left wondering what he did wrong.

---

After the business day has closed, and the sun has long since melted into the winter-grey horizon, He sits himself in the common room upstairs and waits for Touka.

Hinami sits at his side on the sofa, reading a book about insects. Her brow is folded in concentration and her lips move silently to mouth the words on the page. He has a book of his own spread in his lap, some pleasantly benign poetry, but the words on the page melt together into incomprehensible swirls the longer he looks. 

He is more content to watch her, and bask in the feeling of being… Not alone.

(The guilt associated with the indulgence is still there, in the background, but he’s getting better at ignoring it.)

Touka walks in, arms full of notebooks, and unceremoniously dumps them on the coffee table. She straightens and blows the hair out of her face with a puff of air. Then, her eyes land on Hinami, and she seems to falter.

“Okay. Uh… Right. I still need to get, um… Some more books. Hey Hinami, want to help me carry them in here from my room?” She asks.

Hinami makes a sound of agreement and sets her book aside, following Touka out of the room. 

Kaneki thinks nothing of it, and waits patiently for them to come back, idly skimming the poetry in his lap.

It takes longer than he expected before the door opens again, and Touka walks in.

She’s not carrying any books, and behind her is- 

Behind her is-

… 

Oh God.

Time crawls to a stop around him as his brain crashes- hard and fast- into numb disbelief. 

He’s hallucinating. He has to be. His brain is always lingering on past hurts- this is no different.

Then Hide takes a single step forward, and the spell is instantly broken. This is real . He’s real. Kaneki shoots to his feet. Ice cold panic pours into his stomach and his mind and his lungs-

Hide stops just inside the doorway, entirely different and yet the exact same as he remembers him, and stares at him- into him- And Kaneki, whose body is screaming at him to act, to do something- to say something, anything - is being pinned by that stare like an insect on a board. Just like the insects in Hinami’s book, he is being meticulously dissected . 

Hide is here, looking at him like he has never seen him before, saying absolutely nothing, and all he can do is stand there and take it.

What else can he do? He knows what Hide is seeing- his supposed best friend since childhood, missing for a month and a half, miraculously before him, hair bleached like a ghost’s visage, nails blackened and cracked- 

Irrevocably changed, for the worse, from something he has no knowledge of-

Unless he does.

Unless he does.

And that single thought turns the ice in his lungs to molten lead . 

He knows . He has to know. How did Kaneki ever think he could conceal who- what - he is from Hide!? Hide- the single most observant person Kaneki has ever met! Of course he knows. It’s so magnificently, laughably naive of him to have ever expected Hide not to find out. To think he could just push him away and expect him not to come looking for answers.

All of the sudden, his body is forcing out laughter, choked and maniacal, without his mind’s permission. It sounds deranged, even to his own ears. He doubles over, heaving for precious air, and Hide steps forward, and Touka is reaching for him-

He nearly trips over in his haste to step back, to get away .

“DON’T-” He chokes out, and can’t inhale on his next breath because of the hurt in Touka’s expression- he hurt her, he hurt her-

And that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? The way he always hurts the ones he loves, sooner or later, because he’s not strong enough, not independent enough- just not enough for this world, this world that takes and takes and takes until there’s nothing good left- just pieces of a whole- and he thought that, maybe, if he kept his distance, if he never confronted him, he’d be able to keep just a piece of Hide- but that was so stupid of him, because now he’s going to lose all of him, right here, right now, because Hide is rightfully disgusted by him- by what he is , by what he’s done , by the horrifying, pathetic display he’s putting on right now-

And he hates himself now more than he’s ever done, because his life has always been a tragedy unfolding in slow motion from the day he was born- and he can never just drown himself in it, no , he has to make sure he drags others into the thick, bloody waters with him, just so he can stay afloat a few minutes longer- just so it can be bearable for a few seconds more- as his lungs are bursting with it and it’s spilling out past his lips, pitch-black and viscous and wrong-

“HEY, hey, Kaneki- stop thinking , just breathe , buddy. Breathe in. Breathe out. Can you do that for me?” Hide’s voice cuts through the static in his ears, and despite himself he clings to it like a drowning man clings to a rescuer, and it stops the spiral of his thoughts for a moment- but Kaneki wants to yell at him, tell him to get away - because he’ll drag them both under the waves in his desperation, make them both sink.

“Kaneki! You can do this, okay? It will pass, you just have to breathe. You’ll make it, I promise you.” He hears Touka pleading, distantly, but there’s always been so much certainty in her voice, he believes her without question, trusts her without hesitation- so he tries. For both of them, he tries.

He stops and pulls as much air as he can into his lungs, and out- and in again- and repeats the process, going deeper each time. It gets easier, and eventually everything within him slows.

He hears Hide talking to him through it all- soft, meaningless words of encouragement and affirmation. The black edges of his vision recede enough for Kaneki to see his surroundings.

Kaneki dimly realizes he’s on the floor, back against the wall. Hide is crouched in front of him, much closer than he was a few seconds ago. For some reason, the proximity fails to make him panic. 

Hide’s face is pinched in worry. When Kaneki meets his eyes, his teeth flash into a smile . It’s nervous, but it’s so achingly reminiscent of better times. 

He never realized until now just how much that smile was missed. The sight of it feels like he’s seeing color again after the world has been nothing but monochrome for months.

“Soooooooo,” Hide begins, dragging out the word, “I think we need to talk. When you’re ready.”

And Kaneki is still afraid, but more than that, he’s tired. Tired of running, tired of lying, and tired of the ache in his heart that Hide used to fill. He closes his eyes and nods. Hide springs to his feet, then offers him a hand. Kaneki hesitates, but carefully accepts the help up.

They walk to the couch and sit, but Touka remains standing. She shifts on her feet nervously and mumbles something about privacy under her breath before turning to leave.

Hide leans forward and grabs her by the hand. Kaneki freezes, expecting her to retaliate violently and fearing for Hide’s wellbeing. Instead, she stops and simply looks back at him in confusion.

“Stay. Please. You’re part of this discussion, too,” Hide pleads, then shoots a glance at Kaneki and hurriedly adds, “Or, I’d like you to be, if it’s okay with Kaneki.”

After a moment of thought, Kaneki nods his assent. He wants her here as well, he just never knew Hide and Touka were on friendly terms like they appear to be now. He wonders when that happened. He’s too afraid to ask.

Touka looks between the two of them with uncertainty. Hide smiles at her, and something in her eyes shifts. Kaneki realizes with faint alarm that she looks as though she’s about to cry. In spite of this, the corners of her mouth twitch upward and she sits in the plush chair adjacent to the couch.

It’s silent for a moment.

Then Hide begins, “I just want to say, before anything else, that I’m- that it doesn’t matter to me. What you are, Kaneki. What you both are. I don’t care. Well, I do care, in the fact that it makes life unfairly hard for you both, but- what I’m saying is-” He cuts himself off with a sound of frustration, and looks at Kaneki. “You’re still my best friend. Being a ghoul won’t change that.”

“I…” He wants to argue. He wants to dig up the old argument he had practiced in his head- to insist that Hide doesn’t know what he’s done, what he’ll have to do in the future- what it means to stay by his side- but the words seem so weak to him, now. 

Hide already knows , and he’s still here.

He tries anyway.

“Surviving as a ghoul means killing people, Hide. There’s no way around it,” He says, and even though he knows there’s likely nothing he can say to make him see , he has to try .

“I know that,” Hide says, voice firm, “And I don’t care.”

Kaneki curls his fists in frustration. “How could you not care?”

“Because, there’s a huge difference between going around and offing innocent people for fun and what Anteiku does. You guys feed off of suicide corpses- and maybe the occasional sex offender, no big loss to society there- and protect yourselves from external threats. That’s it,” Hide states, alarmingly nonchalant. 

“It’s not that simple,” Kaneki replies, devoid of any inflection. “Not everyone who threatens Anteiku’s safety deserves to die, but we’ll- I’ll kill them anyway. You don’t want to be involved in that, Hide. I’m not… Good anymore.”

Hide sighs and begins, “Kaneki-”

“Tell me, Kaneki,” Touka interrupts, voice low, “Do you think I’m a bad person? Or that anyone in Anteiku is a bad person?

Kaneki knows where her argument is going. He knows that she’s trapping him into a corner, but he can’t answer ‘yes.’ He thinks of Yoshimura, and Hinami, and Yomo and all of the others- his friends, who care about him, who care about each other- and then of Touka herself: breathtaking, loving in her own way, and so, so strong- and he knows there’s no way he can answer dishonestly.

“No,” He answers, carefully calm.

“Well, that’s funny, because I could’ve sworn that I have a body count behind me a mile long; not to mention what Yoshimura’s looks like,” She bites back aggressively. “Even if every kill was done out of survival, there are bound to be plenty of debatably ‘innocent’ people in there somewhere, and yet you still say that we’re not ‘bad. ’ Why are you - a person with no body count at all - so different?”

Maybe it’s been building up for far too long, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy left to keep it in, but Kaneki snaps . His voice becomes hard, dripping with anger and desperation in equal measures.

“You’re wrong . I do have a body count, and it makes me a bad person because none of them were done out of survival. They happened because people trusted me, relied on me, and I was too stupid, too slow, or too fucking weak to stop it. 

My mother worked herself to death because she needed to provide for me before herself when her sister took her money. Mrs. Fueguchi died right in front of me and all I could do- all I could do was cover the eyes of her screaming daughter so she wouldn’t have to watch as her mother got executed in an alley like a rabid animal . The Dove who killed her died because I didn’t stop Touka from getting revenge- and that’s because part of me didn’t even want to stop her.”

He pauses, and Hide starts to say something, but he continues, the words pouring from his mouth in a torrent he can’t seem to stem. 

“That’s not even counting the times that people have been injured because of me - almost died , because of me - had to fight for their lives, because of me . You both fall directly into that category- as does Nishiki, Kimi, Banjou and his gang- all of Anteiku .

He laughs hysterically, and they both flinch.

“And the best one- the best one is Ja-Jason,” He stumbles over the name, and it infuriates him how pathetic it is, that he still can’t even utter it aloud, “I killed him- I ripped him apart- and he deserved it, yes, oh God, he deserved it- but I did it because I wanted to, and because I enjoyed seeing him crying and begging just like he made me cry and beg- and I have never had anything make me feel as good as I felt when he realized I was eating him alive.”

It’s silent.

He pointedly doesn’t look at their reactions, because as horrified as they probably are, all he feels is a cold, empty sense of finality.

He’s said it, it’s done, and with any luck, he’s just lost the two best friends he’s ever had, and he can never hurt them again.

This is what he wanted, isn’t it? This was his plan A, before he took Touka’s hand that night and allowed himself to be led back to the closest thing he’s ever felt to home since his mom died.

Before he allowed himself to be fooled into thinking that he could come back from the dark. 

He’s been playing pretend, acting like he’s going to recover for a month and a half now. He should be relieved he doesn’t have to lie anymore.

Why does it have to feel so horrible?

“Are you done now?” Hide asks condescendingly, and Kaneki shoots him an agonized look.

“Listen,” Hide begins, more softly, “I am so, so sorry you went through all that, Kaneki. I’m more sorry than you could ever realize. But you have to know that not being able to stop other people’s actions doesn’t make the consequences your fault.”

“You don’t understand . I could have-”

“I could have stopped your accident with Rize,” Touka interjects, her head hung low and her voice wavering. Hide and Kaneki both freeze at the level of emotion she’s displaying. 

She swallows and slowly elaborates, “I knew what she was. Who she was. I knew she was just playing with her food when she pretended to be interested in you. I- I even saw her leading you down that dark street, and I knew she was going to kill you,” She says, and her voice cracks. “But I didn’t. Do. Anything . Because I didn’t care about you, and I didn’t want to get involved.” 

She looks up at him, and Kaneki’s stomach drops when he sees tears stream down her face.

“Does- does that make everything that happened afterwards my fault, Kaneki? Do you blame me?” She warbles.

“No, no- never.” His heart flashes in agony at the mere possibility that she thought he did.

“Well that makes you a big fucking hypocrite,” She chokes out, her face contorting in anger despite the tears still spilling from her eyes. “Do you honestly believe that your mom, or Mrs. Fueguchi, or me, or Hide, or anyone else blames you?”

He can’t answer. He just can’t . The dissonance between what he feels in his heart and what his logic is trying to let him realize is too much . He screws his eyes shut and holds his head in his hands, cowering under her wet glare.

But it seems Touka’s not done yet. “I get it. I get it, Kaneki, because I have to wake up every damn day, see how much your life is fucked, and- and try to convince myself that It’s not my fault you ended up like this, because I know you wouldn’t want me blaming myself.” She pauses, and he can hear her sniffing furiously and wiping at her face.

“So don’t you dare pussy out and not even try to do the same. It’s easy to just sit back and wallow in the lie that you’re the source of everyone’s problems, but the truth is harder,” She finishes.

Kaneki’s hands slowly drop into his lap. His brain loops her words on repeat, trying to get them to stick.

“No one blames you- not for any of it,” Hide chimes in gently. “Not even for the shit you did to… Your captor. It was fucked up, don’t get me wrong,” He adds, “But would you blame me for doing the same, If I was in that situation?”

Kaneki shakes his head numbly, because that’s the truth. He wouldn’t. There’s very little that Hide could do that he’d hold against him.

“All that you did to him- and what you felt about it, during- shows that he pushed you well past the brink of your rational, sane state of being. Your mind snapped in response and changed it’s preconceived repulsion to violence in order to survive the violence being inflicted on it,” He explains, and Kaneki has to pause and re-process the advanced vernacular being thrown at him so casually. 

“In layman's terms, you were pushed so far you started to like the violence because you would’ve completely- and most likely permanently- lost your mind otherwise.” 

Kaneki looks up and stares at him, only barely comprehending. Touka is staring too, bewildered. Hide shrugs. “It’s a trauma response,” He says.

That doesn’t change the fact that he did it, and it was monstrous. He’s about to say so, but Hide seems to anticipate it, and continues.

“What that action doesn’t show is whether or not you’re a bad person. But guess what- I know the answer to that anyway: you’re not. You’re not , because you regret it so much you’re disgusted with yourself, despite the fact that he inarguably deserved it.”

“I…” He starts, but his thoughts are so jumbled, he can’t make sense of them.

Touka interrupts, “Kaneki, do you trust us?” Her voice is hoarse from crying. 

He doesn’t have to think before the answer slips from him. “Yes.” 

“Then trust us when we say that you deserve to be helped,” She says. “You promised you’d try, remember? To let us help?”

Hide nods. “Please, Kaneki, don’t overthink this, for once in your life. Rely on others. Rely on us , because we’re not going anywhere .”

And it’s more than he can take. 

It’s as if he was teetering on the precipice of something for a while now, skirting the edge, too terrified of the darkness below to commit, to jump; and he just now received the final push he needed to let himself fall.

All of Kaneki’s thoughts collapse upon themselves, and, despite everything , a sense of exhausted relief- stronger than he’s ever felt- washes through him like a cleansing wave.

His eyes fill and spill over in the span of a second, and he ducks his head and just starts crying .

It’s loud and it’s ugly and it’s messy and he can’t stop . Doesn’t even want to stop, because it feels like the most normal, human thing he’s done since he escaped literal Hell on Earth.

He feels Hide’s arms encircle his shoulders, and Touka grabs his hand. The weight of it grounds him. He won’t be washed away.

So he cries freely, and it feels like an eternity before the sobs subside, but they do so eventually. 

His whole body aches, his head is pounding, and he is left raw and exposed, like new skin. The air feels thick like molasses, and he’s exhausted so deeply . Down to his very core.

He pulls his head up from where it rests on the center of Hide’s chest. 

He and Touka are staring at him- in fondness, in relief- he doesn’t know, but his first instinct is to start spewing apologies. He forcibly tamps down the urge.

Hide solves the stalemate, as usual.

“Heya, you back with us?” He says casually, teasing, and grins- wide and blinding- as if nothing had just happened. 

He grins as if no time has passed at all, and it’s still them against the world.

If Kaneki had the tears or the energy, he would start crying all over again, because he knows it’s Hide’s way of saying they’ll be okay. 

They just have to work towards it.

Chapter Text

Hide’s official thoughts on Koutarou Amon, is that he- unfortunately- has a terminal case of Hero Complex.

It’s a disease he happens to have a lot of experience witnessing the symptoms of. He’d say that he’s practically a verifiable expert on it, at this point.

Hide first met him when he was receiving his orientation tour at the CCG headquarters. Amon was polite, almost suffocatingly so, but friendly and enthusiastic in a big brother kinda way, too. When his supervisor introduced them, Amon had bowed to him and announced, “I’m pleased that you will be aiding the CCG. Even if you aren’t an investigator, your work is still integral to this organization. I look forward to working with you, Hideyoshi Nagachika.”

Hide remembered having to smile so wide in response, and thinking to himself that this guy was going to be exhausting to be around for long periods of time, unless he miraculously grew a sense of humor one day.

(He never did.)

In the days following, the Hero Complex became increasingly more obvious. Hide had to feign wide-eyed interest in Amon’s work and ask him all kinds of admiring questions in order to establish his cover as the starry-eyed intern, and Amon had always responded with the most achingly righteous answers possible.

“Hey, so I was wondering,” Hide starts casually, leaning onto Amon’s desk in what he calculates to be a friendly, familiar way, “Why’d you become an investigator in the first place? It sounds like a pretty dangerous profession to be in. Why not choose something less… Life threatening?”

Amon doesn’t look up from the paperwork he’s doing, and his response is automatic. “I won’t pretend the work is easy, but someone has to protect the people from ghouls, and if I’m willing and able to change the world for better, I have an obligation to do so,” He says, and the sad part is Hide can tell he means it.

“Oh man, you’re really brave, Amon. I don’t think I’d be able to do it,” Hide gushes back, and is immensely thankful for the fact that Amon doesn’t pick up on the hint of bitter sarcasm in his voice.

Someone with a sense of justice that strong who is also currently employed by a government run genocide program is either a complete psychopath (like most other high ranking CCG officers), or a huge dumbass.

Hide knows now, two months after the Aogiri raid (and almost three months at his job total), that it’s the second option. 

Amon genuinely believes, out of ignorance, that ghouls are the scourge of the earth and that the CCG is justified in wiping them from existence. Akira and Seidou latch on to his sense of moral superiority, and they all feed into each other’s twisted drive to see the race exterminated.

Hide almost hates them for how simple they make it seem.

Key word being almost , because he knows it’s not their fault, really. They grew up hearing the word ghoul be synonymous with monster , with murder , with evil, just like he did- and unlike him, they have had no reason to rethink that. In fact, all their experiences have only reinforced their view. 

Hide hears things, at his job. He goes out of his way to make sure he does.

It’s common knowledge that Akira’s father was just recently killed in action. She’s always being compared to his- frankly staggering- legacy of ghoul corpses he had left behind. It’s also widely known that her mother was killed in action as well, by the one eyed owl, many years back. They’re both hailed as heroes.

There’s also information about Amon’s past floating around, if you snoop into the paperwork far enough like Hide’s done- the fact he’s an orphan, the fact that he was involved in a huge CCG investigation when he was just a kid, the fact he’s made irregular visits to Cochlea in the past- they all point to a tragic backstory involving ghouls. 

As for Seidou- well, Hide quickly learned that he’s just plain naive. His cubicle is covered in newspaper clippings of high ranking CCG officers’ triumphs. He fawns over Arima and follows everything Amon says to the letter. A true fanboy at heart, living out his fantasy of following after his heroes and saving the world. He’s blinded by his romanticism of the profession, and Amon’s steady charisma.

So it’s no mystery why they view ghouls the way they do. Hide doesn’t have to like it, he joined in order to find information about Kaneki’s whereabouts while he was missing, and now he’s there as a straight up double agent for Anteiku.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother him, though. 

Because, despite himself, he likes them. He’s spent too many lunch breaks pulling up a chair and sharing Seidou’s desk, swapping playfully antagonistic banter with Akira, and listening to Amon give heartfelt encouragement to not like them.

So, when Amon slips up and expresses doubt one day, Hide’s left reeling with the potential opening he has. 

---

It starts raining outside as he bikes to work. Hide increases his speed, because he’s almost there and he doesn’t want to be soaked by the time he enters the building. He’s pissed off the janitor once already for dripping on the floors in the past.

By the time he chains up his bike and is frantically digging through his bag for his door pass, the rain is battering down, plastering his hair to his face.

Suddenly, the rain ceases. Hide looks up, confused. To his surprise, Mr. Shinohara stands next to him, holding a large black umbrella over him and smiling kindly.

(He’s spoken to Mr. Shinohara before, in the course of his workday. He’s always been nothing but kind and fatherly, giving Hide seriously conflicting feelings, considering his profession. 

Still, if there was a list of CCG investigators worth saving, he’d be on it, right next to Amon, Akira, and Seidou. 

Hide doesn’t know whether to be sad or angry that the list ends there.)

“Ah, Mr. Shinohara, sorry. I must have been blocking the door,” Hide says, ducking his head sheepishly.

“No need to apologize. I’m early, anyway. Juuzou Isn’t expecting me for another half an hour- then again, he’s not the best at waiting, so it might be prudent to arrive early anyway,” He says, then chuckles, good naturedly.

As if Juuzou is a normal unruly child and not a bloodthirsty murder machine that unnerves the hell out of Hide.

(And Hide knows he’s maybe being a little overly judgemental, considering he’s a literal child who was raised in captivity and taught to murder for entertainment, but fuck , he’s creepy, and he knows- through the CCG records- that Juuzou is more than worthy of being called a killer.)

Hide just chuckles in response as Mr. Shinohara swipes his card and the door opens in front of them.

Once inside, they part ways with polite goodbyes. Hide makes his way to his station to pick up his deliveries for the day, and tries very hard not to think about how many undeserving ghouls Mr. Shinohara has killed in the past.

Just a typical day at work, for Hide.

---

It’s only later in the evening, after most people have already left, that Hide finishes up his tasks and heads to Amon’s section of the office for more information gathering. He’s hoping that the office is empty and Akira may have left some of her paperwork out on her desk again, so Hide can take pictures of it and pour through them at a later time.

When he enters, he finds Amon, sorting through a stack of paper files three feet tall and sitting on the floor.

Alarm bells instantly go off in Hide’s head, because Koutarou ‘Professionalism in the Workplace’ Amon is sitting on the floor. His tie is undone. Hide distinctly feels like he’s just walked in on the guy naked.

He looks up in alarm at the sound of his approach. “Ah, Hideyoshi- I didn’t realize- I thought you weren’t in today.” 

“You’re on the floor,” Hide blurts out, stupidly.

“Ah, yes, my apologies. There wasn’t room on my desk.” He seems embarrassed at being caught, and he starts to stand up.

Hide rushes forward and sits on the floor across from him. “No, it’s okay. I get it. Sometimes working on the floor feels better anyway. Desks are overrated,” He says, remembering the long, lonely nights spent on his own floor, piecing together heaps of paper in order to find any hint of Kaneki in the CCG records.

Amon sits back down, self consciously. Up close, Hide gets a better look at him. There are bags under his eyes, but that isn’t a recent development. He’s always had those, as if he was regularly losing sleep over something Hide has yet to determine. What’s new is his hair being disheveled and clothes wrinkled. Hide has never seen him presented as anything less than pristine.

“So, what are you working on this late, anyway? I didn’t even expect anyone to be in here, I was just looking to see if I left my lunchbox on Seidou’s desk again,” Hide lies, easily.

“Reports of ghoul sightings from the last few years,” He answers, and resumes sorting the stack of papers into four different piles as he speaks. “Just yesterday I finally received permission to open a formal investigation into Eyepatch, and I’m trying to find any trace of him through the process of elimination. It’s been… Difficult.”

“...Oh,” Hide says. That would explain it. Amon’s obsession with Eyepatch would be the only thing strong enough to make him act like this. From what Hide observed, every free moment he had outside of his current assignment would be thrown into unraveling the identity of Eyepatch, thanks to the encounter he had with him roughly a month before Hide joined the CCG. 

The night Akira’s father was killed.

Amon had only ever told Seidou the general overview of what happened, and Hide was unwilling to ask Akira or Amon about it, fearing it would look suspicious if he showed too much interest in this particular ghoul. So, for a long time, a general overview is all he had, courtesy of Seidou.

But now, he knows every detail. Kaneki, along with Touka, filled him in completely in the days following Kaneki’s breakdown. They had come completely clean to them about everything- including Kaneki’s tense interaction with Amon that night, and Mado’s death at Touka’s hand. 

(He still refuses to blame them, despite the guilt they both feel over it.)

Now that Amon is fully dedicated to the investigation, there’s a possibility, however slight, that he might find something damning. 

“Can I do anything to help?” Hide asks, because he can’t help but involve himself if his friends are on the line, and if something does turn up, he can warn them. He’s here to be their front line of defense, after all.

Amon looks taken back, like he didn’t expect the offer. Hide momentarily panics, fearing he overstepped and made himself look suspicious, but Amon’s surprise is quickly replaced by gratitude.

“Ah, I suppose that would make things go by a little more quickly, If you wouldn’t mind. Just take these case files and sort them into whichever category they best fit. This pile is for incidents involving the death of one or more people, this pile is for incidents confirmed to be solved, this pile is for incidents in which the ghoul is confirmed female and still at large, and the last pile is for incidents in which the ghoul is confirmed male and still at large. If there are any sightings of Eyepatch in our system at all, they’ll be in the last category,” He explains.

Hide nods and grabs a sizable chunk of the stack. They work in silence for a long time before Hide opens his mouth to complain.

“Uhg, this is taking forever. How many are there total?”

“For years 2010-2013? Several thousand.”

“Holy shit, dude! Don’t we have computers with search filters for a reason? Why is it all on paper?” Hide doesn’t even have to fake his surprise.

“Because these are all of the sightings, officially confirmed and not. The non-official reports are submitted by citizens and investigated. If no proof of ghoul activity turns up, they are never filed into the electronic database,” Amon explains.

“Wow. So… You’re uh, you’re really digging deep, huh,” Hide says slowly as he sorts another statement.

“Yes. I’ve already poured over our electronic records and found nothing fitting his description, so I’ve turned to this,” He says, and he sounds exhausted. 

Hide feels genuine sympathy for him, then. He recalls, once again, the blurry, frantic week or so of his life he spent looking for Kaneki, fueled by desperation and caffeine in equal measures.

“Why?” Hide asks.

“Why what?” 

“Why go this far? And don’t say you’re just doing your job. We both know this is outside the parameters of work,” He adds, and hopes once again that he isn’t overstepping, but needing to hear his true motive.

“I…” Amon puts down the report in his hands and rubs at his eyes in an uncharacteristic show of weakness. “I… I don’t- I…” He continues to struggle over his words. 

Hide waits patiently, because he knows that, sometimes, the best pressure of all is the lack of pressure. It pays off. He pinpoints the exact moment Amon’s shoulders slump, and he knows, without a doubt, that Amon had just decided to confide in him the complete truth.

“There’s so many reasons, I can’t pinpoint which one is actually driving me. Because I want revenge. Because I want to give Akira closure. Because It’s my job to protect people. Because… Because I want to know, so very badly, how he views the world we live in- how he grew up- what it was like- and how it led to a ghoul not wanting to kill a CCG inspector that would’ve- should’ve - killed him without hesitation.”

After he finishes speaking, Hide is left dazed with the speed of his own thoughts. 

This is what Amon had been losing sleep over. He had spent the entire time after their encounter questioning his entire view of ghouls, because he recognized the humanity present in Kaneki; someone Amon believes was born and raised a ghoul.

He’s on the verge of realizing the truth is a shade of grey when he had been raised his whole life thinking it was black and white.

Hide abruptly realizes has to be so fucking careful, here. Anything he says next can’t be too extreme in either direction, if he wants Amon to actually listen. He needs to appear as an ally.

He waits a long time before speaking.

“Do you ever think about what you would do if you were born a ghoul?”

“What?” Amon says, thoroughly confused.

“Like, hypothetically. What would you do?”

Amon doesn’t answer.

“Because I’ve thought about it, and I still don’t know. It only makes sense that ghouls feel the same range of emotions that we do. So you’d still be you, right? The only thing that would be different is that you’d have to eat… You know… People … To survive. And that in itself is wrong, sure, but… If you wanted to survive, you’d have no choice.”

“There’s always a choice. You have to make the decision to become a murder, it doesn’t just happen,” Amon replies, but the conflicted furrow of his brow doesn’t leave.

“Yeah, but every living thing wants to keep living. Would it be wrong to want to live, in spite of what that means?”

“I… I don’t know, Hide. I’m not the right person to ask that question,” He replies, slowly. “Why are you asking me this?”

“...It’s just something I think about, sometimes,” Hide answers, deep in thought. “Because I think that there are ghouls out there, like Eyepatch, who don’t want to kill people. Maybe even some who have never killed people.”

He pauses, and gauges Amon for his reaction. Anguish is evident on his face. Hide decides to back off and not push his luck, for now.

“But I don’t know. Like I said, it’s just a thought,” He shrugs, and picks up the next case file in his stack.

Amon doesn’t say anything, and follows suit. He stays mostly silent for the rest of the night. The turmoil inside him still shows through his eyes, however, and Hide feels a bright spark of vindication in his chest. The seed of doubt that Kaneki had planted inside him is growing, and Hide intends to help it along however he can.

It’s later, when he’s heating up microwave noodles, alone in his crappy apartment, that Hide realizes the true implications of this discovery. 

If Kaneki can make Amon, stick-up-his-ass Amon, doubt his entire worldview with one interaction---

He’s been thinking on much too small a scale this entire goddamn time. 

Kaneki has more power than he could ever realize, by just existing.

Hide spends the rest of the night weaving together the beginnings of a plan bigger than he’s ever thought possible.

Chapter Text

Touka finds the first one on a crumpled up napkin, a few nights after Kaneki opened up to them. It was left on the bar where he had been sitting during his morning coffee. 

She’s picking it up to throw it away when she sees markings on it out of the corner of her eye.

It’s a poem. The neat lines of tiny characters mark it as Kaneki’s handwriting, and it’s blurred slightly in places by drops of coffee. It reads:

He could not help but scream 

As it was torn from his lungs 

The innocence, the dream 

He was convinced the world had run on.

He could not help but watch 

As the petals dripped in red

So alabaster they had been before 

If only inside his head.

He could not help but fight

As the tide washed his past 

Though his mind knew it right

His heart ached from the means it had come.

As the blood overtakes bone

He can't help but wonder 

which defines him, the mask?

Or the face lying under?

Touka re-reads it, then re-reads it again. She’s not well-versed in literature, especially not poetry, but it makes her feel a stab of… Something, in her heart, and she slowly smooths it out and puts it in her pocket.

She figures Kaneki wouldn’t mind if she held onto it.

---

Kaneki talks to them, now.

Not that he was silent, before- just emotionally cut off. His conversations steered as far away from introspection as possible, if he could help it. Especially about his time captured by Aogiri.

It took the three of them- Touka, Hide, and Kaneki- weeks of heart-to-heart chats, about feelings and stuff, before he felt comfortable enough to share anything about his captivity.

Even then, it wasn’t to them. He went to Yoshimura, when he felt like he was able to talk about it.

Touka knew it was because he was still trying to get them to stop worrying about him- to protect them from having to hear about it.

But Touka can’t complain- she told him to talk to someone, but she also said it didn’t have to be her.  

She just expected it to be, for some selfish reason.

It stung like rejection, at first, and she told as much to Hide. But he reminded her that technically, Kaneki is right. Hearing about it would have upset them, even if it’s already done. Yoshimura, though he cares for Kaneki too, would be better equipped to act as a neutral party and a calm, rational confidant.

Hide’s right, as usual. Touka has shown in the past that her emotions tend to rule her over rationality. If she hears about the things Jason did to Kaneki, she probably wouldn’t be able to stop herself from going on a rage-fueled suicide crusade against whatever is left of Aogiri.

At least he’s beginning to process it.

---

Touka keeps finding them. 

Now that she’s looking for them, they turn up often; sheets of paper on the floor, more napkins in the trash, scribbled in the margins of spare notebooks. 

Sometimes, they're nonsense. A loose collection of words that don't lead anywhere, but still invoke a feeling because of the words used; whether that feeling is desperate, angry, sad, or something else.

Most of the time, they're poems. Some are bleak, some are beautiful, and some others are… Graphic. Lots of synonyms for the words 'flesh' and 'hunger' are used. 

She imagines that if she were human, they might disturb her. But she's a ghoul, and they don't contain any details that she hasn't experienced first hand. 

She keeps collecting them, with a small sense of guilt at the fact that Kaneki didn’t even mean for anyone to read them. She keeps telling herself she’ll throw them out, soon. 

She never does.

---

Unfortunately, as well as Kaneki has been doing lately, it does nothing to fix his long term problem of being listed as a missing person.

He can’t call attention to himself by turning up out of the blue and trying to resume his normal human life. There would be news coverage, paperwork, and far too many questions he can’t answer believably. 

His missing persons poster can still be found tacked onto billboards across the area, courtesy of Hide. The irony isn’t lost on him, Touka’s sure.

So he stays hidden in Anteiku, all day, every day. It’s been two months, now. Touka can’t even imagine how restless that has made him, doing basically nothing, everyday, for two months.

Now that he feels up to it, everyone tries to spend more time with him, to help the time pass. Yomo teaches him shoji, Roma ropes him into helping her clean, Hinami asks him to do arts and crafts with her, and Koma and Irimi choose a new movie to watch with him every week. 

Most of the others end up joining in on the movie nights, as the weeks pass. Nishiki and Kimi even attend, sometimes. 

And sure, Nishiki still eyes Hide distrustfully on occasion, but most of the real venom is gone. Touka imagines It’s kind of hard to hate a person who becomes instant best friends with your girlfriend, like Hide did with Kimi.

(Surprisingly, they have pretty similar senses of humor. They launched the formation of the ‘Humans Only Club’ within minutes after meeting each other. On movie nights, they often build an elaborate pillow fort exclusive to members of the club.

Hinami instantly becomes an honorary member of the club and is allowed access to the fort.

Kaneki is a half-member of the club, and only allowed to put half his body in the fort.)

At first, she isn’t sure any of this is helping him, but Kaneki assures her that he’s genuinely happy in those moments. Touka doesn’t think he’s lying- she’s seen him smile with fond grey eyes as of late. 

The thing is, he says he’s happy as if there’s a ‘but’ needed to be added afterwards. A catch.

Touka understands, perfectly. She feels the same way. 

Because things have been so good lately. Not perfect, or even easy- because Kaneki will sometimes slip back into old habits- but better than she could have ever pictured, because they’re all there to help him through it.

It feels so peaceful- and they both know that it’s a bomb waiting to go off.

Something will happen, soon. Whether it’s the CCG or Aogiri Tree or something completely different, she couldn’t say- but it’s coming, and it won’t wait until they’re ready for it.

He says as much to her, late at night, after another nightmare she helped wake him from. He confesses to her that still feels as though he should be out in the world, doing more to ensure their safety, but he doesn’t know where he would even start.

She doesn’t have the answer, either. 

Whenever they bring up the subject in his company, Hide urges both of them to wait. It frustrates her to no end, but she knows he feels the urgency, too. He knows what’s at stake, and what will happen if they just sit here and wait. 

That’s why she gets the distinct feeling that he’s planning something, and she’s fairly certain it involves the CCG. The thought of it scares her.

But, she trusts him to know what he’s doing. 

She’ll try being patient, for his sake.

---

Touka, being the coward that she is, says nothing about the poetry to anyone for almost four months.

At this point, she has 47 of them saved- she counted. They’re all of varying lengths, ranging from a few words to paragraphs of uninterrupted thoughts. 

She has a few favorites that she revisits often, and the more she reads them, the further she feels as though they mean something to her. 

The more she realizes that Kaneki means something… Big, to her.

Something heavy- but somehow deceivingly light at the same time- fills her gut at the sense of inevitability. These poems- these small ramblings that made her feel things just from words alone- are his. 

Of course. Of course - no one has ever made her feel as much as he has.

Except-

Except-

That’s not entirely true, is it?

Because Hide is right there too- making her laugh almost daily, seeing past her uncaring mask, cementing himself as part of her heart.

With Kanek it felt inevitable- like gravity. A black hole of kindness that drew her in and left her wanting more. 

With Hide- it’s joyful surprise; unexpected laughter- it’s sunshine through the clouds when she expected nothing but rain.

She wants to be disappointed in herself that she let him in so easily, but nothing involving Hide has ever felt shameful.

And really- she should have expected it. Hide is exactly like Kaneki in the fact that he gives out his affection so freely- so completely. 

So much unlike her.

She’s taken to watching them interact, sometimes. And again- she can’t read people like Hide can- but it’s so obvious to see the absolute gravity of just how much they mean to each other. 

The intensity of gratitude mixed with adoration in Kaneki’s eyes when Hide talks to him through an intrusive thought. The overwhelming fondness in Hide’s gaze when he watches Kaneki gently lift Hinami into his lap. The way they have a lifetime of experiences together that they refer to, sometimes.

She notices, especially, how Hide looks at Kaneki when he thinks no one can see him. It’s… Well, the only word she can think of it as is… Aching.

(The voice in the back of her head hisses in jealousy while she watches, sometimes. 

At best, it tells her, you’re a third wheel, an accessory. At worst, you’re an outsider, a stranger, a voyeur. They’ve known each other their whole lives. Why would either of them look at you?)

She would be bitter- hold a grudge at Hide’s higher chances of success- but Touka can’t even fault him. She’s so far gone, in fact, that she finds the opposite is true- it only endears him to her more, because they have common ground. 

Because she looks at him looking at Kaneki, and she thinks, me too. 

She finds herself wanting to say it aloud to him, most days. To bring them closer, somehow- to bond over being devoted to the most stupidly selfless nerd in the whole world.

That’s why, when Hide is in the middle of telling her a story over lunch in the common room about the time Kaneki wrote poetry for their school paper and got so nervous he threw up- she doesn’t even think about it. Her mouth spews the words before her brain catches up.

“He’s been writing poems and stuff for months and I’ve been saving them, wanna see?”

“What?” Hide’s face is blank, uncomprehending.

She backtracks, looking at her hands nervously. “You know how Kaneki has been writing recently?”

“...Yeah, actually,” He says, after a pause, “I actually asked him about it, once- he avoided the question. I- I thought no one else really noticed. Why?”

“I’ve been… Well, I think it might just be better to show you,” She says, and stands, motioning for him to follow her. They walk out of the common room and down the hallway, past Kaneki’s room where he currently sleeps. They take care to quiet their steps- they both know he needs to make up for the little sleep he got last night wrestling with his thoughts. 

They arrive at her door, and she opens it and strides in. 

She looks back to find Hide lingering on the threshold, giving her a shit-eating grin. She’s suddenly overly aware of the fact that Hide has never seen her room before. 

“What?” She growls, crossing her arms and just daring him to comment on all of her stuffed rabbits.

“Well, It’s just- It’s so very forward of you to invite such a handsome man into your quarters completely unsupervised, my Lady,” Hide says, and mimics swooning with a hand to his forehead, “If I had any idea you harbored such scandalous sentiment towards my personhood, I would have-”

“Shut up and get in here,” she bites out, and hides the fact that her face is probably flushing bright red by grabbing his hand and pulling him inside.

He closes the door behind him and then it’s just the two of them.

In her room.

Holding hands.

Hide says nothing, and he’s looking at her with a ghost of a grin still on his face. The sunlight filtering through her window is catching his eyes, turning a dark amber into almost gold. 

His hair is so long, now. long enough to be pulled back, she thinks. She wonders if the dyed ends feel different than the darker roots now slowly overtaking them. She raises her hand to see for herself.

And then she stops- because… What!?

Holy fuck what is she doing!?

She drops his hand and turns on her heel so fast she nearly falls over. She kneels down, digs under her bed for the box, and pretends with all her might that the past few seconds didn’t happen.

She’s becoming far too comfortable with affection, lately. Between movie nights and panic attacks and heartfelt discussions, she’s almost forgotten to bury her feelings down. Her mask of cool indifference has been thinning ever since Kaneki crashed his way into her life, and it scares her how much she feels, sometimes. How vulnerable it makes her.

She fumbles with the beat up old shoebox, finally second guessing her decision to show Hide the poems. What if he thinks it’s creepy for her to have collected them? 

She grits her teeth. It’s too late now- she has to suck it up and follow through.

Touka turns around, box in hand. She pats the ground next to her for Hide to sit, and he does so with childish excitement. She opens the box and takes out each paper one by one, laying them out on the floor in front of her in order of oldest to newest.

“Kaneki… Has been writing. A lot. Even more than these, I think. These are just the ones he throws away,” She says, and watches Hide for his reaction.

He’s staring, wide eyed, at the collection being presented to him. She can’t tell if it’s shock or awe or something else, and she feels fear take root in her stomach.

“Well?” She asks, and her voice cracks, because apparently the world hates her.

Then Hide starts laughing. Loudly. Her face burns in shame, and rage quickly follows. Before she can yell at him, however, he reaches for his pocket and pulls out a napkin. His laugh dies out as he sets it on the ground and smooths it out.

She recognizes Kaneki’s writing instantly.

“Like I said. I thought no one else noticed. Looks like great minds think alike, huh?” He says, and smiles knowingly at her, like they’re sharing a private joke.

Chapter Text

Kaneki wakes up each day deciding whether or not to run.

Every day, something keeps him from doing it. 

Some days it's the thought of Hinami, having to find someone else to read to her after her homework. Some days it's Yoshimura, his rumbling voice echoing in his ears to take your time, you’ve gotten so much better already. I will always try to help you. Some days it’s Anteiku itself, the atmosphere of languid safety burning away the icy cold fear of being hurt again.

Most days, it’s Touka and Hide. 

Every free second they have, they gravitate towards him, and every second he basks in their presence is a second he starts to forget what's really out there, waiting for them.

Hunting for them. Stirring in the shadows, calling for their blood. In the dark hours, he can almost hear them; surrounding his beloved haven from all sides are clinks of quinque weapons being released, echoing off alley walls like gunshots, the bone-grinding creaks and squelches of massive kagune being torn from flesh, whooshing through the air faster than he can move, blood splattering, maniacal laughter-

No. He shouldn’t be here. He should have left them, kept his enemies closer. Infiltrate Aogiri and protect.

But Kaneki didn’t. He grabbed Touka’s hand when she reached for him, and now he’s healing.

At this point, he’s far enough gone that he thinks he might actually be getting better.

Weaker, less hardened, but more… Whole.

Every second he spends placidly sipping coffee has part of him screaming that he’s sacrificing his strength, his ability to keep others safe, for his own happiness. He’s being selfish.

He doesn’t want to run, so he stays.

The immediate side effect is guilt, of course, which Yoshimura says is expected for “someone as selfless as he is.”

The unforeseen side effect is boredom. 

Kaneki never thought he’d have to deal with something as mundane as boredom ever again, so he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He helps out with the daily business of Anteiku, of course, but that can only occupy so much of his endless time. Touka has school, Hide has work, and he doesn’t want to hover too much over Hinami for the (somewhat irrational, he will admit) fear of corrupting her somehow. He ends up with too much time to spend in his own ugly head.

His thoughts become too much, constantly. Overwhelming fury, depthless sadness, choking fear, and dangerous mania flow together so disjointedly, sometimes it becomes so much it shuts him down.

He gets desperate enough to pick up an old pastime (coping mechanism, perhaps) from long before he became so broken: he picks up a pen, and starts to write.

Not journaling- never journaling. He has no interest in writing, plainly, what happened to him and how he feels about it. He needs a buffer; a security blanket of meter and rhyme that conveys the feeling and not the experience. 

Poetry always came so naturally to him. He remembers, from another life, how his teachers used to praise him; every year encouraging him to publish something in the school paper. He never did. He’s almost amused to remember the gut-clenching fear he used to feel at the very suggestion. Back when that used to be something to fear.

But it soothed him, his private thoughts and feelings coming together in a flow of stanzas. 

To be honest, he doesn’t expect to soothe him now. 

The first one he tries is nonsense; ranging from too obscure to too simple line after line. Anger consumes him, and he tries again only to find he can’t stop writing anything but mad inner ravings that scour the paper in violent streaks. 

He shreds it, but tries again. 

And again. 

And again.

Once he’s started, it’s like he’s unlocked something within himself and he can’t seem to stop. Like riding a bicycle, he remembers how the words are supposed to flow; the syntax and vocabulary he taught himself late at night when his mother was asleep, the tone he knows how to craft artfully.

The poems he produces are bleak, he knows. Violent, angry, desperate things that touch on insanity, a genre that he used to only occasionally browse; much preferring sombre, tragic works with a little more grace to them.

The person who enjoyed reading those tragedies is long dead now, and this is what’s left.

He starts pouring his heart on the page and never stops.

---

…In halls of bleached bone/ where the air stings and sheets smell of blood/ the hunger fits him like a plastic wristband/ the smell rips-

“Back to being a nerd huh?”

Kaneki jumps, scouring a dark line through the paper with his pen. He whips around in his chair to find Hide leaning in the doorway, shaking with laughter. 

Despite being startled, Kaneki finds he can’t even dig up proper exasperation. Not when Hide’s face is bursting with joy and his hair is shining from the sunlight like that. Kaneki feels warmth spread through his chest at the sight.

“Hide. I could’ve killed you,” he says, deadpan.

“Nah, I don’t think so. You wouldn't be able to handle all this,” Hide laughs as he flexes his arms dramatically.

Kaneki keeps his face carefully blank as he replies.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Much too stringy, not enough fat. Would give me a stomach ache."

Hide looks at him, alarmed. The smile is wiped from his face. It occurs to Kaneki precisely what a stupid thing that was to joke about, considering the danger that Hide faces on the daily by associating himself with ghouls. His stomach drops, and he has to stop himself from biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood. 

"...Ah. I'm so sorry, that was-"

To his bewilderment, Hide interrupts with a sharp bark of laughter, and waves off his apology.

"No, it's okay. Just surprised me is all. Didn't think you had it in you," He crosses the room and puts a casual hand on his shoulder, like it's the easiest thing in the world to touch him. 

The point of contact is warm, and Kaneki fights not to lean into it.

"For as much as you were into all those creepy books about death, you would still be the one yelling at me for making dark jokes," Hide teases.

Only when they were about yourself, Kaneki doesn't say.

"What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be at work?" He asks instead, because judging by the sunlight streaming through the cracks around his blinds, as well as the quiet sound of voices and dishware below, it’s still early evening.

Hide shrugs. "The old boss man said I could leave early. Not a lot of mail today, I guess."

Kaneki hums in thought. 

"Should we be concerned or relieved?"

"For the short term? Relieved. Sounds like they're too busy burying their heads into research to be out in large numbers, creating paperwork. For the long term…" Hide sighs and runs his hand through his shaggy hair. "Well that's the issue, isn't it? We don't know what they're researching."

For a moment, Kaneki feels the terror, icy and cloying, crawl its way up his throat at the thought that Anteiku may be compromised, and that the CCG will burst in and destroy everything he holds dear at any second. 

In another moment, the ice is replaced by fire and bloodthirsty rage because how dare they make us fear for our lives like animals hiding from the slaughter-

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and centers himself around the sound of Hide's marching heartbeat; his steady, even breath. 

His anger simmers to a low boil. He looks back to his notebook filled with meaningless ramblings and curls his fists in disgust at his own weakness. 

"We have to do something, Hide. I can't- we can't just sit and wait to be attacked," Kaneki hisses through gritted teeth. 

Not again. It can't happen again.

"I know. I'm working on it," Hide says solemnly, then renders him completely speechless by putting his hand over Kaneki’s own where it sits on the desk, still clenched in a tight fist. He lets the warmth relax his grip, and lets out a shaky breath.

It hits him, not for the first time, the sheer enormity of the task that he now lives for. All the lives and happiness he must protect- and the staggering, cruel power of those who would try to take it from him.

He breathes through the feeling as slowly as he can and tries to keep his voice calm.

"Working on what, exactly? Be honest, Hide. Do you really have some kind of plan or are we just waiting to see what happens?" 

When Hide answers, his voice is quiet. Determined. “I have… The outline of a plan. I have ideas. Some of them are pretty crazy, I’ll admit.” He smiles to himself.

“Are you planning on telling me about it?”

Hide’s grip on his hand tightens minutely. “I will. It’s just- it won’t make much sense. It’s all experimental, right now. I’m still figuring it out, myself.” He releases Kaneki’s hand and sits himself on the edge of the desk.

Kaneki feels his head throb in frustration, and he snarls, “We don’t have time, Hide. We’ve- I’ve wasted so much time as it is. If the Doves don’t attack us first, Aogiri will. I need to know what you’re planning, or I’ll do the only thing I can - I’ll go be Aogiri’s loyal dog until I can rip them all to pieces.” The space under his skin crawls eagerly at the thought, and he's sickened by it.

“Not an option,” His voice is steel. “You know Touka would follow you. Besides, if things work out like I think they will, you won’t have to.”

“Yes, because things always work out exactly as you think they will,” Kaneki bites back. He doesn’t bother arguing with Hide’s point about Touka.

Hide huffs. “Listen Kaneki. I won’t deny that I’m taking huge risks into account. And yes, I know we need to act very soon. But if we do it my way, there’s a chance we may not even have to get our hands bloody at all , and everyone at Anteiku ends up safe. Permanently .”

"... How? "

Kaneki feels blindsided. How, with the odds so incredibly stacked against them, does this end in anything but tragedy- especially if they don’t even fight?

Hide smiles, and it's all teeth. There's no kindness there.

"We get the CCG to kill Aogiri, and then we get the world to kill the CCG."

Chapter Text

He remembers, with perfect clarity, the first time he killed.

He doesn't remember his face: the face of the poor, fat, middle aged man who was unlucky enough to be caught all alone out in the rain in the black of night.

What he remembers is basically everything else.

The sound: the sniveling, shocked cries of prey who knew in that moment that they were about to die, almost drowned out by the dull thumping of rain against the pavement.

The smell: blood and meat, so close and so fresh his stomach ached and clawed from inside him.

The feeling: how shocked he felt at the absolute ease of impaling him on the end of his kagune, sliding in and out again like cutting through soft cheese. Hot rivulets of blood on his tongue.

He remembers it was only then, after he ate his fill, that he thought about the fact that he's now a murderer.

Vicious satisfaction washed through him from head to toe. It felt good. It felt right.

He'd finally done what Touka and his father had tried to shield him from all his life- as if it was unpleasant. Unnatural.

He wished they could see him now, bloodstained and rain-soaked and cackling in an alleyway over a corpse.

His father and sister were weak, pitiful idiots, and so was the rest of Anteiku.

They'd all die cowards. Anteiku would be their mass grave, and the only freedom they'd ever experience would be in death. They'd be cut down by the very humans they love so much.

Yet they still hid and played nice and pretended.

He pictured Touka alongside her little human friend, smiling and taking small bites of whatever hell she was making herself eat.

It pissed him off. He didn't feel like laughing anymore.

He almost felt sick.

---

Aogiri made him stronger.

In the early days, he was pushed to his limits constantly- so eager to prove himself and be useful to the cause. He felt so damn prideful when he was one of the very few who survived mission after mission they used to weed out the weaker ghouls. He was downright giddy whenever he rose through the ranks.

His aching bones, mottled bruises, and torn skin didn't matter. Not in the face of all the raw power he was gaining.

Because that's what Aogiri is all about, in the end: raw power. Nothing else is required to do well within its ranks. The more zealous members could preach all they wanted about the cause, about living as the 'rightful rulers of the world' after the revolution. About having freedom for the oppressed.

That naivete was beaten out of him after a while. He knows now Aogiri is just a gathering of ambitious, powerful ghouls who want nothing more than to rip each other apart and be the last one standing. There's no camaraderie. There's no rules. Only the delicate balance of who gives orders to who. And at the top, there's the unknowable personal agenda of the Owl.

It pisses him off.

When he joined, all he wanted was a straightforward fight, one where he could decapitate his final enemy and then be free to do whatever he wanted for the rest of forever. He didn’t want to navigate this shadowy bullshit conglomerate of politics.

He doesn't want to be killing the wrong people anymore.

Because he is, sometimes: his superiors will point him to some sad little den of starving teens, or some cocky bitch who wronged some Aogiri member somehow, or some random human businessman who has something or other they want. They point him towards people who don’t matter, and who’s deaths do nothing to bring ghouls closer to any kind of freedom, no matter what Aogiri says. It’s personal vendettas, always. Pointless deaths.

He goes and does the job anyway. Because they expect obedience, and to refuse would be inviting fights he knows he couldn’t win.

He didn’t care at first. But he hates it now. It feels like he’s been treading water for years with no shore in sight. And for what?

What’s the end goal? What’s the damn point?

So he can finally be free? No. He thought so, at first. But unlimited freedom isn’t real. He’s not strong enough, and he’ll never be strong enough to stand up against the Aogiri elite. He couldn’t even beat that stupid doe-eyed half-breed that his sister loves so much.

What he wants, more than anything in the world, is to feel safe again. The kind of safe he felt when he and Touka were kids, and the scariest thing in the world was when Dad was late coming home, and the fear would melt away once he would scoop the both of them into his arms.

He misses his father and sister. He despises their weakness and their stupidity and their fake human smiles, but he misses them. He knows that seeing Touka again, twice in rapid succession after years apart, unlocked these feelings in him.

However, the part of him that still hates her was just too strong to repress. He enjoyed the hell out of knocking her down a couple dozen pegs... At least in the moment. Now, he feels something almost like regret. Not quite. But he does admit to himself that the half-breed was right- he doesn’t want her to die. He never did.

And every day, with Aogiri building themselves back up and the CCG uncovering new intel, that possibility becomes more and more likely.

Especially with the insanely stupid friends she’s been making.

---

He’s been watching the blonde one for a couple days now, ever since he noticed the daily visits.

At first he thought he was just a regular. Or that he had a poorly concealed crush on one of the girls working there. From what little he could observe, he seemed like the loud, annoying type who would think himself charming. Overly friendly.

Hell, he's even seen Touka speak to him for minutes at a time. Maybe he's just another one of her new friends she seems to be collecting.

But that wouldn't explain why he was allowed to stay after hours.

He watched, two nights in a row, as he was leaving right alongside the staff as they locked up. They were chatting and laughing right along with him, casual as could be.

What was so interesting about this one human that Touka- that Anteiku would allow him to come and go as he pleases? Surely he doesn't work there. The risk of discovery would outweigh any cover it could possibly provide them.

The question plagues him for days before he's able to get away from his most recent errand at Aogiri for long enough to continue his observation again.

He finds where he lives easy enough: a mildly shitty apartment conveniently placed within minutes of the café. Another point in his favor for just being a pushy regular, but he's still got a gut feeling that's not all he is.

It's both easier and harder to tail him during the day. On one hand he can blend in with the crowds effortlessly, and on the other there are plenty of prying eyes keeping him from taking to the rooftops when blondie gets too far ahead of him on his bike. He has to jog at some points so as to not lose him, and his face burns in anger and shame at having to stoop so low. He calms himself down by imagining how it would feel to wring the idiot's neck.

He's distracted enough at the image that he doesn't pay enough attention to his surroundings- specifically, the place that they are heading straight towards. He realizes only a few blocks later that they are deep in Dove territory- and heading deeper.

The CCG tower can be seen throughout the entire area, but from this close it looks as though it's looming. It's practically choking the sky. He slows his pace.

The dread fills him from his stomach outwards as he watches blondie, now just a tiny smudge way down the street, park and lock his bike out front. He swipes an ID at the security gate, and it opens for him.

He works there.

He works at the CCG.

How in the hell could Touka be so stupid!?

---

He waits until nightfall on an adjacent rooftop.

He watches the blonde as he leaves Anteiku, keeping his distance until after he's said his goodbyes to the waifish female ghoul that trips over everything. He's just close enough to hear her call out a final 'goodbye Hide!' He waves in response.

Blondie's name is Hide then. It's funny, in all his stalking, he never actually got the guy's name.

Not that it will matter, soon.

The thing he'd learned immediately about Hide is that he's not quite as carefree as he presents himself. He bikes quickly and only ever takes well-lit streets, even when a shortcut through an alley would save him time. He's either smart or paranoid, or maybe some combination of both. It's what made him so suspicious of the guy in the first place, and it's what makes him absolutely certain that his day job is not just some dangerous coincidence.

He jumps the short gaps between buildings easily without even needing his kagune. He picks up his pace until he's even with Hide, then passes him. Although it's been fully dark for about an hour, there's still the occasional pedestrian. He has to time it perfectly, or he risks unwanted eyes on him. 

He jumps down into the alley he designated perfect for his needs the previous day and waits until the split second Hide will pass by.

He lets the ever-present hunger trickle out and extend his senses until he can hear the quiet whir of the bike's gears and smell the human musk coming his way.

Excitement grips him. He gets to save his dumbass sister from herself and gets an easy meal in the process.

He waits, coiled tightly, until the right moment-

Until there's a Whoosh accompanied by sudden, sharp pain in his ribs and his world is reduced to flashes of night sky and concrete and white noise as he flies, hit hard enough by something to send him spinning through the air to crash against a wall.

For almost a full 3 seconds, he can’t move, breathe, or even cry out, and terror crashes through him at how huge of an opening 3 seconds can be. As soon as he's able, he gasps in lungfulls of air and the adrenaline gets him moving up on his feet into a defensive stance before he can even focus his spinning vision to see his attacker.

It takes another full second and a shake of his head for the picture in front of him to clear.

What he sees is his sister: her one wing flared out and burning like an inferno, teeth bared, murder in her black eyes, hands extended by her sides in bloody claws, standing in between himself and the human he was seconds away from killing.

Chapter Text

When Hide sends her a text on a Thursday evening at 7 P.M. simply saying, 

I think im being followed 

Touka gets up out of her chair so quickly it topples into the opposite wall and knocks over her shelf. She races through the hallway and down the stairs as fast as she’s able to without colliding with the walls.

She’s almost out the door before her phone buzzes again and she reads, 

Not at this exact moment. I meant in general

She sags against the door in relief, and then fights to not throw her phone across the room as her adrenaline turns into anger.

He calls her only seconds after, and she answers immediately.

After giving her more details (of which there aren’t many), Hide makes her promise not to confront his stalker or give any sign that they know about him.

He argues that they don’t have enough information yet, and although it's unlikely to be an ally or neutral party, they don’t know for sure that it’s Aogiri. They can’t afford to step on any toes, even if that puts Hide in danger. 

Even if she doesn’t know the specifics, Touka knows that Hide’s Big Stupid Plan relies heavily on Hide himself remaining unseen. To anyone who’s looking, he has to seem as if he’s a completely unimportant, oblivious human. If his new tail suddenly disappears, that could prompt further investigation that they can’t afford.

She doesn’t care about The Plan. Not if it puts him in danger. 

She tries to refuse, but Hide's voice sounds so severe. He practically begs her.

Touka is terrified, and furious, but she promises. After all, it won’t stop her from protecting him. She just won’t go the direct route.

---

The next morning, she wakes up at ass o’ clock A.M. and waits, hidden, outside of Hide’s apartment so she can hopefully get a look at whoever is tailing him. The cold makes her teeth chatter and she wishes she had the foresight to grab a coffee beforehand.

She waits, and eventually Hide leaves his building, cheerfully greeting his neighbors as he walks his bike to the street. Then he begins his normal route to work, weaving through the morning rush with familiarity.

She stays in place tucked in a doorway across the road and carefully scans each figure she sees traveling the same way Hide took off in. 

She’s about to give up and jog after Hide when she spots someone walking faster than the others: A young man, features obscured by a thick black coat with a hood. He’s wearing ripped jeans and boots, and for all intents and purposes, looks like a completely normal pedestrian on his way to work and rushing to avoid being late. 

She almost dismisses him until she catches a glimpse of his hair through the hood: dark blue, so dark that the sun hits it in such a way that it appears black. 

Exactly like her own.

Her stomach drops.

---

Touka makes sure Hide gets to work unharmed, then turns around and heads straight to her literature class. She ends up a few minutes late, and Yoriko sends her a questioning look from the seat next to her after she sets her books down.

She shrugs and whispers that she overslept as she cracks open her notebook and tries, unsuccessfully, to focus on what the lecturer is saying.

She can’t push Ayato from her mind no matter what she tries.

The fear curls up into her throat during the whole day. Just knowing that Hide attracted the attention of Aogiri is enough to make her tremble, but the fact that they sent him makes her feel sick. 

Considering Hide’s obvious ties to Anteiku, they probably did it on purpose. It seems like Aogiri sends Ayato anytime they need to keep Anteiku in check. He probably volunteers, so eager to see her laid low.

The only thing stopping her from tearing her hair out at this very second is the knowledge that Hide is safe within the depths of the CCG tower, a location that even Aogiri wouldn’t dare attack openly.

Everywhere else is fair game. If he wanted to, Ayato and whatever goons could walk right into Anteiku and take Hide just like he took Kaneki. She can’t do anything to stop him. It makes her blood boil in rage and shame.

He’s proven that she’s no match for him, twice over now. And even if she could- even if she was stronger, like Kaneki or Yomo- she couldn’t beat him without living in fear that Aogiri would retaliate and hurt the people she loves. 

So, she’s terrified of him. He is the last family she has left and he tore her heart out over and over again and she hates him. The thought of facing him again makes her want to run, very fast and very far away.

She’s a coward.

She can't afford weakness like that when Hide’s life is on the line.

It takes her the rest of the school day to swallow down her fear, replace it with anger, and steel her resolve.

Touka doesn't tell Hide who's following him, specifically. She texts him that she saw the guy, and that she recognizes him as being an Aogiri member, and that he's dangerous. None of these are technically lies.

She decides she won't tell him, because it shouldn't matter. 

It doesn't matter. 

The enemy is the enemy, and either she'll protect Hide, or die trying.

No one else needs to get involved in this, not unless she fails. 

So she just won't fail.

---

Hide makes it to Anteiku after he gets off work, right on time. 

The sun hasn't quite set yet, so Touka figured Ayato wouldn't do anything during Hide's commute. Still, seeing him round the corner and enter the shop below from her window loosens something in her chest and allows her to breathe deeply for the first time all day.

She rounds up her books and moves to the common room, where Kaneki is softly reading aloud to Hinami. They both greet her with a smile and it warms her. She can't help but smile back.

Hide joins them a minute later, flopping down on the couch and cracking open his laptop, and they all work comfortably in each other's company. 

The only indication that anything is out of the ordinary is the knowing glances Hide sends her way and Touka’s own nervous energy.

The silent agreement not to tell anyone else about Hide's stalker hangs over their heads. 

Hide’s reasoning is no doubt some misguided attempt at saving everyone the worry, or maybe keeping Kaneki from doing something rash. 

Touka is fine with it. She doesn't want her brother hurting anyone else.

---

Touka excuses herself early and shuts herself in her room under the guise of turning in for the night, then crawls out her window and waits on the roof.

The last customers of the evening trickle out as the sky turns darker and darker. 

She scans the roofs and roads around her constantly, hypervigilant for any movement, but she knows she's unlikely to see anything. Ayato was always excellent at stealth.

She watches as Roma and Hide lock up, and they go their separate ways. 

Hide is a few blocks away when she spots a dark blur across the street moving between rooftops. She crosses the street in one huge leap and follows as close as she dares, praising her good luck at the fact she's downwind of him, preventing him from catching her scent.

(She gets plenty of his scent, and as usual, it makes her ache with a deep sense of loss at its familiarity.)

He's fast and silent, and she almost loses track of him at a couple different points where she didn't catch his silhouette against the streetlights as he was moving to the next roof.

As she goes, a deep fear takes hold of her due to the sheer level of effort he seems to be taking in order to precisely tail Hide. Ayato knows where Hide lives. If all he wanted to do was track Hide's movement from Anteiku to his apartment, he wouldn't have to follow so damn close .

When Ayato breaks off from his careful following distance and passes Hide, she knows, with cold certainty, that Ayato is going to kill him.

Rage fills her so completely she nearly goes blind with it.

Fuck Ayato and fuck Aogiri.

They want Hide dead? 

She'll start a war.

Chapter Text

Trying to catch a glimpse of his stalker is near impossible this late. 

Not that a visual would help him if the guy chose to attack, anyway. He's really kind of screwed in that regard.

The best Hide can do is stay hyper aware of his surroundings, get inside as soon as possible, and hope that he hasn't made enough trouble to make anyone want to kill him yet. 

(Honestly, with what he's been up to, he expected the CCG to go after him first. Not that he's even done that much, at this point.)

The problem is that paying attention to his surroundings is pretty difficult after the amount of sleep he's been getting recently. 

He feels his eyes burn from more than just the cold wind in his face.

So when a blur suddenly whips in front of him from out of an alleyway, Hide veers his bike too late and far too sharply.

He doesn't even have time to cry out before he tumbles over the handlebars and lands sharply on his hands, scraping them all to hell. His momentum carries him forward a good few feet and he hits his head somewhere along the fall, just for good measure.

He lets himself lie on the freezing ground and process the shock for a few moments. He doesn't know exactly how long it takes the world to stop spinning, but he does know he should probably be dead by now. 

He hears a commotion happening somewhere in front of him. He looks up and sees---

Touka . 

That hair is unmistakable, even from this angle.

Her back is to him, presenting him with a full view of the intense splash of color branching out of her back like a single wing. 

Hide watches in fascination as it flickers like flames, blood red at the base but melting into a deep, dark blue at the tips. White flares up like sunbursts all along the surface and dissipates in the air, and the bright light of it is interlaced with darker seas of blue-black, moving in waves throughout.

It's hypnotic. It's beautiful. It's like a slow motion fire made to be her limb , and Hide can't even breathe through his awe.

The moment is broken by movement and noise beyond her, and he shifts his gaze to the ghoul staggering upright some ways down the alley. His stalker, presumably.

The ghoul shifts his stance, blood running down from his hairline, and grits his teeth into a snarl. Hide suppresses a gasp. He looks no older than fifteen. 

He looks like Touka. 

Even more so when he unfurls two full wings of his own.

It takes his injured brain a moment to connect the dots, and when he does, he blurts out,

"Oh shit."

Ayato Kirishima takes his eyes off his sister to glance at Hide for a millisecond, and that's all that Touka needs. She rushes him, tackling him bodily against the wall with an impact Hide feels through the ground. 

Ayato yells, and his kagune sweeps in to stab her in the sides, but she's already jumping back and deflecting. He jumps away as well, gaining distance, and his wings crystallize and he launches razor sharp shards at her, catching her in the calf before she ducks behind the sheild of her kagune.

Hide yells and covers his face as errant shards that made it past Touka rain down around him, but ultimately miss. 

Touka spares a glance over her shoulder back towards him, her one visible eye a burning crimson, and yells,

"HIDE , RUN!"

She goes flying sideways into the alley wall as Ayato rushes and hits her with the combined force of his double kagune.

It takes every scrap of willpower Hide has to tear his eyes away from the two of them and look back at his bike.

Heart pounding in time with his head, he scrambles across the concrete to his fallen backpack and rips it open, ignoring the blood he's smearing on the contents while he frantically empties it, searching for his phone.

He doesn't find it, and his breathing rapidly approaches levels of full on panic.

From behind him, Touka cries out, and he whips around to see just as Ayato retracts his kagune from the long gash he's made in her arm.

Touka flees backwards and grabs at the wound now splattering blood freely on the ground. Ayato leaps after her, almost too fast to follow with the human eye, and drives his fist solidly into her stomach, making her double over and choke.

Hide feels his helplessness so terribly in that moment, watching her get hurt, that his mind narrows to the sole purpose of getting him to stop, and he runs forward before he even realizes he's moving.

When he shoves Ayato, Hide half expects him not to move at all, like a toddler trying to push over an adult. So when Ayato actually falls to the ground from the force of his push, Hide stands there in dumb shock and just stares.

Ayato looks up at him, disoriented for a split second, before his face twists into hate and he pushes off the ground with his kagune to stand.

Hide backs up into Touka where she's still doubled over, gasping, and guides her directly behind him, shielding her.

Not like he'll make much of a difference, but he refuses to run.

As Ayato watches him, the hatred twisted on his face falls all at once and he freezes. 

For a long moment, they're both still, staring at each other with wide eyes and equal confusion as Touka catches her breath in the background.

Then, Ayato whips his head up to look at the rooftop closest to them with genuine terror in his eyes- right before he's overtaken by a large mass of something red from that direction and launched, once again, into the alley wall beside them, all in less than a second.

Hide blinks and when his eyes open, Kaneki is there.

The red mass is his kagne, pulsing darkly with black and crimson veins swirling beneath the surface as he flexes the four limbs outwards.

The ends of his hair glow yellow from the faint streetlights at the alley mouth, and when he looks toward Hide, his mismatched eyes are hard and angry.

Hide has seen him like this once before, very far away, looking through his binoculars as he faced Ayato the first time. It was jarring, then; to see him so changed from everything he used to be.

Now, up close, Hide can almost feel the violent intent through the air; he carries himself in such a way that radiates quiet power, like a predator.

But it's not upsetting, like it was the first time: he knows he's still his Kaneki, beyond the new surface.

Hide feels a flood of relief, and sags in place.

Touka, finally recovered, limps out from behind Hide and yells, "Get out of here, Kaneki! I can take him!"

Kaneki looks them over, and his eyes grow impossibly cold.

"He hurt you. Again. He hurt Hide."

A few feet away, Ayato coughs and struggles, very slowly, to his feet. Blood runs down his face and stains his shirt.

Kaneki’s attention snaps to him, and his kagune flex menacingly.

Ayato's eyes grow wide and terrified once again, but he keeps his teeth bared like a cornered animal.

"You…. You are both such goddamn idiots!" He pants, staggering backwards. "All of you are going to die!"

Kaneki continues to stare him down, saying nothing. He slowly lifts his hand and presses his ring finger down with his thumb until the joint pops. The sound echoes through the alley like a gunshot, and Ayato visibly flinches.

Touka steps forward and pushes past Kaneki.

"I said, leave . He's mine ," she growls, and doesn't wait for a response before slamming into Ayato and grabbing him by the throat.

He struggles, clawing at her arms and kicking, but doesn't dare use his kagune. 

The real fight is over, and he knows it. 

Hide hears the badly hidden fear in his voice as he chokes out, " Finally grew the balls to kill me, huh? Go ahead then, let's see it, big sis. "

Touka's face contorts in rage at his taunt, but Hide sees in the twinge of her features that it hurts her, too.

Ayato continues rambling, desperate to gain any kind of response, any kind of power over her.

"I bet you can't do it, I bet you're still all soft and weak just like dad and just like the old man. You still need your boyfriend to fight your battles for you."

He looks and sounds so, so young. Hide feels sick.

"Touka, stop," He says. Touka doesn't give any indication that she heard him.

He walks to her, passing Kaneki. His eyes are still cold as steel, but he gives Hide a long look and his kagune retract and disappear.

"Touka, stop ," He tries again, and reaches for her shoulder. His hand freezes when he realizes she's shaking. Her arm trembles as she still holds her brother by the throat. 

"He was gonna kill you," she says, and her voice wavers.

"...But he didn't," Hide says softly, "He could have, for a moment, but he chose not to."

Ayato watches them both with wide eyes, but blessedly remains silent and still as Touka loosens her grip.

"Please, Touka," He tries.

His plea hangs in the air for a moment, before he watches the red and black fade from her eyes and she releases Ayato abruptly. He slumps to the ground, coughing and gasping.

Touka turns away and hides her face in her hands.

Hide waits, standing above Ayato until he catches his breath enough to speak. 

Then, he kneels down and looks the kid in the eyes when he asks, 

"Why are you following me? What does Aogiri want with me?"

Ayato rasps out a cruel laugh. "You mean besides the fact that you're a little Dove helper for your day job at the CCG?" He announces, looking smug.

He waits, seemingly for some kind of reaction to his words. When he fails to get one, his face falls.

"They already knew," Ayato realizes.

"They already knew," Hide confirms.

Kaneki steps forward to loom over Ayato from beside Hide. 

"If Aogiri knew that there was a CCG employee infiltrating Anteiku, why would they want that employee killed? Wouldn't it benefit them if Anteiku falls without their intervention?" He asks.

Ayato hesitates under Kaneki's scrutiny, and his eyes dart to where Touka is turned away, still listening to the proceedings.

Kaneki follows his gaze, then hums in consideration.

Hide realizes it then, and relief flows through him fast enough to make him giddy. "Aogiri didn't send you, did they?" 

Ayato snarls wordlessly at him.

Kaneki nods in confirmation. Touka whips around, confusion and agitation evident in her expression.

"What does it matter?" Ayato barks at him. "What's your fucking point, smart guy?"

"His point," Kaneki interrupts, "is that you came here to save your sister."

Touka makes a strangled noise of disbelief, halfway between laughter and choking. When Ayato says nothing, and instead glares at Kaneki, she abruptly goes quiet.

Hide adds, "That's why you hesitated, isn't it? You were going to kill me. You thought I was putting Touka in danger, but then you saw me trying to save her."

Ayato sneers, but doesn't answer.

Touka steps forward and slowly kneels down in front of him. Ayato doesn't look her in the eye, instead focusing on the ground in front of him.

She opens and closes her mouth several times, trying to find her voice before she eventually croaks out, 

"Why?"

Ayato struggles with a response, his face scrunching up. He still refuses to look Touka in the eye. 

(Hide's breath is stolen away from him at how similar his mannerisms seem.)

"What does it matter?" He sighs. His anger, although still present, seems tamer. "I'm not about to run from Aogiri and join you and your merry band of idiots. We're still enemies . I just… I have an interest in keeping you from killing yourself with your stupid decisions."

Hide doesn't doubt that leaving Aogiri is out of the question. He imagines they wouldn't respond well to deserters, much less betrayers.

But Ayato wants to leave Aogiri, he can tell from the way he spits out the name of the organization, like it burns him.

Hide feels deeply sad for him, at this moment. Barely a teenager, trapped in something slowly killing him, with no way out and no connections to anyone but a sibling who he's just recently stopped resenting.

But even more so than that, Hide sees a perfect opportunity for leverage against Aogiri, falling right in the palm of his hand. He's almost giddy with the thought of it.

(He wonders, distantly, what that says about him: the fact that helping Ayato is almost overshadowed by using him, in his list of priorities.

He pushes the thought down.)

"You don't have to be," Hide interjects, brain working faster than his mouth. Ayato shoots him a baffled look. "Our enemy, I mean," He adds, "Even if you can't leave Aogiri, that doesn't mean you have to be our enemy. You can still help us."

They all stare at him, processing his meaning.

"You mean spying on Aogiri," Kaneki says.

"Yeah- it's actually something I was looking into already, but we had no realistic way to do so, until now," Hide replies.

Ayato looks offended at the suggestion. "You want me to put my life on the line to give you information. Why? What's in it for me?"

"Hopefully, the death of Aogiri," Hide answers.

Ayato stares at him in shock and no small amount of doubt. He scoffs. "You seriously think that having some insider info will be enough for you pissants to take down the fucking Owl!?"

"No, of course not. I don't think anyone in Anteiku could," Hide says. "But I think that the full force of the CCG might stand a chance."

Ayato's face darkens in realization. "You mean feeding the CCG info about Aogiri. You mean working with the CCG," He spits out.

"Not so much working with them as guiding them in the right direction, giving them a push, and staying the hell out of it," Hide shoots back.

"What makes you think the CCG is going to let Anteiku stay out of it?"

Hide opens his mouth to answer when the sound of sirens in the distance makes everyone flinch.

"Not here, Hide," Kaneki says, "We've made too much noise." 

"So what, we bring him back to Anteiku?" Touka scoffs at Kaneki.

Hide meets Ayato's eyes. They're still wide with fear, and his hands are curled into tight fists in his lap. 

"That's up to him, I guess," Hide answers, and stands up from his crouched position with a groan as his muscles protest. He offers a hand down to Touka, and she takes it, clutching her side as she rises.

He then turns and offers a hand to Ayato.

For a second, he looks absolutely baffled at the gesture, but quickly hides it with a nasty sneer. He slaps the hand away and struggles to his feet by himself, heavily leaning on the wall behind him.

Once he's upright, he bites out, "Fine. I'll go with you. I… I want to hear how you think you can take down Aogiri, since you seem to think it's possible."

Hide smiles and quips back, "I'm sure it can be done, it's just a matter of how much you're willing to help."

Ayato just groans, resigned.