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Touka wakes from a nightmare of blood, and she can taste it in her mouth. Heavy, slushes of disgusting meat and the never ending screams. Her stomach twists in nausea and she has to take a moment, has to breathe out and close her eyes against the swirl of storm that rises inside of her.
It never fucking gets old, Touka thinks with wry and wants to laugh.
She turns over.
Kaneki is fast asleep and looks utterly ridiculous. His mouth is wide open and he’s drooling, his shirt pulled up so his stomach is on display.
Her heart flutters without her consent. When was the last time she’s seen like him? Not plagued by the memories, and regret, and every fucking thing that exists in this world because for some reason he believes he’s responsible for it all. That idiot. (She loves him and hates him so much.) There are still dark shadows under his eyes and he looks still too skinny, and so pathetic. But—
The lines on his face aren’t deep anymore, but lighter, easier and she can trace an almost smile on his lips. Wonders, is he dreaming? What is he dreaming about? He’s stretched out, at utter peace and Touka can’t stop staring. Her eyes go hot and she closes them again when it gets too much.
The darkness that meets her doesn’t help, makes her even more lost and she needs to open her eyes again. Kaneki’s face meets her and Touka wants to cry. She wants to kill, there is an itch in her mind that she can’t get out. It exists there and it’s so fucking annoying, keeps pressing so much that she wants to dig claws into her brain and scream.
Touka shifts closer to Kaneki, rests her head on his collarbone and curls her arm over his waist. She can hear his pulse, counts to the beat of it and something like relaxation falls over her.
Touka doesn’t close her eyes, keeps them peeled open and stares at their wall. The colourful little handprints dotted all over white along with crayons drawings of scribbles and something that resembles three human-shaped people.
Her heart squeezes and Touka curls her arm tighter around Kaneki, presses her face into his skin and there’s—
There’s something else stuck in her throat that feels awful like gratitude. Soft, so unbearable soft and warm and large. She can’t breathe through the weight of it pressing on her—through the nightmare still resonating in her mind and the heavy taste of regrets, and death that stenches the inside of her mouth.
It never gets easy to wake up, but—
It feels so much better than the times where she would wake up alone and the nightmares lived with her, in the real world.
It’s not, here. Touka can press her face to cold-ish skin that she knows as well as her own heart and she can watch the drawings and think the small, amazing girl that wears smiles and laughter and only knows how to be free, and—
Touka is able to find the effort to lift the corner of her lips—can smile. It's a small one, crippled and broken at the edges, the nightmares still too close her but—even despite that, she can feel warmth bubbling inside of her.
Something she had never had before.
(Peace.)
(Something to belong wholeheartedly too.)
Anteiku was home, but she had forgotten what it felt like.
Here, she can remember.