Chapter Text
Hide hums a cheerful tune as he walks, absentmindedly scrolling through a list of songs on his phone. He has a song stuck in his head, has all day, but he can’t seem to remember what it’s called. Listening to a song always helps get it out of his head, and he thought maybe taking a walk would help jog his memory, but no such luck. He’s honestly lost track of how long he’s been walking for, he should probably get home. He sighs and taps a song at random, slipping his headphones on and shoving his phone back in his pocket. He’ll just try to drown it out.
The song he picked is by an American artist, and though he likes to think he knows a decent amount of english, he still can’t understand most of the lyrics. He doesn’t really mind, though. He just likes the way it sounds.
As the song plays, Hide looks around, actually taking a moment to check on his surroundings.
Man, he really walked far. He’s right in front of…
He slows to a stop without really meaning to, looking up at the building he’s found himself in front of. Kaneki’s place…
He’s not zoned out enough (yet) to be unaware of his surroundings, and he steps into the apartment building’s parking lot as someone moves to pass him on the sidewalk. This place really hasn’t changed at all, huh? The positive mood he’s in has faded almost entirely, now he feels sad...and maybe a little guilty?
He finds himself walking toward the apartment building. He might as well go check Ken’s old apartment. It’s not like he’s in a hurry to go anywhere, he has nowhere to go but home. He’ll just pop in for a quick look, make sure nothing’s fallen off of any shelves or nobody’s broken into the place, or something.
Really, it’s just to satisfy this gnawing in his chest. He doesn’t expect to find anything.
He pauses the song and takes his headphones off as he walks up the steps. It’s been a while since he last came here, though he used to come almost every day. It’s been almost a year since Kaneki was declared missing. Hide used to check here as frequently as he could, holding onto the hope that he’d open the door and find his best friend’s face smiling back. Nowadays he just comes back here to pay the rent. Technically he doesn’t have to, the landlord told him so, but he wants to. He doesn’t know the legal protocol for this kind of thing, what if Kaneki were to come back and be saddled with all the missing payments?
“Where are you, man…” Hide mumbles to himself as he walks toward the door. “When you come back, you’d better have a damn good explanation for me.”
If you come back.
He shakes his head, forcing the traitorous thought out of his mind. Kaneki will come back, even if he has to hunt him down and drag him back himself.
Hide pulls out his keyring and grabs the correct key by instinct, reaching to put it in the lock. However, he stops short.
The lock is busted. It clearly wasn’t done with a tool, but whoever did this wasn’t just brute forcing it, either. They knew what they were doing, and they used just enough force to break it, but not break it so obviously that you’d notice unless you were looking closely. Whoever this was has done this before.
But why Kaneki’s apartment? He doesn’t have anything particularly valuable that Hide can think of…
He quickly darts over to both of Kaneki’s neighbors. Their locks are intact.
That means either this was completely random, or someone was after Kaneki. Or him , for that matter, since he’s the only one who’s been here in the last year.
He adjusts the keyring so the keys are sticking out from between his fingers, like claws. It’s not the best weapon, and he doubts whoever broke in is still here, but it’s better than nothing. Then he braces himself, and opens the door.