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There was a certain art to reinventing yourself.
Step one. Evaluate every facet of your former self.
The way you walk. Talk. Eat. Sleep. The little mannerisms that are too subtle for any normal asshole to catch, but of course people over analyze, so of course the way you hunch your shoulders and lower your eyes is suddenly a threat to your entire new existence.
"Who do you want to be?" Yomo had asked her with his kind voice and sad eyes.
The words sprung onto her tongue, acidic and vile, like blood and vomit mixed inside her mouth.
"I want to be me. Kirishima Touka. Me. No one else."
She'd bitten her tongue. You get used to that. Biting your tongue to keep your old self from throwing a coup. She'd bitten her tongue, the first of many times Touka had swallowed down her voice and her feelings for the sake of surviving.
She turned her eyes to the softly snoozing girl handcuffed to an old, rotted mahogany chair. The new apartment was dingy, but Yomo had promised that it was just temporary. He had money saved. She could have any building she wanted. He seemed to want her to be happy in this fragile nonexistence that he'd led her into.
Well, fine.
She could have any building, any name, any personality, any fucking life she wanted.
Just not the one she had left behind.
Now wasn't that a sucker punch?
Fine. She could take a hit. Hell, she could take a hundred. She'd been blown onto her knees and forced to watch her entire goddamn world shudder and rock and collapse around her, crumbling to dust and coughing noxious fumes into the blackened sky. But here she was.
Still alive. Still here. Still hoping.
Hope? Hope? Ha! What a pretty little lie that was.
Her eyes lingered on the shackled girl slumped in a chair, her dark hair curtaining her soft, pretty face.
Huh.
"I won't be anyone," she decided.
No one at all. Just another pretty face. Right?
Wasn't that how it was done?
So she'd taken that sucker punch, and she'd let it straighten her out. She turned herself over, ripped herself inside out, and smiled softly when her guts hit the floor. Her spine was cracking, but she didn't care. This was how it was done. Evaluate your former self, right? Well, Touka was rash, bristly, and uncouth. She was nice enough to customers, yeah, but that was where her niceties ended.
So. Step two. Make a map of the new you.
Rash? Bristly? Uncouth? Ha! Like hell, she was too good for that. Cool and collected. One of those cool girls, sweet to look at, sweet to envy, with that dumb way of walking— slow, swinging gait, knowing you look like something soft and heavenly but looking like you haven't got a clue.
Nice. The one thing they couldn't take from her was her ability to be a stone cold bitch.
Thank god.
Anyway, cool girls were only bitches when no one was around, so that'd be fine. The only people who'd ever see the bitch in Touka were Yomo and Rize.
She was cool with that. After all, she was them.
Cool and collected and classy. Totally classy. She could do classy! Just because she slumped and scowled all the time didn't mean she didn't know class. And she was good with fashion. She couldn't do any of her pseudo punk shit, and going full punk like Uta, or something, that wasn't really her thing, so she'd really have to step back and look at the merchandise. Heels.
Lots of heels.
"Those are loud." He wasn't Yomo anymore.
"They're heels." She wasn't Touka anymore.
"They're… skinny."
"Wow. Excellent assessment." She had to remember herself. Not Touka. Not really herself. If she were speaking to a stranger, she could just smile. Softly. Demure, right? Yeah, some shit like that. Cute. She had to be fucking cute!
Cool and collected and classy and cute!
Was that what it was going to take to become a completely different person?
Maybe she was trying too hard.
"What do you think?" She spun very slowly. Her skirt ballooned around her thighs, soft and velvety. Her heels struck twice against the wooden floor.
"Nice."
"That's really encouraging, Yomo, thanks a lot," she snapped. He stared at her, and she rolled her shoulders back. Right. Rash. Bitter, bright rage. That was Touka. She wasn't Touka anymore. She wasn't anyone. "Maybe I'll ask Rize what she thinks."
He stared at her. A vacant, unamused stare. Did it make him sad or relieved that Rize was in tatters? Did it make her glad or envious that Rize had lost bits of her mind in places they could not go?
Once or twice or thrice they'd talked, Touka and Rize. Rize had glanced up at her, smiled her wicked, gentle little smile, and she'd waggled her finger for Touka to lean down closer. And Touka, unassuming and young, perhaps maybe even a little dazzled herself by Rize's grace and Rize's disgusting act, had expected to just hear her order. Instead, Rize had snatched her by the tie and pulled her in so close that Touka could still feel the stink of perfume burning away the hairs in her nostrils. Lavender. So much lavender. She needed to cake it on to mask the scent of blood, which became ever so palpable as Touka's cheek had brushed hers.
"You know," Rize had whispered, "a pretty face like yours could eat anyone she wants. But you don't do that, do you? No. You're pretty, but you haven't got a lick of sense." She'd released her, and Touka had moved to straighten up. Rize had stopped her by grasping her chin. And she'd smiled that soft, venomous smile. "Smile, won't you? You'll make me look bad."
And Touka, as angry and disgusted as she'd been, had smiled softly back with grand ease. Rize had looked irritatingly pleased, and she'd tucked Touka's bangs out of her eye and behind her ear. It felt uncomfortably bare, and she'd blinked rapidly, her face flushing from rage and embarrassment.
"Oh, your eyes are so pretty!" Her own eyes had flitted half closed, her lips drawing back and her straight white teeth gleaming. "You should stop hiding them."
"Thank you," she'd said through gritted teeth, her smile tight. "Is that all, miss…?"
"Kamishiro Rize."
"Right." It'd taken everything in her not to roll her eyes. "Is that all, Miss Rize?"
"Sure, sure." She'd waved her hand quickly, tucking her own dark hair behind her ear. "Mm… yes, that's all. For now, at least."
Touka had spun on her heel and marched back behind the counter with a hunched back and a scowl on her face.
Girls like that got fucking everything and everyone and then they got nice, clean tragedies and either died young or lost their minds.
None of this waiting and longing and making time tables to schedule crying into. None of this bullshit where everyone who ever meant anything up and leaves just for the hell of it.
Rize had been the leaver, not the left.
God. Touka had never left behind anyone in her entire life.
Except, perhaps, herself.
That was just how it was though. The life of a ghoul.
Step three. Apply the falsities until they become real.
So she cut her hair. Drizzled gunk all over it, rinsed it out, and turned it into shimmering sheets of rain. She collected heels, dark pumps and fat white wedges and gladiator sandals that crawled up her calves and slim, elegant gray boots that made her look sophisticated when winter came and went. She gathered up skirts by the armful and dumped them onto her bed and tried them on one by one, twirling and modeling and never really thinking.
When had she become so materialistic? Was that really what cool girls were like? If she painted her lips red and dusted her eyelids pink, would that make it hurt less somehow? Fill the void? Fill her empty heart?
Rize never answered when she asked.
"Look at us," she told the hollow eyed girl. She no longer fought violently or screamed or cried. She just sat with her soft face sunken and her clever eyes faded and her plump lips dried into sandy ridges. Even though she hated her, it was all just superficial. Like everything else in her life at this point. "We've got nothing. We're fucking nobodies."
Rize raised her eyes. Her dark, limp, gnarled hair slipped against her shoulder as she cocked her head.
They stared at each other. And it was hard, because there was old hatred still burning within her. You, she thought bitterly. You started all of this. You with your binge eating, your mediocrity. How could Kaneki ever have likde you? These were things that clawed at her mind when she wanted nothing more than to forget, forget, forget.
She stood up and strode to a drawer, ripping it open with the sort of quick, vicious anger that Touka would have been so fucking proud of. She grabbed a pair of scissors and marched back to Rize, yanking her chair out and watched her body wobble a bit from the force.
"You're so pathetic!" She grabbed a fistful of that ratty, lackluster hair, thinking back and recalling how soft and silky it had always looked. How it had smelled like lavender. "Can you even hear me? Can you even fucking comprehend how awful you are? You ruined so many fucking lives!" She drew the fist of hair up until the twisted locks forced Rize up straight. She shook her head, rain tickling her cheeks. "You're just as selfish now as you were then, huh?"
She sliced through the dark hair, listening to the snip and relishing in the sight of Rize's once beautiful tresses fluttering to the kitchen floor.
And then, all at once, she felt immensely guilty.
This girl had made so many lives hell… but was she not in hell herself? Was she not pathetic and weak and helpless to any chaos inflicted upon her?
Look at us, she thought bitterly, defeat collapsing upon her shoulders. We haven't got a thing left to us.
She tried her best to even out the hair, and combed it for good measure. When she was done, she gathered the clumps of hair in a dustpan and sighed as she examined her handiwork.
"Well," she said, tucking a dark strand behind Rize's ear. "It's a little uneven, but it's better than Hinami…" A pang shot through her hollow chest. Hinami. Where was she now? It had been impossible to track her down. She was a ghost now. Just another phantom laugh gathering dust on the shelf of Touka's memories.
She turned away, tossing the hair in the garbage bin. So that was it. She was a nobody haunted by a long line of soft, sad smiles.
"Thank you…"
The hoarse voice cracked across the air like a whip slicing through flesh. It stung.
Nobody had fucking told her she could just get better like that!
Rapidly decaying, hysterical Rize had been irritating and sad, despondent, hollow Rize was currently a living breathing guilt trip, but the real Rize?
That girl had been a fucking nightmare.
Good riddance.
She should have just died for Kaneki's life, like she was meant to.
The worst part was, it made her happy. Hearing Rize's voice, hearing that soft little gratitude, it tickled her hollow chest and made her reevaluate herself. Nobody. They were two very distinct nobodies.
But they were still alive.
Her heels clapped against the tile as she turned sharply away and walked out the door with her head held high.
Step four. Start to regret it.
Every day was the same. Perfunctory motions. She woke up with her hair pooling across her pillow like liquid mercury, and she blinked a few times and thought about someone, anyone, their name on her tongue, as bitter and heartening as a fresh brew. And then her mind caught up with her and she recalled that she was no one, certainly not anyone that an Arata, an Ayato, a Yoriko, a Yoshimura, a Hinami, a Kaneki would know.
Names were just another superficiality. Like pretty clothes and pretty faces, their significance was only skin deep. Names were easily crushed.
Memories were harder to kill.
So every day she'd get out of bed and push the names from her mind. She dressed herself hastily, flattening out her dress and fixing the bunches in her dark tights. She went to the bathroom and combed her hair, wetting the ends and observing in a daze as her steely hair curled delicately at her cheeks. She then brushed her teeth and did her make up, easy and efficient, never taking up too much time. She never picked any heavy hues anymore. She mostly chose soft colors, pastels or neutrals.
She lifted up a pale purple lipstick to her face, and she paused. She glanced into the mirror, and her stomach clenched up in horror.
She was staring at Kamishiro Rize.
Beautiful and soft and charming and sweet. On the surface, at least. She wore soft pastel hues and her hair bounced around her pretty face and she dressed like she knew exactly how to attract the eye and walked like she had too many things on her mind to notice anyone looking at her. And that was what kept her inconspicuous. That soft, girlish innocence made her seem small and unassuming.
Who did she want to be?
This had certainly been her plan, hadn't it?
Be no one, and a monster will grow somewhere in the pit of that empty chest of yours.
Regret and regret and regret. Where had all that hope gone?
She threw the lipstick back into her makeup pouch and she smacked her reflection with the palm of her hand. Her fingers splayed over the soft waves, and she slumped. It was good to slump. Scowl. It felt familiar and easy.
She was tired of soft smiles and soft words.
She wanted to fucking fight.
She wanted her knuckles to peel and for blood to cake her delicate little hands.
But could she? Did she even know how to be that person anymore? She wasn't even Rize. She didn't even have that kind of lack of sense to attract doves. She didn't have any senses at all. She was just so fucking numb to it all by now.
There was no helping it. Loss made monsters out of everyone and anyone and, in her case, no one at all. She was too numb to be sad and too sad to be hopeful and too hopeful to be done and too done to give a fuck.
She was a scraggly mess of contradictions and suppressed rage.
She missed Ayato.
It made her furious how he was the one, out of everyone, that hurt her the most.
She wanted to kick his teeth into his throat and make blood stream from his nose and she wanted to hear him laugh at her through his pain and suffering, and she wanted to laugh too, because it seemed that smiling and laughing were the only way to push through the agony of it all.
She let her hand slide from the mirror. The girl staring back was so sweet and soft and subtle, nothing like any Kirishima she knew.
No. That was wrong.
She looked quite a bit like her father now.
Right down to the exhaustion that had filtered her eyes. Blinded her from the shock of red that painted the world around her. A world-weary infliction of color blindness. If she could live in black and white she would.
But nothing was that simple.
Not even the calm, cool little no one she'd built herself up and down to be.
Regret and regret and regret. How could anyone do so little and regret so much?
Perfunctory days bred perfunctory lives and perfunctory lives bred perfunctory people. She was in a rut.
Wanting and wishing and worrying and waiting.
After awhile, steps one through four stopped mattering, and this nothing you made for yourself becomes you.
She headed down the steps from their apartment to the coffee shop. Her heels clicked softly against the tile. Pretty, empty sounds.
Pretty, empty life.
And it was all a fucking lie.
She should have punched that goddamn girl in the mirror and made her pretty fucking face crack. Then she'd get those goddamn bloody knuckles she was so desperately yearning for.
The familiar jingle of the bell at the door hit her about mid-stair, and she sighed. She should have gotten up earlier. She should have set her alarm, or something. And of course he'd never wake her up, of course he wouldn't do that. Asshole. She'd have to tell him off for that later.
God, he what was he doing? She listened closely, but his low voice wasn't drifting anywhere toward her, and that was irritating.
Fuck, did she have to do everything?
"Hey!" She snatched a guest check book from off the counter as she moved from the darkness of their little hall and into the light of the shop. "How many times have I told you…"
She faltered, her heels clicking against the floor and her ankles nearly tangling around each other.
Oh.
That was strange.
There was a ghost in :re.
And his eyes were all big and shocked and his shoulders were weirdly broad, his whole body filled out in a way she had no idea had been possible, as though he were actually a healthy weight and not just some pallid flesh pasted over gangly bones. And his mouth was open, and his hair was funny, that funny trend that all the funny hipsters liked, that ombre shit, black meeting white and bleeding all over his forehead.
Oh. Regret and regret and regret swelled up in her chest.
She should have stayed in bed.
"Please…" She wondered how her voice sounded. Was it shaking? Her knees were shaking. She was staring too much, wasn't she? Ghost boy, ghost boy was fucking with her head with his big eyes and his gaping mouth and his funny hair all black and white and she ached to punch him in the jaw and scream at him till her voice was hoarse but ghosts weren't real and neither was she so she turned her eyes from his face and gestured limply to some random ass table and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Have a seat here."
"Ah…" His voice was jittery and familiar and nervous and soft and it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it peeled off a scab that had been festering in her chest for years and years and years now and there was some icky fluid rising up inside her that made her ribs hurt and her throat ache and she wanted it all to stop so bad. She tried to focus on the other ones, the real ones, not the ghost boy, but the first face she looked upon made her jump out of her skin.
Eyepatch.
Eyepatch…
This is what I wanted, she thought frantically, this is what I prayed for, this is what I've been wishing and wanting and waiting for since Anteiku, this is it and I can't even speak, I can't even think, I'm just moving and I don't think I'm even alive anymore, I don't think I was even alive at all until now.
She stared at the poor boy, and he stared back with a helplessly nervous look about him. His dark cheeks were filling up with color under her stare. He was hugging his arms and furrowing his brow. Sensing something and nothing.
Ghost boy continued with his shaky voice filled with nervous laughter. She was used to this, this socially anxious little lilt in people's voices as they ordered their drinks, all at attention as though she were some intimidating military commander and not just some random ass waitress at a coffee shop blinking slowly, patiently, as the customer stumbled on their words. She felt bad for these people, usually. Not today though. Fuck ghost boy. His voice made her empty chest fill up, and she was starting to remember what it was like to have a fucking heart.
"Yes…" He sounded so nervous. So stupid and shaky and nervous. He sounded like a boy in a dream, skinny and confused, pushing all the wrong buttons and warming all the right places and never really knowing or understanding just how frustrating he was to be around. Nervous and coy, a little dream boy who'd died because Touka had been weak and little boys threw themselves onto swords just to prove they were so fucking strong, strong enough to protect broken little girls like her, weak little monsters like her. It was kinda funny, wasn't it? Everyone who wanted to protect her left her out to fucking dry. "Ah, three coffees please…"
She turned sharply away from him and strode back into her dark little hall. She could hear chairs scraping against the floor, and she could hear rushing in her ears, laughter ghosting around her head and slapping her on each cheek for good measure. She reached out for the bar to steady herself, and she cupped her head for good measure.
Had that really just happened?
Yomo appeared before her, and she blinked up at him. She threw a glance over her shoulder, and she pushed at his chest until he backpedaled rapidly until they were under the cover of the stairs. He nearly tripped over a pair of sneakers, and she listened to her heels cracking on the wooden floor.
"Tell me this is real," she hissed, staring up at his face with an expression she just knew was twisted and unattractive. She was glad. Touka was so fucking sick of pretending to be fine. "Tell me that I'm not delusional. That's him. That's him, that's him, that's—"
He clapped his hand over her mouth.
"Him, him, him, him," she exhaled into his hand, giddy and grief-stricken and glad to let her composure slip.
"They're doves," he told her softly.
Doves?
Kaneki? A dove?
Ha!
Ghouls with the CCG?
Ha!
Eyepatch boys and ghost boys ripping appendages from her kin and putting them to an anvil, beating away at fleshy, scaly, feathery, steely parts to make beautiful, grotesque arsenals.
She needed to go throw up.
He lifted his hand from her mouth, and she shoved him back toward the bar.
"What do we do," she gasped, unable to think or breathe. "Just… I don't know! I don't know if it's him. Is it him?"
He gave her a long, vacant stare.
"Fuck," she spat. Her voice was so low, it was impossible that ghost boy and his doves would hear. "Fine, okay, whatever. We serve them now, freak out later, yeah? But… shit, what if it's not him? Should I make sure it's him? You know what, I don't care, who cares, this is cool, I don't care, why are you fucking stand there like a fucking hat stand, we need to... Wait." She straightened up. He'd turned away as she'd begun to ramble. "Wait."
He did not respond.
Touka slumped. Her heart was thudding very hard, and she pressed her hand to her chest gingerly. Then to her face. She was completely flushed.
Oh. Three coffees. Fuck, okay. She needed to calm down. If she tried to make them now, she'd spill the water everywhere. Her hands were scarred enough, thanks.
She rested her shoulder against the wall, hugging herself tightly and squeezing her eyes shut. She might actually vomit. Holy shit.
This girl she'd been building up in her head? She really had been nothing at all.
Touka wanted to rip her hair out for thinking she could be anyone else in the face of her awful ghosts.
She saw Yomo stray back toward her, and she jumped up straight.
"Brother, what did you do?" she snapped, her voice cracking harshly across the air. "The customers will run away!"
Maybe that's exactly what she wanted.
Run away from me again, she thought fiercely. I fucking dare you!
Yomo's eyes slid beneath heavy lids. "It's him," he said softly.
Her heart, all refreshed and revamped from its long hibernation, shattered into a thousand pieces.
Great, she thought. A ghoul and a ghost and a godforsaken fucking dove. I hate you, Kaneki, you fucking idiot!
She pressed her hands to her mouth. She thought she might really puke. It was clawing up inside her, rising and rushing like a wave.
And suddenly she was muffling giggles into her lips and shaking because the tears in her eyes were determined to fall.
Yomo pressed his hand to her head.
"Go on," he whispered. "I can make the order."
She nodded hastily, turning fast and rushing into the employee's bathroom. Once there, she collapsed on the toilet seat and buried her face in her hands. The tears didn't fall, of course. That'd be too easy. Her chest and throat were burning, and she could hardly see a thing, but still the tears refused to come out. Guess she'd scheduled her crying too thoroughly.
"Stupid," she muttered, softly pounding at her heart with her useless fist. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."
What was she supposed to feel right now? It had been so long since she'd felt anything, and now all these emotions were swarming inside her and she couldn't deal with them. She couldn't bear to address any of it. How did this happen? Kaneki with the doves?
Better with the doves than Aogiri again, she thought darkly. She thought about Ayato. Her dumb fuck little brother couldn't comprehend it. He was just a pawn, like the rest of them. Whoever that dumbass One Eye was, he'd feed Ayato to the dogs if the little Black Rabbit so much as wounded a paw. He didn't get it. He was just as blind and stupid as she was.
But truthfully, she didn't know who was worse. The CCG were only human. They had humanity in them. They'd… they'd taken Kaneki's humanity into account. Thank god. Thank god, oh thank god.
But… he didn't know her. Did he? Or he acted like he didn't know her.
She stood up and stumbled toward the mirror. She stared at her face, which was pinkish, but not as splotchy as she'd been expecting. Good. He couldn't know how upset she was.
She was struck with something.
"Eyepatch," she muttered. That boy. She hadn't really looked at the other one, but that eyepatch boy, he was… well, overwhelming similar to an asshole who kept haunting Touka's dreams.
No, no, no, that was ridiculous. He was CCG! He'd probably hurt his eye fighting a ghoul, or something. Humans didn't heal like ghouls did.
But they have Kaneki, she thought, glaring at her reflection. Who knows what they know now? What they can do?
But could the CCG stoop to that?
She splashed cold water onto her face and took a deep breath.
She decided she didn't care. Kaneki was alive.
Even if he didn't remember for some weird reason, that wasn't on her. She knew he'd recognized her.
I'll trigger his memory one way or another, she thought, raising her head high.
Touka had learned a few things from being nothing and no one for so long.
She cleaned herself up, and as she did so she thought briefly about Rize. She was unbelievably grateful they'd relocated her for the time being. Both of them would probably trigger the worst in each other.
Whoa. Actually, that wouldn't be so bad, seeing them try and rip each other apart. It'd be cathartic.
A thought for another day, when she'd calmed down enough to regain some of that cool girl shit she'd tried so hard to maintain.
She walked out of the bathroom and hung around behind the counter, watching Yomo work. She didn't look at the doves, though she heard them chattering softly. Eyepatch boy laughed. Ah. His laugh was nice. He looked like a really nice boy.
I wonder how many ghouls he's killed. She watched him out of the corner of her eye.
The one she hadn't paid any mind to was very loud. The loudest, in fact. He had a weird smile, but he looked nice enough.
All these nice looking young men in white coats. Pretty fucking lies, that's all they were.
And the ghost boy the worst of them all.
When the coffee was finally done, she jumped at the chance to speak to them again.
"Sorry for the wait." She had one cup balancing on her inner arm as she set two down. She could balance it on her head too. It was a fun trick she did for children who came in. It made her miss Hinami all the more. She's not a child anymore, she recalled, staring at the table and realizing how unbearably hurt she'd be when she met Kaneki again and he didn't remember her. There was something weird about the thought that Hinami was now about the age Touka had been when she'd met Kaneki.
"It's a great smell," the ghost said softly. His eyes were far away. She looked at him, and she lowered her head.
Eyepatch had already taken his cup, blowing on it softly. It was hard to look at him too.
Ghost was a reminder of all the trials she'd have to go through now, but Eyepatch was a reminder of everything she'd already lost.
He took a sip, and his eyes widened. "Whoa…" he mumbled, maybe to himself. "Delicious…"
The weird smiling boy gave a great, hearty laugh. "It's a bullseye!" His eyes were closed contentedly. "And Sassan's nose kagune ain't shit either! Right?"
Nose kagune? Touka averted her eyes. Oh my god, they're all fucking dorks.
Wait, what did nose kagune even mean? And Sassan? Was this all an inside joke or something? Wait.
Fuck.
She was really jealous of these dumbasses.
Her heart hurt so badly she wanted to rip it out, stomp on it with the spike of her heel, and then offer it to these half-baked ghoul kids as a peace offering.
Here you go! Eat it up! You can have the rest if you just let me have him back for a few minutes. Just a few minutes! That's all I ask, I'm begging you guys. Come on.
She really was pathetic.
"Yeah, it's tasty…"
She watched his eyes well up rapidly. Fat tears fell before the ghost boy could blink. His mouth fell open, and he looked a little shocked. He exhaled shakily, confusedly, and she didn't know what to do or what to say. Whatever the doves had done, it obviously wasn't strong enough. It'd probably deteriorate soon enough. A drug? Hypnosis? That shit couldn't last forever.
He started laughing, and she took a sharp breath to keep her own tears at bay. It wasn't fair.
Regret and regret and regret.
Hope and hope and hope.
Where did it end? Where did it begin?
Where were they now, the girl who had banished herself for the sake of molding someone else, and the boy who'd lost himself to the chisel and hammer of power hungry doves?
"Yeah," he laughed. "It's good."
"Sassan, that's too much!" Weird Smile was beaming. He couldn't know how unbearable this all was. How truly sad his coworker really was. "Some kind of new joke?"
Eyepatch looked worried. His one eye was moving between Ghost and Touka slowly. Oh boy. The last thing she needed was a smart investigator. But then again, someone like him— someone like Kaneki? It might help her cause more than hurt it.
"No, it's strange… I wonder what this is…" The ghost was practically sobbing all over her waxed mahogany tables. Thanks a lot, shit head.
She offered out a napkin, unable to trust her voice. His words were garbled as he snatched it.
His apologizing was annoying. It stung like little knives swiping delicately at her ribs.
"It's delicious…" His muffled voice was so stupidly genuine. Why did you have to change? She smiled at him. Why haven't you changed at all? "It really is…"
And for the first time in a very long time, somehow, she felt very happy.
She turned her eyes away, and she took a breath.
No more regrets and no more hopes. No more pretending to be nothing and everything all at once.
She was done hiding, and she was certainly done waiting.
She smiled. It was soft, but that softness was real. She was soft now. She'd been defanged, and all her calluses had faded.
But that was fine.
Right now, she knew exactly who she was, and that was more than she could say for him.
"Thank you very much," she told him.