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Surely one of these days, any day soon, Kaneki would cross the line and Hide wouldn’t tolerate him anymore. That was his greatest fear that wouldn’t let him rest.
It was a cruel thought, and the rational part of Kaneki’s mind would try to reassure himself that it was too harsh to be realistic. But the rest of his mind that was all too used to those in his life no longer tolerating him, lashing out at him with disgust, rejection or violence, made him fear the pattern continuing. Even with someone like Hide, someone who would never do that to him.
Hide. The only sense of normalcy in his life, the only person he had felt like he could even slightly confide in, the only one who could make him feel what safety felt like. The only one who understood him and seemed to know the inner workings of Kaneki’s mind more than Kaneki himself.
Once Kaneki had become anything but normal, more than ever, he felt he would break if he lost Hide from his life.
However, every moment spent with Hide since the fateful night that put him under the knife had been yet another moment in which Kaneki was deceiving him. Keeping Hide around him under false pretences that he was the same person as ever, that he was human, that he hadn’t done anything worth his disgust. That wasn’t fair on Hide. Nor was it something Kaneki could bear either, walking on eggshells around Hide in fear that one wrong word or action would be picked up on by Hide’s keen senses and he would then know the monster Kaneki had become.
Kaneki decided that rather than lose Hide due to reasons out of his control, he would choose to step away on his own accord.
It was completely contradictory and hypocritical; Kaneki knew that. He feared more than anything else the thought of Hide leaving him, and then he’d turn around and do that to Hide. He so desperately wanted to hold Hide tightly close in his life, yet he was the one deciding to leave him out of it. But it was a life that Hide deserved better than to be held in. And it was one Hide would probably have inevitably left anyway after knowing the truth, so it was just easier if Kaneki did it now. It hurt less to make the decision himself than it would be to ever face a rejection or hatred from Hide that he would never recover from. Besides, Kaneki could protect him better when he was at a distance.
Not that it didn’t break Kaneki to do so, but it was the difference between a clean break and shattering into bits beyond repair. At least the pieces from the former were easier to locate.
But he hadn’t considered how much Hide would refuse the break on the other end. And how far he would go in doing so.
The guilt that Kaneki felt when he first saw what he had actually done to Hide was immeasurable.
Before seeing it, Kaneki could have held onto the false hope that his dreams about what had happened in the sewers had been exaggerated by his imagination. His mind hadn’t been able to tell what was real or not at the time, so surely he couldn’t rely on his memory of the event either.
But reality was staring him in the face, and he could no longer deny it.
Never again would he see Hide’s brightest smile or Hide’s voice in its clearest natural form. All a result of Kaneki’s own actions, choices, and mistakes. The most important goals he had, to keep Hide safe and away from harm in Kaneki’s life, and to keep himself from crossing an unforgivable line, had not only failed, but its failure had been caused by Kaneki as directly as it possibly could have been.
And yet… Hide was still here. Sitting on the rooftop with him, just the two of them. Talking to him. Calmly, gently, without a hint of bitterness. As if their relationship was unchanged despite everything.
Kaneki could not have fucked up any more than he already had, and yet Hide was still here with him.
Tears fell down Kaneki’s face as he took in what he had done to Hide’s face.
“You’ve always protected me…” his voice wobbled as he spoke. “All the things you’ve done for me… and what good have I ever done for you…?”
Hide looked at Kaneki with a gaze so soft it could smoothen out even the most scarred parts of his face.
“More than you realise,” he answered.
Hide took a moment to put his scarf back around the lower half of his face.
Kaneki took in a shaky breath in an attempt to calm the emotions that were spilling over. “I can’t believe how you can still be here with me… after everything…” he said.
“It’s because I love you man,” Hide said it so calmly. The ease with which he said it however did not minimise the sincerity of his statement. “You know that.”
In theory, Kaneki had known that. In the way that, well, of course his best friend would love him. After all their years of them being best friends, after everything Hide had done for him since childhood, it would have been foolish at that point to not have known how much Hide cared for and loved him. But had Kaneki truly, in the depths of his heart, really felt he could have said that confidently without that sliver of doubt crawling its way back in? Doubt which whispered that it wasn’t necessarily permanent, that it could change at any moment, that Kaneki could potentially do something, or be something, to forever affect how Hide viewed him. That Hide would grow away from him, realise that he wanted something different in the people in his life that Kaneki could no longer reach. Or that Hide’s love wouldn’t extend to Kaneki’s ghoul self that he had long since become.
“I’ll say it as many times as it takes,” Hide said. “I love you. I. Love. You.” He leaned in towards Kaneki and lightly prodded Kaneki’s chest with each word. “You, ok? Not for what you do, not for what you can provide, not with any terms or conditions. Just… you.”
Kaneki stared at him, empty of words.
Hide leaned back away, fixing his gaze at some point of the sky in the distance.
“You may not have needed me anymore,” he continued. “You may have had your whole new life with other people to replace me. But as selfish as it is, I still need you in mine. In whatever form that may be, I don’t mind, I love you regardless. And maybe you yourself didn’t want me close to you anymore, and if… if that was what you wanted, I couldn’t argue against that. But nothing was ever going to stop me from doing whatever I can to know that I was doing something, anything, for you. Whether that be up close or at a distance. Like I always have, and always will.”
“Hide…” The tears were streaming uncontrollably down Kaneki’s face now. “I don’t deserve everything you’ve done for me…”
“It’s not about deserving, Kaneki. Don’t get it wrong, the choices I have made for you have just as much been for me as well. And even now, knowing everything that would happen and the way it would turn out…” he gestured to himself, not directly to his face, but it was implied regardless. “I would still choose to do it again. Because I love you. I’d give my life for you if it came to it. I’ve done it before, and I’d do it again.”
“But I never asked that of you!” The volume of Kaneki’s voice had suddenly increased without him realising. “Especially not- In that way!”
“I know,” Hide said. “But I had made the decision, whether you wanted me to or not.”
“You can’t make a decision for us both like that!”
“I’d be careful going down that route of argument, Kaneki~” Hide’s tone got lighter, playful, but almost dangerously so. “Because if I recall correctly, I wasn’t the one who left and cut all contact.”
Kaneki shut his mouth. He stared at the roofs of other buildings in the distance as he wiped the tear tracks from his face.
Hide exhaled deeply. “Look… I know why you did it, ok? I don’t blame you.”
“But you’re upset about it,” Kaneki mumbled, still staring off the rooftop.
“I’m…” Hide paused to choose his words carefully. “I was hurt. I was suddenly left by myself. You were gone with no explanation besides what I had figured out on my own.” Hide’s eyebrows scrunched together, tears brimming in his eyes. Kaneki could not recall the last time he had seen Hide cry. “I was so lonely without you… You understand that, right?”
Kaneki understood that feeling all too well. He had felt it every day since the last time he had seen Hide before he left. Exponentially more after the night in the sewer, when he had assumed Hide had died for his sake.
He hadn’t considered the likelihood of Hide feeling the exact same way.
There had been no way out of it; there was no option that could have spared them pain. Hurt Hide by keeping him close, hurt him by leaving, hurt his feelings, hurt his body. Hurt them both.
Hide breathed out in a way that sounded like a weak attempt at a laugh. “After everything that’s happened these past few years, and it was that which hurt more than any of it. It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud-”
“Hide…” Kaneki turned to face Hide once again. “I’m sorry.”
Hide paused to take in the words Kaneki had spoken. He then nodded and reached out to hold Kaneki’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze of reassurance. He then dropped his hand down Kaneki’s arm until he reached Kaneki’s own hand, silently taking it in his grasp.
They let Kaneki’s apology sit in the air for a while. The more Kaneki thought of it, the more he realised he owed Hide more than that. And he would say it out loud.
“Not only just for leaving you alone,” Kaneki spoke again. “But also… for…” He didn’t know which words to lead with for what he would say next, but he would force himself to get them out.
Hide was looking at him in anticipation, but not prompting him to go any faster. He would wait.
“I was… so paralysed by my own fear of losing you that I didn’t think of your own feelings and intentions. I’d simply just assumed them.” Kaneki maintained his eye contact with Hide this time. “In the end, it revolved around me. It was selfish, and I’m sorry.”
Hide sighed. “You’ve never had to fear losing me, Kaneki,” he said. “It was never an option.”
“Neither is it here,” Kaneki said, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”
Hide shifted the position of their held hands. He slipped his fingers between Kaneki’s own, interlocking them together.
“I was so lonely without you too, Hide” Kaneki confessed. “I never stopped thinking about you. You’d show up in my dreams, so regularly, even telling me in my own mind whatever I needed to hear at the time.”
“Sounds like dream-me knows you well,” Hide remarked.
Kaneki smiled briefly, before his face became serious once again.
“It was you that convinced me to carry on even when I had every intention of giving up,” he said. “What you had done for me… you had reached that deeply within me. Even with us being separated so far apart, you still continued to inspire me to keep living.”
Kaneki saw the soft smile in Hide’s eyes above the scarf covering his mouth.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hide said. “I wanted nothing more than to show you that you were worth saving. Worth living for.”
They sat in silence on the rooftop for some time more. The sun was making its descent over the horizon, so they stared at the light that gradually dimmed, watching the colours in the sky fade from warm to dark.
“We’ve both made it to here now,” Hide said, quietly as to not disrupt the atmosphere. “We’re sticking through whatever gets thrown at us together from now on… right?”
Kaneki nodded firmly. “Yes,” he said. “And neither of us is going to give ourselves up anymore. We’re both going to live, continue living on together.”
Kaneki felt the tension in Hide’s hold of his hand, which he hadn’t realised had been there in the first place, lessen as Hide shifted in his spot. He then felt a pressure on his shoulder, the weight of Hide’s head resting on him. Kaneki let his own head gently tilt over the top of Hide’s.
“I love you Hide,” Kaneki said. “I don’t think I’ve said that enough.”
“I know,” Hide said, and Kaneki could hear the smile in his voice.