Work Text:
Kaneki could not entirely process what had just happened. One moment he was talking to Hide, feeling overjoyed that Hide was okay with Kaneki being a ghoul, and the next moment he was on the floor with the lifeless body of his childhood friend. He didn't understand. What happened? Who did this to him? Who was the one who killed Hide? Kaneki wanted to get angry and storm out of the coffee shop and obliterate whoever did this to Hide, but he couldn't. Hide just got caught up in the war trying to find and protect his childhood friend. Hide's death was nobody else's fault but Kaneki's. If Kaneki had just told Hide that he was a ghoul, if he had just trusted his friend, then none of this would have happened. Hide would be alive and going to college and following his dreams instead of lying in the arms of his friend who lied to him for months.
Everything felt darker. Sure, there was a fire raging around them, threatening to burn Kaneki along with Hide's body, but somehow Kaneki felt like it was too dark to see anything other than Hide lying in his arms. This was no place for Hide to die. He didn't deserve to be burned in a coffee shop with a half-ghoul half-human freak burning with him. He deserved to be buried by friends and people who cared for him.
Kaneki stood up, grabbed a tablecloth, and placed it over Hide's body before walking out of the doorway of Anteiku and down the road.
Kaneki walked through the streets in a sort of daze. He was vaguely aware of Touka screaming and the cloth slipping off Hide and ghoul investigators staring, and he knew that now they would be able to recognize who he was if he were to ever go out disguised as a human, but did any of that even matter anymore? Hide was dead. Hide was gone. Kaneki would never get to talk to Hide again. He was never able to tell Hide about his problems as a ghoul, or any problems that occurred within the past few months. Hide would never get to truly experience the world and all of its beauty and terror. And Kaneki would never be able to do any of that with Hide.
Kaneki wanted to cry and yell and kill everybody in his path until there was nobody left until he was certain that Hide's killer was dead. He wanted to fall on his knees and scream to the heavens "Why did you take my friend?" But Hide would not want this. He would have wanted his death to be meaningful. This wasn't just about helping Kaneki to safety and realize that he can keep trusting humans, but also so that both humans and ghouls can see that there are no boundaries in friendships. He would want the world to know that ghouls and humans can be friends.
So Kaneki continued walking down the street in a haze, trying to decide what level of grief he was currently at, until he realized that he was no longer walking. He was floating into the sky by a giant beam of light. He snapped back to reality, drew Hide's body closer to his, and tried to move out of the beam of light, but to no avail. It was physically impossible for him to move when there was no gravity around him. He looked down and saw hundreds of ghouls and ghoul investiagors staring up at him in disbelief, but also keeping their distance from the beam of light. Beyond them he saw thousands of body's covering the streets and felt his heart drop. He felt like this was all his fault. If he hadn't done this, if he hadn't done that. There were so many factors and they all appeared to be pointing straight back at him. Kaneki turned his gaze back to the live people as he slowly floated up and faintly heard a voice say "See, Iwa-chan? I told you there were aliens!"
Aliens? Kaneki thought, very confused. He tried to look up and see what they were talking about, but was blinded by the light pulling them into the sky. He chuckled. This did appear to be a very cliché alien abduction. Whether it was truly happening or not was the real question. It didn't feel real. But neither did Hide dying, or this war, or becoming a ghoul, and all of that was very, painfully real. Kaneki laughed. Of course this was happening. There were already ghouls and his best friend was dead, so he supposed the world was full of endless possibilities.
As they slowly neared what Kaneki assumed was the top of the light beam, he began to feel exhausted and sleepy, and was unable to keep his eyes open. He could slowly feel himself losing consciousness, and pulled Hide even closer to his body, afraid of dropping him into oblivion.
"I won't let go of you, Hide." Kaneki said sleepily, just before he slipped into the deepest sleep he'd had in months.
--------------------------------
Kaneki woke up feeling a little different. That was a lie. He felt a lot different. So different that it felt wrong to call himself Kaneki or Hide. Wait....Hide? Why would I be called Hide? Kaneki was extremely confused. It was probably just a weird slip of his brain, but it still wigged him out a little. He sat up and looked around. Where was Hide anyway? Or...Hide's body. A wave of sadness washed over Kaneki as he remembered his death. It was weird, as if he had fallen asleep but only dreamt of infinite nothing.
Wait, wait, what? Kaneki was extremely confused. He hadn't died. Hide had died. Kaneki was still alive. Why was his mind doing this to him? It was extremely unnerving that he was associating himself with Hide. Well, he was half associating with Hide. The other half of him felt solidly like Kaneki.
Kaneki decided to stop thinking about his odd disassociation and focus more on his surroundings. The last thing he remembered was losing consciousness in the coffee shop...no, wait...in the air. The air? When was he in the air?
Aliens. Right. He faintly remembered the beam of light carrying him and Hide's body up into the air, and somebody screaming about aliens. Was that right? This cold, metal room that he appeared to be in seemed like it could be alien-y, but it also seemed like it could be a really nice, high tech jail, so Kaneki refused to rush to any conclusions. First thing he needed to do was explore and see what was really happening.
He sat up, and immediately regretted that decision. His entire body felt like it was on fire and he was slowly melting. He quickly looked down in panic to see if that was really happening. After all, Anteiku WAS on fire moments before he died. No. It was on fire moments before he picked up Hide and left. He hadn't really payed attention to his body as he walked down the street, for all he knew it could have been on fire. It wasn't, but it didn't feel good at all. He looked at his arm in mild confusion. It was much paler than he was, almost as pale as Kaneki. But he was Kaneki. Kaneki shook his head in confusion. He refused to accept this disassociation. He was already part ghoul part human, and had been tortured. He did NOT need this. Maybe if he refused to accept this it would go away. Maybe this was grief. Like, the sixth stage of grief, or something like that.
Disassociation aside, there were a few wires poking out of his arms and chest and forehead. Kaneki ripped them off with no hesitation. Nothing could hurt worse than being tortured by Jason. This was as painful as getting hit with a stuffed animal. Shakily he climbed out of bed and stepped cautiously onto the cold metal floor. It felt heavenly against his burning flesh, and he wanted desperately to lay on the floor and cool down, but there was no time. Kaneki had no idea when his captors, or alien abductors, would come in. He needed to be at least aware of his room.
He took a lap around, looking at all of the different wiring and strange machines with a language he had never seen before scrawled on. They all looked dangerous and scary, and Kaneki knew that those were all used on him. He was glad he couldn't remember that. Thank God for the miracle of repressed memories. As he walked along he found a small circular window with a metal shade across it, and he opened it.
"What the fuck!" Kaneki yelled and took a step back, then immediately went straight back to the window to see if what he had seen was real. He rubbed his eyes, slapped his face a few times, but every time he looked out the window, all he could see was space. Infinite stars, and Earth in the distance. He could barely make out the colors of the land and the ocean. It was breathtaking. There, even further past the Earth, was the sun. He knew it was enormous, but from this distance it didn't seem that big. Looking at all of the stars and galaxies that stretched infinitely really made Kaneki feel insignificant, like everything that he experienced in Tokyo was just as irrelevant as he was. And in a way, it was. When he was out here, what did any of that matter? Out of sight, out of mind.
After a few minutes of gazing at the universe, Kaneki felt his stomach grumble. How long had it been since he had eaten? And for some reason he was really craving bananas. Maybe there was a fridge in this room. He hadn't looked at everything yet, there had to be food of some sort in here. Kaneki unwillingly tore his gaze away from the window and continued exploring the room. He opened up several cupboards only to reveal more machinery and wiring that he had never seen before in his life. None of these had food. Then Kaneki opened one that had a picture of a guy that looked kinda like him, but with dark hair on top, like he had died his hair white, then forgot to die it again. Pudding top. Hide laughed. It was funny thinking about Kaneki with hair like that, because it seemed like something that would happen. But Hide didn't laugh, Kaneki laughed at the picture. And the picture laughed along with him, because it was a mirror.
Kaneki's eyes widened. He leaned in close to the mirror and made a face. The guy in the mirror made the same face back at him. Kaneki moved his hand up and then quickly back down, and so did his reflection in the mirror. "Ummm...Ok. Maybe I've been here longer than I thought an my hair is turning back to normal. Yes. That's it. Yes."
Suddenly there was a WHOOSH sound, and Kaneki turned to see a spot in the wall sliding back to reveal three creatures beyond Kaneki's imagination. His mind blanked in terror and incomprehension as giant squid-like creatures slithered into the room. They had three mouths, and five eyes, and fingers at the ends of their tentacles. They were creatures that could only be found in horror movies, and they made Kaneki freeze in terror. He couldn't even get enough energy to speak to them or ask them why he was there.
"Ah." One of them said in perfect Japanese. "Good morning, Haise."
Another slapped a tentacle over the other's three mouths. "Shhhhh, they don't know what's happening yet, you moron."
"Oh, shit, sorry Gary."
Gary? Why did the aliens have American names? That was weird. And how were they speaking Japanese? Why did they call him Haise when his name was Hide, no, Kaneki? This was all too much for him to take in. "Please!" Kaneki felt himself say. He didn't remember making the executive decision to speak. It was almost as if his mouth was moving on his own. That was fine. "Please explain to me what is happening! I keep mistaking myself for my best friend, Kaneki. But I'm not Kaneki, I'm Hide. And why do I look like Kaneki. Please explain to me what is happening."
The aliens appeared to look at each other. It was really hard to tell despite all the eyes. "We need to tell them. There's no point in a delay." The third alien spoke up. Then he looked right at Kaneki and said, "Please, sit down on the bed and we will explain to you what has happened."
Kaneki walked over to the bed and sat down, extremely confused. This was worse than when he had originally discovered that he was a ghoul. He could at least figure that out easily. This, he had no idea.
One of the aliens, he had no idea which one they all looked the same, spoke. "I suppose we should start from the beginning. We are a species alien to your planet that has the ability to see into the future. This is, of course, very helpful when saving the universe, stopping crime, and gambling. Well, one day, we were flying near Earth, and the three of us had the same vision, a vision of Hide dying and Kaneki dying while fighting his way through the crowds of ghoul investigators because he did not have the energy to keep going. Really, he should have eaten Hide that would have been so much-"
Another alien hit the one who was talking and turned to Kaneki to continue the story. Kaneki was glad, he did not want to hear about himself eating his best friend. "Basically, we also realized that if Kaneki died, this would fuck up a lot of stuff for Earth. In fact, Kaneki NOT dying is a set point in the universe. If you died, a lot of bad things would happen throughout space. Blah blah blah, boring destiny stuff, none of it matters." Kaneki was not so sure about that, but he continued listening anyway. "So after Hide died and carried Kaneki through the streets, we abducted the both of you."
"The both of us?" Kaneki interjected. "But Hide's dead."
"Well, yes." The third one finally spoke. "But we did a thing. We knew that you would want Hide alive, and that you would most likely want to be mostly human again, so we..." He trailed off, clearly unsure how to word it.
"Did what?" Hide, no, Kaneki, asked. "What did you do?"
"We combined your bodies into one person whom we named Sasaki Haise," The second one jumped in. Kaneki's jaw dropped. How was this even physically possible? But before he could ask a question the third one started talking again. "The only problem is that your souls need to merge. You need to accept each other as one person rather than two, and your transformation will be complete. The only odd factor will be that the ghoul part of Kaneki will not be able to combine with Hide, so Sasaki himself has to accept that part of Kaneki. That might be rougher since Sasaki will be mostly human. Oh, and," The alien continued, "You need to combine your souls in the next half hour because quite a bit of time has passed in Earth time, and we need to send you back, and wiping Sasaki's memories of being here is going to take a bit."
Kaneki didn't know what to say. This was weird. This was the weirdest thing to ever happen to him, and he woke up one day a ghoul. He didn't want to be two people in one, he wanted to be himself, Kaneki, but at least Hide was alive, in a way. And now Kaneki would be able to eat real food again, and maybe help bridge the gap between ghouls and humans from the human side. This wouldn't be so bad, right?
"Hide," Kaneki whispered. "I think...I think I'm okay with combining souls with you. I'm scared but...at least your with me." He felt his heart glow with warmth, and not the painful warmth that was the pain of their bodies being merged, but a loving warmth. It felt like Hide beginning to accept him also. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you I was a ghoul sooner, Hide. I was afraid that you would be scared of me or hate me and I didn't want that, but because of that I ignored you and hurt you. I'm sorry Hide."
"It's okay, Kaneki." Kaneki felt his mouth reply, and he knew it was Hide speaking to him. "I know why you did it, and I tried to learn as much about ghouls so that when you did eventually tell me you were a ghoul, I would be able to spend time with you or cook for you and take care of you. I knew you would tell me one day, and I would have been fine if that day was in fifty years or one. I love you, Kaneki. I could never hate you." The warmth in their chest had spread throughout their entire chest, blocking out the painful heat, and bringing tears to Sasaki's eyes. He smiled, and for the last time Kaneki spoke to Hide: "I love you too, Hide."
Sasaki turned to the aliens and grinned, wiping away tears with the back of his hand. "I'm ready to go become a ghoul investigator! Let's do this thing!"