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“You’re not going out like that,” Hinami insists, slotting herself between Kaneki and the door. She’s adorable, Kaneki thinks, pufferfish cheeks and creased brow. He’s overwhelmed with intense, fraternal affection, the desire to bundle her up in his arms. “You’re not,” she insists as he fondly pets her hair, because he is weak and she is the most precious treasure in his life.
“It’s just some coffee,” he assures her. “It’s not going to be that cold, I promise. I’m bundled up enough.” He gestures at his sweater and makes another attempt at the door.
“You are not going out like that!”
She plants her feet solidly down, eyes taking on a decidedly sharp edge. “You arenot going on your first date looking so frumpy.”
Kaneki can only imagine what his face looks like. Perhaps he’s a dead ringer for a slapped mackerel. He feels like one.
“A…what?” His hands flutter uselessly, unable to explain away her misconception. Words is what he needs, words. “It’s a thank you coffee, Hinami-chan. Not a date. It’s… a thank you.”
Hinami doesn’t move. She places her hands on her hips, tries to make herself larger, more intimidating.
“This is a nice shirt I have under my sweatshirt, okay? And the sweatshirt itself is very nice too. I’ve been told it brings out the color of my eyes.” He looks imploringly at the ninety pounds of tiny ghoul, truly the greatest, most indestructible wall he has ever faced. “I am appropriately dressed, Hinami-chan. For the weather and the occasion.”
The wall doesn’t move. Kaneki restlessly checks his phone: He has sixteen minutes to reach the cafe.
“Please, Hinami-chan? We don’t want me to be late, right? You wouldn’t want Nagachika-san to wait all alone, right?”
She relents.
“Don’t expect me to comfort you if he dumps you because you look like a slob,” she says tritely, arms crossed.
Kaneki bows deeply on the way out of the door. “Of course, Hinami-chan. I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”
He hears the soft thud of what is probably the couch cushion hitting the closed door.
A date? The things children think of these days.
It’s just a thank you coffee.
–
He’s convinced he’s right, up until the point they walk to the subway station together.
The human fidgets a bit and wanders to the far end of the platform.
“Something wrong?” Kaneki asks, because maybe he’s done something to offend the man. The cafe had gone well enough, they had even stopped by Kaneki’s favorite bookstore before heading home.
Maybe that was the problem. What was he doing, dragging this stranger around to bookstores without actually making sure he wanted to go.
Hide keeps shooting surreptitious looks over Kaneki’s shoulder and yes, Kaneki thinks, the blond is just looking for a quiet place, away from prying eyes, to chew him out.
Hinami had been so excited to make a new friend, too. She lives such a solitary existence, unable to fully integrate herself alongside her peers at school, a ghoul among humans, unwanted and unacknowledged. Hide is a unique existence: A human who knows her secret and likes her.
He’s a fool, a damn fool. How could he ruin this for Hinami?
“Look,” he begins, because if he apologizes early, cuts Hide off at the pass, maybe he can salvage things.
The blond is rude, horrifically so, because he doesn’t even let Kaneki finish. Quickly, quietly, he brushes his lips against Kaneki’s.
“I have to go pick up some groceries before heading home and there’s a sale on cabbage soon, so I better get going,” Hide says smiling, as if he hadn’t just stolen another kiss, the thief. “Let’s go on another date sometime, okay?”
The blond leaves the ghoul on the platform, dumbly touching his fingertips to his lips.
–
“It was a date,” he admits to Hinami when he opens the front door.
She sniffs from her seat on the couch, unwilling to look up from her book.
“But he didn’t dump me,” Kaneki says, unable to stop his thoughts from straying.
Hide’s lips, though chapped, had been soft against his.