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“Wels?”
“Yes?” The blonde who was hunched over his kitchen table, grading papers yet again, turned to look at the man lying on his couch, covered in different types of school books, looking absolutely bored.
“You know what I was thinking?” The brunette says, flipping a pen between his fingers, Wels didn't look impressed.
The blonde sighs loudly. “And what were you thinking Jevin?”
“It's kinda sad that I am like, your only friend.” He says that with a casualty that makes Wels sputter incomprehensibly.
After readjusting himself in his chair, the blonde finally says a little scandalized. “And what makes you think you are my only friend?”
“Dude, you never go out.” Jevin points out.”Or you are in your apartment, or you are at the school and no, going out in your territory doesn't count.” The man looks very smug with the way Wels opens and closes his mouth like a gasping fish, clearly thrown for a loop with the way this conversation is going.
“Hey, that's not fair, I like my apartment. ” The blonde mumbles a little miserably. “And I have other friends who I hang out with, you’ve just never met them.” He points out, annoyed with the way Jevin looks clearly unimpressed.
“Other friends who-? Oh that human you told me about? Dude! You know humans don't count, they are just spare food.” Jevin waves a hand in the air, repeating the same words that were the motive of many fights between the two of them in the past.
Wels just sighs tiredly. “I really don’t have time for this right now.” He says, sounding completely defeated. “Did you finish your homework at least?”
“Yep.” Jevin pops the ‘p’ of the word. Wels raises a single unimpressed eyebrow and the man flops back on the couch. “Sheesh dude, you don't need to look at me like that, see-” He raises one of the school books as demonstration, even if Wels doesn’t have any capability of seeing what is written there while sitting at the kitchen table.”-It's all done.”
Wels nods approvingly and Jevin jumps off of the couch, stretching his limbs and then neatly piling up the borrowed books on the nearby coffee table.
“Anyway I am going out now. Thanks for the help man.” He waves one hand while slowly walking in the door’s direction.
Even with his annoyance Wels shoots him a tiny, tired smile and says.”No problem Jev. Anything you need, I am here.” His smile becomes a little sharper. “Are you going to bother Hypno?”
Jevin freezes like a kid caught with their hands in the cookie jar. “... Maybe.”
“Didn't you say that humans don't count as friends? Just ‘spare food,’ was it? I can smell your hypocrisy from here.” Wels sounds very smug with his gotcha moment.
“Hypno doesn't count.” Jevin blushes and Wels snorts. The brunette starts speed walking to the door, but pauses in front of it, clenching his hands.
“He doesn't count, because even if I wanted I couldn't kill him.” He finally says, not very convincing. “Humans are too fragile to be worth more than food. Hypno is strong, he doesn’t count.” It's a weak reasoning even for his ears.
“Admit, you like him.” Wels says teasing. “ Jevin has a human friend. ” He sings the last part in a way that would make the teenage girls he teaches proud.
Jevin just slams the door, and Wels chuckles loudly, going back to grading papers.
“...Even if I wanted I couldn't kill him.”
Jevin’s words ring in Wels’ head. There is a half made bag at his side, and the cellphone he used to call in sick is still sitting in his hand.
After she woke up and they “talked” - More like, he tried to put out a wildfire with a spray bottle - Wels drove False to a hospital and then went back to his apartment.
False, that is his friend.
False, that is a human.
False the dove.
False who knows he is a ghoul and probably will report him.
Wels just threw his entire life alway. And the worst part is: he knows, given the chance a second time he would still save False, consequences be damned.
Jevin was right, it's sad. He has so few friends. He has allies and he has acquaintances, but in this world, to call someone a friend is hard.
He has known False for years at this point, and at first, yeah he was just entertaining it, an amusing situation that brought to his life an amusing person to be around. He isn’t really sure when she became so important, when she stopped being a weekend event to distract himself from his day to day life and instead became one of the staples holding him together.
And the thing is; yes, he never could tell her about his ghoul life, but all the rest? He did, his struggles and fears and hopes. They talked about it, he trusted her, he trusted a human like no ghoul should and now he will pay the price for it.
He gets up, kneeling in front of the safe he keeps under his bed. Carefully putting the key code he opens it, getting out the weird suitcase he shoved there in a rush last night.
False’s quinque feels heavy in his hands.
At this point Wels is desensitized to mutilated bodies, be it human or ghoul, to a point that the severed body part of a fellow ghoul does nothing more than make his curiosity spark.
The quinque is shaped like a sword, it's red and purple and looks like the type of thing False would gush about over their usual cafe table. Wels chuckles so he doesn’t start sobbing.
Curiosity takes the best of him and he swings the quinque like if it was an actual sword. His posture is clearly off, and he knows given the opportunity False would berate him over it. Now he is making himself sad, great.
Still holding the quinque, he sits in his bed and ponders; he isn't really sure what he should do.
Should he run? And leave everything that he spent his entire life painfully constructing behind?
Or should he stay planted here, sitting in his bed? Waiting for the dove to swarm his territory? To die fighting something he knows he can't win?
Honestly? Both sound equally like death . Wels looks at the half made bag and the stolen sword in his hands. It was as if he was already dead.
His phone vibrates, breaking him out of his stupor, he glares at the tiny machine, False’s dopey smile looks back at him. She messaged him?
With shaky hands he opens the message app.
False: Tomorrow, after school. Meet me at our usual table… we need to talk.
Breathing through his nose, feeling like he may pass out, Wels types a response.
Wels: Ok. See you tomorrow?
It feels like a trap. It probably is a trap.
He will go there and he will be swarmed by armed doves trying to kill him.
False: Yeah see you tomorrow.
He will go anyways, it's not like he hasn't thrown his life into the trash already.
What is one more stab wound, for someone that is dying in a ditch.
False isn't nervous, no. She was just one hour earlier to the meeting because she was eager to eat… What did she actually buy? Strawberry cake! She was just eager to eat strawberry cake, before Wels got there. She isn't nervous to see him one bit. Imagine? Being nervous to see Wels of all people, they see each other almost every week! Nothing should be different.
But it is, isn't it? Everything changed- it is different because Wels is a ghoul, a monster, but did it really, really change?
For what False now knows Wels was always a ghoul, always a human eating monster, she just never knew.
It feels like betrayal. It is betrayal. How could he. He’s one of her best friends, was this always a play to him? Has Wels truly been faking everything for all these years?
False should have called her coworkers the moment Wels dropped her at the hospital and drove away.
She should have told them that she knows the identity of a B rated ghoul, it's not that much of a threat, but at the same time it means a good bonus and some vacation days, she should have told someone she made plans to meet with a ghoul, weaponless in a public cafe. But she didn’t, she couldn't.
This would mean killing Wels, this would mean that Wels would die and it would be her fault.
“False, you are a good person.”
His words ring in her brain like a sledgehammer knocking a christmas bell.
She doesn’t feel like a good person.
She is waiting, arm bandaged and still numb from the pain meds, benched from the field while she recovers and the engineers make her a new quinque. Because not only she had her ass handed to her on a silver plate to these ghouls, almost dying to a noob mistake, she managed to lose her quinque in the middle of that soul destroying night too.
The wall clock ticks marking 4:30pm if Wels got out of school without delay, he will get here at any moment.
She taps her fingers nervously against the table, strawberry cake untouched and melting because of the afternoon summer heat, staring at the glass door, vigilant, looking for a shock of carefully combed blonde hair, so similar to hers that more than once, people thought they were siblings by the similarities alone.
She sits straighter, seeing the English teacher walking through the door, his normally ironed and neatly put together outfit is wrinkled and he isn’t wearing a tie, his hair is disheveled and looks like he didn't even try taming it in the morning, there are purple bags under his blue eyes, blue of a shade just a bit to dark to be the same as hers. He looks wide eyed at her, and she feels like the air was punched out of her lungs.
He looks like a mess, he looks broken, he looks so human that it hurts.
Any thoughts of monsters and two faced people leave her mind as he jogs to their table, eyes and head swiveling in obvious paranoia, clearly unsure if she was alone. She is alone, she didn't tell anyone what she is doing, but she doesn't blame him for thinking that maybe, this wasn't just a talk. She would do the same, had she been in his shoes.
“Hey, False.” He greets her with a strained smile, slotting himself in his usual seat, eyeing her with worried blue eyes.
She knows she isn't looking that hot herself, she has bandages covering her arm and part of her face, if Wels’ purple eye bags are bad, hers are worse, she didn’t bathe after going home from the hospital, and it shows with how mated her hair feels.
“Hey Wels.” She says, feeling awkward and nervous in a way that talking with him never had made her feel before.
The silence stretches, an attendant comes to take Wels’ order, he doesn’t bother with food and instead asks for a black coffee.
False stares at her untouched cake as Wels holds the hot mug in his hands.
“How-” Wels break the silence, nervous and unsure. “How is your arm?”
“It- could be worse. The doctor said I was lucky, I will fully recover.” She shoots him a lopsided smile. “I think I never thanked you for- you know, saving my life.”
Wels shoots her a tiny, tired smile, a heaviness lifted from his shoulder knowing that False is- will be okay. “Good. I was worried I might have been too late.”
He puts a hand over his face, hiding his expression.
“It was scary, you know?” He says a little breathless. “I thought- I thought that I had lost you. I know it's silly, your injuries were mostly superficial and the only reason you passed out was because of the panic the situation caused, but there were some seconds there, where my brain just- stopped. I thought you had died on me, and I almost lost it.” He admits in a rapid and frantic manner.
False looks guiltily at him, the image of a Wels with two black eyes, kagune draped over his shoulders looking at her across an alien room, clashing with this mess of a man, sitting across their usual table, eyes blue and crazed, admitting the panic and fear of almost losing her.
“If you hadn't appeared, I would have died.” She says out loud, urging the truth to stop feeling like a stab in her back. “It’s part of the job, you know? On my first day I signed papers that say that my contractors are not liable for my imminent death.” Wels shudders at the mention of False's job, but she keeps talking. “I know I will die on the job, but I must admit that for someone in my rank it would have been a very lame way to die.” False snorts, humorless. “At least I wasn't stabbed in the back.”
Wels winces, but tries to keep his cool.”Weren't you… doves, supposed to walk in pairs? I try to not fight doves, or anyone if I really have the option, but everytime I fought some of you, there were always two.”
It's weird, how casual they are talking about it. It feels taboo, something that, sitting in this table, in this specific cafe should never be said or mentioned by any of them.
False’s smile is crooked when she says. “To be honest I am a bit of a loner, sometimes they put me in a rotation with other agents, but I prefer to fight by myself.” She looks at her bandaged arm. “It has its downsides.”
And even with the seriousness of the situation, with the truth of their reality slapping in his face, Wels snorts incredulously. “Why I am not surprised.” He shakes his head, dirty blonde locks falling over his eyes with the movement. “So can I assume that your partner will not jump me, when I get out of this cafe?” He says it like a joke, but False can feel the tension oozing out of him.
She smiles sadly at him. “I am here alone, Wels. No one knows.”
A drop.
The clock ticks loudly in the wall.
Wels blinks stupidly at her.
“You are- you did- what?!” He sounds flabbergasted, completely incredulous and like he lost a year of his life just with that statement alone. “False you almost died to a ghoul attack, it's not safe to go out like that, and you didn't tell anybody? What if I was a killer? What If I was truly evil? What if I killed you and no one would know?!”
Now is False turn to blink stupidly at him. A smile cracks her face and she laughs, doubling over with the strength of it.
Wels looks confused at her as she cleans a tear from her eyes.
“Wels.” False put her two hands together, her lips quirking, trying to not die laughing again. “Did you just use your teacher's voice, to say I should be more careful while meeting with you , someone who I have known for years, someone who saved my life even with all of our… clashing situations?” It's weird, stating it out loud feels weird, feels dangerous and freeing at the same time.
“Well, I- uhhh.” Wels sputters, not really sure what to say over his protective slip.
“You care.” False cuts his sputtering mess. And how could she ever doubt that.
“You are a- you know what and you care!” False says sounding a little crazed, her hands combing her matted dirty hair.
“You are my friend False.” Wels says simply, sipping his now almost cold coffee.
“That doesn’t make sense.” She says, sounding so confused and lost. “Why- why are we friends? What do you a- gain from this friendship?”
Wels smile is sad and hurt. “What does a lonely man gain from wanting out of a stressful life?” He asks rhetorically. “I have known you for years. False, I am no crazy killer or mastermind. All I gained from this whole endeavor was a friend.”
She looks at him and she knows he is telling the truth, but even so she blurts, before her mind catches up with her mouth. “I have known you for years, why did- Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why did I have to learn it this way?” And this, she doesn’t ask as False-the-dove, there is no betrayal for the great human race or something like that, she asks this as False, his friend, why didn’t he ever tell her about this?
Wels big blue eyes, looks at her and simply asks. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were a dove?” It is rhetorical, but it makes her snap her mouth shut, already knowing where he is going with this. “I feel like- We both just wanted to enjoy a good coffee once a week, without thinking about the gruesome reality we live in.”
“Yeah…” She agrees, poking at her cake which is now just a sad mushy mess. “So what now? Everything’s changed.”
Wels raise an eyebrow. “I am still the same. And so are you.” He points out knowing this isn’t what she means.
“But it changed.” She can’t stress it enough. “I can’t- I can’t go back to this.” She gestures around then, sounding crazed and broken. “You- you kill people Wels. You didn’t kill me, but you know what you are, I know what you are, this isn’t right.”
Wels looks pensively at her, he sips his coffee, and the way he straights himself in the chair, makes False know that she will probably be hit with a wrecking ball of a question.
“What makes you think that? Why is me being what I am, automatically reduce me to a killer?” He puts his full teacher voice into use, False suspects that it’s a shield so he doesn’t break while talking with her. Years of friendship aren’t erased by sudden revelations, she knows his coping mechanisms as well as he knows hers.
“It's your biology, for you- you know, what you are to survive. You need to eat, I have seen a- starving one before, you don’t look starving to me.” She points out, playing it like it was just a regular philosophical question, that they both are debating out of boredom and not what feels like her entire view of reality being put in the line.
“False, have you ever bought a dead chicken from the market? We don’t need to kill our food to eat it.” He says it, like it’s the most simple thing in the world.
“But the chicken still needs to die.”She points out somberly.
“We only amount to 1% of the chicken population, chickens die every day for unrelated reasons. So tell me False. Why would I kill a chicken, when there are already ten others dead on the floor.” His eyes glint in the way False knows Wels is talking about something he is passionate about. “There is a way False. There can be peace, we never needed to kill to begin with.”
He knows there is a lot more to this story, humans and ghouls are complex and it isn’t as simple as; we will eat the people that are already dead, but it’s a solution. It’s a little utopic to think that both parties would agree with it, he knows Ghouls that love the thrill of the hunt, humans that would be horrified with the idea of a starving ghoul eating the corpse of a dead loved one. But Wels to his core, is a simple guy, so he entertains this idea and dreams of a better world, where all this fight is just fiction.
False looks at him broken and shattered. He knows this is hard for her, False always was a little bullheaded, single minded in her beliefs, but he knows she wants to do good.
“ God .” She says in despair, clenching her head, with a sudden realization. “How many innocent people were killed?” Not humans, people.
Wels shakes his head. “Far too many to count.”
False gulps, dread makes her blood run cold. “How many I-? God , I am part of the problem.” It hurts so much, to realize it, to admit it, the thing she believed right, was wrong all along, she feels like a monster .
Wels chuckles humorless. “We all are part of the problem False.” He admits the awful truth. “I am no knight on a white horse, I’ve done wrong, very very wrong things. But I am trying to change it.” He puts his hand on the table, his eyes locked in her.
“I believe in change False. I believe in redemption. This world sucks, and it doesn't matter where I walk, it reeks of death and despair.” False trembles hearing him talk. Wels’ worlds are a slap in the face, but at the same time, they are a bandage for a gaping wound. “But I believe in change, I believe we can make it happen. There is death around us, but there is life.” He smiles. “And I like to believe that I fight for life. I became a teacher, because I wanted to see the world change with my own eyes.”
Even with the wrecking and bloodied truth that Wels dragged, limping to their splintered table, False smiles; it’s soft and broken, but it’s true and it’s False’s.
She shakes her head in amusement. “Only you Wels…”
She looks at him, blue eyes to blue eyes, blond hair to blonde hair, human to ghoul. They couldn't be more different, they couldn't be more similar. “Do you think I could change?”
“I told you already.” Wels shakes his head, a tiny smile on his face. “You are a good person, False.”
Extra:
“So… see you next week?” False asks sheepishly, looking at the disheveled looking English professor.
Wels smiles tiredly, but happy. “Yeah, see you next week.” He extends his hand for her to shake.
In a bold and unusual move, False grabs the hand and brings Wels close, embracing the man she has known for so many years.
At first, he freezes, and False for a second or two, thinks she may have messed up. But then with a level of strength just shy of cracking her bones, Wels fiercely hugs her back, body shaking in silent, broken sobs.
He cries of relief, of happiness because, even if everything is bad and wrong, everything was always bad and wrong, but at least it feels like it will be okay now.
He cries ugly, in a way he had trained himself years ago, to never do again.
“I thought- thought that it was over. I thought that I had lost everything.” He somberly admits, hunched over her, with his face hidden in the crook of her neck. “I am so glad, thank you False. Thank you so so much, I know not everyone would have done the same.” He sounds so happy and relieved.
False rubs her hand up and down over his back. “It’s okay Wels.” She murmurs, feeling so tiny, but so big in the much taller man's arms.
“Did you know?” She says, as the other blonde steps out of the embrace. “They call you the Knight where I work.”
Wels rubs his face with his long sleeve, cleaning the salty tears that tracked through his face. “I am aware of it, yes.” He smiles sharply. “A friend of mine insists I should be called the dragon instead.”
False snorts. “I can see the resemblance.” She cleans her face too, absently brushing her hand through her matted hair. “A dove and a dragon, huh?” Her smile is crooked.
False puts her hands on her hips, smirking at him, looking a little pretentious. “Okay mister knight; if you ever need a sword, I shall be at your side.” She says it with a mocking cadence of old English.
Wels eyes widen, maybe she means it, maybe not. “False, is this-” “-I may be a dove.” She interrupts, back to her normal way of speaking.
“But you are my friend.” Her eyes shine in determination. “I am here for you.”
Wels eyes sharpen at the declaration. “If you ever need a knight-” He enters in her song and dance. “I may lend you my wings.”
False snorts. “I am almost sure this isn't how a knight should work.” She points out amused.
“Last time I checked-” Wels eyes crinkle. “-doves can't really wield swords.”
“Do you want a demonstration?”
“Nah, I feel like keeping my arms intact today. Last time you brought me fencing, I couldn't feel them for at least a week.”
“Not what I was talking about, but okay.”
He snorts, and she cackles, both of them fall in a shared mad laughter.
It’s stupid,
It’s broken,
But it’s happy,
Freeing in a way that is hard to explain.
It’s dumb to think like that, but maybe and that's a really big fat maybe, everything will be alright in the end.