Work Text:
“Thank you, Arima-san,” he hears next, and for a moment, Arima just stares.
Thank you.
Not Thank you for your hard work.
Just…thank you.
For what?
“You’re…welcome,” Arima says finally.
“Haise,” Arima adds, and the — Haise — beams, a little, shyly.
:::
That isn’t the end of his peculiar uncertainty. The documents for Arima’s various reports remain blank and waiting. What is he supposed to say?
Even if he were to hold to the facts, it would read like one of the novels piling up in Haise’s cell.
Kaneki Ken is buried.
In books.
A lot of them.
By the time Arima arrives in the evening at the end of the week, Haise is finished with whatever was brought to him previously. The spine of every book is cracked and pale with how many times they’ve been opened. Haise transfers and combines several columns carefully to make room, and Arima was not intending to sit down, but does so. The bed shifts beneath him, and several stacks tip over onto his lap.
“Report,” Arima says, re-stacking them. He means Tell me how your psychiatric sessions are going or Tell me the results of your medical evaluations or Are you gaining weight and muscle mass at a reasonable pace?
From what he’s heard from the others, Sasaki Haise is no longer bleeding outwardly, but remains as soft as a bruise. He is improving, but at a rate that is glacial. Presently, Haise sucks in a breath.
“That last one was really good,” Haise says excitedly. “I was so shocked. The meaninglessness of the crime itself, and that he really couldn’t stand all the guilt in the end, despite finding someone…I don’t know. That sort of feeling of inevitable misery is I guess what makes it a classic. But I think there was a little bit of hope in it too, you know? What did you think, Arima-san?”
Arima takes his time trying to balance the stack of books, but the moment he lifts his hand, they slide into his lap again. He gathers them into a column and places them on the floor.
“I haven’t read it,” he says finally, and Haise blinks at him.
“Oh,” he says. “Well, that’s fine.” He shifts on the bed, leaning over to pick up the books that Arima placed on the floor and re-adding them to the rest. He brushes them off.
“Which have you read, then?” Haise asks. His hands hover, prepared to search and retrieve any title.
“I’m too busy to read,” Arima replies, and Haise stares, and then — laughs.
“So…in other words…you haven’t read any of them.”
“I have too much work,” Arima says.
“Well,” Haise says, “you’re not working right now, are you?”
Arima opens his mouth, and then shuts it. Haise doesn’t see; he is picking through his collection, until finally he finds the pale cover that Arima recognizes as the very first book that was slid into this cell.
“Poetry is easier if you don’t have a lot of time,” Haise says. “It’s not long, and it’s beautiful.” He is flipping through the pages. “This one is one of my favorites; listen.”
He draws in a breath. His eyes trace; his voice is slow, savoring every syllable with a luxury Arima knows that Haise doesn’t spare for his own meals. Somehow, the atmosphere in this small and sterile cell takes on a different quality with those lilting words saturating the air. It’s like time and space itself is stretching, achingly, brushing the inside of his chest with a handful of untouched snow, crystalline with sunlight.
Even after Haise’s voice fades…Arima adjusts the cuffs of his shirt, once, and then again, as if it doesn’t quite fit. Haise clears his throat.
“What did you think?” he asks. He claps the book shut. His smile is feeble.
“It was good,” Arima says, and Haise brightens.
“Oh! Great, great. I’m glad.” He hesitates. “Do you…want another one?”
“Go ahead,” Arima tells him, and Haise smiles and opens the book again.
“I’ll just start at the beginning,” he says, “you can stop me at any time,” but in the end, Arima lets him go until they reach the back cover.
:::
Kaneki Ken is…
Regarding the matter of Kaneki Ken, he…is —
“Good,” Haise says, usually. “How about you, Arima-san?”
“Good,” Arima answers, usually.
But one day he is late, it’s far past the hour and then he has to stop by his living space to change into a clean suit, and though there’s no clock or windows in Cochlea to clue Haise in, somehow, Haise can tell anyway, that it’s late.
“Arima-san?” He sits up in bed. “I didn’t think you were coming. Aren’t you tired?”
“No. I’m accustomed to sleeping much later than this,” Arima says. “Are you tired?”
“No — no, I’m fine.” Haise hurriedly begins shoving books off to the other side of the bed, a lot of them, so that Arima has room not just to sit but to bring his legs onto the bed as well. He does so after removing his shoes, as Haise opens up to their last bookmarked page. Haise draws in a long breath.
The atmosphere changes, again. Arima leans back against a pillow, working away at one cuff and then giving up on it and just resting his hands on his lap. Haise’s voice is soothing, he reads with the ease of someone already familiar with every word, and Arima’s vision drifts, but not in the usual way.
When light returns to him, it’s with a jolt. It’s silent — well — almost. Haise is breathing, slow and deeply; he is curled up, cocooned in novels. His back, against Arima’s side, is warm. Arima realizes that his own glasses are resting in his lap.
No clock, no windows. But it’s late enough now that Arima’s body feels too heavy to lift, much less drag away and risk waking Haise up. Maybe he will witness firsthand those famous nightmares and have something, finally, to write about.
But Haise sleeps on, and on, without event. Arima waits, for a while, and in the end observes only a couple dark hairs threading through the white.