Work Text:
You will lie in bed later, and you wonder now, as the step of your stained shoes grunts against the ground, if you will be able to slumber in solemn quietude knowing you’d slain your thirty-sixth, rinsed his blood from your hands, and walked off to buy lunch without sparing his death another glance. That’s a life cut into a thousand pieces, all proof of his existence washed away in twenty seconds.
In a stitched pocket within your coat lies a quinque– small, not too telling of the things you do. Compressed to your liking. You feel for it, briefly, and relief washes over you when you find it safe, unforgotten. Scissors, two pairs neatly tucked behind cloth. You have those to thank. Unless blame is a better word?
Who knows if another of his kind will be out for your blood. Today, tonight, or tomorrow, it wouldn’t be the first. You aren’t particularly fond of the fact: you do not deny you’ve killed many a ghoul. But Juuzou’s on a self-proclaimed good boy streak right now, letting you take the reins in every work-related outing you have together unless a difficult fight’s going to cure the itch in his busy fingers. Too busy to get the job done, apparently, granted that you tread the roads by him. He’s got a better swing than most, at the very least. Enough to save you, if ever, yet you hope it does not come to that.
People think you like your job, despite the cruel dent in your wallet that you have to make for more concealer. You don’t want them to get the wrong idea.
No one makes a sound between you two, from the walk away from the scene of the crime up until your first steps into a local fast food branch only a few blocks away, because of course, per Juuzou Suzuya’s wisdom, you require that sort of attention that the pile of unfinished reports on your desk doesn’t. Other than that, not a single whisper or word. Take it as a gift from the God you don’t even believe in. There is an undisturbed peace for fifteen minutes, where neither you nor Juuzou even dare to speak of what lingers in your minds.
It’s not until the resounding drop of two trays landing on your table echoes that he deems it appropriate to quell the awkward air.
“That was… something!” Juuzou blurts out, quick to begin separating his meal from yours. You were just starting to wonder if his body was incapable of feeling hunger. If the acid in his stomach never rose anywhere above where it ought to be. “Wasn’t it?”
You applaud his attempt to disturb the cloud of silence above your heads, but the ambience brought by any restaurant in the bustling city of Tokyo is already too much for your ears. Especially after a job well done. Good things always go. So, with haste, you mourn the fleeting peace and bid your solace farewell.
None of your growing animosity reflects on your appearance, regardless of the burning desire in your heart demanding you to resign, resign, resign. You dream of the two week notice daily, but the blank gaze is one you want to keep. You are the calm before his storm, after all. Let him think what he wants. You will not live long enough for him to remember you.
He mutters, with a finger to his lip and an inquisitive glance towards nowhere, “Makes you think about why we hate each other the way we do.” We, humans, and the other, ghouls. “D’ya got answers, Genius?”
Well. The taunt aside. It’s not an unfounded question. You are seated, the two of you, as you simmer in the aftermath of a particularly gruesome investigation. A simple case of ghoul to human murder. There was no specific motive, just the fact the victim was man. Prejudice– it is scary. The judgment of what is right and wrong, the decision made based on what could be truth and what could be lie. Whether it is baseless or not is not usually asked by the beholder. Grudges are easy to hold, more so if you do not know how heavy they grow later.
White walls of stone. Cement floor littered with red stains. You remember the lack of a body. The ghoul’s confession was evidence enough, and to the CCG, enough to kill him.
And, without much thought, as you spray your hands with the isopropyl alcohol from your pocket, you murmur, “We mirror one another– human and ghoul, ghoul and human. There is a reason they can blend well into our society. Assuming they can control their urges.” A tap at the carton cup before you. “I think it’s because we’re the same.”
“Wow.” It’s not an answer he expects, but an answer he accepts nonetheless. “So very thought-provoking,” he teases. Shoves three fries into his mouth right after. You push a neatly folded tissue his way. He grins at you in thanks, mush and all in between his teeth. “Just the kind of answer I wanted to hear!”
You do not mind this. You have not for the entirety of your career. Sometimes, you wonder if he wonders how you have yet to drive your scissors straight into your leg or impale the tip of his scythe into your gut. You doubt he has.
Wiping the corner of his mouth unceremoniously, he beams at you, saying, “Wanna be juust like you some day, Genius, since you’re super smart n’ all.”
“I failed to word it well.” You fall for none of his flattery, ignoring the weight of his comments completely. “It was… oversimplified.” It isn’t as though you had expected to relay each intricacy and nuance of something as complex as the parallel lines you could draw between two different societies that mix as well as oil and water do. “But.”
But it is an unspoken truth that rings heavy in your mind. Humans are no different from ghouls. If ghouls are predators, so are people. If ghouls are heartless, so are people. If ghouls are murderers, then so are people. Your investigations are proof of one; the untold mourning of many the other. They are but two sides of the same coin. And although you could argue how one has deluded itself into thinking it is more righteous, more worthy, both do not know the bounds of cruelty. Both are killers that hunt for food and strike all that may sate and appease their desires, their behaviors as dictated by their birth even in primitive times.
Everything is like this. Everyone acts this way. Ghouls kill; man kills; you tell him a truth you believe, “Nature is nature.”
Juuzou’s humming imitates that of the repeating advertisement song playing over the speakers. He parrots, mimics, but does not sing a single word. You think you’re going to go insane if the same clip of audio plays one more time; all of a sudden you feel a strong urge to start a monologue, and the silence he sings is nearly an offer. At least, you will interpret it as one.
Thank you, Suzuya. You take this as a chance to overwrite his antics and talk.
“We’re not that different, in the end.” Because humans are killers, too. They hold vicious desires and fulfill them through hideous means. A truth proven by the clanging of metal utensils against porcelain plates, the tantalizing smell of another life lost made to be a meal. All the differences lie in the way the so-called monster’s black eye sees light in a world painted by human morals, where hypocrisy draws each heavy stroke, but in the end, you all desire, deceive, and devour. “We’re all horrible on the inside, anyway.”
You would know this best. Duty and denial go hand in hand.
Though he doesn’t appear to be disturbed, he jokingly mumbles, “You sure say a lot of things I shouldn’t be hearing from a member of the CCG. Be more anti-ghoul, or something. Do what everyone else does.”
“Better for you if there’s at least one differing stance, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Yes.” You glance at the plastic knife on your left, at the fork balanced atop your thumb, and at him. “There is no harm in having something to compare your circumstances to.”
“My circumstances,” he repeats, in a laugh you swear almost sounds bitter but isn’t, now clearly more interested in your words than in the food on the table. “And why’s that?”
“Look at me, Suzuya.”
You tighten your grip on your fork, bring the piece of chicken to your mouth and let your teeth destroy the tenderness of it all.
“This,” you say, as you feel the gulp of your swallow— the swift slide of chewed up meat held captive in your mouth go down your throat, falling within your esophagus, and confined into your stomach, where it will serve as prisoner to your body until discarded, “is how you become a ghoul.”
The act of trapping, the act of hunting. To be a predator in pursuit of prey. You find delight in the taste, just as the rest of the customers do. Just as Juuzou does. Just as a ghoul would.
Now you are ghoul as much as you are man.
Juuzou eyes you as you sip on your glass of water with curiosity in his gaze. There is wonder in it, too, and he lets out nothing short of an absurdly dramatic gasp when the fork in his stitched hand crudely pierces through the flesh of his food. He’s taking neither any of this seriously nor you, yourself, for that matter.
Like always.
You see why the higher-ups insist the name Suzuya, Juuzou printed next to your own makes for a good pairing. You suffer for the sake of your assigned partner’s joy, and in the words of the lawful human you pretend to be, he’s so much more akin to a ghoul than you are.
He grins, and you brace yourself. You should have just shut up. Inhale; you are bound to be disappointed.
“You…” he trails, the volume of his whimsy rising like a tide, “You can become a ghoul by eating fried chicken?!”
Thus, exhale. You simply do not have the time for this.
When your breath leaves, so do the remnants of your sanity. You pray for the heavens above to strike you with the gift of death. In the end, you’d rather believe in God than in the idea of making it out of another investigation alive with your life being carelessly juggled around in this boy’s hands.
Nevermind trying to make any conversation with your abomination of an office partner. Juuzou himself is a gamble between life and death, an enigma who reeks of sewage water and dangers. The risk is not one you are willing to take.
Two more weeks. You believe your time at the CCG can end in less. You believe in his unique ability to be able to fuck it all up. With that deranged smile of his as the final thing you’ll ever see before the world goes dark, you believe. Just maybe.
Somewhere, in a better life where you put your complete faith in God, Juuzou might’ve been able to hear all your sentiments and understand. Or you might’ve never been work partners at all. Two more weeks and you will finally find reprieve from this shithole of a job. Or less. You leave by resignation or getting mauled in a back alley. You’ll be happy either way. If the heavens are nice, two weeks. If hell is even nicer, you might just die tomorrow.
“Suzuya.” Today, Juuzou is graced with one of your rare smiles. It is not genuine in the slightest, but he shamelessly enjoys the sight of it anyway. Just for today, since it might as well be your last. “I think I’ll kill myself.”
“Aw.” He pouts. It’s hideous. You don’t ever want to see him again. “You think?”
“Yeah,” you nod mindlessly. The first line of your resignation letter is already done and complete in your mind. “Just a hunch.”
“Don’t kill yourself.” He sounds like a child whining for your hand to hold. Some kind of attention-seeking subliminal message in whatever shit he says. “Didn’tcha know that kinda stuff kills you?”
The taste of chicken dies in your mouth alongside all of your energy. “I really didn’t.”
“Besides, it’d be such a bore if you died,” he puffs air in his cheeks, another one of his many habits. His face lights up as if he’d been graced with another revelation before he smiles at you. A truth to your lie. “We make such a good team.”
You really don’t. The grimace you unwillingly wield deepens. “…thanks.”
“So?” A tilt of his head towards his right shoulder, contemplative. He does that often, pairing it with an empty threat. “You’re not leaving me anymore, right?”
“...I admit I believe I’m wasting time in the CCG.” Truth be told, you’d rather have lived your life unknowingly, in ignorance. “Though the pay is good. I know. Don’t remind me twice.” It is bliss: a life in which you tread the streets of Tokyo unaware of the looming doom that tails you in the shadows morning and night is a life you think you might die for.
No. You will die. The existence of ghouls itself is a striker of fear in the hearts of humans. What you were born with is something you ignore willingly. Even if your view of the world is halved, you breathe in morals for lunch, listen to gospels you do not believe in on Sundays, and drink bitter coffee in idle comfort with your co-workers after lengthy days at work.
It is embedded in the humble way you live that you are such. You are but a human, one of them. Part of the we, nothing like the other. Even if your blood and bones were different, you are sewn together by their skin, the very same worn by the rest. You think, act, feel, and work the way they do.
There is much you suppress to think so.
“Wasn’t gonna.” Juuzou shakes his head side to side. “And like I said, it isn’t a waste, you know?” With a snap, the tone you had taken the effort to set simply falters. Flick of a finger, blink of an eye. Just like that. He tells you, stupidly, annoyingly, in a daring manner you do not try or desire to name, “I get to see you kill them.” Them, what he isn’t. Them, the fraction you are. “It’s so weird.” After, he lets his utensils rest, raises his hands as they take the form of scissors in some awful reimagination of the tool you keep hidden in your coat, and says, “Like, snip, snip, shooooosh!” Your frown grows more visible by the second. It’s the cutting motion that does it for you. “Shinohara-san thinks your entire thing’s kinda gruesome, but I think it’s super cute. I like the look on your face when you cut them apart. You look so… tired. And sad. And cute.”
He could have left it at that, cut himself short, but he doesn’t. “In a pathetic kind of way.”
So this is how you find out your concealer has never done well to hide anything.
Tomorrow, you decide. This must be it– the workplace harassment you’d long expected to experience. Between eating lunch with not even a hundred yen to your name and eating lunch in a cramped, loud restaurant with a louder coworker sitting with you, you’d like the former to be your future.
Tomorrow. And, maybe it is your lack of a will to live speaking for you when you say, “I hope I get mauled on my way to work.”
“Coome on!” One of his hands closes the distance, and you nearly marvel at the deft motion of his index and thumb swiftly taking a portion of your own untouched fries away. It’s a bit impressive, to be honest. “You hate me that much? Even though I really, really like you…?”
“...nevermind,” you sigh in the resignation you so long to see someday. “Do you think this place is hiring?”
“So you do hate me!”
One of you will die tomorrow. You just hope Juuzou does it first.