Chapter Text
Haise first caught sight of him after the Auction Raid, a lanky blond with a hand scratching the back of his head. He was dressed in the same black battle suit with light armor, surrounded by a group of CCG agents from the information division. Some (probably superiors) were scolding him, others (probably newer recruits) were congratulating him. Haise found himself puzzling over him for some reason. He felt like he knew him, but he was sure he hadn’t ever come in contact with him.
“Maman!” Saiko calls, drawing his attention away. The doctor looking Haise over nods just barely in consent for him to leave and moves on to the next person. Haise stands, still woozy, and stumbles almost unperceptively toward his subordinate, forcing a smile on his face.
“Are you okay?!” Mutsuki asks, in stride with Saiko. Shirazu is trailing behind them. Out of the corner of his eye, he notes the blond turn towards him. He glances at Haise, looks vaguely startled for a single moment, and turns back to his coworkers. Haise frowns.
“Yeah I’m fine,” he mutters, trying to place where he’s seen that face before.
Mutsuki is looking at dried blood plastered to his face and matted into his hair, frown on his lips. Saiko wraps her arms around his waist and clings without relenting for the next 10 minutes straight. Shirazu claps a hand on his back and mutters unintelligibly. Haise smiles for them, ensuring them that he’s fine, and yes, they did all survive.
But his eyes still stray toward the blond, who is now walking away from him with his cohort.
And maybe he imagines it, but he thinks, just for a split second, that he sees a bared, bitten shoulder.
The second time he sees him, the blond is walking briskly beside Akira, muttering conspiratorially. Haise can’t catch even a snatch of their conversation, even with his ghoul hearing, but Akira catches sight of him and hisses at the blond to silence him.
The blond looks at him and seems almost to suck in a breath. Haise feels some unexplainable urge to speak to him, to lay bare his soul to this stranger who he has only encountered one other time.
“Hello, Haise,” Akira greets and promptly smacks a stack of files in his hand. “This is Nagachika Hideyoshi from Division II. You’ll be working closely together on your next few cases, it seems.” She then shoots Nagachika such a venomous look, Haise half-wonders what they could have been talking about that would put him on Akira’s bad side so quickly. She smiles at him as he nods and begins to walk again.
Nagachika bows to him hurriedly. “Nice to meet you formally, First Class Sasaki. Please, call me Hide.”
“You as well, Hide-san,” Haise says, almost in a daze. Hide looks behind him, presumably after Akira.
“E-Excuse me,” Hide mutters, bowing again and racing around him after Akira. “Oi! Akira-san!” he yells and Haise raises an eyebrow, looking after him.
Hide, Hide, Hide. Where does he know that name?
Hide gradually becomes integrated into their team over the next few weeks. He’s mostly there as a well of information, but his sunny personality brightens up their office days. Except for Haise. Haise spends all the days Hide’s around trying to figure out where he’s seen his face, heard his name, his voice, his being.
It’s driving him mad. Slowly but surely. He can’t figure it out and it is maddening. Haise almost relishes their days off because it means that there is less chance of running into him, of feeling that annoying tickle in the back of his mind.
He’s sitting at his desk, listening to Hide talk with the kids about some case notes, when he cracks. He stands abruptly and stalks out of the room, nearly slamming the door to their office in the process and startling Shirazu (who literally falls out of his tilted chair). He finds Akira’s desk and, hands braced against it and a slightly crazed look in his eye, asks, “Where the hell did he come from and why is he working with us?”
Akira raises a bemused eyebrow and simply retorts, “Is he doing something in particular that bothers you?”
Haise cannot even begin to explain what bothers him. “He’s just… there. That’s the problem.”
“I’m not following you, Haise.”
“Akira. I cannot work under these conditions. He has to go or I will.”
“He’s good for your team, Haise. In fact, Arima and I were just chatting about moving him into the Chateau with you.”
Haise can just feel himself pale. It’s bad enough feeling this nagging sensation every damn minute they’re at work together… At home too?? “I… I can’t.” Haise collapses in the nearest chair.
“What exactly is the issue?”
“I just… I know him. But I don’t. And it’s driving me mad.”
Akira leans forward a little, a knowing little smirk on her lips. And, goddamn her, she knows something, Haise knows she knows something. “Haise. Why don’t you try not thinking so hard about it and just talk to him like a normal person? So what if you think you knew him? You don’t know how he’s changed since the time that you knew him before – if you did."
Haise scowls a little but concedes to her point. He returns to the QS office and tries to make himself believe that she’s right. Hide is not going anywhere and Haise is just going to have to deal with it.
When the door opens a sudden hush falls over the room and Haise plasters a bright smile on his face. “Everything alright, Sassan?” Shirazu asks as he sits down.
“Yes,” he says, hand straying to his chin. “I just forgot I had some business to discuss with Akira is all.”
Hide is staring at him, the tiniest of frowns on his face. Haise pretends not to notice the spike that seems to lodge itself in his temple, tries to ignore the feeling of recognition, déjà vu he gets from that look. When the kids leave for lunch, Haise promises that he’ll catch up to them and allows himself to sit blissfully alone for a while.
Of course, who returns as he’s pinching the bridge of his nose to fight off a headache than Hide. “Oh hey, Sasaki-san. Uhh. You okay?”
Haise hears that question echo somewhere in his distant memory. His headache increases. “I’m fine,” he says curtly then sighs at himself for his curtness.
“So… Are you gonna come to lunch or what?”
Haise purses his lips and, though he knows this will inevitably lead down the rabbit hole of his circumstances, says, “I… can’t eat.”
“Oh.” Hide seems to pick up on the implications almost immediately. “Coffee?”
Haise lets out a laugh. “Yeah. Coffee’s fine.”
“Well. I know I’m not exactly the person you want to hang around your team—“
“Hide-san I never meant to make you feel unwelcome—“
“—No you’re totally within your rights there. I kinda popped up with no warning—but uhh, I’m really looking forward to working with you. I’ve… heard good things. Really.” He bites his lip and bounces from foot to foot. And Haise frowns a little as the image comes to mind of someone running toward him with those same feet.
“Do you want to get coffee tomorrow or something?” Haise blurts, totally spur-of-the-moment, unplanned, unexpected even for him. He blanches at himself then backtracks. “I mean we’re going to be working together so it’d be nice to at least get to know—“
“I’d love to, Sasaki-san,” Hide interrupts gently. “Tomorrow after work?”
“Sure! I know a place not far from here actually.”
Hide’s stomach makes an interjection and Haise can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of him. “I should probably go eat,” he says and Haise nods. “You coming? I mean… Even if you can’t eat you can at least get some coffee and keep us company.”
Haise looks around for an excuse, realizes he has none, and sighs before standing and walking with him.
He doesn’t notice any kind of headache for the rest of the day.
They meet at the office right after their shift ends. Haise tosses the car keys to Mutsuki, who looks up in surprise. “Meet you at home, kay? Hide-san and I are gonna have a little talk."
Saiko’s eyes narrow immediately. Mutsuki looks surprised. Urie is as indifferent as always but is scowling at the fact that the keys were given to Mutsuki instead of him. Shirazu is totally flabbergasted, looking between the two of them like they’re aliens.
Haise laughs a little awkwardly at their reactions. “I’ll be home in time to cook dinner.”
Hide waves a little as Haise says goodbye and prods him out the door.
They’re both really quiet the whole walk to :re because neither of them really knows what to say now that they’ve decided to get to know each other. (Something about the silence bothers Haise for reasons he can’t explain. He’s fairly sure that there has never been an awkward silence like this between them in his life—but this is the first time he’s known Hide so that’s impossible.) It’s when they finally get there and Hide gasps, “Oh! I know this place!” that there’s something to talk about.
“Really?”
“Yeah, this girl I knew back in college runs the pl—Oh shit. She’s gonna kill me.” He stops abruptly, staring at the storefront and looking vaguely apprehensive. “She might actually kill me.”
“Why?” Haise raises an eyebrow.
“She hasn’t seen me in ages.”
Haise snorts. “And that’s grounds for murder? I honestly don’t see Kirishima-san as the murderous type.”
Hide gives a nervous laugh and scratches the back of his head as Haise snags his arm and pulls him toward the door with a roll of his eyes. “If I get killed for this, it’s your fault,” he hisses just before Touka catches sight of them. She scowls.
“Nagachika?” Then she tilts her head toward Haise. “Afternoon Sasaki-san.”
“Hey, Touka-chan!” Hide says at the same time Haise says, “Hello Kirishima-san.”
“Where did you crawl out of finally?” Touka asks Hide with a faintly grumpy expression. Hide’s grin becomes more strained and he glances at Haise. She frowns a little but then shakes her head. “Nevermind. I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know. Table for two I take it?”
“Yes please!”
She leads them to a table by the window and goes to prepare Haise’s coffee.
They’re alone again. And Haise, being the awkward nugget that he is, has no idea what to say now.
“She’s grown a lot since I knew her,” Hide mutters, his gaze directed at the counter where Touka is pouring water over the coffee grounds. “If she was still in high school she probably might have actually killed me for showing up here after disappearing on her.”
“You disappeared?”
“For a while. I… Uh… had a family emergency. Goodness it must have been two years or so since I last saw her.”
“How did you know :re was here then?”
Hide shrugged. “Division II. We tend to do cursory screens of new businesses. Besides, I’ve passed this place enough times to know where it is and to know that she was here.”
Haise frowns. “And you didn’t come talk to her before because…?”
“I’m a busy guy, Sasaki-san! Division II works their employees half to death, I’m telling you. We do all the behind the scenes work and get none of the credit. Besides… I kinda figured she was better off without me in her life.” Hide laughs and Touka returns with a cup of black coffee and a cappuccino. “Thanks, Touka-chan! You still know what I like!” She rolls her eyes and strides away.
Haise watches him as he burns his tongue on his cappuccino, trying to wrap his head around this familiar, yet dissonant feeling wrapping around him.
“But anyway, Touka-chan used to work at a coffee shop I frequented with my best friend when we were in college. He started working there too, actually.” Haise doesn’t miss how intently Hide watches him as he says these words, nor the pained sort of look that only briefly flashes across his face. He picks up his coffee, half-listening as Hide talks about his past.
“Good luck, delusion-boy!”
Haise nearly drops his coffee and Hide abruptly stops talking to look at him in concern. He looks at Hide, but the boy couldn’t have said it, even if it did seem to be his voice. He’s sloshed some coffee on his shirt but he hardly even notices the heat.
“Hey.” Hide’s got a napkin and is dabbing at his shirt. “You alright?”
Haise stares at him but for some reason he can’t really see him.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”
“Give it up.”
He feels suddenly like he’s going to puke, which is odd because he never feels like that.
“Sasaki-san?”
Haise breathes in deep and lays a hand on the table. “I’m fine,” he says, waving away Hide’s concern. “Just...” Hide seems to hold his breath for a second and Haise continues more firmly, “It’s nothing.”
The nausea is gone. He takes another sip of his coffee. Hide slides slowly back into his seat, watching him like a hawk. “How’d you come to the CCG?” Hide asks and Haise nearly chokes. “Ah. Sorry. Too blunt.”
“I would think that you’d already know that, Mr. Division II,” Haise mutters after clearing his throat.
“Well. Yeah. I get your situation but…”
“I’m not sure,” he says quietly, unsure exactly why he’s saying anything. “The first thing I remember is talking with Arima-san in Cochlea. That was two years ago.”
“So you don’t remember… anything from the first twenty years of your life?”
Haise shakes his head and, to cover up his self-consciousness, takes a sip of coffee. “Ah.” A sad look flashes across Hide’s face which Haise notices but doesn’t comment on. There’s silence between them for a moment.
“How did you come to the CCG?” Haise asks when it becomes unbearable.
“Oh. When I was in college I started working there as a messenger boy around the same time my best friend started working with Touka-chan.” Hide swallows and Haise realizes that the uncomfortable air around him stems from talking about this ‘best friend’ of his. “I caught Marude’s eye and he pulled me into Division II. Apparently I had a knack for strategy and gathering intel.” He wrinkles his nose a little and sips his cappuccino. “Not nearly as impressive as catching the eye of Kishou Arima.” Haise is fairly sure that tone is teasing.
There’s some silence again and Haise quietly, hesitantly says, “What happened to your best friend?”
Hide sucks in a breath and seems to hold it for a while. When he lets it out, his eyes are closed. “I don’t know,” Hide answers. “He went missing and then… I’m not sure. I think he might be dead. I heard from him a few years ago, but I… I don’t think he was okay. I think he might have been dying. And…” Hide stops and drinks his cappuccino in gulps. “It’s not important. He’s gone. That’s it. He’s gone.”
Haise feels like he should be doing something to comfort him and Hide seems to catch the look on his face because he grins wide. “I’m fine, really. It’s fine. I started working more with Division II after he disappeared for good. Ended up dropping out of college to work more and because… Kamii wasn’t the same without him, I guess.”
He lapses into silence, staring into his cup like it can give him all of life’s answers.
“It’s not okay,” Haise blurts. “And it’s okay if you aren’t okay. He seems to have been a very important person to you and it’s okay if you’re not okay that he’s gone.”
Hide swallows. “Thanks, Sasaki-san.”
“Haise,” he corrects gently. Lord knows that after bearing his soul to him, he’s at least earned the right to call him by his first name. And they’re going to be living together soon too. And Haise still can’t shake the feeling that he knows Hide on some subconscious, deep level.
“Thanks, Haise-san,” Hide mumbles, but Haise doesn’t miss how the corners of his mouth tilt upwards.
Conversation flows between them easily now and they sit there and talk for what only feels like minutes, but when Haise next checks the clock, it’s nearly seven and they’ve been chatting for almost three hours and he still has to catch a train home to make dinner for the Quinx. “Oh. Shoot,” he says, interrupting Hide mid-sentence, “I promised them I’d be back in time for dinner.” Haise looks up at Hide, who also looks vaguely surprised that they’ve been here that long. “You want to come? Akira-san said that you were probably going to move into the Chateau. It might be good for you to get a feel for the place.”
“Sure!”
Hide’s grin has probably never been brighter.
The days before Hide moves into the Chateau are filled with frantic cleaning on Haise’s part, grumpiness on Shirazu and Urie’s part, and actual legitimate suspicion on Saiko and Mutsuki’s part. They all get along wonderfully with Hide (now), but Saiko and Mutsuki can’t seem to understand the sudden change in behavior between Haise and Hide. Shirazu still holds his suspicions as well, but he’s not saying anything. He’s just grumpy that he’s being roped into doing household chores (and a fair amount of Saiko’s as well, that minx).
Hide arrives with a rolling suitcase in each hand, a dufflebag slung over one shoulder, and a backpack. Akira is also doing her part in helping him out by carrying a single box. Hide, having already seen the Chateau thanks to his dinner with the Quinx the week before, knows exactly where his room is. He is, however, very amazed by the fact that it’s much cleaner than the last time.
“You didn’t have to clean for me, Haise-san,” Hide says, bumping his shoulder lightly on his way past. Hide has the last spare room on the ground floor, sandwiched between Saiko’s and Mutsuki’s. He strides in confidently, followed by Haise and Akira, who plops the box in her hands on his desk as soon as she can.
“Wouldn’t want to make a bad first impression on your first night in the house though!” Haise says. Akira glances between them then rolls her eyes and makes to leave.
“I’m assuming everything will be fine here?”
“Ah yes,” Hide murmurs. “Thanks for your help moving, Akira-san!”
She slips out after giving Haise a play-nice look, which Haise looks rather affronted to be given at all.
“I’ll um… leave you to settle in then, Hide-san. Dinner will be around 6:30.” Haise does not appear to want to leave him alone though. He hovers in the hallway for a while before truly leaving and Hide has to contain his laughter. He unpacks the box Akira had brought up first. It holds miscellaneous office things and some books, a couple posters and some pictures.
He sets his meager collection of books (it’s nowhere near as large as Haise’s) on the top shelf of his small bookshelf, moves the office supplies onto his desk, and carefully removes the posters and pictures, leaving them on the desk to be taken care of later. He breaks down the box and goes about unpacking the rest of his bags.
It doesn’t take him long before he returns to his desk to put up his posters. His favorite Red Dragon poster goes over his bed. The other one, he tacks to the wall over his desk.
He gazes over the pictures. Only two are framed, the rest are loose. He swears softly as he realizes that most of them are of him and Kaneki. They weren’t supposed to come with him. They’d made it into his baggage completely on accident.
Hide leans against the desk and sighs. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do this. Sure, he had been bugging Akira to let him on their team so he could re-enter Kaneki’s life even if he didn’t remember, but he hadn’t quite understood how difficult it would be.
There was no doubt in his mind that Haise was Kaneki. He was what Kaneki could have been if he hadn’t been used and abused for his whole life.
Hide gently starts to gather the photos of him and Kaneki together – from their childhood, from high school, from their first day at Kamii, from their life – and, though it pains him, shoves them into the back of a drawer in his desk. He can’t risk Haise finding them. He can’t risk Haise remembering.
There are three photos left. One of him at his high school graduation (before Kaneki had found him), one of his parents at the hospital, holding a tiny baby Hide, and one from elementary school with his parents and his grandparents from both sides before they had died.
He sighs again, sets the framed picture of his parents and him as a baby on his desk, and leaves the other two sitting there.
His life is so empty without Kaneki in it.
Hide appears in Haise’s dreams the entire first week that he’s living downstairs in the Chateau. Or at least, Haise thinks that it’s Hide. His face is shadowed in all of them, but his hair always gives him away. The monster shows up a few times too, never saying anything substantial but always muttering incoherently.
Haise wakes up the seventh day just before five in the morning, feeling like he’s been hit by a bus.
In his dream, he had snatches of conversation with Hide, similar to the snatches that he had thought he had heard when he was with Hide at :re.
“You’d be eaten in a second…”
“Wh… What do you mean, incomprehensible…”
“It’s no use, I’d fall asleep after five seconds…”
“If I were a ghoul, you would be very dead…”
“Don’t do weird things! This shop is the only connection I have…”
“Sorry to say this but… Give it up!”
“Gotta go to work… Good luck delusion-boy!”
Haise frowns as he writes down as much of the conversation he remembers from before the monster had appeared and he’d suddenly been thrust into the black and white checkered room.
“Stop!” the monster had roared at him. “They’re mine!” He’d fallen back into incoherent mumbling right away, but Haise is certain that those three words had been directed at him.
Haise shakes his head, finishing the entry in his dream journal. There’s no way he’s going to sleep anymore, which is unfortunate since he feels almost more drained that he had when he went to sleep to begin with.
He pulls himself out of bed and decides to read in the living room until his Squad wakes up.
Hide is sitting in the living room with his laptop in front of him when Haise walks into the room. Haise watches him stare at the screen, Hide’s fingers flexing and curling repeatedly into a fist. Haise clears his throat. Hide jumps and glances at him.
“Haise-san,” Hide mutters, bringing a hand to his chest. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“You should be asleep,” Haise points out.
“So should you,” Hide counters.
“Touché.”
Haise hesitates to sit on the other end of the couch from him. “It’s five in the morning. Why are you up?” Hide asks him, examining his face.
Haise shrugs. “It happens sometimes. I just can’t sleep.”
“You look exhausted.”
Haise sighs and leans his head back against the couch. “So maybe it happens every night?”
Hide frowns. “Every night? How often do you sleep through the night?”
“Maybe… Once a week? Twice if I’m lucky.” The look on Hide’s face is one of concern but also something Haise can’t identify. He coughs a bit in discomfort and Hide moves his gaze away from him. “Why are you up?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Hide answers. “I figured that I’d do some work instead.” He gestures to the computer on his knees. Haise nods in understanding, drawing his knees to his chest. He’s still thinking about his dreams over the last week. More specifically, the monster’s claim and Hide’s presence. It feels like a word is sitting on the very tip of his tongue, just out of reach, except it’s a vast understanding of something deep inside himself that sits there instead.
Haise shakes his head and cracks his book open. Hide returns to his work. After a while of relative silence, Haise’s eyes begin to droop and the words on the page begin swim. The next thing he knows, he’s being shaken awake by real Hide after a very short encounter with dream-Hide.
“Eat me. I want to save you.”
Haise stares at Hide, uncomprehending for a moment that it isn’t still his dream. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Haise-san,” Hide murmurs. Mutsuki skirts around the edge of the room to get to the kitchen and Haise blinks a few times in order to clear the fog from his eyes.
Haise frowns. “I’m not so sure I didn’t,” he mutters.
“Is Nagachika settling in alright?
Haise looks up from his coffee at Akira. It’s their biweekly check-in meeting. Haise never knows what to say, but Akira always has questions. “Ahh. Yeah. He seems to be fine.”
“And you’re getting along okay?”
“Yes, Akira-san,” Haise says with a sigh. “We’re fine. No problems whatsoever.”
“So you’re not just randomly upset with him for no reason?”
“No.”
“He doesn’t drive you nuts?”
“No.”
“You’re getting along perfectly?”
“Yes.” Haise scowls at her. “Why does that seem to surprise you?”
She shrugs and finishes off her sandwich. “No reason. I just distinctly remember a couple weeks ago you barged into my office declaring that you couldn’t possibly work with him is all.”
Haise laughs a little, his hand rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah well… Maybe I overreacted a little bit.”
“A little bit?” Akira raises an eyebrow. “I believe you said, ‘He has to go or I will.’”
Haise flinches but there’s a humorous glint in Akira’s eyes that tells him she’s only teasing him. “It was driving me nuts though… I couldn’t work like that.”
“And what changed?”
Haise frowns. “I… talked to him. And then… I don’t know. It just did.”
“You listened to me for once then? Wow. Imagine that.”
“Akira-san!” Haise exclaims indignantly just as a voice behind him calls his and Akira’s names. Hide walks up to their table, a massive grin, as always, present on his face. Akira raises an eyebrow at him as if to say ‘speak of the devil’ and Haise resists the urge to roll his eyes. Akira stands.
“I should get back to headquarters,” she explains. “Let me know if you need anything, Haise.”
“Of course,” Haise answers and Hide slides into the seat she vacates almost before she’s out the door. Haise suppresses the smile threatening to appear on his face at his readiness to hang out with him. “How are you Hide-san?”
“I’m fantastic!” Hide exclaims, bouncing giddily.
Haise lets his smile free. “Why is that?”
“Urie called me Nagachika today.” Haise frowns. “As in just Nagachika. Not First Class Nagachika or anything. Just Nagachika. I mean, that’s as personal as he gets, right?!”
Haise smiles at him sympathetically and Hide narrows his eyes at him.
“This is a very happy occurrence, Haise-san.”
“I believe you.”
“Your smile says ‘You’re nuts.’ But I will have you know—“
Haise rolls his eyes and laughs, cutting him off.
“You’re fine, Hide-san,” he says. “I’m just teasing you.”
“Well then. I guess that’s another achievement for me to celebrate today. I got on Haise-san’s good side.”
Haise rolls his eyes and stands. “You already were, silly.”
“Hide-san,” Haise asks over coffee another day weeks later, “Do you ever…” He hesitates and Hide’s eyes narrow slightly in concentration. “Do you ever think about the past?
Hide laughs a little. “Is that really what you wanted to ask, Haise-san?” His eyes are mischievous and Haise somehow gets the feeling that he knows. Hide sighs anyway and answers his question. “I do. All the time.” There’s a nostalgic smile forming on his lips. “Mostly about how different things have become the last three years.”
“But do… Do you…?”
“Do I what, Haise-san?” Hide asks gently. “You can tell or ask me anything you know.”
“Do you ever dream about…?”
“The past?” Haise nods and Hide sucks in a breath. “Have you been having dreams?”
“Yes. They feel so real too that it’s hard for me to imagine that they aren’t situations of the past.”
“Like what?”
“Like… Sitting in a coffee shop with you.”
“Haise-san, we do that every Friday.”
“No but this is different. We’re younger and I’m pretty sure I have black hair. And there’s… there’s a girl with long magenta hair.”
If Hide stiffens at the mention of Rize, he doesn’t show it to Haise. “That’s a funny thing to be dreaming about…”
Haise watches him avoid his eyes and sip the drink in front of him. He doesn’t see the way that Hide’s hand curls into a white-knuckled fist under the table.
He always tries to keep them under wraps, keep them secret so he doesn’t worry anyone. Haise has become well accustomed to cutting off the scream in his throat before it leaves his mouth when he wakes up, terrorized and shaking, sweat pouring out of every pore, caught limbs flailing in his sheets
But he can’t always. The Quinx always politely pretend like nothing happened at breakfast when he was sure they had heard him tearing his voice raw that morning upon waking. But he’d see Mutsuki and Saiko’s worried glances, Shirazu’s uneasy looks. He used to just brush it off and grin at them, content to move past the awful morning and take care of his subordinates.
Things are not like that with Hide living in the Chateau.
He doesn’t even comprehend that the screams are coming from him, doesn’t even realize he’s waking up. It’s so real; the pain in his eyes, his head pounding sharply, the panic of his sudden blindness, the stench of rotting flowers, corpses, memories, his throat-aching screams, the manic need to resist, to kill, to eat, to savethemohmygodpleasesavethem, it’s all so real and so painful.
“Haise!” It’s Arima and it’s the monster and it’s everyone he’s ever known all at once yelling at him.
“Haise! Haise! Calm down!”
Hands grab at his wrists, he fights because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. But the hands are stronger than he is. They’re pulling him under water, they’re trying to drown him. They’re—
“Haise, open your eyes and look at me.”
They’re Hide’s. It’s just Hide’s voice. The constant stream of screams fades into soft sobs. He still can’t see. He can’t tell if his eyes are open. He’s afraid he won’t be able to see if he does.
“Haise, your eyes.” His breath hitches and he has to force it to even out before he cracks his eyes open. At first he thinks he might start screaming again because everything is dark, but then Hide’s face starts coming into focus and his rapid shallow breaths are slowing and getting deeper.
“That’s it, Haise,” Hide murmurs, “Just breathe. It was just a nightmare. You’re alright. You’re safe.”
Haise stares up into Hide’s eyes and does as he says. When he’s calmed enough, he tries to move his arms but Hide shakes his head, though he does loosen his grip slightly.
“You okay?” Hide asks gently as Haise turns his head to check the time.
A wave of humiliation and guilt washes over him as he registers the numbers 4:38 AM. He feels his breath quicken ever so slightly. Hide also catches it.
“Hey, hey. Shhhh,” he breathes, releasing his wrists and slipping his hands into Haise’s instead so it doesn’t feel so confining. He swings himself off of Haise too, but Haise had hardly recognized that his weight was straddling him.
“I’m so sorry,” Haise says, near tears again. “I must have woken you. I’m so sorry.”
Hide hushes him softly. “Haise, you were terrified. It’s okay. You can’t stop your dreams.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Haise,” Hide says more firmly. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“God I must have woken everyone. I could have woken the dead.”
Hide only chuckles as Haise sits up, disconnecting one of their hands in the process. “You could certainly have woken the dead,” Hide agrees, though it isn’t spiteful at all.
Haise closes his eyes, another apology on his lips, when he’s reminded of being blind and his eyes shoot open to dispel the darkness. His mouth almost forms another cry, which dies in his throat. He feels a hand against his neck and the next thing he knows, he’s being pulled to Hide. He settles automatically against his chest, as though this is the most natural thing in the world.
“You have nothing to worry about here,” Hide murmurs in his ear. “No judgment, no stares, no pain, no nightmares, okay?”
Haise nods against his friend’s collarbone and a dull ache starts in his chest to the same rhythm as his increased heartbeat.
His hand remains joined with Hide’s until they get up an hour later.
Haise may be imagining it, but he thinks that there are more touches, more looks, less space, less awkwardness between them after that night. Haise will notice Hide leaning toward him more often for no reason or feel the brush of his fingers on his shoulders, his neck, his arm, his lower back as he passes
There’s more peace in his life now than he can ever remember there being, even as his heart races unexpectedly.
And it’s not as though his dreams stop, or the monster goes away, or he stops waking up screaming, he’s just happier and more accepting of everything thrown at him with Hide close by.
After Hide wakes him up from screaming a third time, Haise talks about it in stumbling, sobbed words that he’s not sure even make sense to him. He just trusts Hide to understand, to not treat him any differently.
“It was just… counting and scratching and centipedes and cracked knuckles and severed appendages and blood and screams and rotting corpses and death and anguish and fire and pain in my eyes and sweet tastes in my mouth and-and-and—“
Hide shushes him gently, hand running through his hair and pulling him to him. Haise’s hand grips his almost in a death grip and he can’t breathe suddenly with what he’s trying to get out.
“You were there,” Haise chokes out. “You were there and I—“
His vision goes dark and when he wakes up again, Hide is hovering over him worriedly asking him what happened. But Haise can’t remember what they were talking about or why Hide looks so frantic.
“You’re sure, Nagachika?” Haise overhears Akira speaking from around the corner when on his way to lunch with the Quinx and slows to a stop. He doesn’t like the conspiratorial tone of her voice. He assumes that Hide nods, though he doesn’t see him. “He’s had weird dreams before. It could be something else like that.” Haise sucks in a breath. They could only be talking about him.
“No. He specifically mentioned a conversation he and I had in Anteiku once before his accident. And glimpses of what happened in V-14, possibly even Yamori torturing him.” Hide pauses and Haise hears Akira sigh. “He remembers something, Akira. Something to do with me. And that’s dangerous.”
“You were the one that wanted on his team, Nagachika. I tried to tell you this might happen.”
“But he can’t remember, Akira. It… It would break him again. I can’t watch that happen to him again.”
“And I warned you.”
“I was careful!”
“You were his best friend¸ Nagachika. Of course he remembered you to some extent…”
Haise turns and walks in the opposite direction as quickly as he can because he’s fairly sure that he’s going to be sick.
When Hide walks into the office later, he senses a coldness coming off of Haise but he can’t place where it came from.
“You okay, Haise?”
“Fine.” Hide seems to be the only person who recognizes the sharpness in his tone or the way he turns his body away from him as Hide sits down. His heart aches vaguely but he doesn’t push it.
Haise stares at his computer screen and resists the urge to spill all his troubles and worries to Hide.
The Quinx all feel a coldness in the air. It’s been lingering for the last few weeks ever since Hide and Haise stopped doing their coffee dates. Saiko is especially put out that ‘Maman’ and ‘Papa’ don’t seem to be speaking to each other in anything other than short, clipped, professional responses, though none of them understand why.
They noticed the glances, the touches, and how Hide was the only one with the nerve to calm Haise when he woke up screaming.
Saiko had been the first to figure out that her Maman and Papa loved each other very much to some extent, not really the dating and kissing extent yet but she had hoped it would happen soon.
Mutsuki had noticed but he was too polite to take part in the conversation because he looked up to them both too much.
Urie could care less what Nagachika and Sasaki did in their free time as long as it didn’t affect how well they worked with each other and with the rest of the team. He wasn’t about to lose a promotion because they were too distracted by each other to do their jobs.
Shirazu was oblivious as always and turned bright red as he tried to stammer out a response to Saiko’s suggestion that they were something more.
But now all their speculation had frozen with the tenseness between them. No one seemed to know how or when it started let alone why. At first Saiko had been determined to get to the bottom of it, but then she had noticed the way that Haise shrank away from one of Hide’s touches early on and she’d discovered she was at a loss.
Hide noticed it too but he figured that it was residual horror from one of his nightmares or something and left it alone. Anything but for it to mean that Haise was scared of him.
It’s been three weeks and even Urie is starting to get fed up with the distance and ice between them. Saiko and Mutsuki corner Hide before he can reach the office.
“What’s up with you two?” Saiko demands and Hide frowns.
“Who?”
“You and Maman! Who else would I be talking about?”
“Saiko,” Mutsuki starts, “maybe you shouldn’t be—“
“No, Mucchan. I’m sick of this. I have to know.” She resolutely crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow at Hide. “Well? What happened?”
Hide looks between the two of them and sighs, deflating a little. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I… I guess I did something that upset him? I don’t know.”
Saiko’s hardness melts a little when she sees her Papa looking so lost.
“Have you talked to him, Hide-san?” Mutsuki asks gently.
He shakes his head. “He hasn’t given me the chance. He just—,“ He’s cut off by his phone ringing very loudly in his pocket. Hide sighs and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He offers them a small smile as he reaches for his phone. “Thanks for worrying though, Saiko, Mutsuki.”
He answers his phone before they can protest. “Hel—“
“Go back to the Chateau right now, Nagachika,” Akira’s voice says, sharp and almost angry.
“What? Why?”
“Haise went looking for files on Amon and the Eyepatch ghoul.”
Hide can feel all the blood rush out of his face, his heart drop to his feet. He turns away from Mutsuki and Saiko and has to stop himself from sprinting away from them for the exit. “What did he find out?”
“A bunch of redacted info mainly. I found him in file storage looking for more though. Had a bit of an identity crisis and screamed at me.”
“Is he okay? Are you okay?” He gathers his things quickly into his briefcase and hurries to the doors of the building, not caring if he’s drawing looks.
“Oh I’m fine. I calmed him down enough to get across to him that who he was in the past doesn’t matter, especially not to the people that really matter. He’s himself no matter what name he goes by.”
Hide is actually running now, despite this information. “And?”
“And I’m not sure he really believed me but I sent him home for the rest of the day and called you. Figured you would be able to help him more than I can.”
Hide curses the distance that’s grown between him and Haise the last few weeks because he’s not sure if Akira is right about that anymore. Stiffly he says, “Alright. I’m on my way home then. Thanks Akira-san.”
“Be gentle with him, Nagachika. He’s trying to cross uncharted territory for him. If you push too much it might crack the barrier he’s built and just release everything.”
“Noted.” He hangs up and slows in his race for the train long enough to stuff his phone in his pocket and pull out a rail pass.
He’s standing outside the Chateau, breathing hard from running when he realizes that he doesn’t know what he’s going to say or how he’s going to help Haise this time. He’s going in completely blind. But it doesn’t scare him, not really. Haise has always been Kaneki to him. But Haise has also always been Haise. The two can’t be separated and Hide cannot bear the thought of being separated from either of them ever again.
He doesn’t know what happened between them to make Haise so cold, but he’s going to fix it.
He pushes open the door and toes off his shoes. He doesn’t have to look far for Haise. He standing at the counter in the kitchen, a pot of coffee brewing to his side, his eyes fixated on his bleeding hand. Hide feels something in him choke as he rushes forward and envelops Haise’s hand in his and drags it to the sink, running it under cold water. He had worried about nothing though because the cut has already healed.
Haise jerks his hand out of his grasp and dries it on his pant leg. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” he asks, voice full of ice as he pours a cup of coffee and moves to take the stairs, leaving Hide gaping at him.
He follows quickly though. Haise can’t just leave him behind. “Akira-san sent me here,” Hide says.
“Oh really? I guess that makes two of us.”
“She was worried about you.”
He hums non-committedly as he reaches the landing.
“She thought I might be able to help more than her.”
Haise lets out a hiss and comes to a stop in front of his bedroom door. “I don’t know why she would think that,” he says finally and opens the door. He tries to slam it in Hide’s face but he—ow—sticks his foot in before Haise can. “Hide. Go away.”
“Never,” Hide says, voice hard.
“Hide—“
“Haise, what happened?” Haise looks at him quizzically and Hide elaborates. “I thought—no I could have sworn—that there was something between us. That we were close and could share everything with each other. But then you pulled away and I… did I do something? Are you angry with me? What did I do, Haise?”
Haise swallows and gives up on closing the door. Hide lets himself in slowly and shuts the door behind him just in case any of the Quinx come home early. They’re both silent for a long stretch then—
“Akira-san said that you went looking for something about your past. Has it been—“
“Of course she told you,” Haise says with a bitter laugh. It’s not something Hide ever wanted to hear from Haise, let alone directed at him. “You two were always pretty buddy-buddy.” Hide draws back but Haise just sighs, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I heard you two talking about me, you know. A few weeks ago. I didn’t want to think that you would talk about me like that, thought that I could trust you.”
All of Hide’s expectations absolutely deflate right then. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know that you knew me. I always knew that Akira knew more than she was letting on but I let it slide because she’s been like a mother to me. But you… You walked into my life and tried to pretend like it was the first time we’d ever met. Even after I told you that you appeared in dreams that felt like memories. Even after everything you pretended not to know anything.”
“Haise—“
“No, Hide. You don’t understand. That monster in my head terrorized me, tried to make me see, tried to stop me from getting closer to you. And you… you just—did you ever want me for me? Or was I always just him?”
“Haise you have to let me explain.”
“No. I don’t want to hear any more bullshit excuses! This is my life and I don’t want anyone else controlling how much I remember anymore!”
“Haise it would break you.”
“I don’t care Hide.”
“You should!” And now it’s Hide who’s angry. Who’s yelling and upset. “You fucking should, Haise, because it isn’t just about you. I watched you go through hell and back and I’ll be fucking damned if I have to watch it again. I’m not going to stand on the sidelines this time. I’m…” His voice breaks and he suddenly feels three years’ worth of tears and sorrow pressing at the back of his eyes. The fight leaves him. “I can’t, Haise. I can’t watch you break again.”
He’s tired. He’s tired of pretending not to know Kaneki. He’s tired of walking around Haise like anything he says might break the floodgate. He’s tired of not knowing where he stands. And he’s tired of not being with Haise. He backs against the door and sinks to the floor, burying his hands in his hair.
They’re completely silent for a long time. Hide’s admission hangs in the air and suffocates him. Finally, he can’t take it anymore. He pushes himself up and leaves.
“Hide,” Haise calls and but Hide slams the door behind him.
The Quinx trickle home. Haise emerges from his room and pretends that everything is fine. He cooks dinner like normal. He talks with them about their days. Saiko and Mutsuki keep glancing at Hide’s empty place at the table but say nothing.
Shirazu and Urie go off to train while Haise and Mutsuki clear the table. Saiko goes to her room. It’s painfully normal. Normal like before Hide had come into their lives.
Haise’s heart hurts.
He heads to bed, shrugging off Mutsuki’s concern with a small complaint about a headache. He falls into a restless sleep almost immediately, for once.
He hears the door slam open even as his screams drown out all thoughts to protect himself. Arms wrap around him and Hide’s scent and warmth envelop him. “I’m sorry,” Haise sobs. “I’m sorry, Hide. I’m so sorry. Forgive me. I didn’t want to. Hide. Hide.”
“Shhhh, Haise. It’s okay,” Hide mumbles in his ear. Haise’s fingers bury themselves in the back of his shirt. Hide pulls him up into sitting position. He runs his fingers through Haise’s hair, trying to calm him. “I’m here, shhhh.”
“I ate you. Why don’t you hate me? I ate you.”
Hide shushes him, holding Haise’s face, pressing their foreheads together, wiping his tears away with his thumbs. Haise keeps mumbling and Hide hushes him. “It was a necessary sacrifice,” he breathes finally when Haise has mostly calmed. “For you. For your survival.”
Haise chokes back another sob. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” Hide murmurs. “I wanted so much to not watch you suffer again that I didn’t consider what kind of suffering you were already enduring.” Haise’s face is buried in his collarbone and Hide sighs, fingers restlessly running through Haise’s hair. “What do you want to know?”
“How long have I known you?”
“You as in Haise? A year. Your soul? Fourteen…? Fifteen years?” Hide can’t remember the exact number off the top of his head. Haise shudders against him and Hide almost thinks he’s going to start spewing apologies again. “Haise, you’re still you, even if you don’t remember. You don’t have to remember to be whole. You… You’ve always just been Haise, to me. I might have come into this, begged Akira to let me on your team, because I wanted to be near my best friend again, but you’ve always been the same to me. You’ve always been Haise and Kaneki simultaneously. You’ve always been everything to me, no matter what your name is.”
Haise starts laughing suddenly, lifting his head, and Hide falters. “When I first met you, I thought I knew you,” Haise explains. “I thought I knew you and it frightened me so I treated you awfully and tried to tell Akira that we didn’t work well together.” Hide raises an eyebrow and Haise shrugs. “I wasn’t wrong.”
“Touché,” Hide murmurs. They’re quiet for the longest time. Then Hide says, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“You had good reason not to.” He lets himself lay down and Hide follows him, curling around him from behind. They fall into silence again and Haise turns to him. It’s not as early in the morning as it normally is when Haise wakes up screaming, hardly even past midnight.
“If—Haise, if you want to start remembering, then… I won’t stop you.” Hide’s grip on his waist tightens. “You were right. It’s your life and your choice.”
Haise places a hand on his cheek and shakes his head. Hide frowns. “I’m scared to, honestly. Between you and… Kaneki, I guess is his name, I’m not sure I want to know.”
“If you ever have questions…” Hide says but Haise cuts him off with his lips.
“For now I’m content,” Haise breathes, nudging his nose against Hide’s. Hide smiles, his eyes heavy, sleepy, unable to quite believe he’s finally reached this point. Haise watches him fall asleep and lets himself drift off, curled in Hide’s arms.
After that, Hide and Haise nearly always end up asleep in the same bed. It is never agreed upon out loud, it just happens. None of the Quinx seem bothered by it. Saiko is absolutely thrilled. They keep their PDA limited to hand-holding but practically everyone in the entire CCG knows within a week. Akira actually calls them into her office to give them the ‘inter-office romance’ talk, during most of which Haise is red-faced and Hide is completely nonchalant
They sleep in Haise’s bed most of the time. Sometimes Haise will ask him questions while they wait for sleep to take them. Sometimes Hide will even have proper answers. Mostly they sleep contentedly, curling around each other.
This is how Haise learns that Hide also has nightmares. He never screams but Haise will sometimes wake to his quick shallow breaths turning to gasping sobs or the jerk of his limbs as though he’s coming out of a freefall.
Hide’s nightmares are a softer, more indirect terror than Haise’s. He refuses to talk about them and Haise learns quickly not to ask. Instead, he runs his fingers through Hide’s hair, along his arms, down his back; kisses his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, his lips; does anything he can to comfort him.
“Haise,” Hide finally murmurs as an indicator that he’ll be fine. Haise’s fingers slow, though they remain tangled in his hair. He presses his forehead to Hide’s, running the pad of one thumb across his cheek. Hide’s tired gaze is thankful.
“Sometimes I wonder just how much you’ve sacrificed for me,” Haise breathes as they lay there in each other’s arms. It’s almost six am, late enough that they could get up without worrying the Quinx but early enough to not want to yet. The tips of Haise’s fingers trace a path down Hide’s arm as Hide sucks in a breath and holds it.
“Not enough,” he mumbles after a moment of silence.
Haise shoots him a disapproving look. “I beg to differ.”
Hide shakes his head, kisses him chastely. “You don’t know, Haise,” Hide murmurs against his lips.
“Only because you won’t tell me.”
Hide smiles and shakes his head again. “It isn’t important.”
“It is to me.”
Hide regards him with a soft searching gaze for a moment, then pulls away to tug his shirt over his head. Haise doesn’t understand until he remembers months earlier when he’d woken from a nightmare of sweet tasting flesh and a gentle voice begging, ‘Eat me’ to spew apologies at Hide.
Haise thinks his vision might being going sideways as he stares at the scars that mar the flesh of Hide’s shoulder. His eyes refuse to focus and he says in a faraway voice, “I did this.”
“No,” Hide says. “I did. For you.” Haise still seems stunned and uncomprehending so Hide sighs and tugs the back of his head until their lips meet. Haise responds after a couple seconds, then, red-faced, buries his face in Hide’s scarred shoulder. “What your dreams don’t show you is the context of the situation,” Hide explains softly in his ear. “So you end up blaming yourself for things that you had no control over.”
“Tell me the context then,” Haise mumbles, face still resolutely pressed into his shoulder. Hide sighs and buries one hand in Haise’s hair.
He contemplates for a moment then speaks slowly. “You… were not in your right mind and you were injured very badly with no way to escape except through a tunnel guarded by… a powerful person. The only way you could have survived was if you healed and had the strength to fight. So I… left my post to find you and give you what you needed. You didn’t want to. I made you.”
Haise refuses to lift his head so Hide repeats, “Haise, I made you. I didn’t give you a choice.”
When Haise turns his head to face him, there are tears in his eyes. “Why would you do that?”
Hide chuckles a little lowly in his throat. “Because I love you, silly.” Haise’s breath catches but Hide seems oblivious to it. “I would have sacrificed so much more but you wouldn’t ever allow that.”
“What did you say?” Haise mutters.
“You wouldn’t ever allow that?”
“No before.”
“I love you?” Haise is staring at him like he’s an alien and Hide raises his eyebrows in disbelief. “How did you think I felt, Haise?” Haise, wide-eyed, just shakes his head like he’s at a loss. Hide laughs and finds Haise’s hand with his own, threading their fingers together. “Did you think I wasn’t in this for the long haul? I’ve been in love with you since before you even remember me, Haise. Since you went by Kaneki and we were snot-nosed kids. You’re it for me.” Then, as though surprised by his own words, he tightens his grip on Haise’s hand and repeats, softer, “You’re it for me.”
Haise struggles to find his voice. “Were… Were we ever…?”
“This?” Hide holds their hands up and shakes his head. “I was too much of a coward and we were both too awkward. And then your accident happened and you left and… shit hit the fan. And I was left to wait until you were stable enough to see me without it triggering your entire life.”
They’re quiet for a while and Hide almost believes that Haise has gone back to sleep when he sits up and hovers over him. “I’m going to go start on breakfast,” he murmurs and moves to get up. Then, thinking better of it, leans down and kisses Hide heatedly and a little sloppily until they’re both breathless. Smiling, Haise pulls back and says, “I love you too, you know,” and bounds off the bed, leaving Hide there, laughing with the little breath he has.
“Hide… Stop… Too loud.”
Haise, Hide learns, mumbles in his sleep. Kaneki did too, once upon a time, but Haise’s mumblings are different from Kaneki’s. They’re gentle, often he has a smile on his face. Kaneki’s were troubled and full of frowning.
“Who’re you calling loser?”
Hide likes to listen to him talk in his sleep in the small hours of the morning when he can’t sleep. Haise sleeps through the night more often than Hide does these days and he can’t find it in him to complain about the lack of sleep. Not when he gets to listen to the one-sided conversations Haise has with people from his past.
“Idiot,” Haise whispers fondly.
“You must dream about me a lot,” Hide mutters under his breath as he stares at the email in his inbox on the screen in front of him. As though he hears him, Haise sighs. Hide smiles to himself. He’s completely alright with being the good in Haise’s dreams. He’s not alright with being so completely distracted from what he’s working on because of him though.
He’s considering moving downstairs when Haise breathes, “No, mom.” His face starts to scrunch up and Hide knows that he might be straying into a nightmare. He sighs. He’s staying put then, just in case.
“Hide’s just… No. Mom, no.”
Hide swallows and watches Haise flinch in his sleep. With luck, he’d forget completely about his dream when he woke up. He turns his eyes back to the screen, scanning over the words experiment, Sunlit Garden, breeding ground, and Cochlea with dull eyes. The email just confirms his suspicions.
He looks at Haise as he brings a hand to his mouth thoughtfully.
“… Love you.”
Hide closes his laptop and strides across the room to slip back in bed. He drapes an arm around Haise, who instinctively turns and curls into his warmth with a happy sigh, “Hide.”
Emails can wait, he thinks as he buries his nose in Haise’s two-toned hair and draws him close.
He teases Haise relentlessly in the morning, of course.
“How were your dreams, Haise?” he asks as Haise prepares breakfast. The latter frowns.
“Good, I guess? I don’t actually remember anything from them,” Haise answers, flipping a pancake.
“I do,” Hide says and when Haise glances at him he doesn’t miss the mischievous glint in his eye. “I think you could say… I’m literally the man of your dreams.”
Shirazu, sitting at the counter with a glass of orange juice in front of him, does a glorious spit-take that Hide commits to memory while Mutsuki stumbles with a bowl in hand, nearly dropping it. Haise’s face has turned a gorgeous shade of red while Hide comes up behind him. He refuses to look anywhere but directly at the pan he’s cooking in.
“Did you know you talk in your sleep, Haise?” Hide murmurs in his ear and if possible, Haise turns an even darker red.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Haise stammers.
“You say my name a lot.”
“H-Hide!”
“Yes! Exactly like that!”
Haise, red as a tomato, turns around with his spatula raised and says firmly, “If you can’t behave in the kitchen, then I have to banish you.”
“Awww. Haise!”
“You’re going to make me burn breakfast!”
“Fine, fine, I’ll stop.”
Haise gives him one final half-hearted glare and turns back to his cooking.
Hide can’t help himself. He puts on his best mimic of Haise’s voice and breathes, “Hide… Stop…”
“Out!” Haise yells as he whirls around and points to the door, where Hide is already fleeing with a soft cackle. Mutsuki rolls his eyes while Shirazu merely looks between Hide’s retreating form and Haise dumbly.
“Saiko’s gonna lose it when she realizes she missed this,” he mutters under his breath.
Hide gets to Haise’s bedroom and opens up his laptop again. He shoots off a very quick email and goes to take a shower.
‘I’ll take care of it – NH’