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Hide fished his cell out of his pocket with his free hand and grinned when he saw who the caller was.
“Hey, babe,” he crooned into the phone. “I know you're thirsty but you can't keep calling me at work like this.”
“Hide.” Came the exasperated sigh and he couldn't help but smile at the sound. “You're not really at work, are you?”
“Nah, I'm just getting something to eat.” He took another bite out of the dismembered arm he held and licked a drip of blood up his wrist before it could hit his jacket. “What's up?” he asked around the mouthful.
“Um, nothing important. If you're busy, it's fine.”
Hide frowned as he swallowed, recognizing that tone. It was classic Kaneki for 'I'm lonely and I miss you but I don't know how to ask for attention so please don't hate me.'
“Are you at home? I can come over.”
“N-no, you don't have to-”
“I'm actually near your house, dude.” He wasn't. And by normal pedestrian standards it would take almost an hour to get there. Good thing he wasn't a normal pedestrian. “I can be there in fifteen.”
“I... okay. Thank you, Hide.”
Hide smiled at the sound of the relief in Kaneki's voice. “See you soon, buddy.”
He flipped his phone shut and sighed as he slipped it back into his pocket. He had really wanted to take some of his leftovers home with him, but it seemed unlikely that Kaneki would lend him the fridge space for human flesh. No matter, he could just get more the next time he was out. After all, there were always doves flocking about, just asking to be killed. He took one last bite of the limb before dropping it back onto the corpse.
Hide licked his lips and glanced around the alley one last time before letting his kagune out. It was a bit excessive to use it like this, but when your BFF sends up a distress signal then you make exceptions. Hide crouched low, coiling the thick tail behind him and then pushed off the ground, launching himself into the air. He shot clear above the alley and landed lightly on the adjacent rooftop. Squinting into the distance, he identified where Kamii University was. If Kaneki's home was about twenty minutes southeast of there then...
“That way!” Hide grinned and sprinted across the roof, jumping at the edge and crossing the distance with ease to the next building and then the next.
Something was different. Well, to be honest, things had been different for a while now. Not asking about the eyepatch had been fine. After all, the accident had been terrible. In all likeliness there was probably a scar or a burst blood vessel in his eye that he wanted to cover up. He was already self-conscious enough about his appearance so Hide decided not to bring attention to it. But then there was his strange reclusiveness, pulling away from Hide in a way that he hadn't since the death of his mother. Kaneki didn't want to hang out outside of class anymore. They stopped sharing meals.
And really, Hide had ought to be grateful for that last one. The burgers had always tasted awful but his smile while eating them had been genuine. It was always worth it to make Kaneki happy.
Hide started when the end credits to the movie began to roll, realizing that he had dozed off. He began to stretch but then stopped when he became aware of a weight on his right side. It seemed that Kaneki had fallen asleep too, leaning heavily against Hide. It was rare for them to do things like this together now, but Hide had caught him on his way out of Anteiku after closing that night. Being the top-notch friend that he was meant that he also had Kaneki's class schedule memorized and knew that he didn't have classes the next day. So he had insisted, pushed more than he usually would against Kaneki's glass heart and had gotten him to come over.
“You weren't kidding about being tired, huh?” Hide carefully moved out from under him, guiding Kaneki gently down. He tucked a pillow underneath his head and then pulled out a blanket to cover him.
“You need to take care of yourself,” he continued quietly, noting the dark circle under the eye that he could see. Hide kneeled next to the couch and ran his thumb lightly over the elastic of the eyepatch, considering it. Then he said a quiet apology and slowly lifted the edge of the patch, just enough to take a peek. There were no scars or any other deformities immediately visible. He sighed in relief and carefully let the patch go, dipping his head to place a kiss over the covered eye and inhaling deeply.
Had Kaneki always smelled this good? Hide tucked his nose just below his ear and inhaled again. No, he definitely hadn't smelled like this. His scent was familiar but somehow not, like there was something new mixed in with it; something strange and alluring that made him salivate. He tugged Kaneki's shirt collar to the side and inhaled again, nuzzling his neck and keening softly. Actually, he smelled really, really good. Would he also taste--
Realization hit him and Hide jerked back, catching himself on the edge of the coffee table. For a moment he was still, watching Kaneki carefully for any signs of awareness and listening to the sound of his own rapidly beating heart.
It was ghoul. He smelled like a ghoul.
“Oh, I'll just have whatever you're having,” Hide said and went back to tapping on his phone, pretending not to notice how Kaneki tensed.
“Right. Uh, then two hot black coffees. Please, Touka.”
Hide also pretended not to notice the slightly hostile atmosphere between the two baristas. When Touka left, he glanced up at Kaneki and caught him looking after her with a troubled expression. That's the thing about wearing an eyepatch, you lose half of your peripheral vision so you don't always notice when your bestie is low-key creeping on you.
“So, uh...” Kaneki turned to face him now. Hide flipped his phone face-down on the table. “Don't you usually get a cappuccino?”
“Yeah, but you've been getting it black lately so I thought there might be something to it.” Never let it be said that Hide wasn't committed to this whole human shtick. Milk was absolutely disgusting.
“I guess.” Kaneki shrugged and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Since I started working here, I've been paying more attention to the actual flavors of the different beans. It's kinda fun trying to figure out new blends.”
“What's your favorite one?” Hide smiled and propped his chin up on his hand.
“We don't get it in very often, but there's this Ethiopian one that I like to use with the French press...”
Touka returned with their coffees, setting Kaneki's down harder than she needed to. Kaneki winced at the sound and watched some of the drink slop over the brim of the cup.
“Thanks, Touka.”
Her nod was a slight jerk of the head before she turned and walked briskly away from them. Hide made a low whistle.
“What's eatin' her beans?”
Kaneki paused with his cup raised in midair to look curiously at Hide. “What? Oh.” He sighed and gently set the cup back down. “Touka is... I don't think I'm learning as fast as she'd like.”
Hide nodded and Kaneki continued.
"It's just, there's so much to learn. And just when I think I'm getting the hang of something, it's like the rules change.” Kaneki laughed nervously. “Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so serious. I think it's just hard because, um, it's my first job. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you with-”
“Kaneki,” Hide said a little too sternly. Shoot, he'd meant to go for 'firmly encouraging.' “You're not bothering me. You can always talk to me.” He smiled and tried to make it meaningful. “About anything.”
“Actually, it's totally cool that you're a ghoul, Kaneki, because I'm a cool ghoul too-”
“So I've noticed that you've become quite the coffee snob recently-”
“How about that human flesh, huh?”
Hide groaned to himself and leaned forward onto the table until his head connected with a solid thunk. Hopeless, that's what he was, absolutely hopeless. All these years of maintaining a perfectly passable human persona left him entirely unprepared for the very real challenge of coming out to Kaneki as a ghoul. Ideally, Kaneki would have lived out the entirety of his life never knowing anything more about the ghoul world than what was on TV. He was too gentle, too kind, and he already knew firsthand how terrible humans themselves could be. He didn't need to know about the other real monsters out there. Didn't need to know that his supposed best friend was one of them.
But Hide could see the simple truth of it; they were drifting apart. He couldn't help the jealousy that churned his stomach whenever he saw Kaneki surrounded by his Anteiku family. It was unfair for him to want to keep Kaneki to himself, but it had been just the two of them for so long. And to lose him to ghouls nonetheless...
Hide turned his head on the table just in time to catch sight of Kaneki coming in through the main gates of Kamii. He slammed his hands on the table, hurriedly pushing himself into a standing position. He began to dash towards Kaneki, stopped short when he realized that he'd forgotten his backpack and quickly doubled back, then sprinted towards him again.
"Ka! Ne! Ki!" he shouted in time with his three final footfalls before he near-collided with the poor, unsuspecting literature enthusiast. Hide threw his arms around Kaneki, hugging him tight as he yelped in surprise and spun them both around. His stomach felt strange for a moment when he noticed that Kaneki was still too thin.
“Hide?” Kaneki's voice made him aware that his hug had gone on for too long after they stopped spinning. He immediately let go and took a step back, laughing and rubbing a hand over the back of his head. They began to walk towards the literature building.
“You should come over tonight.” Hide nudged his shoulder against Kaneki's. “You already worked at the cafe today, right?”
“Um, well...” Kaneki rubbed his chin and pretended to take a great interest in the notice board they were passing by. “I have a huge assignment due for my themes and types class--”
“Then I'll come over to yours!” Hide grinned. “I'll bring my game so I won't bother you.”
“I really need the quiet to work.”
“Quiet is great! I'll super-concentrate and beat like a hundred levels!”
“I'm going to be working on it for a while. You'd be really bored.”
“How is me playing games while you nerd out over a book any different than what we usually do?”
Even though Kaneki had said he was going to do homework, Hide was more than a little disappointed to see him actually doing homework.
“I can't believe you're actually doing homework,” Hide sighed and stretched out on Kaneki's bed, dropping his PSP somewhere on the mattress. He had been at his apartment for almost three hours now. It was dark outside and he should technically be heading home soon.
Kaneki didn't look up from where he was hunched over the desk. “I told you I had a paper to write. What were you expecting?”
“I thought you were just trying to avoid me.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. There was a moment of silence and then Kaneki's heavy sigh.
“I'm not. I'm just... busy.”
Hide stared at the ceiling and chewed on his lip, trying to also bite back his rising frustration. If things continued the way they were going, Kaneki would undoubtedly phase him out of his life. On the other hand, if Hide revealed himself as a ghoul then Kaneki would shut him out instantly. So, what was the right answer? To disappear quietly and let Kaneki feel terrible about himself, but keep the memory of their friendship intact? Hide sat up and watched Kaneki tap his pen against his lips.
“A bang or a whimper?”
Kaneki was startled out of his thoughts. “What?”
“That poem you like. With that famous last line. 'Is it better to go out with a bang or a whimper'?”
“Oh. 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper'.” Kaneki smiled curiously at him. “When did you take an interest T.S. Eliot?”
“I haven't.” Hide slid off the bed and went over to the desk. He grasped the back of Kaneki's chair and spun it around so that they were facing.
“Hide-!”
“Which is better?” Hide loomed over Kaneki. He braced his hands on the desk on either side of him, trapping him between his arms.
“It's... it's not about which is better,” Kaneki said carefully. He lowered his eyes and looked away. “It's that... that's just how it is.”
Hide sat down heavily on the floor and leaned back against his bed, thoroughly exhausted. In between keeping up with his college work, his job at the CCG, his sham of a social life, and roughing up the local ghouls for information, the hardest thing by far had been this. Hide glanced at the bag he had dropped next to him, rolled posters spilling out of the open top. Hacking the RC scanners had been a nightmare event, the stress of which had probably shaved ten years off of his life. But this.
He wondered how many of his actions were honestly to help his missing friend and how many were to satisfy his own selfish desires. It was true that Kaneki couldn't come home if his face was plastered up like that all over campus; he had never liked being looked at anyway. But it was also true that Hide would no longer have to feel his heart jump into his throat every time he saw Kaneki's image out of the corner of his eye and would forget for just a moment that-
That he wasn't coming home at all.
Hide picked up one of the posters and slowly unfurled it. Kaneki stared back at him. He remembered, it had been the week before classes had started. They had gone all over campus, learned where all of their classes were going to be and the best places to meet up on breaks. They had also stood in line to get their pictures taken for their university ID cards. Nervous but excited, Kaneki smiled into the camera.
“What am I supposed to do without you, stupid?” Hide blinked as his vision began to blur. “I ran into Touka today. She's worried about you, too. And more importantly-” he laughed as tears rolled down his face “-what the hell am I supposed to do with all these pictures of you?”
“Hide?”
There was so much to the way Kaneki said his name. The raspiness from screaming, the way fear made his voice shake. And underneath it all, a quiet desperation. It was too late now, far too late for Hide to be second guessing himself, but even so he wondered again if it was empathy or selfishness that lead him to meet Kaneki down here.
He made sure that his hand was steady before he put it on Kaneki's shoulder. And oh, how it hurt to listen to him, how Kaneki warned him away even though he was sure that Hide was a hallucination. There was a deep, dark part of him that acknowledged that it may be kinder to let Kaneki die here.
But it had been a long time since anyone had accused Hide of being kind, so he brushed the thought aside.
It could only be selfishness, he decided. Kaneki had wanted him to stay away but he followed and found him again. Kaneki wanted to die but he wanted him to live. Eating other ghouls and becoming a kakuja was ruining the beautiful mind that he loved, but Hide bared his own ghoul flesh to him and begged him to eat. It would heal him but it would hurt him.
“It's kinda-” Hide winced, laughed nervously as Kaneki tore away the muscle of his shoulder and gulped it down greedily. “It's ironic. Or poetic, right?” He sighed and wrapped his arms around Kaneki's waist, pulling him closer. He was already losing feeling in his left arm.
“I... I never put much stock in karma or the idea that people deserve certain things.” He wasn't sure how much Kaneki understood of what he was saying, but Hide had waited for so long to talk to him again. The blood loss was making him dizzy now. “The world isn't... hasn't ever been fair like that. But I did... I always thought that that you deserved more, Kaneki. From everyone. From me.
“I just...” Hide blinked through the haze of pain, the darkness that encroached on the edges of his vision. He nuzzled Kaneki's hair and inhaled his familiar scent. “I'm sorry. I'm selfish, so I want you to live, okay?”