Chapter Text
His parents can’t seem to understand why he wants to take this trip alone.
He shows them a brochure, lists off all the precautions he’s taking to ensure he’s traveling safely, even offers to send them letters weekly--but his mom’s eyebrows stay furrowed with worry, and Hide knows he’s going to have to put up a fight.
“You should take someone with you,” she says. Hide shakes his head.
“That would ruin the whole point of this,” he says back. And then they fire counterarguments off at each other for another half hour, Hide’s dad standing to the side, looking as expressionless as a boulder.
His mom caves in first.
She’s also the first to kiss Hide on his way out the door a month later.
“Be safe,” she tells him with a wobbly voice--she’s always been a little emotional over goodbyes, no matter how temporary. His dad echoes his mom and offers Hide a firm hug before stepping back. Hide grins.
“Of course I’ll be safe.”
Hours later, he’s hopping off a bus miles upon miles away. The trees loom overhead and reach high, high up--enough so that Hide is struck with the overwhelming sense that he’s tiny. Insignificant. Smaller than a fleck of dust.
It’s perfect.
He steps into the camping grounds in his clunky boots, pack at the ready, and knows that he can finally start to try and rebuild himself from the ground up.
So he gets to work, and sets up a tent.
Nagachika Hideyoshi hasn’t seen a sunrise in precisely six hundred and ninety-seven days. He hasn’t seen a sunset in that time, either.
He wakes up on a Tuesday morning and the sun is in precisely the same spot it’s always been, sitting directly overhead and casting the same, harsh shadows on his hardwood floor. The birds aren’t singing. The only reason Hide knows that it’s morning is because his clock says so.
He makes a point of stretching slowly, lazily, before pulling on his usual ensemble and trekking to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, et cetera, et cetera. Once he’s done that, he grabs an apple for breakfast and a canvas bag from the kitchen counter, then makes his way to the front door. He pauses halfway out the doorway. Looks back at the calendar clipped to the fridge. Paces backwards. Picks up a marker and slashes a big, bold ‘X’ across December 21st.
And then he’s on his way.
He passes the long line of neighboring houses as he treks into town, empty bag occasionally banging against his legs as he absentmindedly whittles the apple down to its core. There’s a light breeze playing its way across his skin and the grass is green--blindingly green--as he walks onward, the simple brick buildings of the town climbing up above the horizon, eventually towering up high. A few people across the street wave at him. He waves back.
The bell above the grocery store’s door chimes as he enters, but the register and aisles are empty of employees to hear it. There aren’t many shoppers either, surprisingly. They mill around with bags and carts, plucking food from piles that never seem to get any emptier. Hide grabs some fruit, bread, milk, eggs, and a few other things for himself. One wrinkled, frail man stops him in the frozen foods aisle to comment on how much Hide reminds him of his grandson.
“You don’t get to see many young people around these parts,” he adds with a wistful smile.
“That’s probably a good thing,” Hide laughs back. Then the man claps him on the shoulder with a wheezy chuckle, and they say their farewells before going back to their own businesses. Hide leaves the store without paying. No one moves to stop him.
The video store right next door is blaring the same old program as Hide strolls by. A woman stands in front of the green screen and points at the warm and cold fronts, her pink dress wrinkling a bit as she stretches to poke at the top of the map.
“It looks like it’s going to be a bright and sunny day!” she chimes from all of the TVs in the display window. Hide keeps walking, weaving around the people that have decided to stop and watch. He’s never really understood the appeal.
The walk back to the neighborhood is just about as eventful as the walk into town. Hide spends his time trying to remember the tune to an old song he’d heard on the radio a few years back, something about acoustic guitars and heartbreak, or something just as unremarkable. When he thinks he’s got the tune down, he tries humming it. Then he tries whistling it, with only mild success.
It’s moments like these where he can’t help but notice the empty space around his neck where his headphones should be.
When the telltale lump starts crawling up his throat, he shoves his hand into the canvas bag and flips through the items to take his mind off of it. He attempted to bake a pie yesterday. Yesterday, plastered in three coats of flour and egg yolk, he vowed that he would try to successfully bake a pie tomorrow. And well, tomorrow is now today. Hide starts mentally flipping through the instructions he read off the recipe, busying himself over figuring out where he went wrong...
The funny thing about the sidewalks in Home is that they lead you exactly where you intend to be, even if you’re not thinking about it.
So Hide, a little preoccupied, ends up walks face-first into the small gathering at the front of his neighborhood. He stumbles over a few pairs of feet and moves to clutch his groceries to his chest, surprised.
“What--?” he starts. Only to be cut off by a few of his neighbors’ greetings.
“Ah, there’s Hideyoshi,” one says.
“Hideyoshi! We’ve been waiting for you to get back!”
“Me?” he asks, voice a pitch too high. He quickly clears his throat. “Uh. Why?”
Then someone’s hand is on his shoulder. A hand that Hide quickly discovers is attached to an arm, that’s attached to the body of Mado Akira, one of the few residents in Home under the age of fifty.
“End of the street,” she says, blunt as ever. Hide looks towards the end of the street.
There’s a new house there. Plain, unassuming white with black shutters.
Hide raises an eyebrow.
“We haven’t had anyone new since September, right?”
Mado nods. “It showed up around ten.” Hide finds himself humming in affirmation. Then he cuts himself off, confused.
“Wait.”
Mado stays silent, her ‘ what? ’ unspoken. So Hide continues.
“What does that have to do with me? Why hasn’t anyone gone to say hi yet?”
Someone else behind him opts to speak up now, an old man with circular glasses that seem to swallow half his face. “I caught a glimpse of the new neighbor earlier--he was trying to take a peek through the front door.” A pause. “He’s your age, son.”
The neighbors are all staring at him expectantly, watching as Hide slowly mulls over the suggestion behind the words, using his pointer finger to scratch his chin for a second.
“Ah,” he finally says.
“It’ll be easier on him if you’re the first face he sees,” Mado adds, and something about her tone is soft enough that Hide worries he may have tripped his way into an alternate universe. But he hasn’t. And he knows just how confusing and mildly terrifying the first day at Home is. So he grunts in agreement.
“I can go say hi.”
The neighbors beam at him.
“But…”
“But what?” Mado says.
Hide holds up his canvas bag.
“I’ve got to drop this off first.”
Three knocks on the door painted black.
Then Hide steps back and clasps his hands together, waiting for someone to answer.
He thinks he’s starting to feel antsy about this situation, but he can’t be sure, considering it’s been a long, long time since he’s had to be nervous over anything. The monotony in his schedule at Home tends to banish those feelings, but this? This is something new, something unpracticed.
He unclasps his hands, taps out a rhythm on the side of his leg instead. The door stays closed.
After a minute of waiting, Hide knocks again.
“Hello?” he calls. “I just want to talk!”
Silence for one, two, three, four seconds.
And then a loud CRASH rings out. Hide flinches backwards in surprise.
But then he’s hearing rushed footsteps, pacing directly in his direction so he hurriedly steps back forward, forces himself to smile.
The door opens.
Sure enough, a boy Hide’s age pokes his head out.
“Sorry!” the boy says off the bat, but he doesn’t specify what for. Hide doesn’t bother asking for specification either; he’s too busy jotting all the details of the boy’s face down deep into the crevices of his brain. Mismatched eyes and hair that is stark, unapologetic white. The beginnings of a flush, probably from running through the house. A cluster of razor-thin scars around his left eye.
“Do you need something?” he asks.
“Hi,” Hide says, and yep. He remembers what it feels like to be nervous, definitely. “I’m here to just, uh. Check in on you?”
The boy quietly laughs. Hide can tell it’s forced.
“This is going to sound a bit rude,” the boy says, eyes pointed anywhere but at Hide, “and I’m really not trying to be rude, I promise, but… Do I know you…?”
Hide shakes his head.
“Nope,” he answers. “But I know that you woke up in the bathtub with your house in shambles and you have absolutely no idea where you are, or what’s going on right now.”
The boy blinks. Then he carefully steps around the door, closing it behind him.
“You know what’s going on here?” he asks, voice significantly less controlled. His eyes are wide, confused. Hide can’t blame him.
“The same thing happened to me two years back,” he explains, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s happened to everybody in the neighborhood, actually.”
The boy tilts his head, just a fraction of an inch. “Why?”
There is no ‘why.’ Or at least, not one that Hide can think of.
“Welcome Home,” he says for a lack of a better answer, spreading his arms out to gesture around him.
“Home?” the boy echoes.
“No one could ever really decide on a proper name for this place, so we just call it what it is,” Hide says. “Home!” He gestures around him again. The boy crosses his arms, almost hugging himself. Hide catches a glimpse of nails bruised a deep, dark purple, and the shudder that runs down his spine is involuntary.
The boy twists his lip. “So I’m at Home…” Hide nods encouragingly, offering a smile.
“But how exactly did I get to Home, though?”
Aaaand this is the roughest part. Hide flails for a moment in his head, trying (and failing) to think of a good approach. Mado had just outright told him the truth when he’d arrived, so it’s not like he has much material to work with.
“...Do you remember what happened before you came here?” he eventually asks. The boy freezes at the question.
“Do I remember…?” he repeats.
“Y’know,” Hide says. “The whole--” he cuts himself off, uses one finger to draw a straight line across his throat, complete with a sound effect. “That?”
The boy seems to lean back, stunned. “No,” he answers quickly.
Now it’s Hide’s turn to blink. “Oh.”
The silence seems to stretch itself out for a few heavy moments.
“Is that weird?” the boy suddenly asks, eyebrows creasing. He looks small, nervous, terrified. Hide’s already moving to hold his hands out reassuringly.
“No, no, no,” he says quickly, “it’s not weird!” (Yes it is.) “It’s just… different!”
Hide can feel the boy’s mismatched eyes on his skin, grey and in this lighting, red. He watches them scour over his features, studying him.
“O-Okay,” he mumbles, not sounding particularly convinced. “I should probably, uh, clean up my house.”
Hide’s a little disappointed over how little information the boy asked for, but he knows better than to push. “Try taking some time to just clear your head,” he offers instead. “When your head’s clear, your house’ll clean itself up.”
The boy’s eyebrows seem to vanish beneath his bangs for a moment, and Hide will admit, it is kind of a strange statement.
“Uh, thank you,” he quietly responds. Hide can feel him shrinking back as he speaks--Hide must’ve done something wrong. Maybe talking about memories was a bad idea.
Hide watches the boy turn to shuffle back to the door, reaching to twist the knob. A thought occurs to him.
“Hey, wait!” he says. The boy stops. Looks behind him.
“I never managed to catch your name!” The boy straightens back up.
“Oh,” he moves to face Hide again. “My name is Kaneki... Kaneki Ken.”
Hide grins. “Nice to meet you, Kaneki! I’m Nagachika Hideyoshi. But my friends just call me Hide.”
Maybe he really wants to leave a good impression, or maybe he’s an idiot with a lack of boundaries. But he reaches out and claps a hand on Kaneki’s shoulder. “If you have any other questions or need help, just come and find me, dude. I’m the yellow house three doors down across the street.”
Kaneki looks at the hand on his shoulder. Back at Hide’s face.
“Thank you,” he says almost cautiously. And then Hide can feel his gaze flickering downwards, over the bandage poking out from the side of Hide’s collar. Hide’s used to the stares it usually warrants by now, and he says nothing about it. He just keeps smiling.
But then a creeping, crawling sensation hits him with the abruptness of a goddamn train.
It’s like his veins have been stuffed chock-full of spiders, like his diaphragm is collapsing and his ribcage is puncturing his lungs, like all the oxygen in his body rushed to his head and now his skull is inflating like a cheap balloon, like he wants to crawl under the nearest table and lay down and rot into the floor because at least then, he’d feel nothing.
He jerks himself backwards in his rush to leave, escape, get the hell out of there, nearly tripping down the porch steps and braining himself on the concrete. His breathing is labored, shallow, as he scrambles to look back at Kaneki, whose mouth is shaped in a perfect “O”.
“Um,” Kaneki says, but it’s obvious there’s no sentence to give that moment a proper explanation. Hide’s still staring, and Kaneki is staring back.
“I’ll be sure to find you if I need you,” Kaneki hurriedly spits out instead. Then he’s opening, stepping through, and closing the door to his house before Hide can even think of the letters necessary to sound out the word “wait”. The door clicks shut.
Hide gapes at the empty space where Kaneki was for a few more seconds. And then he’s scurrying down the porch steps, across the street, back into his house as fast as his legs can carry him. He finds a wall to prop his back against and slides down, letting his forehead knock against his knees as he tries to squeeze himself back into one piece, recompose himself.
It takes two whole hours to convince himself to stop trembling, and he has no idea what caused it in the first place.
A week crawls by.
No one reports any sightings of Kaneki in that time, meaning he’s still in his house.
As awful as it sounds, Hide can’t help but feel a bit relieved.
“Something about him was just off,” he sighs; the Kirishima siblings are leaning over the cafe table slightly to hear him better. “He was nice and all, but…”
“But he freaked you the hell out,” Ayato finishes. Hide chews on the side of his cheek, shrugs.
“Not the best way to put it, but it works.”
Touka takes a sip of her coffee, mulling over the conversation.
“Was there anything else strange about him?” she asks.
“He was having trouble with remembering what happened before he got here?” Hide offers. “It could’ve involved head trauma though, and we don’t know whether or not that has any effect on memory when you’re at Home.” Touka grunts in agreement.
“Maybe he’s just a fuckin’ weirdo,” Ayato suggests from the side, ever-so-eloquently. “Remember Amon? You couldn’t get within ten feet of him without feeling your asshole clench from whatever sort of vibes he was sending out.”
Hide chokes on his coffee at that comment. Touka only rolls her eyes and mutters, “Disgusting as always, Ayato,” under her breath.
Desperately hacking out his lungs, Hide manages to shake his head. “No,” he coughs. “Amon had personal baggage with you guys.” Both siblings wrinkle their nose at that reminder, prompting Hide to sheepishly shrug. “Kaneki doesn’t really know me well enough to hate me… Or I don’t think he does.”
“That doesn’t disqualify him from being flat-out weird though,” Touka argues.
“Okay, fine, fine!” Hide surrenders. “Maybe he’s weird.”
“Case closed,” Ayato says, moving to sip his own coffee. Hide jolts in his chair, already shaking a finger in protest.
“No, no, case not closed! We don’t know nearly enough about him to come to any conclusions, dude! I just…” Hide trails off. “I’m not sure I want to be close to him if I can help it.”
Ayato clams up in surprise, and Touka lets out a low, long whistle.
“Nagachika Hideyoshi? Not wanting to be someone’s friend? I never thought I'd see the day.”
Hide flushes. “That’s really not what I meant, Touka.” She crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair.
“How the hell are you supposed to be someone’s friend if you go out of your way to avoid him, idiot?”
“I don’t know!” Hide fires back. “But last time I talked to him it was terrifying; I ended up feeling like I was--”
--He cuts himself off, realizing that he’s treading into pretty personal territory. The Kirishimas are undeterred.
“Like what?” Ayato asks. Touka leans closer.
So Hide bites the bullet.
“Like I was dying,” he finishes.
The siblings share a pointed, meaningful look with each other--the kind that can contain an entire conversation. They look back at Hide.
“Look…” Touka starts. “I hate to break this to you, and it may come as a bit of a shock, but…”
“But what?” Hide asks, almost defensively.
“You’re already dead, moron,” Ayato drones. Touka nods at her brother’s statement.
Hide huffs.
“Obviously,” he says. “But it’s not like dying feels nice, y’know?”
“It’s not like it’ll actually kill--” Touka is interrupted when Ayato rams his elbow into her ribs. “Hey!” she growls. Instead of growling back as per usual, Ayato sends her another look. He tilts his head towards the doorway of the cafe.
“Visitor,” he says under his breath. Hide twists in his chair to look behind him, and…
It’s Kaneki, awkwardly shuffling his feet on the welcome mat. His skin is sharp in contrast against his black jacket, and watching him wander into the store, he looks oddly out of place among the sea of elderly people. Hide can relate a little too well to that.
“What’s he doing here, of all places?” Touka mutters from Hide’s side.
Hide has half a mind to stand up and wave Kaneki over, then introduce him to his friends--that’s what his mother would want him to do. But Hide has a particular feeling settled in his gut as Kaneki paces around tables, trailing to a stop frequently to peer around the room.
“He’s looking for someone,” Hide murmurs to the Kirishimas.
“Who?” Ayato whispers back.
They get their answer seconds later.
Kaneki finally halts by a table near the back of the store. Hide recognizes one of its occupants immediately--the man with the large circular glasses that spoke to him a week ago. The woman across from him must be his wife.
The cafe’s not especially big, so even from his spot near the front of the cafe, Hide can still hear the man when he speaks.
“Ah!” he says, voice a little rough from his old age, “You’re the new neighbor that came here about a week ago!” Kaneki gives a quick nod. The man smiles, the crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes more noticeable than ever. “I managed to catch a peek of you on your first day at Home, but I’m glad we finally get to talk. Your name is Kaneki, right?” he asks.
Another nod.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man says. He offers his hand, still smiling.
Kaneki doesn’t respond immediately. His hands stay at his side as he stares at the old man. Then at the extended hand. Then back at the old man’s face.
“I’m sorry,” he says curtly. He presses his palm against the old man’s forehead.
The old man lets out a noise of surprise before he collapses into a million and one pieces that clink like coins and scrap metal against the tiled floor; then those pieces seem to sink through the ground, out of sight, never to be seen again.
Kaneki pulls back his hand, twisting it over so he can stare at his palm with a curious expression.
"Oh," he says quietly.
And then the screaming starts.