Love was a curious thing. When he had become more of a monster than a man, it had been the least likely of times for him to find it. Love wasn't meant for him and he was keenly aware of it, so much so that it almost choked the air out of him when she had told him that she loved him.
That had begun their sickly relationship with each other. It had started out so sweet and innocent, but he was not innocent anymore and she was not sweet. Hand holding and small pecks had been the start of their journey and neither of them really wanted or needed more. Touka had never been needy after all, and back then, he had not known just how much he craved his name on her lips in a blissful sigh or in a wanton and almost ridiculous moan as he pleasured her body with his own.
He could remember their first date quite clearly. It was the first one he'd ever been on (the date with Rize hardly counted for anything in his mind) and it was a simple date, but a sweet one nevertheless. She had almost demanded the date from him really, and he had been more than happy to comply with his girlfriend's wishes, scurrying away with her into the cool spring air. They didn't really go anywhere, he had just followed along and ended up in her apartment some way or another, just resting on the couch with her curled up against his chest. It had been blissful enough for him and he was greedy for more times such as this one as his hand mindlessly began to run through the soft strands of her hair somewhere between the time of him picking up a book and reading to chapter three. He didn't really process the words on the page, his mind more occupied with the girl innocently sleeping in his lap and against his chest. Eventually he had fallen into a light slumber as well, curled up on the couch there. She'd been blushing when he woke up and before he left he gently pecked her lips.
He would be lying if he said that the moment shared on that couch hadn't caused him to become selfish. He might have been able to let go had they not have shared such a moment. Had they not have had that moment on the couch, they may not have had that other moment on that couch.
It was a memory that was clear in his mind, one that he never wanted to share with anyone but Touka. It was the time he had discovered how much he craved his name on moaning lips and why others seemed to thirst for sex so often.
Lips were sealed tightly in his head as he wandered back to the memories. She was straddling his hips and his touches had been incredibly gentle on her thighs and her hips. He had always been so careful when he touching her skin back then, as if she might break if he were to move with anymore force behind the touches. His moans mixed in tandem with her own as hips ground downward into his own, bucks involuntarily came from his body. He could get so lost in the pleasure sometimes, could forget about everything else besides the beautiful woman he called his own. Hand cupped breasts lovingly as lips made a wet trail down his neck, his name almost a mantra coming from within her chest. He groaned each time he heard her call out to him, the toils of euphoria clouding his mind and judgement. He'd never expected to make love on that silly little couch in her living room that night, but he had with the one person that he knew he could not lose.
God, he realized, had a different plan for him than he had for himself. When he returned from Aogiri, his innocence had been completely tarnished. He didn't have to say anything to her for her to know that things would change. Nothing was ever gentle with him anymore, not in his mannerisms and certainly not in the way he handled Touka behind locked doors between the sheets. The bruises sucked onto fair skin were becoming harder and harder for her to explain and somewhere in the back of his mind he thought that maybe he shouldn't grip her thighs so tightly or bite into her neck until she was screaming and blood touched his tongue.
She never said anything about it though. It was as if she didn't quite want to acknowledge the fact that her love, one innocent little creature known as Kaneki Ken, had become something that she couldn't quite handle anymore when he had come home dyed in white.
He was vaguely aware of the conflict in her heart. If she had changed so drastically, he too would not have known how to keep loving her in the same way he had before. Love would become muddled with confusion. He didn't do anything about it though, merely continued to be at her side. Sometimes, a flicker of his old self would shine through all of the cracks in his skin. It might be in a kiss too sweet to be from his lips, or it might be in a night in when he would devote all of his attention to her. They were enough to satisfy Touka, because she never asked for more than he gave. At least that was until he left her and all of Anteiku.
Aogiri with Ayato had been absolute Hell. Being away from her, and still so close, would have been enough to keep him in a perpetually bad mood, but Ayato liked to keep him absolutely steaming at every waking hour of the day. He had to keep a carefully placed blank on at all times, and sometimes it was more difficult than other days. Because there were days that he could hardly contain his sorrows for longer than two minutes. There was just so much for him to dwell on and Ayato gave him little to move forward towards. Life just seemed to move so impossibly slowly without her near and her brother, with the same sweet face, was a constant reminder of what he had lost and left. It was absolutely unbearable.
He slept with him only once. Neither had really meant to do it, but both of their frustrations had boiled over, and Kaneki was oh so lonely and tired and in dire need of his lover, that they had just been so desperate to release the pent up feelings. It hadn't been like Touka. It was rough and fast and they just kept going and going because they both knew this would be the only time.
Ayato had been the one to instigate such a thing. He'd sat himself right on Kaneki's lap and let out a low growl, and he hadn't quite made out the words but he thought they were somewhere along the lines of "I hate you." Hands were in his hair and yanking on the strands hard before he could realize what was happening. He didn't complain about the pain in his scalp, merely latched his teeth onto an exposed neck. The blood tasted good on his tongue and felt absolutely euphoric against his parched throat. It was clear that neither of them really knew what they were doing, because if they had, Kaneki would have stopped it and Ayato would make a snide comment about how disgusted he was by Kaneki's hands being on his waist. Clothing was ripped and by the time Kaneki was shoving in his dick dry there were more than a few bruises and scratch marks marring their skin. He'd gripped the teen's hips so roughly that he had been afraid that they might break, and when his hands had wrapped around the smaller male's neck, he was afraid that he might pass out from the lack of oxygen. But neither thing happened and the night dragged on. He hadn't counted how many times he'd reached euphoria, but he knew that he felt disgusting and dirty and horribly indecent for doing such a thing.
The next morning he'd woken up and felt the weight of what he'd done sitting in his chest. He knew that he didn't love his partner, that much had been made clear for a very long time now, and he knew the reasons he'd done it. Ayato and Touka shared the same face. They looked so much alike and were so different, but they made the same expressions when he touched them, the same noises when they had sex. It was such a selfish reason, but he knew that Ayato's lust was just as bad as his longing for the teen's sister.
He left again after that. He didn't want Ayato's lustful desires, and he knew he had to protect the love he felt for Touka. Dying hadn't been easy, before seeing her. Dying without her had never been what he wanted, but it had been God's plan since the start and he couldn't deny it just as he couldn't deny his feelings all of that time ago on that couch.
Now, locked away inside of the mind of another, he wanted to nearly scream when Haise had "met" Touka. He thrashed violently, tried to break the locks Haise had on his cage, curses as he tried to find a way back to her. She had been waiting. She had been waiting for so long for him to come back to her, and now, when he had, she couldn't even have the pleasure to know that he'd kept the unspoken promise of coming home, all because this body was Haise's and not Kaneki's. Nothing could ever hurt more than this. Not even the knowledge that he had been unfaithful to her while he was could hurt as much as being locked behind a glass door and told that he could not touch her or even apologize for the agony he had caused her.
He became so determined then, to take back the body that had once been Kaneki Ken's. Because he needed to see her. He needed to say that he loved her, because he swore that he had never said it enough when he had sill been at Anteiku. He needed to see her through his own eyes, because Hide had died in his arms and he couldn't bear to see her anything but alive and he hadn't seen Touka through his own eyes in so long. Death would have been so merciful compared to this.
When he'd finally returned, when he had finally regained his body, it had not been him. It had been something far from human and had been what he'd tried to hide for so long. He lay in the prison of his mind, an extra roommate made out of Sasaki Haise, and remained silent. There was nothing more for him anymore, nothing at all. He could only wait for death curled up next to Haise, who was still so determined to win the battle that he had fought with the black and white haired male for so long.
He never told Haise "give up" but maybe he should have. There was no quitting, it wasn't something he had been fond of even as himself, but he never once had been so distraught as he was now in his entire life.
He never stopped thinking of her. There was always memories of Touka in his mind. Nothing else was quite so sweet as the pain that let him know that he was somewhat alive. The new Kaneki went to find her once. Perhaps to get her image out of his head as well, because Kaneki Ken (whether he be Black, White, Checkered, or Red) was in love with Kirishima Touka.
He watched as she cried and screamed and slapped him and punched his chest over and over, but he also watched as she kissed the lips of the body he'd once had control over, watched as things he never dreamt would happen again happened.
"Rabbits die when they're lonely," He thought he heard her say, and Kaneki, in whole, knew that she had been as close to giving up as he had. "If you leave again, the beginning of the end will rear its head at me." He laughed. He laughed for only a moment as he thought of such words. Yes. The beginning of the end. It was so entirely fitting for them and yet he knew that she hadn't allowed it to set in yet.
"I will not," was the only thing he had said.