Haise Sasaki is a Rank 1 ghoul investigator. After going undercover and investigating a woman called Nutcracker, he was finally able to get a lead. They were able to find the Human Trafficking House, although this situation will endanger his precious subordinate Mutsuki. His Quincke squad will be near the scene as well. He knows that it will be a great battle and it will be nearly impossible for everyone important to him to come out alive. The raid will be in 2 weeks and Haise will have to train everyone as hard as he can, especially Mutsuki, who will enter the auction house first even though he can't use his kagune.
While having those concerns, he is walking to the café :Re. Ever since he tasted that wonderful coffee and saw that beautiful waitress, this was the place where he could calm his mind. He almost arrived, when a terrified girl ran towards him. She saw right away that Haise was from the CCG and tried to explain the situation to him. It seems a ghoul tried to eat her but a waitress came out through the backdoor of the café and told her to run. She asked Haise to help the waitress and ran home.
Haise was deeply concerned about the well-being of the waitress. He turned around the corner, into the dark back alley, and saw her with an ukaku kagune. He stepped a bit away from the scene and decided to secretly witness what was going on. The waitress looked almost like an angel with her two red wings flapping continuously. "What are you doing?" she asked the other ghoul. "You know that no ghoul is allowed to kill a human in this area. You decided to stay here because you did not want to be hunted down, well if you want to stay alive you either eat the meat that we provide or you leave this ward." The ghoul ran away quite quickly.
The ghoul investigator suddenly came out and showed himself to the beautiful waitress. They both stared at each other and both of them knew what they should actually be doing: Haise should capture her and the girl should either fight or run away. Strangely they just stood across each other for quite some time. The first words came from Haise who simply stated "You are a ghoul". In that moment she decided to return back to her more human appearance. She was still shocked by his sudden appearance but in the end just decided to run back into the café :Re.
Haise automatically ran after her with his muddled mind, however he ultimately decided to stop for a moment and sort out his mind. He knew that he should arrest her for being a ghoul but he just could not accept it. The waitress actually protected a human and after hearing her conversation it actually sounded like she does not kill them at all. He also had a certain amount of understanding, how tough living as a ghoul is and that the CCG actually let him live, even though he jeopardises the safety of the people around him when his kagune gets out of control. Haise concluded that he has to talk with her to find out more but he would not capture her, if she did not act hostile towards him and did not harm humans.
He entered the café through the front door (he did not want to seem impolite) and searched for the waitress. He just saw the elegant man who always stares at him. Haise asked him where to find the waitress because he needs to talk with her. He finds out that her room is upstairs and goes there. He knocks at her door and she opens it. She lets him sit in her room.
Now sitting across each other he asks the first question that pops in his head: "Do you kill humans?" She just says "Not anymore". This answer makes him even more confused about his decision. He just had to ask her why she killed before. She thought about it and answered: "There were many reasons but the biggest was frustration. It felt so terrible not being able to live in the human world, always wishing to be part of it and always being afraid that you would be hunted down, like it happened to my parents and many other ghouls."
It was so unusual to hear a ghoul talk about loss of family. In the CCG everyone always talks about ghouls destroying their families but nobody even thinks about ghouls losing their families through the CCG. Nobody really sees ghouls as being able to have emotions. Next Haise wanted to know what she ate now, if she did not kill humans. She told him that her brother and her searched for suicide victims and also provided their meat to other ghouls in the area and they also forbade any killings so that the ghoul investigators did not target them. Haise could not see anything wrong with the situation, they even prevented killings of humans and that is what he told her. After calming down he noticed that they never actually introduced themselves. He introduced himself as Haise Sasaki and she told him her name was Touka Yomo and her brother's was Renji. He just thought to himself that those names sounded familiar.
Shortly after that she asked him questions that seemed to just pour out of her mouth. He wondered whether she was curious about him from the start, even before this whole ordeal. She asked things like how long he worked for the CCG, what he did before that, if he knew many people outside the CCG. He told her that he was a rank one investigator who worked at the CCG for three years, although he did not remember anything before that. Her eyes were suddenly wide open and a question just popped out of her mouth: "Are you a half-ghoul". Haise was so shocked that he actually fell from his chair and just retorted: "How do you know that?" Tears just started pouring from her eyes and she just kept saying Kaneki.
After seeing that Haise knew right away that he knew Touka before going to the CCG. "Kaneki" is what the Serpent called him. Haise was once again puzzled, he did not know if he actually wanted to know about his past, he did not want to lose his life at the CCG and knowing that he was actually friends with a ghoul would definitely make it impossible to keep both of those lives. While he was thinking about that, he just saw flashes of Akira, Arima and the Quinx squad. He did not want to lose them and that was what he kept muttering to himself out loud. He could not take it anymore, his head felt like it would explode, and he decided to run away. He just saw glimpses of Touka and her brother on his way out. They both looked extremely sad.
After arriving back at his room he still could not think straight. Luckily he did not encounter anyone on his way home. He just did not want to talk about this. Haise stayed in his room and kept thinking about Touka and whether it would be good to know about her. In the end he decided that with this big investigation going on and the lives of all his team members on the line, he should not be thinking about that. Haise ran away from her because he did not want to lose them but if they screw up during the operation that would happen anyway. Focusing on the upcoming raid was more important.