Notes: This story is made because of the fact that Root A's ending killed me.
I mean no offence to people who may be offended.
Nagachika Hide honestly had no idea why he applied to work as some man's servant when he was doing fine on his own. Perhaps it was because the man's appearance with his snow white hair and grey eyes aroused Hide's curiosity; and the twenty-two year old wanted to play detective and figure out if the man was secretly an assassin or something as equally foolish. It could be because he thought that the staff of 4 was overworking and killing themselves by trying to take care of an entire manor. Or maybe he was just that bored.
Whatever the reason was, Hide didn't want to spend another minute alone with the man. It was not Ken Kaneki who was the problem. The pale young male, who was around Hide's age, was polite almost to a fault. He did not speak if there wasn't anything to be said, and Hide was sure that if it wasn't for him acting like a damn ice breaker, the whole place would be frozen with tension. No; it wasn't his boss who was the problem. It was his boss' feet.
Kaneki Ken's feet smelled worse than a rotting corpse bathed in child poop and left in the sun to dry.
Hide would know. He worked as a garbage collector a few years back.
"What are you doing?" a voice barked from behind him. Hide stifled an unmanly yelp and turned around. Ginshi Shirazu, the head guard, stood there glaring at him with his sharp, jagged teeth bared. Hide laughs good naturedly, but the frown remained on the guard's face.
"I was just taking out the trash, man. Don't be so uptight."
"Uh-huh."
"Seriously." Hide held up both his hands to know that he was serious. With a last glare, Shirazu stomped back to his station, shooting Hide suspicious glances every every other step. Hide sighed.
The whole household had issues, and it seemed that he was actually the most ordinary person in there. Which was saying something because Hide wasn't exactly what you would call normal.
Hide shook his head in exasperation, but he wore a fond smile. The head guard might be weird but he took his job seriously, and Hide couldn't help but respect him for that. In fact, everyone in the household took whatever they did seriously.
Too seriously perhaps.
Hide headed up to the kitchen to see if anyone needed help, but when he arrived, no one was there.
"Nagachika." Hide flinched in surprise when he head the cool voice. Honestly, his assassin theory was being proven by them by basically just walking. Who could be that quiet as to surprise Nagachika Hideyoshi? Hell, he even trained to be part of the police force once! Fixing a bright smile on his face, Hide spun around and came face to face with an emo-like man.
"Yes, Urie?" he asked the chef. Kuki Urie, the resident Grim Reaper. The guy refused to wear anything other than black, and there was just this barrier that separated him from the world. Hide brought it upon himself to remove it and drag Urie into their world.
"Kaneki wants to see you."
Urie didn't stay long enough to see the look of horror on Hide's face.
Hide timidly knocked on the door and the sound echoed throughout the whole hallway. The blond male resisted the urge to flee. It wasn't the smell that scared him so. What Hide was afraid of was his own mouth and candidness. He wasn't sure if he could last so long inside a room - along - with his boss and not launch into a speech about deodorants for feet. He didn't know if he could handle being fired.
Hide had grown to love the place.
Silence answered from the other side, causing Hide to almost sigh in relief. Maybe the boss had forgotten, or maybe he had something important to take care of. Whatever it was Hide wasn't about to push his luck, because it usually didn't last lo-
"Come in."
Hide turned the knob, and the smell hit him at once. The brown-eyed boy tried not to stumble when the scent went straight through his brain. His boss sat on a big chair that was facing away from the tall window. In front of him was a dark mahogany desk, the papers organized to the side and not a single object out of place. Kaneki looked up to see him.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked and hoped that his voice didn't come out as strangled as he thought. If Kaneki noticed, he didn't let on. He only nodded and gestured to the empty chair in front of his desk.
When Hide had sat down, Kaneki immediately brought his attention off the papers he had been reading and peered at Hide in scrutiny. "You've been avoiding me," Kaneki stated, so matter-of-factly that Hide couldn't hold back the flinch.
"Of course not!" he instantly denied, "There's no reason for me to, right?"
"You see, Hide, that's what I'm confused about." Kaneki sighed. "There's no reason for you to, but you're still doing it."
Hide was sure that he resembled a tomato by then. But if Kaneki really wanted to know, then why shouldn't he just tell him. After all, he would be doing the other guy a favoring by informing him that his feet killed everyone by a ten feet radius.
"It's just," Hide stammered, eyes anywhere but his boss. If he knew that he was going to do this, he would have downed a bottle of whiskey before coming over. But then again, that may be just a disastrous - if not more so - than what was happening right then. "Your... feet."
There was a flicker of amusement in Kaneki's grey eyes as he glanced down. Hide wasn't sure if he imagined it. "My... feet?" repeated Kaneki in confusion. Hide could only nod, flustered beyond belief. "What's wrong with my feet?"
Hide made a choking noise at the back of his throat, head still bowed. Why did it have to be him? How could the others pretend so long and so good that Kaneki didn't even realize that something was wrong? He wasn't cut out for this. Ugh. "It... doesn't smell... good."
"Then wash it."
Hide's face snapped up in shock, and he found his boss staring at him in amusement. Kaneki placed his elbow on the desk and supported his face with a closed fist. There was a twinkle of sadism in his eyes, that Hide couldn't help but curse himself for not seeing the first time.
"What?" he asked to make sure that he heard right. A soft chuckle escaped from Kaneki.
"Wash it... or your fired."
Hide swallowed hard and almost ran to fetch a basin and a white cloth because pride be damned, he didn't want to leave the manor. He didn't want to leave Kaneki in his study all alone, or Shirazu watching the whole place by himself at night; he couldn't stand knowing that Urie was still in his comfort zone and had - probably - never been kissed his whole life.
Hide tried not to gag the whole time, and he slipped into his own mind while he let his body to the work for him. Because, dammit, the entire ordeal was like torture. It was only after a couple of minutes that Hide started to notice that something was different.
The smell was gone.
"I wanted to know if you really wanted to stay." It was spoken so softly that Hide almost didn't hear. Kaneki smiled at him gently, all traces of mirth gone. "I'm sorry if my methods were a bit unorthodox."
Hide couldn't stop the laughter from bubbling out his throat.
"I don't mind!" he guffawed. "So the others went through the same thing?"
Kaneki hummed thoughtfully. "Well, no," he admitted. "Back then Urie really hated bugs, so I placed a lot of cockroaches in his room." Silence followed his confession, and Kaneki glanced at Hide in confusion. The blond still knelt before him, and he still held his feet in his hands, but his expression was flat.
"You are a lunatic and a sadist, rolled into one."
"Shut up, Hide."
"You know you love me."
Kaneki, surprisingly, turned red. "J-just dry my foot already!" he mumbled out as he turned his face away. Hide's brows knit in confusion before a wide grin took over his features. He grasped Kaneki's face in one swift move and turned his head so that the other was facing him.
"Are you blushing?" Hide asked incredulously. Kaneki shot him a glare that would have been scary had he not resembled a tomato. "You are!"
"Hide!" Kaneki ducked his face in embarrassment. His tone was supposed to be forceful and commanding, but why on Earth did it come out like some sort of whine? Hide bit his lip to stop the smile from taking place.
"Why were you blushing? Huh? Care to tell me, Ka-ne-ki?"
"Shut up, Hide!"