Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not a thing.
Author's Note: Okay, can someone please kick me out of this fandom already? I am so sorry. This was only supposed to be a few hundred word drabble...? Help.
Also, I apologize in advance if I butchered Japanese customs in trying to describe the letter writing process. I spent hours (literally hours) researching how to properly write a letter in Japan, but I'm probably still a cultural failure.
Someone had once told him that expressing emotions is most easily done through writing.
(Maybe it was Kaneki.)
Hide respectfully disagrees. After all, what can be more organic than the spontaneous explosion of words, pouring forth from unrestrained lips? Words that sometimes leap straight from the heart to the air without any sort of internal processing or censorship.
Yes, Hide is fairly positive that writing is not the most effective way to get a point across. Writing is infinitely more polished than his "word vomit," as he affectionately dubs it, yet it lacks a certain immediacy. Writing can be a lengthy process, more reliant upon consideration and careful planning than its impulsive vocal counterpart.
He firmly believes that writing is the easy way out for those who don't have the courage to confront others. Writing allows the author to painstakingly craft the perfect response; however, the pauses for thought between blank margins and empty pens allows for the individual to alter his or her words, bleeding the stark paper with flowery, inky lies to mask his or her true feelings.
Although more eloquent, written words don't mean a thing unless they're the truth.
He knows from many unfortunate personal experiences that once he starts talking, it's difficult to stop. He becomes too caught up in ordering his next thought to bother trying to come up with any lies to make the situation any less mortifying.
Painful, sometimes. Excruciatingly embarrassing, absolutely.
Still, Hide finds that verbal confessions are just more effective in the end. At least, there's never anything left unsaid in the awkward silence afterwards.
However, after watching a certain young man disappear through the gleaming glass doors of the CCG, Hide realizes that he's a coward.
With writing, one never has to worry about seeing the hardened stare and firm frown of rejection.
When Hide sits down at his desk later that day, he glares at the piece of blank paper before declaring the mission useless. He'll try again soon, but for that moment, no words spring to mind.
...
He finally finds the motivation to start writing, but after the second word, he's already made his first mistake. Upon frustrated impulse, he scratches out the failed opening with an irritated grunt, leaving behind a darkened, ugly smear of glistening ink on the otherwise pristine paper.
Part of him wants to rip the sheet into shreds and start again. After all, he deserves nothing less than perfection. However, Hide knows that if he abandons the project so soon after starting, he won't ever return to his desk.
He decides to compromise. He sets the pen down, releasing it from his faintly quaking fingers, and shoves the paper, heavy from the still damp ink, further up the desk's top. Hide then slips out from behind the desk, paces three loose circles around his cramped apartment and settles back down into the hard wooden chair. By this time, the ink has dried and he picks up the pen again to resume his progress.
With another steadying breath, feeling completely ridiculous for working himself up over a simple letter, Hide brings his pen tip to the paper and begins to write.
...
He doesn't even pause to consider the formatting of his letter until he's reached the end of the second page. The horrifying thought strikes him like indoor lightning, causing the pen to slip from his fingers. It clatters on the desk, spraying droplets of obsidian across the wooden surface and the margins of the letter. Hide quickly flips back through the sheets of paper, cautious not to smudge the drying ink. His eyes graze quickly over the meticulously printed symbols, trailing up and down the paper.
It's…I wrote vertically… he realizes after a belated moment of blinking uncomprehendingly at the words.
His eyes dart back to the brief opening, and travel across the paper at a slower speed. He had sacrificed the formality of the customary expressions in favor of jumping immediately into his awkward introduction.
Everything about his letter—the casual opening, the lack of mandated phrasing at the beginning, the vertical printing of the words—screams familiarity and personal closeness, as if it were no more formal than passing school notes.
If his letter would be solely for Kaneki, then Hide wouldn't have cared about its friendly casualness. In fact, the note probably would have been even more informal—just a few scratched words and a tiny drawing, perhaps a sketched cartoon.
Hide's gaze strays back towards the botched opening, absorbing both the scratched out symbols and the carefully reprinted name. Although Kaneki's eyes would technically read Hide's confession, he couldn't be sure who would be the one to actually process the words.
The letter wouldn't be out of place to send to Kaneki, his best friend of many, many years.
However, it would be offensive and incredibly impertinent to send such an informal letter to Rank 1 Ghoul Investigator, Haise Sasaki. A person, Hide reminds himself, that he has never even talked to before, much less consider a friend.
Hide drums his aching fingers across the desk, trying to get the blood flowing again in his cramped digits. He dwells on his predicament for a moment longer, watching out of the corner of his eye as the shadows in his room darken and elongate.
When it becomes too dark to see by the dusky light from his window, Hide reaches towards his dusty desk lamp. His fingers fumble in the dark before they catch on the cool metal cord, yanking it down with a soft click. Light immediately floods the tiny apartment, casting eerie shadows along the newspaper cut outs plastered across the walls. An idea hits Hide and he spares a moment to chuckle weakly at the irony.
Just because he writes the letter, it doesn't mean he has to send it to anyone. His mind drifts back to the days before ghouls and investigators, before he lost his best friend. The memory is hazy and short-lived, but he smiles all the same.
"You can't just sit down and write your paper all at once!" Kaneki had exclaimed, visibly distressed at Hide's blasé attitude towards their exit essays. He had been adamant that Hide write several drafts first, citing the many, many drafts that authors have to go through before publishing their works. Hide had tried to humor his friend, but in the end, he found it far easier to just submit the original document. He felt he had gotten everything down on paper that he wanted to say the first time—there was no need to change anything.
"He would love this, wouldn't he?" Hide mumbles to absolutely no one in particular. "The first time I write a first draft and it's a letter addressed to him." He pauses uncomfortably and shifts in the hard chair before amending his statement. "Well, at least sort of to him."
Content with the knowledge that this letter is a mere draft, Hide allows himself to release his pent up emotions. His handwriting becomes substantially more relaxed as his once careful characters become rushed dashes and loops. His orderly lines now trickle down the paper in uneven columns, barely neat enough to be legible. He frantically scrambles to capture the fleeting thoughts before they disappear.
Although his fingers continually cramp and the meat of his thumb and tips of his knuckles are stained black, Hide finds a sort of cathartic joy in writing at this reckless speed. It almost feels like he's speaking through his work, allowing the unrestrained words to bubble from the tip of his pen like ink.
Hide pauses for a brief moment and laughs at the strangely poetic thought. He tucks away the simile for safekeeping, making sure he won't forget to add it in a stray margin. Although Sasaki's personality remains a mystery to him, Hide knows that anyone who shares even a single blood cell with Kaneki would greatly enjoy the comparison. Because ultimately, he realizes, he's writing this letter to the both of them.
Even if this draft never leaves Hide's apartment, he wants to make sure he addresses everything he needs to say.
Even if Kaneki or Sasaki never gets the chance to read his words, he wants to share the things he's kept locked up for far too long in his mind.
Still tangled up in his uncharacteristically poetic musing, Hide likens his once daunting project to the age-old tale of messages in a bottle. It's impossible to expect a response when one tosses the bottle overboard, allowing it to bob in the vast ocean for leagues upon leagues.
He shakes his head and dismisses the ridiculous comparison.
Tch… I sound so much like Kaneki right now. That's really sad.
He glances at the digital clock across the room, glowing brightly in the darkened room. It's well past midnight; he's been sitting at his desk for several hours. He blinks at the pulsing numbers for several moments before dropping his gaze back to his disordered pile of papers.
I really should get to bed, he echoes slowly, still startled by the rapid passing of time. The cramps in his hand radiate up and down his wrist, no longer dulled by his furious scribbling.
Without even finishing his paragraph, Hide jumps to another location on the paper, completely ignoring the mandatory closing remark. His pen hovers over the blank spot as he considers which date to put.
Should I put this date? What about the date when Kaneki became a ghoul? Or when we last met?
Hide glances to a faded photograph taped to his desk and a slow grin ghosts across his slackened lips.
He's found his date, accompanied by an earnest question and a flustered response, quickly followed by a radiantly bemused smile. The day when a friendship first blossomed.
Hide signs his own name as carefully as he can, though the characters look a bit shaken from his tight grip on his pen. He knows he should add Sasaki's name at the very end to comply with formalities, but part of him feels like he would be excluding Kaneki then. He shrugs as if it doesn't matter, because it really doesn't. No one will see this letter anyway. He simply leaves it blank.
His thoughts flicker back towards his bottle analogy. It's a rather apt comparison, especially if he considers his churning emotions as the restless sea.
The letter becomes his confessions meant to be written, but never to be read.
Yet, somehow he's fine with that.
Hide sets the pen down and shuffles the papers into order, gently pushing them to the corner of his cluttered desk. He rubs the raw blisters on his knuckles before pulling the beaded cord to his lamp.
...
When he finally pulls himself out of bed later that day, sluggishly and gradually in the pale afternoon light, he immediately returns to his desk. Without even glancing through his hasty handiwork, he carefully folds the thick stack of paper into a tight rectangle. He grabs a stray envelope, flips it over to reveal writing on it, and tosses it over his shoulder with a low grunt. He roots through his desk drawers for a clean envelope, finally finding it with a bark of successful laughter.
Although he has no intentions of sending the letter, he figures that he might as well finish it.
Practice makes perfect, he adds in his mind with a fond roll of his eyes as he quickly addresses the envelope to the CCG headquarters. He doesn't have Sasaki's home address, though when he's ready to send the actual letter, it won't be too difficult to find. Compared to the detective work he's done in the past, Hide has a feeling that finding some guy's house will be a breeze.
He adds his name and address on the back before flipping it back over. Hide eyes his careful lettering one more time before tucking the folded letter in the envelope. He seals it and sets it to the side.
Sometimes he thinks about setting fire to his letter without sparing it a parting glance.
Sometimes he considers dropping it in the street, allowing fate to pick it up and deliver it—though to the trash or to Sasaki, he isn't sure.
Regardless, he's grateful that he sealed the envelope, otherwise he would be tempted to read his messy confessions all over again.
...
One day, the letter goes missing. Hide casually shuffles his papers, setting aside heavy books and newspaper clippings, convinced it merely blew underneath the mess when he opened the door. After thoroughly scouring the area around his desk, he starts to get nervous.
However, the panic doesn't truly set in until he's upturned nearly every piece of furniture in his apartment. Wadded up pieces of paper litter the floor from where he knocked over his wastebasket in desperation. His room is in complete disarray, yet he still can't seem to find the envelope.
Praying underneath his breath for a miracle, Hide slips outside of his apartment and searches the deserted halls just in case the letter inexplicably escaped his room. After an hour of searching, he gives up with a groan and slides to the ground, pressing his back against the hallway wall.
Soft clicking sounds from around the corner and Hide looks up halfheartedly to see his landlady returning from her weekly shopping trips.
"Hello, Nagachika-kun!" She grins at him through her wrinkles, eyes squinting in fondness. "How are you today?"
He offers her a shaky smile, though he has no idea how to explain his haggard, exhausted appearance.
"I'm fine, Katsuko-san. Thank you for asking." The woman nods and continues on her way. Hide watches her hobble down the hallway, pursing his lips.
The words leave his mouth before he can stop them.
"Katsuko-san!" he calls, climbing to his feet. She turns and smiles expectantly at him.
"I have a strange question to ask," he begins hesitantly, already expecting to hear the woman's confused answer. "Did you… did you happen to see an envelope by my room? I… I uh, lost one," he finishes lamely.
The old lady smiles widely before nodding. "Don't worry about that, dear," she assures Hide. He frowns, starting to feel a bit concerned by her wording.
"Why?"
"Oh, you're talking about your letter to the CCG, right?"
"What?" Hide echoes, his blood running cold.
"You've been so busy lately, running around doing whatever charming young men do," Hide chuckles nervously, struggling to keep his twitching fingers at his side. "You dropped your letter on the way out the door, so I decided to post it for you."
"Ah… that's too kind of you…"
"It was my pleasure," she adds, taking Hide's stunned expression for gratitude. She winks at him, offering a sly smile. "It's the least I could do for one of my favorite tenants."
"Uh…thank you…"
"You've been working so hard at the CCG for so long keeping us all safe," she continues, completely oblivious to his horrorstruck, wide eyed stare. "I hope they promote you soon!"
"I hope so too…." Hide titters nervously. His control cracks and he scratches at the outside of his cheek with another weak chuckle. He doesn't have the heart to tell her that he hasn't stepped inside the CCG building in several years, partly because he's wanted for questioning.
"Do, uh, do you happen to remember when you found that letter?" he asks. "I just want to make sure they'll get it in time."
If she mailed it today, I might have a few days or so to change my name, dye my hair, and flee Tokyo. Pleeenty of time.
"Oh, no need to worry about that either! I hand delivered the letter to the man at the front desk of the CCG on my way to the store. No need to waste money on postage for such a short trip. It should already be where it's supposed to be by now."
Dammit.
I'm a dead man.
Upon the mentioning of her thawing groceries, the elderly lady gives a little jump before excusing herself. "I'm glad to have helped," she throws over her shoulder as she disappears around the corner.
Hide watches her go before bodily hurling himself into his apartment. He slams the door and presses his back against the wood, serving as a human barricade. His weakened knees give out and he slides down the door, burying his face in his hands with a low groan.
I don't even know what was in that letter. I wasn't paying attention to half the stuff I wrote.
I really hope he doesn't get that letter.
He waits in silence as the sun sets outside his window.
There's a knock at the door, light and tentative. Hide tries not to throw up.
Postscript
"Saaaassaaaaan!"
Haise blinks at the sound of his name, startled from his thoughts as several of his Quinx tumble through the door.
Mutsuki recovers first, carefully picking himself off Shirazu and moving to the side, neatly brushing off the front of his uniform. Shirazu wriggles out of the pile and jumps to his feet, waving a letter triumphantly in his hands. Saiko remains sprawled in the doorframe, most likely caught up in her squad leader's excited flailing and too tired to be bothered to move. Urie pointedly steps over his teammates and throws himself in the nearest chair, already immersed in his music.
Haise studies his team with a bemused smile before asking about their strange arrival.
"It's nice to see you all so close. I hope nothing tumbling has happened," he adds with lifted eyebrows.
Shirazu groans, rolling his eyes in an expression of mock agony. "I told you he would do that. We ran all the way from the CCG to hear his stupid puns."
Haise would have been more insulted if he didn't agree with his subordinate. "Tumbling" certainly wasn't one of his bests. However, something about the Quinx's words catches Haise's attention. His eyes land on the envelope.
"Why did you run all the way from the CCG though?"
He can understand Shirazu's youthful enthusiasm and Mutsuki's eagerness to follow, but the thought of Saiko or Urie willingly running is a bit unusual. Haise frowns, suddenly worried that something is wrong.
Shirazu thrusts the letter towards his superior, grinning widely. "You got a letter!"
A relieved smile flickers across Haise's face. You let yourself get worked up over nothing. They're just trying to help you out.
"I get mail all the time," he responds, reaching for the poor envelope, torn slightly from their excited actions. "If you got it from the CCG, then it's probably just another brief—"
"Not this one!" Saiko briefly rises from her stupor and props a tiny fist underneath her chin. "It's a secret note!"
"What?" Haise blinks, glancing at each of his teammate's faces. Even Urie appears mildly interested, having not sulked to his room immediately, but remaining in the living room to watch the madness.
"The man at the front desk gave it to us to give to you. Apparently a lady came by the CCG and hand delivered the envelope to him earlier today," Mutsuki supplies helpfully.
"That's why we came here so fast," Shirazu adds with another eager nod. "You don't ever get mail that isn't from the CCG!"
"That's not…true," Haise trails off lamely after realizing it may actually be true. He can't remember the last time he received mail from an actual person not affiliated with the CCG.
Actually… I don't know who this even is from. It could be from another employee.
He flips the envelope over and frowns at the sender's name.
Hideyoshi Nagachika…?
He's unfamiliar with anyone with that name, though it seems vaguely familiar.
Maybe the letter is from an old acquaintance of his, Haise reasons, squinting at the messy characters. It would certainly explain the aching throb in his chest as he rereads the name.
Saiko scrambles to her feet in an uncanny display of agility and lunges towards the letter. Haise manages to jerk it out of the reach her wriggling fingers.
"What if it's a note from a long lost lover?!" Saiko exclaims, eyes wide as she imagines the possibilities.
Shirazu utters a dismissive "tch" before shaking his head at her. "That kind of stuff only happens in your weird books," he adds with another roll of the eyes.
Saiko's face scrunches up in irritation. "But it could still happen," she insists, crossing her arms with a soft huff.
Haise offers a breezy laugh before tucking the letter into his pocket. He aches to rip it open and read it now, but he doesn't want to admit to his team that he has no idea what it's about either. He'll have to read in the privacy of his own room.
"I'm sure it's just another budget notice," he smiles, cupping his hand underneath his chin.
"Nothing earthshattering."
...
Haise's calm demeanor disappears as he considers the envelope; he studies the folded paper with a faint frown and creased forehead. It carries none of the traditional stamping of the postal services, making it's appearance simultaneously bare and mysterious.
How did Mutsuki say it was delivered again? Right. Some lady dropped it off at the CCG.
He lifts the letter in his palm, feeling the hefty weight of the paper inside. One of the corners of the envelope is torn, while another edge is caked with dirt, as if someone had carelessly stepped on it.
Haise glances at the sender's name one more time before sliding his finger underneath the envelope flap, gently prying it open with a crinkly ripping sound. As he had expected, a thick parcel of paper tumbles out, thankfully folded too tightly to scatter across his floor.
He bends down, scoops up the gathered paper, and gently unfolds the package, carefully smoothing out each of the individual creases.
His eyes first land on the opening sentence. He can barely make it out at first, since part of it is severely marked out in a flurry of black ink. He squints at the characters and carefully sounds out the sounds.
"Yo Haise," he echoes out loud, partially stunned by the immediate friendliness of the note. If it had been addressed to him, he wouldn't have been nearly as surprised, since the memories are still blurry to Haise. However, the note is clearly addressed to him, raising many more questions.
Haise scrutinizes the opening and belatedly discerns the character for "ki" in the messy scribble of black. He thinks he might see the beginning of another character as well, but it might be part of his imagination.
Did this person mean to write Kaneki too? He…he knows about both of us?
Vaguely concerned by just the opening, Haise goes against his better judgment and continues to read the letter. The beginning is strange and stunted, trying to explain things that seem just barely out of Haise's grasp. Things about acceptance and friendship and other things that Haise has no experience dealing with.
At least, not with this Hideyoshi Nagachika.
As the letter progresses, Haise realizes that Nagachika's words grow less and less composed. From the beginning, he had recognized the author's strange fusion of familiarity and distance, almost as if he were speaking to two different people. In a way, Haise supposes he might have been, even though only one person reads it now.
Soon the words turn disjointed and cluttered as they tumble from the page, leaping from topic to topic. Haise barely manages to catch a glimpse of a shared memory or a fleeting confession before the note springs to another thought.
-did you really believe that I wouldn't trust you, man? You're my best friend! I couldn't betray you—
-remember the time you got so excited about that new Sen Takatsuki book that you couldn't sleep for a week and you just wandered into traffic? I barely pulled us out of the way—
-it was so hard being alone. Rabbits, y'know? Damn rabbits—
Haise ravenously absorbs each fractured story, eyes darting up and down the paper. As the characters become more illegible and each written thought becomes more desperate, Haise's hunger grows.
-the others are fine, I guess. I can't tell you more, but they wouldn't want me to anyway—
-I still can't believe we can't get those Big Girl burgers anymore. But really? How far away from human meat is cow meat?—
-I really miss you, man—
Haise squints at the next word, surprised to see the ink blotchy and dark. His fingers lightly ghost across the dampened parchment. When he pulls his hand away, he rubs the pads of his fingers together, coating his entire index finger and thumb in watery inky.
What…?
A drop of liquid falls from his cheek and splatters next to the first inky blot, distorting another character. With his unstained fingers, Haise tentatively grazes the slick line across his cheek, completely at lost as to why he is suddenly crying.
I… I don't understand.
He buries his conflicting emotions and surges on through the letter. He flips through each page until he reaches the last one. It's the longest, most detailed story that Nagachika has included, involving a raid on a tiny coffee shop and a dank sewer. Haise belatedly realizes that he's talking about the infamous Anteiku raid, the last major CCG offense that occurred when he was still around.
-I still can't believe you tried to hide from me. Seriously—
-You were so weak and tired, well there was only one thing I could do—
-try not to beat yourself up over it. I hear Westerners pay lots of money to get their excess flesh removed. You probably saved me a fortune in plastic surgery—
-I just wanted to let you know that I—
Haise freezes and stares blankly at the final character.
That you're what? What are you?
Haise frantically shuffles through the papers in his grip and drops to his knees to search through the scattered sheets on the ground. His frantic hands flutter over the dispersed fragments of the letter and he reaches under his bed, fingertips scraping only dust bunnies.
That can't be it! Where's the rest of it?
He pulls himself back into a sitting position and glances back down at the last piece of paper, clenched in his trembling fist. It ends so abruptly; he can't believe that this is the last part. However, his eyes land on the date and he frowns as he realizes this is the end.
It's an old date, over a decade in the past—far beyond his grasp of his memories. According to the few files secretly scrounged up regarding his mysterious past, this date significantly precedes even the CCG's meticulous records.
Haise considers the date again. At this time, he would have been still in grade school. He wants to search through Nagachika's words again, remembering a spattering of stories from that time in the letter.
He resists the urge to dive back into the note for a second or third time and focuses on the author's name. Instead of the lengthy, impersonal name from before, Nagachika has signed his letter with two, shaky characters.
Hide.
Although the entire experience of reading the letter felt like he had been traveling through a dream, for the first time, Haise is struck with a sharp moment of clarity.
"Hi…de…" he repeats out loud, breaking the word apart into separate, mumbled syllables.
He stirs deep within Haise's subconscious, twisting and winding in the back of his mind. The feeling is not altogether unpleasantly, though he isn't sure of its meaning. If Haise has to describe it, it's almost as if he was briefly waking from a long nap before turning back over to continue his sleep.
Haise does not remain in his stupefied state for long; the unique sensation is enough to drive him into action. He scrambles to grab as many of the discarded sheets as possible as well as the envelope and darts out of the door.
...
When he lowers his quaking fist, he almost wishes he could run away. It would be so easy, he reasons. He could be gone in a matter of seconds. However, he stands his ground as he hears a rustling from the other side of the door. Someone's inside, just a centimeters from Haise's face. His burning curiosity won't let him turn back now.
The door slowly swings open with a muted creak. For the first time that day, Haise realizes that Hide may be just as apprehensive about their inevitable meeting as he is.
Though what did he expect, sending a note like that?
A thin young man stands in the threshold, silhouetted by the hazy glow of the setting sun's light from the lone window behind him. His eyes are downcast as he avoids his visitor's face, but when he finally peeks up, Haise barely manages to suppress his gasp. Hide's brown eyes, so bright and vivid, seem right out of a dream.
A dream—or perhaps a memory, he amends in his mind, thinking back to the inexplicable date scribbled at the end of the letter. Over a decade of memories is hard to bury, despite what the CCG assures him.
"I…uhm…" the blond falls silent, dropping his gaze again. Whatever he had planned for their reunion, this is obviously not how he envisioned it.
"Hideyoshi Nagachika?"
The blond glances up with another hopeful gleam in his eyes. Haise realizes that he's desperate to be acknowledged as remembers the loneliness threaded throughout Nagachika's letter.
Rabbits, he adds for no particular reason. He's immediately confused by the impulsive thought, but the other young man interrupts him before he can ponder too much on the odd term.
"Just Hide, please," he murmurs in response to Haise's half-way question.
Haise nods and glances down at the crumpled pieces of paper in his pale knuckles.
Oh, right. This is why I came.
"I was, uhm…" he clears his throat and tries again. He lifts the sheets higher in the air and tightens his grip, hearing the hushed crackle of creasing paper.
"I was hoping you could finish explaining," he finally blurts out. "It just ended and I want to know what happened next."
Hide blinks before nodding slowly. A gradual half-smile flickers across his clamped lips, softening his gaunt features. It a faintly melancholic expression, but it still feels warm to him.
"Would you like to come it?" He pauses to toss a quick look over his shoulder. "It's a bit of a mess," he admits sheepishly, "but it's still home."
Home?
A tentative smile stretches across his face at the phrase. Haise doesn't know why, but it feels like he's waited a lifetime to hear that word.
Thank you for reading!