Yoriko sees red.
Typically enough, it was blood. Good old cliche blood.
The situation is kind of horrifying though, she guesses.
"Yoriko-"
Her voice comes out choked and Yoriko hates it. Hates the fact that she was the cause of it. Touka doesn't seem to know what to say as she trails off. It's pretty self-explainable and Yoriko's not stupid. There really isn't anything she can say here.
Still, Touka ALWAYS knows what to say. Well, maybe that was a lie but it's true that no matter what happened, her girlfriend always had something to say about it.
So the fact that Touka was, for the first time, at a complete loss of words was terrifying.
Touka looks shamefaced and her shoulders are hunched over. She looks defeated, like a kicked puppy. Yoriko's heart wrenches.
For a moment, she was angry. At Touka. For expecting her to walk away now. Because she looks like she's bracing herself for the most painful hit even though Yoriko can't hurt her even if she tried and DAMN HER for that, for hating herself so much to think that Yoriko would ever turn her back on her. Nevermind the two years of friendship and one more year of actually dating they shared. Touka looks inconsolably defeated and Yoriko wants to punch her for that even though she'll probably end up hurting herself.
Yoriko's feeling impulsive right now though, so she straight up ignores the sheer amount of blood Touka's covered in and boldly steps forward.
Touka flinches in surprise and shock as Yoriko neatly lands a punch on her face.
"You're such an idiot sometimes, Touka-chan."
Then the pain strikes in and Yoriko is suddenly cradling her hand as beads of tears leak out of the corner of her grimacing eyes. Figures that Touka would be unscathed by her pitiful excuse of an assault. Jeez, she felt like she had just hit metal or something.
"Yoriko!"
The girl in question giggles a little. Touka sounds an odd mixture of scandalized, shocked and worried as she steps forward with her hands outstretched as if to help somehow.
Yoriko lets her girlfriend carefully examine her fingers, feeling a little hysterical. Touka's a ghoul. She just assaulted her girlfriend(ghoulfriend?).Her fingers are possibly broken. It's been a weird day.
"You should be running."
Cold shivers down her spine.
Touka sounds detached. Her voice is emotionless and blank. Yoriko hates it.
"I love you."
It's all she can think to say. Mostly, she's desperate for Touka to understand.
The anger is gone now. It melted away into love and desperation the moment Touka took her fingers. After all this, she still held Yoriko as delicately as she ever did. Like she cared. Like Yoriko was precious and one wrong move would break her or cause her to go running for the hills.
Her fingers don't hurt anymore. They just feel a little numb and when Yoriko dares to look, they're oddly bent at weird angles, making her feel nauseous.
She directs her attention to Touka instead, hoping to gain some comfort from looking at her face but it's concealed by her hair.
She also smells metallic and tangy, an unmistakable scent which Yoriko tried her best to ignore.
Yoriko just wants Touka to stay.
Touka flinches at her confession, making Yoriko's insides crawl.
"I-I don't understand."
There's a discarded rabbit mask on the bed. Yoriko glances at it, feeling oddly fascinated.
Touka's looked back up. She looks... vulnerable. There's no other way to put it. It makes her upset. Touka doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve to feel like that.
"I-It's not your fault. You didn't choose this."
There's a glimmer of hope in Touka's eyes but mostly disbelief.
Yoriko's tone turns defiant.
"I still think you're a wonderful person, Touka-chan, regardless of whatever else you are!"
She doesn't know what she's saying. What she's sure of is that Touka is a good person.
She is! This doesn't change anything! Sure, she eats flesh but that doesn't mean she's going to harm Yoriko! If that was Touka's intention then Yoriko's fairly sure she would have done it by now. It's not due to lack of opportunity either...
Something's niggling at the back of Yoriko's mind.
Touka would never hurt her but others...?
Touka's killed people.
The same hands that are currently mindlessly caressing her own fingers have ripped out limbs and organs from other bodies.
This is... Yoriko needs to sit down.
There was a short cry of alarm from Touka as Yoriko suddenly collapses against her.
Wary of her broken fingers, Touka carefully supports Yoriko's body against her own.
Yoriko's mind is mocking itself. The unadulterated scent of blood fills her nose and she feels too numb with shock to move away. It's still wet and will probably stain her shirt though.
"Yoriko! Shit! Are you oka- Ah never mind, stupid question but wha..!"
Touka's panicking. It's kind of cute. But her voice is filled with dread and shame and that's less cute.
Touka probably knows what Yoriko just realized.
"So you've actually killed, huh?"
Immediately, Yoriko regrets opening her mouth.
Touka goes silent.
Her body is still. Completely still.
Yoriko's scared and holds onto her tighter.
The time passes by endlessly in an encompassing, apathetic silence that leaves Yoriko feeling like she's drowning.
She messed up. She doesn't know what to do now. What is she supposed to do? She has to-!
"I get by using suicide victims."
Every pore of Yoriko's body is sighing with relief and she feels betrayed by herself for judging Touka-
"I.. have killed, though."
Of course.
She can think clearly now that the silence has been broken.
She supposes it's unavoidable.
Touka's a ghoul. Her girlfriend's a ghoul.
Yoriko doesn't know much about ghouls but she knows about the existence of the CCG.
She supposes, from a pacifist's point of view that ghouls lead hard lives.
She knows, as Touka's friend and girlfriend therefore her confidant, enough about Touka's life before school that Touka has led a hard life.
Add in everything she still doesn't know about Touka, it's duly possible that Touka has lived through torture.
"Okay."
Yoriko feels tired.
"O-okay?"
Yoriko feels her heart shatter. Touka sounds so... hesitant. Like she's terrified. Which she probably is. Because of Yoriko's dumb reaction.
Yoriko smiles sadly up at her.
She looks so unsure of herself and Yoriko wishes she could hold Touka close and shield her from whatever messed up stuff the world is made of.
"I still love you, you dork."
Yoriko reaches forward and pinches her cheek lightly with her unbroken hand.
Touka breaks down in front of her.
Yoriko lets her cry everything out on her shoulder, stroking the back of her head gently and whispering soothing assurances.
Yoriko's crying too, much to her shame but she's glad it's less extreme than what Touka's doing.
Touka doesn't cry. Especially not in front of her. But Yoriko's always vowed that if she ever decided otherwise then she'd always have her shoulder to lean on, no matter what the circumstances.
She doesn't plan on breaking her promise anytime soon.