I own nothing.

A/N: I can't find a summary

Semi-AU?

Not a rize/hide, not a ghoul!hide – not even a romance.

But rather a TG fic starring Hide? Let's go with that.

I had this fic written out, I'm just fleshing it out and editing the icky chunks.

Rated for blood, gore and mild horror.

His early childhood memories consisted of scraped elbows, sand in his shoes and lots of boisterous swinging. One such memory stuck out to him like a sore thumb.

It was evening, the blood-red warmth of the sun bathed the playground ominously. Sunset meant home. Most people were getting ready to go home. Other children were picking up their buckets and spades. He was going to pick up his blue bucket as well before noticing the now vacant swing.

And dropping the light blue plastic bucket, he scampered toward the swing-set.

"Move aside, carrot-top!" And he was shoved aside by one of his older cousins.

And he hit the sand, attempting to catch himself on all fours. The grains of sand rubbed against his baby-soft hands. But the young boy's knee wasn't so lucky as it scraped against the edge of the play-ground sand box. There was a sharp stab of pain.

"I'm dying! Help!"

Hide Nagachika held up his scraped knee and bellowed like an agonized dog.

It was hardly a scrape actually, a graze. But there was a rude, red abrasion.

He had itty bitty tears squeezing themselves out from the edges of his eyes. Mostly because he didn't get to play on the sings. Perhaps it really really really hurt. Or perhaps he wanted his big fat cousin to get gobsmacked by an adult for his terrible 'wound' – or perhaps he was just trying to elicit some attention to his plight.

And he did.

There was a chuckle.

"Are you dying?"

He looked up at her. She was a young girl about his age – with magenta – very bright, very gaudy hair-color. It contrasted with the reddish hues set by the evening sun.

She adjusted the straps of her bag and smiled at him, "Have no fear! I've got a magic band-aid!"

He watched in awe as she pulled out her bag-pack and rummaged through it.

"Um...I'm pretty sure I have one!"

She let out a sound of triumph as she held it above her head and dropped her bag-pack. The girl affixed a purple band aid upon his knee. She was so pretty.

"All better now?"

He looked down at his knee. The oddly stuck-on band aid was the same color of her hair.

That's when he remembered his manners, "T-thank you!"

In retrospect, it would have been polite to apologize to her for the trouble. But instead he settled for –

"Uhm…what is your name?"

She snuck him a smile, a sincere one. The one that gave him a warm funny feeling in his tummy. The kind he got after drinking warm milk.

"Rize Kamishiro."

"It's love!"

In grade seven – everything was about the 'Super-duper ninja megazords' and sudden emergence of this new creature called girls. They smelled nice, wore pleated skirts a wee bit high for the school regulations, and mostly avoided him.

"Ami-chan! Not too loud!" She brought a finger to her lips, hissing at her friends. They burst into conspiratory giggles.

He glanced over to the group who surrounded a single girl who had just spoken. She had a long hair, long brown hair and a shapely face. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment. Hide didn't know the girl too well.

She looked in his direction.

Startled, he averted his eyes – trying to find the one person he could bug today.

"Ka~neki!" He slid into the seat beside the book-worm, "Whatcha reading? Ooh that looks complicated."

He received a withering stare.

"Hmmmhmmm….very interesting – such big words Kaneki, no wonder you do so well in English!"

"You would do well too, Hide – if you actually bothered to study."

"I tried my hardest, man! Honestly! The teacher just really hates me!" He began, sliding an arm over Kaneki's shoulder and exhaling with dramatic weariness, "I think I might become a rapper like Double M, you know? Kacha-kacha – pow! Yo yo yo!"

And to demonstrate, Hide began to spit, holding his palm over a mock headphone and the other one above Kaneki's books – as if it was a screeching record. Kaneki snorted.

"I thought you wanted to become a teacher? I thought you were so inspired by Ogata-sensei."

That was two days ago. Kaneki really needed to catch up on things.

"There you go again, saying incomprehensible things…you really need to get with the times, Kan-eki!" He reached for the boy's untouched sandwich and bit into it.

"This is awful."

He sent the boy a questioning look.

"Yeah..." Kaneki said quietly. He averted his gaze, as if he found the walls more interesting. And then he let out an awkward burst of laughter, "Soo did you watch Mecha-ninjas yesterday?"

He didn't even like Mecha-ninjas.

Hide didn't know very much about his home-life because the latter never talked about it. He did know that the boy's mother died when they were in elementary school – and that he was living with a few relatives.

It was the little things with Kaneki.

Like for example, he didn't bring lunch to school on some days with some equally lacklustre excuse like – "Ahaha…I forgot?"

Or perhaps he brought sandwiches that tasted like paper, just like today.

"Hey…Kaneki," He murmured, "Have you been eating properly?"

"Um... excuse me, Nagachika-san."

That's when they both heard a rather loud and nervous interruption. Kaneki and Hide both turned around to look at the girl. It was the girl that he had been looking at earlier. Hide didn't remember her name – was it Eri?

"Hoooo? You've been wanting to confess to this gloomy brat?" He asked, standing up and the boy up with him, "Please don't mind me!"

A very bewildered Kaneki was pushed into her general direction. And he crashed into several desks and fell to the ground. To complete the fiasco, one of her friends on the other end of the classroom, stood up.

"Idiot Nagachika!" She yelped, "She wants to talk to you."

And that's how the entire class' attention was placed on Hide and the poor girl. Someone sniggered heartily beside them and another made kissy noises.

"Oooh! It's a confession!"

"Ehehe…" Hide scratched the back of his head looking sheepish. He reached forward for the spilled pencil case and placing it on the wrong desk, "Sorry sorry!"

Kaneki sighed as he attempted to stand up, straightening out the desks and picking up the scattered school utensils.

"I'm so sorry, my friend's such an idiot." Kaneki rolled his eyes. She smiled at them and helped them pick up the fallen articles. Their hands brushed over the same book. They both drew back.

She split her very pink lips into a chuckle and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Nagachika-san is very lively!"

The girl who he found out later was Himura Seri, didn't confess her undying affections for him. She wanted his help with class-duties. He had, after all, skipped out on his duties for the past few days. Ogata-sensei had told him that he would assign Hide to help with class-duty soon.

And he'd completely forgot.

She was also very nice.

"Thank you for helping me with this work."

Always one, eager to please, "Eh?! It was no trouble - besides I had to do it!"

It was just the two of them alone in a classroom. The silence was amiable as she shuffled the papers and closed the class-book.

"Uhm…" He began, "Would you like to be dropped home…er…as friends of course!"

That didn't sound right. He felt the heat rise up to his cheeks. She raised an elegant eyebrow.

"How about concerned class-mates! It's not safe to be out there alone – uhm you know there have been attacks on the news…and such…"

Himura began to laugh. Chivalry was dying, and so was Hide's confidence. He began to laugh awkwardly, sputtering as he did so.

"Thank you, Nagachika-san! That's very kind of you," She said, with an undecipherable look, "That would be very helpful – as I feel…very unsafe walking home these days."

Nodding his head, Hide picked up his bag and skipped over to the class-room door. He held it open for her.

"After you my lady!"

She burst into laughter.

He never admitted it out loud. But even though their conversations had spaces and awkward bumping of hands – followed by 'sorry!'

Hide sort of liked it.

It felt very romantic.

She was leading the way, because he didn't know her area very well. Night was settling in, the cold was biting his exposed skin mercilessly – it was December.

"Nagachika-san is so funny!"

They were passing a few darkened shops, buildings in construction and then they turned a corner.

"Ehhee…you think so?"

There was a light skip in her step. Her face was lit up by the street lamp.

"But I also think you are very kind too." She sent him a dazzling smile over her shoulder. Stricken, Hide felt his guts spill out through his mouth.

"N-no, Himura-san, you are very kind for saying that – you should talk to K-kaneki about me! I'm sure he'd have some horrible t-things to say about me."

He didn't know how to take a compliment.

He kept blabbing about Kaneki till he finally felt confident with his words. It was comfortable talking about Kaneki. They had turned through a new unfamiliar area, and then finally into another dark alley-way. He had never been here before – everything was eerie and still.

"And then Bakaneki went like –"

He paused as his foot hit something. There was a metallic tang in the air.

"Hmm?" She turned around – a strangely hungry look in her eyes, "Go on Nagachika-san and finish the story."

The single lonely streetlamp was flickering on and off. She took a few steps between them, crossing the distance. And then she was fingering the upper button of his collar and then pushed him up against the wall of a building.

Girls smelled nice.

Hide numbly registered the heavy perfume drenched her school uniform. It covered things like the bloodstain on her white school blouse – hidden by her collar. Or perhaps even the mutilated, headless corpse that was just inches away from his white sneaker.

"Hide," she fluidly turned his cheek toward her face with her free hand, "Thank you for walking me home."

One second she was staring into his eyes, brown, almond colored eyes. The stench from the fresh corpse filled his nostrils – he wanted to retch.

"I'm sure your friend would also think that you are very kind…" she began slowly.

The next second, the light shuttered and her eyes were replaced with a black sclera and a red pupil.

"…and very naïve."

His heart was beating at a hundred miles per hour. It was pounding in his ears, he shrunk back as she nearly sunk her jaws into his body. Her white dazzling teeth met his sensitive throat.

His senses were telling him to push her off when –

"Himura."

His eyes were still clenched. Her teeth were on his exposed skin, but not breaking through it.

"How many times have I told you – these are my feeding grounds."

"Rize, you bitch–" She began, only to be muffled by something sharp, red and pointy – ripping her apart from Hide and into the brick wall opposite him. She landed into the dumpster, and the entire thing fell with her – black garbage bags falling alongside.

He stood rigidly still as the girl 'Rize' hopped down. There were sharp red things splayed out from her back.

"Would you like me to wash out your mouth for you, Himura?" Thirteen year old Kamishiro Rize began with an air of nonchalance, "That's no way to talk to someone better than you."

Hide's legs felt like jello.

The girl hissed, before looking at Hide, "He's my prey."

Rize flickered her eyes over to him, she licked her fingers – her bloody fingers. There was a stain around her mouth. She smirked.

"Well…now he's mine."

His first reaction was to run, not before he was pinned to the goddamn wall – with those red branches exploding from her back. They pinned him against the wall, digging into flesh. He opened his mouth to scream, kicking around violently. Neither girl seemed to notice his writhing.

"B-y-e," she spelled out the words, "He's mine."

But her weapon was digging into his shoulder, excruciating pain making him scream.

There was no e-s-c-a-p-e.

And that was enough to stake a claim on his person. Himura got up shakily, taking a few steps backwards and screamed curses as she fled. That's when Rize turned her attention to him.

He froze.

"They say that ghoul women have the gaze of Medusa." She licked her lips, "Are you so scared that you've been turned to stone? Hmmm? Tongue-tied?"

The light shone upon her features, her shimmery skin. Her hair looked venomously purple underneath the flickering street lamp. Everything hurt, there was just so much blood blood blood –

"You…look b-beautiful…" He choked out – the uncharacteristic confession set on his shuddering lips. Rize's features twitched with surprise.

Kaneki was right, he needed to read more of those incomprehensible books and get smarter.

He could have at least screamed.

Maybe someone would poke their heads out of their balconies or maybe someone would come to his aid? No one would just stand and stareright?

"Hmm?" She cocked an ear in his direction.

Maybe someone would come and whack this monster over the head. Maybe someone would hear his very high-pitched scream. Maybe someone would save him – oh god.

But he still couldn't bring himself to even whimper for help. Tears rolling down the his face he cried out instead –

"I-I'm sorry but you are very…b-beautiful!"

She brought him closer to her face and he swallowed nervously.

"Really?" She asked him, dropping her voice to a low, malicious whisper, "Do you really think so? Even when I'm about to eat you? Tear your limbs apart? Relish your flesh?"

It wasn't any sort of nice grin. It was malicious.

"Well, aren't you lucky that I feel full?"

Her hold ripped itself from his shoulder, violently – making him scream once again. His knees met the ground.

Then she too dropped to her haunches as she began to tear the corpse out by the ankles – and then the stub of its calf. Specks of blood hit his face. The snaps and cracks filled his ears.

"Ja – ne!"

And that was his last encounter personally with Rize Kamishiro. She hopped atop the building, barely sparing him a backwards glance and disappeared back to wherever she came from.

He threw up. And then screamed - and screamed himself raw.

And that's when people who had heard the commotion began to arrive. He could barely decipher the cacophony of voices. There were sounds all around him that cold wintery evening. The flash of red and blue as someone raised him onto a stretcher. The world was spinning.

He was shivering.

"Stay with us boy!"

"Another ghoul attack!" There was some screaming, lots of disembodied screaming.

The world went dim then he sunk into exhaustion's grip. There was only one word ringing over and over in his head.

Ghoul ghoul ghoul ghoul...