Author's Note: I was taking one of my usual nothing-happened-but-I'm-tired in-the-middle-of-the-day naps and I dreamt of myself reading a manga page with these happening, so I wanted to combine it with the actual manga chapter. The result isn't how I wanted it to be, but I had a hard time remembering the details after I woke up so this is the best I could do. I hope you enjoy and I would appreciate your reviews!

Welcome Home

Arima was falling.

This wasn't something I had been expecting. He was always there, standing above me like the statue of God himself, just as strong and just as sure, and he was so deeply rooted in my life that I never thought he would ever fall. I would walk by his shadow without facing the harsh sun above me and it would fill the empty parts of my life.

I never had the courage to look up at him – the real Arima Kishou, not the God – and see the cracks and deformations that made this statue. I never saw the forced unity of different parts that made the person I followed like a faithful dog. For me, he was all the perfect things in this world and I wanted to be him.

He was falling in front of me and I couldn't run around and stand him up straight. Not anymore. I wasn't sure if he would stay that way even if I could.

So I held him close and eased his fall.

Being this close to the God, I could see every piece that made him a man. His powerful body was nothing more than a lax mixture of muscles and fat. He was nothing more than what I used to be and what I hunt. His eyes were unseeing and he couldn't focus. His hands blindly moved around, touching my leg, then my arm. He was breaking down and all the walls he built around him melted slowly.

I held him as close as I dared and watched his eyes turn towards me. The distance and cold eyes were so bright with emotion that I could hear my own emotions responding. I didn't know what was happening, I didn't know what I was doing. I was looking at something perfect and everything that made it perfect was dripping down my hands.

Oh the God I so much adored...

He was so bright and so persistent in my life. He had been there for so long, when I was so lost. When I was nothing but a dream, he had been the clearest part. When I was nothing more than just a blank palette, he painted so many good things unto me. Everything I was for the last few years of my greatest dream was his creation.

He had made me oh so happy.

In my arms, the only remaining part of that dream was slipping away as well. Just like the kids, just like the mother, just like the friends – I was losing him. Just like that one person that brought the sun into my dark life, he was dying on me. Just like myself, he was getting far from me too.

I held him closer and looked at his face.

He was no longer the God I knew. There was nothing but man left in my arms and the more I looked at him, the closer I was to him. The masks covering my arms and legs were slowly disappearing and soon we were both just a father and a son. We were two lost man and we were both holding each other.

Soon, the imperfect him surfaced and I was happy. This was the person that held my hand when I was being made – the person that helped me get over myself – the father that made me his son. It was just me and him after that, without anything that kept us apart.

He was falling into a darkness that I knew so well. For so long, that darkness was empty. I was until that day when I held the sun in my arms that the darkness stopped being lonely. Now I was holding God.

"Kaneki, let's go home."

I smiled a bitter smile.

Welcome home, Arima.