Unraveling Your Smile
The bench's unforgivingly hard seat was finally too much for Kaneki to bear, so he shifted into a different position.
"Something wrong?" Hideyoshi asked innocently.
"N-not really…" Kaneki mumbled, averting his eyes.
"Don't tell me you're getting nervous 'cause we're sitting alone together in an empty train station. I like you Kaneki, but I don't think we're ready to take that next step in our relationship," Hideyoshi declared teasingly.
"H-Hide!" Kaneki shouted in distress. He trailed off mumbling, "Baka…"
Hideyoshi closed his eyes and made a really wide immature grin at Kaneki, eliciting an awkward smile back from him. Hideyoshi's expression then transformed into wide eyes and an open mouth gaping in an airheaded shock. He held his left palm out, raised his right fist above his palm, and brought his fist down onto his palm like an inflatable hammer hitting an anvil. Reaching his epiphany, he hypothesized, "You must be bored because you don't have any way to pass the time! You can't read any of your books because the light's too dim this late in the day!"
"You're a real Einstein," Kaneki responded sarcastically at Hideyoshi's completely inaccurate conclusion.
"Gomen, gomen, Kaneki!" Hideyoshi apologized while grinning and raising his hands up in front of his chest signaling that he meant no harm. "I forced you into coming to school on a Saturday to help me look for my wallet, and now we have to wait so long to catch the late train home."
"You didn't force me into anything," Kaneki murmured, "You know if you're ever in any trouble, I'll always be there to help you."
Hideyoshi giggled. "You're too kind as usual, Kaneki."
Kaneki's awkward demeanor was interrupted for a fleeting moment as he gave Hideyoshi a sincerely soft smile.
Hideyoshi smiled back briefly, then stood up and started stretching his legs. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed deeply at the sky with an emotionless expression. Feeling restless anyway, Kaneki followed suit and stood up next to him. Hideyoshi smiled back at Kaneki again, took his headphones off his neck, and offered them to Kaneki. "Why don't you listen to some music while we wait?"
"Sure," agreed Kaneki. He meekly accepted the headphones and feebly put them over his ears.
A hoarse falsetto male voice whispered to him through the cushioned earmuffs while a delicately soft piano melody pirouetted in the background. Then all of a sudden, the track climaxed into fervent electric guitars, furious percussion, and frantic violins. The melody would alternate between being barely audible to being overwhelmingly thunderous all the while as the vocalist continued singing in a pained tone.
Kaneki gave a slightly confused look to Hideyoshi. This sort of dark alternative music didn't seem like something he would listen to.
"I'm just obsessed with this song," Hideyoshi explained. "It's about this person who harbors sinful cravings deep within himself." That statement caught Kaneki off guard and the corner of his mouth twitched in anxiety. Hideyoshi continued, "He's singing about how he's disgusted with himself for possessing such hideous desires and how he's desperately struggling to quell those urges. But no matter how hard he fights, he realizes that those despicable impulses are too powerful, and his attempts to control them are making him lose his mind. He understands that he cannot possibly conceal the compulsion for long, and he's begging the one he loves the most to forget about him and just remember him as the virtuous and respectable person he used to be." Hideyoshi looked at Kaneki with a frighteningly serious look in his eyes. "Can't you relate to this song, Kaneki?"
"Wh-what d-do you mean, Hide? How could I relate to something so disturbing?"
Hideyoshi kept Kaneki locked in his intensively piercing gaze.
Kaneki's pale cheeks became shamefully stained as streams of tears rolled down them, and he succumbed to a fit of pitifully uncontrollable sniffling.
"Hide, I-I couldn't – !" Kaneki's voice was drowned out by his own terror. In a panic, his left eye blackened and its iris reddened, becoming that of a ghoul.
Hideyoshi pulled Kaneki towards him and locked him into a tight embrace, nudging his head over Kaneki's shoulder. Hideyoshi's arms wrapped around Kaneki's neck so that he could feel the entirety of Kaneki's body shaking in fear. His hair tickled Kaneki's cheek like orange autumn leaves crinkling as they twirled in the wind, and he whispered into his ear, "Don't worry, I'm here."
Kaneki's shivering subsided and his body went limp in Hideyoshi's arms. His own arms hanging by his sides, he stared up at the roof of the train station with tears still pouring down his face.
"I'll always be here," Hideyoshi spoke softly. Kaneki's arms trembled as he raised them up slowly to grasp Hideyoshi's back in helplessness.
Still gripping Kaneki, Hideyoshi pulled his head back and stared deeply into Kaneki's eyes. The human right eye that was full of anguish and the ghoulish left eye that was full of bloodlust held his gaze. Hideyoshi let go of Kaneki's neck and brought his hands to cradle Kaneki's chin. Leaning in, he pressed their foreheads together. They both closed their eyes as their noses brushed against each other.
With a passionately pure grin, Hideyoshi whispered, "Whatever you become, please know you can always rely on me. When it comes to you, Kaneki, my smile will never falter."