Kaneki sipped his cup of coffee, watching the TV in the corner of his favourite coffee shop, Anteiku.
"...Body was found on the streets early this morning. The police drones have confirmed that it was a male, but their operators are refusing to reveal the man's profession or his name."
The newscast flashed a picture of a man with a large blossom of red on the front of his shirt, his face holding the sickly pallor of death. Kaneki felt his stomach twinge in protest and he glanced away. Suddenly no longer feeling like drinking his coffee, he set it down. He felt his pocket buzz as his phone received a new text. He pulled it out, glancing at the ID and the time. It was only Hide texting him, so he just put his phone back in his pocket, deciding he'd respond when he got home. Besides, his favourite book store closed in a hour and he had just finished his last book. Kaneki quickly paid for his coffee and exited the café, hurrying down the street. He hugged his jacket to him a little tighter as the wind began to pick up, sending the sakura blossoms dancing down the street. He approached the bookstore and hurried in gratefully, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the cute girl who worked there. Rize was her name. He really needed to work up his courage to talk to her someday. He contemplated going over to her and asking for a recommendation, but then decided against it. Shaking his head to himself, he walked back into the rows of book to search for a good one. He found himself drawn to one book, and he pulled it out without even glancing at the title. The summary was pretty vague, but still promising. He sat down on the floor in front of the shelf and began to read his selection. Kaneki felt himself being drawn into the book more and more as the story progressed, totally loosing track of time. When a hand landed on his shoulder, he jerked back into reality and almost shrieked to find a face so close to his.
"Oops, gomen. I didn't mean to scare you! It's just, it's kinda closing time now."
Rize laughed and sat back. Kaneki felt his face heat up rapidly and he fought to keep a stutter out of his voice.
"Oh! I'm sorry!"
Kaneki stood up and reached to help Rize up. They went up to the front desk so Kaneki could pay for the book.
"Ooh, this is a good book! I've read it before, of course, but I'm pretty sure this is a special edition of this book, so it might be a bit different."
Rize said excitedly. Kaneki nodded.
"Yea, I love this authour. I have a soft spot for murder mysteries."
Kaneki handed Rize the money over the counter and she gave him a bag with his new book in it.
"I do like murder mysteries, but lately they kind of scare me, with all these rebels going around killing drones. One of the incidents last week happened right outside my apartment! I can't believe there are actually people who defy the law like that. What would they do to humans? It's terrifying, sometimes I can barely sleep at night."
Kaneki's eyes widened and he turned to look at her, surprised.
"That's near you? Wow, I'm so sorry. You must be really brave."
He walked with her out of the shop, stopping to wait as she locked up the bookstore.
"Hey, Kaneki, would you mind... um... walking me home? Don't go out of your way or anything, but if you're going that direction anyway..."
Rize looked down, seeming flustered. Kaneki smiled reassuringly at her.
"Of course I'll walk you home!" Rize's face lit up and she smiled at him.
"Oh, thank you."
They started off down the street chatting casually.
"I don't want to be mean or anything, Rize, but wouldn't the police drones protect you if anything happened?"
Kaneki said cautiously. Rize blushed a little and shook her head.
"Well, I don't know. Please don't tell anyone this, Kaneki-kun, but I don't trust the drones. One time, I was walking home just before curfew, and I saw one of them attacking a homeless man. The poor guy spent every day on the same street corner, begging for money, never doing anything wrong. Then one night, he gets attacked and the next day he's not on the street corner. Personally, I think I agree more with the rebels sometimes."
She said. Kaneki looked at her, surprised.
"Really? I've never actually thought about who I would side more with. I'm not really even sure what the rebels 'side' is anyway."
Kaneki shrugged. They turned down one side street at Rize's direction.
"What I've heard is that basically it's a group of humans with robotic parts that dislike the way the government is run by predominantly robots. I think right now they are looking for a code that could destroy the mainframe that controls the robots. A virus."
Rize said nonchalantly. Kaneki furrowed his brow in confusion.
"How do you know that? I haven't heard about anything like that on the news. And isn't that take on the government a little hypocritical?"
Kaneki asked. Rize stopped to looked at him, her face partially covered by the shadow the construction site to their left cast in the afternoon light.
"Rize?"
She smiled at him a little creepily.
"It's okay Kaneki-kun. It would be unfair of me to expect you to see our side of the story. You're only human, after all."
Kaneki started and backed away in shock. The iris of Rize's left eye had turned red and the white of her eye had taken on a more grey, mechanical glint.
"Aww, I can see your blood pressure rising, Kaneki-kun. I hope this answers your question about how I know so much. Now, I kinda need that book you got. It's just a teensy bit important. This isn't an official mission for me, per se, but hopefully if I get the book from you the manager will forgive me for killing a human."
She advanced on Kaneki, making him stumble back in panic. Suddenly, a loud crack cam from above and they both looked up. The outline of a safety droid wheeled away from the crane up on the construction site as a truckload of I-beams came tumbling down towards them. Both stared in shock at the beams as the realised almost simultaneously that they would not be fast enough to move and not get hit. The beams struck Kaneki's left side hard, pushing him down under their crushing weight. A dull pain exploded in his head and he heard a feminine scream just before he blacked out.
Kaneki slowly swam back to consciousness. He was lying on something soft, a bed? In a white room, a hospital? As his vision cleared more, he looked around. He was indeed on a bed in a hospital. His left arm was in a cast, but other than that, he felt fine. Gingerly reaching a hand up, he felt along his head, remembering the pain he had felt there. It was sore around his eye, but felt fine other than that. The door to the room opened and a man in a doctor's coat walked in.
"Ahh, Kaneki, how are you doing?"
Kaneki looked up. The man smiled warmly, shutting the door with his foot. Kaneki's eye twitched awkwardly and suddenly his field of vision changed. The doctor's skin became almost translucent, and Kaneki could see colours rushing around under his skin. Blue raced down to his legs as he walked towards Kaneki, red and yellow swirling around his brain and eyes as he looked at his face. The doctor's heart sped up and Kaneki watched it contract in amazement and fear.
"Kaneki-kun?"
He jerked his attention- and vision- back to the doctor.
"What just happened?"
He whispered, scared to make any move in his body that might trigger the strange sights again. The doctor just smiled, looking overly pleased with himself.
"My name is Kanou. When you and Kamashiro-san were walking, a cable in a nearby construction site collapsed. The beams the cable had been supporting fell on you both, killing her and injuring you. Fortunately, with the way they fell, only parts of you were caught under the beam. Some internal organs, and your left eye. We performed emergency surgery on you to save your life, using Kamashiro-san as an impromptu organ donor. The internal organ transplants went smoothly, however, there was an unforeseen complication with your eye. Kamashiro-san, it seems, was one of the few people who was injured during the time when bionic transplants were acceptable and not outlawed by the Government. So the eye that we gave you, her eye, is robotic."
Kaneki stared at him in total shock. They did what?
"I hope you will continue to see us after released by the hospital, so we can monitor your progress. Of course, it isn't required that you do so, only recommended."
The doctor sat down on the edge of Kaneki's bed.
"Can I ask you what you saw when I walked in? You gasped, so I assume something was off."
Kaneki nodded and tried to explain what he had seen.
"Um, well I saw your bones and muscles, as though your skin was transparent. Bolts of blue shot down to your legs from your brain every time you moved them. When you looked at my eyes, I saw yellow and red around your brain and eyes."
Kanou nodded, making noted on a clipboard.
"The red is likely curiosity, the yellow fear, panic or alarm. The blue was probably the electrical signals in my nerves. It's truly amazing you could see that. Kamashiro-san reported after her surgery being able to see bone and muscle structure, as well as strong emotions, but nothing to this extent! It must be the way we connected the optic nerves this time. The colours are probably not actually there, but rather your brain's way of processing the information you see into something comprehensible."
Kaneki just nodded blankly. His mind was a thousand metaphorical miles away, having a panic attack about whether or not he would suddenly go crazy and turn against the government, henceforth devoting his entire life to destroy the peace in life that he once took for granted.
But, you know, it's not like this is a book so that's totally not foreshadowing.
He thought to himself. But really, he didn't understand what made the rebels, who were all part mechanized in some way, turn against the government, and, as was natural of humans, therefore feared it because of his lack of knowledge. Finally, Kaneki felt the balance of the bed shift as the doctor got off.
"I can see you aren't paying attention anymore, so I will go. The reason I came in anyway was to formally discharge you, so you can leave as well."
Kanou left the room, smiling broadly. Kaneki watched him leave cautiously. Getting off the bed himself, he stretched and looked out the window to get a sense of the time. The light that stretched thinly across the parking lot carried a pale orangey tint, the last of the sun that it stemmed from disappearing behind the urban skyline. He sighed and shut the blinds, making his way down to the lobby. His flat was in a good twenty minute walk from the hospital, so he needed to get going soon else risk getting caught out after curfew. Walking home to his flat, he waved at the homeless man sitting on the corner. The poor guy was there every day, almost like a park bench you always pass on your way home. Kaneki smiled at the familiarity and regularity of it all. It was soothing after his weird day. He got to his building complex, jogging up the stairs. After digging the key out of his pocket, he entered, dropping his bag just inside the door and stumbling to fall face-first onto his bed.
I can deal with everything else tomorrow.
He though as he drifted to sleep.
Notes:
So yeah. This is the start of the shuuneki I'll be working on for a while. I hope you all enjoy it and nobody gets too creeped out by me having fun cutting Kaneki's limbs off. But shhhh that's a spoiler. Not really tho. If anyone wants to know my tumblr is immortalnite666 .tumblr .com
-Uta
