Sun Seekers
KaneHide
Chapter 1
When he is eight years old, Hide is asked to join in a play. He comes on to the stage dressed in bright shades of gold and lights up the auditorium with his smile and the costume alone. The 'hero', a grim-faced classmate who is surprisingly good at delivering his lines, matches him word for word and highlights the warmth of the character he is tasked to play.
His mother is stopped by the teacher on their way out of the auditorium.
"He's a very bright child," she says, and his mother is quick to agree with a nod of her head and a prideful smile, "I've never seen a child grow so close to his classmates as fast as Hideyoshi-kun did. You should be proud of him."
"I am," his mother replies. She eagerly sweeps him into her arms and drops a kiss onto his head as he beams back happily at her loving face. His teacher is clearly warmed by the display and they're both aware of it.
After all, if anyone ever asked, Hide would say that he got all his acting skills from his mother.
"I'm so, so proud of him."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When he is eight, Hide's hair is still brown. He's not too young to entertain thoughts of dyeing it, of knowing it's even a possibility, but he has never found a reason to want it. It's too much trouble and money wasted on a venture his father tells him he'll just likely regret.
"You know your father's only saying that because he did it too," his mother says. Hide runs a hand through her hair, brown like the soil that nurtures the plants, and marvels as the light makes it shimmer. She giggles and curls his hand around hers, adjusts her hold on him until he is comfortably tucked against her side, "He worked too hard, too young and earned himself a nice white crown in his mid-twenties. Tried to dye it back to black but it always kept popping back out."
There's a sense of wistfulness in her eyes he will only catch when he's older, but eight year old Hide still reaches up to pat her cheek and rub their noses together.
"But you still love him, right?" he asks, wholly sure she will say yes.
She smiles at him, "Of course! You know, Hikkun, people are a lot like flowers. They all grow different, need different things to survive, but they are all beautiful."
"Mm," Hide looks doubtfully around the flower shop- at the drooping petals of an iris and the sad dark color of the blue violets. His mother sees him and laughs.
"Oh, Hikkun. I didn't mean it like that. Flowers are more than just a pretty face. They all have their own meaning, just like us. Here," She walks outside of the shop where the other flowers are displayed. She strokes the petals of a tall, thick flower with a golden crown, so bright that it remains in the back of his eyes, "These are called sunflowers. In the flower world, sunflowers are the happiest flowers. No matter where they grow, they will always find the sun. And in turn, they bring its warmth and radiance as a gift to others."
"Like you?" Hide asks with all the innocent love of a child. His mother looks at him in surprise and embarrassment, as if she couldn't believe her own son could make her flush so deep. Hide looks at her warily when she snaps out of it and throws her head back and laughs.
"If only your father was as smooth as you," she teases. Humming, she drops a kiss on his head and nuzzles him close.
"But if you must know, I think it's more like you, don't you agree?"
Outside of the shop, the sun shone brightly. It casts a beautiful light on her smile and Hide thinks that he would like to be a sunflower, so he could follow her light forever.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When Hide is ten, he loses his sun.
The sound of gunfire rings in his ears and pounds against the sides of his head as his mother runs. She clutches him tight as rain falls from the sky and drenches their clothes. He is silent in her arms but he tries not to cry, even when drops too hot to be rain fall on the back of his neck.
He guesses that their acting was not good enough for the CCG.
They turn corner after corner, dashing through alleys in the dead of night with single-minded desperation to flee and survive. His father stayed behind, as stoic and calm as ever even in the face of looming death. He tells them to run with a steady voice, ("I promise I'll catch up to you") so they do. They run with heavy hearts across the flaming wreckage that was once their home and into the streets past the rest of the soldiers.
Though not an ukaku, his mother is just as fast, and they avoid the other soldiers easily. Hide is almost led to believe that they'd done it, they'd really escaped, until they dart into another alley.
It's her speed that saves them again and his mother is quick to shield them both with her koukaku as bullets fly at them unrelentingly. In the dark of their cover, he looks up at her face and sees disbelief, rage and grief couple fiercely in her black and red eyes.
"Hide," she mutters, "Listen to mommy. When I tell you to run, you run. Don't look back. Don't stay behind. Just run as far as you can and hide, okay?"
"Mom?" he whispers, voice trembling, "Where will I go? What about you? What about dad?"
"Go to your grandfather. He lives a little far from here, but I'm sure you'll be safe there. He'll keep you safe."
Tears start to blur Hide's vision, "But I can't! I don't want to leave you two behind!"
In the midst of their talk, backup comes. His mother shakes and screams in surprise when something much harder than bullets suddenly strike their shield. Hide cries out with her in fear.
She quickly wipes away the look of pain that flashes on her face, "We'll be fine. We're strong Hide. Mama and Papa can take this," she comforts. Her expression suddenly grows hard, "But if you were hurt, we wouldn't be able to take it, so please run away, for both of our sakes."
She looks down at him, a muted smile on her lips like a sun eclipsed by rainclouds. She leans down to kiss his cheek and wipe away a tear forming in his eye as she mutters a single word that he will soon grow to hate.
"Run."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
His dad finds him in the sewers, his small form pressed against the walls where he collapses after hours of running. He is shaking and sobbing, his head buried in his knees as he tries to drown out the sounds of his cries.
His dad drops to his knees in front of him and takes him into his arms, crushing him to his chest in a rare act of emotion and his quaking shoulders are enough for Hide to know.
"I'll keep you safe," his father brokenly mumbles against his head, "I'll protect you forever."
Hide says nothing, but the flow of his tears starts to thin. He clutches the shirt in his hands tighter and nods.
They mourn together in each other's embrace.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Hide never meets that grandfather. Instead, he and his father pack up and move to the heart of Japan, where his father contacts a few of his friends to help them create a new identity.
He is hesitant to go to school, still stricken with the fear that they'll find them. Dreams of men in white who'll come crashing through their door wrapped in fire and smoke, because their acting wasn't good enough.
He is afraid, and so terribly lonely.
This is the time when his father takes him to a cheap convenience store and drags him to the beauty supplies area. He points at a shelf lined with boxes of hair dye and dryly asks Hide to pick.
"For our safety," his father says, already picking out a deep black color common in Japan. Hide guesses it's a good pick if they wanted to blend in.
Suddenly, he spots it. 'Gold' the box says; the model's hair dyed in a beautiful bright color he remembers seeing only years ago.
"...In the flower world, sunflowers are the happiest flowers. No matter where they grow, they will always find the sun. And in turn, they bring its warmth and radiance as a gift to others."
His dad is mildly surprised when he picks it. Hide sees his brows furrow and knows he is debating the pros and cons of choosing such an eye-catching shade, so Hide speaks up.
"It's easier to miss what is in front of your eyes, than what is obviously trying to hide." he says. It's not very eloquent since he's almost forgotten the quote, but his father clearly understands.
He ruffles Hide's hair and takes the box, "Well said, son."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Those are the quotes Hide lives by for the next nine years of his life.
He smiles for the public, fills the hole in his heart with their laughter and his father's love even if his mother has permanently taken a part of it with her. He acts until his smile is no longer a mask, and the warmth that he persists in giving to others begins to reflect and shine back on himself.
More than ever, people see him as the 'sun', a constant ray of light that brightened the day and energized the people around him.
His father begins to smile more in his presence. Without mom, they are all they have left, so they cherish each other more than ever. He finds a new job that doesn't ask too many questions, and comes home every night tired but satisfied.
He's slowly rising in the ranks, he tells Hide every night when they have dinner together. Soon, they won't have to worry about money anymore.
School is great, he tells him back. His teachers and classmates adore him, even if he gets a little rowdy and mischievous at times.
Nobody suspects, they say quietly to themselves and to each other.
And most of all, food still isn't a scarcity.
For a couple of ghouls, Hide thinks he and his father are pretty damn lucky. Back in their old place, they lived near a forest where many people came to commit suicide. It was rather secluded, so not many people knew about it, and it made feeding so much easier.
Here, they found that and more. Something he and his family had lacked before.
Allies.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When he is 19 years old, Kaneki goes on his first date.
Rize was perfect. She was gorgeous and intelligent and she matched him so perfectly that Kaneki was convinced it was fate they had met.
He should've known better than to think his life would be anything but a tragedy.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When Kaneki comes to, there's a tray of food sitting next to him. It's still fairly warm and his stomach is grumbling for nourishment after days of spitting out his meals.
He mutters a small prayer that this one will finally stay down as he takes a bite.
It tastes like gasoline and rotten cheese.
Kaneki spits it out, too shy to ask for another dish but too repulsed to finish the one in front of him. Kaneki grabs his growling stomach and shudders because something isn't right. He knows the joke about hospital food and how eating it probably just made you sicker, but none of the food he's been given have even come close to tasting how they should. They weren't even bland or dry, they just tasted wrong.
'One other way to spot a ghoul is their reaction to human food. A ghoul's sense of taste is wired differently from a human's and they will find our food tastes absolutely disgusting.'
'No,' Kaneki shakes his head, 'That's not possible. It's probably just a side-effect of the operation, right?'
The door opens and his nurse walks in, her smile a stark contrast against his mood.
"Good morning, Kaneki-san! How are you feeling? Did you get a good night's sleep?" she asks immediately, coming over to check his vitals and see if he'd taken his medicine. She frowns when she sees the untouched rice and near-whole fish still sitting on his tray, "Not eating again? And I worked so hard to make that too," she pouts.
"I'm sorry," Kaneki says, bowing his head, "I'm very grateful for all your help Nakano-san, but I suppose I still don't have any appetite."
"Are you sure? You've barely eaten these past 3 days. You're still a growing boy, Ken-kun! There's no way you aren't hungry."
"Ah, well," he stutters.
Nakano sighs, "Look, if it's something about my food, just say so. I won't get mad, promise!"
"I," he gulped. How do you even tell someone their food didn't even taste like it should be food?!
Nakano huffed and picked up the chopsticks by his tray, quickly snatching a piece of the fish to pop into her mouth. Kaneki gaped, his hand still raised in mid-air to try and stop her but it quickly dropped when she made a sound of delight.
"Mmm~! This tastes pretty good, if I do say so myself. So what's your excuse now, Ken-kun?" She winked and giggled but Kaneki only kept staring because 'How?' There wasn't the slightest hint of disgust on her face at all!
"Yo Chiaki! You're needed in Room 305!" another nurse pokes her head in the room, wildly gesturing at Nakano.
Nakano sighs, "Sorry, I have to take that. Just stay here and rest up, ok?" She smiles and picks up the tray, turning to walk out of the room but not before calling back "And eat something, for goodness' sake!" at Kaneki.
Though still frazzled by the events, he manages a weak grin, nodding his head and waving back, "I'll try."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
He tries really hard.
A rice cake.
Glue and paper.
A burger.
Stale bread and soil.
Chocolate..
"CRAP!" He slams a hand against his mouth and runs to the bathroom, proceeding to expel the contents of his stomach into the toilet. Kaneki grips the edge of the toilet and wheezes, cold sweat dripping down his face as reality slowly starts to set in.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Kaneki knows he's fucked up.
He shouldn't have left his apartment while his stomach was still growling. He shouldn't have blatantly tempted himself by weaving between the crowds, drowning in their scents and furiously salivating. If he hadn't pushed himself to starvation so soon, he wouldn't have followed that enticing scent, wouldn't have seen the shit he was never meant to see.
He presses himself closer to the wall when his attacker growls.
The ghoul in front of him is terrifying, like a creature who never once saw the light of day. It is hauntingly pale, accenting the dark red streaks of blood that colors its mouth, hands, and torso. And its eyes.
Its eyes burn that same shade of black and red that traitorously matches his right.
"Fucking anomaly," it snarls, "What kind of ghoul only has one eye? You're even more of a freak than I am!" It cackles loudly, throwing its head back.
Kaneki sucks in a breath at the ugly sound and huddles even further to himself.
"Coward," it sings, "You're such a coward. Did you run here thinking you'd get a free meal? Well tough luck! I worked hard to hunt this human down!"
"N-no," Kaneki stutters out. Tears are starting to run down his face as he panics, "No! I didn't mean it! I'm sorry! I'll leave you alone! I promise! Just let me go!"
His pleads only seem to amuse the ghoul and it cackles even louder, "Pathetic! You don't deserve to live you little rat. Scum like you is only good for one thing!"
'What?' Kaneki trembles. The ghoul is grinning and baring its teeth and for a split second, Kaneki thinks he knows what it means to do.
"I heard cannibalism made ghouls stronger. Never had a chance to try it out before but you'll do juuuuust fiiine~" The ghoul sings and Kaneki shudders and closes his eyes, resigned to the thought that he would not escape death for a second time.
Suddenly, a new voice speaks up.
"Well I can't really vouch for that either but I never really thought it was worth a try, don't you agree?"
"What the-?!"
What seemed like the sound of a million crystal bullets filled the air the moment the newcomer had finished speaking. Kaneki gasps but doesn't dare open his eyes when the sound of metal against metal follows it shortly. He could hear his attacker snarl and scream curses but the newcomer was silent save for a few amused giggling here and there.
Finally, the newcomer spoke.
"I'm tired of this. Go to sleep already, yeah?"
Kaneki hears his attacker grunt then feels the ground shake after a thud. He hesitantly opens his eyes.
His attacker laid unconscious on the ground, bloodied but obviously still alive. Meanwhile, he draws his gaze up the newcomer standing beside it and sucks in a breath when he sees it is also a ghoul.
The ghoul is...well, it's definitely different from the one that attacked Kaneki. He already knows how they could easily pass as a human, but the one in front of him is peculiar in the way he is dressed. The ghoul wears such bright and loud colors that it doesn't seem right to find it crawling around in this dark alley, especially with the small white shopping bag it picks up off the ground.
But even so, it is still a ghoul so Kaneki shakily crawls back the moment it advances towards him.
The ghoul stops when he does so and tilts it head at him, blinking slowly as if trying to process what it should do with Kaneki. He crawls back again, shivering as the full weight of its stare lands on him- all black sclera and sharp red irises. He wants to run but no matter how much he wills his legs to move, they are locked in place with fright.
He shivers when the ghoul slowly begins to walk to him again, and surprisingly, it stops. It looks confused (and hurt?) when he does, but then understanding begins to fill its eyes.
In a flash, the ghoul turns its kakugan off. It looks back at Kaneki with warm, brown eyes and smiles at him so brightly that Kaneki is startled when his heart abruptly skips a beat.
"Hello, nice to meet you! My name is Nagachika Hideyoshi, but you can call me Hide. What's yours?"