After Hide had shown her around the campus of Kamii University, Touka was flipping through one of the yearbooks on Hideyoshi's shelf, waiting for the talkative human to come back from making them both some coffee in the kitchen. In the book, she saw a candid of Kaneki, bent over a book, with the caption 'Dictionary King' written along its side. She laughed, realizing who'd signed that name in the front of Hide's yearbook. From behind her, Hide snickered quietly.
"Yeah, that was really something," Hide said. "Kaneki's the class nerd all year long, and then he's the Dictionary King for the lone non-nerdy thing he does all year. Ironic, no?"
"Wait, that wasn't for memorizing the dictionary?" Touka said, still laughing.
"Nope," Hide told her. "Though memorizing the dictionary was an in-character guess. I wouldn't put it past him."
"Well then, what was it for? Now I need to know," she said.
"Well, you know how he's the type of person who's like, 'Humanity, I can deal with your crap for ten hours and then if I don't get a little time away someone is gonna get very, very hurt'?" Hide told her as he was sitting down.
"Yep," Touka said, remembering a few instances of fury and silent treatment. "Hilariously accurate description, by the way."
"I know, right? I am awesome. So anyway, I didn't know this at the time. So me and a few other guys in class- not Kaneki, he was the straight-A's-four-quarters-straight-four-years-straight student- we had to stay and review after class, and I asked if he could stay and wait so we could walk home together. He said yeah, 'cause he's nice that way, so after review I went to find him in the school library.
"So I went to look for him, and of course I talked these other guys into coming with me, 'cause the library was big and we all knew unless he was at the door it was gonna take forever to find him. So then we all took different sections. After a little while one of us found him sitting at one of the tables in the back, reading a dictionary. So he called the rest of us over, and course I started bugging Kaneki- man, really? Who reads the dictionary for fun? And he looked at me for a few seconds, and then started flipping pages. Somebody else started chiming in with me, but only for a few seconds because Kaneki found what he was looking for. 'Course, I didn't notice until he shoved the book in my face. I fell backward a few steps, and I didn't hear the famous quote because I was too busy falling, and when I got up everybody was still slightly shocked. Then everybody snapped out of it when this guy Karasuma gave Kaneki a thumbs-up and said, 'That's suitably evil, man!' And then I'm like, 'What just happened?' And Kaneki just says- cool as anything! He wasn't fazed in the slightest-, 'It was about time somebody put your face next to the definition of pain. So I decided not to wait for it. I need to go home now, so if you want to walk home with me, it's about time to get going.'
"The next day, when he walked into the classroom, one of the guys who was there yells, 'What up Dictionary King!' And from that day to the end of high school, Kaneki Ken was the Dictionary King." Hide recounted, smiling at the memory.
"He smashed the dictionary in your face?" Touka laughed, disbelieving the story.
"So hard my face print is probably still right there, next to the definition of pain," Hide said, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Seriously?" Touka asked.
"Seriously," said Hide.
"Do you have any other funny stories about high school?" Touka asked.
"Not about Kaneki doing anything. He was smarter than I was, and he caught on quicker than me that thinking brilliant ideas through is a good plan. The only time he really got yelled at in high school was when the librarian was pissed because me hitting a bookshelf isn't exactly quiet, even if the books didn't all fall down because they were too heavy to move. But," Hide smirked, "I once taped Kaneki's shoe to the auditorium ceiling, and it was hilarious because nobody could get it down until the next day when I pitied him and decided to bring it down so he wouldn't have to wear the pair I dyed puce until his aunt got him new ones."
"How'd you get it up there?" Touka asked.
"That is a secret. Any other questions?" Hide said.
"Yes. What's puce, and how did Kaneki's shoes get dyed puce?" Touka asked.
"Imagine the ugliest imaginable shade of grayish-greenish-orangish, and you have puce," Hide said. "Of course, when you actually see it it's a thousand times worse. But that pair of shoes was originally really ugly orange. One night, I invited him over to my place for a sleepover, and my mom had some blue dye. We thought we could make the shoes blue. It never occurred to us to imagine what happens when you mix light blue and neon orange. So they came out puce and we got yelled at," he laughed.
"That sounds disgusting. I need to add 'tape my best friend's shoe to the auditorium ceiling during high school' to my bucket list," Touka said.
"Yes, that should be on your bucket list. It's difficult, but take it from someone experienced- it's worth it. It is worth it!" Hide grinned.
Author's Note
First fully canon TG story I've written... and it came out humor. I need to rethink my life. Ah well, if everybody likes this I might do a sequel in which Touka tapes Yoriko's shoe to the auditorium ceiling.
All I ask of you readers is to tell me what you think in the reviews.
Oh, quick little fact- puce is a real color.
Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul. I do not own any characters of Tokyo Ghoul.