Chapter I: Breed

The young woman stretched her arms across the desk with a cheerful humming. It had been a good day, locked up in her office working on the files that were due next morning, not interacting with even one human being. A perfect day. She tapped her fingers on the hard cover of a book. She even had time to read. She looked at the title unable to read it, but thankfully the English translation of it was just below in yellow, a tad smaller as to not outshine the original. It was a borrowed book from an employee in this facility. A very sweet boy and possibly the nicest employee from the entire CCG. Well, they're not really renowned for being friendly. She could count at least 10 people among the persons she interacted on a day-to-day basis that were suffering of a form of depression inside the large cage that the main building of the CCG was. Whether the people liked their jobs here or not, it still remained a cage and anyone who was lying himself that they enjoyed their time inside the dull offices upstairs, was both delusional and a fool.

She looked around her office feeling the irony of the earlier statement. The clock on the wall said it was 7 p.m. and an hour before her work day was over. Now, what was it that she was supposed to do before leaving? She's been ticked off all day by a feeling that she was forgetting something, so she waited patiently for her mind to work out what she had to do. Starting chewing on her pencil, she gazed into distance focusing on nothing is particular. Well, there weren't many things to focus since her window faced CCG's splendid backyard of burnt grass and dead leaves. They really ought to take care of those patches, they look so unkept it rivals a graveyard.

She would have missed the sound of footsteps if the person wasn't practically marching across the hallway in long and heavy strides. She wanted to miss it because she hated the sound of loud taping of the steps as if he was trying to go through the floor. However, the knock and gentle opening of the door was indeed welcoming. And unexpected. The person entered swiftly and his dark eyes searched around the office and finally settle on her form by the window.

"Good evening, rank I investigator Haise Sasaki said I should come?"

That was a question?

"Ah, yes. I told Haise to inform his squad about it. Kuki Urie, right? Please take a sit."

Urie's eyes narrow at the familiarity of "Sasaki" coming from the young counselor. She didn't miss it. Her mouth turned into a bright smile and walked over to her desk, searching through her papers. This office was different from the other ones, simply because it had a couch planted just by the window and different plants scattered on the floor. The young investigator could see books on the shelves and although he deemed his English to be decent enough some of the titles made no sense to him. And he could spot tea bags in the corner of her desk. Chamomile Tea Bags.

"Here you go." she turned to him – he really had to sit on the only broken chair in the room? "These are some standard questions for a routine psychological test. I'll need your answers on this separate sheet of paper. There will be other tests later on, which I will add to your file. But that's something for later, right now I have to write a report. Hasn't Haise informed you about it? I've been expecting you last week."

"He must have forgotten." he answered taking the papers and was surprised when the psychologist handed him a pen. Wasn't he supposed to take them home and hand them in another day? This will take a while.

She knew he was lying, Haise was very diligent when it came to informing his team about everything, especially appointments. She also noticed his dissatisfaction with the fact that he had to fill the questions on the spot. But she needed those papers to write his report, which just like the others on and around her desk, were due until tomorrow. Which meant no procrastination for her that evening, disrupting the theme of the day.

"I'm sorry you have to answer them on the spot, but the reports are needed by tomorrow." her face was still a display of benevolence although her voice was giving away mild annoyance.

"Wouldn't it be faster if you personally addressed the question?" Urie asked not seeing the point of wasting time writing the answers to some standard questions. She sneaked a glance to his paper and saw that he was already done with five or so and all he had to write was his name, gander and occupation etc. She seemed to ponder what he said for a minute or so before answering his question.

"I could if that's what you prefer." the young woman took another page and he noted that one was in English whereas his papers were written in kanji. "Where are you?"

"25."

Oh.

It was the wrong page. It didn't take long to search for the next page, but the boy sent her an annoyed look. She hummed joyously and stopped. Ah, so he reached that section.

"Do you masturbate? If your answer is yes, then please specify how many times per day."

Silence followed. That wasn't question 25. She looked up from the page to the ghoul investigator who seemed to have frozen in place. No, it was an actual question of the test, but it was 32-33 or something? If she didn't see his chest rise and fall she could have believed he transformed into a wax statue. Also, his eyes seemed fixed on the kanji re-reading the question over and over.

"It's just a standard question. A medical one if you want, the whole section is about sex. It correlates with anxiety and the stage of development. It starts with some basic ones, which pardon, but you can answer them in a flash by yourself." she started explaining which didn't seem to help Urie. Oh, boy.

"I'll let you finish the rest of the questions then."

She put the page at random on the desk and took two tea bags out of the box. She didn't exactly lie, but knowing the tests next in line for the following weeks, that question and others alike were meant to single out psychopathological disorders. But really, these questionnaires alone were just a formality and the real work came after actually submerging the subject to other tests as well. The reports that Matsuri Washuu wanted by tomorrow were nothing but a joke, a pale examination to give her something to sink her teeth into and send a message: they aren't wasting their time, everybody works in here.

She exited her office to get some hot water from the water dispenser in the hallway. She had no clue why they hadn't provided her with one. Well, she could move this on in her office and piss on their rules, but no. She knew how important rules were for the CCG.

It took her more than it should to pour the water and put the tea bags in, but she wasn't rushing. Actually, she was prolonging her actions as much as she could and it must have looked fun from the outside. Like she was moving in slow motion. She knew Kuki Urie wouldn't appreciate if she returned too soon. But then again, she had a feeling that taking too long would make the young investigator uneasy just as much. She had read his file. She had read all of their files. The Quinx Squad. She snorted. If she didn't know better, investigators with build in quiques – kagune transplant, if they asked her – was CCG's try-hard attempt to make people see how similar humans and ghouls really are. Sasaki Haise was a proof of that. Yet again, in some's opinion he was exactly the opposite.

The door clicked a little louder every time someone entered or exited her office, most likely because of rust. She had to speak with the maintenance team about it. Urie didn't seem to mind it, though he peered at her with his sharp eyes attentive of her movements. He reminded her of a cat. Out of all the members of the squad, he seemed by far the grumpiest of them all. The Grumpy cat of the Quinx Squad. She sipped at her tea with the new title she invested the purple haired with.

Ah, there was another thing that set the Q's apart from your ordinary investigators. The fucking hair. If their mentor wasn't enough for you with his black and white dégradé – she was jealous of Haise Sasaki's hair the instant they've met – then, you had a bunch of other crazy hair colors to pick from the squad. It was almost like they were marked. Why have them grow their natural hair, when you could single out the Q's by some crazy hair color like turquoise or purple?

She refrained from snorting and started organizing the files on her desk. it had been a pain in the ass to read through all their files and now it was even more of a pain to make a psychological report about every each one of them. And if the initial directive was for a light evaluation, now they were requesting in-depth clinical testing and possible therapy. Because that's what's going to make you function properly after you get a ghoul's kagune implanted in your body and are sent to kill creatures that feast on human flesh in laborious displays of corpses and gory scenes. That's a sure ticket for a life time of therapy not only for this squad in particular but for the entire CCG. But of course, such details were not important for the head of the organization, there were other pressing things like killing ghouls and getting killed by them, going down the trauma thread for the person and the ones linked to the said individual spreading like a disease.

Her attention shifted back to the investigator in her office. He sure took his time with the questionnaire. She looked at the clock. Tsk. It was getting late, but she had no choice and waited patiently. She hoped she didn't miss anything substantial.

"Oh, do you want some tea?" she put her now empty cup on a reasonably empty corner of her desk.

"No, thank you."

His response was almost automatic with no real politeness behind the words. Like a robot. She hummed in disapproval and started organizing her papers. They weren't put in a completely random mess, but they were many. Some were from the personnel – those were the easy ones to sort – the others were from the investigators, by class, by rank, by squads…the gods knew the CCG liked their classes and ranks. And a few were of the Washuu family. Three, to be more precisely, because Tsuneyoshi Wasuu wasn't just going to have all of his family tested. Of course not. She must have looked like an idiot smiling while looking into some papers.

"Um, you are the leader of the Quinx squad, right?"

Urie raised his head and narrowed his eyes. She knew perfectly well he was.

"Yes."

"Can you please fill up the basic information for Saiko…Yonebayashi?"

Urie scowled and took the papers from the ashen-haired woman. He knew that she also knew that the order of names of names in English and Japanese differed, but even after some months in Japan she refused to adapt to any of the cultural differences and a lot of people would consider her attitude to be rude. He wasn't sure if she was doing it on purpose or she was by nature quite ignorant to the people around her. He had noticed her in the past month and was aware that the CCG has filled up the vacant place of a psychologist, but he wasn't expecting someone so…young. At first glance, the young woman with hair like ash – he wasn't going to think too hard about hair colors, might have been blonde, but for him it was grey– that fell to her waist was anything but a student still not over 20, with sly green eyes that held humor while staring at him. Oh.

"By rights I should be a brunette." she commented a lopsided smile on her face. "My father was one and all of his children are. Alas, I take after my mother."

"You have siblings?" he heard himself ask while he handed her Saiko's portfolio papers and his own and did not miss her relief expression. He had pictured her as an only child though he didn't know why he would.

"No. But my father has more than one child."

He looked at her intently but could not detect any trace of sarcasm. Her statement made no sense. Another person with family issues? He decided it didn't matter. He had other things to think about and the whole 'psychological' test ordeal has taken already too much of his time. He checked the watch on the wall. Damn.

"Are you taking the subway?" she shoved the papers – not without putting them in order, gods forbid – somewhere on her now slightly cleaner desk and turned to him.

"Yes – no." he corrected himself immediately but the sly psychologist caught his intention.

"Come on investigator, are you going to let a girl walk all the way to the subway – the same direction as you – on her own, at night, just because you feel like being asocial tonight? And here I thought you were going to make it up for actually turning in your report the last in your squad."

What were the chances that something might happen to her in the 1st Ward? And it wasn't even that late. And he wasn't the last one, Yonebayashi was. Always.

She talked as she got her coat on and fumbled with the office keys and Urie couldn't do anything but glare at her. She 'shuu-ed" him out of the office and hurried when locking the door. By then Urie was already down the stairs, but not too far and looked up to see if she was following. Oh, this is fun.

They walked fast – too fast if anyone asked her, but no one did – and in perfect silence. She knew he was annoyed. Grumpy. Grumpy as a cat. The least she could do was given him the silence he liked so much. She was enjoying the light rain that was touching her face. Rain always washed away everything: traces, smells, colors and sometimes, even sounds if it was loud enough…

The walk to the subway was 15 minutes long, but by Urie's racing, they managed to make it in 5. She wondered if he also hated rain like just like cats do. Maybe Urie was part cat. He turned to her, half ready to say something, but she already began her descent to the subway and muttered a 'thank you', waving. Serves him right for being a half-asshole. Because of his marathon, she arrived at the subway as a perfect impersonation of Jane Parker in the Tower of London.

She could see the young investigator seething there for a few seconds comprehending the gesture then strolling off. She giggled shaking her head. He was far too easy to frustrate. She had to ask Haise to properly introduce her to the squad. She knew it was going to be fun.

Looking at the clock on the screens, she was surprised. She actually had to thank Urie Kuki for hurrying like that to the subway. For once she wasn't going to be late. And I might even get to catch some of the discussions. That, if the psycho didn't have other plans, because if she did, gods have mercy on her soul, because the green haired psycho won't.

Ta-da! My Tokyo Ghoul:re story. I will TRY to post new chapters every month, so I can balance my other story and school. The story might be a little CCG-centered, but not really. Also I'm sticking to the cannon ships, I love cannon ships, and add some some more afterwards. I put Ayato/Oc there, but don't expect to see that happening too soon :))) I wanted to add more ships, but I think it would spoil the surprise.