My first foray into Tokyo Ghoul. This will probably be a short story.
Please be warned that this is one of the darker things I've written. Suicide is a recurring theme, and elements typical of the Tokyo Ghoul canon (cannabilistic thoughts, violence, etc) also turn up from time to time. Do not proceed unless you feel you are comfortable reading this sort of thing. It's also not going to be very fluffy.
I make it sound awful, but really this is a love story, or at least what tends to happen when I set out to write one.
"There are some people whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of even more terrible shapes."
-Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human
Ken Kaneki thinks it probably isn't fair, but he's started trying to figure people out by what they read.
Anteiku sees mostly quiet types and literati like himself, ghouls looking for a reprieve from their blood-filled, frantic lives, and humans looking for nothing more than a peaceful atmosphere. More often than not, customers bring a book or a magazine and spend half an hour reading while they sip at their coffee. Ken thinks of himself when he sees the humans and their obliviously content faces, unaware that they are sitting within arm's reach of someone who could tear them limb from limb or reduce them to nothing but a red stain on the pavement.
Not that they would. Anteiku is a place of peace and nurturing where all are welcome. Fear—to live another day, to stave off starvation without inciting the wrath of the dominant ghoul in the territory—has no place here.
Ken finds his eyes wandering to the books clutched in the hands of new customers, acquainting himself in their taste in reading material before he even memorizes their name. Most would assume that it's simply in his nature as a student of literature to form impressions based on what people read or at least carry with them, and that's part of the truth. The other part is that he's just trying to be careful, because as it turns out, he really can tell a lot about a person depending on what they bring with them to pass the time.
He sees the classics most often. Murasaki Shikibu's name comes through the door frequently, in the smooth and slender fingers of youth as well as the calloused and spotted hands of the elderly. Some are quite matter-of-fact and taciturn, while others seem to be stuck in a perpetual reverie, thoughts flowing like careless calligraphy, beautiful and incomprehensible. They are linked by their vitality, a desire to both know and understand, and Ken finds that they make for the best conversational partners as well as the best listeners.
Now and then, he spots someone reading Yumeno Kyuusaku. They are difficult to talk to, always immersed in their psychedelic nightmares, their surrealistic landscapes, their gothic tragedies. They are well-spoken when they choose to speak and confident in their own abilities, and though they are not the type to give an enthusiastic greeting, their small smiles and the slight tip of a head holds just as much emotion.
Readers of Sen Takatsuki come in two stripes. They are gentle and cautious, pleasant and trusting, broken and yet eager to keep living. But they can also be capricious, patient, two-faced, and voracious.
He still isn't sure how to tell the difference on first glance.
The bells above the door jingle and Ken looks up. The newcomer is not a regular, he's certain; this is the first time he's seen her. She's wearing a high school uniform with a navy blue blazer and plaid skirt, and her hair is tied in braids. Ken looks at her face just long enough to notice that she's wearing glasses and he smiles in a welcoming manner. She returns it timidly and goes to sit at a table by herself towards the back, away from the window.
"Welcome to Anteiku," he says as he comes over, setting a napkin down on the table, "Can I get you anything?"
He looks down and finds Mori's The Wild Geese resting in her hands. The first conclusion he draws is that it's assigned reading from school, but he notices folded corners and scribbles when she opens it, highlights and hearts drawn in the margins, worn binding and pages sticking out at odd angles. It's a beloved text, perhaps one she's read many times before. He can't help but smile a little wider.
"Ah, could I have some coffee?" she asks, "Any kind is fine. I've never tried it before."
"Any kind?" he repeats.
She meets his eyes with hesitation. "Surprise me," she says with the slightest smile.
Ken's heart beats a little faster. "Coming right up," he tells her, and goes straight to work.
The Wild Geese has never been his favorite work, but he doesn't particularly dislike it. In his experience, most people who enjoy it are fonder of literature in the transition between old and new, stories of Westernization, the Meiji era, and impossible love.
The rest, he has found, simply relate to it.
He turns to glance at the stranger from across the café, and though he tries not to read too much into the expressions of a person whom he knows little to nothing about, he pays attention to the way she sits, legs pressed together and face buried in the lonely life of the usurer's mistress, taking up as little space as possible and throwing herself into a tragedy.
He thinks he knows which type she is.
"I thought you might like something sweet," he says when he returns and sets the cup down in front of her.
She thanks him, sliding a pen between the pages before she sets the book aside, and takes a tentative sip. Her eyes light up. "It's good," she says, as though surprised, "What's in it?"
"A bit of caramel."
"Thank you," she says, looking up at him with much more gratitude than he thinks coffee deserves, no matter how good.
She doesn't open the book immediately, choosing instead to blow the steam off of the top of the cup and continue drinking as she stares into space. Ken glances around briefly; she's one of two customers, and the other is still flipping through a magazine with a half-empty cup of tea. He decides he can linger a moment longer.
"I couldn't help but notice what you were reading," he says.
The girl glances not at him but at the back cover that's facing up, her gaze full of fondness. "Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but I really like it," she tells him, "It's one I keep coming back to. I'm in the middle of Norwegian Wood right now, but I just had to read it again."
"You must really love it if you stopped halfway through Murakami for it."
Her smile finally reaches her eyes.
"Ken Kaneki," he introduces himself, "My favorite novelist is Sen Takatsuki."
"Eika Ishihara." Her fingers idly stroke the spine of her book. "I like Mori, but my favorite is actually Osamu Dazai."
The words hardly register. Ken is leaning against the table a bit, in his element once again for what feels like the first time in forever, and Eika seems like the kind of girl he would have dated if he'd had the chance. He feels guilty for being attracted to her, for trying to make this into something it can't ever be, but at the same time, he's craving this kind of interaction, something intellectual and gentle and maybe even a little flirtatious, something that isn't stained so deeply with blood that it'll never be clean again.
If his coworkers notice him sitting down with a customer, they don't say anything.
"I read The Setting Sun just recently," Ken says, "It was one of those works where I really needed to take a minute after I read it to just think about it."
"Exactly," Eika nods, "There aren't many tragedies that can compare to Dazai's. Kazuko goes through so much, but she chooses to continue to struggle rather than die. It's admirable." She laughs. "And ironic, in a twisted way."
"Honestly, I'm surprised you mentioned Dazai. His reading is rather heavy, though I suppose I read him for the first time in high school, too."
"Oh, you're not a high school student?" Eika asks curiously, "I just assumed, I guess. I thought we were the same age."
"I only graduated last year," Ken explains, "I'm at Kamii now."
She blinks in surprise. "Kamii? That's really impressive. I hear the literature department there is excellent."
"It is." They haven't been talking for quite half an hour yet, but already Ken is starting to notice little things, like the way she tenses her shoulders and plays with the ends of her long sleeves when she gets nervous, how the tips of her ears blush and her glasses slide down her nose whenever she turns her head.
He's playing at something dangerous. Eika doesn't know what he is, what he's capable of; if she did, she wouldn't be in the café anymore. But he knows she's shy, knows she's a little bit like him, reads some of the same books, likes some of the same things, and that she must be at least a little bit attracted to him if the way she steals glances at him when she thinks he isn't paying attention are any indication.
What they're doing is harmless. They're both still young; Eika might walk out of here and find someone else, and he might do the same. He doesn't see any reason he shouldn't enjoy something this innocent while it lasts.
Eika's coffee is long gone and the sun is setting by the time she decides to leave. Ken deflects her apologies for keeping him, "accidentally" brushes hands with her when he stands up, and holds the door for her. "I'll probably be back tomorrow," she says without looking directly at him, more of a mumble, but Ken catches it all the same and gives her a reassuring smile.
"I'll be here," he says.
Eika's secretive smile vanishes as the door shuts behind her, but Ken remembers it hours later, long after Nishiki has mocked him for it and Touka has told him that sitting and running his mouth doesn't count as working, into the wee hours of the morning where he finds he can't sleep because he's still thinking about Eika Ishihara and what she symbolizes.
She is everything that was taken from him and everything that he will never have again—innocent, oblivious, human.
If anything begins between them, he knows it'll be doomed to failure from the beginning. But it doesn't stop him from wanting.
For those still on board, please strap in. I'd hate for you to fall off of the emotional roller-coaster you just got on.