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Okay, yeah, so maybe he shouldn't have hit the officer guy when he accidentally bumped into him that morning. Maybe he shouldn't have hacked that one ghoul up into itty-bitty pieces like clean cut glass shattered on the floor. Maybe he should stop picking at his lip so much.
There are a lot of things he probably should and shouldn't do, but see, he couldn't really be bothered with all of them when there were so many much more important things to be doing. Like—
Meetings. Meetings were kind of important and not very fun or exciting or important to him, but they were important to Mr. Shinohara, so they were sort of almost by default, important to him.
And food- food was always important, and always a really nice thing to get, especially after a long long day or early in the morning and he didn't really used to eat very much- it's kind of hard to eat when you can't get out of a room with no food, no food and no water and a whole lotta dark. So it's nice, really nice when he gets to go out to eat like a real-life fancy officer person- who never wears suits because big comfy shirts suit him just fine, thank you.
And his job. His job was very important, probably the most important thing in his life, now and maybe ever, and it was important in the sense that he enjoyed it- he enjoyed it and he was also helping the people a little, probably. Ghouls were bad and stuff, bad and that's why it was his job to find them and chop them into itty-bitty pieces, right? Maybe not as small as glass but at least as small as the books in the library- and you had to make sure to get all of it because some of them could regrow their limbs like lizards do with their tails. Maybe not into library book sized pieces either, maybe just make sure they're dead, because itty-bitty pieces get you weird looks- but a lot of the time he forgets about that, forgets about why he should care about that when he really shouldn't and there's his very own quinque in his hands and he can slice and dice and swing all he wants, so maybe itty bitty pieces aren't so bad.
And Mr. Shinohara. Another very important thing in his life- very important person in his life- one of the most important people in his life (which probably honestly doesn't say much, because most of the people he knows are fellow employees at the CCG that he can remember the faces of but not always the names, and sometimes it's the other way around; he remembers most of their weapons just fine if he gets to see them, because that's something he knows about; voices are different things entirely and they mix together sometimes like crowds waiting in the dark and other times they're loud and individually clear, he can hear Mama's voice ringing clear as day sometimes- Mr. Shinohara's voice is low and steady and very soothing when he wants it to be and very scary when he's fighting). He takes him out sometimes to those fancy places and lets him not wear a suit to work. He got him into the CCG in the first place, got him registered to fight and lets him slice and dice and doesn't really say anything when he sees itty-bitty pieces of ghoul glass on the floor when he comes to pick him up from a job. He doesn't say anything when a pale arm that was bare before is suddenly ridden with red stringed stitches twisting and curling around it- stitching himself together, tiny little stitches on his lips and his clothes and up and down his arms and legs and hands and below his eyes to make sure he doesn't cry- how can he when there's no hole to cry from?- even though he hasn't in years and doesn't remember the last time he did and doesn't really care about it anyways. Stitching himself and his mind together with pretty red sting and Mr. Shinohara doesn't ask him what he's doing anymore, stopped after the second or third time, maybe just watches him for a little bit and looks sternly at anyone who questions why a kid is here, feet up on the desk and stitching up his pinky finger (though he's not really a kidanymore, right?).
Yeah, many much more important things to be doing than worrying about what he should and shouldn't do in the eyes of common regulations.
Many much more important things to be doing- fighting for his life, maybe, swinging and jumping with everything he's got and this is the most fun he's had maybe ever. Him against the Owl, something he's been looking forward to for a very long time, ever since he heard the story and caught a glimpse of it; he wants to feel it fall under his hands, wants to watch his work take its toll and feel the gratification of it- the adrenaline rushing through him is all he can focus on, never mind the cold or the whole life-or-death thing. Except that this time, he's not really winning. He's being flung around just as much as he's trying to do the flinging, feeling his bones straining against themselves when he crashes into the hard cold cement again, but if there's anything he's good at, it's pushing his body to the brink of collapse- he's pretty damn good at it- and all these stitches aren't for nothing; they'll hold him together so he can keep fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting if he wants to.
And it doesn't really matter if he dies or not because this is fun- but Mr. Shinohara, he remembers vaguely, Mr. Shinohara said he'd be sad if he died, so maybe he'll try to stay alive a little bit. The man's been really reallynice to him; he doesn't really want to make him sad.
But it's not him that does the dying, in the end. He can't stand up because there are limbs missing- but even that's all right, he can't feel them anyways when a few feet away there's a very not alive looking Mr. Shinohara. Red and not moving. Red like the itty-bitty stitches all over his body and maybe he should've stitched Mr. Shinohara up too, maybe then he wouldn't have tried to help and maybe then he'd be patting him on the back instead of lying cold in the cold snow— lying and lying and lying there and he's not getting up even when he calls his name again and again and again and—
And death isn't a big deal. It happens all time. It doesn't affect him very much. Not usually.
But he's lying and lying and lying there. And he's lying and lying and lying in a hospital bed- sleeping, just sleeping. Still not moving but still breathing and he stumbles out of the little chair with wheels he has to use to move around with now to tell him to sleep well, to tell him goodnight and kiss his forehead like he's seen people do to people they care about.
There are many much more important things to be doing than worrying about what he should and shouldn't be doing, and picking at his lip and saying goodnight and drawing at the zoo and balancing on the edge of buildings like a bird getting ready to fly and smiling and smiling wide as he turns ghouls into pieces of glass are probably some of them.
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