Author's Note: This fic is a product of the "Tokyo Ghoul Reverse Bang" where the authors create a story inspired by work from an artist. My partner, Reden (kreddie on tumblr), is incredibly talented and you should check out his amazing art to this fic on the BigBang main site. GUys, it's beautiful.

Also, massive thanks to Skie and the other Mods of the BB event. I really appreciate all of your help and your support (even though I never actually got a beta draft to you :'))

Info about this Story: This is an AU where Kaneki and Hide first meet at a park. Kaneki is a few years older than Hide, roughly 13 and 10 at the beginning. (Also, no ghouls, I guess?)

There are no strangers at his mother's funeral.

No one approaches him with exclamations of how much he's grown or offers fond memories of shared school days. He recognizes the few in attendance: his aunt, his cousin, and the elderly neighbor who used to watch him when his mother was away.

Surely, he believes, there must have been others who cared for his mother. After all, he has fond memories of flipping through her old school book long after she had fallen asleep, marveling at how young she looked when surrounded by friends instead of artificial flowers. However, no one else joins the mourners and Kaneki bitterly wonders how all those smiling faces could have abandoned his mother.

He stares down at his hands when he can no longer look at the empty room or his mother's photograph. The sleeves of his suit swallow his wrists and skim the edges of his knuckles. It's a painful reminder of how small he truly is.

A child, he muses.

He glances at the bouquet of white chrysanthemums and his frown deepens. He hates them and how much they remind him of the flowers that stole his mother's life. He had tried to argue with his aunt, insisting that anything would have been better than those, but she dismissed him with a wave of the hand while flipping through the sparse collection of condolence envelopes.

White chrysanthemums are the cheapest option, she had said. What would a child know about real world expenses anyway?

Kaneki swallows as the priest drones on. He speaks of his mother's kindness and her generosity, but as Kaneki listens closer he realizes the words are intentionally vague, sterilized of any personal touch.

He hates the priest's voice too. It fluctuates between a nasally whine and a dull monotone, turning his mother's short life into a chore rather than a celebration.

His aunt hired the priest for his low fees and flexible schedule. Kaneki wanted to replace him within seconds of meeting him, but no one asked for the opinions of a child.

A child, he repeats.

Someone with no choice.

He doesn't have a choice when they force him to move in with his aunt and abhorrent cousin, when they force him to leave behind the only home he ever knew.

Kaneki tries to tell the woman reviewing his case that he can live on his own. He's had experience making food and cleaning the house and digging bills out from piles of scraps, he explains. The lady smiles and shakes her head, looking through him as she writes down his next of kin.

No one listens to him then either.

His first week is quiet, but it reminds him of the calm before the storm. He can see the looming clouds in his aunt's eyes when an extra bowl must be set out for each meal or when the first letter about school fees arrives.

Each evening, Kaneki retreats to his small room—a repurposed closet, barely large enough for his futon to fit sideways—and studies the words he's scrawled on the page hours after his mother's funeral. Several characters are smudged by dried tears, but he knows the words by heart now.

Become an adult. Focus on the future. Avoid distractions.

It's more of a mantra than a plan, but Kaneki knows if he follows these words religiously, then there's a chance he might just make it. He won't be a child without a choice; he won't be looked through again.

As soon as he's grown, he'll finally be free, even if that means he'll be alone.

(When he remembers the empty room at his mother's funeral, he realizes he doesn't have much use for "friends" and their empty promises anyway.)

Kaneki's dreamless sleep is interrupted by a wet sniffle that seems to come from directly above him. His brow twitches and his heavy eyelids resist before he finally pries them open.

Bright brown eyes flood his immediate field of vision and Kaneki forces himself to stay still instead of jerking upright. His sluggish brain realizes that the eyes belong to a round face, a boy who hovers over Kaneki and blinks expectantly.

When he sees that Kaneki's awake, the boy shifts backwards into a crouch, brushing a dribble of snot away with the back of a sleeve. Kaneki's still trying to figure out what's going on, so his sleep addled brain fixates on the mucus, noting how close it came to dripping on him.

Gross…

"Who are you?" the boy asks.

Kaneki's eyes remained trained on the rubbed, raw skin at the base of the boy's nose. "Uh, Kaneki."

"My name is Hide. My full name is really long, so just call me Hide. Everyone does."

Kaneki blinks the last of the fog away and pulls himself up into a sitting position. Mulch splinters bite into his jacket and backside, but he ignores them as he draws his knees to his chest. His book slips out of his lap and tumbles to the ground. Hide's eyes dart towards it.

"Was it really that boring?"

"Huh?"

"Your book." Hide tilts his head, eyes rolling up slightly as he considers his next words. "You were only reading for a little bit when you fell asleep."

Despite the warm spring afternoon, it's cool in the shadow of the giant whale tail. It's one of his favorite places to hide when he doesn't want to return to his aunt's apartment. He's rarely disturbed here, the younger kids preferring to spend their time in the sunlit center of the park.

Though, apparently, he can't hide from everyone.

"You were watching me?" The corner of Kaneki's mouth twists and his eyebrows drop. That's kind of creepy.

Hide nods enthusiastically. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to play, but then I saw you were sleeping, so I wasn't gonna bother you. But, uhh, then I got bored of waiting."

He wanted to play with me? How old is this kid? He looks like a grade schooler.

"I wasn't sleeping. I was resting my eyes," Kaneki counters, glancing away with pursed lips.

"Uh huh," Hide says, the edges of his eyes crinkling.

He's not about to stoop to this kid's level by arguing back. Kaneki scowls and reaches for his book, but Hide grabs it first, flipping through the pages with a growing concern.

"There's no pictures?"

"So? Why does there have to be pictures?"

"To make it less boring!" Hide opens to the first page and skims the first few lines. Evidently, he finds it unsatisfactory as he closes the book with a shake of his head. "No wonder you fell asleep!"

"I didn't fall asleep!" Kaneki insists through his teeth, reaching out and taking his book back from Hide. He considers this nuisance for a few seconds before climbing to his feet. Jitters race up Kaneki's shins as the blood lethargically flows in his legs again. He tries to do his best stomp, but he can't quite feel his toes, so he ends up wobbling away from Hide. A hardly dignified retreat.

Hide trails behind, nearly bouncing in his eagerness. "So, what are we going to do now?"

"We?"

"Yeah, now that you're awake we can play, right?"

Kaneki stops and glances back at Hide. Now that they're standing, he can see that he has several centimeters on him. Hide's face is round with residual baby fat, his eyes a bit too large for his face.

"How old are you?"

"Ten, but I'll be eleven soon."

Kaneki scoffs before nodding. It makes sense. The kid is several years younger than him, no older than a fourth or fifth grader. He resumes his journey, making a beeline for the benches. The benches are more crowded than under the whale tail, filled with chatting parents and pouting children in time-out, but hopefully it'll deter Hide. He seems like the kind of kid who can't stay still for long.

"Wait, why are we going over by the benches?"

"Because I'm going to read."

"Wha? Really? But that's not as fun."

"It's fun for me," Kaneki sniffs and settles down on the first empty bench. Hide hops onto the bench as well, scooching until his hip bumps into Kaneki. Kaneki side-eyes him with a frown, but decides it'll be easier to wait him out. He cracks open his book, flipping through the pages to get back to his spot.

However, he can't quite slip back into his fictional haven. His eyes roam over the same sentence three times, but the words feel just as foreign and unreadable as if he were reading another language. He's acutely aware of Hide's radiating warmth beside him, the minute fidgeting as he swings his legs.

Kaneki sighs and closes his book. There's no point trying anymore. Hide perks up, waiting to see what Kaneki will do next now that he's given up on reading.

"Now can we—"

"I have to go," Kaneki interrupts, slipping off the bench. His side feels strangely light without the pressure of Hide leaning against him.

Hide's expression droops, his shoulders slumping. "Oh, okay. I'll see you later then?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Kaneki grabs his backpack strap and hoists the bag on his shoulder, sparing a final glance in Hide's direction as he trudges back towards his aunt's apartment.

What a weird kid.

Several days later, Kaneki pulls himself to the top of the domed jungle gym. When he was younger, he liked to pretend that he was an omniscient ruler and the dark mulch marked the boundaries of his domain. Now, he feels like an aged king who has lost touch with those around him. His once-loyal subjects—the other parkgoers, who he would bestow with ridiculous secrets and backstories—are complete strangers now.

From his lofty vantage point, he can still see every inch of the playground, from the gurgling toddlers shredding grass stalks and the babies snoozing in their strollers to the elementary school kids, shrieking and racing around playground equipment with arms and fingers outstretched.

He doesn't know any of them and they don't know him.

He assumes he won't be bothered up here, but that illusion soon shatters when vibrations at the base of the jungle gym alert him of someone else's presence. He cranes his neck, noticing that one of the younger kids has detached from their boisterous game of tag and now attempts to climb up the bars to join him.

Kaneki narrows his eyes, recognizing him as the boy from the week before.

It's what's-his-name. Kaneki can't quite remember what it was, only that the boy had said it very, very loudly.

(Though, to be fair, everything about the boy had seemed overly loud to Kaneki.)

"It's you!" the boy says, hoisting himself higher up on the jungle gym. Kaneki watches his progress with mashed lips. He's about to lose his solitude.

"What do you want?" His voice sounds flat and far harsher than usual, but the boy seems not to notice. He's too busy concentrating on climbing.

"I was looking all over for you!" he exclaims again. Since Kaneki's perched on the only sizable spot at the jungle gym's summit, the boy stops his climb when he's just below eye-level with Kaneki, wobbling ever so slightly as he strikes a precarious balance between a bar and the worn-out treads of his gym shoe soles.

"Why?"

"I thought you might have been lonely," he says with a shrug. "You were up here all by yourself."

"I wasn't lonely," Kaneki counters. "I like being alone."

"That's not very fun."

Is that all he cares about? Fun? How childish.

If the ground weren't so mucky under the jungle gym, he would have jumped off and escaped, but he doesn't want to splash into a puddle and risk his aunt's fury again. Instead, Kaneki sighs, feeling trapped and a little bit irritated as the boy steadies himself. He leans in closer, close enough that Kaneki can smell chocolate on his breath and see the leftover grimy smudges on the bars when he adjusts his grip.

Kaneki wrinkles his nose. When the boy sees what's resting in Kaneki's lap, he pulls the same face.

"Oh, you brought your book up here too?" The way he says it makes Kaneki a little defensive. He braces himself for whatever devastating insult a grade schooler could come up with.

"You're supposed to have fun when you're on the playground. This isn't school, you know," he says with such a solemn severity that Kaneki can't help but laugh.

"Reading is fun for me," he says and the boy considers this, though he doesn't look altogether convinced.

"Is it the same book you were reading yesterday? The one that made you fall asleep?" The boy still seems suspicious, periodically glancing down at the book in Kaneki's lap. His lower lip juts out and the expression reminds Kaneki of a pouting toddler.

Kaneki puckers his own lips, imitating his teacher when she disciplines a troublesome classmate. "I was trying to read until I was interrupted." He makes a dramatic show of opening his book, but a gust of wind catches his bookmark and sends it skittering off the page. It flutters in the air, coyly sailing away from Kaneki's grasp when he lunges for it.

"Wait! I got it!" the boy shouts, licking his lips and leaning back as he reaches towards it.

"It's not a big dea—hey, watch your feet!" Kaneki shouts as the boy's center of gravity shifts and his shoes lose their grip on the bars. Kaneki watches it unfold like a scene in slow motion. For a second, the boy's outstretched hand is almost close enough to grab—if only he wasn't afraid of falling himself—before he tips backwards and out of Kaneki's reach

He tumbles off the jungle gym, landing in a crumpled heap at the base. Kaneki sucks in a sharp breath and reflexively glances around, scouring the playground for any watchful adults. However, no one comes to their aid, too preoccupied with their cooing babies and babbling toddlers.

The boy still hasn't moved and Kaneki unexpectedly finds himself buffeted by air in the split second after he leaps off the top of the jungle gym. His knees and calves jitter from the jarring impact and he's pretty sure his book splashed in a nearby puddle, but he ignores all of that and hurries to the boy's side.

He swallows and reaches for the boy's motionless shoulder, shaking it in the same gentle way he used to when his mother would pass out at the table.

Please don't be dead… Please don't be dead…

(If the kid is dead, he wonders if they'll send him to prison. How can he explain it was just an accide—)

Kaneki hears a weak snuffling and the boy finally sits up with a scrunched-up brow and mashed lips. His eyes are red and glassy and he rubs at the dribble of clear snot leaking from his nose, but he's alive. Kaneki exhales, scanning over him for any sign of serious injury. Blood trickles down from a split near his left eyebrow and his hair and clothes are dusted with mulch, but he seems to be in one piece.

"Are you okay, uhh…?" He's again reminded that he doesn't remember the boy's name and now seems like a poor moment to ask.

The boy sniffles again—it's a wetter sound than before—and nods. He's doing an admirable job of trying not to cry, but Kaneki can tell it's a struggle from his twitching nose.

"Sorry," he pauses before releasing a hiccup-y sob, "I couldn't get your bookmark. I think it blew away."

Kaneki blinks, momentarily stunned.

He's worried about my bookmark? He could have been seriously hurt and that's what he's upset about?

"It's… fine. You shouldn't worry about it."

"Hide! Hide!"

They turn to see a man hurrying towards them, another man closely behind.

Hide! That's right—that's what he said his name was. Kaneki makes sure to file the name away in a safer place in case Hide invades his solitude again.

(But maybe he'll be lucky. Maybe the kid will leave him alone now.)

The first man bends down to squat at eye level with Hide, smoothing away his bloodstained hair with a soft whisper.

"What happened to you?" his partner asks, glancing from the jungle gym to the dusting of mulch on his son's clothes. His eyes narrow when they land on Kaneki.

"It—it was an accident!" Kaneki blurts out. The men are fairly young—younger than his aunt by at least a decade—but there's something about them that intimidates him.

That's what real adults look like, something whispers in the back of Kaneki's mind, the tone ugly and harsh. You're just pretending.

"Hide?"

They'd rather hear it from Hide than from Kaneki. It's only natural for them to be suspicious of any middle schooler loitering near their injured child. Kaneki glances away and tries not to fidget.

Hide nods and rubs the last of the snot away from his upper lip. "Kaneki's bookmark blew away and I tried to catch it, but I slipped."

The men exchange glances and smile. The first man shakes his head fondly. "You should be more careful, Hide."

"Come on—let's get you cleaned up." His partner relaxes and refocuses his attention back on Hide.

Kaneki watches from an awkward distance. He's too close to slip away without attracting attention, but he's also just far enough that he feels like he's lurking without actually being a part of anything.

"Alright, up we go!" The first man pulls Hide to his feet and the three of them turn to leave. Hide pauses before twisting his upper body, waving at Kaneki.

"See you later, Kaneki!"

Kaneki reflexively raises his hand to wave, his fingers curling in on themselves when Hide turns back around. He picks his book out of the mud, but he doesn't feel like reading anymore.

Hide returns to the park two days later, but this time Kaneki's ready for him.

"Hide," Kaneki says with a dip of his head. Hide is as loud and excitable as always, but Kaneki finds he's more relieved than irritated to see him. Now that he knows what to expect, it's less jarring each time Hide opens his mouth. It's sort of like waking up to the sunlight streaming through his window before his alarm goes off.

Hide brightens, his grin widening. "You know my name!"

Kaneki blinks, momentarily taken back by Hide's enthusiasm. He's also a bit embarrassed to admit he didn't remember it until he overheard one of Hide's dads calling for him. So, instead Kaneki regains his composure and shrugs.

"It's only fair, since you remembered my name," he counters and he realizes it's true. Hide had said his name when they parted earlier that week. He actually remembered my name from the first time we met.

"Well, of course I would! You're my friend!"

Kaneki mashes his lips together and gives Hide a weak nod. They've only interacted twice and Kaneki wouldn't consider either moment particularly friendly. First, he tried to ditch Hide and then he did nothing as Hide tumbled off the side of a jungle gym.

Honestly, Kaneki's amazed that Hide's still eager to talk to him, much less be friends.

He glances at the butterfly bandage at the edge of Hide's temple. "How's your head?"

Hide prods at the bandage with a grin. "It's okay. The doctors did all these fancy tests to make sure I didn't have a, uh, a confession—"

"Concussion?"

"Oh, right—a concussion," Hide amends with a nod. "Anyway, they said I was fine, but I still had to get stitches. Four of them," Hide adds, his blond eyebrows darting upwards. "And do you know the best part?"

"The best part?" Kaneki doesn't quite share Hide's enthusiasm about the stitches, but he's glad to see the accident has had little effect on his personality.

Hide probably doesn't even care that he got hurt. He seems like the kind of person to take it all in stride.

"Yeah, they told me it'll probably leave a scar. Not a big one or anything—which I guess is alright even though I bet it would have been really cool looking."

"I'm glad that you're all right." Kaneki glances back at Hide's forehead. With his floppy bangs concealing most of the bandage, he doubts any scar would be that visible anyway.

"The worst part was when my dads made me stay home from school that next day, so I didn't get to tell you all of this."

Kaneki stays silent. He had come to the park to look for Hide the day after the accident and had left feeling disappointed when he couldn't find him. He isn't sure why he's relieved to hear that Hide hadn't ditched him on purpose.

(He should have been grateful for the brief respite—not eager for this overly excitable kid to return.)

Hide perks up and digs through his bag. "But it wasn't all bad, because I did get the chance to make this!" He hands Kaneki a brightly colored strip of paper. Kaneki squints at it and realizes the colorful scribbles are tiny drawings of sunflowers and stick figures with triangular capes.

"It's a bookmark," Hide explains. "I felt bad that yours got blown away earlier."

My bookmark? Oh, right. That's the reason he fell. His eyes dart back to Hide's forehead. He mentioned it earlier too, that he was upset it got lost.

Kaneki doesn't quite understand why some bookmark is so important to Hide, so he goes back to looking at the drawings and focuses on that instead.

"I put a lot of pictures on it," Hide continues, gesturing towards a deformed lizard creature spitting fire. Kaneki recognizes it as a dragon after noticing the wings rising from its lumpy back.

Dragons and witches? It's like a story in and of itself.

"That's so whenever you get bored because your book doesn't have pictures, you can look at this instead."

Kaneki's stomach flutters and another moment passes before he realizes it isn't quite the same sensation whenever his aunt narrows her eyes at him. He feels like smiling instead of cringing.

It's just a scrap of paper and the tiny pictures are horrendously crude, but he can't remember the last time he's received such a thoughtful gift.

"Thank you, Hide," he says when he finds his voice again.

"It's no problem! That's what friends do, you know."

Friends, huh?

It seems like Hide won't rest until they've become friends. Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing. Kaneki wouldn't mind some extra brightness in his life.

"Yo, Kaneki! I have something—what's going on?" Hide's smile freezes and his golden brows droop dangerously.

Kaneki rubs the mulch from his eyes and wonders if he could come up with a plausible story about how he asked for his notebooks to be torn and scattered about like a kicked over leaf pile. Finding nothing, he remains silent and lowers his eyes. It's what he's best at, after all.

"What's going on?" Hide repeats, his voice growing louder. Kaneki's cousin breaks off mid-laugh and notices Hide's presence.

(How pathetic. You can't even stand up for yourself? Some grade schooler has to stick up for you?)

"Who the hell is this punk?" He turns and tilts his head, running his gaze up and down Hide's clothes. When Kaneki glances up, maybe to jumble out an excuse so Hide doesn't also have to get hurt, he realizes that Hide's nearly at eyelevel with his cousin.

He's gotten taller? He's taller than me? Kaneki blinks, momentarily stunned. It's an embarrassing observation, but even after spending several months with Hide, he doesn't realize until now how much his friend has grown. It may also be because he's never seen Hide so stiff, so tense.

"Hey, uh, Yuuichi?" One of his cousin's friends also notices the height. He squints at Hide's clothes with mashed lips. "I, uh, don't recognize this guy's uniform. Maybe we should go…"

Yuuichi puffs out his chest and Hide narrows his eyes. It's the darkest expression Kaneki remembers seeing on his usually easy-going features and he feels his gut twist nervously for what might happen next.

Hide shouldn't get hurt because of something my cousin did. I should say something—tell him to forget about it.

"Come on, man. Let's get out of here," another friend says, scratching the back of his neck. Yuuichi caves first and scowls at Kaneki before slinking away. When they round the corner, Hide slowly deflates like a balloon, his shoulders slacking and his knees untensing.

"Are you okay?" he turns to Kaneki, head tilted at a familiar, jaunty angle. He's smiling again and despite the backlash he'll face at his aunt's apartment later that evening, Kaneki feels like he's safe now.

"That was my…cousin." Kaneki's gaze slips to the side. "He spends most of his time playing video games, so I don't think he'll be back here soon." Kaneki doesn't mention that this park was first a refuge from his cousin before it became so much more upon meeting Hide.

"I don't like him," Hide says, wrinkling his nose so tightly that the corners of his eyes scrunch up as well. It's a silly expression and Kaneki's grateful for it.

"Me either," Kaneki agrees and then laughs. Boiling down their tumultuous relationship to two words seems too simple, but he doesn't want to burden Hide with his tragic backstory.

A gentle breeze ripples through the playground, causing one of the few attached pages in his dirty notebook to flutter. Hide immediately springs into action, hurrying to collect the torn pages before they blow into the nearby street.

Hide trots back and passes Kaneki the pages. His smile returns as he recalls something from the encounter.

"Hey, did you hear what that one guy said though? He didn't recognize my uniform! I bet he thought I was a high schooler or something!"

Hide tries to puff out his chest again, which only looks more comical than threatening. Still, now that they're both standing, Kaneki can clearly see how Hide's gained several centimeters on him throughout the past few months. He can't believe he never realized it sooner.

And he's what—eleven now?

(Kaneki doesn't actually know Hide's birthday—just that it happened recently and he felt guilty when Hide mentioned it offhandedly.)

Kaneki lifts an eyebrow and tries not to laugh, feeling the tightness in his chest melt away. He's grateful his cousin never saw this side of Hide, otherwise he has a feeling they wouldn't have gotten off as cleanly.

"They might have thought you were another middle schooler… at the oldest." Kaneki's gaze drops to Hide's outfit. He isn't even wearing a traditional uniform, just a simple button-up shirt with the top buttons misaligned.

Yuuichi's friends are as stupid as him. Elementary schoolers around here don't even wear uniforms.

He doesn't say anything to burst Hide's preening. He's still basking in his latest victory.

"Maybe if I come over to your house one day, I can really scare him and then he won't bother you anymore!"

Kaneki inhales, the echoes of his aunt's scathing remarks and his cousin's sneers rising in the back of his throat like bile. He doesn't want Hide to see that, to see what Kaneki yearns to escape from.

"No!" he says in a much sharper tone than anticipated. Hide blinks and his brow furrows in hurt confusion. "Not right away," he hastily explains, holding up a splayed palm in a defensive gesture. "We'll have to make sure you look really scary the next time you meet him."

Hide's bemused frown quirks back up into a smile and he nods. "That makes sense. Maybe later then."

Kaneki smiles back, even though he knows he'll never invite Hide to see the chaos.

"But, uh… Thank you," he says, deciding to shift the subject. "You didn't have to stand up to Yuuichi like that. I… I really appreciate it."

Hide's smile broadens into a grin and he plants a hand on his hip. "Of course! I have to look out for shorties like you!"

Kaneki tries to look offended, but they both end up collapsing into a fit of laughter. Kaneki accidentally drops his armful of collected pages and they have to run around the playground to pick them back up again. They're still giggling when they rendezvous at the swing set.

(When he's smoothing out the crumpled pages at his desk later that day and trying to ignore his cousin's angry pounding at his door, Kaneki smiles because he knows he'll never let his family corrode his friendship with Hide.)

(His best friend, Hide, who'll always be safe at the park.)

The realization that Hide might actually be his best friend doesn't set in until several weeks later. Kaneki doesn't have many friends to begin with—and he's never had a best friend before—so he isn't sure how it all works.

(Do they have to sign a contract? Shake hands? Kaneki honestly has no idea.)

They're sitting behind the bench when Kaneki summons up the courage to ask Hide about it. After all, surely someone like Hide must have a best friend.

"Hide, do you have a best friend?"

(Kaneki reminds himself before asking that he can't be jealous with whatever answer Hide gives him.)

Hide considers the question. "A best friend?" he echoes and Kaneki nods.

"Hmmm…" Hide draws out his breath into a long-winded sigh. "Let me think… I really like Koneko. He's in my class and he can be funny sometimes."

"Ah," Kaneki says and looks down at his lap, wrapping a blade of grass tight enough around his finger that when he lets it fall away, it leaves a green stain on his skin.

"But I also like Shii-chan because she always gives me chocolate…"

Kaneki tries to knot another piece of grass, but he accidentally pulls too tight and the blade snaps in his hands. He's not funny like this Koneko person and he's never given Hide a present like Shii-chan has. Hide's always the one telling the jokes and giving Kaneki little gifts like bookmarks and chocolates.

"And then there's Kaneki. He's really smart and nice and he's patient when he teaches me how to do things. He's probably my best friend."

Kaneki's gaze snaps back up to Hide, who laughs at his wide-eye expression.

"Were you worried that I wouldn't say you?" he asks, his sly smile breaking into a wider grin.

Kaneki clamps his gaping lips closed. He can feel his ears prickle with heat. Was Hide able to read him that easily?

"No..."

"You looked pretty nervous when I mentioned Shiiiii-chan," Hide needles, his voice lilting upwards in a teasing tone.

"I wasn't nervous," he insists, but his stern scowl quickly falls apart. "It wouldn't be weird to have other best friends."

He wonders which is more embarrassing: being the best friend of a grade schooler or having a best friend who's several years younger than himself.

(He thinks about it later that night, safely tucked under his blankets, and decides that it's not really that big of a deal either way. Having a best friend is nice enough.)

"I'll be starting junior high next year," Hide says, emphasizing his final word with a grunt and a sporadic pump of the legs. His swing carries him a few meters, but he's still far lower than Kaneki. "Three months. Can you believe it?"

Kaneki side eyes him but keeps up his own momentum, feeling the air rush by and steal his breath so he doesn't have to come up with a response just yet.

A rising seventh grader should know how to pump his legs properly.

He's tried to teach Hide how to swing for over a year now and none of the lessons seem to stick. He's given up at this point.

Hide maintains the conversation with his easygoing chattering. "I'm a little nervous, because that means I'll be in seventh grade—and then everyone will be older than me again. It also means going to a new school, but I think several of my classmates are moving too."

"But I'm also really excited for it! I'll finally get to know what it's like to be grown up!" Hide continues, oblivious to—or perhaps enjoying—how his excited kicks make his swing wobble and veer dangerously into Kaneki's path.

"Grown up?" Kaneki asks. His legs slacken as he stops swinging.

"Well, sorta grown up," Hide amends. "Y'know, kinda like you."

Kaneki's swing slows to a stop, the tips of his toes dragging in the mulch.

"Like me?"

Sorta grown up? What does that mean? Is he saying that I'm not grown up enough? That I'm still a child?

Hide doesn't seem to hear Kaneki's question. He keeps rattling off aspects of junior high school like he's competing for a prize. "And I'll get a uniform and I'll be able to join an afterschool club and I can—"

"What do you mean by 'sorta' grown up?" Kaneki interrupts.

He thinks about the plan he wrote down when his mother died, how to be self-sufficient and free from his extended family's pressure. He can't remember the last time he pulled the notebook out or when he reviewed the strict steps scrawled inside. The urgency of the words and the threat of never escaping used to haunt him at night, but since meeting Hide his dreams have been warmer, gentler.

A different panic strikes him. Has it all been a mistake, spending all his time on swing sets instead of studying for high school? Entrance exams are coming soon and he knows if he doesn't get good marks—

(Adults don't have time for friends. Don't have time to waste.)

Kaneki cuts himself off mid-thought and refocuses on Hide. He waits for an answer, grip tightening around the swing chains until he feels the metal links bite into his palm.

Hide looks a little rattled by Kaneki's intensity and he stops kicking his legs. He loses height as his swing slows, enabling him to look Kaneki in the eyes.

"Uh, I guess I just mean that you know a lot of things?" Hide starts, scratching the side of his cheek. "Like you're… you're… smart?" He pauses, reconsidering. "Well, probably the smart word to use would be mature," Hide corrects with a scrunched nose and upwards role of the eyes.

Mature, huh?

Kaneki mulls this over with a thoughtful nod. He supposes he would seem rather mature to someone about to enter junior high.

"But—uh—listen, I'm not saying you're boring or anything," Hide adds quickly, fanning his hands out in a defensive gesture. "Well, I mean, sometimes the books you read are kinda boring. Especially the depressing ones. But you're still an exciting person."

"Thanks?" Kaneki keeps his tone dry, but his eyebrow quirks upwards without his consent. He feels the brief panic from Hide's earlier words drain out of his tense muscles.

"You're not all stuck up like the boy who lives across from me," Hide continues, making another face. "He's in junior high too, but now he and all his friends pretend like they don't know me. I'm just saying… you're really smart and mature, but you're also nice to me? And you're not pretending to be some boring adult or something? That's what I mean by sorta grown up."

Now it's Kaneki's turn to make a face, because he knows he could have easily have been like Hide's neighbor if their paths had crossed a different way, if Hide hadn't been so determined to be Kaneki's friend and if Kaneki hadn't been so starved for companionship.

"I used to be like that," Kaneki admits and he's surprised that he can speak in the past tense without hesitation. He hasn't given thought to his future for months now; he's been too busy living in the present with Hide.

"I was so eager to—" he pauses and considers the best way to phrase his situation "—to grow up and be on my own that I never wanted to waste my time with making friends."

I didn't want to be friends with anyone younger than me.

(I didn't want to be friends with anyone.)

Hide reflects on Kaneki's words for a moment, his brow twitching downwards. "That sounds like it would have been pretty lonely."

"It was," Kaneki says with a swallow and a glance to the side. He can feel Hide's gaze on him, but he doesn't want to meet it.

"Well, it's a good thing you grew out of that," Hide says after another pause, hopping off the swing and planting a hand on his hip. He extends his other hand towards Kaneki.

"Why's that?" Kaneki asks, taking Hide's hand and using it to pull himself into a standing position.

"Because I definitely wouldn't have wanted to be friends with some boring mope like the old you. I like who you are now much better."

Kaneki laughs. Maybe someday he'll tell Hide who's responsible for the transformation.

He hears the sirens first, but it's the ambulance lights that make him pause. Kaneki stops short of the park's entrance, transfixed by the lights that cast pulsing, ruby flares on the metal slide and the nearby storefront windows.

I wonder what happened. That's near the fancy restaurant. I wonder if someone got hurt or if there was an accident inside.

He shifts from foot to foot, eyeing the huddled crowd several meters away. He can hear their hushed whispering in the few beats of silence between each siren whirl.

"Did you see what happened?"

"It was all so fast. Damn driver drove off—"

"I told my husband that crosswalk was hard to see."

He wishes he were taller. Even straining on his toes, he can only catch a glimpse of a kneeling paramedic and a discarded jacket. His aching calves soon force his heels back to the pavement and he considers what to do next. He isn't curious or morbid enough to fight through the crowd for a glimpse of the scene. He recognizes several of the nearest onlookers as frequent parkgoers—pale faced mothers griping tightly onto their squirming children. In fact, when he glances towards the park, it's eerily empty. Like some sort of ghost town.

Everyone's over here trying to see what happened. It's too loud and crowded here. Kaneki makes his decision when several more people gravitate to the throng of onlookers.

He rakes his gaze over the crowd one last time, but he doesn't see a blond head bobbing around.

It looks like Hide isn't here either. He had several things he wanted to tell Hide, but at least now he doesn't feel guilty about leaving the park early.

He probably went home for the day. Or he might have wanted to explore the afternoon clubs.

Kaneki mashes his lips before turning and walking away from the park. He'll see Hide tomorrow, when the sirens aren't so loud and the crowds aren't too suffocating.

Kaneki decides to wait by the whale sculpture for Hide. It's one of their favorite rendezvous points and he knows that it'll be the first place Hide will check. He pulls out his book—it's almost like a summoning rod; the moment he cracks the spine, Hide always appears—and even skims over the first page without being disturbed.

An hour passes and Kaneki finds himself two chapters into the book with no idea what it's about. He chews on his bottom lip before setting the book aside.

I wonder where he is.

They operate under an unspoken code: if one of them doesn't show up in fifteen minutes, then the other will usually go home. However, it's been a day since they've seen each other and Kaneki was sure Hide would be just as enthusiastic to talk about his first day as a junior high schooler.

Maybe he got caught up in an afternoon club? He did say he was excited to join one.

Kaneki's frown deepens.

How long do clubs take? Wouldn't he have been done by now?

He realizes he doesn't actually remember the name of Hide's new school, only that it was a little further than his elementary school. Still, he doubts the distance would be great enough to keep them apart.

Kaneki waits another fifteen minutes before deciding he might as well head back to his aunt's apartment. A guest speaker from a nearby high school had given a presentation in his class that morning, reminding him that entrance exams for high school were looming ever closer.

That's right. I should start studying more.

He scratches the back of his head as his gaze strays towards where the crowd had gathered the day before. Apart from a dented trash can and a torn-up flowerbed, there's no sign that anything had happened.

Maybe Hide and I can agree to meet once or twice a week instead of every day. That way he can do club stuff and I can study more for exams.

Kaneki knows he'll miss their daily interactions, but now that they're aging, he needs to consider the future. He climbs to his feet, shakes the jitters out of his toes, and packs up his things.

Maybe I'll see him tomorrow and we can talk about it then.

Hide doesn't come to the park the next day. He doesn't come to the park the next week either.

Kaneki waits on the bench every day for him, growing ever more disappointed each time the sun sets and the streetlamps flicker to life.

There must be a reason. Maybe he's sick and he can't leave the house.

(When Hide contracted a nasty case of the flu several months ago, he had been placed under a quarantined house arrest by his dads. He had sneaked out to tell Kaneki—and inadvertently spread all his germs to Kaneki with an impressive display of sniffling and hacking. Still, he refused to let such a debilitating "nuisance" keep him from the park.)

He can't even visit him to check.

He had been so hesitant to volunteer personal information out of fear that Hide would find out about his dysfunctional family that he never thought to ask Hide where he lived. And he doesn't remember the names of his adopted dads, so he can't look up Hide's address that way either.

Another week passes and doubt bleeds into Kaneki's worry. Then the doubt shifts to suspicion and painful thoughts wriggle into Kaneki's brain. He begins to wonder if Hide is intentionally avoiding the park. Avoiding him.

What if he found new friends at his new school? What if he likes them more than me?

Kaneki's gaze wanders to the top of the jungle gym and then to the base of the whale tail.

Maybe he thinks that making friends at the park is too childish now that he's in junior high.

The thought stings. After all, Kaneki had never considered their friendship to be so fragile, so disposable.

He had thought that Hide was the exception to his plan to adulthood, the reason that being "sorta" grown up was okay for a little bit longer. Now he isn't so sure anymore.

Kaneki packs up his book and rises stiffly from the bench. He spares a parting glance at the swing set before turning his back on the park.

Three months later when he walks past the park, he thinks he hears Hide's loud laugh rise above the milling crowds. He chases after the sound, feeling his heart pound as erratically as his feet against the pavement. He even catches a glimpse of blond hair disappearing around a corner, but when he races to catch up, he nearly collides with a street side sign advertising a fancy coffee shop.

It's a dead end. Kaneki frowns and shakes his head.

Stupid... What were you thinking, running around like some kind of grade schooler?

He's frustrated for allowing himself to get so worked up over chasing ghosts. He's momentarily distracted by the twinkling of a bell, but the sound comes from the flower shop across the street instead of the coffee shop. A laughing customer waves goodbye around a large bouquet before setting off on the rest of her errands. As she passes him, Kaneki recognizes one of the flowers in the arrangement with a mash of his lips. He turns his back on the coffee shop and refocuses on the street and the safety of its strangers.

The earthy stench of chrysanthemums lingers in his throat long after he keys into his aunt's apartment.

So much for promises.

Thanks for reading! Part II will be up on Saturday. There'll be two more chapters :)