A/N: If you want quicker updates check it out on archiveofourown. My pen name is youngjusticewriter on there. I really do update there quicker.
It's not the exact moment they walk into the crowded store (not that Kaneki had expected anything else since was one of the most famous currently publishing horror authors in Japan) that Kaneki notices. No, it's when Hide and him get in line. It's then that Kaneki notices - his heart picks up pace, eyes narrowed in disbelief despite the multitude of creatures (ghouls, he remembers but that single word cannot begin to bring fathom or define them) he's already seen in passing and of himself - the bleached white limbs that could be tree trunks in length almost in width. Despite the dread building his stomach Kaneki's eyes follow the legs upwards to the body. He doesn't even try to think of stopping himself; it'd be like an adult or friend telling a person not to do something (look) and doing so without thought that doesn't derive from of any sense of rebellion or animosity but a burning curiosity that could easily not only kill Kaneki but Hide as well.
It takes Hide shaking him to get his attention to move forward in the line for Kaneki to realize that a good bit of time has passed from when he first looked. With bashfulness (How did he not notice?) Kaneki walks forward before shooting a perturbed Hide a small smile. (If Kaneki's gaze lingered at Hide's face longer instead of straying back to the one eyed beast he would have noticed how the worry Hide felt wasn't wiped clean from his mouth that Kaneki had intended for his smile to do.)
Eventually, finally, when they're first in line Kaneki notices how the human skin is too small for what Takatsuki is. With a pounding heart (Is it fear or is it excitement? Because, Kaneki has come to learn, he finds beauty intertwined with death. Which one is strangling the other like a weed he has yet to learn.) Kaneki realizes this room almost is too small for the grinning pale creature that towers over the humans and him. Her teeth are uncleaned, the human flesh rotting between them wafts down making Kaneki's mouth water from desire to steal that spoiled flesh and it's Kaneki's humanity that makes his heart jerk at thought and not the difficulty of such a task that stops him, and are at least the length of his hand.
It's takes longer than it should to realize her body - the one that everyone sees - raises an eyebrow at him. There's a dark humor - the best kind, he thinks because Kaneki is a fan of Kafka and her - in her eyes as she observes him. She knows, Kaneki thinks. Takatsuki knows he can see her and it makes his heart race. Not like unto a freighted rabbit, prey, but because of being seen. (Isn't that what everyone wants?)
(That, Kaneki thinks, and answers.)
Takatsuki can see that Kaneki can see and that is something comforting. Long talons drum into the ground and into the oblivious people that can't see, that can't feel - can't be torn (yet) by them, as her head bends down to acknowledge him. A dark eye, few shades darker than the spoiled human skin and blood staining her teeth, peers down at him? Kaneki knows she knows that he can see her but can she see him - what he's become (like her) after the organ transplant?
Kaneki, with his heart stuck in his dry throat, reaches the book out to the small green haired body. He doesn't do so for it signed like what originally brought Kaneki here but to offer Takatsuki's word to herself.
Both of her bodies smile at him like a god might it's faithful believer.