Warnings: Because this is an AU, the timeline may [note: will] be skewed. Characters may [note: refer to previous note] become OOC. Strange happenings may [note: refer to previous note(s)] occur. Canon-sticklers, turn away when you still can.

Also, these drabbles are not in chronological order. You have been warned.


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The Ghoul Lullaby

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caroandlyn

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2


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"Okaa-san, okaa-san, look." Akira glances upward from her paperwork at the insistent nudging of her son, straining her neck backwards to take a look at whatever it was Ken had found to be fascinating this time. "It's a hirata-gumo, Hirako-ojisan told me so. I found it on the wall, and then Takeomi-nii picked it up and gave it to me. Isn't it cool?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, very cool," she lies, forcing a patient smile on her face. "Ken, sweetheart, be a dear and put the spider outside where it belongs, will you? You're going to scare somebody if you keep it in here."

He pouts, before looking at her hopefully. "You don't like it?" He is the spitting image of herself in her younger days, big eyes, rosy cheeks, a small button nose, only with his father's coloring: sharp grey pupils, premature white hair with a few strands of dark blue intermixed within, an unnaturally pale complexion. It is unsettling to see her face distorted into something so childish.

"I do, I do," she reassures him, giving him a quick peck on the forehead, careful not to get too close to the arachnid. "But other people might not. Remember what I taught you before—you have think of everyone else, before you do something you might regret later on."

"Yes, okaa-san," Ken mumbles, noticeably subdued, before running out of her office, hair flying messily behind him—she makes a mental note to make time to cut his hair before it reaches shoulder length—and narrowly dodging an all too amused-looking Hirako standing at the door threshold.

"There's going to be more paperwork coming later, Akira-san, but this is all I have for now," the older man says much too cheerfully, turning his head to face her as he drops an armful of files on her desk. It hits the wooden surface with a resounding thud, a foreboding sound that will haunt her for the next few days to come. She suppresses a reflexive wince. "You spoil him too much, that boy, really."

Akira smiles back at him wearily. "I could say the same for you, doting Uncle-san," she answers with a sigh, running a hand through her hair. Her expression turns serious as she skims through the first file. "They killed the Corpse Collector?"

He nods grimly. "It seems so. First Class Mado and Special Class Shinohara confronted the ghoul when it was scavenging, and they eventually managed to subdue it. It had a kagune on it—your father must have had a field day."

"A ghoul that cannibalizes others, huh..." her expression becomes pensive. Akira bites her lower lip contemplatively, drumming perfectly filed nails nervously on the surface of her desk, before a sudden thought comes to her mind. "Didn't the Corpse Collector have children, though? Around Ken's age, if I recall correctly. What will the CCG do about them?"

Hirako's face is blank, frighteningly so. "They will be dealt with if they pose a problem later," he says, his voice almost automatic. "For now, don't worry about that, Akira-san. If you or Arima-san were to become incapacitated, I swear I will personally make sure to the best of my ability that Ken-kun will not end up like those who are not as fortunate."

Akira tilts her head, leaning it on her right elbow. "I certainly hope so, Hirako-san," she says, finally, looking blandly at the clutter that has begun to form on her desk and threatens to drown her in paper. A dull ache throbs under her right eye. "I certainly hope so."

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