4
"Excuse me?" Blair spat hands flat on the table. "What the crap? Did you not think to call his emergency contacts or are you too thickheaded to even do that?" Anger rolled off of her in waves before she dashed away from the desk bursting into the room unannounced, the soft blue of her eyes flashing in hatred.
Kaneki looked at her in shock as she glared at him. "I feel hatred for the staff at this place and anger at you." She informed him sitting at the edge of his bed arms crossed over her chest, one foot on the bed. "Care to explain?"
"I..." He looked down at his linked fingers. A million words ran through his head but nothing he could put into a sentence that made any sense. "It was all an accident. I don't know what happened." He told her touching his chin. "Why are you angry with me?" He asked her, gray eyes confused.
"Because my emotions are screwy, punk." He gave her a soft smile lowering his hand. "Getting crushed with a pile of steel beams. What are the odds?" she muttered angrily. "Hide is on his way with Koral by the way." A nurse walked in and Blair gave her a bored look as the nurse gave her a startled look back.
"Ma'am, you are aware it isn't visiting hours aren't you?"
"Of course. But considering I wasn't contacted last night of my friend's accident despite being an emergency contact, I think I should make up for lost time." Blair's smile was charming and over-sweetened as the nurse stood there unsure of what to make of her. "It's only fair, you all fail me and deny me seeing him, I get to make up time after I find out."
"But he needs his rest."
"And I need to rip out your throat. Looks like not everyone gets what they need." The nurse looked shocked speechless before Kaneki spoke up.
"I don't mind if they come see me." He told her softly, staring at his hands again. The nurse nodded awkwardly before Koral and Hide appeared, Hide going to sit next to Kaneki a big smile on his face, built with worry.
As the boys started talking to each other, Koral, oblivious to being in front of humans lifted her nose and sniffed before saying, "I smell two of them."
Blair looked at her sharply before pulling her over to the corner away from the boys, eyes glazed in daggers and boredom. "Yeah, it's Rize's scent. Shut up with it. You're not a dog," she snapped in a hushed whisper at Koral.
Koral breathed in deeper through her nose, obviously just to be petty about the dog comment, but blinking. Her usual stormy eyes softened with an obvious uncertainty and unease."But I smell Rize," she muttered. It was a well known fact in the ghoul community (if you knew both Koral and Rize) that the two had never gotten along and the last time they had met each other… well, it hadn't been pretty. They had never gone as far as to fight to the point of too harsh of scarring, but Koral had always shown a balanced half-fearful and half-disgusted towards Rize.
"Kaneki went on a date with Rize, and they were in close quarters. Smells linger. Now shut up and tell Kaneki hi." Blair replied, her voice still a snap of a hushed-whisper, before she turned and said towards the oblivious boys, "Kaneki, eat your fish!" Hide laughed before saying something to Kaneki that made the dark-haired boy chuckle as Blair turned fully away from Koral, rolling her eyes and muttering, "Annoyance."
"Whatever you say." Koral mumbled before adding through a cough, "Miss in-denial." Blair glared at her sharply before Koral smiled and said a little louder, "I'm going to go get some coffee."
"Good, go do something besides pine." Blair told her, flopping down on the empty bed in the room closing her eyes, feeling internally overwhelmed.
"Pine? Excuse me?" Koral questioned.
"Yes, get out of here instead of pining over," Blair sat up, opening her eyes to looking Hide before looking back at Koral, who blushed with a scowl on her face. "Go get your coffee, white girl."
"I'm going, I'm going. Miss in-denial. And you're just as white as me, jerk"
"I hope you fall and die on your way back."
"Thanks!"
"Oh, and I hope the ghouls eat you. Or maybe you'd be too bitter for their taste." Koral left the room rolling her eyes as Blair laid back down, listening to the gentle lull of the boys talking to each other. When she sat up again, the fish was hardly touched and Kaneki looked miserable, even as he spoke to Hide.
"What are you staring at?" Hide asked Blair who shrugged easily.
"Lost in thought." She responded before looking at Kaneki. "Kaneki, why didn't you eat your fish?"
"I… can't. I don't feel too good." He answered softly, staring at the plate of food. "I don't really want it."
"Alright, just don't starve yourself to death." Blair replied.
"Gray!" Blair called shrugging on her jacket. Gracen's head of messy brown hair popped up from their position behind the bar sketching at Blair's call. "I'm running Kaneki some food on my break. Be back soon, alright? Tell Koral she's alone for fifteen minutes. And don't let her smoke near the kitchen. It'll ruin my cake. Bad smells. Good noses."
"Alright, later." Gracen bid their farewell before Blair was on her skateboard, navigating the sidewalks of Tokyo. When she got to Kaneki's place, she just let herself in, never being one for formalities, and decided she chose a sucky time to open the door. Because in front of her was Kaneki attempting to stab himself with a kitchen knife that bent as it made contact, his eyes wide and fearful.
"Bad timing," Blair said. Kaneki looked up at her eyes wide. "Were you stabbing yourself with a plastic knife as a practice for suicide or something? Do we need to talk?" Kaneki looked horrified watching Blair walk in the room, her foot closing the door behind her leaning her skateboard against his kitchen counter. "Killing yourself solves nothing. Alright. Suicide is crappy. Especially after your brush with death."
"Blair I―"
"I'll make you some coffee. Why don't you go lay down? I also brought you some homemade cookies, and Hide added in some more of those burgers you love so much." He still hadn't moved as Blair started to made him a pot of coffee, casually tossing the destroyed knife onto the counter with a comfortable ease.
"What are you doing here?" Kaneki tried to sound as casual as Blair was acting, but ultimately failed. Blair chose to ignore his cracking voice.
"Checking in on you recluse. You haven't answered any of us in quite a while." She looked at him calmly, tensing slightly as his left eye flashed black and crimson.
A ghoul eye.
Crap life, Blair thought shooing him to the living room despite his questions. Now there's another ghoul in the ward. Ugh. I hate anomalies. Since when was he a ghoul?
Pushing away the aggravating thoughts, she gave him some coffee and hesitated on the inside with the cookies. She had brought ghoul friendly cookies for herself. Deciding the worst that would happen in either situation was puking, she pulled out her ghoul cookies and gave one to Kaneki, who instantly looked sick. "Trust me, you should be able to stomach this. If not, the burger should do."
"Blair I really can't―"
"Do it to amuse me. If you can't eat this, I'll leave it be. But I need you to give it a go." Kaneki hesitated before picking up the cookie. It looked like an average run of the mill chocolate chip cookie. Kaneki hesitated again eyes flicking up to Blair's impassive stare before biting down on the cookie. After a moment, shock twisted his features.
He swallowed. "I didn't throw up."
"Unfortunately," Blair muttered as she stood up.
"What is that supposed to mean?" He asked as Blair's phone went off.
"Oh look, the trash is calling," Blair commented before silencing her Holding On by Pillar ringtone. "Ignoring that." Blair went to the kitchen picking up the knife flicking the bent metal. "Look at that, it's a real knife too."
Kaneki looked panicked as Blair stood in the kitchen spinning the knife between her scarred fingers. "Blair I can―"
"You can't explain what you don't know. Rize was a ghoul. You knew that. Only too late. Now…"
"They gave me her organs." Kaneki said in a dead, almost remorse, tone. His eyes were glued back to the bitten cookie in his hand.
Blair sighed irritably. "Now you smell like her. It sucks. We noticed in the hospital, Koral pointed it out. I didn't want it to be true, but the knife didn't kill you―" she clenched her fist as the word kill passed her lips― "you could eat my ghoul-friendly cookie, and your left eye went ghoul." She blinked, letting her ghoul eyes slip out only to see Kaneki's terrified reaction. "You're a little ghoul," she finished letting her ghoul eyes slip away, "with little control."
"You're a… but, I mean… I don't understand. You were one all along? Now I'm a…" He couldn't bring himself to say it. That damned word. A doomed classification, the label of hellish demons that gave children nightmares. Ghoul. An eater of humans. A word that invited fear, a word that now described him.
"I'm a ghoul. You're a ghoul. Get with the program Kaneki. You now eat people, are hunted relentlessly by doves, and by feared by all who believe in you. What else is there to know, Ken?" Kaneki pressed his lips together holding himself together with sheer force of will. Her tone was frank and icy, those thoughts haunting her as well. It was taking everything in being to not just walk out of there with the excuse of going to get more food.
"I don't want to be a ghoul," he choked out a tear running down his face. Blair shrugged blandly, her eyes flicking away from his tear. She didn't know how to deal with the feeling that tear gave her.
Just pretend it isn't there.
"Hardly anyone does. It's a scary life out here." Blair picked up her phone tossing the knife aside. "When did you eat last?"
"Before the accident." He managed through gritted teeth, more tears slipping past his lashes.
Not there, not there, not there.
"I'll get you food. In the meantime, eat those cookies. They won't make you sick, as you've already seen. Anyway, I've got a call to make. This should go without saying, but don't leave the house yet." She eyed the phone that was sitting on the coffee table next to the rest of the food that would never be eaten. A light blinked, signaling voicemails unlistened to and texts unread. "Although you can answer your phone for Hide, you know."
Stepping outside of the apartment―finally, I can breathe again―with her skateboard in hand, she dialed Gracen's number, trusting her not to chew her out for ignoring a phone call wanting to get Kaneki food as soon as she could. "Hey-o," Gracen answered in a sing-song voice, humming a little. "I just need to get this out before I forget: Koral's fuming. You're late."
"Yeah yeah, tell that little thing to give you a package of stuff and get to the halfway point to Kaneki's. I'll meet you there soon."
"You sound like you're dealing drugs. Did you forget to eat?" Blair found it almost funny how Gracen had just seen her eat the night before and they were questioning if she had forgotten to eat.
"That's not the problem this time. We have a new Rize named Kaneki." The line was quiet aside from the chatter of the restaurant. "Just hurry, I'll meet up with you soon." Blair said to the silent line before hanging up and stepping back inside looking at Kaneki who was curled up on the ground, head on his knees. Everything inside of her twisted unexpectedly as if someone had rammed a fist into her stomach. But no one had.
Crap, feelings.
He looked up as she walked in, tears on his face. "What do I do?" He asked with a broken voice matching his shattered expression.
Blair didn't move for a second, watching him. It was weird watching someone cry. She couldn't make heads or tails of it. Maybe she should have asked Gracen what to do about Kaneki's emotional state or texted Uta even. "Sit tight till I get you food. It should take around twenty minutes unless I go out for a fresh kill―which I won't," she added smoothly with natural ease at the sight of his eyes widen slightly in fear.
"So you… You kill people?" Blair nodded followed by a shrug. "I don't want to," he let out a little sob. "I don't want to eat people. I can't kill!" Another sob escaped him as Blair set aside her skateboard clenching her hands into fists.
"It's that or die, Ken. So..." I don't want you to die. I want you to stick around with us for a while, or preferably even more than a while. The sentence hung there unfinished before Blair sighed, unable to finish the thought aloud. It was all too damn emotional for her to say. "Eating people sucks but it's… the only way to live for us. That's all we want." Her voice was icy and dark with a soft undertone. "As long as you don't become a binge eater or gourmet, you're as good as you can be murdering people to survive. It's not ideal and it's scary as crap. But you're not alone," she offered.
"I can't do it," Kaneki whispered before Blair glanced at her phone. Gray was heading out now. Taking a leap of faith, she knelt by Kaneki, an arm around his shoulders. "I don't want to do it. I can't," he half-sobbed.
"Yes, yes you freaking can! Now, sit tight and eat cookies you little piece of crap. I'll be back with proper food to replenish this screwed up body of yours." She got up grabbing her skateboard and left closing the door behind her, anger bubbling under the surface now as she turned it over in her head. "And maybe I'll add that doctor's head too," she muttered laying her skateboard down on the sidewalk. "Maybe a leg or two of his as well if I have time."