To spare oneself from grief at all costs can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness.

-Erich Fromm

(-)

When Hide wakes up, he doesn't know what to do.

Does he count the things in his room to keep him grounded on the situation at hand?

Does he wonder what the plan was now, wonder how to move on after this?

Does he move, or sigh, or lie or do anything?

No.

He doesn't do any of those things.

He seems to have all the time to do whatever he wants.

What a sad existence to live.

So, instead of wondering or counting or moving or sighing or lying to himself, he lets a blanket of depression settle over his mind he stares mindlessly at the ceiling above him and he floats and floats and floats in a mind space that can't feel the pains of hunger setting in nor the desert forming in his mouth.

Instead of wondering or counting or moving or sighing or lying to himself, he does nothing.

Because he seems to have all the time to do whatever he wants.

Instead, he fails.

That was something he was used to, at least.

It is all he ever seems to do, after all.

(-)

When Hide wakes up (does he wake up, or has he simply just blinked? Did he die or fall asleep?), the blanket is already there, as if waiting for him to snuggle into, know how bad his day had already been.

But this time (or after a while if he did not sleep or die in the first place), the blanket floats up, up, and away from his mind, leaving him abandoned in the small crooked bed that the landlord gave him when he moved in, leaving him to blankly stare at the ceiling, and to gather his wondered thoughts.

He should get up.

He should get up.

He should get up.

He should get up.

He shoul…

It takes a while of him repeating the 4-word phrase, a few minutes, a few hours, or maybe even a few Cycles, before Hide found the motivation to crawl out of his bed, standing on his feet for the first time in probably forever.

It doesn't matter.

Nothing matters, not to him anyway.

It doesn't matter.

Nothing matters.

None of it matter anymore.

He walks, or stumbles or limps, towards the bathroom, maybe having the intention of cleaning himself up at one point of the journey, but by the time he there and he's standing over the sink leaning on the porcelain bowl and staring into the wondering who that guy was with the dark eyes, greasy hair and a tear streaked face, he's forgotten why he's here.

Why was he here?

Why was he here again?

Why was he still here?

Why couldn't he die like a normal person?

Why was he here?

Why couldn't he just be like everyone else?!

Be normal, survive college and then get married to a woman, have 2.4 kids, and just die a normal fucking death like everyone else! But, oh no, he had to be that one person that didn't get the generic lifestyle, that one person whose best friend turns into a ghoul and inevitably joins a ghoul gang, that one person who finds himself in the middle of a ghoul vs human war that he can do nothing to help or to stop, that one person who keeps dying all the time!

As his hand turns into a fist and impales the mirror, he can't help but vaguely wonder if this was Heaven's plan all along, to make him feel a pain that no one else can feel.

He can't help but empathise with Kaneki now, now that he truly knew what it felt to be alone.

The broken glass is sparkling under the light, and he couldn't help but pick a piece up, holding it such a way that, if not for the blood speckles that framed the fragment, the light would be reflecting straight out of the material in a magical way.

Maybe, if heaven was not so forgiving of his past mistakes, then hell may be a better option for him now.

He wonders, for the first time since waking up again after his first death in the dark and grimy sewers, if someone will find his body in the growing puddle of blood any time soon, or if the landlord really doesn't care for the property that much at all that they'll find a pile of bones instead.

(-)

When Hide wakes up, he is granted the gift of a blank mind for a minute, two minutes, before a searing pain in his wrist makes him sit up and look at it, though not surprised to find no blemishing or bruising of any kind on it.

It's been a while since he's tried that way of killing himself, personally finding it much easier and peaceful to fling yourself off a bridge or a building than it was to make sure that the self-inflicted cut is deep and in the right place to give the wanted outcome of bleeding out.

He sighs as he absently scratches it, getting out of bed and getting ready for the day, though already knowing that college isn't an option today but rather some sightseeing around the ward, maybe say hi to some ghouls, tell someone something that he's been wanting to say for a while, that sort of thing.

Since he had a death wish and all, might as well do some things on that bucket list for this Cycle, only to at least take his mind off some things, like the blood that was trickling down his wrist to his fingertips, staining tip of the long sleeve top that Hide had haphazardly put on.

For some reason, he had yet to find any motivation to kill himself yet in this Cycle, though the sightseeing did go better than he planned, even if he didn't take out some of the pent-up energy on the local ghoul population.

Not that he was complaining though. It was nice to be able to think about things other than your own mortality, or immortality at this point. Like, for example, the fact that there are people outside of Kaneki that wanted to hang out with him.

It was weird, to think about how innocent these humans, and the odd, random ghoul, were in consideration to everything. He would be laughing at something that they said, a joke on the government's behalf for example, and then a voice in the back of his mind would comment about how little they knew, about how ignorant they were, about how easy it would be to laugh along with their joke in one Cycle and to kill them and jump on their corpse in another. No repercussions, as the worst that could happen would be waking up again on the same bed in the same room of the same flat, leaving him to wonder if maybe, he should do it again, if only for the laughs.

His name is called, he is startled, but laughs anyway and changes whatever subject they were on for another, his mind burying the idea deep and deep and deep into his mind.

You're a horrible person for thinking that.

Why would you think that?

You should not be thinking like that.

There's only one person you're allowed to kill-

He shuts that thought off, and goes back to living.

He wants to keep living.

For now.

He follows the group of his (not really) friends (Kaneki is still in hospital, surrounded by hot nurses and drugs and creepy doctors and sharp objects) to the campus, abet digging his slightly long brittle nails into the palms of his hands and only slightly gaining a rush from the way that the skin protests as it breaks and a small trickle of blood begin to slowly fill his closed fists as his phone vibrates in his pocket making him smile because his best friend has finally replied to his texts, meaning that he would be able to see him again before he disappeared again.

Is it truly living if it was just a repeat of what he's done before?

He gets the food for Kaneki, just like he should do in every Cycle, if only to lower Kaneki's pain rather than his own at this point.

(He really doesn't realise how much he sacrifices for his best friend (and never anything more, no matter how hard he hopes), until something like this comes around again and he gets out of bed again despite everything just. For. Him.)

(And only ever him.)

He goes through the supermarket and gets the food, and if it's the cheapest and probably not the nicest tasting food, he doesn't ponder on it for long. It's going to have its uses, even if those uses were not being digested by a human for their energy but rather to act as a catalyst for his best friend's (and never nothing more) discovery of his updated species status and a slight suicidal episode, something he wishes didn't have to happen but knows not to put off.

But, still, he can't help but feel as if he's doing something wrong, as if he's missed something as he slowly makes his way up towards Kaneki's apartment, and slowly coming to a stop at a non-discrete door, brown in colour like most others, with a small amount of scratches that Hide didn't remember were there and a small number 4 located just over the letter box.

(He remembers, all those years and Cycles ago, when ghouls didn't matter and neither did the feelings, telling Kaneki that this couldn't possibly work out well for him, that this was a bad number to live at. Kaneki only smiled at him and told him to not worry about it, saying that superstitions like the ones he used to believe in weren't real, and Hide had only laughed at Kaneki's words, ever eloquent as they were now, and helped his best friend in every Cycle to move into the house that was seemingly perfect for him.)

(Well, there was only one thing he could say to all of this now.)

(Who was laughing now, Kaneki?)

He knocks on the door, and isn't surprised at the lack of answer, because that has happened almost every time he's done this. So, like every time before, he places the carrier bag onto the hand of the door, and stands there dumbfound as he watches the handle fall down with the bag's weight and open slightly, a small amount of light coming out of the apartment while the plastic bag crashes to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere, and Hide gets the slight relief knowing that none of it had been spilt over the floor.

(That didn't happen last time…)

Typical of Kaneki, forgetting to lock the door behind him. Probably too busy with his nose in his book or worrying about Rize's family and their reaction to her death and to the organ transplant to notice the fact that his door has been left wide open.

(Did it happen last time? He couldn't remember...)

Hide picks up the food, placing it all back into the carrier bag it had previously been in, the door opening more as he nudges it to pick up the large tub of instant coffee that he brought at last minute, just before he was about to queue up at the cash register to pay for these items. He doesn't always get it, mostly forgetting that it is the only thing that ghouls can drink, but sometimes he remembers, and sometimes he feels a lot better about himself knowing that Kaneki has that there for him when he recovers slightly from the meltdown, when he comes back to his senses and wants nothing more than to curl up in his bed and fall asleep-

Was that Kaneki he was describing, or himself?

With the bag in hand, he wonders what to do next. Does he put the bag on the door and leave, like many times before, or does he sit out here and wait for his friend to come back, because he knows that the door is open, and he can't help but worry that someone will come in and take Kaneki's stuff (even though he's a college student who's just had an operations meaning that he really doesn't have anything worth stealing but that isn't the point)? And, if he does stay, does he wait out here, knowing that the door is open and thus looking a bit like a weirdo, or does he go in and surprise his best friend when he comes in hungry but not sure why he can't eat food and do a repeat of a cycle previous and die as food again?

Well, he looks at the grimy floor, covered in mud and rust and god knows what else, and thinks that dying via a ghoul's meal is hardly the worst reason to die, especially if Kaneki was said ghoul, and that is the worst that could possibly happen to him-dying that is-because he doubted that Kaneki would have the guts to raise his voice at him.

(No wonder why he fell for him, if he was the only one not brave enough to tell him to fuck off and stop being so annoying.)

So he picks the bag up and walks through the door, making extra sure to close it behind him, and gently placed the food on the counter, leaving him standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, wondering what to do with himself, his phone lying uselessly in his pocket, dead, not that there would be much to do on it other than look at memes that he had seem come and go so many times that it wasn't even funny or nostalgic to look at anymore.

Just emptiness, one that goes on forever and forever and ever and ever…

He forgets how close he is sometimes, and that is the most terrifying thing about this all.

He begins to clean up the apartment, if only to clear his own head rather than the apartment itself.

Kaneki's apartment is already above a college student standard of clean, meaning that the clothes have been put away and the washing up had been done, but he didn't seem to have the time to properly clean the fridge out of the mouldy food that had probably been in there since before the unlucky date and put away his medication from when he picked up a new box as soon as he left the hospital. Hide also knows that he never picks up the new box either, because the pharmacy will be calling him in a couple of months asking him where his best friend is and he'll have to say he doesn't know and that he's gone missing again and he hates when it gets to that point because the loneliness truly kicks in at that point and-

He inspects the packet closer, turning the box over in his hands and reading the back, frowning slightly at the seemingly high dosage of this particular brand. They were pretty high, not that he would know a lot about it in the first place, since he had forgotten all the research on them in the Original Cycle, his mind filled with probably more important things than the side effects to drugs that never seem to bother his best friend anyway.

Well, a high dosage makes sense anyway, if the doctor already knew that Rize was a ghoul, and thus knew that there was a higher chance of rejection, which would explain the higher dosage, even at the higher chance of very, very dangerous side effects.

Such dangerous things, these little pills.

So dangerous, in fact, that he didn't think that it would take too many before they would kick in, leaving just enough for Kaneki to have until he didn't need to take them anymore…

He picks a packet up and silently pockets them, then finishes up with cleaning the fridge and then putting all the food away even though he knows what is going to happen to it, and smiles when a surprised Kaneki walks in through the door, and waves as he walks away from his best friend even though he knows what will happen next if he walks away or not. Throughout the whole exchange, the packet of drugs weighs heavy in his pocket and burns and burns and burns.

(He leaves. What sort of friend was he to leave and know that.)

(He shouldn't have done that.)

(When he gets home, he leaves the pills out on the counter and stares and stares and stares.)

(Next, Kaneki texts him. He texts back. He smiles. Everything is back to normal.)

(Later, when his ass gets handed to by Nishio and Touka finds it inside herself to not kill him, he looks back at these pills and counts and counts and counts.)

(Kaneki asked if he was okay today while at work. He smiled and scratched his cheek bone and said he was fine. He lied. There a new scar on his thigh that will disappear when he wakes and up and stares at the ceiling again.)

(After, while he wonders over trying to keep his friendship with Kaneki alive, he sits down, and pops them out, playing with them slightly before putting them in an empty box, one by one by one.)

(At one point, Kaneki asks if Hide's seen the missing pills from the box. He says no while sorting an itch out on his cheek. He lied. He looked at them again that evening.)

(Early December roles around, and Kaneki disappears, and Hide take each pill one by one by one until the bottle is empty and he is crying, and he is empty like the bottle that is smashed on the floor by accident, swallowing the last of the bitter, bitter black coffee.)

(It takes far too long for them to kick in, for them to take over, for them to kill him.)

(-)

When Hide wakes up, he looks at the ceiling, and hates himself for falling to the weakness, for sinking to that level, for even thinking it of it in the first place.

He hates the fact that he did that, he despises the actions that he took at the heartbreak he must have caused.

He not only stole from his best friend, not only used said stolen items to kill himself like the pathetic worm that he was, but he made his best friend, the person who he loves from the bottom of his rotten heart, watch the life slowly drain out of him while he could only stand there, as Hide had made sure there was nothing that he could do to undo the damage that he's already done.

(Mental note: Don't take the drugs while cleaning the apartment.)

(Kaneki doesn't deserve what Hide puts him through.)

(He reaches out for the blanket that has protected him Cycles ago, and is disappointed when he realises that its not there anymore. As if he doesn't need it anymore.)

(He needs it too much.)

He gets out of bed.

He doesn't deserve Kaneki.

He goes to the bathroom, washes his face and his teeth, and manages to miss his reflection by a miniscule as he walks back out again, leaving him to face his messy room, filled with papers that he's long forgotten to care about and pictures of times pass when things like this never happened any liking Kaneki was small and innocent.

He doesn't deserve to have Kaneki in the way that he does.

He gets changed, and calmly goes through the rest of the day, as in a blur.

The blanket never appears.

This Cycle is going to be a good Cycle.

He hates them the most.

Because it means that he blinks, and he goes from walking down the street (careful to not take the turning because god forbid that he died this early on again, to laughing with Kaneki over some poorly timed joke in Anteiku even though everything has changed, from the confident posture Kaneki holds to the crescent like scars that always seem to appear in his hands even though he never remembers breaking the skin).

Everything changes in a blink, and he doesn't remember how he gets there. But it doesn't matter, nothing really changes between each time like skip.

(Well, at least he tries not to think about what these skips truly show on his mental health, and the mystery of the missing mind blanket, and tries not to wonder about missing something important that could affect the way that the timeline changes (he hates those changes) and instead tries to focus more on the lies that he keeps feeding his friend and making sure they're straight and stringy.)

Everything changes in a blink again, and he doesn't remember how he gets there. But it doesn't matter, nothing really changes between each time like skip.

He last remembers walking home alone from Anteiku, because Kaneki needed to help Touka (who is at that point where she's okay with him, something that he never really figured out) close the café, and then a ghoul walked in (though, if asked, he would never say it was a ghoul) so he smiled and waved and confirmed that he wouldn't wait up for Kaneki.

No need to drag him into the human world when he obviously doesn't want to be there anymore.

The point was, he blinked on the way going home, and now here he was, instead of walking around 20th ward, it was 11th ward. Instead of his normal attire, he's wearing the clothes of a dead ghoul and a single pocket is filled with change and a tracker, and the time between then and now blur and he wonders what he's done, and wonders if any of it is different from the Original Cycle as his bare feet slowly take him along the tarmac, careful to avoid sharp objects like needles and shards of glass from entering the soft and unprotected skin.

He doesn't know why he was doing this, and he doesn't want to do this again. He doesn't want to be able to smell the stench of piss and blood that he gave off thanks to the clothes again, or listen to the jingle from the pocket again, or relieve the pain and torment that he went through the first time of being played with before eaten after being found out again.

He doesn't need to be here, he knows because he's done it before, and he could have just given the CCG the information about the hideout without having to do all the effort of doing this and pretend that he did this in this Cycle when later asked about it.

And, yet, here he was.

Last time he did this he died.

(Though, did it really matter if he died if he'll just wake up again.)

He sighs and keeps his head down as he walks, not caring if people took a bit more notice of him than wanted, because at this point he was being stupid and an idiot and he shouldn't be here. Instead, he puts his hands into the pocket and holds the change and the bug, limiting the sound that they made as he quietly but quickly walks towards his destination.

It takes him perhaps longer than it should to realise that he was walking around in circles, and only because he managed to cut his foot on the same piece of glass three times, and he looks up and sighs because he's lost in the middle of the most dangerous ward in Tokyo.

But, it's okay really, because worst comes to worst and he dies, and he wakes up again and does it all again.

He keeps walking, now with a small limp to make sure that dirt doesn't get into the open wound, and this time he decides to make a turn that he's pretty sure that he hasn't taken, and he smiles when he comes out on a familiar road and he limps down the road and now he can see the café that he knows that Jason is in, and he stops and wonders what to do next.

He could go home, clean his foot, and wait a week before calling the CCG like many times before.

But, he was already here, dressed in a dead ghoul's clothes, with enough change for a black coffee and a small bug that he can't quite remember how he came into possession of, and he think that he might as well get the coffee that he came here for a forgot sometimes (ending with disaster) and leave and go home and try and figure out what exactly had he done in the last month or so that he's forgotten.

Anyway, what was the worst that could happen?

He quietly slips into the shop, walking straight pass the ghoul and pretending to give him no mind as he walks to the counter and asks for a black coffee to go, and walks out again with the bitter coffee in hand, wincing as his foot takes his weight and the wound loses even more blood.

He walks back out of the cafe again, trying not to spare more than a half second glance at the ghoul that's already killed him once before as he limps out of the door, feeling the small trickle of blood drip onto to the floor below, and he's glad for the hot coffee in his hands as he begins to feel the winter air beginning to nip at his skin in a way that he hasn't felt for a long time.

"You know, for a ghoul, your blood smells deliciously like a human's." Hide turns around fast, using the coffee as a barrier between the ghoul and himself, his eyes widening as the scalding liquid hit Jason square in the face, causing him to jump back in surprise rather than in pain, then letting a wicked smile fill his face, filling Hide with a sense of dread and fear.

He was going to die, and it wasn't even his fault this time.

"You know, I would usually kill someone like you. However, I have something that will be more… amusing…" The ghoul trails off, seemingly lost in thought, before his kagune quickly erupts from his back and hits Hide in the chest, thrusting him back towards the wall, causing his head to smash against the bricks and for his vision to go black.

When Hide wakes up, he's not looking up at a ceiling like normal but rather at a black and white floor underneath his cheek, and he winces when he realises that he's dribbled and maybe even puked at one point because there's something on his chin and it's dried and it's awful.

Then, the pain kicks in.

It's embarrassing to say that, even after everything, he has a low pain tolerance, so the pounding head and dizziness and the probably crushed ribs that were digging into his organs in all the wrong ways and his crushed ankle only showed that he wasn't going anywhere any time soon. There's a conversation going one, but it seems muffled for some reason, as if they couldn't talk louder than the blood rushing in his head and his heart beating through the broken ribs. He closes his eyes, just to get the weird floor out of his mind and to at least try and get his bearings.

There's still talking in the background, but Hide doesn't try and take notes of what is being said, or screamed maybe, and instead focuses on the breathing and letting the blanket that he lost come over his mind, let it take over and, maybe when he wakes back up his bed sometime in the past, he can work on his mental state then, when it's safe and sound to do so, at least, that was the plan, but then there was sudden pain in his stomach, a kick his brain reminds him, and he screams, his eyes open and widen in shock and pain as he looks up at a masked man holding pliers with ghoul eyes and suddenly he can't scream because his voice is gone and the blanket is gone.

He wants it back. Everything is simpler with it over his mind.

"I'll leave it just here, maybe the smell will convince you." He chuckles out as he puts the tool down on a table, and he leaves, each footstep echoing in the large room before he finally gets to the other side of the room and walks out of a non-discrete door, closing it in a way that made no sound at all.

"Hi-Hide?"

Everything is easier when there's nothing but the sweet release of death in mind.

"Hide?"

He eyes the tools on the table. Maybe he could use them to get him out of here, a slice to the throat, or perhaps a hard hit to the head, and he'll just wake back up in his bed in the same way that he has done the past thousand times already.

"Hide!" Blinking, hide turned his head towards the noise, and felt all the air leave his lungs as he made eye contact with his best friend, and he did all he could do is sob in despair and fear.

He had never put too much thought on the in between, the transition between Eyepatch and Centipede, human and ghoul, best friend and stranger, because in his mind, he was Kaneki, he was the person who Hide gave up his life for multiple times and, to him, it didn't matter if he was a human who was quite and shy or a ghoul who was forced into a role that he didn't want.

He was still Kaneki.

And he loved him.

Oh.

He loved him.

It was shocking to think about, but looking back up at him, Hide couldn't do anything but repeat those words in his head again.

He loved him.

"You shouldn't be here." The words barely pass Kaneki's lips and yet still echo around the room, and there's nothing that Hide wanted right now than a smile to dance on those lips like they did months ago when there was nothing to worry about, when feelings didn't matter and there were no situations like the ones that he found himself in so many times, too many times.

He's been so lonely, living his life like this.

"I'm sorry." Hide replies from his place on the floor, his eyes roaming back to the table, but the thought of dying doesn't cross his mind, not in the same way as before, not with Kaneki like this.

Never with Kaneki like this.

"Nonono, this isn't supposed to happen, you weren't to find out. You were supposed to be normal, you're supposed to live!" Hide chokes on air, and he's crying now, he can feel his face getting wet and the tears dropping onto the dead ghoul's clothing and he can't find the argument to disagree with him.

Kaneki needs to live.

After all, he has all the time in the world.

It was his job to die.

Standing up, he winces at the shooting pain that goes up his leg, and the way that his chest protests at the movement as he hobbles along to the table, almost collapsing onto it when he gets there.

"Wh-what are you doing?!" Hide only shakes his head at the answers, the movement causing a cough to rack his entire body, a hand coming up to catch the blood that comes out of his mouth.

He hasn't got long then.

Picking up the pliers from the table, he quickly hops along to Kaneki, another tear falling at the flinch, and he lets out another tear at the thought of even bringing him harm. He collapses at his best friend's feet, and he grabs one of the chains keeping him down, quick to put the metal in the tool but slow to actually break it, putting all his weight and strength into breaking one of the links.

"Hide-" He shakes his head, but smiles when there's the sound of metal breaking, and he moves onto the next one, a cough bringing up more blood and a shout from Kaneki.

He's missed this, the concern, the sound, the selfless way that he puts everyone before him.

He missed him so much it hurt.

He still smiles as he tries to break another chain, so much harder for some reason, but he places it on the fact that he probably has a concussion from earlier, and does the same for his hearing as individual words become meaningless to him.

And, suddenly, he's not breaking a link in a chain that is keeping Kaneki down, but rather staring straight at him, watching as he cries and shouts and grows angry while a pressure on his neck seems to be growing heavier and heavier and the pinpricks of pain seem to grow.

Oh…

Oh.

He blinks slowly, trying to listen to the words, but instead all his can hear is his own blood racing in his ears and the laughter that seems to be growing. There's more pain growing in Kaneki's face, but he sees that both of his legs are free to move, and he seems to see that too, and he knows that nothing will stop him anymore, even if he doesn't make it.

He won't make it.

I love you.

But, it doesn't matter.

I love you.

He's already died a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, in a thousand different places, caused by a thousand different people for a thousand different reasons, only to wake up on the same bed, in the same place, at the same time, looking up at the same ceiling with a racing mind.

But, that's okay.

Because, as he looks up into his grey eyes, filled with tears and sorrow and the sprouting seed of hope, all he can do is smile as bright as he can, and feel the blanket being lifted from his head, making him be able to breath and think in a clearer way than he could in a century.

And it's okay.

Because, he knows as the laughter rises in the background and the knife travels across his neck, leaving a numbing but wet trail, that he'll do all of this again, gladly, a thousand times more.

It's okay, because it's always for him.

"I love you."