"He killed him!" he exclaimed yet again, pacing around her apartment. He was distraught. He was confused. He had thought he had put his trust in the right person but he had been wrong?
The prospect was laughable.
He was never wrong.
He wasn't arrogant, but he did have a knack for being able to understand. See through people.
Had he really misjudged Kaneki so much?
When he had looked at Kaneki he had seen a glass doll. Chipped, cracked but beautiful. He had seemed so fragile but so strong. He had just thought…
What had he expected?
He had seen him beat the shit out of Hake. He knew that he had all this background baggage. He knew that the guy was part of some dangerous gang in the twentieth ward.
So seriously?
What had he expected?
It shouldn't even be mildly surprising that he was a killer.
It should terrify him.
Yet here he was, pacing. Trying to find any loophole in the conclusion he had come to.
"How do you know?" Touka finally spoke up. She had been uncharacteristically silent ever since he had barged into her apartment uninvited.
He shook his head, still pacing anxiously.
"I don't know," he managed.
"Then why do you think he killed anyone?" she sounded tired. The fire in her was dying embers, her eyes far away. He couldn't concentrate. Not even on her.
Not on anything.
His phone was vibrating madly in his jacket and he ignored it. Nothing was important at this moment. Nothing else could possibly be more important than this. Nothing else could possibly be more terrifying.
He was being selfish and he couldn't get Kaneki out of his mind.
And then there was this feeling.
Frustration.
So much frustration was bubbling inside of him.
His heart screamed at him to trust Kaneki blindly. His heart begged.
He just wasn't a heart kind of guy though.
And his brain was hell bound on connecting pieces together. No matter how painful they may be.
And it was painful.
Like a wound, infesting his heart, eating away at him.
And he didn't know why it hurt so much.
And he didn't know anything.
But it hurt.
Shit. It hurt.
"Who is he?" It was a hiss.
He froze, the blood in his veins running cold.
"Who?" he asked dumbly, knowing the response full well. The withering look he got in exchange was enough to make his skin prickle.
She started to walk towards him, a sway in her step, her beautiful, cruel eyes focused on his. He swallowed, forcing himself to stay where he stood.
She was in front of him and he was struck with how alike the two sisters really were. The features were strikingly similar; however she oozed of affluence and health, while his mother was sickly. Poor.
Dying.
And it was his fault.
He quickly pushed the thought down.
Not now.
"Ken," she slid a finger down his cheek and he felt sick at the contact immediately.
Her eyes had taken on a hazy quality and his mind had shut off.
He was a void. He was nothing.
Her finger slipped to his lips, stroking the outline and thumbing the bottom one. He wanted to wrench away.
This was wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
"Ken." She repeated, he could feel her breath on his throat. His heart sank. The finger at his lips was prying them apart, touching his teeth.
He was trying his best to stop himself from shaking.
"Who is he?" she ground out, her lips inches away from his neck.
He should have listened. He should have listened when the stand-in at the bar had told him she knew.
Shit.
Her hand was ghosting over his chest, and slowly moving down.
Shit.
"A friend," he managed, her finger running over his tongue.
This was disgusting. This was unacceptable. This was wrong.
But who could make it stop? He was stuck until he paid his mother's debt back. He could do nothing.
"Oh!" Her voice had taken on the sickly sweet quality.
Before he was completely aware of what was happening, he was pushed into his room, the door shut behind them with a soft thud.
"A friend?" her hand had found their way around his throat. He could feel his breathing grow shallower, his mouth going dry.
"Are you fucking out of your job, Kaneki-kun?" she asked him, her voice growing softer. Nicer.
He preferred the insults, he preferred her neglect. Her hands tightened around his throat as she continued to talk.
"Does he know how much we've done for you Ken?"
Tighter.
"We've fed you. Clothed you."
And tighter.
"We've been trying to meet all your needs."
He couldn't breathe.
"Are you telling him what you shouldn't be Ken?"
He opened his mouth, gasping for air. Nothing.
She was still squeezing. He should struggle. He should try to breathe
"Kaneki, you know how much I did for my dear sister!" her voice had taken on a hysterical quality.
"We gave her everything. For a boy. For you. And she thought you were so much better! And you know how much we spent. For you. And then we've been taking care of,"
Silver spots were swimming in his vision, yet he didn't struggle.
He closed his eyes and envisioned that smile.
"You."
Her hands relaxed around his neck and the breath rushed to his lungs, as he fell to the ground coughing. His head felt fuzzy, and he desperately tried to gather his thoughts. He was raising his head to look at her as her hand collided with his face.
He hissed at the stinging sensation, but didn't get much time to adjust. She grabbed a fistful of his hair, tugging him up.
"Sit down on that chair, Ken."
As she released him, he stumbled back, his head aching. As quickly as he could he grabbed a chair, stumbling into it. His head was still spinning and his throat felt raw.
"Tell me something," her voice had taken on the deceptively velvety quality again. She was in control.
He raised his eyes to see the belt loosely wrapped around her hand.
"Was he really worth this?" she whispered, leaning over him.
Clack.
He closed his eyes as he felt the first sting of the belt colliding with his arm.
Was it worth it?
For that laugh.
For that feeling of being acknowledged.
The sanctuary he had built in his mind had suspiciously shifted to mirror the park he had gone to with Hide.
Clack.
He winced.
For being given a chance…
It was worth it.
He clung to the smile, the crazed babbling of his aunt being drowned out by the warmth he had conjured up in his mind.
Hide was worth it.
He was bone tired. He felt that way. His mind felt like snapping in half and he felt like a wreck. Before Touka could start chastising him further he had grabbed his phone and left. As rude as he was he was just so fucking confused.
And he was so frustrated.
And he wanted to punch a wall.
He should've known.
He should've known.
He had linked Kaneki's case to the previous murders due to the numbers present on the scene, and it was the same with Hake.
Hake's fingers had been cleanly pulled off, and in Kaneki's case it had been finger-nails. Yet the links were still present.
And there was a haphazard sort of clean-up that had tried to take place over the crime scene with dirt scattered over the numbers. A bad cover-up. As if conducted by someone that didn't have enough time.
He didn't see Kaneki in that.
He didn't want to see Kaneki involved in any way.
However his brain kept pushing the all too obvious hypothesis onto him.
He could have stopped him. He could have saved a life. He had had suspected him but he had been so otherwise occupied by his pretty face that he had just shoved all logic away. And it was tiring.
It was tiring to feel so betrayed by someone you hadn't properly trusted in the first place. And most of all it was irrational, and he hated irrationality.
He roughly shoved his apartment key back into his pocket and opened the door into the brightly lit house.
What he saw made him freeze.
His parents were sitting on the sofa in the small living space, and beaming up at him.
"We've been trying to call you all day Hide!"
He forced his lips into an equally elated smile.
His parents were here.
"Mom! Dad!"
He needed to protect them.
His voice sounded distant to himself.
He needed to keep them safe from the mess that he had made out of his life.
His parents reached him, his mother throwing her arms around him lovingly. His father was saying something and patting him on the back.
And he was laughing.
And they were laughing.
And his mind was racing.
He needed to keep them safe from the danger attached to Kaneki.
He needed to keep them safe from Kaneki.
It was to be intercepted that he'd be stared at. Usually it was a glance and then they'd be too afraid to stare further. But today-
Today they were staring at him constantly. They would glance at him and whisper behind their hands. They would stare and turn the other way. They were trying their best to avoid him.
He could deal with this with ease. He didn't care about these people.
He had never met them before in his life.
Yet the weight of their accusing gazes on him was making him shake.
He walked to his class and settled down as quickly as he could, dropping his pens in his haste.
Mentally he chastised himself for being so panicky.
He had gotten a day off. And that had given him more than enough time to prepare.
He was ready for the onslaught of today. Yet he couldn't stop himself from looking forward to… him.
He knew he shouldn't expect to not be suspected by the blonde but a tiny part of him had hope. And he was clinging to that tiny part. And there was an excitement.
An exhilaration attached to the hope.
It was the same feeling when he had realized that Hide was worth it. Hide was worth so, so much.
He bit his lip to keep himself from smiling.
The lecture theater started to fill up and he waited impatiently, his eyes glued to the door. Finally-
Finally.
A head of blonde hair entered the lecture theater, and a surge of nervousness overcame him.
There was something wrong wasn't there?
Hide climbed the small steps of the lecture hall and stopped to talk to someone for a few seconds. Kaneki could feel his hands shaking from a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. He would be here any second. He would sit down. It would be happy.
He would smile his smile for you.
It would be okay.
Hide laughed, and his heartbeat sped up.
Slowly, so painfully slowly Hide reached Kaneki.
"Yo Kaneki!" He sounded the same. His voice was the same.
He raised his eyes to look at Hide and Hide was looking away.
"Hi."
"So man, I'm gonna sit with another pal today cause they need my help and we can meet up later?"
Hide turned his face to look at him, and the butterflies that had previously overcome him were crushed. His heart sank.
That smile was fake.
That smile was strained and fake.
Hide blamed him.
"Sure." He wasn't sure Hide had heard.
But from the way the blonde turned away without a word he realized Hide probably didn't care.
And rightly so.
He had been right, he thought to himself, clasping his hands together in an almost painful way. Hide was worth it.
But he-
He was so fucked up.
The pain he had been the cause of; the anguish he had seen spring to those beautiful eyes was haunting him.
But he needed to protect his parents.
He needed to find a way around this.
He needed to save Kaneki.
He needed to fix everything.
And asking Touka for advice was the most reasonable thing to do.
However at entering uninvited he found Nishiki on her sofa, garbed in leather, holding a gun. Both of the men froze upon seeing each other. Touka stood a few feet away, garbed in a similar fashion to Nishiki, a rabbit mask in her hand.
Hide opened his mouth only to close it again, completely at a loss for words.
"You left the fucking door unlocked?" Nishiki growled, turning to Touka.
However Hide only stared, his eyes glued to the two.
Etched onto the arms of their jackets was 'Ghouls'.
What had he expected?
What had he seriously expected?
What on fucking earth had he expected?
He took a shaky breath letting his head hang.
Understanding?
Trust?
Loyalty?
Love?
The truth was that he had expected all those things and so much more. And it was so wrong of him to have expected anything at all. After all, Hide was just a person and it was wrong of him to expect him to be more than that.
He had constantly told himself that he was what he was, but he hadn't really listened to himself. He made it his mantra, but he had forgotten that repeating something only made it lose meaning.
No, the inner romanticist within him had pushed and hoped and wished for that small minute chance to be saved by someone else. He had tried to find so much beauty and perfection in one person that he had completely pushed away the humane part of them. Hide had become something otherworldly- perfect, and the more he had pushed down his growing feelings for him the harder he had latched on them.
He wanted to weep.
Feel the tears sliding down his cheeks.
But they didn't.
In the dark of the night, his body ached and the only thing left to weep was his heart.