Hello. Goodbye.
The top of the room looked like peppered jam, spread from one side to the other.
Haise didn't particularly feel like eating peppered jam. The thought of it alone wasn't so bad; a little bit of burn on something like sweet toast might be a nice change of pace, but it was his stomach. He'd been pumped full of something that sat in his throat more like slime than jam.
His hand rubbed his head against his will; he didn't want to know what kind of shit he'd gone through.
But it kept moving.
There was no gaping hole, no stitched mess. His head felt the same to the palms under his fingers and his teeth were all locked in place when he felt those too.
But inside his skull his brain felt hot, and when he ran the tip of his tongue across his teeth, he tasted metal.
What a weird taste on jam.
He got the urge to look around the room all at once, rushing out of the IV in his left arm. To the left was the door to the room, a sliding white piece under the blackness of the jam. If Haise looked too long at it, the colors turned into shapes that expanded and morphed.
It was obvious he was very tired. And drugged.
When he looked to the right, there was another bed, kept for another person, or rather unkempt by another person. The blankets were wrapped up in a ball, and then unwound at the top, like a little kid had played fort. There was an IV, unhooked from its owner, and several pudding cups under some pillows that could only be seen from his bed.
Very clever.
He felt the warmth of a body in his sheets and blankets the crawled up to him, much like a puppy. Juuzou's head popped out next to his.
The IV ripped out and an alarm went off. Panic ensued.
When the doors slammed shut again, and the IV back in his arm, Haise let out a laugh much like a wet cough.
Juuzou's smile curled up and his eyes closed up alongside the right of Haise's bed. He'd watched with a particular fascination when the put the IV back in Haise's arm.
"I've never seen one of those put in. I'm always asleep," he said.
"They're kind of annoying; they hurt after a while."
"Oh, that sounds fun. What does that feel like?" he said.
Juuzou clutched Haise's blankets, and then bit them in anticipation.
He wanted to know, and it was like his hands and mouth, no, the entirety of his biology couldn't express how much he wanted to know. It was a lot like wonder.
Still, after Haise peered into his soul, Juuzou got bored. He gave him a slap on the head.
"Where's silly Haise? Are you sure they didn't do anything to that thick brain of yours?" he said.
"Silly Haise is tired Juuzou. Hey, you got any of that pudding left?"
"Not for you," he said.
"I'm not hungry anyway."
"Does the ceiling look like jam to you? It looks like jam to me," he said.
"Yea, it does, a lot like jam."
"I bet that makes you want to throw up, with all the junk they put in you. I've eaten that stuff before, it made me sick," he said.
It was a funny notion to consider Juuzou's stomach of sugar-coated iron getting nauseous thanks to any sort of medical slime.
"What is it?"
"AH, it's to limit your RC count," he said.
"Why did you eat something to limit your RC count? You're not a ghoul. That sounds terribly dangerous."
"Well, they fed it to you, so I wanted to eat it. Hey, what happened to your hair?" he said.
Juuzou was now sitting cross-legged on the bed with Haise. It was a fairly small bed.
He grasped at Haise's hair, and pulled. He kept asking about it.
"What's wrong with it Juuzou? I can't see it you know."
He pulled a mirror out of his tunic.
"Why do you have that?"
"Ghouls are more partial to people who look pretty," he said.
Haise thought about asking him why he would have it in a hospital. He reasoned that Juuzou was aching to find ghouls anywhere, and that he probably wasn't wrong in thinking there could be some on a hospital staff.
Though, a ghoul on the CCG staff would be very strange.
He took the mirror and examined the mess of hair atop his head; it seemed longer than he remembered it being. The white bits were grown out, and came down below his eyes, while the black strands that erupted from the center of his crown were more visible.
If he got his usual haircut, his hair would be black. He pictured that in his mind, tried to run his hands through all black hair.
It was familiar, the coarseness of it felt like home in between his fingers.
That coarseness was the last grain of sand trickling out of Haise's hand. That feeling was empty again.
"I guess we'll match pretty soon, huh Juuzou?"
"Yea, that's pretty boring. I'll dye your hair white again," he said.
"I'm not sure I want it white again, Juuzou."
"I'll do it while you sleep then," he said.
Haise felt like himself in that moment, his smile was distinctly his. The coarseness that was home washed away with a moment of laughter.
His gut also laughed, and pushed up the slime into Haise's mouth. He swallowed.
The shifting colored door from earlier on Haise's left burst open.
"Oi Juuzou, perhaps you should be in bed, huh?"
Seeing Akira Mado with a brace around her stomach didn't make Haise any less scared. Her eyes burned even more now than they had before, and his eyes began to sweat just as much as his back stuck to the sheets of his bed.
Juuzou sat just the same.
"No, Miss Akira, I like sitting here. Haise's back to normal," he said.
Haise remembered how he hadn't liked the things Juuzou was doing or saying much over the last few weeks. Despite the slime that lined his chest, sitting her with Juuzou felt normal again.
He was happy. Perhaps, that was normal.
"Oh is he now?" she said.
The brace that covered her stomach told Haise that he'd been out for a while. She was in terrible shape when she'd sent him off to find Juuzou.
The Rabbit.
"Akira, what happened to the Rabbit? I didn't kill him, did I?"
The clacking from underneath her feet calmed Haise. When he heard someone clacking in the street, his nose twitched with the smell of her perfume. She was ingrained in him.
She smelled good, too. She and Juuzou were alike in that way.
By the time she leaned over to look into his eyes, he was sure he'd caught the Rabbit. Akira's existence told him that he hadn't messed anything up, that he hadn't lost himself entirely, just yet. She rubbed his head and ran her hands through the white remains of his old hair.
"Man, Haise, it's sad that you never remember anything. Do you lose a lot of stuff?" Juuzou said. His eyes looked out the open door Akira had been standing in. He rubbed his stomach.
"You did a good job Haise. Rest now and we'll talk about what happened later," she said.
Haise felt entirely sick after that. He knew he'd done something wrong.
"What about my partner? Where did Tomoe end up?"
Akira let go of his hair and walked away then.
"Seems she was sick that day. She stayed home a few days, but she's worked harder than I could've imagined since she got back," she said.
"Harder than you?"
"I wouldn't go that far, eh Haise," she said.
Haise didn't burn under her gaze anymore. He saw sweat in the pocket of her upper lip, probably from the pain of moving around. Her hair was just a little bit off, and a single blond strand floated over her face.
He caught pain behind the dulling fire in her eyes, far more than he'd ever seen before.
Akira told Amon to wait in her hospital room, right in the chair where he'd sat for the last week.
He waited just beside the door to the outside world.
There was no clacking of her heels when he heard her coming. It was a shift on the tile from her nylons that made him ready, and when she opened the door, he steadied his right arm to catch her.
He saw the sweat on her forehead and the strands of hair that stuck to the side of her face. Her hands dropped the heels she was holding, and she hunched over grabbing at her brace. For a moment, Amon could see the heat from her body steaming off the metal of his arm, melting away the steel.
But he could feel nothing.
He carried her over to bed. The CCG seemed like it'd be without a fully functioning Akira Mado for a while.
"You're making some terrible decisions, Akira."
"I could sure use some coffee right now Amon, be a good boy," she said.
"I'm leaving you 4 cups full of water. That'll last you until your nurse comes in. Make sure you tell her I'm not going to be around for a while. She'll come more often that way."
"Did you get the wheelchair? What about the wig? I don't want Haise to notice you when I'm wheeling you around," she said.
She didn't have her eyes open. The skin around them was runny like egg yolks, cooking on the stove. He wiped her forehead.
"I'll see you when you get better, Akira. I'll make sure they keep your office clean."
"So you're really just going to leave?" Her eyes were soft then. It was a real question, and her tone demanded an answer.
"I'll be taking Haise and Juuzou with me. They appear to be much healthier than you. Maybe you should watch what you eat."
"Fine, I'll consent; take me out in a wheel chair. For the CCG, I'll give up my dignity," she said.
"Oh, character growth I see. Been reading a lot of books while I've been away, Akira?"
"Make sure you take care of him Amon. His RC count was akin to the Centipede's this time. If he gets that out of hand again, I'm not entirely sure we'll be able to stop him without killing him," she said.
She wouldn't look at him, but it seemed far more a question that an announcement. Are you strong enough to beat the Centipede now?
Yes.
The last few words they said to each other didn't matter much to Amon at the moment. He had a great deal to take care of, including the singed metal on his right arm.
Haise quite enjoyed the idea of changing in a hospital closet. It made him feel like the detective who's just been shot, returning to a battle that can't be avoided. Now that he'd thrown up all the slime in his body, he missed the spicy jam toast from the room outside, though.
The pushing of his hands through the white of a suit jacket felt good. His fingertips felt each stitch on the outside, the threads of his existence sewn into one simple jacket. He brushed away strands of hair from his eyes. He wasn't going to cut it; the white suited him. Maybe he would let Juuzou dye it.
His heart beat hardest when he fitted a black, skintight leather vest under his shirt and jacket. He clicked belt buckles closed across the chest when he finally got it on, and they dug into him a little bit.
But under the white of the CCG outfit, that leather faded with the beat of his heart.
He'd been instructed to wear it by a special investigator whose height was only matched by the bulk of both his arms and the jet black quality of his hair that wasn't quite long or short. When a man like that gave him instructions, Haise was not particularly inclined to disobey them.
When he finished lacing his boots and opened the door, he saw Juuzou and the new investigator conversing over a list. Juuzou was in his usual black attire. His stitches looked aggravated.
"So what's your name, investigator?"
"Koutarou Amon. Call me Amon," he said.
"Is there anything I can do for you Mr. Amon? I'm actually just a third-class investigator, and I already have a partner. Juuzou's probably far more useful to you than I."
"Haise, we're going to get the Nutcracker, and the ghouls she's been working for." That time, it was Juuzou.
"I'm sure you will Juuzou, and so it seems you don't need my help."
"Your partner will be meeting us in about an hour at a café she frequents. It will take just about the four of us to perform this job at a relatively safe pace. You don't have to join us, but the way for your partner will be a lot more dangerous without you," Amon said.
Haise wasn't really surprised when he heard that; Amon seemed a bit overqualified to be just a special class investigator. His aura demanded respect, because it exuded desperation. He was desperate for his plan to work; it was easy to see he had obviously exhausted every option.
"What do you want me to do, Koutarou Amon?"
"You're going to help me kill the Nutcracker, today, Haise Sasaki, just like you helped me kill the Rabbit."