Detective Ghoul
A/N: Hey there to any readers I may still have! So as a quick intro, I've been busier than I possibly could have imagined for the last month, working on a project. I've just finished, and I miss writing for Detective Ghoul, so I've written a quick intermission chapter for you guys. After I settle back into the story, I'll be posting the next chapter. But until then, enjoy this little short.
SHORT- Middle of the Book.
Touka wanted to hit her head against the metal pole in-between her train seat and the one over every time a chip crunched in Haise's mouth.
She both wanted to throw up and have some herself. Cinnamon crisps sounded interesting.
"Are you sure you don't want some?" he asked.
While the strands of her black hair stuck to the sweaty pores of her forehead, her stomach sweated even more at the idea that she could actually accept said chips.
She rubbed her stomach.
She didn't know why it worried so much; the thought of taking the chips made her remember trying to read out loud from a book for the first time in class.
"I don't want your chips god damnit. How close are we?" she said.
Touka heard the click of heels from her counterpart on the other side of the pole. Where an elder lady had sat, the heavy air of Touka's foul mouth lingered.
Haise laughed a little, and that was perfectly okay, sans the little bit of weight that sat in the bottom of her gut. She didn't want to scare away people.
"You know, you're a real keeper Tomoe. Nobody tries to sell me things whenever we go out," he said.
"On a job," she said.
"What?" he asked.
"You said whenever we go out. Finish it. Whenever we go out on a job. I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea," she replied. She'd never said anything like that before. The cool of the metal bottom of the seat that snuck through the seams of her jeans onto the skin of her calves made her feel confident.
"Uh-huh. Anyway, you're really not all that familiar with trains, are you? We're about 30 minutes away, eh," he said.
The cold that made her confident was like an icebox now, cubes clogging up her throat. More specifically, her head hurt.
"We've already been riding for 30 minutes," she said.
"It's been 10 minutes," he replied.
"You make it seem longer, I suppose. You're like the beginning of a book," she said.
She always enjoyed the beginning of books. Characters were untainted; clean people she could hold in the palms of her hands.
"The beginning of books are the best, you know. You see people before they become what they're supposed to be. It makes the ending much sweeter," he said.
"What if they end up worse off? What if they change?" she asked.
He rubbed the bottom of his chin while looking out the window in front of them.
She didn't dare look at him, but she could hear the stubble rubbing against the smooth skin on his index finger.
She didn't cry, but she wondered if that finger would feel damp on the red skin of her cheek.
"I guess I've never thought of it that way. Perhaps it works in both ways, then. Maybe a bad ending makes the memory of a normal beginning taste like cinnamon crisps," he said.
The corner of her eye caught the curve of his lips, before a little bit of sun burned through the window and made her wince.
"That's pretty stupid. Why would I read a book if it has a sad ending? Anyway, maybe we should just shut up until we get there. I think I'd rather talk to this pole than you," she said.
"You don't seem like the type of person who would like sad books. I think you're too nice of person for that. Hence why that pole finds it so easy to converse with you," he replied.
A sock to his right arm echoed a laugh through their empty car, sans the woman who she'd scared off now.
It was quite a while before he said anything.
Not that she didn't want to say anything, but the pole next to her had a way of stealing her words through an unwavering eye-contact.
"I hope we don't run across any ghouls today. The last time wasn't very fun," he said.
"I think this pole would make a better investigator than you, Haise," she replied.
"I'd like to say that this is what it feels like to want to avoid an investigator, but, I don't think I'll ever be able to comprehend that. It must be terrifying," he said.
She had to look now, because he hadn't replied to her at all. He spoke into the air, clean language purifying the stale air around the seat next to her.
He lips continued to smile, much like the beginning pages of a book. She wanted to believe the obvious inauthenticity of it.
His eyes were closed, and his head rested against the metal wall of the train. He must of have kept them closed, because she was much too nice to see the sad ending to the happy beginning of his smile.
"But you know, we can think about all the lives we'll save on the human side today!" he said.
His hand was locked around her shoulder, not with a question that he wanted her to affirm, but with resolve.
She thought about the humans she could save.
And then she thought about the ghouls she wanted to save.
"Let go," she said.
The speed by which he dropped his hand made it feel much like Haise was now reading a newspaper on the other side of the train.
She imagined that he had quite the funny mask on his face from a gizmo store they had passed by on the way to the train station from the CCG.
A voice broke through her funny glasses vision.
"Hey Tomoe, we're almost there. What a quick trip, eh?"