Requested by anon ~

Prompt: Ayato comes home from a loooog mission and wants to give Hinami a surprise attack, but stops when he hears her singing his favorite song :D

Fucking humans. Fucking CCG. Fucking world. Fucking Eto for giving him the fucking mission.

Ayato's curses began from the moment he received Eto's message, squinting his eyes at the glaring screen he calls his phone at 6 in the bloody morning. Who knew that being an executive had so many shitty responsibilities. By that, he means leading a bunch of B to C rated ghouls to their deaths.

And also taking care of his newest subordinate who was currently sleeping in the living room, if not crying.

"Fuck." He cursed again, dragging his ass off his excuse of a bed to start the day he's not looking forward to.

He still isn't used to seeing a lump on his couch whenever he returns home in the dead of the night. The first day after Hinami started living with him, he almost made skewered her alive with his kagune shards if not for the fact that he heard her crying in her sleep.

Urgh.

Ayato quickly retreats into his room when he sees her stir; he doesn't need to deal with teary-eyed brats when he is dead tired from fighting Doves and listening to Eto's sick jokes.

If only he had enough power …

His house is bare. And he gets used to it because there's no point in making it look lived in if he's the only occupant. Which explains why he's getting extremely frustrated after tripping over another fucking book for the 3rd time that week.

"Hinami!"

His shouting is soon followed by a meek squeak.

"Why are you bringing back so many books?!"

She quickly shuts the book in her hand and clutches it to her chest as if it could protect her from the raging beast standing not too far from her. She can't fight now. "I… I found these thrown away downstairs and… they're all so new…"

Her words dies down but his glare turns it back up again. "I have nothing to do here anyway so why not read?"

Urghhhh.

He'd rather her be bringing back food than shitty books he can't understand but at least she isn't causing him any trouble. For now.

Urghhhhhhhhh.

He stuffs his hands into his jacket and kicks the book blocking his path aside before heading to the showers.

Finally. Finally! Finally Kirishima Ayato has an off day for the first time in… his Aogiri years. And he's definitely planning to sleep in until the sun bakes his ass until it becomes crispy. Who knew Hinami would be killing his plans at eight, rudely awakening him – only to him – by her soft voice, reading some lines from the novel she so often brings back. Ayato did contemplate to scream his head off or just burst his kagune through the thin walls but he doesn't have the energy or time to go around looking for a new apartment if their landlord decides to kick them out.

So he decides to just listen to her reading until he falls back asleep, half wondering if she even knew he's home.

She hardly leaves the apartment unless to collect more books – they're running out of space by the way – or to pick up some toiletries. Hell, she doesn't even hunt and instead relies on either Eto or him to bring back the chow.

He comes back early one night and joins her in the tiny living room, grabbing the last fillet out of the brown package on the table. "Why can't you hunt?"

Hinami stops chewing and her fingers starts to tremble. Ayato starts to regret asking; he definitely does not want to deal with crying people, ghoul or not. "I… don't know how."

At least she isn't crying.

He brings her out during his next off day to teach her how to hunt. Fuck if he's going to babysit her for the rest of his life.

Ayato scowls and immediately removes the scarf and sunglasses and surgical mask when she steps out of the bathroom. "You look more suspicious than the fucker next door with this much get-up. The hoodie is fine but too much disguise and you're calling for attention instead, idiot."

They step out onto the streets and for all that Hinami has been outdoors when she was younger, her foot steps are timid and her shoulders are slouching, as if making her tiny frame even smaller will make her invisible. Her hoodie is obscuring her eyes and she's wringing the hem of her jacket nervously.

Ayato pulls her into a deserted alley, surprising the female ghoul at the sudden change in direction. "This isn't going to work if you are not even looking for food. I didn't know ghouls consider cement as another option."

Hinami ducks her head down. "I can't hunt…"

"Then starve for all I care."

Ayato doesn't bring back food for the next month and Hinami has no one to approach because Eto is out of town, on some trip to the pay the other wards a visit, not that she would ever speak to Tatara; that guy's looks makes her uncomfortable.

"Do… do you think you can bring back food tomorrow?"

Her voice is small, and unsure. Her growling stomach allows him to make up his mind.

"No."

He comes back one day to find his place filled with a sweet scent and deduces she brought back food. Imagine his surprise to see her face and hands stained with blood – hopefully not her's – when he switches the living room light on. "What are you doing?" He asks cautiously, ready to bolt out the moment she starts to cry.

"I hunted. And ate by myself."

The airiness in her tone makes the hair at his nape stand but he joins her and flops onto the small sofa.

"Good job."

She smiles at him, with a lone tear rolling down her cheek.

Hinami has to know that this world is cruel, whether she liked it or not. And it's better that she realises it by herself than him forcing his views onto her fragile state.

He's not sure whether she's opening up to him, or the other way round. Ever since that night where she hunted for the first time, Ayato notices her reading louder now, much to his chagrin, but he doesn't tell her to shut up. He tells her to fast-forward to the part where there is death and blood, and enjoys the grimace on her face when he requests that.

"How violent of you, Kirishima-san."

His eyes stares into hers and raises a brow, "I didn't live in a fucking field of flowers when I was young." and he regrets his words when her smile falters and the air became still. "I'd rather be reading action than romance."

"You don't read."

"I don't."

"Have you tried reading?"

"….."

"… Do you know how to read?"

"Does the alphabet count?"

"Oh my god!"

And that's how their late night session begins, Hinami teaching him words while he tries to not fall asleep and bang his head against the table, or her shoulder.

"Do you know how to fight?"

Hinami pauses, her finger stopping under the word 'creepy' and turns to him. "Er, I guess?"

"Piercing weak humans with your kagune doesn't count."

She laughs weakly and glance to the side, "Nope."

Ayato sighs. He has a 2 week mission coming up soon which means Hinami will be all alone. Granted she already knows how to secure food but if she happens to come across nasty Doves, there's no way she will come out alive. They're pathetic to him but to Hinami, even a third level investigator is dangerous.

"We'll be training every night from tomorrow onward. You may not be able to kill those fucking assholes but I'll make sure you at least learn enough to escape alive with all limbs attached." Ayato gets up and stretches, feelings his joints pop and crack with every twist. "And I'm sure you're getting sick of books already."

The day he leave for his long ass mission, Hinami wakes up early to see him to the door. Three days later, she's grateful for his lessons when she stumbles upon a Dove while she went hunting at night. Her body was running on adrenaline and her heart thumping furiously when she reaches home, managing to escape after slicing the investigator's eyes. She whispered a sincere "Sorry." but was sure the guy would rather want her dead.

She can't die. Ayato would flip hell over if he knew his lessons was a total flop, she chuckles.

He returns safely, as usual, to find a new device in his house. "What's that?"

"It's a radio."

"Right, as if I didn't know that. What I meant was why do we have that?"

"It's free!"

"Free?" He narrows his eyes.

"Yep! The guy at the electronic store down the road gave to me!"

"You mean the weird creep who has that weird ear piercing?"

"You have an ear piercing too, you know?"

"Mine's cool."

"Uh huh."

What Ayato doesn't know about the radio, is that it always repeats the latest popular songs like clockwork. The first time he heard Let It Go, he lets it go, not at all bothered by it until he hears it again one week later.

"Shut the damn thing already! I hear enough of it when I walk pass those snotty kids screaming their fucking lungs out in the streets!"

Hinami quickly turn off the radio lest he destroys it; they have no money for a new radio and the guy at the electronic store quitted abruptly a while ago.

But she finds out after a while that he doesn't react like a drama king when the radio is playing Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud. Hinami even hears him humming the tune in his room. If only he knew of her hearing ability.

Ayato leaves on another long mission, this time one month long. After killing more than his share of Doves and sitting 3 hours on his ass to get home, he can't freaking wait to take a shower and sleep. He trudges up the stairs, one heavy step at a time, not caring whether his boots will wake the neighbours or not.

It's almost midnight and he thinks Hinami has already fallen asleep but he's proven wrong when he hears her singing for the first time. And it is his favourite song – sort of – out his list of horrible songs he's ever listened. He wipes his brow, extremely glad she isn't singing Anaconda.

He listens in for a few more minutes, taking in the voice he quite missed for the past month before he opens the door and says, "I'm back."

"Welcome home, Ayato."