AN: Happy Holidays! Thank you so much for over 100 follows, I never expected for this to get so popular, I promise the next chapter will be longer. :). Enjoy!
Eglantine Rose
Flower Meaning: A Wound Yet To Heal
"Kidnapped? I'm sorry, but did you just say that Kaneki Ken, the half ghoul that you knew would turn heads and yet you promised to protect, has been kidnapped? Because I could've sworn I just misheard you." Kazuko sneered after Yoshimura explained the plan to everybody.
Wrapping his tattooed arms around her shoulders, Uta gently tugged a growling Kazuko away from Yoshimura, muttering to her softly as Kazuko continued to stew in fury.
"Yes, I'm afraid you are not mistaken Kazuko." If it was possible, Kazuko's scowl would've deepened. "We are making a move to rescue him."
"Brilliant." Kazuko nodded, the gears turning in her head. "Where's he being held?"
"With Aogiri."
Kazuko's already pale face lost colour, the gears in her head shrieking to a sudden stop.
"Kazuko." Touka said, shooting up from her seat when horror flashed across Kazuko's face. "Kazuko, what's wrong?"
"You need to get him out of there, quickly." Kazuko stared solemnly, her empty blue eyes drilling straight into Yoshimura as she repeated the words of the report she had read earlier that very day. "At 2300 hours the eleventh ward special task force is set to storm the Aogiri Tree base with orders to shoot to kill. If they find him," Kazuko let out a small sigh, rubbing a hand across har face as she spoke. "If they find him it'll be shoot first and ask questions later."
Yoshimura's face turned grave: "Is Arima on the task force?"
Kazuko only shook her head, leaning against Uta as the ghoul rocked her slightly, resting his head on top of hers.
"The problems of the eleventh ward is below Arima's station as a special class investigator." She revealed. "He's a shiny toy they only bring out for special occasions. This isn't one of them. However, Senior Investigator Hirako is on the team, he spent the most time close up with Arima, most likely picked up a few tricks on the way." Her head snapped up, her eyes briefly flickering before they settled back into their normal empty stage. "You have to let me go with you."
"I'm afraid that isn't possible Kazuko." Yoshimura said calmly, his eyes briefly flickering to a suddenly still Uta before returning to her.
"Why not?" The human pressed, a small scowl on her lips as she gestured around the room, Uta's arm tightening around her shoulders. "So, the child and the high school student get to go but it's ridiculous to even insinuate that I could? I know the CCG's tactics and strategy, you need me there."
"Kazuko-" Yoshimura tried to placate, his eyes once more resting on Uta's frozen form while Kazuko quickly interrupted him.
"I want to go."
"'Zuko." Yomo began only to have a fierce cold blue glare directed at him before he could continue.
"You're not going." Uta stated lowly before Kazuko could raise anymore complaints. Though her eyes shot to him, Uta's stare was noticeable even behind his sunglasses. "Darling, you know I never like to deny you anything, but this is final. You're not going."
Kazuko stared back, the protests dying in her mouth as the darkness swelled in her brain and cooed lightly in her ear. Her empty blue eyes flickered to the floor, all previous emotions leaving her face as she silently stepped slightly closer to Uta, his tattooed fingers lightly tracing the scars on her face.
Be brave, darling, but do not be stupid.
"Now this is just fascinating." Tsukiyma commented lowly from the other side of the room, his chin perched on the palm of his hand.
"I will tear out your eyes and feed them to her." Uta deadpanned, his sunglasses lifting up to reveal his permanently active kakugan staring straight back at Tsukiyama.
The purple haired heir only smiled lightly, his gaze silently flickering from the ghoul to the human.
"What's my job?" Kazuko mumbled in defeat, darkness curling around her shoulders still continuing to murmur soft reassurance, Uta's fingertips never straying far from her scarred cheek.
"Look after the cafe with Enji." Yoshimura answered, the Devil Ape in question brightening at the prospect of company. "You've already done enough by informing us about the CCG."
Kazuko nodded, stepping out of Uta's grasp and following Enji downstairs, the sound of their conversation drifting along the hallway even after Yoshimura closed the door behind them.
"Come on Kazuko, we'll have a great time protecting the cafe." Enji's loud, jovial voice exclaimed, his small laugh echoeing across the hallway.
"Please take your arm off of me." Was Kazuko's blunt reply.
...
"I'm bored." Kazuko sighed, dragging her fingertips over the newly polished surface of the counter as Enji wiped down yet another glass.
"There's no such thing." The ghoul replied cheerfully, putting down the glass he was holding onto the drying rack.
"There is and I'm experiencing it." She stated flatly, sighing heavily once more. "How are you not bored? It must be your youth, I'm too old for this nowadays."
Enji only shrugged slightly, picking up another glass to polish.
"You're not that much older than me." The ghoul said. "You can tell me a life lesson if you're that bored, old lady."
Kazuko only sent him another flat glare at the nickname, then her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Do you think I am an idiot?"
"What do you mean?" Enji questioned calmly, not looking up from the glass he was cleaning.
"An idiot, stupid, a fool, dim witted, do you think I am one?" Kazuko asked, her eyes narrowing further at the ghoul's far too casual behaviour. "There's no need for you to suddenly direct our conversation to me giving you personal information, unless..." A slight scowl appeared, and the low light of the cafe made her scars even more noticeable than usual. "Did Yoshimura set you up for this?"
Enji finally turned to face her fully, placing down the glass and turning serious.
"Yoshimura-san is worried about the nature of yours and Uta's relationship."
"Yoshimura-san needs to mind his own damn business." Kazuko mocked, her mood instantly switching as she laughed lightly, the sound as empty as her cold blue eyes. "Yoshimura already knows the nature of Uta and I's relationship, after all..." she trailed off for a breed second, fingertips tracing the long scar on her face, "who do you think patched me up?"
"That's what makes him worried." Enji said, his eyes never leaving hers as he spoke. "He says- he says that Uta has mistakenly driven you to insanity."
Her Okaa-sans pure diamond earring and sparkling gold champagne flash across her vision for the briefest of seconds.
The darkness immediately coddles her, wrapping its arms around her shoulders and hushing gently like one might quiet a fearful child.
It's okay my darling, it's okay now...
"Who's to say I was ever sane beforehand?" Kazuko scoffed slightly as a silence fell over the empty cafe.
"Who's to say that Uta, whether it was on purpose or not, didn't make it worse?"
It took everything sighing Kazuko not to lunge over the quaint little wooden counter.
Something deep in her mind screeches to a halt.
Quaint.
It's all just too quaint.
The cafe, the coffee, even the charming little glowing streetlights outside, the quaint cobblestone streets decorated with neatly arranged green bushes that will likely become even more beautiful when winter leaves and spring finally approaches.
Kazuko doesn't belong here.
She was born in gold and diamonds, she was raised on hard concrete and bloody fingertips.
She doesn't belong here, warmth and comfort are strangers to her.
The image of a man with his jugular ripped out flashes across her vision, and she dryly swallows against the sudden need to cry.
She wants to go home.
She wants Uta to make it better again.
She just wants it all to stop.
Taking in a shuddering breath, she blinks and the moment is gone as quick as it had appeared, her previous anger returning at an alarming rate.
"I'm not stupid Enji," Kazuko sneered, and though her eyes were emotionless, Enji could still see something dark swimming around the edges. "But that doesn't mean I'm exactly sane either." She stood up abruptly, glancing around the impeccable cafe with a newfound distaste. "Thank you for the coffee, I'll make my own way back to the fourth ward."
The cold December air bites against her skin as she steps out onto the street, her hands burrowing themselves into the pockets of her leather jacket.
She's grateful for the reminder that she's still alive, despite everything.
Uta returns later that night, wrapping his tattooed arm around her waist and slowly murmuring the epic tale of Kaneki Ken's decision to not return to Anteiku.
She has every opportunity to tell him about her conversation with Enji that was done on Yoshimura's behalf.
She doesn't.
...
It's late December now.
Lights make the city more alive than ever and Kazuko sighs softly into her green scarf, brushing off her boots as she steps into the CCG building, and blinking away the cold from her eyes.
It's barely seven o'clock, and her fatigue is obvious even to her as she slumbers towards the elevator.
She hates the winter.
Nothing grows, nothing changes, everything is frozen in place and she hates the lifeless aura of it all.
Even then, Arima stood in front of her desk is enough to snap her out of her fatigue.
"Don't even bother taking your coat off." Arima states, the sky only just beginning to lighten above the first ward. "We're going out."
"Aren't you meant to be in a debriefing?" She asked, adjusting her CCG issued white winter coat over her shoulders and following Arima back down to the first floor.
"This is the debriefing." Arima stated calmly, passing through the gate and leading Kazuko out of the white steel building.
"And what have I done to warrant such an action?" Kazuko asked, her eyes narrowing as Arima only hummed lowly. "Arima, what's going on?"
"I don't know." Arima admitted. "And that's what annoys me."
"What do you mean you don't know?" She said incredulously, titling her head as she stared up at the male. "What does your existential horror at not knowing something have anything to do with me?"
"Are you okay?" He asked, stopping and suddenly turning to face her as they entered a greener and more secluded area of the first ward. "These past few weeks you've been odd, odder than usual at least."
"Of course I'm okay." She replied, blinking rapidly in confusion, her vivid green scarf making her eyes an even colder blue than usual, making them appear even more emptier than usual. "Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"Kazuko, do you even realise that you're trembling?"
"What?" Kazuko scoffed. "No I'm no-"
She cut herself off, her shaking pale hand entering her vision as she lifted it up to prove Arima wrong. It was shaking violently, as if she was deathly scared of something she couldn't even remember, or even realise she was scared of.
"Kazuko, what are you so afraid of?" Arima asked, grabbing her hand and gently pushing it back down as a Kazuko only continued to stare at it blankly, her sky blue eyes free of any emotion.
Be brave. The darkness hissed. But don't be stupid darling.
"Nothing." Kazuko said, looking straight up at Arima. "Absolutely nothing."
(There's blood on her hands, blood on her face and blood underneath her fingernails. There's a dark look in her eyes reflected by the bathroom mirror, and she can taste metal on her tongue. A small part of her is screaming, and the darkness is failing to drown it.)
She blinks and the moment is gone.
"The fact that you truly believe that means you've repressed your fear so deep inside that you don't even recognise it anymore."
"Don't quote Freud to me like I'm an idiot Arima." She huffed, clenching her fists just to stop that stupid shaking. "Next thing I know you'll say I'm stuck in a life stage."
"Not just yet." He replied, his breaths coming out in short wisps of condensation due to the cool air around them. "Kazuko, if you ever sincerely asked me to help you, I would."
It's as close as a true proclamation of friendship she would get with a man like Arima.
"How sweet of you." She stated flatly, a single eyebrow raising as she spoke. "Still don't really understand why we have to have this conversation."
"Just know that I would." Arima said, a small smile appearing on his face as he patted her head lightly, her shorter stature coming in handy. "Do you want a tea?"
"Yeah." Kazuko stated, watching him turn away once more with narrowed eyes. "Please."
(There's blood on her hands, and acid rising in her throat no matter how much she swallows it down. Her sanity is in tatters and the darkness is seeping in to fill the cracks. Her hands are shaking violently and there are is emotion in her eyes when she looks in the bathroom mirror. Her scream is bloodcurdling.)
She blinks and the memory is gone once more, dragged deep down back inside by the darkness.
...
It's spring.
Finally.
Kazuko likes spring.
There's more flowers than any other time of year.
The cherry blossoms are a loving splash of pink against the city skyline as she takes the train back from the first ward, the welcoming arms of the weekend and the warming temperatures brightening the sullen mood that had overtaken her fellow passengers late last October.
She steps of at the station of the fourth ward, smiling hollowly to the ticket officer that looks as tired as she feels, the patrolling CCG officers nod politely as she passes them, her identical white coat hanging over one arm as she nodded back. She recognises them from the promotion ceremony last November, where she had stood next to Arima and tried not to let her fear of the mass number of investigators eat her alive.
They're both different then the ones from two months ago.
She tries not to think about it too much.
The passes through the oak doors of HySy, smiling briefly at how her tulips had successfully survived the winter frost and were beginning to bloom once more.
There were two human high school girls wandering around the shop when she enters, admiring a simple black face mask and muttering to themselves. Kazuko only tapped the desk two times as she passed it, Uta silently sticking out his head to nod at her as she passed, slipping into the side room and walking up the stairs to their apartment, humming a long forgotten lullaby under her breath.
It's domestic.
It's perfectly normal.
Enji and Arima's words from winter still lurk in the very back of her mind, the darkness growing frustrated as the words stubbornly refused to drown no matter how much it held them underwater.
But it's spring now.
So it doesn't matter.
The darkness in her head nods in enthusiastic agreement, pushing the words underwater once more.
It's late afternoon and slowly turning into a cool spring evening by the time their honoured guest arrives.
Kazuko had missed him, while he was out there in the big wide world being almost as mentally detached and confused as her.
But he's back now.
So it doesn't matter.
"Hello." Kazuko greets lightly, kicking out her legs from where she sat on the desk, not looking up from the folder in her hands. "Welcome to HySy Art Mask Studio. Normally we only sell masks, but I have a feeling you want a little more than that." She finally looked up, her empty blue eyes meeting the haunted grey ones of the white haired man that stood in the doorway. "Hello again Kaneki-kun. Do me a favour and change the sign to closed?"
Kaneki only smiled slightly as he stepped into the studio, flipping the sign and closing the door on his way in.
"Hello Kazuko." The half ghoul smiled back.