IMPORTANT Author's Note:
Hello! It's been so long. And I mean VERRYYY long. The "I-ended-the-last-chapter-at-17-years-old-and-now-I'm-in-college" type of long. I'm really sorry! Honestly, I lacked motivation to finish the next chapter. I decided to take a couple weeks to re-cooperate… and then the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years. By the time I remembered this story, I had totally lost interest in Tokyo Ghoul. But, after the years, I began reading old reviews and felt motivated again (weird, I know!)
Because I haven't written a story in such a long time, I want to apologize if any writing is choppy or if dialogue is strange. I'll do my best to perfect it! Again, thank you so much for sticking with me! Enjoy :)
(Also, as a heads up, there is some strong language in this chapter! Be aware!)
one
It's bright.
So, so bright.
Touka manages to squint open her eyes.
White, artificial light blinds her momentarily until she is able to blink away the tears that meld her vision. She looks around her, dazed.
The walls are white and plain. A sink and a heartbeat monitor sit beside her. Everything looks sterile, the stench of antiseptic assaulting her nostrils.
That's when she realizes she is laying in a bed. A hospital bed.
Innumerable amounts of wires and tubes run along the handrails, some connected to her arms and others—who knows where they lead. Bandages upon bandages grace her arms, wrapped tight and secure. On her pointer finger sits some sort of…clamp? She's not sure what it's for. It looks important.
And then everything comes to her in an instant.
Yamori. The fight. The torture. The pain.
Ken.
With a choke, she rolls over on her side. There's a tug on her face; an oxygen mask is there. Hastily, she rips it off, the air hissing when she tosses the device to the floor. But as she attempts to sit up, her muscles freeze and her suddenly neck feels too weak to stay upright.
The heart monitor at her side beeps like crazy.
Almost immediately, people dressed in scrubs race in, telling her to lay back down, saying things like you can't move, stay still, your skin graphs are still healing.
Touka seizes in pain at the hands pushing her shoulders back down onto the matress, a guttural cry fleeing from her cracked lips. Her eyes are wet.
Nothing matters. She needs to know where Ken is. Is he dead? Is he still out there? What happened?
Before she knows it, she's screaming.
Her wails fly out at an extraordinary pace, unintelligible and more like strangled croaks than anything else. Her throat burns with the strain of it, mucus blocking her airway. She squeezes her fingers tight around the IV in her left inner-elbow and tries to tear it away, strip it from her flesh along with all of her regrets and sorrows and pain.
Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken.
Where are you?
two
Two months.
She's been in a coma for two months.
The doctor had explained it to her, voice monotone, with the bleakest expression on his face. Touka remembers his words. "You've experienced a substantial amount of mental and physical trauma. It was necessary that we placed you in a medically induced coma to protect your brain and accelerate the healing process."
Apparently, that fateful night, there had been such a ruckus that police eventually arrived at the scene. The only thing they found was Touka propped against that tree, with blood littering the place. So much blood.
Since then, Touka's received more than six surgeries. She's been informed of it all; the giant pins stuck into her bones, the vast skin grafts on her arms, the two organ transplants.
The doctor says it's a miracle she's alive. Touka doesn't think so.
Once the doctor left, nurses came in periodically to check on her. Ask how she's feeling, if she's in any pain. Administer copious amounts of morphine that send her into a numb sort of torpor.
Of course she's in pain.
But not for the reasons everyone would suspect.
The weeks pass, slow and taunting. Touka doesn't talk much; only answers when questioned, her sentences clipped short. She's eating better and has even started physical therapy. Rehabilitation was hard at first—and painful—but she thinks she's pretty much got walking down pat again. Her scars have been healing too, but the skin grafts on her arms are ugly and brutal.
Nothing she can't handle.
When Touka is given her dinner, the nurses try to make small talk with her; they offer warm smiles and update her on current events. The prison is being rebuilt her psychologist tells her one day. Touka wonders if she could land a job there.
Eventually, weeks turn into months.
Still no sign from Ken.
The thought of him is the only thing that gets her emotional these days. The acidic taste of vomit sticks at the base of her throat at the mental image of him. She's exhausted, but sleep doesn't claim her. She can't do anything except wonder about the past and the future and stare.
Touka closes her eyes as she stands in the hospital shower, the hot water scalding her muscles, but doing nothing to ease the tension sewn into them. She feels as if she's trudging in tar, unable to do anything except eat and sleep. If she was given the choice, she would be lying down to die.
She's so fucking alone.
The truth is, Touka doesn't know how to move on from what has happened. Who would? She doesn't know how to talk to anyone, how to think of anything else besides the pain she endured. The memories she made with Ken.
He could be dead because of her.
When she turns off the water, her muscles pop and her bones groan, an ache deep in her system. She dresses into her hospital gown per usual, slipping on those ugly socks they make you wear so you don't slip and bust your ass. When the nurse comes in to check on her and take her vitals, Touka uses her voice for the first time in hours. Her tone is croaky, and her voice box sore.
"Has there been any news on a man named Ken?"
The nurse looks at her, soft crinkles around her eyes as she squints curiously. "I don't think so. Why?"
"It's nothing."
She's just about to walk away as the nurse squeezes her shoulder compassionately. Her fingers are warm. Her smile is, too. The touch is so alien to Touka. Strange. She hasn't felt something like that in a while—besides the uncomfortable prodding of her physical therapist, anyway.
"You've made so much progress," the woman hums, sauntering over to the small table in the corner of the room, checking her clipboard, "It'll be a long time, but keep working at it and you'll be out of here."
Touka is silent for a moment.
Finally, hesitantly, she whispers, "Will I have a normal life?"
"I'd like to think so," the nurse replies. Her back is turned, but Touka can tell she's smiling from the lilt in her smooth voice. "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met, Ms. Kirishima."
three
It's been eleven months. Eleven whole months since the incident.
It's also been two months since Touka's been released from the hospital.
And, as she expected, adapting to a normal lifestyle again was difficult as hell.
With leftover money in her bank account, Touka was able to get an apartment. No job, though. She'd filed for unemployment, which was the only thing that was keeping her afloat for now. These days, the main goal was keeping her sanity and pretending she still carried any semblance of the life she had before.
Now, as she sits on her couch, she feels … it's hard to explain. Touka feels hollow. She feels fragile. She feels as if she is not really here, her body numb and dissociating.
Touka thinks of the accident most of the time, which she remembers clearly now, something she could not do before. The memories pierce through her, unrelenting, making her vomit into the toilet more than she'd like to admit.
Therapy can only do so much.
Touka's therapist isn't bad, by any means. It's just that talking does not heal the hole in her heart. While she is desperate to admit and speak of her emotions, she cannot get the words out. She cannot be honest, cannot talk about Ken; she's too scared to admit her fears and her love for him.
Is that the word? Love?
Touka can't say it—can't say it because that would make it real.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," Touka says one day during a therapy session, voice tight.
"You don't have to," her therapist replies, "But it's important that you mull it over. That way you can remember and accept what happened to you."
Touka does remember, of course. But she lies. Says she doesn't. Doesn't mention Ken, the ghouls. Nothing. Just that she woke up in the hospital, with faint memories of being kidnapped and tortured.
"I can't," she says, defeated. "I just want to move on."
"I know you do," the therapist replies. "I know you want to get better but pretending nothing happened to you is not going to help. You need to process your emotions, as painful as they are."
Yeah, okay. Whatever that means.
"Okay," Touka says, and her voice shakes. "I'll try."
"You're suffering," her therapist counters, stern but somehow soft all the same. "You have significant trauma. But you can heal; these memories you carry with you can become lessons. Keep taking your medications and you'll be fine."
four
Touka can't sleep. Insomnia was just one of the things that trauma bestowed upon her, and she cursed it nightly.
There, sprawled on her bed, Touka lies in the dark, her eyes slightly open, fatigue lacing the marrow of her bones. She stares up at the ceiling, lost.
Honestly, she doesn't feel right. It's a bizarre sensation; Touka feels as if she could float right out of her body. Like she's just an apparition, a ghost of who she once was.
Something taps against the door of her apartment.
Touka ignores it at first; it's barely discernable.
Then the noise comes again. It's sterner than the first time. Heavy. Like a knock, almost.
"What is that?" She asks herself, frowning. Her body is heavy like lead, practically screaming at her to at least close her eyes and try to sleep.
Touka's scowl deepens in concern. She lugs herself up and slings her legs over the edge of her mattress, bare feet meeting the linoleum floor.
The atmosphere in the room feels weird. Not right. It's like the air is sitting wrong. Touka tries to rub away the goosebumps that prickle across her thickly scarred arms as she treads down the hallway to her front door.
Hesitant, she opens the door.
Her eyes fall upon a shadowy figure standing on the front porch, embraced by a backdrop of stars, and her heart is torn from the recesses of her ribcage.
It's him.
Ken stands in front of her, silent and unmoving. Pale moonlight shines broadly across his features, reflected against the colorless strands of his hair. His profile is a contrast of light and dark, with snowy-white eyelashes piercing the shadow that looms over his face. An olivine gaze stares back at her; unwavering, half-lidded, somber.
He's so beautiful, Touka thinks amongst it all. She had known that, of course, pondering often about his fragile beauty. But she'd forgot just how gorgeous he was; the extent of which was almost unfair.
Touka gasps then, the sudden urge to cry enrapturing her nervous system. The aftershocks of stupor, relief, and grief drop her blood pressure and makes her grapple for air. The fact that he is a single step away from her sends ice flurries down her spine. Is this a dream? Is she dreaming right now?
"Ken?" Touka rasps, her throat convulsing around the syllable as she nearly chokes. She grips the doorframe so hard that her nails threaten to break under the pressure.
That's when Touka realizes the state he is in.
Ken's face is messed up: bruises litter his jawline, dirt scuffed across a cheekbone as if his face had been slammed into the earth. Ribbons of crimson bloom from a hole in the chest of his form-fitting bodysuit; it flows downwards, painting his torso a splash of violent, dark vermilion.
"Are you—" Touka starts, unable to finish her sentence as Ken collapses forward.
He lands onto Touka's front, unconscious, the slope of his nose pressed against the collar of Touka's nightgown; he smells of sweat, grime, and metallic blood.
He's hurt.
And she knows she needs to help him.