I just returned from a five hour continuous scholarship assessment. I think I lost a few years off my life aha. If anyone needs me, I'll be cycling around trying to burn off the excess adrenaline. (It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's some crazy kid cycling into the air! Call NASA now!) XD

As always, to my two betas; SirGregSloth and xxxDreamingFlowerxxx, thank you both for your help! Any remaining mistakes are mine.

At five, Kaneki has short black hair that always brushes against his eyelashes and makes his mum laugh whenever he pretends to be unable to see and bumps into her instead. It's fun, for one thing, and it brings a smile to her face. In terms of the number of friends he has, it's not a lot. In fact, he can count the number of friends he has on one finger.

It's not a lot, but he thinks that he has only the best of the best. His name is Kuro and he, well, he's a cat. A cat toy.

They have a lot of fun together and Kuro is one of the most patient person he has even known and is a great listener. Kuro is awesome like that.

Kuro keeps him company when he's getting tucked in by his mum and she leaves and closes the door shuts and his room floods with darkness. But he doesn't shout or cry, much less whimper. Because Kuro isn't afraid of monsters, not like how he is; he knows with an unshakable belief typical of children, that Kuro will protect him for all sorts of nasty things creeping in the shadows.

And so when he accidentally loses Kuro one day at the playground, he's bawling unabashedly. Big, fat tears roll down his cheeks to splash on the ground.

One moment Kuro was next to him and when he turned his head to watch a butterfly fluttering by, he looked back again and the only thing left, was just an empty space beside him, Kuro nowhere to be found.

Nearby, children shriek with glee on the seesaw and he's angry that they get to be so happy. It's not fair. Kuro is gone and he's feeling lonely and lost while all the other children have their own friends to play with. It's not fair, he thinks again, and a fresh wave of tears erupts.

That's when his mum appears, a lovely angel with warm brown eyes and soothing voice that usually has the power to melt his sadness away. But not today. Today is a tra-ge-dy, a big word he learnt from reading his father's books and he likes how it rolls off his tongue, all serious and sad and makes his mouth curl downwards. Today, he has lost an important person in his life and that cuts him deep. He already has lost his dad, now Kuro too? It's not fair.

"Don't cry, Kaneki. I'll get you a new one."

He is five years old then, and there is no logic in getting another Kuro. In fact, it doesn't matter what age anyone is. Replacements always pale in comparison to the real thing, a shallow substitute for what has been something dear and precious to you.

It isn't the same.

Kuro cannot be replaced.

It is… unthinkable.

He heaves in another breath to let loose another wail, sick and miserable with how much he misses his best friend.

(He doesn't know then, that this is just the start of how he will lose many precious things over the years, how they will slip past his fingers like sand on the beach and through no fault of his, leave him alone again.)

His heart is still young and raw, and it bleeds easily, stings more. He is just a young child acquitted with the meaning of loss and it hurts.

His mother pulls him into a hug and he curls his fingers into her sunflower-yellow dress, clutches what he knows to be his lifeline in a world that has suddenly turned cold and dangerous and who snatchers best friends away in the blink of an eye.

His mother must understand, her eyes growing soft and she runs a hand through his hair.

"Come," she says simply, slips a hand into his, "Let's go find him then."

She looks at him with brown eyes the colour of warm honey that she makes him in the morning, and he nods and wipes away the tears in his eyes.

He has to be strong.

He has to find Kuro.

He spends the whole day scouring the park, voice hoarse from shouting Kuro's name over and over again. His legs ache and throb like never before and there are fresh tear tracks on his cheeks, the glimmer of tears that sneaks out from the edges of his eyes even though he tells himself he will not cry.

They search and search till night falls, him getting more and more desperate while his mum is ever patient and unrelenting in her search. Above their heads is a velvet darkness that cloaks the sky, tiny pinpricks of light piercing through. Stars, his mum says, aren't they beautiful?

No matter how much the stars glimmer and shine, they cannot help him find Kuro. In short, their beauty is for naught. What's the point if they can't help him find Kuro? What's the point if he's only looking at them without Kuro? What's the point of shining above the heads of men if they are useless in even illuminating the location of Kuro? The stars are old and they do not care about the whims of men, least of all, a small child, and the shine cruelly in the night.

His stomach grumbles loudly, startling him. Now that he thinks about it, he's hungry. Very hungry. But the thought of leaving Kuro to fend for himself while he fills his belly with food is unspeakably selfish and doesn't sit well with all the sickness in his guts. So he swallows his protest and doggedly stumbles on, his head echoing with Kuro, Kuro, Kuro.

His attachment with Kuro isn't born out of loneliness. It plays a small part yet the main bulk of it lies in the fact that he's the only toy his mum has even given him. Even at a young age, he knows that his family is unlike the others. While they may have large houses and thousands and millions and bazillion toys! He only has a cramped apartment that's filled with the delicate scent of his mum's perfume and her constant presence around. It's enough. He's happy. For this is the essential truth for all families; it's not about how much money there is in the bank. It's about spending time with his family and for that, it's all that he's asked for and always will.

The gnawing ache of losing Kuro strikes deep in his chest, an almost physical void that calls out to be filled.

And like a godsend, a wonder, miracle or just a blessing that he has the best mum in the world, because his mum returns with Kuro in her hands. There are red scratch marks on her hands, leaves tangled up in her hair and her bright yellow dress is now smeared with mud and torn at the edges. There are some things a child sees, and some things a child don't. Those are one of them. Instead, Kaneki sees Kuro in her hands, sees his mum's eyes glinting with gentle mirth and he straightens up, grins and catapults straight into his mum's embrace.

"You've found Kuro!"

He takes it gingerly from her and she smiles at the way he jumps around and hugs her again before he's running circles round her, his joy and enthusiasm such a contrast to how he is usually so shy and quiet.

Kaneki runs an eye over the gift that was bestowed to him, takes in the familiar shape of paws, whiskers and –

Something's wrong.

Something's very wrong.

Kuro is… broken.

Kuro's ear hangs by a thread, the stuffing coming out like cottons. Its paw is ripped, the threads having been snapped off. One of its eyes is missing and all that's left is just an empty patch of black of where its eye used to be.

His mum is talking, but it's barely registering.

"… Found him… hidden behind some bushes… kids took it away… played with it…"

"Kuro's broken," he mumbles, "I don't want him."

Such is the capricious nature of the human heart, and fickle still are the hearts of children. But one cannot blame them for they are still young and there is much to learn. After all, what is broken, isn't gone.

Disappointment flashes through his mum's face, but Kaneki doesn't catch it, can barely see past the perceived misfortune of his youth.

But his mum is patient, mum is kind, mum knows how to get him out of this bind.

She sweeps back a curl of hair that has fallen astray, gently takes his hand into hers and tells him, "Broken things aren't gone completely. They're still there; you just have to look deeper."

He is five and he looks at the torn ear and gaping hole in Kuro's face, and he doesn't understand.

So his mother takes him by the hand, brings him home and she looks so beautiful and wise and gentle that he sits quietly at her side and watches her. She places a needle and thread in his hands and takes the same things for herself too.

"You have one and I have one, right?"

He nods.

"Now watch."

Under the soft light of the moon, it casts a gentle luminance on the boy and his mother. She weaves and spins magic into Kuro, infusing it with moonlight enchantment, a delicate lattice of silver, strong and tenacious like the strands of a spider web under the benign gaze of the moon.

She mends the tears and rips with smooth needlework, her deft fingers weaving a tapestry of fascination. It was the same hands that she used to stroke his hair, wipe a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and make a cup of honey and other endless things that are familiar and home all at once. He watches, breathes, and he is utterly compelled by it, amazed by the miracles that she is threading through Kuro, restoring the same silky black fur to its full glory.

But no masterpiece is done without a mark or a brand from the artist.

From a little box that lies above his bed that he never gave much thought to, his mum withdraws a small black disk, the perfect size to serve as an eye. When she brings it closer to him, Kaneki can see it is speckled with tiny glimmers, droplets of light in a sea of darkness.

It's a star-speckled eye and he breathes in a startled gasp of joy.

She sews in the new eye, one that glints even in the dark, a perpetual wink to him and he watches and breathes and clutches the needle and thread to his chest. Upon finishing, she daintily bites the thread off and turns to face him, places her needle and thread on the table.

It sits unchanged, exactly the same as what he holds in his hands. He reaches out tentatively to the needle and he can feel traces of warmth from his mother's hand.

"Would you like to learn?" she asks, with dark circles under her eyes and strands of hair falling out of her bun. But her eyes gleam bright and her lips tug up at the corners as she gazes contentedly at the restored Kuro.

"Yes," he says eagerly and nods once, twice, thrice for impact. Excitement bubbles in his chest; imagine, being able to weave magic.

A brilliant smile lights up her face and she suddenly looks ten years younger, radiates with an inner light.

"Then I'll teach you," she says and places him on her lap, "to breathe life into broken things again."

She picks up the needle, adjusts his grip on his own one, and tells him, "Always remember, that broken things are whole once. And what was whole, is never gone."

It is a start. A start of something more.

Broken kites, ripped clothing, snapped off stationery, frayed bags, shattred screens and most importantly: torn books.

He learns and grows and holds them with gentle hands and a critical eye, patches them up with painstaking care and from the forges of his efforts, he brings them back from the precipice and they come back whole again. Maybe not whole as they once were, but enough, enough for them to not fade away into obscurity.

Kaneki takes joy in every single thing he recovers from the brink of death. What he does isn't simple mending.

It's creation.

It's finding new purpose for the lost, the broken, the shattered.

In short, they are reclaimed.

It's knowing that whatever state of abandonment or brokenness he finds them in, there is always a spark of something that he can coax back into a steady fire. He doesn't see his mum much, these days. But when she notices his work – if she even notices him, at all, sometimes – she'll smile and she looks so proud.

He lives for moments like this.

He is still a young child who loves too much, helps too much, and that is perfectly fine.

He is just a young child, but he knows deep in his heart, engraved in his bones, seared into his mind, that broken doesn't mean useless.

It means to be… reborn.

Kaneki is older now, ten to be exact and nine to be not. His birthday was just yesterday and he's one year older. He puffs up a little with how big he is getting, how he'll one day grow up big and strong and powerful, and ease the burden his mum seems to bear. Her back is always hunched and she's always in her room, always so busy, always helping, always so far away.

But he's a boy of ten now, that's a big number, and he can handle it. Sure, he is a little lonely, a little sad, a little lost, but he reads his dad's books and gets sucked into the pages and that's fine. It's alright. He won't complain, won't cry, won't whine about this because remember, he is a big boy now, and big boys are supposed to be strong.

Standing on tiptoes, he can almost reach the cookie jar that lies tantalisingly close, and even as his fingers scrabble uselessly in the air, he sticks out his tongue and strains forward because it is so close, so very close and –

"Kaneki? A-a-are you hungry?" His mother asks, amusement in her features even as her forehead creases with wrinkles and heavy lines weigh down the edges of her face. She steps out from the door and shuffles over. He almost expects her limbs to creak with how busy she is.

Lately, his mum is making bracelets to sell. Other times it would be paper flowers or stationery sets. Sometimes it would be charms to ward off misfortune, bad dreams or sickness. (He wonders why those never seem to work for his mum. Maybe because she has made so many and gave a small part of her magic to those charms and what's left of her blessing is just too small and weak to protect her. That sends a spreading ache in his chest and he is too young then, to put a name to it, nor understand why.)

"Mum!" He clambers down and runs towards her because he misses her, and it feels so good to see her venturing out of the room and is here walking and talking to him. He's giddy with happiness.

"Are you hungry?" she asks again, and it comes out sad and ashamed, words that speak volumes of accidental neglect.

He nods eagerly, cookies momentarily forgotten in light of the bigger prize: lunch with his mum.

"Get your things, then. Water bottle, bag and your shoes…"

Before she can complete her spiel, Kaneki is already racing out, snatching his bag and things out. But he makes sure not to yank on his bag too hard – he just stitched up the straps a few weeks ago and he doesn't want them to snap again. Kuro, his ever present companion, sits inside the main compartment of his bag, his one star-speckled eye glinting as usual. Because kids are kids and they're not exactly the best caretaker in the world, Kuro has undergone numerous 'surgeries'. Threads crisscross its entire body; the ears, nose, paws and tail. But that's okay. Kaneki thinks it's one of the coolest things ever.

In a moment, he is done and twitching impatiently at the door, ready to make a move.

"Hurry up," he calls out and his mum smiles, shakes her head, gathers her purse and heads out the door. He slips his hands into hers and smiles when she tightens her grip, holds him gently in her warm hands.

Lunch is wonderful.

Lunch with his mum is even better.

But lunch with his mum and desert?

"This is amazing!" he exclaims, eyes wide as dinner plates as he scans the selection of cakes on display.

"Now just choose one. I don't want you to have a tummy ache if you fall ill from eating too much."

"But mummm," he whines, "There's just so many of them."

Should he choose the chocolate lava cake? But what about the decadent cheesecake, guaranteed to have a cheese meltdown, or so the sign proclaims. But it's been a long time since he last had Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes. Oh, and is that black forest? Look at it. Just look at it.

He throws out his hands in defeat. "I can't decide. They all look so good. Mum, will you choose for me?"

"Hmm… I'll take a strawberry delight cake then."

He makes a face. Strawberries are for girls and he's not a girl. He's a strong man of an impressive ten years and he is missing a front tooth (It's from a fight, he confides to Hide and ignores the look of disbelief Hide throws at him.)

"I think I would like a chocolate lava cake instead. Can we have that, please?" He's breathing hard on the glass panels and misses the way his mum hides a smile.

After their deliciously awesome, mind-bendingly spectacular, fantastically rich in flavour and aesthetically pleasing, densely packed with fillings and decadent with many chocolate layers. His vocabulary is superb from reading so many books and okay, he's just showing off to his mum who claps in delight and he grins back in return.

They go to the park and he's smiling widely, speaking in an excited babble on what his mum has missed and he runs a few steps forward before darting back to his mum's side.

He could be high on sugar, but it's more of the fact that after what felt like forever, his mother is finally going out with him and they had lunch and glorious desert and happiness bubbles through his bloodstream, like fizzy drinks in summer.

The weather is pleasant, the Sun basks them in a warm glow, the occasional breeze ruffling their hair and clothes and the shrieks of children all part of a normal day in the park. Except, it's all the more sweeter when his mum is here.

They sit on a bench to watch others, contently leaning back with eyes half shut, soaking in the warmth. Kaneki is getting drowsy, and his mum pulls him closer so his head rests on her arm and he shifts, curls closer to her warmth. It's… peaceful. Nice and comforting in a way he hasn't felt for a long time.

When something dazzling flutters into his line of vision, he blinks, yawns and stretches his arms to the sky. The brightly coloured thing swoops near his face and that's when he realises it's a butterfly. A blue one. With luminescent wings that dazzles him with reflected light.

"Look, mum! It's a Sasakia charonda!"

"What's that?"

"It's the name of the butterfly! And look, its wings are blue, which means it's a male. I know it cause I read it dad's books!" He says smugly, gleefully, showing off in childish delight.

"That's nice," she smiles, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she, too, watches it flit around their heads. It swoops down, turns sharply to the left and avoids missing his ear before it flutters its wings and banks away. The Sun reflects back its iridescent wings, throwing a myriad of dazzling colours like a diamond glinting. It's only when it shyly hovers on his right does he sees its wings clearly.

One of them is shredded at the top.

It has a broken wing, incomplete. And that explains it. Why its flight is so erratic, flying low and then tipping up before it spiral downwards. What he thought to be the butterfly dancing was in actual fact, struggling to fly properly in a straight course. It's drunkenly changing direction, getting buffeted and pushed down by the wind currents. All the while, it's always heading upwards every time it loses height. Upwards… What is it trying to reach?

Tilting his head back and back and back, he has to squint his eyes and shield them against the harsh glare of the – oh. Oh.

The Sun.

The butterfly is just trying to reach the Sun. Painfully. Valiantly. Courageously.

"A butterfly with a broken wing… I don't think it can find a mate so easily now," his mum comments.

And he flinches from that, flinches because it must hurt, being so alone all the time and not being able to find someone. He has Hide and Kuro and he's grateful for them, eases away the edge of loneliness that eats at his soul on bad days. But this butterfly? This beautiful, beautiful,broken-winged butterfly?

It has no one. And that settles it, really. The butterfly wants to meet the Sun, dreams of reaching the skies and touching the clouds. Then he'll help it. Up there in the sky, he thinks that it'll be easier to find another butterfly like it, one that's too stubborn and headstrong to stop, one with a strong will and who continues to beat its wings and fly higher and higher and higher.

"Will you wait for me here for a while?" He asks and his mum can see the kernel of determination in his eyes, something strong and steady burning.

She nods, a gleam of satisfaction.

Gently, oh so gently, he cups his hands around the butterfly which has settled on his shoulder for a rest. Its wings brush against his fingers and it makes a few inquisitive circles around his palm before settling down, patient and unafraid.

And its wings glinting, glinting, torn.

On closer look, he gets to see greater details in the patterns of its wings. The sides are edged with black and electric blue sprawls out from the middle, bright and arresting. Spots of white adorn its wings, looking like flecks of snow.

Kaneki takes care not to crush it, and runs all the way to the top of the park, a small plateau that rises gently up the ground and he's panting and sweating, but the butterfly nestles between his hands and he can't give up, can't give up, just want to reach the Sun and the sky, a butterfly's dream and I.

As he steadily makes his way up, his legs burn and his breathing is ragged. He's unused to the physical exertions, but the urgency builds up within him, driving him forward and banishing the protest of his muscles to the back of his mind.

What he focuses on is the thing that lies as light as a feather in his hands and how the responsibility he feels for it weighs him down like an anchor, sinking and grounding him and tethering him to this moment. It's a homing beacon for his actions, brings him the same sense of serenity and peace whenever he's fixing and mending old knickknacks. He knows this feeling, recognises and calls it his own, embraces it with open arms because here he is, given purpose to serve a broken thing.

This must be what broken things feel like; every time he pulls on a thread to secure back an eye or carefully glue back the spine of a book or prop up a lamp that has been snapped in half.

It's like being remade again, creation surging through his vein and he breathes through flames and emerges, whole and complete and burning with it.

He may not be broken, but the broken things steadies him, grounds him down the same way he does to them and this familiarity settles into his bones, makes him stronger. It's a mutual give and take, one that he does so gladly and with all his heart.

His mother must think that way too, whenever she ventures out of her room – getting lesser and lesser as time pass – and sees him with a needle and thread and glue and tape and all manners of tools and equipment needed to breathe life into the broken things again. She will bestow on him a radiant smile, pride flaring in her chest.

As he reaches the top of the park, he casts a glance down and yes, it's still there, blue wings catching the ray of the Sun and throwing out sparkles of colours like a miniature disco ball. It's so beautiful that he doesn't even care about the missing patch on one of its wings or that it can't fly properly. He is just completely and utterly unbothered by its incompleteness.

Because it's a beautiful, vibrant thing that pulses with life and fights and struggles and breathes and never ever gives up.

At ten, Kaneki learns that broken things make him feel a little less empty inside, like he plays a part in the grand scheme of things even if it just one small thing. It's a small accomplishment, but large in its significance, and this is a moment that he's going to cherish for the rest of his life.

When he untangles his fingers to reveal the butterfly, the sun catches on the vibrant blue of its wings, he tells it, "I hope you'll find someone who accepts you, torn wing or not, but anyway, I still think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

(He doesn't know then, that his words will echo in his head when he meets a girl called Touka, whose hair has the same shade of blue as the butterfly, and has a mean temper, a foul mouth and one of the loveliest kagune he has ever known.)

The butterfly bends down to press a kiss to his palms before it flutters its wings and takes off. Its flight pattern is still shaky at first, but it's gaining confidence. It still gets buffeted by the wind, but it unerringly rights itself after a few seconds, picks up the pace again to pursue the pathway to the skies. It is already above his head now and it is slowly, gradually, unfailingly, reaching higher and higher, a flash of vibrant blue against the sky.

There is a beauty in broken things, that he knows, as he watches its gleaming wings flash and shimmer, and knows it to be truer than anything he has ever known.

When he returns to his mum and recounts his adventure, his mum's eyes sparkle and soften, and her smile stretches to the corners and she's so proud, so proud of her son that her heart feels like bursting. Kaneki grins back, a steady wisdom from this incident burning in the back of his mind.

That night, she treats him to ice cream and he chooses rainbow sparkles. He would make a comment about how rainbows are for girls, but at this point, he's too busy stuffing his face full of the delicious ice cream to care. It is a kaleidoscope of colours with bright yellows and blue and pink and green swirling in ice cream goodness and he eats it all, bubbles popping on his tongue as the sparkle part in its name becomes evident.

His mother had never looked happier. (And so was he, given that this was one of the last memory he has of her. It hurts and soothes at the same time, if that is possible. It hurts that she's gone, but soothed that at least she was happy, had a nice memory to cling onto just before she passed away.)

From then on, every time he goes to a park, he's always on the lookout for butterflies with shredded wings, trying to look for a glimpse of the vibrant blue of the sea on a sunny day. He finds that broken-winged butterflies are infinitely more beautiful and precious than those whose wings are whole.

And when he catches sight of them, he is reminded back then, of his mother whose smiles were as brilliant as the Sun, how he was always reaching out towards her even though she was so busy and far away.

He never stops trying, holding on to her memory with a determination born out of desperation and sorrow.

He misses her even now.

Kaneki is now eighteen years old, is a little wiser, a little smarter and still a child at heart.

He meets a girl who's a ghoul and she becomes his co-worker and somehow, became a friend.

Her name is Touka and her hair is the same blue as the butterfly with the broken wing and acts like she's a wounded animal when she loses patience with him, all snarls and unsheathed claws. Frankly, she's terrifying.

But he knows that to judge a book by its cover is not a smart thing to do, neither is it recommended nor does it serve him well. He has always been patient and he smiles, watches and learns.

There are cracks in Touka's gaze when she thinks there is no one watching, bitterness and hatred twisting her smiles. Her guard is always on high, and armour encasing her entirely, barely lets in any room for her heart to show. There are shards in her heads and there are shards pushing others away, as much as of a challenge as cowardice. She fights her way through the briars and tangles, through her inherent brokenness and tries her best, really, when she sometimes cracks and crumbles. But not once, not once does she let herself shatter and for that bravery, Kaneki is always gentle, always kind, knows when to get her out of her bind.

He can see that she tries so very hard to keep her secrets inside and all her skeletons locked up.

He can see her trying to hold it all together in front of the other ghouls, in the way she gamely shovels down Yoriko's food with a set look and also, in the way she tries her damn best to smile at a little boy and his older sister who walks down the street, hand in hand.

He sees it all.

He's there when she first reveals her identity as a ghoul, sees the flash of self-hatred in her black and red eyes and the imperceptible flinch when her kagune flares out like an avenging angel, beautiful and deadly. She seems to be almost sorry that she has to do this, but she did it anyway, shoved the meat into his mouth and beat him up because she is the girl who never backs down from a fight, no matter what form it takes, and he is always the boy who needs someone to be stronger than him, stronger for him.

It works out. Splendidly.

Kaneki learns to rely on her in almost the same way she does with him.

A day at Anteiku isn't complete if he doesn't mess up a simple task and Touka doesn't give him hell for it.

Because it was never about how he wasn't a clumsy person and neither is it about how Touka was not the most patient person in the world.

It was none of it.

Instead, it was knowing that there is someone out there caring about him, making sure that what he does is his absolute best, nothing less than that. After all, his lonely days of returning to an empty house, with an even emptier heart, he tries to smile at his constant companions of all these years: his books. What comes out twists into bitterness instead.

When she appears with her typical distaste of books, he thinks maybe that's what he has been looking for. Someone to show his heart on his sleeve. Trying to convince her to at least take a look at Takatsuki Sen, Touka-chan, you won't regret it, ends up paving a sure-fire way to a heated and passionate argument on both sides that turns into something soft and exasperating later on.

He thinks the word is: fond.

For her, it is a bone deep assurance that there was someone who would walk back to her with a steaming cup of coffee with a rabbit latte art on top after one of her rants, and who will sit next to her and won't say a word despite all the scathing things she had hurled at him which he shakes off like water off a duck's back.

She thinks the experience is… comforting.

In the end, it was just someone, someone significant, someone important, someone who didn't find their way into the other's heart so much as slip in unnoticed and wound up nestling in there happily.

This is what Kaneki at eighteen learnt: broken things deserved to be loved.

What was it that crossed his mind when he told her to use him as human fuel?

What was it that explicitly trusted his life into Touka, where one fatal bite in the wrong place or if she held on for one second all too long, was all it took to kill him?

What was it, really?

It's not that hard once you think about it actually. It's not that hard at all.

Because being marked is not the same as belonging to someone. The first is skin deep and the second, soul deep. Given a chance, he will always take the latter. That's why there was no hesitation when he bares his shoulder, his gaze steady and sure as he tells her what to do. The fact that she touches him with shaky hands, digs her fingers deep into his shoulder to hide her tremor only makes him more certain of his decision.

Soul deep.

"Do it," he tells her, and means, I'm here, don't be afraid.

She replies, "Here goes," and means, I trust you.

She bites down. Teeth grinding against the bone in his shoulder before she adjusts, twists her jaw upwards, and shears off his flesh.

In blazing pain, he watches her kagune flare to life, her eyes bleeding over to black and red It's his first time watching a full reveal of her ghoul nature that he knows to be her blood legacy; a terror, a monster, a demon – things she calls herself and pushes those sharp words deeper into her heart.

Looking at her kagune crystallizing in a backdrop of hungry flickering flames, how the individual shards harden to form a delicate lattice that glimmers, he is looking at the butterfly with the shredded wing dancing towards the Sun, the glint of Kuro's perpetual wink to him and it is has the same gentle radiance of his mother's smile.

Her kagune is magnificent, indeed.

There's a dangerous gleam in her eyes that he has never seen before and it's strangely reassuring in the face of mortal peril. She is standing tall and proud and Kaneki looks at her, thinking that there is no better sight than this: savage and dangerous and so heart achingly beautiful.

Tsukiyama doesn't stand a chance. In a hailstorm of shards, her kagune punctuates the air and shreds the benches like scissors slicing through paper. Splinters of her kagune embedded themselves into Tsukiyama and he gurgles, chokes on the blood and slumps all to the ground, motionless.

Kaneki thinks that Tsukiyama had bitten off more than he can chew, that greedy bastard. It's no wonder he ended up choking. It's amusing, in a twisted sort of way that he can't be bothered to deal with now because Touka is advancing steadily towards Kimi, intent written on her face. Kaneki can almost see it happening; a fast stab downwards, the blood of an innocent and a lifetime of bitter regret. His mouth operates on its own and words drop out of them, talking about Yoriko and Hide and she flinches like she got stabbed in the back instead.

Touka spins around and there is burning anger in her gaze, hot and lashing and beneath that, sheer animal terror.

Fear is fear, whether you're the victor or the defeated. And hatred is hatred, even if it aimed at yourself.

Kaneki gets that. He knows that the war isn't fought out here in barbed words and heated glares. The war is quieter, buried deeper, but no less devastating. It's in her head and Kaneki can see the struggle in the way she holds herself, tensed lines and ragged breathing and he is so proud of her for fighting it.

There's a moment of silence before she lets out a snarl (like a wounded animal, a caged beast, a broken thing that fears but doesn't understand). The look she gives him now is laced with scorn and disgust – and underneath it all, betrayal.

She's gone before he can say anything, the displaced wind from her kagune sending up a swirl of plaster in the enfolding silence.

Nishiki lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, slumps to the ground in relief, but not before Kimi reaches down to twine their fingers together. Amidst the crumbling wreckage and bloodstained walls, they find solace in the aftermath of chaos and it thrums like a hymn beneath their collarbones; peace. They are rebuilding, one step at a time and Kaneki has to look away, feeling like an intruder on this private moment.

It is too fond, too tender, too raw and he has to blink a few times, rubs his eyes before he quietly exits.

He should return home to rest. He should treat his shoulder wound. He should so many other things, but his feet take him to higher ground anyway, heedless of his intentions.

Kaneki finds himself on the roof and realises that he's not alone. The wind streams past his face and wounds around a blue hair girl, looking smaller than life with how she curls up on herself with her arms wrapped around her knees. The jagged wings of her kagune burns and crackles, lashes of coiled energy that snips and sparks in the air. Above him, the stars dance and twirl in their everlasting dance, glinting merrily. It reminds him of when he was five years old again and how he lost Kuro. This time, the stars don't seem too cold or vicious. In fact, they seem to glint like the sharpness of diamonds, clear and pristine. He doesn't know what it is that compels him to do so but he walks over and kneels directly in front of her.

She doesn't say anything, nor does she need to. Touka's eyes speak more than enough for her.

When he wraps her in his arms, she doesn't resist his touch, but neither does she shifts. She is a still statue, made from ice and shards and sorrow, cold and unmoving in his arms, trapped in the frozen wastelands of her mind. It hits him then, how much he wants to wrap her in his arms forever, cradle her for all eternity, so that she will remain safe and protected in his embrace. But as much as he is tempted to do so, he knows just as well that she will suffocate, drown and wither under this kind of smothering protection. Her wings will never be allowed to spread and take flight because he is completely and utterly too scared to let her go.

But, this is where Kaneki shows that he has been paying attention to broken things. How they are, beneath their cracked exterior, strong and resilient and how they never give up even though they are marked with scars. And so he has to trust in her, and fight off the urge to protect her, must believe in the hidden strength of broken things to be remade and reborn and redeemed every aching step of the way.

So he lets her breathe, let her spread her wings and swallows his words, lets her ride out the emotional vortex storming her mind, believes that she will, she must, walk out of it and come to her own conclusions by herself. It takes a while, but she comes back, bits and pieces at a time and the blank, despairing look in her eyes gradually disappears, replaced with something brighter and softer.

She lets out a soft sigh and it is the sound of walls crumbling, empires falling and she leans into his embrace, her head thudding softly on his chest. Her kagune melts away to become embers of red and black before they, too, fade away into nothingness.

Kaneki doesn't say a word, stays by her side the whole time she's there and holds her all the way down.

It works out alright.

In the ashes of their demons, they are reclaimed, rediscovered and reborn.

She is a small broken thing, but he is the little boy, who grew up,

healing,

mending,

loving

broken things.

For the past few weeks, I've been tearing my hair out over writing because it's really frustrating. What lies in my head is a beautiful vision, perfect and divine and what comes out on paper is complete poop. The imagination sings in celestial hymns and golden choirs but what it comes out seems like chimps grunting and shrieking. That's what writing feels like honestly, never really capturing the golden essence of my imagination.

But hey, it's fun. Frustrating but fun and so so worth it. (And look, I even get reviews! They're awesome ^^ )

Hahaha, anyway, this is an uplifting piece. No matter how much you've been broken, always rise from the ashes amidst an erupting volcano background with a finger pointed at your enemies' faces. Now that's style.

*rises from the mountains on the back of a fire-breathing dragon*

Till next time!

- Malice