Hey guys! Thanks for reading another chapter and thanks to Vi-Violence for reviewing my work! It really helps and gives the extra encouragement. It also tells me that I'm doing something right for a change xD. Anyway, here's the next chapter!

Chapter 2: Promise

"Excuse me…hey!" The voice of a young girl dragged Kaneki out of his beauty sleep as he shot open his eyes in surprise, ready to be attacked.
"Are you alright?" A merlot-haired young girl asked with a tone of voice filled with a mixture of confusion, curiosity and concern.

She had a pair of homogeneous eyes that beautifully blended with her hair and outfit as she was wearing a red hoodie and brown jeans, which gave her a slight tomboy look.

Kaneki's eyes scanned the girl up and down looking for any sign of threat, but mainly to identify who woke him from his heavy slumber.

For some reason, Kaneki thought she looked awfully familiar. But every time he tried to remember why, his head would just ring painfully.

After 5 seconds of silence between the two, another voice could be heard echoing in the distance. "I told you not to talk to random people Gazel, especially not a shady looking guy like that!"

The voice had a more masculine modulation, but not too much. It carried a heavy amount of anger but also a hint of curiosity which Kaneki was barely able to distinguish.

While the girl turned her head to face the origin of the sound and probably give a reply, Kaneki took a quick scan of his surroundings. He noticed it was really dark until he soon realized he was outside. A few more seconds of analysis provided Kaneki the conclusion that he was in a park, lying quite comfortably in silken grass against a tree.

Wait… what? How did I get here? Last thing I remember was staggering with this big hole in me. And then there was the hunger. And then there was the… the… fuck… I can't remember anything after that. But I do know that I wasn't here before I passed out. So that means that someone brought me here-

"Hey you're spacing out… are you sure you're alright?"

Once again, the sound of a young girl's voice hulled him back to reality but this time, with less of a shock.

"O-oh I-I umm, sorry about that. Yes, I'm fine." Kaneki's sheepish response was almost cut off when he realised the number of figures before him had increased. Now two people were towering above him, one was the girl who woke him up while the other he didn't recognise.

It was a boy with short, black, silky hair with a glistening pair of matching brown eyes. He was also wearing a hoodie and jeans but with a much darker tone of black for the hoodie and dark navy blue for the jeans. He seemed to be around the age of 17-18 but it was hard to tell because his dark contrast of cloths was restricting Kaneki from making a proper judgement.

The boy was staring at his dull grey eyes with a perfect poker face that rivalled Kaneki's. "See he's alright. We should go now, we're late."

The girl turned her head to head to the boy only to turn it back to Kaneki with a warm smile that battled against the bitter cold atmosphere. "Are you sure you're alright? It's fine if you're not, just say so. Akihiro and I can help."

Not knowing why, Kaneki was warmed at her attempt of assistance.

Trying his best to force a smile, he replied with "Thank you so much, but I assure you I'm fine." His last few words lost its smile because of the annoying sight at his peripheral vision. The whole time, the boy was just giving Kaneki a look of pure hatred for absolutely no reason. It was the look that you would give when you look at something disgraceful, something disgusting. Not that Kaneki didn't deserve that face though.

"See like I said, he's fine!" His teeth were gritted through the whole sentence and he practically spat the last two words out.

What the hell is his problem? What did I do to him? He's the complete opposite of her with all those moody faces. Man he pisses me off so much…

Those thoughts left Kaneki with a plain face and eyes injecting their edginess directly at the annoying boy. They both held their tough poker faces but in the end of the 3 second battle, Kaneki won after his cold empty death stare made the boy flinch, replacing his losing poker face with once of suspicion and vigilance.

Satisfied with the victory of his pointless, childish battle, Kaneki took a glance at the worried looking girl in front of him. She still thought that something was wrong even after Kaneki's second attempt at his reassurance.

Kaneki did notice that she was staring at his body, not his face like someone would usually direct their eyes in a peaceful converse. It urged Kaneki to look down at where she was so nervously looking at.

As he glanced down, Kaneki saw a normal body clothed under not so normal clothes. His chest was half visible under his shirt and trench coat that were almost torn to shreds. It looked exactly like what you would find when a pack of hyenas get to work in a horror movie, literally.

So that's why she was worried huh?

"Oh I umm… I-well, you see I uhh… it's umm…" Kaneki struggled to give the perfect excuse that fit the situation; reasonable and believable. The cogs in Kaneki's brain seemed to be jammed because even after 5 seconds of stuttering, his brain failed to produce anything to prevent his embarrassment.

That only brought more worry to the girl as her eyes grew big and shiny with the potential of forming tears.

So much so that Kaneki could see his reflection in her deep red eyes. A dell-grey eyed young man with dirt painted all over his face and his chest slightly exposed under a trench coat and shirt demolished by the works of what looks like a demon. A neutral expression with a barely identifiable hint of embarrassment and guilt topped with rustled, all messed up pure white snowy hair.

Oh, when did my hair turn completely white again? Probably when I was stuck under that boulder with a freaking drilled stomach huh? It's as if my hair has colour shifting properties or something. How weird…

A warm touch slowly eased itself on Kaneki's ice cold forearm. It was like the sensation you get when you huddle up against a radiator in the winter. It made him realise just how cold he really was.

The unusual change in the girl's movement hinted Kaneki to examine her once more. It always was a natural habit of his, even the slightest change in attitude would encourage him to identify why and at unpredictable times like this, discover any signs of danger.

He managed to notice the change in her face that replaced her previous worried one with encouraging eyes and a confident smile, one you would use when you're trying to motivate a kid to take part in something they don't want to take part in.

She held that face while touching Kaneki for a good solid 3 seconds as if trying to comfort him.

It honestly just made Kaneki confused as to why she would take so much energy to help someone who looks like he took part in a death match.

She finally spoke, instantly grabbing Kaneki's attention purely because of his curiosity. "You don't have to hide it. It's fine, come with us and we'll help you."

Without giving Kaneki a chance to reply, she hauled him from the ground onto his feet, causing her to stumble on the way due to his weight.

Oh fuck, what have I got myself into… I don't have time for this. I need to get back to the others, it's been a year since I last saw them. But now I'm getting treatment by this girl and her annoying as fuck boyfriend… how am I going to get away from them?... well fuck me!

"Let's go to our house and we'll get you cleaned up." She shot Kaneki another smile before dragging him a few feet towards the park's exit gate.

"WHAT?!" Was the reply she got a particularly astonished black haired-boy, his brown eyes bulging out of their sockets and mouth wide open. Though the boy seemed to be hiding most of his surprise with a trembling half worried, half poker face.

"Do you have any idea what you just said Gazel? Take him home? HIM?" Kaneki noticed that the boy seemed to hold back his urge to give a disgusted face and replaced it with one that looked more distressed.

Turning to face the angry boy, she replied with "Well of course we are Akihiro! Look at the poor boy, he looks like he just survived the apocalypse! We should at least help him get cleaned up at our place. Honestly, look at your manners." Gazel's reply seemed to really hit him hard because his face immediately looked hurt as he looked down in shame.

She turned back to face the milky haired teen and smile for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Right, now that that's settled, lets head home… uhhh…"

He took that as her attempt to get his name and struggled, debating whether he should or shouldn't reveal his identity to them.

Can I trust them? Every human I've met since being trapped in this half-ass body had been nothing but rotten. Rotten to the core. I mean sure, they do seem genuinely kind but that could be a lie, just like my whole life. Well, if they wanted to harm me then they could have done it when I was sleeping. So I guess I can trust them… a bit.

The whole thought process only took Kaneki a fraction of a second before he came to his decision.

"Kaneki Ken. Call me Kaneki." He calmly and emotionlessly replied with a forged, barely visible smile. It was probably obvious that it was forged because Kaneki just frankly didn't want to be here at all. It all seemed a waste of time to him, the classic "oh, are you okay?" that all humans ask even if they don't know anything about the person. They don't even know their name, yet they risk their lives to help. He could be a pervert for all they know! A paedophile, a rapist… a ghoul. It's all so annoying to him, for a reason he couldn't understand.

"Alright Kaneki, let's go!" The excited voice of a young teen sing-songed its way into Kaneki's sensitive ears, when he began to be dragged once more like a mother would drag their naughty child to school.

Fuck… what have I gotten myself into…

Kaneki had grown less fond of humans since he regained his memories. Well, it was to be expected. After all, humans turned their back on him and refused to show any care or compassion when he needed it most. He was abandoned my them, left to rot like a nobody, like a monster.

The only place he has left now is the cruel and ruthless ghoul world. The only happiness he finds in such a barbaric world is his friends. The friends that helped him survive and thrive in merciless bloodshed. The friends that helped him see reality for what it truly is. The friends that evolved him, made him stronger than ever before.

Oh, how he hungers to see them again, how he thirsts for their comfort in his God-forsaken life.

What is he doing?

They think he's dead, buried and on his way to hell.

What is he doing?!

They think they'll never see him again, live without him for the rest of their torturous lives.

WHAT IS HE DOING?!

They could be in serious danger. The last time he saw them, they were running away from the savage investigators that were striving to kill every last ghoul, to eradicate their existence without leaving a trace of their being behind.

Meanwhile, he was letting himself get dragged by two petty kids, only to get cleaned and dressed in fancy clothes at their house.

How shameful.

What a disgrace.

What an asshole, literally.

He stopped dead in his tracks, which made the girl stumble back as she was holding his arm. Not feeling any guilt in his actions he pull his heated arm away from the younger girl's warm grasp. He looked at her with dead, cold and completely empty grey eyes. Eyes that look at the world with pain and solitude. Eyes without meaning, without emotion. Just round orbs as dull as a rock while carrying the belief that they have no place in this world, that their existence is pointless, nigh its destructive, sad end.

The girl in front of him and the boy behind him both fixed their rather confused eyes on him, searching for any answer to his questionable actions.

Akihiro seemed to be annoyed by the fact that all he could see was the snowy white hair growing from the back of Kaneki's head, obstructing his view of seeing the expression on the other male's face. It annoyed him so much so that he took the time to walk around him until he was standing beside Gazel, examining the mysterious boy's facial features to try to get a hint towards the sudden movement.

"I'm sorry." Was all Kaneki could mutter before turning around to head to the other direction.

He glanced over his shoulder to see one tilted head baring a confused expression and another saddened face which seemed to be struck by an intense amount of worry.

"I'm fine. I don't need any of your help. I just need to get back home." Thinking that was enough to dismiss their need for assistance, Kaneki began step forward in the dark air around him. The soft, chilly breeze playing with his rustled air, tickling his slightly exposed chest with its cold touch. He looked forward while stepping into the distance without a destination.

Once again, a persistent warm sensation touched his pale, chilly hand, taunting him to look back only to find the same worried face he had seen countless times in the past 10 minutes. This slightly annoyed Kaneki but be decided not to show it.

"W-why? I'm a total stranger and you don't even know me! Yet, yet you strive to help me like you would lose a part of yourself if you lose me." Kaneki couldn't hold back his astonishment at the girl's strong sense of duty.

"Because I don't want to make the same mistake again. The mistake that weighed down on my life so heavily, so painfully."

"Mistake?"

"Yeah… I once had a friend that meant so much to me. She was with me ever since I could speak, ever since I could remember. She was everything to me because I had no one else. I was abandoned in a plain old cardboard box, unwanted. She found me and took me in, caring for me and raising me with the care and love my parents had failed to provide. We were both without a mother and father, lost in the streets of Tokyo with no one to rely on. She was the one who gave me my beautiful name, she felt just like an older sister to me. We just barely survived off stealing food and the little money we got from begging. I always wondered what was beyond those towering buildings that surrounded our secluded life. It was a really tough life, one that many would fail to survive." Her voice was warm and soft, the cloud of smoke that left her mouth every time she spoke in the chilly night's air slightly warmed Kaneki's bitter cold face.

"We were growing up slowly but surely. Until that fateful day…" Her voice trailed off and shattered beneath the broken memories that flooded her mind with their painful presence.

Kaneki's mouth opened to try and stop her from hurting herself by remembering anything painful as he defiantly knew how it felt, but he was too late. She had already began to continue her story. "1 year ago, war in the 20th ward broke out between Aogiri Tree and the CCG. It was hectic, absolutely horrible. Bloodshed everywhere, not a single corner of peace to be found. All the civilians had been evacuated, but us. Everyone forgot about us, even the small relationships we had built collapsed under the horror that unfolded there. No one came to help us, we were completely irrelevant."

Kaneki's grey eyes were locked on her the whole time she was sharing her story. It all seemed so familiar, oh, too familiar. He was also abandoned by the ones he cared for most, not to mention, beaten by one particular one. He never knew the love of a caring mother, nor the love of a father. He only had one friend who saved him getting swallowed up into the chaotic abyss of sadness and despair. Hide. The thought of his dear friend flooded his mind with regret and a strong passion to see his smile again.

He could totally relate to her. Their lives share so many similar properties it's unbelievable. They both experienced emptiness and betrayal. They were both grabbed by the icy cold clutches of solitude.

She took a deep breath before continuing, "We didn't know what to do. Everyone had abandoned us and we were stuck in the 20th ward, shivering from the freezing cold night but also from fear. We huddled together at the corner of an alleyway that was stained with blood. Minutes turned to hours and the sound of screaming and death never left our ears. It forever scared our hearts, our young, innocent hearts." She held her arms together from what seemed like fear before looking to the ground with sorrowful eyes.

It took hear 5 seconds to catch her courage to continue. "I had drifted off into a short slumber, accompanied by a nightmare. But I was soon woken up by a cold tap on my shoulder. I looked to my right and saw that she was pointing ahead in the distance. I turn my head forward again and saw that she was pointing at a cloud of smoke in the sky. It looked like a building was on fire but it didn't surprise me considering the magnitude of the other things going on around us. I immediately understood what she wanted to do. We both struggled to get up, but by helping one another, we somehow managed to fight the deathly cold air surrounding us. With weak, tired and flimsy bodies, we slowly made our way to the warmth of the burning building. It took a while, but it was worth the struggle as heat we were provided with brought us back to life. It hugged us with its beautiful warmth, coating us with the love we so desperately needed, the love we so desperately thirsted for."

By now, tears were rolling down her cheeks ever so gently. They shone and glistened in the moonlight, reflecting their beauty. She looked up at a half-saddened, half-normal face Kaneki offered the crying girl.

Realising she can't just stop when she already told half the story, she continued. "But our luck betrayed us when a tall figure stood before us. His shirt and trousers all torn to shreds with a deep red liquid oozing out of a slash wound laying across his whole torso. His body was trembling but what was most terrifying of all was his eyes. Oh, his eyes! The eyes that were bleeding with a blood red and were surrounded by an empty blackness. The eyes that came from hell. He stared at us for what seemed like forever before a smile grew on his lips. He immediately lunged at me, saliva flying out of his now open mouth. I didn't know what to think. I was totally and utterly confused, my brain wasn't functioning in the freezing atmosphere and it wasn't bothering to take in much information because of its sleep deprived state. But, that wasn't the case for my friend because she immediately sensed the incoming danger and tried to dive into me to get us both out of the way. She succeeded but failed at the same time where she wasn't fast enough. She pushed me out of the way but placed herself in where I was just seconds ago, resulting in her getting attacked instead. It took me a few seconds to grasp my bearings and lift my head from the freezing concrete. That's when I realised I shouldn't have. The sight before me was so blinding, so horrible, so inhuman. She was being ripped to shreds, eaten alive by this man, by this monster. I was frozen in place, not able to even draw even a single, shallow breath. The sight paralyzed me with fear. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. The screams and laughter seemed to echo in my mind, ringing painfully as the seconds went by."

At this point, her eyes were shaking and so was her body. "I felt so ashamed, I hated myself for just sitting there doing nothing, absolutely NOTHING! But the impotent feeling didn't last long after another figure flashed past me with a white light. It crashed into the crazed monster of a man sending them both tumbling further into the alley way. The mysterious figure ended up on top of the man after what felt like ages of tumbling over one another. Everything was so elongated it was like life was toying with me. The figure had a strange black leather mask on. It had a creepy lipless grin on it with an eye patch over the right eye."

Kaneki's eyes immediately shot wide open when he heard that. His face filled to the brim with shock and realisation.

S-so that's why she looked so familiar! S-she was one of the girls I helped that night… I-I…

Kaneki was speechless, but mostly shocked. He had saved this little girl's life, he had saved this human's life from experiencing something similar to what he had experienced. She looked at him, eyes filled with sorrow and regret, not know the boy truly stood before her, not knowing that he was her life saver.

She seemed too emotionally struck to notice the sudden change in Kaneki's expression.

She continued her story, missing the vital clue that may have revealed Kaneki's position to her. "The weird mask wearing figure began to tear the other man apart, like an endless cycle that just repeats itself until only the strongest are left in this cruel world. The moment the second round of bloodshed began, I turned my head, unable to see anymore, too tired to see anymore. But when I shifted my gaze, it brought me to a broken sight. Mangled, broken bones sticking out, flesh jagged, ripped, torn you name it… it was there. The blood splattered at least 5 meters from where she lay, from the last place she'll ever lay. Her breathing was so shallow and soft. Her light groans of agony could easily be mistaken for the sound of a nice peaceful sleep. I soon realised that she was beyond help. She was dying and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. The only thing I could do was comfort her in her last moments. The thought that every second leading up to that moment in her life had been cold, hit me hard. Her life had been so miserable and even in her last moments, she was only greeted by the cold hard concrete in a freezing night with bloodshed every inch in her surroundings. I cried and cried and tried my best to tell her that she was loved. Even if it was only my one soul in this world, she was still loved and always will be at the bottom of my very heart. She stopped taking her shallow but strong breaths indicating something I didn't want to acknowledge. She died, with a face of pain and hurt. I rested my head on her chest for what felt like hours, sobbing at her passing. I didn't realise that the 2 figures that forever changed my life had already left. I didn't even know what happened to them, what had happened to the young man that saved my life."

A sad smile appeared on her face before she continued. "And I probably will never know, because I passed out after that, only to be found by Akihiro the next morning and welcomed into his family."

She turned to face Akihiro for a moment with a face of gratitude, who had his poker face on, obviously trying his hardest to hide his emotions while staring at the cold hard floor. She turned back to Kaneki with the same sad smile. "Ever since then, I never forgave myself for what happened that fateful unforgettable night. I promised that it would never happen again, even if it cost me my life, I would help another. You look so tattered and broken, I can tell by your eyes that you've probably went through something like my experience. Probably something worse considering the emptiness that your eyes harbor. You've probably been neglected all your life and never felt the warm touch of someone who cares for you. So please, let me help you. Let me fulfil that promise."

Kaneki's eyes stayed widened and his face still in its shocked state. He was speechless. She hit the nail right on the head. She had touched Kaneki where he was most vulnerable, where he was almost never touched before in his life; his heart. It was so rare for him but he was so emotionally struck, it send a single glistening tear town his left cheek.

"O-okay…" Was all he managed to mutter before they stared at each other for another 5 seconds that felt like eternity for the both of them. Their arms had moved almost in sync to embrace each other in their bodies, sharing their warmth while casting out the deathly cold air that filled their lungs and their surroundings.

They pulled away soon after with a smile on both of their faces, though the girl seemed to be a bit more embarrassed, while Kaneki just kept his dull gaze that had what seemed like a small, happy shine reflecting in the emptiness of his two grey orbs.

For the last time, she grabbed his hand and began to walk him into the darkness of the night.

If he were to analyse his feelings, he had to say that there was a spot of confusion in there. He didn't think that the girl's story would have such a great emotional impact on him. Though he could say it was probably because of the similarities between the two and their pasts.

The three walked off into moon lit night, while the stars lit their path and guided them to their inevitable destination.

Once again, thanks for reading! I found this chapter to be a bit emotional if i must admit T.T but anyway, next update will come soon!