Hey guys! I'm sorry that the quantity of my chapters is a bit all over the place, but it's because i try to end on a reasonable/good ending.

Chapter 4: Blood

Dull-grey eyes adjusted their vision to the dark after keeping their pale eyelids over them for so long, deep in thought.

The half-ghoul couldn't help but flood his mind what the girl had previously hit him with.

"The figure had a strange black leather mask on. It had a creepy lipless grin on it with an eyepatch over the right eye."

I really wanna tell her… I really wanna fucking tell her!

She had probably been wondering all her life who had saved her, AND I'M RIGHT BEHIND HER!

But I can't…

Still, It's all so shockin-

"So, Kaneki?" Gazel kept her head forward and carried on walking in front of him, though her voice did sound very curious.

"Hmm?" Kaneki shifted his gaze from the floor to the girls head in response, perfectly concealing his thoughts and feeling, being careful not to show any signs of his distress.

Gazel decided to keep her gaze forward while asking the milky-haired boy a question. "So, umm… what exactly happened to you?"

"H-huh?" Kaneki's dull eyes widened a bit, as he was slightly shocked by the sudden question.

"You know… what happened to you to make you so torn up?"

Wow… what was I thinking?

What the hell made me think that one of the two wouldn't eventually ask that question?

Come to think of it, did I really expect to just walk in their house, get cleaned and dressed, then go to an already prepared bed all fine and dandy?

Kaneki mentally face-palmed. I'm such an idiot!

The distressed half-human looked down and wore a frustrated expression while resting a hand on his wrinkled forehead.

What do I say? What do I say? What do I say?!

Well I know I'm gonna lie about it, question is how am I gonna do tha-

"It's ok I understand that it happened just recently, you can tell me later if you want." Gazel's voice had a noticeable disappointing tone but her head was still facing forward and her legs still moving.

Releasing his hand and looking up, Kaneki's instinct was to reply to the girl's misunderstanding. "N-no, that's not the reason I was…" He realised a big mistake he was making so he mumbled out the rest of the sentence, which had, luckily for him, missed Gazel's ears. It had also missed Akihiro's who had been curiously listening to their conversation.

He was so relieved that he mumbled the last part of the sentence, because he thought that if he hadn't, then more unanswerable question would have left the eager girls mouth.

"What was that?" Gazel asked in a respective manner, as she always does to the older male. She was so oblivious to Kaneki's dark nailed-hand that had been slapped on his mouth in his attempt to stop any more information from leaving it. She had missed it purely because of her head that was looking where she's going rather than at the boy's struggle to keep his experience from leaking out, which could eventually reveal his half-ghoul nature.

"I got into a fight, a really big one." He lied, cupping his chin on the way.

"Oh…" Kaneki thought he hear a little disappointment in her word, but before he could decide whether it was his imagination or not, she carried on. "So I'm guessing the reason you were sleeping near a tree was because you were knocked out? When did it happen? Why did you fight? Who was involved? How did the fight go down?" The girl eagerly throwing questions at the lying boy.

Kaneki struggled to keep up with the questions she was firing all at once.

He took a deep breath and decided to improvise while hoping for the best.

Here goes everything!

"Well, I wasn't really knocked out you see," while Kaneki gave his 'explanation' on what happened, the trio carried on walking in the dark, "I don't have parents or a house, so I live on the streets. These random 3 guys came up to me at like 9 or something with guns and asked for all my money and my phone. I thought to myself that I wouldn't go down without a fight so I fought as hard as I could."

Kaneki added more emphasis in his words to fill up his emotionless, empty voice and try make the whole thing sound more believable. He still had his hand rested on his chin the whole story, black nails digging in his skin as a result of his nervousness. "I had somehow managed to badly wound 2 of them and the other one seemed too scared so they made a wise choice and ran, I guess they were just bad fighters. Of course, I had gotten hurt badly myself and began to feel dizzy, probably because of the blows and scratches I remember getting to my head and chest. I don't really remember much after that, but I do remember my vision blurring as I was leaning on something for support. And then… black I guess."

"So I guess I passed out after that, and maybe the thing I was leaning on was that tree back there? Who knows." Kaneki was quite pleased the way his story turned out and thought it was believable enough.

That should do the trick!

Wait… that also gives me an excuse to stay with them for a while.

Perfect! Killed two birds with one stone.

Well, Kaneki was telling some truth in there, and that made him feel a little less guilty, a little.

"Wait, you live on the streets?" Gazel's words got Kaneki's attention quickly. Although it seemed like she bought the story, she didn't seem to stop dishing out questions Kaneki found so hard to answer.

Crap…

"Well, yes and no. I have a job as a waiter and that's giving me a reasonable amount of money to get food and water, but not enough to start saving to get something like a cheap small flat." Kaneki was once again proud of his answer, proud of his lie.

Thinking ahead of time, Kaneki anticipated the bad sides of his answer, something he didn't do with the answer he had given before. Spotting a huge flaw in it, he quickly reassured the worried girl.

"Don't worry though, I like that kind of life. You're free, you're not forced to do anything, and you get to see all those wonderful sights Tokyo has to offer. I really enjoy it, it would be the only life that I would enjoy." He smiled, although he knew she wouldn't see it. It wasn't a happy smile but a sad smile, a smile that pitied himself for not being able to reveal his true life. A smile that hated himself for being unable to tell his true experiences to someone that shared her own tragedies despite not knowing him. A smile that deep down, longed to reach out to someone, to beg for comfort while telling them everything.

Gazel slowed down to walk right beside the half-ghoul.

She slightly turned her head and eyes to catch Kaneki and his smile, while he stared forward, deep in his saddened thoughts.

The girl looked at the handsome boy for a long time, admiring his positivity. Though her admiration didn't drain her pool of worry. "B-but, that's so lonel-"

"Basically, when live gave me lemons, I made lemonade." Kaneki cut her off, while he also slightly turned his head and dull-grey eyes to look at her.

Gazel titled her head in confusion. "Huh? What's lemons to do with this?"

"W-what…?" Kaneki face looked so disappointed, he finally used that quote in the perfect situation but she just ruined it all. "You don't know what it means? Really?"

"Nope!" Kaneki was confused as to why she sounded so proud.

Their conversation had taken a twist in mood.

"Well, lemons are fruits that are very sour. Sourness represents bad things and suggests hardship in life, while lemonade is a sweet drink which could represent good times. So in the end, the quote is supposed to encourage positivity and optimism."

Gazel seemed quite impressed with the older boy's vocabulary and literature skills. "O-oh, right."

However, still seemed uneasy about Kaneki's 'life'. From her own experiences, she didn't enjoy that life-style one bit. But, after hearing Kaneki's story in a similar situation, she didn't know what to do. She wanted to bring Kaneki out of that 'life' somehow but had a feeling that he wouldn't let her.

That fact that he enjoyed that 'life', and that his situation was easier than hers (as he had a decent job) made her a bit less uneasy.

"I know that you want to help me, but getting me out of the life that I'm so used to and like so much isn't going to help. Don't worry Gazel, this life isn't as bad as it seems." Kaneki read her thoughts like a book, which brought Gazel to a conclusion.

She soon realised that even if she wanted to do something, she couldn't because of two main reasons. One: Kaneki enjoyed that 'life', and he wouldn't let her help. Two: There literally is no way she can help the man.

Akihiro grew uninterested in their conversation and began texting, the light from his phone diminishing the darkness around him.

They 2 stayed awkwardly quiet, both facing front while standing next to each other.

"Say, Gazel." Kaneki broke the tension with the classic conversation starter.

"Yeah?" Gazel replied with the classic reply.

"I meant to ask this question before but with all that happened in such little time, I couldn't really fit it in." Kaneki, for what felt like the hundredth time, spoke with yet another dull toned voice.

"Go ahead. I asked you a lot of questions, so I guess it's only fair if you ask me some too."

"Where exactly am I?" Kaneki bluntly asked the question bubbling in his mind.

The sound of the simple question brought a complicated response from the girl. Her whole body flinched as she turned her head in shock. "W-WHAT? YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE WE ARE?"

"Nope."

"O-oh, that's a surprise. Well, this is the 14th ward, west of Tokyo."

Oh thank GOD! For a while I thought I may have been in a parallel universe.

The 14th ward… It should be easy getting to the 20th ward in a ward so close.

"Oh, thanks. One more question if I may?" Kaneki spoke with his relieved tone.

"Yeah, sure."

He turned to face Gazel completely with a raised snowy eyebrow. "How far exactly is this house of yours? It feels like we've been walking for hours."

"Oh, ahahaha. I thought you would ask that eventually, but I never thought you would time it so well Kaneki!" She jogged in front of Kaneki a meters then turned her body to face left on the pavement they were walking on.

Kaneki soon caught up with her and so did Akihiro, who had just put his phone away and started searching all his pockets.

They now faced a rather casual looking house that wasn't big, nor was it small. It had white painting on its front and two flower baskets, one on each side. It didn't have any extraordinary features, except for a large welcome matt at the front door that had colourful flowers and stars and rainbow dash zooming across. Kaneki raised an eyebrow at the sight, as invisible question marks hovered over his head.

"Don't ask, 'cuz I don't even know." Kaneki turned around to see a slightly embarrassed Gazel, who was also staring at the matt.

"R-right." Kaneki didn't know why he hesitated, he really didn't know what to think of the… weirdness.

Probably the work of a gran, seen similarly weird things made by grans before.

Finally, Akihiro stopped rustling in his pockets and brought out a silver key. "There it was…" He mumbled the words so quietly, he barely even heard them himself. But Kaneki heard them loud and clear thanks to his overly sensitive ears.

Just as Akihiro was about to put the key to the keyhole, the door opened.

A short figure stood before them. "Oh there you darlings were! I was getting terribly worried, why are you so late?!" A trembling voice lifted the heads of the 3 to look at a wrinkled old gran shaking horribly. Her back was hunched and her hands were trembling, unknown if it was from worry or from her elderly state.

"Sorry gran, it's a long story but we have a guest, his name is Kaneki." Akihiro put the keys back in his pocket and introduced Kaneki to his gran.

Kaneki gave a small smile and a wave. "It's a pleasure ma'am, thank you in advance for your hospitality." Kaneki added a bow before looking up to properly examine the lady.

"Oh hello there dear," she responded in the classic 'caring granny' voice, "what a well-mannered young man! My name is Mrs Sozaka and you're very welcome. I'm so sorry I hadn't noticed you before, my eye sight is very poorly you see." She pushed her little granny glasses up the bridge of her nose to indicate where they were, although it wasn't really necessary.

Before the conversation got any further, another figure came to the front door. "Mrs Sozaka please, you mustn't get up and run like that! Be more careful next time."

"Oh be quiet Toshio! My dear sweeties have been missing for 25 minutes and you worry about me?" The gran didn't even bother turning around to reply. "Anyway, say hello to our guest Kaneki here."

Kaneki examined the man, as he would every time he was introduced to a new character.

The man was quite tall with chocolate hair, and brushed it back which gave him a slightly professional look. His eyes matched his hair colour and so did his suit and trousers. He looked like a relatively smart business man.

But Kaneki didn't register any of that, none of it.

He was more concerned about something else, something more important.

It intrigued Kaneki but worried him at the same time.

Why is so much happening in only one day? In less than one day…

The two met eyes, dull-grey empty ones looking into the dark chocolate, interested eyes.

Kaneki's nose had already been going off before they met their gazes.

He didn't like what he smelt, not one bit.

Blood.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, leave a review because it really helps! I read each and every review to try and improve my writing and the plot in my story.