Thank you for the reviews!
I sure hope you all enjoyed reading Haise living in his little slice of heaven, because that's coming to an end for now!
Thank you, and I probably won't have much in the author's notes this time.
Everything had been going smoothly for Haise since he awoke from his six-month long slumber; to him, it had been as though he'd be given a second chance at life.
CCG no longer controlled his life, the white-hair child that manifested itself into his subconscious no longer plagued his head, and had been freed from being chosen to play the role of the fool for the purpose of someone else's game; his soul was finally his own.
Haise even considered himself lucky for the simple fact that he was surrounded by those who cared and loved him. Touka and Yomo were pleasant reminders of the past he couldn't remember, yet their presence still filled Haise with a sense of nostalgia that felt like home to him.
Plus, Haise even managed to begin developing a relationship with his favorite author. Their shower together had been icing on the cake for him, but what really made their time alone special to him was the way they interacted with one another in that short period of time.
To Haise, it was more than just a physical attraction he was beginning to develop for Eto; he loved talking to her about the many small topics they've discussed in the shower, along with the heartfelt moment when she told him that she felt truly at 'home' when she was near him.
'"It was like you were the one thing missing in my life, Sasaki… Forgive me for being so bold to say what I'm about to tell you, but… I consider myself to be the mother figure of those three children downstairs… And the way I see it, you're their father figure… It feels right, doesn't it? Us, together…?"'
Eto's words touched Haise, and were like a mantra in his head during the duration of the shower, especially when they spent time exploring each other's bodies. It also reminded Haise of the parental feelings he had for the quinxes, and even if he couldn't recall the memories he'd made with them, Haise's love for them remained true and unwavered.
Saiko and Shirazu, and even Mutsuki, no longer felt like squad members under him, and yet the way they looked up to him and loved him back made Haise think of them as his own children more than he ever had. He was only missing Urie in his life, and from what Saiko had explained, Haise wasn't expecting to see his other surrogate child around anytime soon.
'He's sort of just doing his own thing right now… I think he says he does office work for CCG now, so at least he's safe,' Haise remembered Saiko explaining to him, while they made idle chit-chat with Eto and Mutsuki during the time it took for Shirazu to help Yomo finish setting up the upstairs boardroom for their meeting.
With everyone around him except Touka, who wasn't emotionally ready to be reminded of her brother's death, Haise sat patiently with a smile on his face as Yomo began to bring him up to speed with everything that he had been asleep for.
Despite knowing how much effort and thought went into the meeting that Yomo had set up for them, Haise still found himself generally uninterested in what the ghoul had to say to him. One look around the large conference table that he sat at revealed to Haise that everyone else seemed generally uncomfortable and somber; making Haise curious as to whether or they've heard the things Yomo was telling them before.
From what Haise could tell during the parts that he had been paying attention to, the highlights of Yomo's hour long presentation consisted of the news that the Aogiri Tree members were missing, and the CCG's presence in the Wards were at an all-time low, while their recruitment efforts had gotten so desperate that they were actively advertising to the public about them looking to hire more investigators.
While Haise understood the importance of why Yomo had bothered to tell him this, the honest to God truth of the matter was that it all sounded like white noise to Haise; who was more concerned about the aching hunger pains he felt, and his need to fulfill his sense of wanderlust after being stuck in the coffee shop for over six months.
He was beginning to feel himself drifting off to sleep when he first heard the word 'Hinami'. Upon hearing her name first mentioned upon Yomo going over their last raid at Cochlea, Haise could feel the back of his left eye socket beginning to ache; as if though a small leak from his head had spring forward.
Haise did his best to not waiver any attention towards him as he felt himself getting lightheaded while hearing Yomo going over Hinami's kidnapping in Cochlea.
Soon enough however, Yomo's words as he spoke about where they've searched for Hinami thus far seemingly began to fade out of existence, along with the rest of the world around Haise. Blinking his eyes repeatedly in an attempt to somehow make the white room he was finding himself disappear, it soon dawned on Haise that once again, he was only seeing the hallucination from his left eye.
Carefully regulating his own breathing to appear normal to the others who he knew to be still occupying the seemingly non-existent boardroom around him, Haise sat patiently in his chair as he waited for his hallucination to come to an end.
Unfortunately for Haise, not only was the imaginary world around him not fading away, it had begun to transition over to his right eye as well.
"It's not real, Haise… It's just a figment of your imagination caused by head trauma… None of this is real," He muttered quietly under his breath to himself, while tapping his foot against the stark-white ground underneath him as a way to subtly distract himself without alerting anyone else of what he was seeing.
"... Am I not real, Onii-Chan?" An all-too familiar voice asked from his left side. Not wanting to look at who, or rather 'what', he knew to be standing beside him, eventually Haise went against his better judgment to satisfy his burning curiosity.
Feeling his heart beginning to race in his chest, Haise anxiously turned his head towards his left shoulder to stare down at the fourteen-year old phantom that he remembered seeing from earlier. "... You're not actually here," Haise whispered quietly to her in a gentle and somber voice.
Reacting to her denied existence, Hinami smiled innocently at Haise with a naive look in her beautiful brown eyes before asking him, "Why not, Onii-Chan? How come I'm there with you, and with Onee-Chan?"
"That's because… No… No, I-I'm not doing this," Haise said defiantly in a saddened tone, after catching himself trying to argue with Hinami's phantom. "I've done this before with myself… I-I know you're just my subconscious speaking, or a manifestation of guilt or something..."
"Guilt? Are you just saying that because you feel guilty, Onii-Chan? Is it because you abandoned me?" Hinami asked in a sweet voice that would have been nostalgic and soothing for Haise to hear, had it not instead sounded so taunting to him.
"No Hinami, it's because you're physically not here… And no, I didn't abandon you… If I knew where you were, I'd come get you," Haise argued quietly to the phantom ghoul beside him, who continued to stare at him lovingly like a little sister would do with their older sibling.
"Oh? But you did abandon me, Oniii-Chan; I'll show you!" Hinami's phantom announced with an ecstatic smile, as she pointed her finger over towards where the front of Haise's body was facing. "Look Onii-Chan! There's me now! And there's you!"
Swallowing back the lump in his throat, Haise wanted the mocking phantom of his past to disappear, just like the rest of his pain-ridden memories. He wanted her to disappear, and felt guilty for disering her to fade away like everything else in his life.
Letting out a shaking breath, Haise could feel his eyes beginning to water from their corners as he reluctantly looked towards where the phantom of Hinami was pointing; even though a part of him already painfully knew what was awaiting his eyes to see.
"Miss. Fueguchi," Haise addressed formally in a polite yet still professional tone, as he approached the tempered-panel glass that contained the young and shaken-up ghoul.
"Hi…" Hinami replied back in a timid and quiet voice, while doing her best to remain calm, despite the fear she felt coursing through her body.
To hide the pain and panic she felt eating away at her, Hinami appeared distant as she stared down at the metal table where the glass separating her from Haise stood tall and daunting.
Feeling proud of himself for being smart enough to come prepared to lower Hinami's guard, Haise opened the metal cabinet from underneath the glass panel to slide in two Sen Takatsuki novels that he managed to get by security.
"Here," Haise said, as he slid the two novels into the small drawer of the metal cabinet, "I'm not allowed to bring too many. It's the rule." Haise said in a slightly apologetic voice, while smiling as he watched Hinami cautiously take the two books from the other side of the glass.
"Thanks… I appreciate it… Ken." Hinami said with a nervous smile; unsure whether or not how Haise would react to being called that. Unfortunately, but as she expected, Haise only stared back at her with a blank-despondent look on his face.
"Can we start your statement?" Haise asked in a curt manner; wanting to switch subjects and hurry up with his duties.
Hurt by how much like a stranger he was treating her, Hinami gave him a small shrug before replying with a quiet "Sure…"
Watching the scene play out before, Haise painstakingly endured having to see how callused he had been while conducting his interview with Hinami. Seeing it from an outsider's perspective, Haise was able to see Hinami's body language while speculating how sad she was when she answered his damning questions.
Haise wished he could say that he didn't know any better, but as he watched more-and-more as the interview progressed, he knew that he did know better back then; it's just that he didn't care.
Back then to Haise, Hinami was just a part of Kaneki's past, and on top of that, she was just a ghoul who he could use to benefit his own goals of self-discovery, while fulfilling his duties to CCG.
"You could have helped me… Saved me from getting executed the same way Arima saved you… But you didn't, because you didn't give enough of a shit about me to bother yourself with that," the phantom Hinami spoke beside him, as she continued to smile brightly at the man who betrayed her.
"It's not that I didn't care about you Hinami… It's jus-"
"-It's just that you preferred to just pity me, rather than even bother trying to even help me. It was easier that way, just to keep me in your thoughts rather than actually doing something… Right Onii-Chan?" The young apparition asked innocently with a somewhat melancholy tone in her voice.
"N-No, it… It wasn't like that," Haise argued back in a quiet and guilt-ridden voice, as he gently shook his head at the apparition. "I… I wasn't in a position to help you."
"Making excuses before trying, huh…? You know Onii-Chan, it's kind of what you're still doing now," Hinami pointed out, before continuing with her relentless judgement against Haise. "... Just moving on from the past, and leaving others to pick up the pieces you've left behind; all because it's easier for you just to give up before you even try… Shame that it ended up costing Ayato his life, huh Onii-Chan?"
Shocked at the connection between him being unable to save Hinami being what led to Ayato's death, Haise let out a quiet scoff as he stared at Hinami's phantom with disbelief. "Ayato…? You think that I'm somehow responsible for-"
"-Ayato was special to me, and he's dead because of you, Onii-Chan. Touka's little brother and only connection to her parents is dead, all because you didn't want to put in the effort to save me."
"That's not fair; I never wanted you nor Ayato to get hurt. I was the one who killed him, after all," Haise argued back with a bit more gusto in his voice, before catching himself losing his temper with someone who he knew wasn't even there. "Look… What happened to Ayato was unfortunate, but-"
"-I know what you're thinking, Onii-Chan: "I'll just give Touka my condolences for Ayato's death… I'll tell myself that it wasn't my fault; that I did everything in my limited power to save Hinami… I didn't know she was going to be executed."..."
"But I didn't know-"
"-Except you did know, Onii-Chan. You knew when and where they were going to execute me, and you only gave it a passing thought." Hinami countered, before bringing up another pain-ridden memory that would cut Haise's down to the bone.
"Oh, kind of like how you've always known how much it cost to pay for little Haru's treatment to save her from her 'Rc cell oversecretion disease', and you knew that you could have convinced Shuu Tsukiyama's family to pay for it… But yet, instead of working with Tsukiyama, you chose to go after him and his family, all for the sake of pleasing your superiors…"
"... Oh, oh! Speaking of Tsukiyama, remember when you were going to take him up on his offer? You were going to abandon everyone in your life, including your so-called 'children'? I bet you conveniently forgot about that, huh Onii-Chan~?"
Becoming agitated to the point that he was beginning to forget about what was real and what was false, Haise stood up from the chair in protest as he glared angrily at the child-like ghost before him. "I… I know I've done wrong in the past, but… I'm different now; I can see things for what they are, Hinami; I'm not CCG anymore."
"I don't know about that, Onii-Chan…! I mean, you still think like an investigator," Hinami argued with a mischievous grin on her face, as she let out a quiet chuckle before bringing up a prime example.
"For instance, let's talk about Ayato again for a second, okay Onii-Chan?" Hinami said in an endearing voice that was beginning to irritate Haise. "Say what you want to Onee-Chan, but you're only pretending to care about his death, right? After all he's done, you think he had it coming; you're not going to say admit that because you're too much of a coward to tell anyone, but you actually enjoyed hearing the part where Yomo talked about Arima's new squad killing him, huh?"
"I… It's not fair to bring that up, I-I mean… Ayato's killed a lot of people, Hinami! Hell, he's hurt me and his sister in the past!" Haise argued in his own defense to the phantom who no longer seemed like a figment of his imagination.
"... He's the reason why you joined the Aogiri Tree, right?! If anything, it's his fault… I'd hate to say, but… Yes, Ayato did have it coming." Haise replied back with a guilty conscience.
While Haise seemed visibly ashamed of what he just admitted, Hinami's phantom appeared to rejoice in his honesty. "I knew it, Onii-Chan! You even enjoyed the part where Yomo recalled Arima and his new friends massacring everyone else Cochlea; both those filthy ghouls and other investigators with a superiority-type complex had it coming too!"
"There… There are good people who work for CCG… B-But…" Haise said with more hesitation in his voice, as he was finding it more difficult to admit to the false Hinami about his true feelings on the matter.
"Admit Onii-Chan, you remembered how everyone else in CCG treated you like a dirty and disgusting slave that was cannon fodder; even the nice ones usually were only faking it!" Hinami announced in a cheerful voice, before beginning to clap as she said "My, my, Onii-Chan…! They threw you under the bus at the first sign of trouble, didn't they? If I were you, I'd want to spit on their graves too~!"
"Of course I'm glad that they got what was coming to them; those traitors were the ones who almost killed me! They saw me fighting off Eto, and they still took the shot!" Haise shouted back while baring his teeth defiantly at Hinami, who took a moment to stand in silence to revel in his raw hatred.
"... How did it feel, Onii-Chan? Being stabbed in the back by those who you relied on? How about stabbing others who thought you loved them in the back?" Hinami asked mockingly with a wide grin, before pointing her hand out in a circular motion to signal at everyone else who was in the room with Haise who he couldn't see.
"I… Stop it, Hinami; I'm done talking," Haise said in a quiet voice, in an attempt to take a hold of himself to stop his spiraling-descent into losing what little collectiveness he had left.
"Look around you, Onii-Chan… Who are you going to stab in the back next?" Hinami asked in a low tone of voice, before taking a step closer to reveal two gaping black holes where her brown eyes once were.
"WHO'S THE NEXT ONE TO DIE-?"
"-FUCKING STOP IT!" Haise screamed out in a crazed voice, before immediately swinging his curled-fist directly into the face of where he last saw Hinami. However, rather striking a phantom or air, Haise felt something solid cracking underneath his knuckle, before being jolted awake from his hallucination by the sound of something falling onto the wooden floor.
"MAMAN?!" Saiko cried out in her panicked and horrified voice, before shoving Haise aside to pull Eto away from him.
Looking down at his bloodied fist and back to where Eto laid motionless with a bloodied-dent in her forehead, Haise couldn't accept the reality that had been waiting for him from his nightmare-like hallucination.
Even worse, judging by the horrified and disgusted expressions of everyone in the room, including Touka who wasn't there before, Haise quickly assumed that everything he had said to Hinami's phantom was something that he had said aloud.
What Haise didn't realize however, was that they heard so much more than he suspected; they heard everything.
"Saiko, I-"
"-STAY AWAY!" Saiko shrieked out amidst her constant bawling, as she knelt down to cradle her arms around Eto's unconscious body. "You're…! Y-You're not my Maman! Y-You're that evil Eyepatch ghoul, aren't you?!" Saiko cried out accusingly with a look of agonizing emotional pain and betrayal in her bloodshot eyes. "T-The Haise Sasaki I loved wouldn't have ever said those awful things… He's not evil like you…"
All the color drained from Haise's face, after having seen the one quinx who he considered to be his most loyal child openly speak hatefully towards him, while refusing to believe that he was who he claimed to be.
While Mutsuki said nothing and just stared at Haise with a small grin and intrigued look on his face, Shirazu was far more transparent about how he felt about Haise; especially when he grabbed Haise and body-slammed him onto the table.
"YOU SELFISH SON-OF-A-BITCH!" Shirazu screamed with his sharp teeth bared at Haise, while beginning to pound his clenched fist repeatedly down on the one-eyed ghoul's face. "YOU TWO-FACED BASTARD! YOU KNEW OF A WAY TO HELP HARU, AND YOU… YOU…!?"
"Shirazu… That's enough," Yomo said in a surprisingly calm tone, before pulling the quinx off of the one-eyed ghoul who just admitted to liking the fact that his nephew was dead. "He's not worth it…" Yomo said quietly in a way to calm down the trembling young man before him.
Struggling to form a sentence coherent enough to ask Yomo to get out of his way, it didn't take long for Shirazu to finally lose it. Falling to the ground and landing on his elbows and knees, Shirazu broke out into uncontrollable sobs with his head buried against the floor. "H-How could you…?! I-I fuckin' t-trusted you…! I-I...!"
Disoriented from the chaos around him along with the pain he felt from his broken nose, Haise was spared only a few moments of mercy before suddenly feeling a pair of hands gripping his shoulders.
"Get the hell out...!" Touka spat out hatefully under her breath, as she yanked Haise across the table before tossing him out of the boardroom and into the hallway.
Making sure to shut the door behind her, Touka grabbed Haise by his turtleneck sweater before dragging him along the floor and even against the steps of the staircase as she led him to the front entrance of :re.
"Get out of here, Haise," Touka grunted out in a hurt voice, while making sure to not address the man by the name she refused to let him have. "I don't ever want to see your face around my fucking business ever again; do you hear me?!"
"T-Tou-"
"-Don't… Don't say it. Just… Just don't," Touka said in a wavering voice that almost sounded to Haise like she couldn't bear to hear him say her name. "Y-You… You aren't welcomed here anymore," Touka said in a shaking voice, as she stepped over Haise's body to reach into her apron to pull out a set of keys before fumbling with the lock.
Once the door was opened after a few failed attempts, Touka stepped to the side to clear a path for Haise. Unable to look the man she thought she loved in the eye, Touka stared up at the ceiling while fighting back enough tears.
Doing her best to reach into her pocket to retrieve her wallet, Touka took out the large wad of cash she had planned on using to spoil Haise for Christmas. "Take it… Take it, and use it for water and food, if y-you can barter for it… I'm sure someone will gladly take you in… Now please… Please leave."
Wiping away the blood and tears out of his eyes, Haise felt his heart tearing itself apart at the look of betrayal and sorrow on Touka's face. Opening his mouth to speak, Haise found that he couldn't find the words he needed to say to lie his way back.
There wasn't anything he could say; he and the phantom of Hinami that stood just outside the door both knew that.
"Come on Onii-Chan… There's nothing more for you here," Hinami said in a haunting voice, as she smiled unnervingly at Haise with her arm outreached toward him.
Quietly crying to himself but unable to feel sorry for himself, Haise said nothing as he got up off the floor. Taking only a few moments to turn around to face the coffee shop, Haise stared longfully through his tear-ridden eyes to see what could have been his.
At what his life could have been.
"Thank you… Thank you for everything you've done for me and my family, Touka... I'll come back when I have Hinami," Haise said in a surprisingly calm and collective voice, and took Touka's parting gift before walking down the front steps and onto the festive and snowy sidewalk outside.
Closing the door behind Haise, Touka finally collapsed onto the floor to begin wailing out in utter despair and agony. Shaking with her knees huddled into her chest, the coffee shop manager fell deeper into the pit of depression, as she felt the last bit of her reason to go finally fading away from her heart.
Sitting in a bench across the street from :re with his nose buried into his phone, Nishiki's peered up through the lenses of his glasses upon noticing a bloodied and beaten Haise stumbling his way through a crowd of pedestrians who were avoiding him the same way they would with a crazed person.
"Well… I'll be damned, that was a lot faster than I thought… And he's alone too," Nishiki muttered under his breath with a perplexed look in his eyes, as he continued to keep an eye on the stumbling one-eyed ghoul making his way down the sidewalk parallel from the one he occupied.
After waiting for a few minutes to make sure that no one else from the coffee shop would dramatically burst out of the front door to begin searching or begging Haise to come back, Nishiki let out a small chuckle as he got up from the bench.
"So much for that mall date, huh Kaneki…?" Nishiki mused aloud with an amused smirk on his face, before putting his phone back into his pocket to begin following Haise from afar like a snake would do with its prey in the grass.
"Don't worry Haise… Tsukiyama and I have plans for you… Big plans."
Like mentioned before; I didn't really have much to type here, other than to let you know to not worry; Haise will eventually get laid in this story, I promise lol.
Other than that, thank you, and have a good day!
