Hide smiled, a quiet smile unlike his normal knowing smirk. "I think…I'm on the side of good people who got dealt a bad hand in life."
Amon and Touka glanced at each other, unprompted.
Touka laughed. "Is it just me or is that a bullshit non-answer?"
"I mean it," Hide chuckled. He looked at Amon. "I don't talk about it much, but…my father was an investigator. I was orphaned when he was killed by a ghoul."
Out of the corner of his eye, Amon caught Touka lean her chair back onto the ground and look down at her coffee. Was that…shame?
"I was adopted by a really great family, though, and they didn't let me stew in resentment. So I didn't grow up hating ghouls like you guys who get taken in by the CCG. I don't think I have it in me to really hate anyone, anyways," he grinned. "And then my first friend after getting adopted, the guy that helped me get into Kamii, gets absolutely shafted by life for no good reason and now he's a ghoul. And you think I should just forget about him? He always thought that he was the isolated loner and I saved him from being a shut-in, but I was a scared kid in a new school and a new home when I met him. I owe him too much to give up on him, even if he is a ghoul now."
"Your friend isn't the ghoul in question tonight."
"Dude, I'm getting there! It was Touka here who took him under her wing and got him working at Anteiku, right? For the first time in his life he found a place where he fits in, where I'm not the only person who cares whether he lives or dies anymore. And along the way Touka saves my life, so I can't just dislike ghouls as a rule."
He looked at Touka out of the corner of his eye. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that jerk who gave me a concussion has cleaned up his act for the sake of his human girlfriend."
Amon's eyebrows shot up at that.
Touka glanced at him, weighing the right amount of information to give.
"Yeah, his girlfriend is human. He stopped preying on humans for her. She got taken by the Gourmet and we all had a rough time getting her back. Kaneki was there, too. The jerk came pretty close to dying for her. I…wanted to kill her because it's too dangerous for him to be so close to a human. It puts too many people at risk. But I couldn't do it, in the end."
Amon chimed in. "And that's the incident you referred to when you said you defeated the Gourmet and left him for dead?"
Touka nodded. "He had one arm and half a face when I was done with him."
"Badass, Touka. That's…weirdly hot."
Amon was aghast. "Nagachika!"
He grinned, pleased with himself for causing his straight-laced superior to clutch his pearls. "What? I calls 'em like I sees 'em."
Hide turned serious again and continued to address Amon. "So we have Touka here saving lives behind the scenes left and right, and even the ghoul who nearly killed me a few months ago turned over a new leaf for the sake of his girlfriend. His human girlfriend he risked his life for. It seems to me like ghouls aren't universally evil, and they can change for the better."
He turned to Amon. "So…we all know what the Countermeasure law says, but what do you really think is the right thing to do here?"
Amon narrowed his eyes at Hide. "You're a dangerous young man."
Hide just wore that shit-eating grin.
"I…don't know what the right thing is. I know I shouldn't be sitting here in the first place, calmly talking to Rabbit, but I am." He looked Rabbit dead in the eyes. "I have a lot I want to hold you accountable for, but I also admit it seems wrong to attack you when you've behaved yourself and observed this…ceasefire. More or less."
She raised a single eyebrow at him, looking very unimpressed at his assessment of her behavior this evening.
Hide shrugged and downed the last of his coffee. "Nothing's really happened other than…talking. Would it be so bad to just…walk away? Consider tonight a mulligan and continue as if it never happened?"
Touka snorted. "You expect me to trust the word of a self-righteous homicidal maniac like him?"
Amon frowned at her audacity, to call him a homicidal maniac.
Hide laughed. "Amon's a good guy, too, you know. If both of you gave your word, I think I would trust both of you to keep it."
Touka stared hard at Hide. The boy was vouching for both of them to each other. It came down to whether they could both trust Hide—then they didn't need to trust each other, not really.
She finally spoke. "I get the feeling you've had your own agenda for a long time. That's sketchy as hell. But I don't think you'd do anything to jeopardize Kaneki or Anteiku, so I'm willing to go with it for now. I'll kill you at the first hint of trouble, though."
Hide nodded, pleased in spite of the mortal peril he was apparently in.
Amon instead considered Rabbit. He was starting to see how she considered herself more prey than predator, which was an interesting thought for another time. Her history of attacks had shown her to be aggressive, but not downright vicious. She wanted to lash out at the investigators involved in killing Fueguchi, so she killed those investigators. Not civilians. Not any random investigator. Worst-case scenario, she would just come after him. Amon could live with that risk.
He could even convince himself that letting her go was the honorable thing to do, after they'd spoken semi-peacefully and shared coffee together. Wasn't it some sort of war crime in human conflicts to attack people who came to the table to negotiate?
What he had trouble with was convincing himself not to use the information he'd gathered here tonight.
Amon turned to Hide. "I…don't know if I can neglect my duty like that, and still be able to live with myself."
Hide narrowed his eyes, thinking carefully. "What is your duty? I mean, like, ultimately."
Amon rattled his answer off without thinking twice. "We exist to protect peace."
Hide's eyes lit up, like he had found his angle of attack. "You know, there's more than one way to get from war to peace. You can destroy your enemies, sure, but you can also get rid of enemies by turning them into friends."
"I don't want to be friends with investigators," Touka interjected.
"Too late!" Hide turned back to Amon. "So, don't think of it as 'neglecting your duty.' You're on a covert enemy-destroying mission. Instead of stopping her by killing her, you're stopping her by making her see investigators as more than just an impersonal enemy. What do they call it? Psyops. Psychological operations. It's still considered warfare, isn't it?"
"Yes, psyops is a legitimate tool in traditional war against human soldiers. The CCG has never engaged in it because ghouls can't be exploited…in that way…" As he spoke, he became less and less able to ignore the obvious logic flaw in that line of thinking.
"Because we don't feel things like humans do, right?" Touka's voice seemed to tremble a bit as she spoke.
Hide nodded. "But you obviously do, so…wouldn't a psyops mission intended to get a ghoul to think twice about attacking investigators serve the CCG's mission?"
Amon turned to look at the ghoul across from him as he spoke. "You really think I should be satisfied walking away, leaving a ghoul alive to kill another day? Just hoping that I've made enough of an impression for her to remember the human wreckage she leaves behind long enough to hesitate the next time she gets the itch to kill an investigator?"
Without warning Touka's face crumpled and she burst into angry tears. "I know they have lives and friends and families! What kind of a monster do you think I am? Oh wait, we all know what kind of monster you think I am!"
She took a moment to catch her breath and calm down. Looking extremely uncomfortable, Amon passed her the napkin that came with his muffin so she could dry her eyes a bit.
"It's just been a tough year and I'm always worried for my brother and Kaneki and Hin—you know, everyone, and I'm stressed out about college entrance exams and I think my period's about to start, and it's hard enough being in high school already without you jackholes killing everyone I love."
She glared at Amon, who looked like a deer in the headlights. He'd probably never felt less like an agent of justice and more like a bully than that moment. He gaped but couldn't find any words, because suddenly sitting across from him wasn't a predator but a girl who had finally cracked under pressure. If it was all an act, it was a good one, and if it wasn't…well, then, maybe he had some soul-searching to do.
Touka sniffled and collected herself. "I…didn't mean to do that."
Hide waved her words away nonchalantly. "You said it yourself, you're under a lot of stress. I had, like, five mental breakdowns a week when I was studying for the entrance exams." The boy took his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the time. "Speaking of which, you gotta get in a solid eight hours of sleep to stay sane. What do you say we wrap this up for now? I've still got a lot of questions, but I can ask them later."
Touka sniffed and spoke in a low voice. "Whatever. I just want to go home. Safely."
Everyone stood up, but just stared at each other awkwardly. It hadn't escaped anyone's notice that Amon hadn't agreed to any détente yet.
Hide chimed in. "Ya know, it's customary to shake on treaties like this." He held out a hand to Touka, who stared at it.
But Hide just waited so obnoxiously long, she finally looked up at the ceiling in annoyance and shook his hand. Quickly, but she did it.
Then, they both turned to look at Amon. Hide elbowed Touka, and she reluctantly held her own hand out to Amon.
Amon took a deep breath and reached out to grab her hand. He'd never shaken hands with a ghoul. It was…a very normal handshake, actually.
It wasn't a betrayal of the CCG, not really—he was prepared to fight dirty against ghouls and not feel bad about it. He could lie, get away safely, and use what he had learned tonight to launch a better attack soon. Right?
And yet, as he shook the hand of this disgruntled teenage girl, Nagachka shot him a sly glance. As if he could read Amon's mind.
"Don't worry, Touka. Amon's a man of his word. Besides, there's worse monsters out there that the CCG needs to hunt down."
Touka yanked her hand away and wiped it on her skirt, as if she'd touched something unpleasant. "Yeah, whatever. I'll just come after you if this all blows up in my face."
Hide grinned back at her, completely unbothered.
All that guilt Amon had trained himself not to feel when hunting ghouls came roaring back. Deep down, he knew that he would abide by the promises he'd made this evening. The part of his soul that yearned for justice wouldn't allow for it. As much as he hated to admit it, turning around and stabbing her in the back wouldn't be true justice. Not under these circumstances, at least.
He stared down at the girl, trying to look intimidating. "Stay out of trouble. Stay away from investigators. Because I will come after you if I hear about you attacking my colleagues again."
She tried to scowl back at him, but her anger ran out and she broke eye contact to look off to the side in…shame, almost. "Stop hunting down good people like the Fueguchis and go after the real monsters. Then we won't ever have a reason to fight each other again."
Amon opened his mouth to retort, but he was swamped by the sense that he was a grown adult man trying to pick a fight with a teenage girl. He suddenly felt very silly. Heaving a sigh and closing his eyes, he let go of the urge to get a parting shot in.
Then he just turned around, walked out of the study room, and left.
Amon sighed, adjusted his grip on his quinque, and began to walk towards a busier intersection to hail a cab. On impulse, he glanced behind him to make sure he hadn't dreamed the whole thing.
Rabbit and Hide were exiting the building together. As soon as they stepped onto a shadowy stretch of sidewalk, Rabbit spun around and grabbed Hide by his shirt collar. She held him nearly off the ground with one arm. She was shaking her other fist in his face while speaking furiously at him in a low voice.
In a flash Amon feared that he'd been horribly wrong about everything, that she was going to kill Hide and then him on this deserted street, that he'd been a fool who (yet again) trusted a ghoul who didn't deserve it.
And then she dropped him and shoved him away, throwing her hands up in frustration. Hide threw his head back and laughed.
As he turned again to head home, he heard Hide yell, "See you around, Touka! I'll stop by for a cappuccino this weekend!"
It was met with a quick retort of, "Screw you, bottle blonde!"
Amon shook his head. If this was where he got by following the white rabbit into Wonderland…
The next morning at work, Amon was watching the clock like it was his job. He was counting the seconds until Nagachika was due to come in after his morning classes. A part of him still feared that he'd made a horrible mistake, that Rabbit had followed his barely-trained subordinate home and slaughtered him…
And then the subordinate in question came in right on time. Amon breathed a sigh of relief as Nagachika went through his usual smile-and-wave greeting, not betraying the slightest hint that he and Amon had been complicit in breaking the law last night.
Amon's assessment was right, the boy was dangerous.
During the daily briefing, though, Nagachika couldn't contain his yawns very well.
Akira was going over some leads they'd investigated the previous week when she noticed another poorly-hidden yawn from him.
"Am I boring you, or did you have a late night?"
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I grabbed coffee last night and then I couldn't fall asleep."
Akira smiled in that cold, amused way that made Amon tense up in fear. "You're a big boy now, Nagachika. If coffee ruins your sleep, you should know better than to make a silly mistake like drinking it that late."
Nagachika blushed and rubbed the back of his neck with one arm, the very picture of chagrin. "You see Ms. Mado, it was with a girl I kind of like…and maybe I got her there under false pretenses, and she friend-zoned me hard…and hit me with some very creative and violent threats if I ever pulled a stunt like that again. So, yeah, I already learned my lesson."
Amon was impressed at the boy's willingness to make himself look like a chump, using partial truths to misdirect Akira. If he didn't know the full story, he never would have suspected anything.
Akira quirked an eyebrow. "Good for her. It's too bad you already blew it. She sounds like a girl after my own heart."
Hide couldn't stop the shocked glance he sent Amon—just a moment of shared recognition at the bizarre irony of the exchange.
Amon had the fleeting thought that it was probably a good thing Akira and Rabbit would always be enemies. Good God, if they ever made peace and became friends, the two of them would have every man in the city shaking in his shoes. They were more similar than either of them would ever realize…
He quickly halted that thought in its tracks. He had to focus on work. Last night would stay in a strange, barely believable compartment in his mind. Maybe when he had some quiet time outside of the main office he would go over the events with more care, possibly even get Nagachika alone after the boy had a chance to stop by Anteiku over the weekend and see what other information he could glean, but for now Amon needed to focus on the workday ahead of him.
