The humming eventually disappeared, and all that was left was the eery echoes of a ringing sound. That only lasted for a couple seconds however, soon a explosion of sounds became known to Sasaki. Whispers and laughter, conversations and arguments, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on them he couldn't quite understand anything the seemingly human voices were saying.

Although sure he had his eyes open, all he could see was the same sad dark tones, slowly shifting into new tones. It was almost peaceful, the voices telling him to sleep and the light breeze that hit his face didn't exactly make it feel any better. That is until he suddenly felt himself slammed against cold, hard cement. His eyes snapped open, the light rushing into his eyes uninvited, as his breath was knocked out of him.

There he laid on the dusty cement for awhile, almost afraid to move from fear of feeling any sort of pain. Sasaki noticed a crumpled piece of paper. His eyes focused on a newspaper in front of him, although he could barely read it, both from having blurry eye vision and his eyes still needing to refocus. The minute he moved his hands, the feeling of pain soared through his muscles. Teeth gritting he positioned himself in a sitting positing.

His head hurt, it felt as if someone had just thrown a good amount of stones at his head, whatever that meant. Not only did his whole entire body feel sore, but he felt grimy as well.

Sasaki ungracefully stood up, wobbling slightly before falling over. He winced, trying to convince himself to try to stand up again, even if his body refused. He lost his footing again and fell once more, he let out an angry yell, pounding the cement with his fist before wincing and shaking his hand. He glanced briefly at the newspaper in front of him, his vision now improved since the last time.

The year...

The year on the newspaper was different, he quickly grasped at the newspaper, studying it intensely. He shook his head, he was just being paranoid. Of course the year would be different, it was just an old article that somehow survived from being properly thrown away. He glanced up and noticed that outside the alleyway there were people walking passed it, probably returning from work.

Now that he thought about it, the time was different. Before the sun had barely set, and now it's past lunch time. The alleyway looked the same, if anything it might've looked cleaner but other than that it was the same dirty alleyway. So then, why had he been left here? It just didn't make sense.

Sasaki attempted to get up one more time, this time mostly successful, besides the fact that he was relying heavily on the brick wall to his right. He needed help.

He tried stopping a random lady on the street, but his voice gave out, the lady gave him an odd look before walking around him. Sasaki looked desperately around him, trying to stop another person, this time a man.

"E..excuse me" his voice sounded weak and hoarse, the man avoided him. Sasaki groaned, this was getting him no where. He turned around and noticed an older man with a couple of bags, he looked nice enough...and something about him looked familiar.

He walked over to him, his throat didn't hurt as much as it did before, so maybe he'd be able to properly say what he wanted to say. "Excuse me, sir?" Sasaki nearly cheered to hear that his voice had returned, even if it was a little shaky.

The old man turned to him, a smile set in place before quickly morphing into surprise. "Kaneki, what are you doing here?" He certainly sounded confused. He glanced down at Sasaki's coat "and why are you wearing that?"

Now it was Sasaki's turn to be confused, maybe the man had simply confused him for somebody else. "Oh no, I think you're mistaking me for somebody else. I'm Sasaki Haise and I work for the CCG, hence the coat" he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

The man still looked confused, blinking owlishly at him before he smiled. "Ah, I see...sorry about that, my old age must've finally caught up to me. You just look remarkably like an employee of mine, besides the hair of course" the old man looked up, amused at Sasaki's hair. "Anyways, what can I do for you?"

Sasaki opened his mouth to speak but was caught off by a sudden headache, he clenched his teeth as he held his head. Why was his head hurting so much? The man in front of him looked concern, putting down his bags and placing a hand on Sasaki's shoulder. "Are you okay young man? You look like you're in pain"

Sasaki shook his head, forcing out a laugh "y-yeah, sorry" he tried looking up at the man again but another wave of pain hit him. "Argh, sorry just a headache.."

The man gave him a calculated look, pursing his lips before removing his hand from his shoulder. "If you'd like, I can treat you to a cup of coffee at my cafe, then I can see if I can help with whatever you wanted to ask" the man offered.

Sasaki looked up, momentarily surprised by the generous offer. "O-oh! Thank you for the offer, but are you sure? You barely know me.." he trailed off.

The man gave a light laugh and shook his head "I don't mind, I'll always help a stranger in need. My name is Yoshimura by the way"

The name rung in his mind, sounding so familiar. His head started pounding more. Fighting through the pain Sasaki smiled "pleasure to meet you Yoshimura-San"

oOoOo

Yoshimura ended up leading him all the way to the 20th ward, and into a pleasant looking cafe that. Sadly the cafe only intensified his headache. Sasaki tried offering Yoshimura to help carry his bags, but Yoshimura simply laughed and said that Sasaki was in no state to help at the moment. So much to his embarrassment, he had to face scrutinizing glares and disapproving looks since people assumed he was a rude young man that refused to help the old man next to him.

Although Sasaki still struggled to walk, for the most part he was doing fine on his own. But it was still a great relief when they finally arrived at the cafe. Once they entered, his senses were flooded with a familiar aroma, a very pleasant one. Sadly that didn't help much either and his head continued pounding, who knew what that ghoul did to him.

Oddly there was no one at the cafe, the staff were simply talking to each other casually, only turning their attention to the door when they saw someone enter. Yoshimura greeted them with a smile, and although some of them returned the smile they grew hesitant when they saw Sasaki, even surprised. After all, he was wearing the iconic CCG coat.

"Ah Enji, if you could please prepare some coffee for our guest, that'd be appreciated" Yoshimura asked, putting down his bags near the entrance of the cafe. Enji nodded slowly, before setting out to make some coffee.

A young woman with dark blue hair looked at him apprehensively, he didn't know what she was thinking, but if he knew he would learn that he bore a striking resemblance to another employee there. "Who's he?" She asked bluntly.

"Sasaki Haise, a pleasure" Sasaki answered for himself, giving her a kind smile, a smile which she didn't return.

"A pleasure to meet you too!" Said a red headed woman with an amused smile. Sasaki turned to her a little surprised but nevertheless smiled to her as well

Just then another person came out of the back room, and Sasaki nearly took a double take.

The young man looked nearly identical to him, of course with some minor key differences. First his hair was completely black, and straight. Although Sasaki's hair was wavy, he suspected it would become completely black too if he let it grow out. Second, his facial features were the same, although he did look slightly younger. And his eyes, they were the same shade as his.

A hopeful thought came into his mind, maybe...maybe he actually had a relative he didn't know about. Of course that was a stupid idea, but the resemblance was uncanny. The other man locked eyes with him and he paused.

The woman with red hair laughed "hey Kaneki, this man right here looks kinda like you" she said with a grin, Kaneki nodded slowly, confused.

Yoshimura looked up and laughed "ah yes, sorry, I forgot to introduce him. This is Sasaki Haise, he works for the CCG" he glanced over at Kaneki, then at Sasaki "although you both look nearly identical, say Kaneki, you wouldn't happen to have a brother would you?"

Kaneki stared at Sasaki for a little longer before quickly shaking his head "n-no sir! I'm a single child.."

Well there goes that theory. Sasaki sighed but nevertheless kept his smile. "I'm sorry to intrude like this, but I found myself in a predicament earlier.."

"Oh yes, you needed something..may I ask what your problem was?" Yoshimura asked kindly, gesturing to a seat. Sasaki took the seat and smiled

"I'm not sure if I should be telling you this, but I haven't been feeling too well and I can't contact my team." Enji had come back and placed a cup of coffee in front of Sasaki, Sasaki thanked him and took a sip. He sighed, satisfied with it "thank you! Well anyways, we were investigating a ghoul that had...odd abilities to say the least. He was able to teleport things.." everyone looked surprised, never had they ever heard of a ghoul who was able to teleport things. "Long story short he had teleported me 'supposedly', but instead I found myself at the same location, except during the day"

Touka rolled her eyes and went to go clean some plates, the others still regarded him in a wary fashion. "Is that so? Maybe that's the cause of your headache, the ghoul must've affected you in some way" suggested Yoshimura, giving him a concerned look.

"Yeah probably! I would've tried to communicate with my team by now but.." he took out his phone from his pocket, revealing an extremely cracked and fried phone. It flickered when he tried turning it on. "I have no means of communication" he laughed awkwardly. At the silence, Sasaki took another sip of his coffee, uncomfortable with the stares.

Yoshimura cleared his throat "ah, I see. Well then, if you'd like, you may use our phone to contact your teammates, or the place where you work at" problem solved. If only it was that easy. Sasaki of course was oblivious to how problematic his situation was in reality.

Setting his cup down he looked up at Yoshimura thankfully. "Alright, thank you! Once I'm done with this coffee I'll go ahead and make the call. Hopefully I'll be out of your way"

And with that, everyone continued doing what they were doing. Except this time in hush whispers. The employees kept glancing back at him, some even sneering. He tried his best to ignore them, but he couldn't help but hear a couple of words that stuck out.

"What's a dove doing here?"

"We should kill him now before he can go harm other ghouls"

"Do you think this is a rues"

They were being so silent and yet Sasaki could still hear them, he stiffened and glanced down at his cup. It was nearly finished. He knew he was supposed to report any suspected ghouls, but...he glanced at the staff. They noticed his stares and quickly stopped talking, instead looking away and cleaning the already clean tables. They had helped him, and the old man did too. The least that he could do is turn a blind eye to them.

Were they ghouls? A caffe of course was hot spot for ghouls. And especially for such good tasting coffee, the type only ghouls knew how to perfect. He quickly downed the rest. He stood up suddenly making the staff jump as he smiled pleasantly at them. "Can one of you direct me to the phone please?"

One of them, the one who he identified as Enji nodded. "Oh yeah, please follow me" he said, walking towards the backroom doors. He led him to an old landline phone, and with that he left him there.

Sasaki thought about the dreaded thing he'd have to tell them, about how he failed the mission. He laughed to himself, oh how much fun that'd be. He punched in the numbers to his teammates phones, but instead either got no answer or someone else answered. He tried again, this time punching in the numbers more carefully.

"What do you want again!?" Screamed the lady on the other side of the phone, clearly tired of having Sasaki calling her.

"I'm sorry! I think I typed out the wrong number again.."

There was a frustrated groan on the other side of the call "just face it buddy, she lied about her number. Now stop calling me!" And with that she hung up. Sasaki gaped down at the phone, surprised. Maybe his teammates just randomly decided to change their numbers while he was gone..? No, something was up.

He resigned to contacting the CCG's private number. After a few rings a polite voice filled his ears "hello, this is the commission of counter ghouls. To whom am I speaking to?"

"This is associate special class investigator Haise Sasaki, can you please connect me to Akira Mado?"

There was a pause over the phone. "..do you mean Kureo Mado?" The woman asked slowly, almost cautiously.

"Wha—" but before Sasaki could ask or even correct the woman, he was interrupted again.

"And it says here that we have no one working under the name of Sasaki Haise. Sir, you have no business contacting us through our private number. If you'd like to file a report, please contact us through—"

"No wait! I do work with the CCG!" Sasaki said quickly, almost with panic. "Please, check again, I'm sure there's some confusion"

Another pause. "..associate special class?" Clarified the woman slowly.

"Yes!"

He heard typing over the phone, there was a sigh. "Sir I'm sorry, but there's no such thing"

Sasaki froze "wait—"

"Now let me repeat, do not contact our private line, that is reserved specifically to our members—"

"N-no wait there has to be some sort of mistake—" Sasaki said quickly, tripping over his own words, desperate for some sort of understanding. But the woman only droned on.

"—it is inappropriate to be contacting us as some sort of prank—"

"This is not a prank" Sasaki corrected.

"—as this line is used for important things, so please, go prank call some other place. If you'd like to file a report or complaint please contact us at—"

Sasaki shoved the phone to the wall, his hands trembling slightly from the panic. Why wasn't he registered with the CCG?! Why didn't the woman know what the special class was!? And why did she say Kureo Mado— something in his mind paused.

Kureo Mado. He was supposed to be dead, Akira's father, the one who she spoke of solemnly. He was dead, why would she mention him?

Then something clicked in his mind. Sasaki hadn't realized through his headache, he was in too much pain at the time. But the location of this cafe...

He remembered it distinctly, it was all destroyed, in shambles. But here it was, fully in tact and well. The buildings didn't look new, they looked old and worn.

Sasaki's mind reeled back to the newspaper, but before he could dwell on it any longer, a hand was suddenly on his shoulder.

"Sasaki, are you okay?" Came the voice of Yoshimura.

—

A/N

I'm sorry for taking so long to update! I kept losing motivation and had to rewrite this chapter a couple of times. But here I am! With the long awaited second chapter, even if it's a little cruddy. I'll post this before I forget to lol.

Anyways if there's anything you'd like to see that you'd think would make this story interesting, please let me know! Also if there is anything I need to correct let me know too lol, anyways enjoy!

(had to copy this from wattpad lol)