Eto sat once again in an abandoned building, skipping around. She honestly had nothing to do, and Juuzou was at work. They had been dating for a month now, and things had been going good. They were going out to dinner tonight. Good in the manor that they would be spending time together, bad in the way that Eto would have to go throw up whatever she ate right afterwards. He was so sweet. A little psychotic, but sweet. Much like herself.

"Eto," a male voice said.

She spun around to face him. "Naki, haven't you learned not to sneak up on people?"

He said nothing and walked over to her scowling. "Do you care about the CCG?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Of course not," Eto laughed, going back to spinning.

"Then why did I see you kissing an dove at the park a week or so ago?"

Eto stopped spinning. She faced him, tense. How dare this man spy on her. How dare he get involved in her life. How dare he confront her.

Her hands turned to claws and her bandaged faced turned to a monster and she assumed full form.

"How dare you say that to me," she whispered, bringing her face so closed to Naki's that she could see the sparkles of unshed tears in his eyes. His lip trembled.

"I saw you!" he shouted, bursting into tears. "Kissing that Suzuya investigator!"

She roared and hit Naki as hard as she could. He soared through the air and crashed through a concrete wall. He held his side and cried louder.

"How dare you," she said, voice low.

"Please don't hurt me anymore," he sobbed. "I won't tell! I just- I just-."

"You just thought it was ok to look into my personal affairs!" Eto roared, raising her clawed hand to hit him again.

"Please!" Naki screamed, tears streaming down his face. He gripped his side and coughed. "I just was confused. Is that the man you love?"

"That's none of your business!" the one eyed ghoul howled, and she threw Naki across the room like a rag doll.

"I'm just trying to help!" he whimpered, gritting his teeth in an attempt bear the pain. "I ask questions you don't!"

Eto wrapped her claws around him and picked him up and held him at her eye level. He cried some more, feet kicking in the air.

"What do you see that I don't?" she hissed.

"Wh- what happens when he," Naki coughed. "Finds out."

Eto was silent for a moment, heart rate increasing by the second.

"I don't know!" she roared in his face, and then dropped him twelve feet onto the concrete below. He sobbed and pulled himself to his feet, his wounds healing. "I don't know," Eto said again, this time soft. The owl began to glow and her full form disentigrated, leaving a bandaged ghoul in a magenta dress. The bandages around her face had unraveled, and she covered her face with her hands, attempting to hide her tears from Naki. "I don't know," she whispered.

Naki stepped closer to her and wrapped his arms around her. Eto cried hard; not even his warm embrace could heal the cold pang of what she knew was to come.

"It will be ok," Naki said, holding her tight. "If he really loves you, the dove will understand."

She buried her face his his white suit and sniffled, repeating the only words that seemed to fit the situation. "I don't know."

That night at dinner, Sen lazily swirled her water with her straw. She looked at the ice, bobbing around, clueless that it was melting and would soon be gone.

"Are you okay?" Juuzou asked, a concerned look on his face.

"Just tired," Sen lied, forcing a smile.

"Are you not hungry?" he asked, pointing to her untouched food.

"I'm really stressed, and when I get stressed I don't eat," she lied again.

"What's stressing you out?"

"Things with my stepfather, the book I'm working on," she lied for the third time. All I do is lie, she thought to herself, gut wrenching.

"If you're tired, let's just go back to my place," Juuzou said, placing his hand on hers.

"Alright," Sen said, smiling a little. She loved her boyfriend's cozy little apartment.

They caught a cab and they were soon walking through the door into Suzuya's place.

"I can put on a movie," he said, gesturing to the new TV that was sitting facing his bed.

"Alright," Sen yawned, laying down in Juuzou's bed. It was cold, so she pulled the blankets up to her chin.

He put on an older film and then crawled in next to her. She laid her head on his chest, and he wrapped his stitched arm around her. Sen tried to stay awake to watch what he had put on, but with steady rise and fall of his chest, her heavy eyelids soon closed for the night.

Juuzou stroked his girlfriends hair, feeling so lucky. Two months ago he never would have been able to imagine that he would love someone. Or that they would love him back for that matter. And yet here he was, with a beautiful (not to mention famous) girlfriend sleeping right next to him. It was perfect. He loved her and she loved him. There was nothing complicated about it. There was just a tiny bit of bickering now and then, but it was always over little things and resolved quickly. They enjoyed a lot of the same things. However, Juuzou couldn't help but be disappointed that she didn't share his intense love for sweets. He still knew next to nothing about her family, but that was alright. All that she had wanted to share was that they had all been killed by ghouls.

Ghouls. That changed his thought process to work. Kiniko and himself seemed to be getting nowhere with Aogiri. The owl often crossed his mind, and how it had been identified as the bandaged ghoul. He remembered that fight, how helpless he had been. And yet, the owl didn't kill him. It would have been easy, but she didn't. She's making me suffer, he thought.

He tried not to think about the notorious one eyed ghoul and decided to try to think about other work things. Kiniko was annoying as ever. Akira had been promoted and was no longer Amon's subordinate. They had publicly announced themselves as a couple the next day. Juuzou chuckled a little bit at that, and Sen stirred in her sleep. Juuzou smiled and leaned his head back, and soon he was too fast asleep.