Haise stood in front of the gate to Arima's house staring at the white call button below the speaker. Inside she waited for him: the woman he knew but could not remember.
What would seeing her face do to him? Would it jump-start his memory, unleashing a torrent of memories, flooding his brain with the past? Or would it be like seeing the woman from the coffee shop :re, breaking through an emotional wall? What would he feel? Happiness, sadness, fear, hatred, anger, or all of the above? Or nothing at all?
Haise took a deep breath to gather his courage. Despite the nausea inundating him due to his frazzled nerves, he pressed the button.
Arima's reason for inviting him to his house made sense. He believed the best course of action would be to conduct this meeting in private rather than risking a public break down at headquarters for everyone to witness, especially the members of Sasaki's team.
"Haise?" Arima called through the speaker.
His belly lurched uncertainly, his throat constricting.
"It's me," Haise answered, his voice breaking from his taut nerves.
"Come in."
The electronic lock on the gate buzzed as it released so he pushed open the small door to go inside. He walked across the gravel driveway to modest box like house that looked like a gray rectangle. Plain, understated, and deceptively boring - just like the man who owned it.
Apprehensive, verging on terrified, Haise self-consciously straightened his jacket then his tie. He ran his fingers through his fluffy, two toned hair. Before he could knock, the door opened.
"She's waiting for you in the study," Arima announced, nodding toward the floating staircase attached to the wall and ascending with each step.
Haise swallowed hard. She's up there. He wanted to run away. Instead, he took a step forward. Listing a little to the side, his hand pressed against the dark wood paneled wall to regain his balance. A strong hand squeezed his shoulder to offer silent reassurance.
"If it makes you feel any better, she's as nervous as you are. Maybe more so," Arima added, giving his overwhelmed pupil a small, tight smile.
Arima seemed nervous too which increased Haise's anxiety. If he did not know better, he would think the man, his fearless mentor known as the White Reaper, was afraid of her - just a little.
"I'm going to get drinks for us. I'm sure we're going to need them," Arima muttered before walking down the short hall toward the kitchen.
Already knowing the location of Arima's study from visiting the house before, Haise climbed the stairs, deliberately placing his foot firmly on each step before rising to the next. He turned the corner to the left at the end of the short hallway. He paused at the dark wooden door, staring at it momentarily before grasping the silver handle and pushing downward.
The door swung open revealing the a small woman standing in front of the wall lined with floor to ceiling bookcases. Her black hair flowed down her back almost to her waist in soft, glossy black waves. She wore a boxy black dress that hinted at her curvy figure but did not quite reveal it. Her flat soled black shoes were like ballet slippers complete with silky black ribbons that twisted around her legs up to her knees.
As he took in her appearance, she continued to peruse the spines of the books on the shelf in front of her, sliding her forefinger down each one. When she did not turn to greet him, he cleared his throat to alert her to his presence.
His entire body vibrated with energy as if an outside source were acting on him, scanning him. He knew then she was already aware of him.
"Miyu Nakashima, I presume," he spoke confidently, his voice strong. He was thankful his voice did not waver, quaking like his insides, betraying his apprehension.
Haise held his breath as she turned to face him. Across the room, her eyes connected with his. He could see the starburst of color, green fading into gold, the gold darkening into brown. Her eyes were captivating in their coloration and set in a pale, cherubic round face. She looked like a child despite being a grown woman.
A sense of comfort and peace spread over him like a warm blanket. He felt safe and protected in her presence. Suddenly he wondered what he had feared from this woman. Apparently, the unknown had struck fear into his heart. Finally seeing her dispelled that fear, making him feel like a silly, ridiculous child.
"Haise," she said, her voice quiet and gentle. "It's so good to meet you."
Glancing down, a swoop of her black hair shiny as a raven's wing, fell across the right side of her face. She blinked fast a few times, a sheepish grin stretching her lips. A slight indentation, a dimple, appeared on her left cheek. Her fingers shook as she reached up to push her hair behind her ear to move it away from her eye to meet his curious gaze.
"I mean," she corrected herself, "it's good to see you again."
"I don't remember you," he confessed, ashamed of that fact.
A ripple of ire ran through him. But not his own. Kaneki was reacting to her deep inside of him. Haise's hand absentmindedly massaged his chest as his heart beat faster, thumping violently against his ribcage as if to beat its way out.
No! Not now! Not now!, he begged. Numbness, dizziness, followed by the internal tremors like the shuttering of the earth before an earthquake. Haise had become familiar with these weird sensations and the sense of impending doom that came with them. Kaneki was waking from his dormancy.
Miyu Nakashima laughed nervously. Her eyes lowered from his again, dark pink coloring the apples of her cheeks. She smoothed her hair behind her ear once more with shaking fingers, proving that she was indeed more nervous than him.
"I'm not sure what to say," she admitted.
"Me either," he returned, smiling back at her.
That bitch!, Kaneki hissed inside his head. This is her fault! She did this to us!
Haise heard the words as clearly as if they had been whispered into his ear. His blood simmered with rage like bubbles lifting from the bottom of a pot ready to boil. He could not let this continue. He had to keep Kaneki under control. His fingers clenched, gathering a fistful of his jacket.
Her lower lip quivered. Tears made her eyes glisten in the faint light from the green glass shaded lamp on the desk.
Haise advanced toward her one unsure step at a time with his hand extended to greet her with a handshake.
Don't touch her, Kaneki warned
Haise's fingers touched her outstretched fingertips, sliding toward her palm to take her hand in his.
Dammit, Haise, listen to me! Don't touch her!
Then it happened. A series of confusing images flipped through his mind like a fast moving slide show. A needled being jabbed into his neck. His body strapped to a metal table. Electrodes glued to his temples, his neck, his bare chest, and rib cage. His body lurching, convulsing on the table.
Lightning fast flashes of his and her faces in turn, exhibiting a range of emotions; laughing as if sharing a joke, crying in sorrow, yelling in anger, screwed up into grimaces of physical pain.
The recollections in pictures continued. A deep bite mark on his neck, blood streaming down to his shoulder. He stared at an open mouth, the incisors longer than normal like the fangs of a dog. All of the gleaming white teeth were covered in blood, his blood. Eyes, yellow, hypnotic, staring at him from behind strands of sweaty, midnight black hair.
Then the slide show ceased, giving way to a longer memory which played in his head like a movie. He could see her holding him, or rather Kaneki, like a mother holds a hurting child. They were sitting on the ground, her arms around his shoulders, his cheek pressed against her heart. Tears ran down his face and soaked into her frilly pink shirt. Her face was turned toward the sky, her tears sliding across her temples wetting her hair. He could see her face in his mind as clearly as he had seen it when she had turned to look at him earlier.
The scene shifted to a dark place. He could see her standing in front of him, her eyes glowing like hot glass from a kiln, yellow and bright. Blood streamed from her nose, over her lips, down her chin. She opened her mouth to speak sending a crimson tide gushing over her lower lip to coat her neck in viscous red fluid.
"Kaneki, I'm sorry," she gurgled, blinking slowly.
Haise's mental view expanded, allowing him to see the complete picture. Kaneki held her with his left arm around her waist. His face was twisted, distorted with rage. Two of his tentacle-like weapons had stabbed her through her ribcage, one on each side of her body. Then the hostile expression faded. Tears ran from his eyes creating watery pink rivulets down his cheeks as they mixed with her blood that had spattered his face.
Withdrawing his kagune that impaled her body, Kaneki embraced her tightly as he fell to his knees. His entire body shuddered while he screamed her name over and over while holding her lifeless body to his chest. The sound of Kaneki screaming her name echoed in Haise's head until his brain ached.
Haise cried like a baby in the middle of study overcome by the emotions whirling inside of him from the distressing memory and the deep seated sadness forced upon him by Kaneki. Overcome by the sorrowful haze, he reached out blindly for the woman he had seen Kaneki try to murder in a stark recollection of the past.
Kill her. Finish what I couldn't, Kaneki taunted him.
"No, no, no," Haise murmured, holding onto her as if his life counted on it. Maybe it did.
Haise! Fucking pussy! You're weak! She deserves to die for what she did to us!
"Kaneki, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what I did to you," Miyu whispered in Haise's ear. "I'm sorry for what I did to you as well, Haise. Kill me if it will make you both feel better."
"What?" he gasped. "No! I can't! I won't!"
Haise shoved her away, opening his eyes to look at her.
"Let me help you." She was crying.
Goddammit, Haise!, Kaneki bellowed.
"I'm sorry, Ken. I'll come for you another time. But not tonight,"she murmured, tears dripping from her eyes.
Haise closed his eyes when she lunged at him. Taking his face between her hands, she pressed her forehead to his. Her skin felt cool and smooth against his. His strength, his very life, surged out of him, making him to fall limply into her arms. The discomforting tingle in his limbs along with the soul crushing sadness rushed up and out, flowing into her. His body and mind that had been drowning in heavy, negative emotions immediately felt lighter, a little numb, but free and almost happy. She was taking away his pain, but it was as if she were also sucking away his soul.
"What did you do to me?" Haise asked, opening his eyes.
His bleary eyes could not bring her face into focus. Devoid of strength, unable to stand on his own, she held him with an effortlessness he found disturbing.
"Are you two all right?" Arima asked, entering the room with a tray set with three cups of steaming black coffee.
"As good as can be expected...all things considered," Miyu answered.
"What happened?"
"Not now, Kishou. That is a discussion for later."
Haise could feel his body being lowered into one of the leather armchairs in the study. Weary, worn down from the brief but taxing ordeal, his head lolled to the side. The leather of the chair was cool to his heated face. It felt good. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply to bring air into his lungs. He did not realize he had been holding his breath. Maybe she had been stealing that too.
Perhaps the reason Kaneki had attempted to murder her was justified because she had tried to kill him first. That would explain the scathing hatred tainting his voice when he had warned Haise about her and commanded him to kill her. But this was his body dammit, and he did not know this woman. Haise Sasaki had no reason to kill her. Yet.
"How are you feeling?" she questioned Haise, spreading apart his eyelids to gaze at his pupil.
He flinched when she shined the bright white light from her cell phone directly into his eye. Tranquility spread throughout his body like warm water being poured over his head when she touched him, pressing her forefinger and middle to the artery in his neck. His eyes moved to her mouth, watching her lips as she silently counted each beat of his heart.
Her incisors were normal. No fangs. What the hell had he seen? Was that memory even real or a mix of fact and fiction? The recollection of a book Kaneki had read or a movie he had seen could have gotten combined with the memory of some terrible thing this woman had done to him to enable him to cope with her monstrous side.
"I feel tired. Weak. What did you do to me?"
"You'll be okay after getting some sleep," she mumbled, avoiding looking into his eyes.
"She has a gift," Arima interjected, pressing the coffee cup into Haise's palms.
"It's a curse," she growled, her voice deep and vicious.
Haise's eyes widened. He checked her teeth again since her lip had pulled back from them in a snarl. Still normal. Her eyes, however, had changed. The gold color spread through her irises erasing the green and brown.
"Oh, my god," he gasped. The yellow eyes from the visions that had danced through his head.
"What are you remembering? What have you seen?" she questioned him, her golden eyes holding his. "Do you remember me?"
Kaneki remembers you quite well, Haise thought to himself bitterly.
The gold in her eyes appeared to swirl and flow like liquid. Everything in the room and everything inside of him pulsated. He felt sick again. For a moment he could not say anything at all, only stare into her hypnotic eyes.
"Kaneki speaks to me. I've had conversations with him like I'm having with you now but inside my head. He's afraid. He doesn't want to disappear. He doesn't want to be forgotten," he said in a low monotone.
"Oh, trust me, he will never be forgotten," Miyu assured him, one corner of her mouth quirking upwards into a sardonic grin.
"I don't want to go away either," he mumbled in an affectless tone, his eyes unblinking like he was sleeping with them open. "He hates you. He wants you dead."
"Sasaki!" Arima exclaimed.
"I know he does. Actually, I don't blame him," she scoffed. "Sometimes I wish I was dead too."
Haise winced, blinking, acting as if he had been startled out of a dream.
"That was an awful thing to say," he commented, his voice normal.
"The truth usually is," Miyu said, managing a smile that relayed nothing but sadness and remorse.
"I think I should go," he announced.
"I'll call you a taxi," Arima offered, taking his cell phone out of his pocket while leaving the room.
Haise blinked rapidly avoiding eye contact with the woman sitting in the chair across from him. Bewildered and drowsy, his brain felt like it had been put in a blender.
"What did you remember?" she questioned him pointedly.
"Was Kaneki tortured?" he inquired boldly. "Did you torture him?"
The woman released a long, sigh that sounded like her very last breath. "Yes. Electroshock therapy. Archaic, cruel. Behavioral therapy like a shock collar on a dog. I am truly sorry."
"Are you some kind of monster?" he demanded, startled by the abhorrence evident in his tone. The anger streamed through his body, unseen but definitely there like a river hidden underground.
"A different kind of monster from a ghoul but in the same sense that you are a monster, yes," she responded calmly.
His eyes followed her every movement as she stood up, walking to the small table in the corner where there was a silver tray laden with the accoutrements for a simple alcoholic drink. He observed her picking up a glass, foregoing the ice and soda water to fill it full of a brown liquid from one of the cut crystal decanters. Waiting for her to finish her drink, then asked her a question.
"Why did..." He was not sure if she should ask, but he wanted to know. He was a part of this. Whatever had happened, had happened to him as much as it had to Ken Kaneki. "Why did Kaneki try to kill you?"
"Because I was trying to imprison him inside his own mind so you could be the one to become the primary personality," she replied candidly as she had to all of his inquiries.
His eyes moved downward to see her massaging her right side half way down her rib cage; the exact spot where one of Kaneki's weapons had pierced her.
"I can't say I didn't deserve it either," Miyu muttered under her breath, her face twisting into a grimace. She poured herself another drink. "I'm so very sorry for what I did...to the both of you."
"She deserves to die for what she did to us!" Kaneki's words reverberated in his brain until Haise's body trembled. She actually agreed with Kaneki.
Haise was glad he was sitting down when the dizziness swamped him, heating his body and making his guts quiver. He groaned, closing his eyes to make the room stop spinning. This woman was so apologetic and acted as if she would have been relieved if Kaneki had succeeded in killing her.
"Your car will be here in fifteen minutes," Arima informed his charge when he returned.
"Thanks," Haise said, his eyes turning to Arima.
Her hand, cold and small, touched his, making him wrench away, but she held onto him. Frozen, unable to utter a word, he experienced that bizarre feeling again: the pulling sensation as if she were drawing the negative emotions out of him. As if receiving a shot of morphine, she also numbed his body and mind.
"This will help. I will never hurt you again. I swear," Miyu promised, tears making her eyes look like cat's eye marbles. They had returned to their graduated colors. She smiled at him, apologetic, still sad. "Don't worry. The weakness is only temporary. You will recover quickly with rest."
"What about you?" Arima asked her, glancing at her. He handed her a cup of coffee from the tray.
"I'll be fine," she said, waving away the cup of coffee he offered her. She went back to the table for more liquor instead.
"This is why I thought it best you two should meet away from CCG Headquarters," Arima said, taking a seat in the chair beside the one where Miyu had been sitting.
"What happens now?" Haise asked, his attention set on Arima.
"I don't know," she answered instead. "Do you still think my coming back to the CCG is a good idea, Arima?"
"I don't know," he replied truthfully to the both of them.
Haise noted the fierce glare she cast at Arima. His eyes carefully studied the two people over the rim of his cup as he drank the coffee. He could not quite figure out their relationship beyond their ties to each other in the past, both working together for the CCG.