-106 Interlude to the New Year-
It was a small miracle that Kaneki and myself had managed to get the interior of the house to something approaching 'nice' without too much help. Kaneki had noted the coincidence of us finishing up just a few days afterr Christmas, and I had to turn around and check the calendar to confirm that it was actually just a few days off. A few days were all I needed to throw something together, right?
Though it took longer than I wanted, I finally managed to find a shop where they sold the good stuff and invite Touka and Nishiki. In the end, my idea for a slightly late party came together.
Nishiki arrived first. It was his first time back at the house since that initial meeting and the look on his face when he walked in overrode his snark.
"Guess I shouldn't have expected too much from the guy giving Anteiku a weekly deep clean. Still, less dust and it isn't cold as hell anymore."
"Very funny coming from the man who hates to man the mop." My grin was as much from his being here as it was a suppressed laugh at his overly heavy jacket. "This weather is nothing. Back home at this time of year, we'd be lucky if it was above freezing."
"It's that cold where you're from? No wonder you're crazy." Nishiki shot back, "You also said there would be coffee."
"Kaneki's back in the kitchen." I nodded. "Said he splurged on some special stuff for the occasion."
Touka showed up fifteen minutes after that, late as expected, during a lull in the radio program. That had been my pickup from a secondhand shop after figuring out that the dusty TV I had found in a closet wouldn't play anything but static unless we hooked up a DVD or VHS. As for what the radio was tuned to at the moment, I was pretty sure it was some flavor of highbrow comedy, because Nishiki and Kaneki were enjoying it and most of what was being said was going over my head.
"You somehow found the sketchiest neighborhood in the sixteenth ward." Were her first words as she tossed her jacket over the back of a chair. "At least you managed to carve out territory."
"This can't be that bad of a neighborhood." I racked my brain, trying to figure out exactly what made the neighborhood sketchy. It certainly didn't feel that much different from the street I had grown up on.
"I said 'strangest', moron." A grin and unexpected punch to my shoulder. "And I thought my Japanese was bad. At least you did a good job fixing up the place and taking the territory."
Shaking my head, I waved a hand around the formerly dusty room. "Kaneki was really the one who made the place livable. I just fixed the heater."
"Hm." Touka fixed her eyes toward the kitchen, where the other two were talking over the echo of the radio.
"How's Hinami doing?"
"She's okay. Doesn't sleep well, but at least tonight she fell asleep early." Touka replied, poking at a paint chip on the wall and watching it fall. "Misses seeing Kaneki at the café though. Well. She's been asking about out moving in with you guys."
Uhhh. I really didn't have the mental gears shifted into place to consider this right now. I had been aiming for something a little lighthearted, something a little happy to end the year on. Flopping down onto the worn couch, I gestured to be given just a moment.
"Well...the house is basically livable now that the heat and utilities are in. Technically speaking, we do have an extra room so it would be physically possible." Except there was the matter that this place was still in fairly shabby shape and the thousand tiny things that needed to be done to clean it up.
Touka sat on the arm on the opposite side of the sofa, still looking toward the kitchen. "So what do you think about it."
"What? Me?" Anything related to Hinami made me feel inadequate. "You should talk it out with Kaneki. You two are basically her parents now."
Touka sputtered at the remark, spun to look at me—she had turned a shade of pink—and spun back around to regard the path to the kitchen.
"Tell him about her idea." I repeated, standing back up. I shot a look at the back of her head. "And don't look at me like that. You and Kaneki know what's best for her better than I do."
With a borderline audible eye roll, she stood and walked off to the kitchen. I moved Touka's jacket to hang next to Nishiki's on the hooks near the door and headed to the kitchen myself. Even in that short time, Kaneki and Touka hadn't done more than awkwardly stare each other down like a pair of deer in headlights.
Kaneki leaned to the side to make eye contact with me.
"Allen, why did you invite her here?" He sounded like he was more intimidated than irritated. "I didn't want her getting dragged into this."
Touka shifted to the side, eclipsing Kaneki's head. "Keep me out of whatever you abandoned your job for?"
"Better question," Nishiki interjected, "why the hell are we all here? New Year's isn't for a couple days yet and outside it's colder than a Dove's heart."
"I, well," despite it being simple, actually saying it was difficult, "we never really got the chance to celebrate after the raid on Aogiri."
As Nishiki leaned back and sipped his coffee, it felt unpleasantly as if he was speaking for everyone.
"Celebrate what?" He snorted, "Nothing from that night was worth celebrating."
"I...technically. But we got Kaneki out, and we all lived. And back home that's more than enough of a reason to celebrate." This was only three people and I could barely talk. If I ever needed to give a speech I was going to be seven flavors of fucked.
Touka agreed with me, thankfully, and even though Kaneki didn't say anything, he hadn't disagreed with the sentiment.
"Okay, fine; we're celebrating." Nishiki somehow managed to make it sound like it was a punishment. "Should we make some confetti, play some music, light a few sparklers?"
"I didn't get sparklers." Yet. I had a few ideas of what I could do with magnesium dust. Walking over to the cabinet, I reached up to the top shelf. "I figured we could celebrate like back home."
The thump of the bottle onto the battered tabletop finally got Nishiki interested.
"Wow." Coffee somewhat forgotten, he leaned in toward the bottle and asked what the others were probably thinking. "That's expensive-looking. But can we actually drink it?"
"This was what we had back home and we drank it on special occasions."
"Like drink and not puke up?"
"Yep."
Unlike back home though, we had a set of somewhat classy cups to drink out of—a clutch of stout glasses in a box from the secondhand shop. The other option was the classic red plastic cup, but I hadn't seen those anywhere here.
"How is that possible?" Kaneki asked, picking up and looking over the label on the bottle. "I thought coffee was the only thing like that."
"No clue." I replied, laying out the glasses in a line. "All I know is that it only works for a couple brands. Kaneki, if you want to do the honors, I'll pour."
"Aren't we underage, though?"
Touka bonked its reluctant handler in the shoulder. "Seriously? The Doves would hunt us down and kill us without a thought and you're concerned about if we're underage?"
Snatching the bottle from Kaneki, she twisted off the cap and handed it off to me. None of the reactions surprised me. The pessimist, the cautious and the brash. Pouring out the quartet of drinks, I wondered what that made me. The outsider? Was trying to think that over even worth the time?
Despite his initial reluctance Kaneki stepped up. "Well, to us and the new year, I guess."
"And let there be many to follow." Nishiki added.
A sentiment worth raising a glass to.
The drink burned its way down in that familiar, fiery manner. Kaneki merely twisted his face into a look like he just bit into a lemon, recovering only slightly before grinning at Touka's high-pitched wheeze and hoarse 'wow'. I found Nishiki's remark that it was like having a small star settle in his stomach far funnier than it probably was, in no small part due to being so similar to how I remembered my first time.
Conversation broke out between the three, commenting about the rapid fire chatter on the radio and wondering about how we ghouls were able to drink something besides coffee. They were going just a little fast for me to be hanging onto every word spoken in the space between the old table and older lamp, but I could piece together who was playing what role. Touka the theorist, Nishiki the scientist, Kaneki the analyst.
It was almost like back home, the others involved in some theory-crafting that was just about at my level to understand while Monica lurked over my shoulder like a loving specter. Except they were a world away, and that windswept rooftop ringed by skyscrapers glowing in the sunset, with our mismatched collection of glasses felt as if it was fading out of focus. Here even the words I knew were foreign, I wasn't sure who lurked over my shoulder anymore. I had never felt so far and yet so close to what my life had once been.
And then Nishiki pulled me into the conversation for my take on an idea, and a thought occurred to me.
Perhaps this was a good thing, not a remembrance of things lost, but a reminder of how good of a place I had found for myself. After all, the saying went 'new year, new you'
"I know it's already been said and still early," I interrupted, tapping my glass to the others, "but happy new year, everybody." After all, it could only go uphill from here.
