Akira enjoys a delicious croissant and nearly has an aneurysm

It was several days before Akira was able to return to Café :re. She had to wait until Haise was definitively distracted by the Rosé investigation, she had a lull in her own work, and it was outside of any regular mealtime rushes. And, she had to give her resentment time to cool off.

Akira entered, ringing the bell on the door. Touka looked up from the to-go order she was preparing. Akira waited patiently while the customer paid, grabbed his drink, and hustled out the door.

Touka quickly pulled off her apron. "I was about to leave. I've got to grab a sandwich thing from McDonald's."

"Uhh…why?"

"I'm pretty sure if this kid's half-human, I have to eat some human food."

"I don't think that counts as food." Akira sighed. "There's a bakery I've heard good things about. It's about ten minutes away. I'll take you."

Touka opened to door into the back room and yelled, "Yomo, my shift is over and I'm heading out to run errands. Your turn out front." She turned back to Akira. "Let's go. He'll be in a bad mood all week if he catches sight of my parole officer."

The car ride was a bit tense. It took Touka a couple of tries before she finally said what was eating her up inside. "Don't go after Yomo. Or anyone else you see at my café, please. They're good people."

Akira clenched the steering wheel in her fists. "I'm only climbing one mountain at a time. That discussion is at least seven mountains away."

"And please don't ask me to be an informant. I'm pretty sure turning snitch is a good way to end up dead, anyways."

"Do you know anything valuable about Torso, Rosé, or Aogiri?"

"Just rumors about Aogiri, and I have no idea what torsos or roses you're talking about."

Because of course ghouls aren't well-informed on CCG code names. "Then you're pretty useless to me as an informant."

The rest of the drive was in marvelous silence.

"I've just been getting stuff from fast food places near my apartment. I don't know what to order from here."

At the bakery, Akira took one look at Touka's confused face as she tried to read the menu and decided she would have to order for both of them.

At the table, Akira slid the serving of plain milk bread towards the ghoul. "Start with that, I suppose. Shokupan."

The ghoul stared down at it with a dejected expression for a moment. "Ok."

She switched gears in an instant, the same way she'd turned into a customer service robot the other day, and took a small bite. The expression on her face seemed perfectly neutral as she chewed and swallowed.

Akira had to marvel at how flawless the act was. She knew ghouls were adequate at blending in with humans, but this level of mimicry was…worrying.

Starting on her own food, a buttery croissant, Akira casually commented, "I never realized how easy it was for your kind to pretend to eat a normal meal."

"Easy? Psh. You might not think it's that impressive that I'm choking down this bread here, but I deserve a freaking award. I got good at this because I want a normal life."

"Uh-huh," Akira said, disinterested in Touka's plight, as she took a bite of her croissant.

She was still chewing when the baker's voice floated out of the service window that opened to the kitchen. "Hey, Yoriko! The next batch is ready to come out of the oven."

A woman's replied, "On it, boss," and a sound of clanging emanated from the back.

Touka sat up straight and stared at Akira with wide eyes. "I think we need to go now."

Akira was still working on her croissant and there was clearly no imminent danger. "Why?"

Touka just stared at her, tight-lipped.

But it was too late. Yoriko was already marching through the dining room with a pan of fresh-baked loaves of bread, destined for a cooling rack behind the front counter. She had flour on her apron and one cheek. The young baker glanced at Touka and then did a double take. "Touka? Is that you?!"

The ghoul plastered a smile on her face and turned to the young baker. "Yoriko! What are you doing here?"

"I'm apprenticing here. What about you?!" The baker quickly set the tray of steaming muffins on a rack behind the counter and rushed over to the table. "I mean I know things must have been crazy for you after everything that happened at Anteiku, but I was so worried! You just dropped off the map! I at least wanted to know you were safe, and maybe to hear what it was like to find out you were working with ghouls!"

Touka shot a glance at Akira, who was about five minutes away from an aneurism. "Yeah, my apartment was actually destroyed in the fighting, so I ended up overseas with my dad. I only got back to Tokyo recently. I'm sorry to worry you."

"Oh my gosh, no, I'm just so happy you're okay! It's so lucky you stopped in!"

"Akira here recommended this place."

Yoriko looked at the CCG uniform. "Did Takeomi tell you to come here? What a week! It's like all my old classmates are popping back into my life."

Akira ungritted her teeth, but didn't even bother to fake a smile. "Yes, Kuroiwa and Yonebayashi said that the food here was great."

Yoriko blushed and swiped at the streak of flour on her cheek. "Tell him thanks for the recommendation." She seemed to open her mouth to speak again, but she lost courage when she picked up on her audience's lack of energy and turned to leave.

Touka mustered up her own courage to ask something she needed to know, though. "Hey Yoriko?"

Akira stared at her like she was trying to peel the skin off her face through rage alone. We were nearly home free.

"Yeah, Touka?"

"Why did you want to hear about what it was like to find out there were ghouls working at Anteiku?"

She thought about it. "Well, I've never actually met one. But everyone at Anteiku seemed so nice, and they all looked out for you, too, so I couldn't figure out who was a ghoul and who wasn't. Nothing about them matched how I imagined ghouls to be, so I was always curious if you saw any warning signs I didn't."

Akira chimed in, feeling the need to reassure the girl. "You didn't miss anything. They've perfected the art of blending in. You'd never know someone's a ghoul unless you catch them in the act."

Touka shot her an unimpressed look.

Yoriko pondered that for a moment. "That doesn't sound like a nice life, being that suspicious of everyone around you. How could you ever make friends, if any one of them might turn out to be a ghoul?"

I guess you simply don't make friends outside of the CCG.

Touka answered, haltingly. "Well…human friends can put on an act and stab you in the back, too. I think…you just have to get to know people and see who you can trust."

Yoriko smiled. "I think you're right. There's no magic formula. We're all just trying to figure out who our real friends are." She grinned ear-to-ear. "You've always been a real friend. I'm so glad you're back in town!"

Her boss shouted for her from the back. "Ooo, I need to get back to work. You better come back soon on a less busy day, so we can talk more!"

Touka grinned and waved as her old friend pushed through the swinging kitchen door and disappeared. Her smile disappeared as soon as Yoriko was out of view.

Looking back at Akira, the ghoul grimaced. Akira was chewing on the last few bites of her croissant with a dead look in her eyes.

"I said we needed to leave—"

"Touka, be quiet and let me finish my pastry. It's the last bit of joy left in my life."

Touka looked down at her half-eaten shokupan and took one last bite.

In her car, Akira buckled up but just stared through the windshield for a few minutes.

"So, um, if you didn't catch it, I worked at Anteiku in high school…"

Akira closed her eyes and slowly massaged her temples with fingertips. If she didn't get a migraine that day, it'd be a miracle.

"My old apartment was destroyed that night, for the record."

"Shh."

Of course, taking a quiet moment to regroup also left Touka alone with her thoughts for a little too long.

"I'm sorry. I'm gonna get Yoriko and you and Kaneki killed, I'm going to die, I don't know why I thought anything could ever go differently…" She trailed off, sounding like she was on the verge of crying.

Akira glanced over at the girl. She had a lost, glassy-eyed look on her face, and she hadn't even realized what she'd said. "Hey. Shut up. And don't ever say that name in public again or you will get yourself killed."

Touka clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes swimming with tears.

The blonde blew a stray strand of hair out of her face and started up the car. As she drove, she began to think out loud. "I keep telling myself that I will handle this situation, but the truth is I have no idea what that means. Does that constitute passing you and the kid off as regular humans for the rest of your lives? Doesn't sound feasible. Talk you into surrendering yourself to the CCG? Or keep you alive and out of the CCG's reach until you've given birth? Then what? Getting you and Haise some fake passports and sending you on the run? Not likely to go well. So the truth is, until there's a better plan we all like, for now you're just going to take this one day at a time and stay beneath the CCG's notice."

Her passenger wiped away any moisture in her eyes. "Well, that's already my only plan. Why do you think I let you live?"

Akira stared silently at the road. She focused on getting through traffic for a few minutes until she ended up stuck at a red light. "So you think you're using me."

Funny, Akira remembered the events more like Touka being on the verge of a breakdown and desperately in need of outside help. She realized that when she thought of this situation with Touka and Haise, it had begun to rise above the level of politics and warfare. Touka admitting that sparing her life had been a power play from the beginning dragged Akira right back to reality.

But, again, she did let me live when she could have killed me. And that little stunt bought her so much goodwill. The second she let me walk away I had the upper hand, but…I haven't moved against her yet, now, have I? Who has the upper hand here, again?

"Let's be clear, I didn't survive this long by sitting around acting helpless. I'm already in a dangerous situation, so when you practically dropped yourself in my lap that night, I thought I might as well try a dangerous gamble and let you live."

Akira took a corner a bit too aggressively. "And that just worked out perfectly for you, didn't it."

The ghoul looked over at the investigator, who had an icy expression on her face and refused to take her eyes off the road. "Jeez, Akira, loosen up. I'm not saying these things to try and push you away or put you in your place. I'm telling you the truth because you deserve to know it. You can think I'm taking advantage of the fact that you secretly care a lot more than you let on, or you can think that I asked you for help because of it. I guess it's up to you how to feel about it."

Being asked for help and being manipulated into giving help can look exactly the same from the outside. I guess the only way to know the difference is how much you trust who's doing the asking.

She glanced over at the silent ghoul as she waited at the last light on the route back to Café :re. So how much do I really trust you, and how much of your behavior is just cooperation for the sake of avoiding mutually assured destruction?

Ultimately, talk was cheap to Akira. Anyone could lie about anything with a smile on their face. Actions mattered. She resolved to keep an eye on Touka until her actions revealed who the ghoul really was: manipulative subhuman murderer, or young woman in a difficult spot.

The ride couldn't end soon enough. Akira pulled up to the curb in front of the café to let Touka out.

There was a man leaning against the side of the building, drawing in a small notebook. He had black hair, sunglasses, and tattoos. Akira wasn't sure how to describe his clothes…it looked like the sort of impractical outfit you saw on runways but never real life.

"Shit, here we go." Touka sighed and unbuckled. "You should probably get out of here fast."

Akira knew better than to ask questions. It could wait until later.

As the ghoul threw open the car door and jumped out, the man put his notebook and pencil in a pocket and said, "Oh, Touka! I was looking for you. I heard a juicy rumor and I wanted to see for myself."

He leaned down and peered into the car. "Hello there!"

His voice was soft and polite in a way that raised her hackles.

"Uta, this is a coworker of Haise's. She recognized me walking here and offered to give me a ride."

"Oh, how kind of you! Thanks for helping to keep our Touka safe." He smiled at her again.

Touka hastily said, "Thanks for the ride, bye, drive safe," and shut the door.

Akira stared at the man with narrowed eyes. She was positive he was a ghoul. He waved at her cheerfully.

She frowned and drove off.

I happen to have an amazing Japanese bakery/yoshoku cafe on my street—the sole reason I know the word yoshoku tbh—so anytime you're reading about pastries in this story, it's probably what I was actually eating while I was writing :) Merry Christmas, happy holidays, stay warm and safe out there!