Authors Note:
This hasn't been edited past spell check but i'll fix it tomorrow, It's 11:30 pm and I wanna read other peoples fanfiction lmao. Its also the longest chapter I've ever written so I hope it doesn't ramble. There is some OcxOc in this chapter bt its for character development of the ocs. There will be stuff like this featuring Hide and Kaneki later on so don't worry, this is a hidekane fanfic after all. This is an unbeta'd work. Please comment and Kudos. Also thank you for the over whelming support of the first chapter. You are the best! Also should I move this up to M or?
ARTOD xx
The clank of chains. "What's a thousand minus seven?" The feeling of a needle. "What's a thousand minus seven?" Pain in his fingers. Pain in his toes. Pain in his head. He's Helpless. He's at the mercy of another. "Tell me what's a thousand minus seven." Crack! Crack! Crawl! Crack! Crack! Crawl!
"N-n-nine hundred and ninety t-three."
Violently Kaneki is awakened by an intruding sound. He clenches and digs his blackened nails into the skin around his heart; trying to force it's erratic beating to still for the moment. His olive eyes narrow as they scan the blinding white room for a threat. None; unless a ringing cellphone can be counted as such.
He reaches out and curls his fingers around the ancient flip phone and peers at the caller ID.
'Yoshimura'
He almost breaks the neck of his phone with the speed and force he opens it with.
XX
Anteiku closed as usual that day, save for Hide working for most of the day on his research. Touka had been making faces towards him and whispering to Nishiki all day. Hide presumed they were talking about him considering how often they would glance back towards his direction then look away quickly as he looked back up. The other ghouls of Anteiku seemed to not be bothered by his presence at all, acting as if he wasn't really there to begin with.
At the moment for Hide he had been tricked by a young ghoul named Hinami into explaining his research. His one weakness! He was currently in the middle of a simplified lecture on the structural differences of ghouls and humans before Hinami's excited gasp stopped him.
"That's so cool brother!" She had for the past hour been referring to Hide as her older brother despite not knowing his last name. Ah the innocence of youth! "Does that mean you can tell whose a ghoul and who isn't by looking at them?"
"Yep, I can tell most of the time who is a ghoul and who isn't?"
"Oh really?"
"Yeah."
"Prove it!"
"I know your a ghoul Hinami." Hide flashes her a reassuring smile as a look of worry crosses her face and he taps her nose once. She blinks and rubs her nose as she looks up at Hide with confused little brown eyes. "Shame on you Hinami, I wouldn't dare rat out a friend to the CCG." Hide raises his voice so the two whispering ghouls can hear. Touka glares before turning around and Nishiki just hisses a little before announcing he's going home, and leaving for the night. More specifically he growled out to the room, "I'm leaving before that stink bug gets here."
Stink bug? Who else was coming and this late at night too. More specifically could Hide go home? He had just been told by the old manager that his life was in danger and to wait while he arranged something out for him. That had been in the late morning. Now it was dark outside and he still hadn't seen or heard anything from the old man. Hell he doesn't even know fully why he wants to help. Hide's current theory was he was interested in his research, I mean come on, what ghoul wouldn't be. It was life changing research, but why go so far for one human?
"Hey Touka." He calls to the purple haired waitress as she passes. She jumps slightly, clearly surprised that after the whole afternoon of the two trying to avoid talking to each other he would call for her just like that.
"What?" She grits her teeth and musters a terrifying glare towards Hide. Half her face is covered by her fringe and Hide can't help but think back to Samara from the ring. He shivers. She's won the game of dominance.
"I-I was just wondering why your boss was going so far to help me?" Touka's face twists into a horrid look of disgust.
"Yoshimura is a kind man." Hinami is the first one to reply, as she places her small had over Hide's trembling one. He can't believe he's just pissed off a ghoul in a single sentence. Stupid idiot and his stupid, curious mind.
"Why else would he go so far to help you. A complete stranger to him." Touka says before stalking off to the back room.
"Don't mind her," the voice of an older waiter calls. It's someone Hide had heard being called Koma earlier in the day. "She's always like that to people she doesn't know. It's her defence mechanism."
"O-oh really?" Hides still shaken but he's starting to get better at concealing it now. One of his hands is underneath the table, strumming a beat on his leg. Hinami seems worried and Hide hopes she doesn't think he's scared of ghouls now. No Hide is just scared of Touka. The teen seems to hold all the fury of hell in her heart, and her looks could strike a Hide down in his seat.
Koma's begun to go off on a rant about his 'glory days' now while Hide was distracted. Hinami is stifling a giggle behind her hand and the elder waitress Hide knew as 'Irimi' is putting her hand on his arm and urging his to stop talking.
"-after all no one really wants to hear about your boring youth."
"Ah, but wouldn't it be our boring youth? We did spend a lot of time together after all." A small smile perks up on Irimi's lips, almost unnoticeable, but once again Hide notices everything.
The mood of Anteiku has lightened up considerably now. Hide's stopped shaking and drumming. Hinami's laugh is now filling the cafe. The two elders are enjoying their own private memories of their past together. Everything was happy.
So that's the precise point that the door bell rang through the room and in walked, to Hide, a scarier ghoul than Touka.
"It's stink bug." Hide murmured out loud before he could even think to shut up.
XX
"I can't even fucking believe this!" The voice is angry. It's owner, the devilish beauty of an assassin from earlier this morning picked up a knife and hurled it at the space beside her partners head.
"Watch it Jet." She growls, looking at the few pieces of chopped light blue hair now on her lap. She closes the book she was reading and stands, taking the knife from the wall and striding beside Jet.
"How the hell did he know? The colour of the latte wasn't that off. The trackers and recorders we put on him were too small to be seen. So how did that shit know? How Aqua? HOW?" Jet was fuming now, pulling her dark hair in one hand and clenching the other.
Aqua's arm went around her shoulder and the other pushed the knife handle into her clenched hand. "Hey, hey," she murmurs into the black locks. "There will be other chances, he can't be vigilant forever. Let me handle the target next time."
Jet's hand de-tangles from her hair as she turns around to grip at the hips of her partner, drawing her closer. Aqua giggles and the knife is once again thrown into the wall.
"I do wish you would stop doing that. Our deposit is going down the drain." Aqua breathes out as Jet's hands slide up the back of her shirt, pulling her closer. Aqua's head pulls back to reveal creamy, unblemished skin. "I don't really care." Jet responds as she goes down biting, licking and sucking on the taller's neck.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" Aqua cries out, pulling at Jet's shirt wildly. "Idian." She cries out before being pushed harshly away from Jet.
"My sister again?" Jet questions, her face is curled in hurt and disgust but Aqua doesn't care, Jet isn't the woman she loves nor cares about.
"What can I say? You look a lot like her."
XX
Shit.
Hide's done it now. The new ghoul is glaring at him and if he thought Touka was hells vessel before he sure knows better now.
The white haired ghoul was adorned in an all black ensemble, far more coordinated than Hide's own current dress. His nails matched his outfit, black as what Hide assumed to be his heart. His cold, olive eyes met Hide's own honey brown gaze; and despite the alarm ringing in his head screaming out danger and to run, Hide still spared a thought to how gorgeous 'stink bug's' eyes are.
"Big brother!" Hinami joyfully calls out, slipping from the seat across Hide and running up to greet the ghoul. In turn his face lightens considerably and 'stink bug' is smiling at her, running a hand affectionately over the top of her head. Hinami is soon gripping at that hand tightly and trying to drag him in Hide's direction.
"You have to meet Hide, he's amazing." She praised "He's working on medicine that lets ghouls eat human food. You could have a hamburger again, Kaneki!" Kaneki's eyes grow wide before he pulls his arm away from Hinami completely. She huffs and turns to sit back down across from Hide again. Hide's mind is still thinking over what she said. 'You could have a hamburger again, Kaneki!' He ate hamburgers before? But the structure of a ghouls tongue would cause a hamburger to taste disgusting, let alone the digestive complications in actually eating non-human meat.
"Ah Kaneki, you're here already? I trust the journey was fine." Yoshimura has appeared again, descending the stairs to greet the fellow ghoul.
"Yeah, there were no investigators around or following me. What is this all about. You said you wanted me to take someone in but surely you don't mean that." He points his thumb at Hide, who has decided to go back to working on his papers if Kaneki is going to be so rude. Yoshimura shakes his head, a little smile crossing his lips like he knows something the two don't.
"We should probably discuss this in my office, it is a grave matter after all. Hide would you kindly come with us?"
"Uh sure." Hide isn't really interested in going to a small room away from every one with Kaneki, but he's sure Yoshimura would at least stop Kaneki from killing him if worse comes to worse. Hide stands and gathers his notes and books into his folder and bag before he waves off to Hinami and gives her his dazzling distraction smile too (he hopes) put her a little more at ease.
The three head up the wooden steps, each giving off an ominous, hollow, thunk to Hide with each step they took. Yoshimura then ushered the two into his office, closing the wooden door behind him. Hide took a seat on the sofa beside the small desk and, with reluctance, Kaneki took the seat the furthest away from Hide.
Hide's bag fell to the floor with a small thump and Yoshimura took out a few tea cups. Was he really going to serve coffee to the two of them? There was a few minutes of silence within the room as Yoshimura brewed the coffee for the three of them. Kaneki seemed to glance around the room then flick his gaze to glare at Hide when he realised he was staring. This is a motion that would repeat as Hide would look away until Kaneki's glare shifted then he would go right back to staring at Kaneki until he would be caught again. Hide had almost made it into a game before he heard a cup be placed in front of him. He looked at the dark liquid before thanking the elderly ghoul and taking a sip. Hide spit it out immediately.
"Ugh." The coffee was foul and Hide was now wiping his tongue on his Christmas jumper. "It tastes like you tipped a bottle of perfume and an ashtray in that."
"Close," The old man wickedly grinned. "It was half a bottle of cough syrup."
"Why?"
"I just wanted you to experience just a taste of how other foods can taste to a ghoul Hide. You are after all, creating a medication so we can eat human food." Hide didn't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the hidden meaning behind the foul drink. He needed to find a way for ghouls tongues to accept the taste also, or no ghoul would accept his work.
"I get it."
"Do you?" Kaneki interrupts, he's looking at Hide now. His ever present glare would probably set Hide on fire if given the chance. "Do you really understand how foul food is for a ghoul if it isn't human?" Kaneki seemed extremely sensitive to this issue it seemed. Hide took a mental note of it in-case the need ever arose for this conversation again with Kaneki he would be more careful.
"No, no I don't, because I am human." Hide hissed, leaning towards the white haired ghoul then restraining himself in surprise. What the hell? Why was he so angry with Kaneki all of a sudden? Did his sugar level drop? Was he tired? Or maybe the ghouls attitude was affecting him somehow? But why?
"Yeah," Kaneki rumbles back at Hide. "So was I."
Wait! What? 'So was I?' What the hell is that meant to mean?
"Please, calm down you two. This isn't why we're here. Hide's life is in danger. He's being targeted by an assassin."
"I can't possibly see why."
Yoshimura frowns at Kaneki and the ghoul silences himself. Yoshimura continues.
"Hide's work is irreplaceable along with Hide himself. How many other humans with the talent he has would be willing to work on a medication for ghouls?" Yoshimura pauses. Hide is almost blushing now, he didn't really think he was that important or special. "Kaneki, I was wondering if you would hide Hide until he can finish his work." Kaneki looks horrified and Hide can see the 'no' forcing it's way out of his throat. "Before you refuse just please keep in mind if Hide is successful then the wishes of the ghouls at Anteiku can be further fulfilled."
Kaneki slipped into a deep thought. He slid down the sofa and leaned his head against the back, closing his eyes and sighing. It was silent for another few minutes apart from the few times Kaneki murmured Hinami or Touka's name among with others Hide didn't recognise.
Hide was just reaching for his bag to begin re-reading a ghoul text book to see if he missed out any important information when Kaneki decided to grunt out an angry "Fine, I'll take him in.". Yoshimura was practically the Cheshire Cat with his grin now.
"Of course we can't force Hide to join along with this plan. He's free to refuse if he wishes."
"Well," Hide states. "I don't want to die. So I'm in."