a/n: please tell me what you think. as short as these drabbles are, they take time to write due to the nature of them. i am pleased to read what you think of my story - it isn't that much to ask now, is it?
critiques are also fun to read, too.
Sometimes, Kaneki dreams.
Of what?
Swirling surfaces of cups of coffee, the albatross picking at its feathers, a cherry blossom tree with its pink fruits, the distinct smell of home. Of his mother and her gently sloping face, her thin, lean hands worked to the bone. Of his father's library and the aging books, the pages a crisp yellow.
But sometimes, Kaneki dreams of the city of Babylon, sprawling alongside the ground and massive, the thick river that split the city into two, the faded existence of the hanging gardens. Above, the sky is nothing but a pitch black, the inside of a dragon's mouth, the city illuminated by the torches hung like tapestries.
In the distance, he hears the growls of lions and the howls of wolves, the yabbering of hyenas and foxes.
Hedonism. Self-pleasure, attraction. Wasn't this what the Babylonians were known for?
And then Kaneki thinks, that maybe, just maybe, he's a little like the Babylonians and their kings draped in only the finest of cloths sewn from spider's thread.
Kaneki breathes. The air is still, stagnant, like disease, like an epidemic. He grasps at his wrists, his fingers - still there. He touches his cheeks - wet, wet and warm as he snaps his hands back quickly, as if he was torched by the phoenix's tail feathers.
No blood? Ahh, that's right, he was crying. Crying, and his eyes stung with the static air that pushes down on his throat.
He looks up and sees the moon, glimmering in all its glory, whole and full.
Strange. Wasn't it just empty, earlier?
"Kaneki?"
The voice prods Kaneki out from his haze and he gasps, holding his head with one hand. He inclines his head towards Hinami, who stares at him from the doorstep.
"Isn't it time for you to go?" She asks lightly, casting him a worried look. He had been staring out the window at the busy Tokyo streets below, at the moon that hung solemn above the clouds, behind the backdrop of dancing stars. That's right. He was looking at the moon. That's all.
The wind gently glides in and tugs at his hair. Kaneki shuts the window, sliding the blinds over them as he turns around to face her, gazing at him with a worried expression on her face. "Yeah, sorry," He says softly. "Stay safe, okay?"
He strides past her and ruffles her hair, eliciting a cry of dismay from Hinami. "You messed up my hair! I just got done combing that-" She cries and he smiles at that.
When Kaneki returns that night from his misson, the morning stretched out infinitely with its arms of light blue and delicate yellow, with nary a cloud to spy. The sun gently showed its face from beyond the horizon.
Dried blood rolled down his lips. Previously, there had been a hole that since filled in his chest. He didn't like eating bad meat, tough, tasteless and gross. He remembers that checkerboard room again, his wrists and ankles rubbed raw and his extremities numb with frostbite.
It isn't enough, it's no where near close enough-
Babylon; an ancient city that is remembered for its decadence and corruption