This chapter was written by AniLemons. I'm glad she didn't shy away from helping me. I don't see many people reading this chapter after a long hiatus but it was all your support for the chapter before this which was why I kept trying to continue this story.
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Ken Kaneki nervously tapped his foot on his floor nervously, awaiting the time when his closest friend would come to his door. Kaneki dreaded the moment when he would have to tell Hide that he was no longer a human, but instead, a ghoul. No, not even that, a half-breed, a mix between human and ghoul. Kaneki tried to clear his head of these thought, but no matter what he did, he couldn't stop sweating.
With all of this on his mind, Kaneki jumped back a good five feet when he heard a knock on his door. Kaneki breathed a few times to compose himself. When he was ready he moved forward and turned the door knob. Hide's face was a comforting sight, since he was always smiling around Kaneki and/or always had a joke to crack. Kaneki let his friend inside his home, closing and locking the door.
Hide made himself comfortable on the couch, he ran his fingers through his orange hair. "So, Kaneki, what was it you wanted to talk about?" Kaneki sat down on the sofa across from Hide and tried to say what he needed to, but the words eluded him. He just could not find a way to form a sentence. "I-uh-last night-I-um" He continued to mutter this repeatedly.
"What's wrong buddy? Did your time in the hospital drop your IQ below average?" Hide joked, completely oblivious to the details of why Kaneki was in that hospital. Kaneki snapped at Hide, he had always been self-conscious about his IQ, and Hide should have known better than to insult it. "Hey! That's not funny man!" Kaneki didn't want to get worked up, otherwise, he would risk his left eye turning black with a red iris.
"Whoa man, I'm just messing with you. What happened to Mr. Level Headed Kaneki?" Hide couldn't stop joking. "Hide" Kaneki warned "I mean, seriously, you're short tempered today" Hide continued, unaware of the anger in his friend's voice, "HIDE: Kaneki said once more, a bit more irritated now. "Look out, Sir Hot Head is in the room" Hide would not shut up.
"HIDE! Shut up!" Kaneki yelled at his friend. Hide went silent in utter disbelief. Kaneki was never one to get pissed off so easily, which meant something must have been bothering him. "Oh, sorry, Kaneki, I didn't know you were actually mad" Hide closed his mouth, so he did not further annoy Kaneki. Kaneki was grateful.
"Hide, I have to tell you something, and you have to promise not to tell anyone" Kaneki gave him the most serious face he could, surprising Hide still. "Alright, I won't tell a soul, or may my body be devoured by Ghouls" This statement caused Kaneki to wince. "Yeah, on the topic of Ghouls, I should probably say that… I'm a Ghoul" Hide stared at Kaneki for two minutes straight, before he burst out laughing "Oh, this is a joke! Very funny Kaneki, you almost had me there! Nice one dude!" But Hide soon went quiet again upon seeing that Kaneki had retained his calm and serious composure.
"Well, no, no, no, you can't be a Ghoul, we've been friends for years and never once have I seen you do anything ghoulish" Kaneki sighed and tried to find out how to explain or prove that he wasn't lying. "Hide, I became a Ghoul the night I went out on a date with Rize. Rize was a Ghoul and she tried to eat me, but some pipes from the construction yard fell on top of us. Rize died, but I was still alive, but I was dying, so the doctor took Rize's organs and transferred them into me as replacements for the ones I could no longer use" Hide gave Kaneki the same look he had given the doctor. "Isn't that illegal? Nevermind the legal issues, but how is that even possible for a human to have Ghoul organs inside of them? Wait, does that mean you have to eat human flesh now?" Kaneki nodded, causing Hide to back up in alarm.
"Don't worry, I didn't invite you here to eat you, I just needed to get that off my chest" Kaneki tried for a reassuring smile. Hide put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small switchblade. Kaneki went wide eyed "Hide, what are you doing?" Hide opened the blade and advanced toward Kaneki "If you're a Ghoul then this blade won't hurt you" Kaneki could see the logic in that, however, his inner instincts told him to get away from his armed friend. Kaneki froze, his body and mind arguing against each other on what to do, but before they could come to a consensus, Kaneki felt something poke him and then heard a sharp snap of metal. Kaneki looked down and saw that Hide had attempted to stab Kaneki in the stomach. The blade, of course, broke and fell to the floor.
This made Kaneki mad "You stabbed me? Me? YOUR BEST FRIEND! How could you do that?" Kaneki's left eye darkened and turned red, Hide backed away. "Kaneki, sorry, I believe you now" Hide backed away from Kaneki while he calmed down. Once the eye went back to normal, Kaneki and Hide further discussed the details of Kaneki's knew abilities and how to use them. Most of Hide's ideas involved picking up girls and such, Kaneki would just roll his eyes whenever he did that.
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The next morning, Kaneki arranged to meet with Eto. Since his visit to the hospital got in the way of his plans to meet her already, he had Yoshimura set up a time at the coffee shop for Kaneki to meet his daughter. Kaneki didn't know whether or not Eto already knew he was a half-ghoul like her or if she just thought that Kaneki just had no interest in meeting up with her. Either way, Kaneki was going to find out soon enough.
At the coffee shop, Kaneki sat next to the window. The shop was relatively empty, aside from the regular workers and a few other customers, the place was empty. Kaneki soon regretted his seating choice when a trio of noisy individuals arrived and sat at the table behind Kaneki. Touka walked up to them to take their order. Just as Kaneki thought, they all started cat calling Touka and completely disregarded the other customers. Kaneki could see the murderous glint in Touka's eyes, Kaneki had a feeling she was planning her dinner at that moment.
Kaneki was lost in thought when someone touched his shoulder. Kaneki jumped in surprise, and turned around, ready to fight off whoever it was, but he calmed don when he saw Eto's smiling relaxed into the chair as his rival sat across from him. "Well hello there, and welcome back from the dead" Eto joked. Kaneki didn't know if she was joking about the bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, or if she knew he'd literally come back from the dead. "So…. did your dad tell you-" Kaneki started "That you went on a date with Rize and spent time in the hospital? Yes he told me, he also told me what you have become" Eto cut him off. That answered a few of Kaneki's questions, but the biggest one on his mind was what the odd smell burning his nose was. It wasn't human flesh, he'd already learned and familiarized himself with that one, but the smell that was making Kaneki want to gag was not at all tempting to eat. He turned around and sniffed, he put his hand over his nose and turned back "Ugh, what is that smell?" He asked Eto, who seemed to be just as disgusted.
Behind him, the three course meal Touka was preparing at the table started crying out "Oh god, there's bugs in my food, and his, and his. They're everywhere, gross!" Touka walked over and gagged at both the sight of maggot infested scones and coffee and the smell. When the trio saw her face they all started laughing. "HAHA, we got her good" said douchebag 1, "Yeah, that was a great idea" said douchebag 2, and douchebag 3 just would not stop laughing. Touka looked about ready to eat them in front of the human customers. Kaneki stepped in before she could make douche fillet. Kaneki turned to look at the three, giving the closest one a good shove from behind, "Hey, that isn't-" Kaneki stopped mid sentence as his hand touched the guy's arm. He gasped.
He was suddenly not in his own body anymore. His vision was now from a bird's eye view. Below him was the vast expanses of the wards. This would have been a beautiful sight, were it not for the people he saw. His vision got closer to ground level. He looked to his right and chained to the wall, was a line of grown men, each had chunks taken out of his skin, like ghouls came, took a bite and left. To his left he saw a group of women in skimpy outfits. Next to the group was a school. Inside the school, was a large classroom of middle school and high school girls, the only thing they did was write "I am a worthless human girl and my only reason for existing is to be violated 20 times and give birth to the soldiers of the ghoul army" over and over again. Another classroom was something that resembled Sex Ed and Kaneki read one of the open textbooks. The title of the page read "The Growing Pool" It showed a diagram of a green pool, showing how it cause rapid maturity in ghouls, and was used to age ghouls quickly. The vision of the ghoul dominated world ended then.
Kaneki's eyes opened to see the worried face of Eto above him, she was shaking him awake "Hey, stay with me, stay with me" She then slapped him "Don't just blackout like that you idiot" She was obviously scared to have said something like that. Kaneki sat up and looked around. He was now in a bedroom, by the smell of it, he was above the coffee shop. Touka was standing at the doorway, in her hand she held a small package, similar to the one Yoshimura had given him the night before. "Here, the old man said you'd be hungry when you woke up" Touka handed Kaneki the small parcel. He unwrapped it and confirmed that the food was the same. He ate some, then, he noticed Eto was occasionally glancing at his food. Kaneki gave her the rest. She tried to argue that it was his, but Kaneki forced her to eat. Eto devoured the food. Touka rolled her eyes "Do you always have to eat like that Eto, you are such a pig" Eto snorted, which helped Touka's point "No, I'm a ghoul, there's a difference" Touka pinched Eto's arm, she yelped. The two of them seemed to know each other well enough. Kaneki felt awkward watching them. Touka finally left the room, leaving Kaneki with Eto alone.
"So, where am I? I mean, who's room is this" Kaneki looked around at all the decorations. "Oh, it's mine. I was going to put you in one of the guest rooms, but I felt like since it was an emergency, putting you in the closest room would be better" Kaneki suddenly blushed, he had been laying in a girls bed while she watched him in concern. Kaneki had to ask "Why did you seem so worried about me?"
Eto blushed a bit herself "Nevermind that, I want to know why you just suddenly blacked out" Kaneki suddenly remembered his vision, the human slaves, the ghoul overlords, everything. "Eto, sit down, get comfortable, because I have quite the story to tell you, and it isn't going to be very pleasant" Eto sat down next to him on the bed and Kaneki began retelling his vision in vivid detail.