At the top of Lunatic Eclipse, Eto watched her disgusting, incontinent little sweetheart toss Haise Sasaki about like a ragdoll, an amused and sickened expression on her face. "Vengeful" was not the word she would use to describe how she felt watching the amnesiac. There were more important things to do. Feeling anything about him was meaningless, and Eto despised meaningless.
That said, there was a twisted sense of satisfaction watching Kanae cave his skull in.
His being alive was proof Arima acknowledged him as a possible successor. The logical part of her, the one that sought the destruction of V's world and knew that her tower of corpses was about to topple over, was pleased by this. Her final book— her tribute to the king— could finally hit shelves without issue, and she could finally stop banging her head against the thick eggshell the world hid away in and drown in the albumen. Someone kind— someone strong — was here to take her place.
The other part of her, the part that she should have been strangled to death by now, was… annoyed. Yes, annoyed was a good word for it.
Annoyed that Kaneki had lost, that the inferior Sasaki tried to fill the void of his memory with even more inferior substitutes. Annoyed that Kaneki had been weak, to the point that he went to save the even weaker at Anteiku: people marching to their deaths and serving a tired old narrative— purposeless, really. Annoyed that on July 20th, she had waited in that parlor, on time and even a little dressed up, for three hours before finally accepting that she'd been stood up.
"I WILL BE LOVED!" Kanae shrieked, punctuating each word with a punch to one part or another of Sasaki's broken face. He kept punching and punching and punching.
Eto sighed, bored.
Kaneki had left her, and he had lived.
(what a stupid pattern)
Suddenly, Kanae's arm came off, mirroring Sasaki's own wound, and a lesser ghoul would not have seen the rinkaku kagune slicing through the joint, like a knife through warm butter.
Eto caught the severed limb for a snack, and her smile, once bored, grew a little bit wider. "Oh, my…"
Sasaki's hair was caked in blood, and in the shadow of night, it looked completely black. With his remaining hand, he grabbed a fistful of Kanae's hair, and with his kagune, yanked off a hand railing.
"Just shut the hell up," he seethed, and drove the thin metal pole into Kanae's left eye.
The angle was such that it broke the eye itself, scraped the brain, and plunged down the throat, rupturing the thorax and ruining the stomach. Like a twisted sword-swallowing act. So cruel, Eto thought. Where she chose words and strings, he chose silence and mirrors. But torture was torture, and the results were the same: mutual pain. Mutual suffering. Mutual hatred.
Kanae screamed out in pain, and his kagune responded in kind. The tendrils, swollen due to Eto's RC cells, burst out in random directions, swinging at nothing as Sasaki vanished. Kanae looked around for his missing target, and was pierced from behind by a rinkaku made of a grotesque tree with appendages for branches.
He was tossed aside, and after Sasaki pierced Tsukiyama unconscious, he glared at Eto, his next target. She immediately recognized that look in his eyes— ones full of burden and sorrow— and a shiver traveled down her spine.
It was Kaneki.
The sweet, apathetic soul.
"So… you're awake now," she said as calmly as she could, retreating into her kakuja to contain her excitement. "I must say, that was quite the wretched performance."
He was late. Three years late, to be exact. It wasn't like him; even when she arrived on time, he was there before her. Always with a smile whose anxiety faded more and more with each new outfit the Gourmet prepared for him. And when he smiled, she smiled back, and felt a little spring on her step. In another life, maybe, she could have given him the love and happiness he desperately wanted. Unfortunately, she was incapable of loving like that. And smiles were masks for the both of them, staving away the crushing weight of tragedy the world liked to weigh upon their shoulders.
Now, for the first time, they wore their true faces in front of each other: ugly things that had been distorted by this world of wrongs, and they were sick of it.
With her kakuja eye, she traced his hair, his gray human eye, his artificial kakugan, his cheek, and finally, his jaw. She'd always known it, but being denied his visage— the real deal, not from the one who borrowed his face— for so long made her realize anew that he was really quite handsome. Especially when such a cold look graced those features.
She liked it.
He stepped toward her, all the bitterness at being lied to and toyed with writ plain on his face. His hair dripped blood, containing corroded memories of lateness, iced coffees, and fruitful discussions.
"You're the only wretch here."
He stole her words, twisted them, and she heard music.
"Just die."
"Don't worry, I will. Because—"
"I… I like you! We're so alike!"
"I'm honored—"
"Dear Kafka."
"You. You. You. You."
"Sen Takatsuki, the bestselling author…"
"What made you think you were loved?"
"This place is my hotspot."
"When you're so ugly."
"You haven't done anything."
"The kind abuse repeated in a box."
"You're disposable too."
"The sky flickered like a signal."
"'All disadvantages in this world are due to incompetence'."
"It's because you're weak."
"All things can be solved by eating."
"Eto…"
"Disgusting, right?"
"Why did you kill me?"
"Eto!"
"Why do you get to live?"
"Who are you?"
"Just the worst."
"My beloved tower of corpses."
"Ohta? Oh yeah, he's terrible."
"Climb! Higher! Higher!"
"My sweet, apathetic soul."
"Worthless. Weak. Nothing."
"Just die."
"Speaking of…"
"Die die die die die die die die"
"The warden, Kimio Ohta, in The Hanged Man's Macguffin — Isn't he the uncle of Detective Tanizaki in Salt and Opium ?"
Eto's senses were suddenly sharp, strangled back to life by a cruel angel's noose.
It was daytime. The ground was soft— a mattress. She also felt clean clothes on her person. As her vision cleared further, she saw a concrete ceiling, with a low hanging fan spinning lazily above.
She sniffed the air. It was a bit stale. Underground, perhaps, or indoors, and in an old area. She sat up, and looked around until, at the bedside, sitting upon a stool, was—
"H-Hello!"
Someone completely unfamiliar. Black hair in a bowl cut, dark beady eyes, and an otherwise unassuming appearance.
"It's an honor to finally meet you, Ms. Takatsuki," he said with a bow, "and I'm glad you're awake!"
She glanced around the room again, and he seemed to understand.
"We're at one of Goat's hideouts. I'm part of Taiwa Act, here to help with treating the wounded," he explained. "Just so that you're caught up, the lab teams both succeeded. Ms. Nishino has rejoined Taiwa Act with some of her fellow scientists and is collaborating with Goat to work out a solution for alternate nutrition. The king brought you back, but you were unconscious for a few days."
Eto stared down, and a long lock of green hair slipped into the side of her vision. It wasn't that long before.
"I see," she said, smirking bitterly to herself. She really was a monster.
"We've also been getting a rise in recruits as well, thanks to your interference. Public opinion, though it's weary, is aware that Goat is separate from the Clowns. F-For the most part; the CCG still has an iron grip on most people."
"Mm."
"You've helped us out once again, Ms. Takatsuki. I can't thank you enough." The Taiwa member smiled. "My uncle would be proud of you, I think."
(no…)
Eto raised her brow. "Would he?"
He stopped, then scratched his head. "O-Oh, I guess I didn't introduce myself… Funny, it must've slipped my mind…" He cleared his throat and swallowed. "I'm Shinichiro Shiono. Shunji was my uncle."
The visitors' door to her cell opened. Eto looked up and scrunched her nose. "Oh. It's you."
Furuta took the single stool provided, chuckling. "A pleasure as always, Ms. Takatsuki. I have feelings, you know."
"What do you want?"
"I brought you some food!" He frowned, and she knew at a glance that it was a mocking one. "Mr. Shiono was a good editor, wasn't he?"
She froze.
"Keeping the plot of your book a secret, ensuring its distribution after release— he really was the whole deal."
She sighed. It was one thing for her to dance around the truth— she wanted people to come to the conclusion themselves instead of anyone holding their hand. When Furuta did it, it was solely to mock, and it sickened her. "Did you kill him?"
Furuta revealed the package in his hands; the jig was up. "I made him into a pâté!" he confirmed gleefully. "Men's cooking isn't all that great, but do try it. I hope you like liver." He kicked it through the door, smirking, and it slid to her feet. "Bon appétit, Ms. Takatsuki."
She stared at it, Kaneki's alarm barely registering in her hearing. "Thanks…" she mumbled.
"You're most welcome." He stood up, relishing her expression. "Well, I'm off. Duty calls, apparently!"
When his back turned, she glared up.
Her eyes widened for a moment, but years of controlling her expressions dampened them just as quickly. "Well, you've gotten yourself into the same kind of trouble he did," she said, smirking halfheartedly. "You'll get killed if you keep it up."
Shinichiro smiled sadly. "If it means getting one step closer to coexistence and peace, then it wouldn't be all bad." He rested his elbows on his knees, staring down at the floor. "Can I… ask how he died? Uncle Shunji."
She stared upward at nothing, remembering the bitterest human meat she'd ever tasted. "The Bureau Chief turned him into a pâté. I ate him to escape."
He covered his mouth, shuddering. "That's awful. The Ghoul Countermeasure Law is ridiculous." He shook his head. "If it was supposed to protect humans, it's not doing a very good job."
"It was never about protecting humans. Just eradicating ghouls." Eto scowled.
"We have to stop him. The Bureau Chief. So he doesn't kill anyone else. Human, ghoul— it doesn't matter. Someone like that, who doesn't value life, can't be given power."
Eto pursed her lips at the words. Shinichiro looked up at her, and the guilt was shoved under.
"I'm glad we got to meet, Ms. Takatsuki. Uncle Shunji always spoke highly of you," Shinichiro said. "And after reading King Bileygr myself, I think he was right to think that way."
"Not much of a reader?"
"Not with horror, no. But this one was an epic, so it was more up my alley." He stood up and stretched. "And it inspired me, the rest of Taiwa Act, and so many others. It was the push we needed to fight alongside ghouls instead of against them. And now that Ms. Nishino is back with us, we finally have everything we need."
"Oh?"
He took out his phone and tapped on it for a bit. When he handed it to her, she saw a list of videos, all about ghoul biology and RC cells and more. And each one was live online.
"We released these shortly after the Clown Siege, and we have a bunch of backups ready for when the CCG or V take them down," he explained. "Ms. Hori works fast, doesn't she?"
Ah, Tsukiyama's friend. The one with the camera, and wanted by the CCG for multiple instances of leaked documents. Human, too. Eto recalled seeing her flit about the hideout here and there, always on the lookout for something interesting. A bit of a kindred spirit when put that way.
"I see," she said, handing it back. "No going back now, hm?"
"No going back," Shinichiro repeated with a nod. "I just wish Uncle Shunji could see us now."
Eto's gaze flicked downward.
"I remembered how he always had this spark to him whenever he brought you up. My family used to worry about him, you know— seeing as he was single and had no children. We thought he might be lonely, but now I think we were wrong." He smiled hesitantly at her. "He had you, after all."
"You think so?"
"I do. In your book, I finally saw what about you made him happy. What made him protect you until the end." Shinichiro cleared his throat. "I don't want to speak for him, but maybe he thought of you as his own daughter, or something close to it."
Eto froze, and curled slightly at the words. Her mouth felt dry, and she suppressed the urge to shake. That couldn't be true. Had she fooled Shiono into thinking that? That had to be it. She was terrible, a monster. No one could love her; her own father didn't even love her.
'Adoptions' and 'surrogates' were just different words for substitutes. Stupid acts that tricked people into thinking they were family. Families were not chosen , they just were . She was grateful to Shiono, but he was not her father, not her family. He was just a fool for thinking that they were anything more than— than business partners.
("Did you expect this , you fucking circus freak?!"
(The heat generated from her RC cells evaporated tears she didn't realize she'd shed. She grinned in the face of Furuta's shock.)
(I won't let Shiono go to waste. )
Yes… A fool to the end.
"Oh, I should tell your friends you're awake." Shinichiro stretched again. "You gave them quite the scare when Mr. Kaneki brought you back."
(Kaneki—?)
She scoffed. "Is that so?"
Shinichiro nodded. "I'll let them do the talking, though." He walked off with a wave that she didn't return.
She sighed.
By all accounts, she was 'powerful'. Powerful enough to take multiple lives. And she did. Aogiri took lives, some outside its reach, many inside. Her time in the 24th ward took lives, even made meals out of them. And every single one of their ghosts followed her with every step, keeping her in check. They never spoke, but she knew what they'd say if they could.
"Make it worth something."
"Murderer."
"Monster."
Monster.
She reached up and touched the kakuhou located at the base of her skull, the one that caressed her brain like a growth. When it was separated from its fellows in her body, they had reacted violently, stabbing her head further and desecrating anything unnecessary. For a moment, she became a sightless mouth that devoured any flesh covered by a black suit before making a desperate retreat, shrieking and crying the whole time. Anything after was a blur.
It explained her newly grown hair, at least.
The door opened. Eto looked up at her new visitor.
"Touka," she said.
"Yo," Touka responded and walked over. "You're looking good."
Was she now? Eto shrugged.
"Did Shinichiro tell you about Kaneki's investigator friend?"
Investigator Kasuka's child. Eto remembered. "No."
"She's recovered, along with Koutarou Amon, though still unconscious."
"How nice."
Touka took the stool. "I killed her father."
"I killed her mother," Eto replied easily. "Small world, hm? Two terrible sinners in the same room."
She chuckled at that, but it quickly died. "We're sinners, yeah, but I wouldn't say we're terrible. We're helping people now, aren't we?"
"Does painting over a stain make it go away? Can you truly cover the smell of rot with perfumes? Why should you fill a hole with no bottom? It's pointless." Eto smiled, exhausted. "You can't change the past."
Touka returned the gesture. "You're right. You can't. But you can change the future. You can change yourself."
"No one can change themselves; they only change their perspectives. Thinking otherwise is blind optimism."
Touka sighed. "Then change that. How you view yourself, the world, whatever it is that's giving you trouble. When you do that, you might be surprised."
"And if I don't want to? If I don't need to, in order to do what needs to be done?"
Touka frowned, not getting the response she hoped for. "Is dying what needs to be done? Is taking your own life, playing the martyr, necessary?"
A pause. Then Eto laughed, hard. "'Martyr', hm? Such a kind way of putting it; it's very like you." She shook her head. "It's nothing so grand, but you're much better at this than I gave you credit for! I just can't seem to win."
"This isn't a game, Eto! It's your—!" Touka stopped, and sighed again. "I don't want to see you die. Hinami would be sad. And Kaneki would be devastated."
"Do you think this will 'change my perspective' on things?"
"Who knows? I'm just telling you about the people who love you." Touka leaned a bit forward. "Isn't that what you've always wanted? To be loved."
Eto scoffed and rolled her eyes. "They don't love me."
"That's not for you to decide." Touka stood suddenly. "They're their own people, not characters on a page. They have their own thoughts and feelings, and they make their own choices. They're real . And they chose you."
(what?)
"Maybe I don't agree, but the fact remains Hinami chose to go to you, and go to Aogiri with you."
(stop)
"She chose to believe in you."
(STOP)
"And Kaneki—"
"Stop it. " Eto interrupted with a whisper. She covered her face with a hand. "Just. Stop. Leave me alone. Aren't there more important people you should be looking for? Stop wasting your time on me. I'm not worth it. I'm just—"
"Eto!"
She looked up at her name, and there, standing in the doorway, was Hinami.
"That's enough," she said quietly, coming forth.
Touka went over to pat Hinami's shoulder. She was about to look at Eto again, but shook it off instead. "Take it easy, okay?" she decided to say, and left the two alone.
Hinami took the stool, staring steadily at Eto in silence. The fan spun slowly. The generated air barely affected either of their hair. Eto could not meet the girl's gaze.
She cracked first. "Come to butter me up with more fake compliments, Hina?"
"They wouldn't be fake," Hinami said, practically predicting the question.
"They would. I taught you better than that. Kindness to the damned is empty and worthless; save it for people who deserve it. Who will do something with it." She twisted a piece of the bedsheet between her fingers. "Tossing your feelings into a void doesn't fill it up."
Hinami pinched the hem of her shirt, mimicking the action. "Then why did you found Aogiri? Why did you take in children and protect them? Why fight so hard? If you're so empty, why hope for anything better?"
'Hope'? Now there was an interesting word. Eto didn't hope ; she fought . She lashed out, she killed, she ate. She twisted narratives, vandalized summaries and drew all over them until they were unrecognizable. She was a storm of violence and anger and hatred. When the world refused to let her in, she carved open a space for herself and forced her way through. She was a parasite, stealing what should have already been hers.
"I finally got to read King Bileygr," Hinami said, fishing out her copy.
"Thank you." Eto couldn't help but say it. Though she would never say it out loud, the fact that anyone read anything she wrote meant a lot.
"It was so different from your other works." She flipped through it idly. "You're usually so… sad. Angry. Hateful. You thrived on tragedy and its horrors, and I know now it was because your life has mostly been that.
"But this one… It was hopeful. It was heroic." She held it up for Eto to see. "You aren't a void, Eto. You aren't empty."
"So I'm full? What am I full of, Hina?"
"I think it's love." She smiled.
If she was joking, Eto wasn't laughing. But the girl seemed more confused by the look than anything.
"W-What? That's why you saved us, right? You didn't have to destroy the compactor; you could have just taken out Furuta, saved your strength, and ended it right there, but you didn't. You chose to help us."
Eto sighed. "Can monsters love?"
"We can." Hinami reached out, and placed her hand on Eto's. Eto couldn't find it in her to remove it. "And… I've lost enough people. I can't lose you too."
Eto swallowed, letting the words wash over her. Hinami was a lot of things— weak, kind, naive, skilled, foolish, intelligent— but she was not a liar. It was a blessing and curse, especially now.
The girl stood up and smiled again, a little bit sadder, and Eto felt something like guilt.
"If you're having a hard time believing me, maybe you could hear a second opinion?" Hinami then pointed down.
Eto's brow furrowed, but she looked over the side of the bed. There, wedged between the bed and the wall, was a small futon. And on that futon, fast asleep with a book covering his face, was Ken Kaneki, her One-Eyed King.
"Everyone strived to give him nothing to do," Hinami explained with a chuckle. "And when he had nothing to do, we found him here, by your side."
Eto stared. Why was he here? She'd betrayed him. Her outings with him were only a means of analyzing him, like bacteria under a microscope. She manipulated his desire for love using his love of books, of Takatsuki, in order to pry open his brain. She invested nothing in it herself; that part of her was supposed to be dead. She'd killed it, over and over and over and over and over again.
And yet—
She reached out with her finger, and it brushed his cheek. How ironic that only in sleep, when he was as close to death as she would allow him, did the corpses not appear. Without them to discourage her, in that moment, in a display of horrible, selfish greed, she traced his face.
His skin was not soft, but rough. His lips were not moist, but chapped. Imperfect and uncared for. Worn. But he was warm. Like the sun.
Eto snapped out of it and her finger. She noticed Hinami practically beaming at her.
"What?"
"I've never seen that smile on you before," Hinami said simply. "I like it."
Eto touched her mouth, and noticed that it was true. She was smiling. But—
"Being selfish isn't always bad, Eto." Hinami pat Eto's other hand. "Sure, in large amounts, it is, but that doesn't mean you should completely deprive yourself of wanting."
"But I… I don't—"
"Don't deserve it? Everyone feels like that sometimes." Hinami picked at her fingers. "I've been protected for so long, and because of it, I was weak, so when the people around me died— my mother, Ken— I felt like I didn't deserve to be protected.
"But even when I ran away from them, tried to deprive them of their choice and alleviate their burden of me, they just picked me back up. Touka, Ken, and you. And I can't thank you enough for it." She smiled again. "You're right, Eto, that I've been loved and protected my whole life. I haven't really experienced the kind of suffering that you and Ken have. I don't think I ever will. I'll never really understand your pain, your suffering.
"But… that doesn't mean I can't love you. Because while I can't fight like you, I can fight with you. I can live with you. And I want you to live with me too."
Hinami picked up Eto's hand, holding it gingerly, as the girl looked earnestly, pleadingly.
"Please don't die, Eto," she choked out.
Eto pursed her lips. "Why?"
A few tears dropped onto their hands, coalescing into a small puddle on Eto's knuckles. "Because… Because I'm not ready to say goodbye." Hinami pressed their hands against her forehead. "Please… Even if you can't smile, or laugh, or cry… Live."
Eto watched, suppressing every urge to shake her head, to deny, to reject. Every instinct screamed to put the girl at arm's length, like everyone else she met, but she put them aside. Such earnestness, such honesty, such beauty… Eto had never had such things directed at her before, and believed it.
"I… I'll think about it," she said finally.
Hinami sniffled, wiping her tears with a thumb. "Promise?"
"… Promise."
"Okay." She nodded. "Okay. Get some rest, please."
Eto bobbed her head. "I will…"
With that, Hinami left, closing the door with a small wave, and Eto sighed. What a foolish girl, she thought.
She picked up the book that had been resting on Kaneki's face. It was on Hakushuu poetry, and opened to The Water Surface. Was he still on that? Her eyes habitually rolled over the words:
At evening the falling flowers of the willow
Make a twilight, and through it
The water surface appears,
Reflecting the eyes of the daughter of the house.
While I felt myself caressed in your heart,
Your face singularly pale,
Suddenly one of the ripples changed its color
And showed the eyes of an imaginary ogre.
When I, frightened, stared at it,
It turned silvery like a tiny minnow,
Changed into a harmonica, into an oar,
And back into the eyes of the girl.
The willow flowers are falling on
A dragon-fly-hunter by the gutter of the eaves,
And my mind, tired, alone,
Is softly caressed at the surface of the water.
Minnow. Harmonica. Oar.
Togetherness. Freedom. Movement.
And then, when she looked at the bottom, there were notes on post-its, so as not to ruin the pages. Kaneki's doing. She expected further analysis— he was insatiable— but instead, she saw her name. Or at least, ways of pronouncing 'Eto'.
エト? えと? 江十?
It went on and on, each one further from the truth. Eventually, it seemed like he just became bored. She raised a brow at a few of them, glancing at the slumbering king when she did.
His eyes were open.
"'餌戸'? Really?" she said, tossing the book onto his chest.
He caught it before it slipped, and smiled sheepishly. "I was running out of ideas," he replied. He squeezed out of the small space, walked around her, and sat upon the stool. "Were any of them right?"
"Not even close." She shrugged. "Your efforts are appreciated, though."
He chuckled. He leaned forward. "Are you feeling okay?"
"I've fully regenerated, if that's what you mean."
"No, it's not."
She looked away, then asked the question weighing on her. "I heard you were the one who brought me here. Why?"
"I told you to stay alive," he said. "And when you fled the field with V on your tail, I wanted to make sure you made good on that."
"That's not a reason." She scowled. "You're saying you jeopardized Goat's entire public standing for me? After you ordered me to separate V from you? What a contradictory fool you are, tabling the world you seek for someone who doesn't even matter."
Kaneki frowned. "You do matter, Eto. You're—"
"Are you really that delusional?" Eto shook her head and laughed. "Sen Takatsuki never existed! She was a mask for me to make sure you could lead effectively. And I'm beginning to think I made a mistake. You cannot lead with personal feelings!"
Even as the words fell from her lips, they felt hollow. Words from a mask that she'd forgotten how to take off. Words that she clung to because she had nothing else.
He paused. "Maybe so. But if I threw those away, I wouldn't be any better than Arima."
Kishou Arima. Cold, ruthless, distant. Powerful, yes, and skilled at killing, but nothing else. He could not love. He could not relax. He could not lead. He was empty.
"I admired him greatly, and I'll forever be grateful for what he did for me, but the world's wrongs can't be righted by a reaper," Kaneki said. "That's why you picked me, right? You thought I was kind and strong enough to be your ideal king."
Eto was quiet. He hesitated, then exhaled.
"I'd be lying if I said I agreed. I don't think I'm nearly as kind nor strong as you think. I don't think I can lead a whole species to a world where they can coexist. In fact, I think I'm the last person you should have picked. I don't see the qualities that others see in me, and I doubt I ever will.
"But the fact remains that I was chosen. You chose me because I'm me, and no one else. Even if I hate myself, even if I believe with all my heart that I should have simply died a long time ago, there are people who are waiting for me at the end, and there's nothing I can do about it besides accept it, and think that maybe it's okay to live."
"How helpless," Eto commented drily.
"I'm coming around to being that. Sometimes it doesn't really matter," Kaneki replied. "But, you asked me why I went after you. It's because I'm tired of repeating my mistakes. That's when I feel truly helpless.
"When you woke me up at Lunatic Eclipse… I was hurt. In my head, Aogiri was always the enemy. They were uprooting my peaceful places, threatening to destroy what I love. So I convinced myself that you were just torturing me a second time, manipulating me for the sake of manipulating me, and that you hated me just as much as I hated myself.
"And maybe, at first, I was right. Maybe you really did approach me because you hated me, because you wanted to break me. But when I look back at our dates, I remember how sometimes you'd laugh or smile in a certain way, and then I remember what you said to me."
We're similar. The words echoed in Eto's head.
"My… My mother was not a good person. But she at least gave me shelter and food, for a time. Mr. Yoshimura didn't even give you that." His hand lay on the sheets, a hair's breadth away from hers.
She moved her hand away, scowling. "So you saved me because of him, then?"
"No. Not anymore." Kaneki shook his head. "Promise or no promise, I did it because you've always carried everything by yourself. And… you're still lonely, aren't you?"
Eto brought the sheets closer to her, tangling herself in them.
"But now you have Hinami and Touka. They'll catch you every time you fall from now on. They'll shoulder your burdens with you. You won't live by yourself anymore. And… maybe I can be there too."
Had anyone else told her, she wouldn't have believed them. She'd berate them, dissect them and expose their lie for what it was. Because that was what she did. She broke, she pried, she opened, all to direct things away from herself. But Kaneki knew loneliness. Knew what it was like to want to be loved. Knew pain and suffering and the terrible price of unbridled strength. Knew her.
And so, maybe she could believe him.
"Does it ever go away?" Eto whispered, her voice carrying over the short distance with hesitation. "The pain?" Of existing when you're so ugly. "The fear ?" That others would see you and leave you.
Always leave you.
Always.
"I don't know," Kaneki answered honestly. "Maybe with time, it'll get lighter, get easier, but it probably won't go away."
"How do we make it lighter?"
He scratched his cheek, laughing. It was… really nice. "We need love, and we need to live."
She turned her head toward him, as she'd done so many times in the past. She couldn't help it; it was all that she felt safe to do. She was too afraid that if she touched him again, he'd shatter like glass and disappear. But more than that, she didn't think she deserved to touch him, let alone be touched. She felt wrong in her own skin, horrified that a grotesque creature like herself was allowed to live and wander the earth. She felt that after all her killing and eating, she didn't deserve to live.
And yet, she escaped Cochlea that day. She spurned the chance to die. She chose to continue shouldering her burden and fight for that world beyond the eggshell. That part of her that should have died struggled back to life, and was impossible to ignore now.
She swallowed. "That's really difficult."
"It is difficult," he agreed. "But I'm learning that it's worth it, because I get to see everyone when I wake up. I get to see you."
(me?)
"Me?"
Kaneki laughed, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. "S-Sorry, I, uh…" He trailed off. "I just… When I saw you at :re , alive, I was really happy."
No chin rub. No hesitation. Just a nervous boy, confessing his feelings with words he maybe understood.
And maybe Eto could believe them.
"But more than that…" He pursed his lips. "I was terrified. Terrified that I'd lose you again… But I had to believe in you. Believe that you wanted to see a new world just as much as I did. Believe that you would live— if not for yourself, then for Hinami, or that dream, or something .
"But during the Siege, when V arrived and you had to move against them, I was haunted by the fact that I left you. Not once, but twice. I left you alone in that parlor, and I left you again in Cochlea… I was a hypocrite, leaving the lonely. I'll never forgive myself for that.
"So when you fled, and V pursued you…" He held his head in one hand, unable to look at her. "My feet moved on their own. I refused to let you be alone anymore."
She wet her lips, unsure of what to do as he shuddered. If she reached out, the corpses would just discourage her again. They'd tear her hands away from him, from everyone she'd ever cared about. That's why she stopped caring about individuals, and focused on bigger things. More important things.
But, as she watched him, a fleeting thought crossed her mind. What would she do after? Where would she go?
(i don't have a future.)
That was right. Of course. There was no future for her. She had fallen too far to climb out. What a stupid thought.
(right. of course.)
But… Hinami asked that she live. Wanted Eto to consider it.
Could Eto live?
Was that… okay?
"Can I ask you something?" Kaneki's voice brought her back.
She nodded before she could think. She wanted to hear him more.
(selfish fool)
"Did you keep the last promise you made me?"
(what?)
(oh. right. our—)
"Our date," she said, so quiet it wasn't even a whisper.
He nodded. "July 20th."
She stared at his hand. "The… parlor was empty," she recalled. "People around the 20th were advised to stay indoors following the Owl Suppression Operation, and it mostly worked. I was on time, like I promised, and I'd brought one of Hakushuu's poetry collections with me. I was going to ask you about—"
"About The Water Surface," he guessed.
The corners of her mouth lifted. "I guess I got my wish."
"Three years late, though." He laughed.
She chuckled softly. "But… At least it happened."
He blinked, both of them surprised that she'd said it. "At least it happened," he repeated with a smile.
It was beautiful.
Slowly, Eto peeled away the sheet covering her body, and swallowed the fear in her throat. She shifted so that she was on her knees, staring down at Kaneki. He looked up at her, watching patiently, carefully, hesitantly.
"Eto?" he asked when she started to tremble.
If she touched him, would she be dooming him?
(stop.)
Her gaze found his lips.
If she kissed him, would all her work be for nothing?
(no more. please.)
Kissing, to Eto, was a means to an end. As a sign of intimacy and vulnerability, it was a powerful tool to get something from the partner or partners. As evidence, Ukina and Kuzen. With the right application and with the hands on the right places, most humans and ghouls turned to putty.
She'd seen it over and over, yet when she imagined using the technique herself, it stopped seeming so useful . Eto was a burned woman made of ash, which could not light a fire. She knew that, and so she wrapped herself in bandages; a futile attempt to heal the one thing she couldn't regenerate.
She didn't want to subject anyone to her. So she pushed people away. She tortured them with cruel honesty, flew away from them on wings made of corpses, and hid her face behind any mask she could find: bandages, blood, and hollow smiles.
Yet watching Kaneki's face, a mix of concern and quiet support, she found herself putting those things aside.
Eto drifted closer. His face flushed. Meadows met storms. Everything else was white noise. One hand found his shoulder, making him flinch, while the other brushed against his cheek, making him shudder, and cupped it with shocking softness.
She leaned down, and the fear seized her halfway; she aimed high and pressed her lips against his brow.
Pause.
He swallowed.
She trembled.
Her hair brushed against his. Green clouds dared to bend down and meet the white grass.
She remembered reading something:
'A child who wasn't able to receive the minimal love they required at the time they needed it the most will continue to gaze at the illusion of affection and never know how to love until the day they die.'
Obviously, without a proper foundation, nothing would get built or last, and it was only with a healthy reference to love that one could love healthily and wholly. And what better time to be loved than during your childhood? Where everything is new and scary and you need someone to guide you? Being loved in childhood helped develop a healthy brain that would later do healthy things and spread healthy ideas when it was grown.
Adult brains were harder to develop. Like concrete, it was nearly impossible to melt them down to their malleable state when they were young. But you could still sculpt it. Still learn with it. There was always time to be something better, wasn't there?
'Never'? How stupid. The brain was a miraculous organ that continued to learn, even long after reaching maturity and entering atrophy. For when you got sick, did that mean you never recovered? When your will was shattered, did that mean there was no point in getting back up?
(No.)
"What cannot change can only be broken."
And Eto had been broken. Multiple times. She broke when Kuzen abandoned her. She broke when Noroi was killed. She broke when Shiono faded into her bloodstream. She broke in Cochlea, when her body moved against her will and dragged her through the doors of :re . It would be impossible to reassemble the original Eto from pieces of dust, if she ever existed at all. But—
"You kept coming back," she whispered, her breath affecting his bangs. "To Takatsuki. Why?"
Kaneki responded just as quietly. "Because I felt needed by you, Eto. And, eventually, because I needed you back."
Her mask shattered, and the dam was destroyed.
Years and years of unshed tears spilled onto his face. They flowed freely from her eyes and cascaded down his cheeks. They were clear and clean, free of blood. Honest. Not muddled in any way. Truth. And at the truth, she was undone.
"We're so ugly, aren't we?" he said, tears coming down his face too, mingling with hers. "Broken, hurt, failed… But we're here . And when we're here, we can change ourselves. We can be better than we were before."
"What cannot change can only be broken."
Eto slipped, and Kaneki caught her, held her, his arms wrapped tightly around her body. It sparked a new feeling: a foolish, wonderful feeling that bloomed in her chest and wanted out.
"And it is when things are broken that they are most ripe for change."
She was ugly. She was broken. If things had gone differently, she would be dead and alone and nothing but a number in the depths of Cochlea. Even still, she wouldn't waste this chance.
She wanted to live.
(Good night, tormented thoughts.)
If not for herself, then for those who loved her.
(You've haunted me long enough.)
Eto kissed Kaneki fiercely, so fiercely that the stool toppled over and they fell.
(I'm sorry, Shiono, Noroi, Tatara…)
(I'll be away a bit longer.)
She thought she heard footsteps approaching, but they faded away just as fast, coupled with quiet chides and giggles.
(See you later.)
In the haze of adrenaline, Eto scrambled to her feet and slammed the door shut and locked it before practically tossing Kaneki onto the bed. She was upon him again in seconds, her lips crashing against his, and in their eagerness to feel close to each other, their teeth clashed together in their inexperience and scraped their tongues.
"Eto…" he groaned as his tongue licked the bruised nerves. "You've never—?"
"Never," she answered, breathing his breath as if she'd suffocate without it. "You?"
"No."
She closed the minute distance between them, ecstatic and terrified at the revelation.
They wiped each other's tears, pressed their bodies closer to feel the ugliness beneath, and used their tongues to drink each other's sweetness. After the initial disconnect to breathe, however, they stopped. Unfamiliar with the pleasures of intimacy, they restrained themselves again, afraid to truly touch the other and accidentally push them away, like so many fears wanted them to believe.
But the mirrored gestures, when both realized that that was what they were, drew them together again, and the gentleness gave way to beautiful greed.
Eto's thumbs hooked beneath the hem of Kaneki's shirt, and she dragged her palms across his stomach to expose it. It was rough and scarred, from years of fighting and getting injured. Getting hurt. Marks of a survivor. Someone who wanted to live.
She helped him out of the clothing, and then saw the scaly red of his hands and forearms.
Kagune.
Then she truly noticed: Kaneki looked tired. Bags under his eyes, wrinkles to his skin. He covered his arms in shame, cheeks flushed.
"It's… taking longer to heal these days…" he admitted. "Sorry…"
"Longer?" she repeated. "Kaneki, it's not healing at all."
He blinked. She'd said his name for the first time since Cochlea. "A-Ah, so it isn't…"
She stared at the arms, all scaly and inhuman— undeniable proof of what he had become. She reached out and felt them. Various chunks of RC cells were welded together, clinging to the edges of his fleshy forearms like glue. Her fingers glided across the material, up Kaneki's shoulder, then cupped his cheek.
"I can help you," she said. "I can… make you heal faster. Heal better."
His brow furrowed. "Like… Like Banjou?"
Eto shook her head. "Nothing so simple."
"Then how?"
She hesitated. "Do you remember Kanae and Noro?"
He nodded slowly. "I… kicked off Kanae's head, and it was like nothing happened. Noro was the same way, when he fought Tsukiyama, Yomo, and Uta— decapitation didn't kill." He looked at her. "You mean—?"
"Should we finish, or—" She tapped his arm.
Kaneki answered by pulling her into another kiss. She gasped in surprise, but it wasn't an unwelcome sensation. They were quick learners, only their lips touching this time. She ran a hand up his back, then tangled it in his hair, massaging it.
He moaned in her mouth, and she slipped her tongue in. Music.
In response, he lifted her shirt up. Offhandedly, she found it a shame it had to be clean. She threw it on the floor, herself exposed: a smooth figure, bereft of injuries from avoiding fighting and from healing that was sometimes too strong for her liking. The body of someone who hated getting hurt; someone who had been hurt long enough.
She kept her arms lifted for him to fumble with the clasp of her bra. She waited, and waited. The furrow in his brow grew deeper, and deeper.
"Should I turn around—" she started.
"N-No!" He cleared his throat. "I-I can do this…"
His eyes, though they couldn't see what his fingers were doing, were narrowed in amusing concentration. It was like when he analyzed poetry she'd brought him on their dates, scouting out a hidden meaning.
Unfortunately, a bra clasp was not subtext.
The haze of her lust dispelled, and she burst out in laughter. Real laughter.
His face went redder than a tomato. "S-Sorry!" he said, laughing too. "I-I just, I've never—"
Eto put her finger to Kaneki's lips to silence him. She shook her head. "Never apologize for a lack of knowledge," she said. "I'll teach you later, okay?"
He nodded meekly. She scooted a bit away to undo the clasp herself. When it came off and she revealed what was underneath, his gaze shot to the side. She tossed it aside and took his chin with her finger and thumb.
"Hey," she said, directing him to her. "Look at me."
He did, after some hesitation. A pause. He admired her. "You're beautiful," he whispered effortlessly.
She shrank under the words, her instincts telling her to not believe him, to convince herself that he was lying to himself and that she was truly terrible. But after watching him for so long and being this close to him now, she knew those instincts were trained in the wrong way. She took the first step to correcting them, and nodded.
"Thank you…"
The familiar phrase, finally heartfelt, was foreign on a tongue that only ever deceived.
"Th-Thank you…" Eto tried again, trying to make it fit.
It didn't. Her lip trembled, whether out of frustration or helplessness, she didn't know. Tears welled anew in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him close.
"Thank you…" A kiss to his mouth. "Thank you…" A kiss to his cheek. "Thank you." His neck.
She whispered it again and again and again. Each utterance was punctuated by her lips pressed against a new area on Kaneki's body, and accompanied by growing sobs that she hoped told him she meant it.
She embraced him tight, her tears and burdens streaking down his shoulder and cascading down his back. When she pressed her chest against his, he wrapped his arms around her to bring her even closer. She felt the unfamiliar and wonderful pressure of the body she wanted. She felt warm.
She felt loved.
"Do you want to stop?" he whispered, one of his hands stroking her hair to calm her.
Eto sank into the feeling. Deep breaths. In. Out. Calming breaths. Enjoy yourself. Be present. Be close.
She pressed her lips against the shell of his ear and whispered, with reverie and resolve, "No." She kissed it. "I, I, um…"
"What do you want, Eto?" He held her firmly.
"I…"
(It's okay to want.)
"I want you, Ken Kaneki." She aimed lower, for his neck. He moaned. "I want to take everything you have."
At that, he pulled her away, and she was disappointed, but he did it to hold her face, so that he was all that filled her vision. Even he looked like he regretted his action.
"You won't be taking it," he replied. Before her stomach could drop and she could regress, he said, "It's already yours."
People were birds. They flew in a storm, stealing what they could from the unpredictable tides below. Many got their wings clipped in the process, and then were forced to fight against the current to survive. They ate their fellows then, clambered over each other and drowned each other for a single breath of respite.
But Kaneki, in three simple words, had seen her— a fellow flightless thing, covered in the blood and feathers of others, who tore off wings with her teeth— and lifted her above the surface.
Eto brought him close and kissed him, slowly and sweetly, for the umpteenth time that night, sharing the air.
Though they could no longer fly, they could swim.
Together.
—
Kaneki, naked and covered in sweat, crossed his legs. "Should I be on my stomach for this?" he asked.
"How you are is fine," Eto answered from behind him, her hands hovering somewhere between his shoulder blades. "This might hurt, so you know."
His shoulders shuddered with laughter. "I'm sure I can endure."
She stopped, and nodded. "You're tough."
She pressed her hands against his skin, still a little damp with sweat from their… latest activity. Oh, wow; she could count her blessings on his muscles alone—
(Focus.)
Right.
Her kagune came out of her back, a small appendage of bark like a tree that coiled around her arm before ending in a fine pointed knife. She found the bumps of his spine.
"Ready?" she asked, and she saw him bob his head.
She boldly kissed the area, then got to work. The knife easily cut into his skin. Kaneki groaned, gripping the railings of the bed to keep himself from being any louder. With her free hand, Eto massaged his arm, giving something resembling encouragement.
It was long, agonizing work; the bone— a detached kagune that reacted to injury— had to permeate throughout the system, not unlike RC cellular tubes, then compartmentalize like a kakuhou for the whole body. Eto had to focus the entire time, lest something go wrong during detachment or germination or anything that could get him hurt. If that happened, she'd—
"Eto…" he gasped out. "I'm… okay…"
When had she become so readable? Though, he had always been able to read her, to a degree; they were so similar, after all. And, who could love her more than someone who understood her when she was silent?
"'Men are shot down in heaps," she whispered, and lost herself in her work. "'Men, of whom each one is a precious, unique experiment of nature. If we were nothing more than individuals, we could actually be put out of the world entirely with a musketball, and in that case there would be no more sense in relating stories.
"'But each man is not only himself, he is also the unique, quite special, and in every case the important and remarkable point where the world's phenomena converge, in a certain manner, never again to be repeated.
"'For that reason the history of everyone is important, eternal, divine…'"
She looked up, the detached kagune now matured. It was still a jagged amalgamation of RC cells, teeth, and eyeballs, and perhaps it would always be that way, but the intent was different now. From a certain perspective, even ugly things could be considered beautiful.
Kaneki's breathing had eased now that the hard part was over. Already, she saw the flesh of his forearms begin to take over the scaly kagune he'd called hands. She recalled their texture, all rough and scaly— perhaps next time, he could use his kagune to—
"From Demian, by Herman Hesse," he managed, interrupting that trail of thought.
She smiled, pleased that he knew, though of course he did; she expected no less of him.
"I never understood that segment," she said. "He claimed the story to be tragic, yet he also wrote that within the same breath."
He chuckled. "And there are also so many terrible people out there. I couldn't bear to call them 'divine' by any stretch of the word."
"Indeed. But, you know," she tapped her chin, "we shouldn't take others' lives carelessly. I've always believed that."
He uttered his favorite word. "Why?"
"You and your whys… It's wasteful to take a life. No one's life belongs to them alone; it belongs to everyone they've touched, so we're taking a bit of everyone with that life." She checked the kagune. "It's easy to think everything we do is meaningless, but we leave our marks on those who live beyond us, and then they leave marks on those who live beyond them… Round and round it goes, until it's all gone."
"Is that what you think?" He borrowed her words and tossed them at her.
Eto scoffed. "Oh, I see what you're doing."
Kaneki huffed out a disappointed laugh. "You're too sharp to tease."
"Words are my tool of trade, unfortunately, and I've been doing this far longer than you have." She gave a proud smile, and chuckled. It was good that his mind was taken off the pain. "By the way… What are we now?" she asked.
"W-What?" He turned pink. "Well, if you want, we can be—"
"Lovers?" she suggested. "Friends-with-benefits?"
"'Lovers' works just fine…" he mumbled. "But, um, there's a problem."
"Hm? If you're worried about publicity, we can keep it hush-hush until you're ready."
"What? No!" He shook his head. "I mean… It's not that, I meant— Wait, are you uncomfortable? With… this?"
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "Worrying about others to the end, hm?" She shrugged, but gave it some honest thought. "Well, now that you're asking me, I suppose I haven't thought about it. Being all public is… new to me."
"Then we should take it slow."
"Putting on the brakes immediately after our tussle in the sheets?" She laughed when he flushed. "It's sensible, in a way. Though I do like where the chemistry's going."
Her wink only made it worse, and she loved it. "Th-Thank you?" Kaneki managed without becoming a stuttering mess. "B-But that wasn't what I wanted to ask. I-I wanted to ask… how to spell your name."
Eto's smile faded. "Ah. That."
She picked up the Hakushuu book, which had ended up halfway across the room in their haze. It had a pencil in it from earlier, when he was grasping at straws. She made her way around the bed and knelt at his side. Then she stared at an empty space, and then—
"It's not important," she said.
"Huh? But—"
"Those kanji are worthless together." She tossed the pencil onto the bed. An ugly scowl came upon her. "They were given to me by a man who didn't even care to give me the time of day."
"Tell me anyway," he said.
"What does that accomplish?"
"It makes sure I don't stumble upon them by mistake." He picked up the pencil and handed it over. "Share your pain with me; we'll bear it together."
She sighed, let herself nod, and took the pencil. It was difficult refusing him when he was like that. "Okay…" Spinning it with practiced grace, she made sure he was watching before she got started.
"It's two characters," she said, drawing the unfamiliar characters out. "'E' and 'to'."
Kaneki blinked at the finished product. "愛支. 'Love' and 'support'…"
"Terrible, isn't it?" Eto chuckled bitterly. "The two things my father never gave to me. Such a cruel joke."
Before darker thoughts could sweep her up again, however, his hand gently wrapped around her head and pulled her toward him. She had to lean forward, but their lips met in a soft gesture. She reciprocated, leaned in further to increase the pressure. Though it wasn't sweet, she loved it, and tried not to be disappointed when he pulled away.
"I can't change what he's done to you," he said, hand caressing her cheek. "But we can do better together."
She found herself agreeing. "We'll do better. So much better."
He smiled. "That's the spirit, Eto."
She looked down at her name scribbles again. "Oh, speaking of names, should I be calling you Ken now? Since we're officially— you know."
He coughed. "Well, uh, I mean—"
"What's the matter, Ken?"
He looked away. "N-Nothing."
A devious grin spread across her face. "Then why won't you look at me, Ken?" she asked innocently, chin in her hands.
"Stop it."
"Are you sure, Ken?"
"You're just messing with me; stop it."
She laughed. "Oh, Ken…"
—
Later, Ken examined his newly regenerated hands. "Wow…" he whispered. "Do I… have to do anything?"
"I suppose we have to test it out," Eto replied, poking the skin. It was newly soft, almost like a baby's. "I have something you can do."
"What is it?"
She scooped up her bra from the floor, dangling it in front of him to see. "For next time," she teased.
He laughed, and she heard music.
"You will hear that the saddest and the loneliest people in the world are optimists. For the world is often a traitor, constantly twisting the image of what it should be at every corner."
— Unknown
Name: Ken Kaneki / The One-Eyed King (≥SS)
Affiliations: Anteiku (former), Goat (founder)
Born: December 20 (Saggitarius)
Occupation: Leads Goat as the One-Eyed King
Blood Type: AB
Size: 170cm, 58kg
Feet: 25.5cm
Likes: books, his loved ones
Hobby: reading in quiet places
A/N: This one's my favorite chapter :]