Sorry for the delay; I ended up needing time to figure out how to best tie up this mini-arc in an exciting way that wasn't boring or meaningless.
Plus I've been addicted to Sam Hyde's "Fish Tank", and recently got back to Terraria. I'm back now though, for the most part. So without further adieu, let's goooo.
Once Haise was brought over to the door of Itori's refrigerated storage room, he stepped foot into the air conditioned area after the sultry ghoul popped the latch open. With "Helter Skelter" being an establishment that served exclusively alcoholic beverages, only five out of sixteen individual steel shelves that were lined along the insulated walls of the room were dedicated to being used by Itori for her "side hustle"; with the most common good found in the refrigerated room being glasses of fermented blood disguised as name brand merlot wine.
Not to say that any of the perishables houses on those five spare shelves contained anything that would have gotten Itori in trouble with either the law or a health inspector, but they certainly were noticeably out of place, due to the fact that it was all international products that the bartender ghoul had for sale. Kneeling down beside the shelf that was exclusively used to store bottles of flavored liquid coffee creamers, Itori looked up with an eager smirk across her peach-colored lips while Haise tried his best to avert his wandering eyes away from her visible cleavage that was covered only be a thin-transparent layer of fabric over her bra.
"I've never tried tasting any of these before— for obvious reason— so I can't really give you a personal opinion in that regard," Itori said with a slight bit of sass in her voice, as she watched amusingly as Haise did his best to focus on the labels printed over the bottles of coffee creamer, instead of where her large breasts were. "But what I can tell you is that the "Italian Sweet Cremé" is what sells the most."
Searching through the rows of plastic bottles, Haise found himself needing to get down on Itori's level in order to further look for the aforementioned coffee creamer. After about two minutes of double checking the shelf, Haise turned his head over his shoulder to stare back at her with an inquisitive expression on his face. "I… I can't find anything that says that on the bottle."
Curling the corner of his lips tighter, Itori chuckled as she looked back into the questioning gray eyes of the young man that was kneeling down just half of an arm's length away from her. "Pffftt! Yeah, no duh kid! I call it my "best seller" for a specific reason, heh!" Itori laughed, while raising an arm up to playfully punch Haise's shoulder with an open fist.
In that moment, he first stepped foot into the cold room with her, Haise found it no longer difficult to avoid looking down at her cleavage. Instead, he simply stared back at the entertained ghoul with a disappointed glare as she retracted her fist away from his shoulder. "… I'll just take the half-and-half," Haise stated in a flat voice, which prompted Itori to chuckle at him while rolling her eyes.
"God damn; lighten up, Sasaki…! I was only messing with ya; don't gotta take everything so damn personally…!" Itori muttered with a good natured look on her face, before rising to her feet while watching as Haise picked out the bottle he wanted.
Not wanting to come off as someone who didn't know how to take a joke, Haise sighed as he tucked the bottle of coffee creamer under his arm before taking out his wallet. "I… I understand that you were only messing around with me, Itori, it's just… It's just that I've got to get back to Anteiku to deliver this stuff to Ms. Yoshimura before it gets too late; the last thing I want to do is be tardy on my first day," Haise explained, as he handed Itori the stack of money that Eto had given him to pay for the coffee creamer in the first place.
Hearing that Haise was strapped for time, Itori frowned slightly while still appearing laid back as she counted the money in her hand; fanning the stack of yen with one finger. "Tch, guess that means you won't be staying for a drink then? That sucks; I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask you in person," Itori said with a heavy sigh, before pulling the collar of her see-through shirt down, so she could slide the stack of yen between her milky-white breasts.
"Heh. I guess that means your phone number will have to suffice instead," Itori said, before winking at the shocked half-ghoul as she pulled out a smartphone from underneath her left breast; letting go of the collar of her dark see-through shirt. "Alright kid… It's Haise Sasaki, right? I'm really particular about my contacts, so I gotta make sure that your name is right," Itori spoke under her breath, as she entered his name into her newly created contact, before handing him her phone.
Unable to help himself, Haise could feel his cheeks becoming warmer after noticing just how warm the device was in his hand. 'It must have been in her bra for a while now… It smells like expensive perfume and alcohol… And slightly smells of sweat,' Haise thought to himself, while entering his phone number before handing the phone back to her. "… Umm, uh… Wait, why did you want my number?" Haise asked suddenly, after regaining his senses only after he had already given his personal information out to the voluptuous ghoul before him.
Shrugging her shoulders as she sent one text message to Haise, Itori pulled her collar down once more before sliding her phone back between her left nipple and the inside of her silky-black bra. "Considering that you've essentially proven yourself more than resourceful, I think it'd be a mistake on my part if I didn't keep in contact with my "Knight in Shining Armor"… Speaking of which… I never gave you a reward, did I~?" Itori asked with a flirtatious tone in her voice, as she stepped a foot closer toward the intrigued half-ghoul.
'Reward? Is she alluding to giving me money?!' Haise wondered to himself, while smiling back at the beautiful ghoul, as he began to imagine the sort of payment he would be receiving for his deed. "Oh…? I wasn't expecting any sort of payment for what I did, but… If you insist," Haise said with a modest voice, while hoping that his humble act would play a part in upping the amount of money he would be getting.
Those hopes went out the window the moment he was blindsided when Itori's soft hand grabbed him by the chin, causing his eyes to become widden, as the ghoul tilted his head to the side. "Heh, and they say chivalry is dead…~!" Itori quipped in a sultry voice, before humming softly as she leaned forward and planted a kiss on Haise's cheek.
Feeling his heart pounding in his chest and metaphorical butterflies swarming around in his stomach, Haise was temporarily frozen to the spot, even well after the kiss had ended. Having only been kissed before by his mom and aunt, it took the red-faced half-ghoul a few moments to snap out of his shock. Unable to speak, the embarrassed young man watched with narrowed eyes as the woman beside him laughed at his expense.
Itori's laughter was cut short the moment she noticed the singular kakugan staring back at her from the left side of Haise's crimson face. Needing to take a double take, Itori once again grabbed the young man by the chin, except instead of leaning in to plant another kiss on his face; she instead carefully inspected Haise's one-singular ghoul eye. "… What the hell? Are you… Are you some sort of "one-eyed ghoul", or some shit like that?" Itori asked curiously, to which Haise responded to her question by grabbing his bottle of coffee creamer before turning around.
Facing away with her, Haise hoped to regain his dignity by denying the curious bartender a straightforward answer, while also instinctively looking away from her to hide his crimson cheeks. "… You've got my phone number. We can discuss it later; I'm afraid I've got places to be, Itori," Haise said firmly in a deep-brooding voice, while making his way out of the refrigerated room and through the kitchen; leaving behind a gobsmacked woman who was still contemplating on whether what she just saw was real, or just another facade created by him.
Walking down the flight of steps attached to the business complex that housed Helter Skelter, Haise was still blushing as he stormed past the rows of vending machines that illuminated the gray-brick pavement that he was walking down. 'I don't understand… What triggered my kakugan to become active? Was it her getting on my nerves, or… Was it the way that I got excited from that kiss?' Haise lamented; feeling distracted as he used his memory to backtracked to Anteiku.
'… God, I hope that's not the case; that'd be pathetic if that ended up being the only way this ridiculously "edgy eye" worked. "Hurr derp, a-derp, hurr! Women make me horny; horny makes me strong! Awooooga!" Jesus Christ, that'd be embarrassing to tell to Hide, if that actually ended up being the case,' Haise dreadfully thought to himself, as he wandered through an alley that he was too distracted to question whether or not it looked familiar to him.
'… Well hold on now, I think there might be some truth to that. While it's unlikely that me getting horny is what activated my kakugan on its own, perhaps some sort of hormone is chemically released when I do get excited?' Haise wondered to himself, while beginning to recall when he first discovered that he was a half-ghoul, and the second time after. 'Those Black Dobers stabbed me in the abdomen, just like how Mr. Tatara stabbed me while we were on the rooftop… Chemicals, chemicals, chemicals,' Haise repeated to himself in his head, as he whipped out his cell phone to begin searching up inquiries on the internet without bothering to look at his lockscreen first; scowling slightly as he saw the missed calls and text messages notifications that were silenced by his phone. Something Haise wished he could do to the outside world, especially with how loud the area seemed to be for a late night.
'Oh my God, what's with all the helicopters…? Ugh, anyway... Ah, okay; I think I'm getting it now. Endorphins and dopamine are both released when the body experiences pain, and during sexual stimulation. Alright, so ghouls are probably able to release those two hormones by thinking certain thoughts that excite them in one way or the other,' Haise's mind hypothesized, while walking deeper and deeper into the sketchy backroads that most would have generally avoided at all costs.
'… 'I'll have to make it a point later tonight to practice in front of the mirror while I brush my teeth. I'll have to see if I'm able to activate my kakugan on my own accord, or if I'll need some assistance from looking up some pornogr-…? What the hell are those sounds?' Haise wondered to himself, as the wet-sloppy noises he heard coming from around the back corner of a nearby building alerted him enough to kick him out of his thoughts. As he cautiously made his way closer toward where the sloppy sounds of slurping and chewing were coming from, it was then that Haise caught a whiff of something in the air that reeked of copper.
'Blood… That has to be blood,' Haise concluded, as his training sessions with Tatara allowed him to be more than familiar with the recognizable aroma of blood. Haise's heart was racing inside of his chest, and his skin was becoming clammy as a wave of dread washed over him like a sudden tsunami. The self-preservationist within him wanted Haise to just turn around and sneak away before anyone could notice his presence, but the altruistic side of him that Hide had a hand in making made it near impossible for him to leave without at least ensuring that no one needed his help.
"I'm going to regret this… Hello?! Hello, is anyone there?!" Haise called out with a faux concerned voice that he used to mask the anxiousness that was flooding inside of him. Any hopes of getting ignored went out the window the moment Haise heard the sounds of messy eating to an end; leaving behind only the sounds of multiple footsteps coming from where the sounds had originated.
Trying to summon the courage he had from when he was threatened earlier by the Black Dobers, Haise stood his ground as a group of five older men walked out from the shadows of the alley-corner; the back door porch light of a nearby donut revealing freshly soaked blood that was caked into the fabrics of their coats. One of the men in the group who looked to be in his earlier forties made eye contact with Haise, before gazing down at the bottle of coffee creamer that he was still carrying.
"Well I'll be damned: we've got another one! Guess the gamble of coming out here really was worth the risk after all, eh boys?!" The ghoul asked aloud in a mean ding tone, as he and the other four men closed the distance between them and where Haise was still standing. It was then that Haise realized the difference between the five older men surrounding him, and the pack of women who he had managed to trick: the Black Dobers could be conversed with, the ghouls weren't looking to negotiate with their prey.
Anxious and terrified of what the five men were capable of, Haise immediately found himself trying to activate his singular kakugan in hopes of that alone being enough to deter the five ghouls from attacking him. However, he found it hard to think dirty thoughts in order to get enough dopamine and endorphins pumping through his veins, as the sight of the blood-covered older men smiling at him with hunger in ther black eyes was enough to completely kill Haise's chances at achieving the sexual stimulation he needed to activate his kakugan.
'… They're under the assumption that I'm a human. I'll have to use that against them,' Haise thought to himself, while instinctively preparing to use everything at his disposal to execute them; quickly demonizing them as unworthy to continue living, as to desensitize himself for what he was about to do to them. Having been keeping track of the ghoul who was about to pounce on him from behind, Haise waited until his ambushed was in the air before using his lightning fast reflexes to unravel his kagune; skewering the man's torso with his four glowing-crimson tendrils.
Hearing the guttural cries of the ghoul behind him, Haise made sure to quickly dispatch him by dismembering his entire body into large bloody chunks that hit the pavement before the eyes of his colleagues; the four older men immediately backed away with a look of fear in their eyes. Two of the bravest ghouls unleashed their own kagunes, while the other two turned heel and booked it down the alleyway.
Using two of his tendrils to parry the two other kagunes, Haise grappled the two ghouls with his other two tendrils; wrapping his crimson appendages around their kagunes and arms, before ripping them and their kakuhou sacs clean out of their bodies. In between their gurgled cries of pain, Haise thought he could faintly make out of the two armless ghouls who were bleeding out rapidly beginning to beg for their lives. With him having already demonized them to the point where empathy should have been off the table, Haise had a moment of hesitation as he momentarily held off on stomping their heads into paste.
'… I promised Hide that I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt anyone; that ghoul who attempted to ambush me got what was coming to him, but… I've already won; going after their colleagues might be justified, but morally speaking killing these men out of a prompt to vendetta might be going against that promise,' Haise quickly thought to himself, as he stared down into the pleading eyes of the middle aged man who appeared to be fighting off unconsciousness with how much he was bleeding.
'… Without their kakuhou sacs, there's no RC-cell reserves for their bodies to regenerate from; not with injuries like theirs,' Haise thought to himself, as the realization that they were on Death's door weighed down on his heart. '… These are dead men; one arm reaching out of the grave; figuratively, and quite literally... There's no point in-?!'
The nearby gunshots that echoed off the walls of the labyrinthine back alleyways interrupted Haise's thoughts; the color draining from his face as heard the sound of two heavy thuds making contact with the ground. Unlike anyone else who he had faced, the heavily armed investigators in padded riot armor who flooded out from the corner of the alley were coming in hot; not a single one of them even bothered to speak to him as they shunned their flashlights and dotted lasers from underneath their rifles' barrels at him.
"CONTACT!!!" The lead investigator shouted at his team, as he aimed his double-barrel quinque directly at Haise's center of mass; his weapon's glowing sapphire-blue barrel lighting up to build up a charge that made the white quinque-steel rifle violently shake.
Realizing that his cover was blown the moment they found him covered in blood and standing beside three heavily-mutilated bodies that looked more human than he was, Haise's fight-or-flight senses kicked in the moment he felt the first six quinque-metal rounds pierce through his body. Even in his panicked state, Haise knew better than to try to bother summoning his kagune again to take cover behind; even if he were to survive the time needed for him to shield himself, there weren't any guarantees that something that looked as volatile as the leading investigator's quinque wouldn't just vaporize him on the spot.
Thinking faster than what should have been possible, Haise came to the conclusion that his only chance at survival would be trying to evade the trained investigators rather than attempting to fight them head on. 'Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!!!' Haise's mind screamed internally, as he activated his kagune while using his powerful legs to leap diagonally to the side. Feeling a few more rounds pierce through his body, Haise held back a muffled scream of agony as he felt three fingers from his left hand getting shot clean off while in midair.
Motivated by anxiety and fear, Haise used his kagune to ricochet himself from the side of the brick wall where he was going to land. Bouncing backwards while watching as a flurry of gunshots chipped away at the tips of his kagune, and where he had created a giant hole in the brick wall, Haise immediately used two of his tendrils to slingshot himself over the rooftop of the damaged building.
Barely managing to avoid being caught in the blue beam of RC-cell created plasma that shot out of the two barrels of the leading investigator's quinque, the lower half of Haise's two other tendrils were instantly disintegrated behind him as he rolled forward and onto the concrete roof of the damaged building. Coated in sweat while still holding on to the bottle of mid-tier coffee creamer in his right hand, Haise couldn't help but to inspect the plastic bottle in his hand first before checking his mutilated left hand; his mind grounding itself onto his task of delivering the product to Eto, as a way to coop with the fact that he was in grave danger.
With his heart beating rapidly to the point that he could feel it in his eardrums, Haise was hyperventilating as he noticed the fleet of helicopters shining their spotlights down onto the streets of rooftops of the vicinity. "Ngh…?! W-What the hell is going on here…?!" Haise asked exasperatingly under his breath, before hearing the sounds of metal colliding with concrete just a few meters away from him. Wide eyed and still holding on tightly to the bottle of creamer in his hand, Haise's knees were trembling the moment he noticed the eight grappling hooks that were anchored along the edges of the rooftop.
In one panicked movement, Haise swept his two remaining good tendrils horizontally toward where the hooks had anchored themselves to, all while beginning to sprint away toward the opposite side of the roof. Hearing the choppers of the distant helicopters growing closers as their spotlights began searching in his general direction, instead of leaping onto the next rooftop Haise dove with the grace of a terrified swan into the top window of the next building; duck and rolling, as he destroyed the large office desk that he had landed on.
'They're going to call for backup, I'm sure of it…! And they're still going to come looking for me…! God, why the hell is this even happening right now?! What's this Franz-bullshit going on?!' Haise thought frantically to himself, as he reached into his pocket with a shaking hand to take his phone out; the liquid creamer inside the bottle violently swishing inside its cheap plastic container, while his eyes nearly bulged out his sockets the moment he read the alert message on his Lock Screen.
'… "Emergency Alert: Ongoing raid occurring within a four kilometer radius of the Doujin Business Park. Avoid anyone wearing black dog masks. Stay inside: Anyone found outside their residence will be shot",' Haise read to himself, before letting out a dreadful chuckle as he closed the message to open up his GPS. "Heh… Well I'll be damned; I guess someone really did end up calling the CCG about the Black Dobers. Not sure if that's going to hinder whatever credibility that my lie will hold up in the futu…? Oh shit…" Haise muttered to himself with worry, after noticing the sheer amount of missed calls, voicemails and text messages left for him by Eto over, all of which were timestamped shortly after the emergency alert.
Keeping his fingers wrapped tightly around the neck of the plastic bottle, Haise immediately power walked out of the dark office; avoiding the spotlight shining through the broken window, as he used his thumb to call his manager back. Upon dialing the number, the dial tone lasted no longer than a fraction of a second before being answered by a panicked woman. "Sasaki?! Where in the hell have you been?! I've been trying to get a hold of you for twenty minutes straight!" Eto berated him Ina stressed out and manic voice that sounded a lot less friendly than her usual bubbly-carefree voice.
Looking over his shoulder, Haise let out a quiet yelp the moment he saw a flurry of grappling hooks anchoring themselves along the frame of the broken window. "Uh?! S-Sorry! I think my phone was on "do not disturb"; it's been like that since the start of my shift," Haise apologized in a voice that sounded far less panicked than how he actually felt. "I, uh...! M-Might have not checked any of my notifications after I got done with uhhh...! Y-You know; the t-thing at the bar?!"
"… So wait, you're telling me that you didn't read that until… Oh shit," Eto muttered with a low voice, while Haise slammed the door behind him before beginning sprinting down the large office space; leaping over the numerous cubicle spaces that had terrified employees cowering underneath their desks. "S-Sasaki, what's your location?!"
"Ermmm, uhhhh?! I-I think I'm at a call center?! Don't really know what kind of call center, but uhhh- Hold on," Haise excused himself, before picking up his pace as he dived straight through a large reinforced glass-paneled window, and onto the rooftop of the next building over.
"Are those helicopters…?" Eto asked with a voice that was filled with dread, while letting out a gasp as her mind put two-and-two together. "Dammit! You got caught up in that raid, didn't you?! Shit, uh— Don't panic, that's just going to make the situation worse…! J-Just stay inside somewhere, and pretend to be a human; simple, n-no?"
"No, not really!" Haise shouted back in an almost sarcastic voice, while flinching as a bullet fired from one of the many rooftop snipers whizzed right by his forehead. Instead of running to the next rooftop, like some of the other Black Dobers nearby who were getting their heads filled with quinque-metal, Haise mustered all of his strength to stomp down on the concrete floor beneath him, caving the roof in underneath him.
Hearing Haise cursing underneath the sound of him pushing debris off of his body, Eto's sharp mind was able to tell what was going on. "… You're being hunted, aren't you…? Damn it all, young man! Why couldn't you have just put your phone on vibrate, just like how everyone else does?!" Eto scolded in the middle of her alarmed state, as she heard Haise's footsteps echoing under the sound of his heavy breathing.
"Ahhh…! Ahhh, ahhh…! It'll be f-fine; everything's fine! Ah, ahhh…! N-No one— ahhh— g-got a good look at my face; they were too p-preoccupied with trying to kill me, ahhh," Haise reassured through gasps of air, before closing his mouth as used his kagune to once again send the floor crumbling underneath his feet. "I'll get out, I've- ahhh- j-just have to find another route! Ahhh…! I-I'm pretty fast— I think I can lose them before I g-get back to Anteiku, ahhh…! Y-You'll have your coffee creamer within less than thirty minutes; you have my word- ahhh…!"
Hearing Haise once again breaking more floors with his kagune, instead of just looking for a staircase like any other person would, Eto physically recoiled as she furrowed her brows on the other line. "Coffee creamer…?! That's what you're worried about right now; not about preserving your own life?!" Eto shouted on the top of her lungs, as she couldn't believe that something so trivial could mean so much to someone. "Sasaki, a-are you INSANE?!"
"YES!!!" Haise screamed at the top of his lungs, as he grabbed a large chunk of concrete from the debris around him, before chucking it at the head of the lead investigator who had been tracking him down; decapitating the man, just before his double-barrel quinque could fire a beam of molten plasma at him. "GOTTA GO— BYE!!!" Haise shouted, before hanging up as he sprinted as fast as he could toward the seven other armored investigators who were seconds away from pumping him full of bullets.
Instead of bothering to try using his kagune in such a tight hallway, Haise decided to use his momentum and ghoul durability to sprint straight through the group of armored investigators; sending the injured men crashing through the walls. 'It's okay Haise, it's okay; I'm sure Hide will understand when I tell him about what happened!' Haise reassured himself, as he spun back around to pick up the sleek-white quinque up from the ground beside the headless investigator's body.
Aiming down at the floor, Haise used the weapon's current charge to build it up more until it was breaking in his hand; causing the seven other investigators to scramble up to their feet and flee the first floor of the building they were in. Becoming fully manic as the skin of his left hand began to melt off to the floor, Haise's eyes were becoming filled with tears as the interior of the corridor became filled with a blinding blue light.
'I'LL JUST HAVE TO MAKE ANOTHER ROUTE!!!' Haise screamed internally, as a volatile beam of RC-cell plasma shot out of the white quinque's double barrels, blowing a massive and elongated hole through the Earth. With how powerful the blast was, the weapon in his hand had shattered into molten pieces of hot quinque-steel that were splattered across the ground, along with pieces of Haise's left hand.
'DON'T HAVE TIME TO BLEED!!! I'LL BE FINE!!!' Haise thought to himself with a crazed look on his face, as he immediately leapt into the hole he had created; falling deeper and deeper into the dark abyss, until he landed in a pool of filthy water. Even in his manic state of panic, Haise made sure to keep the bottle of coffee creamer above the sewer water; ensuring that it wouldn't get contaminated as he used his two kagunes to pull himself onto one of the two parallel walkways that were on the sides of the underground canal.
Knowing that it would only be a matter of minutes before the sewers would be flooded with investigators, Haise balanced the creamer on the tip of one tendril before using his one good hand to once again try bringing up his GPS. Once he was on the home screen, it was then that he noticed that he still had some unread messages. If Haise was in a better state of mind, he would have ignored them, but instead his manic panic made him think that checking his messages was just as important as delivering the coffee creamer to Anteiku.
"Hey, this Itori. Put me in your contacts, kid," the first message read, while the one after it read "Lmao did you read that emergency message? Hope you did; it would suck for you if you didn't, lol."
Typing faster than he had any right to, within less than a fraction of a second Haise sent Itori his response that simply read "Yeah, lol." Thinking that his message would give his future self an alibi, Haise made sure to actually set a route on his GPS before putting his soaked phone back into his pocket; already accepting that he was going to need a replacement phone once he managed to get himself out of his predicament.
Like a bat out of hell, Haise was using his low-light vision to navigate through the sewers underneath the streets of the 20th Ward; keeping enough momentum that he was able to neutralize any investigator or hostile feral ghoul by simply plowing through them with just his body alone. Despite the situation being as stressful as it was, things appeared to be going smoothly for Haise, and just like how he had hoped for, he eventually was able to create enough distance from him and the CCG to completely evade their pursuit of him.
'Thank God for adequate cell reception… Ah, and thank God that my hand's back,' Haise thought to himself, as his feet came to a halting screech as he took a second to inspect his newly regenerated left hand. With a brand new limb attached to his wrist, Haise was able to finagle his way into his pocket to pull out his cellphone with his left hand; awkwardly reaching over his abdomen to where his right pocket was.
Covered in a thick layer of sweat mixed in with sewer water and blood, Haise was already forming a plan to dispose of the evidence as he looked down at the screen of his barely functioning phone; feeling fatigued, and far less manic now that he wasn't worried about being a few steps away from certain death. "Ahhh, uhhh… L-Let's see, let's see… Alright. Yeah, I'm right underneath it; now all I've got to do is find a manhole to get the hell out of his place," Haise muttered to himself in between gasps of air, as he began thoroughly searching above for any way out of the foul sewers that didn't involve leaving a trail.
When Eto suddenly received a text message on her phone, she pulled the wire out of its charging port while laying flat against the top of her mattress. Having already assumed that Haise was going to perish in the raid at the south side of the 20th Ward, the half-ghoul became genuinely shocked the moment she saw that the message had been from him.
"I'm at the back door, please let me inside so I can drop off the coffee creamer," was what the text message read. Narrowing her eyes as she clenched her jaw shut, Eto was both awestruck and annoyed as she quickly put on an oversized hoodie before making her way out of her apartment and downstairs. Entering through the kitchen, Eto was more than ready to abandon the newly hired barista if he ended up being followed by investigators; despite her being fond of him, she still needed to take in the account of everyone's safety who lived under her roof.
Going into her office first to check the outdoor cameras, Eto saw the black haired young man standing anxiously underneath the light of her back porch light; constantly looking over his shoulder at every which way, while still holding on tightly to the bottle of creamer that somehow looked unscathed by his journey. Once she knew without a shadow of a doubt that the coast was clear, Eto stepped out of her office before making a mad dash to the back door.
Quickly unlocking it, Eto didn't even bother to hide her seethed fury as she grabbed the smiling half-ghoul by the throat before yanking him inside; a decision she soon regretted, once she got a whiff of his absolutely tarnished garments. Gagging at the wretched stretch of sewage emitting from Haise, Eto immediately lost her appetite and anger as she reached up to cover her mouth and nose with her oversized sleeves; watching with watery eyes as he carefully placed the bottle of creamer down on the kitchen island-counter.
"… T-Told you that I would make it," Haise said with an uneasy smile across his face, as he stood there awkwardly while watching as Eto kept one sleeve pressed against her mouth and noise, as she frantically pointed over to the janitor closet.
"Oh, how repulsive...! C-Clean yourself up young man, and dunk your clothes in bleach… We'll have to burn them as soon as possible," Eto ordered in a muffled voice, before immediately vacating the area in order to get a breath of fresh air.
Hearing Eto storming her way through the corridor and up the flight of stairs to her apartment, it was then that Haise's still stressed out brain finally registered just how filthy he was. Recoiling at the foul smell coming from his stained and mattered clothes, Haise held his breath as he quickly jogged over to the janitor closet to wash himself off using the tub inside that was meant for mops. Closing the door behind him, Haise took out a large garbage bag to begin stuffing his dirty clothes inside of it.
With his personal possessions kept in a separate— albeit smaller— trash bag, Haise turned on the faucet of the small tub before sitting down inside to begin washing away the filth off of his skin and hair; yelping and letting out seething gasps from how cold the water was, all while Eto returned to the kitchen to begin sanitizing the area using her own personal cleaning supplies. Needless to say, it ended up being a very, very long night for the both of them.
