author's note;
10/17/14 — Whoops! It's been a while since the last update. I blame college for keeping me horrendously busy. :(

Special thanks to insomniacClarinetist for being such a fabulous beta.

Despite not being entirely sure of what, exactly, to expect, her arrival at Crush Boy's apartment still feels somewhat anti-climatic.

They walk together for thirty minutes until reaching a nondescript apartment complex. Once there, he leads her past one sign boasting affordable rent for college students, guides her up two sets of stairs and signals her to stop at the third floor. She takes one look at the rickety front door, watches him fumble with his keys until he finds the right one, and comes to the conclusion that, yes, this is a tremendously bad idea.

( fumble )

Surprisingly, she finds the inside of his apartment to be slightly less unfortunate looking than the outside.

Crush Boy enters before her, turning on the lights and holding the door open for her. They remove their shoes at the genkan before stepping into the bedroom-cum-living room-cum-kitchen, where she proceeds to give her surroundings a cursory glance. Her own living arrangements are decidedly bigger (mostly due to the manager's charitable nature; partly due to the fact it was meant to house two), but—it's not an entirely unpleasant place. It's the type of place where she could picture someone like Crush Boy living.

The wooden floorboards creak ever-so-slightly as she follows him. His shoulders seem suddenly tense and the furniture is a little sparse, but she manages to keep her mind away from the elephant in the room as they come to a stop near a slightly rusting refrigerator. "Um... Kirishima-san," Crush Boy says, breaking the silence between them but not quite facing her. "You can sit anywhere you like. There are some magazines on the table and—and I'll go search for the first aid kit in the bathroom."

Vaguely, she wonders why a single college student would even need a first aid kit. That thought only lasts up to three seconds before it's unceremoniously replaced by the realization she has been stubbornly avoiding up until now; Crush Boy lives alone. She's currently standing in the apartment of a single, young human male. She followed him home out of her own volition.

She suddenly feels out of place, but not in the same way she does when she visits Yoriko's house.

She clears her throat and pulls the zipper of her rabbit themed jacket up even further. "I'll be here."

Regaining some of the bravado he had back near the bookstore, Crush Boy tilts his head towards her and gives her a smile full of shattered nerves. Touka does not return the gesture.

She waits until he's left the room to let out a breath she had been holding. This, no matter how she looks at it, is a bad idea. Not running away from him when he let go of her arm back there was a big enough mistake as it is. Following him home and actually entering his apartment is just asking for something terrible to happen. Even if he seems to be weak and scrawny, there's no way for her to know what goes through his head. She's had enough encounters with unsavory individuals to know that ghouls aren't the only dangerous beings out there.

In the worst-case scenario, there will be a body to dispose of.

In the best-case scenario—something will change. But she isn't sure of what it is.

She allows herself to plop down on the edge of his bed after a long moment of hesitation. From there, she examines the scratched up table two feet before her. There is a plastic soda cap shoved under one of the legs and a multitude of magazines and fliers littered across it. She figures, absentmindedly, that it must be pretty old judging from how it wobbles when she prods it with the tip of her shoe.

Leaning forward, she sorts through the mess before her. There are some academic magazines, some shopping catalogs and some take-out fliers—but nothing out of the ordinary. It's more or less on par with what you'd expect from your average human, so she prepares to stop rifling through his belongings and lean back into the lumpy comfort the mattress offers her.

She would have totally done it, too, if not for catching a glimpse of a CCG brochure buried under the pile of magazines and fliers.

Crush Boy returns from the depths of his bathroom before she can properly react.

"Sorry for making you wait," he says, carrying a small plastic box while remaining completely oblivious to her plight. "I thought I placed it in the cabinet, but—"

He stops short as soon as he meets her eyes.

Belatedly, she notices she must look rather pale.

"Are… Are you alright?" he asks, before hesitantly closing the distance between them and setting the plastic box on the tablet. "You're not feeling dizzy, are you?"

Dizzy is one way to describe it. Completely and utterly ill is another, but not one she can be honest about. Covering her mouth with her left hand, she tries to avoid looking at the brochure on the table. Knowing it was there was enough to make her want to bolt out of here as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, running away while he's in the room isn't the most conspicuous of options. "I'm..." she begins, voice unusually quiet. "I'm feeling a little light-headed, actually."

Crush Boy pauses. She does not dare look at his face, out of some irrational fear he'll know what she saw and why it made her so uneasy.

"I'll get you a glass of water," he responds. "Do you want something to eat? It might be for the best if you lay down, too..."

She shakes her head. Lying down is the last thing she needs to do with that in front of her. "No, I'm okay. You don't have to," she says. Then, she thinks better of it. "... I'll have a cup of coffee, though. Black. It'll—help me feel better."

It's a half-truth, created with the purpose of distracting him. She meets his eyes after the words have left her mouth and finds that he nods in compliance.

She buries the brochure under a magazine once he's turned his back to her.

"Are you feeling better?" Crush Boy asks her once she's guzzled down half of the cup he prepared for her, sitting on the floor out of a refusal to sit next to her on the bed. "Err... It's not as good as Anteiku's, but it was the only brand I had."

She exhales through her nose. It's the worst coffee she's tasted in years. It also bought her enough time to collect herself. "It's fine. You shouldn't worry too much about it."

"Really?" he says, eyes widening slightly and voice tinged with surprise. "You work at a cafe, so you should know more about coffee than I do. Is it really fine?"

"I already told you, it's fine," she insists before taking one last sip out of her cup. "If you keep questioning it, it'll get annoying. So shut up and accept a compliment when you get it."

She thinks the look on his face makes it seem a little like he wishes he could take back the last fifteen seconds of his life.

Regardless, she shoves the now empty cup into his hand before he can think of a way to continue with this line of conversation. The CCG brochure is out of sight, but in no way out of mind, and she honestly wants to get out of this place as soon as possible.

"You said you wanted to treat my wound," she tells him. "Well? Get on with it. Unless you plan to keep me here all day."

He sputters, something unintelligible coming out of his mouth, before he sets the cup on the table right next to the plastic box. The table wobbles as he gets on his knees, places a hand on it and opens the box. She focuses on everything but the possibility of being inside a future CCG recruit's home. It's always, always, always the last ones you'd expect that turn around and stab you in the back, after all.

"I'll… um... need to see your arm, Kirishima-san," he says, brandishing a roll of bandages and what seems to be a disinfectant towelette.

She stares at him for a moment, examines his trembling hands and much too long fingernails, and decides the best thing she could do for now was play along. If she could survive this, he would never bother her again. That was the deal. She plans to hold him up to it.

Removing her jacket first, she watches his face for any type of reaction. He seems awestruck, for the most part. His expression is a little like the one he had the first time she saw him, with his lips slightly parted and his eyes fixed on her like she was some type of rarity. Awe, however, gets quickly replaced by horror once she rolls up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal the blood speckled bandages around her upper arm. While the color has turned mostly brown by now, there was no denying what was underneath.

Carefully, the bandages are removed from her arm, fresh blood and plasma seeping out as some of the dried blood and scabs are yanked out in the process. The wound is nowhere near as bad as it was the night she got it—but it still needs more time. She would have to give it another day or two before it sealed up completely. Then, a little longer for the bruises to go away.

She's going to kill that investigator the next time she sees him.

"W-What..." Crush Boy begins, mouth more or less uncooperative due to a mixture of what she supposes could be shock and nausea. This is what he gets for being so nosy. "What happened?"

She licks her lips. Stares at the front door all the way across the room. "I had an accident."

"An accident?" he asks, sounding absolutely flabbergasted. She supposes he must not be accustomed to seeing the result of having a chunk of your arm ripped off by a Dove. "What kind of accident?"

"Just an accident," she hisses through her teeth. "Do you have to question everything you're told? Didn't I tell you it would get annoying?"

She hopes her refusal to provide a straight answer is more off-putting than it is suspicious.

But Crush Boy simply presses his lips into a fine line, dabbing away at the dried blood on her wound with the disinfectant towelette. She's thankful (so, so very thankful) that it no longer looks like someone haphazardly sawed off a piece of her upper arm. "Okay, okay... I get it," he responds. "It was an accident."

"Yeah," she tells him. "An accident."

One she had walked right into, really.

They fall into silence. She allows him to continue treating her arm, ignoring the discomfort of having someone touch the still tender patch of skin. She reminds herself for the nth time that this is one of the worst ideas she's had to date, and no matter how delicious he smells from this close up, they—

"Kirishima-san," Crush Boy says, interrupting her line of thought before she can even realize what had just crossed her mind. "I was wondering—when you left the bookstore, it looked like you hadn't bought anything."

Right. The bookstore. The one she had left in a hurry without purchasing what she had come for. Hinami's gift would have to wait a little while longer; she can only hope it's not too long.

"Yeah," she huffs, leveling him a stare. "Because you walked into me, dumbass."

He blinks, almost as if he hadn't been expecting the insult. Then, he gives her a nervous chuckle as he sets the used towelette aside and reaches for a pair of scissors to cut the bandages with. "Were you looking for something in particular...?"

She was looking for something in particular. She had also felt hopelessly lost in the store, surrounded by shelves full of incomprehensible books she felt no desire to look at. There is no love lost between her and literature.

The same cannot be said of Crush Boy, judging by the bookshelves right next to the bed.

"The Black Goat's... Egg," she hesitantly replies. And that sounds about right, if she ignores the logistic nightmare of a goat having an egg. A moment after the title has left her mouth, though, she finds herself shaking her head and wanting to take the words back. "No, actually, just—"

She's cut off.

"—N-No way...!" he exclaims, wrapping the fresh bandages around her arm more tightly than is strictly necessary. She doesn't know what to make of his reaction. "You're a fan of Takatsuki Sen's work?!"

"... Sure," she lies. It's better than admitting the truth, just in case. "You know of him?"

"Her," he's quick to correct, before carrying on without missing a beat. "She's my favorite novelist! I... um... I didn't know you were a fan of mystery novels, too, Kirishima-san."

Neither did she.

These are the things she will put up with for Hinami's sake.

"Ah... yeah," she says, watching him finish wrapping her wound. He's babbling, with vigor she didn't know he was capable of, and she's only listening halfway. She could actually care less about this Takatsuki Sen person and how young she was when she began her career as a novelist, but Crush Boy seems to care an awful lot. A little too much, if you ask her.

But nobody's asking.

"Are you done?" she asks, cutting him off as he begins to explain the plot of The Black Goat's Egg. As interesting as it is to learn about Hinami's taste in novels, she has more pressing matters to attend to. Namely—getting out of here.

"Oh... Yeah," he responds, eyes darting back and forth between her face and his work. He must have not expected being cut off so suddenly. "It looks like I am."

Good.

"Then... we're done here," she says, pulling the sleeve of her shirt down. She makes a point of avoiding his gaze as she reaches for her jacket. Cutting things off abruptly is the only way to go. If she stays here any longer, (she) he might get attached.

She feels him stand up as she slips her jacket on. She's letting him down easily. This is what they agreed on. It's for his own good.

"Wait," he begins. She doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to think about how gullible he is and the CCG brochure on his table.

"You said you'd fuck off," she tells him. "Didn't you? We're done here."

She ignores the look on Kaneki's (Crush Boy's) face as she leaves.

If he knows what's good for him, he'll give up on this.

(He doesn't.)

"Here," Irimi says during her next shift, casually holding a thick and rectangular package out to her. Touka gingerly takes it in her hand, brows knit in confusion as she searches the wrapping for some kind of note but finds none.

Suspicious.

"What is it?" she asks, trying to remove one of the pieces of tape holding the thing together with her fingernail. There is another question hidden behind her words. Mostly, the question of who left it here.

But her co-worker simply shakes her head at her, shrugging her shoulders as she returns to her duty of polishing a ceramic cup. "I don't know. A human customer dropped it off," she says. There is a glint in her eyes. "Maybe you have an admirer, Touka."

The paper wrapping comes off with a satisfying rip as she gives up on carefully removing the tape and gives in to the urge to destroy the wrapping. Beneath, she finds The Black Goat's Egg staring back at her.

"No," she breathes, "I don't."

That idiot.