author's note;
03/27/15 — Well. TGA sure did happen. After all that heartbreak, I think we all need an extra helping of Kaneki and Hide being happy and safe, even if the timing is completely accidental. Cries.

(As always, you can all thank insomniacClarinetist for being an excellent beta! Her variations of "oh shit" and "oh Hide" were greatly appreciated.)

( INTERMISSION )

— left eye —

Kaneki Ken's alarm rings at 6:30 AM on the dot.

He groggily hits the snooze button at least five times from 6:30 AM until 6:50 AM. When he finally manages to slowly and painfully drag himself out of bed, he does not stand up so much as slide off his bed, pulling one of his sheets along with him as his apartment's heating system does little to ward off the morning chill. He thinks his left eyelid may be glued shut by dried sleep gunk, but—eh. He's half asleep as it is. He barely even registers the loss of vision until he reaches the bathroom, fumbling around for the light switch and shivering as the ceiling lamp turns on. His left eye suddenly stings.

He goes on about his morning routine as he normally would. The problem with his eye is quickly resolved as he splashes cold water on his face and furiously rubs at it. He then shuts the bathroom door, turns on the shower, and braces himself for what will most certainly be a painful experience. Cold showers are anything but pleasant, but unfortunately for him, giving in to the urge to turn up the heat as far as it goes will only make him want to crawl back into bed even more.

It's not something he can afford to do, with two classes waiting for him. It would probably be too much to hope that one (or both) of his professors is absent today.

Twenty minutes later, he steps out of the bathroom, pulls on a pair of briefs, and drops his sheet on his bed before moving on to his small kitchen. Ingredients, bowls, skillets—and the stove is turned on and so is his coffee maker. Risking a caffeine addiction is preferable to falling asleep in the middle of class, so he has no trouble with grabbing the largest cup he owns and dumping gratuitous amounts of cream and sugar in it. Anything to make it through the day, he supposes.

His breakfast is finished and ready to be consumed by 7:26 AM. He makes his way to the small table in his apartment, placing the coffee cup on the edge of it as he slowly pushes aside the miniature mountain of magazines and brochures, careful not to allow the table to wobble enough to spill his coffee. Once there's enough space for him to set down his plate, he does so, lowering himself in front of the table and adopting agura. From the corner of his eyes, he spots the TV remote next to the pile he has just pushed aside, laying on top of a CCG brochure he doesn't quite remember acquiring.

(He remembers where, how and why he acquired it in the not-so-distant future.

But that's a story for another day.)

When he reaches over and turns on the TV, there is a sobbing woman on-screen and a news reporter asking questions about a family member. He only manages to catch the very end of the interview.

His first assumption is murder; his second is that maybe this is yet another missing person case, what with how many other random disappearances he's seen in the news lately. He doesn't know. As long as it isn't happening to someone close to him, he can ignore it. Many human beings are like that, whether they realize it or not. The thought comes and goes quickly, subconscious as all realizations of its type are.

Once he's done with breakfast, he tosses the dirty dishes into the sink and hurries to get dressed. The TV set is left on until he's about to leave, abruptly turned off midway through an announcement about a gourmet. He doesn't have enough time to wonder about it.

After getting out of his first class, Hide greets him in his usual, overly-enthusiastic way. It's almost as if his best friend hasn't seen him in many, many years.

(In fact, the last time Nagachika Hideyoshi spoke to Kaneki Ken was the previous night. They had a riveting discussion about homework, ghouls, and the prospect of Kaneki getting gobbled up by the latter.

"You could be next," Hide had teased him over the phone, doing his best impression of a nameless horror movie narrator. "Maybe we'll see your name on the news — can you picture it? Kaneki Ken, age 18. Caught off-guard while worrying over his own delusions... Scary, isn't it?"

Naturally, Kaneki had been less than amused. "Ha ha," he had responded with a sound so forced and stale, it couldn't even be considered a laugh. "Terrifying, Hide... I'm petrified.")

"You know," Hide pipes up, halfway through annihilating a breakfast sandwich from the cafeteria. Kaneki supposes that to Hide, maybe, if certain items from the cafeteria aren't consumed fast enough, they'll grow legs and crawl out of their plate. "I was told to get a DVD of last year's festival from Nishio-senpai."

"Told...?" Kaneki repeats, pausing halfway through bringing a cup of juice up to his lips. "You mean to say you haven't done that yet?"

"Nope," Hide easily answers with a shrug of his shoulders, carelessly giving Kaneki a close and personal view of the contents of his mouth. He's going to have nightmares about the sight for weeks to come.

"Hide," Kaneki begins, glancing away and avoiding looking too closely at the grotesque mix of saliva, bread and who knows what else. "Could it be... That you're shrinking your duties?"

"Maybe," Hide tells him, and then, "Or maybe I wanted to hang out with my best friend in the whole wide world first."

He thinks he's touched. Sort of. Just a tad bit. Or, more accurately, a whole lot. Kaneki opens his mouth to react to that sentiment, but he doesn't get to do so. Hide quickly adds something else.

"Haha—just kidding! I was hungry and wanted to grab a bite first. Bumping into you was a coincidence," he explains with a melodramatic sigh. "It's not my fault you're so hopelessly attached to me... I've been trying to shake you off since grade school!"

"Hide!"

It says a lot about their friendship, he thinks, that he's certain from the bottom of his heart that Hide doesn't mean a word of it.

It also says a lot when true to Hide's terribly unflattering description of him, he tags along with him when he goes to fetch the DVD from their upperclassman.

"Is he an International Studies student, too...?" he finds himself asking, as they make their way across campus, stomachs happy and full.

"Hmm...?" Hide hums, leading the way and navigating through hallways and stairs in the Natural Sciences building like he knows them by memory. "Ah — no. He's a student of the Pharmacy Department."

"Oh," Kaneki responds, eloquently, and thinks of nothing else to say along the way.

When they reach a certain door, Kaneki straightens his posture in anticipation, waiting for Hide to knock like any other normal human being would.

Honestly, he should have known better.

"Excuse me!" Hide chirps, opening the door without preamble. "I'm coming in!"

Well—they don't spot their senpai immediately, but they do spot someone else. A young woman, in fact, with short brown hair and a pretty face, halfway through fixing up her horribly rumpled skirt. Her shirt is on the desk behind her, Kaneki notes, and her exposed breasts are very, very nice.

His body reacts before any of them have a chance to properly parse what they're seeing. A warm sensation spreads through his body, burning his neck, cheeks, and ears. He shamefully chokes on his own saliva around the same time the poor girl opens her mouth and screams bloody murder. Great.

It's a miracle that their senpai, who emerges from a corner of the room seconds after with a similarly rumpled appearance, doesn't kick them out. Not knocking on a door is already a capital offense; walking in on someone's half-dressed girlfriend (well, Kaneki can only assume) seems even worse.

They get away with what amounts to a tongue-lashing, Hide nervously apologizing for his impoliteness while the smell of coffee hangs in the air. Nishio's girlfriend takes advantage of Hide's nervous babbling, slipping on the rest of her clothing before darting out of the room, barefooted and shamefaced. Kaneki seems to be on a roll lately, leaving the worst impressions on the people he meets. Being thought of as a shithead (among other, more colorful, adjectives) is bad enough. Now he can add pervert to that unfortunate list.

"Next time," he slowly tells Hide, about half an hour later. "Please knock." The words come out of his mouth with a bit of a fuss, kicking and screaming and slipping through his teeth like a thick and unsavory concoction. It might just be him trying not to think about the first pair of breasts he's seen since—well, ever.

"I will," Hide promises, scratching his cheek and looking appropriately abashed. He carries the green DVD case like the spoils of war, close to his chest in a white-knuckled grip. "You don't have to tell me twice."

Well, no. He doesn't even have to tell him once. Their upperclassman did a pretty good job of articulating the importance of knocking on doors and not walking in on half-dressed ladies, but Kaneki feels the need to point it out. If Hide gets to mortify him over pretty waitresses that are way out of his league, then the least Kaneki can do is mortify him over his manners. Or, rather, his lack thereof.

(Of course, Kirishima Touka isn't merely out of his league; Kaneki is pretty sure she downright hates his guts. He can only assume she has spent the last couple of days wishing him ill, after he ignored their agreement and went ahead and gifted her Takatsuki's book. He thought it was the least he could do; a parting gift-cum-apology for crashing into her and aggravating that injury on her arm. Obviously, that wasn't the way she saw it, and now he's left to wonder just how much of a screw up he is. Maybe he was too forward, or maybe she felt like he was harassing her in some way or another.

He can only imagine what opinion she has of him now, but he's sure it isn't favorable. After all, you'd have to be pretty bothered by a gift in order to go far enough to pay the person back.

Part of him, deep inside, is glad she didn't return the book itself.

Another part of him bars him from touching the money she had forced on him. The coins feel contaminated, somehow.)

When he had hoped one of his professors was absent today, he didn't expect it to actually happen.

After he reaches his Asian History classroom with Hide, they're both greeted with a note on the door. Today, the note unceremoniously announces, stating the date and the hour of their course, Professor Sato will not be gathering the class. Please sign the attendance sheet in the office and study chapters 4 and 5.

That would have been nice to know earlier, but he mustn't be choosy. A free period is a free period, after all, and even if he ends up exchanging astonished glances with Hide (Sato-sensei is never absent), it gives him a teeny bit more freedom than he had moments before. It isn't very long before a wide grin appears on Hide's face and he's shoving both of his hands in his pockets.

"Let's grab lunch," his best friend suggests.

It's an awful suggestion. It hasn't been that long since they visited the cafeteria together. Kaneki tries to point this out. "Hide, didn't we just—?"

He doesn't get to.

"C'mon," Hide interjects, grabbing Kaneki by the strap of his book bag this time, "You know you want to, Kaneki."

Well, no. He doesn't. He feels pretty sated as it is, thank you very much, but Hide isn't taking no for an answer. Being the dutiful friend he is, Kaneki resigns himself to his fate with a sigh and a shuffle of his feet.

It's not long before they're outside of Kamii's campus, aimlessly roaming the streets of Nerima after having signed the attendance sheet.

"Where to?" Hide asks him. Kaneki thinks it's a bit of a weird question. Hide is leading the way, after all.

"Well... uhm..." he begins to answer, anyway, following Hide down the sidewalk. "What about Big Girl?"

Getting catered to by cute girls is something he sorely needs right now. It might just be the elixir to his dilemmas, some of which are shaped like the breasts of Nishio Nishiki's girlfriend and some of which are shaped like a vitriolic Kirishima Touka.

"Really? Big Girl?" Hide responds, sounding somewhat surprised as he glances back at him. "Not Anteiku?"

Kaneki shoots him a look, one that seems to say no in a multitude of different ways. Some of these ways are not to be mentioned in polite conversation.

"Fine, fine," Hide says, a little too quickly. "I get it. Gave up on Touka-chan, then?"

Kaneki can't bring himself to respond. It's not that he gave up. It's more that Kirishima has no interest in him and has made this fact crystal clear. He would not be a very good person if he continued to pine after her, as much as he wants to. His mother taught him better than that, he thinks. Don't hurt others, don't make them uncomfortable, and don't make them feel bad. It's always better to be the one who gets the short end of the stick.

Normally, this is the point where he expects Hide to make some sort of comment. Knowing him for as long as he has, maybe something about Kaneki's refusal to go after Kirishima any longer is equating permission for Hide to court her instead—but Hide remains surprisingly quiet.

(It's not very surprising once he thinks about it.

Hide has always been more tactful when it really comes down to it. He's more observant than Kaneki is; more people orientated. It's just another trait to admire in his best friend.)

Kaneki continues to follow him, not quite all there, and not quite capable of thinking of directions and twists and turns. By the time he begins to pay attention to where they're going, he realizes Hide has taken one of the longer routes to Big Girl. This one involves walking right past Anteiku.

(If Kirishima-san sees you, something inside him says, she's going to hate you even more.)

Kirishima sees him, alright. He sees her, as well.

A momentary glance is more than enough for him to take in all of her, his eyes wide and his mouth open, gaping at her like an idiot. He sees her slender waist and her soft looking legs, takes note of her cerise lips and cute face—and soaks it all up when they make eye-contact. It's probably wishful thinking when he imagines, very briefly, that she looks just as surprised as he is. He immediately remembers what sparked his interest in her.

The crowd sucks him up a moment later, Hide giving him the strangest of looks. If Kaneki didn't know better, he'd think Hide did this on purpose.

"C'mon, Romeo," Hide says, almost quietly. "No more ogling Juliet."

Kaneki blinks, feeling a little lost. He recovers rather quickly. "Romeo and Juliet," he points out, "is a tragedy, Hide."

"Is it?" Hide asks, as if he didn't know that. "Hikoboshi, then."

Whether it's Romeo and Juliet or Hikoboshi and Orihime, the results are very much the same. He has no idea why Hide even bothers to make the comparison, when he can't even imagine confessing his feelings to Kirishima, and much less being something as dramatic as star-crossed lovers with her. His best friend, he thinks, needs to get back in touch with reality. Maybe redirect his interests towards something less mortifying.

Well, it won't matter for very long. His crush on Kirishima will be a thing of the past soon enough.

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He spots her again several days later.

Kaneki is on one side of the street, absentmindedly making his way home after a long day at Kamii. His umbrella is open to shield him from the sudden, light rain, but the occasional drop still makes its way through. Sayoshigure, he finds himself thinking, briefly reminded of Takatsuki Sen's work. His mind then drifts to other inconsequential things, until he spares a curious glance across the street.

Kirishima Touka is on the opposing sidewalk, clutching the hand of a younger-looking girl as they both follow a white haired man eastbound. Kaneki finds himself frowning about the same time he sees Kirishima throw a glance behind her, her lips pressed into a fine line and her expression grim. It's odd, but—

His view is suddenly blocked by an attractive, impeccably dressed man who nearly tramples him. It's no surprise, with the difference in their heights and builds. Apologies are exchanged, awkward pleasantries are said, and the man compliments Kaneki's eyes of all things.

When Kaneki manages to politely pull away, Kirishima is gone.