Kaneki found her in an alley. At first he thought she was leaning over a big trash bag full of garbage and he was curious. She smelled…fantastic.
Before he could get closer and inhale, the bag of garbage moaned and moved and he realized that the girl wasn't digging through the trash, she was biting a street person on the neck!
But it was different from ghoul feeding, she wasn't eating her, just drinking her blood. Hell was he in a vampire novel now?
He realized with a start that he recognized this girl—from his time as a human! It was Kuri!
So why was she here, and a ghoul…or vampire…whatever.
But that meant she was a human, like him. He had to stop her. Kaneki placed his hand on her head. "Stop," He whispered.
With inhuman quickness, Kuri whirled around. The human fell to the ground, but Kuri kept hold of one of her dirty wrists. Teeth bared and eyes glowing a very creepy red she hissed at Kaneki.
He leaned down, whispering conspiratorially, "It's me. You can turn off the hissing crap. Plus, it's a ridiculous cliché."
She didn't say anything for a second, and Kaneki had the horrible thought that she might have somehow deteriorated to a point where she was actually like the other ones he had seen in Kano's lab—bestial and unreachable. His stomach gave a painful flip, but Kaneki met her red eyes and rolled his. "Cmon. I know you smell me. Stop playing coy."
Kuri frowned, which was actually an improvement, because then her lips covered her teeth. "Go away, Ken," she said. Her voice was cold and flat, making what used to be sweet sound like rough white trash, but she'd said Kaneki's name, which was all the encouragement he needed.
"I'm not going anywhere until we talk. So let go of that person—, she's a person —and let's talk."
"If you want to talk you'll have to wait till I'm done eating." Kuri cocked her head to the side in a movement that looked insectile. "Don't I remember that you took a bite of some of those grunts at the lab? Looks like you have a taste for blood your own self. Want to join me in a bite?" She smiled and licked her teeth.
"Hell no! And for your information those are ghouls. That's a human. So, no. I do not want to bite that human." Kaneki gave the poor, wide-eyed, matted-hair woman a weak smile. "I'm really sorry about all this, ma'am."
"Nice way to justify yourself, hypocrite. More for me." Kuri began to bend back over the woman's throat.
"Stop it!"
She looked over her shoulder at him. "Like I said, go away, Ken. You don't belong here."
"Neither do you," Kaneki said.
"That's just one of the many things you're wrong about."
When she turned back to the woman, who was now crying and repeating "please, oh please" over and over, Kaneki took a couple of steps forward and cracked his knuckles. "I said let her go."
Kuri's answer was to hiss and open her mouth to chomp the woman's neck. Kaneki closed his eyes and quickly centered himself.
His next movement was so fast that Kuri was on the ground looking up at him before the human could scream. The human woman scurried away.
"You're getting good at that."
Kaneki turned back to Kuri. She was watching him with an obviously leery expression, as if she thought he was going to eat her like he had done to her companion in the lab.
Kaneki shrugged. "I've been training. It's really just concentration and control. You'd know that if you'd been training, too."
A flash of pain crossed Kuri's gaunt face so quickly that Kaneki wondered if he'd really seen or just imagined it. "That life has nothing to do with me now."
"That's bullshit, Kuri. You are the most agile and fast girl I've ever had the pleasure of fighting. You were before you died, or whatever," Kaneki faltered over how awkward it was to be talking to undead dead Kuri about being dead. "That kind of thing just doesn't go away. Plus, remember the tunnels? You fought me then.."
Kuri shook her head and her curls, the ones that weren't all matted and dirty, bounced, reminding him of how she used to look. "It's gone. Whatever I once had died with the part of me that was human. You need to accept it and move on. I have."
"I'll never accept it. You're my girlfriend. I'm not going to move on."
Suddenly Kuri hissed a nasty, feral sound, and her eyes blazed blood red. "Do I look like your girlfriend?"
Kaneki ignored the way his heart was beating around inside his chest. She was right. What she had become was absolutely not like the Kuri he'd known. But he wouldn't believe that she was all the way gone. Kaneki had seen glimpses of the real Kuri in the tunnels and that meant he couldn't give up on her. Kaneki felt like crying, but instead he pulled himself together and forced his voice to sound normal.
"Well, hell no, you don't look like Kuri. How long has it been since you've read a book? Or bathed?" Kaneki pointed at the sweat pants and oversized shirt that were covered by a long, nastily stained black trench coat. "I wouldn't look like me if I was dressed like that either." Kaneki sighed and took a couple steps closer to her. "Why don't you just come with me? I'll sneak you into my apartment. It'll be easy—practically no one's in the building. Kano's not there," Kaneki added, and then hurried, doubting she wanted to talk about Kano. "Most people are on winter break. Absolutely nothing is going on. We won't even be bothered by the people at Anteiku 'cause they're pissed at me. So you can take a long, soapy shower, and I'll get you some real clothes, then we can talk." Kaneki was looking into her eyes, so he saw the longing that filled them. It lasted only an instant, but he knew it had been there. Then she looked quickly away.
"I can't come with you. I have to feed."
"That's no problem. I'll get you something to eat from Anteiku. Hey, I'll bet I can find you some coffee," Kaneki smiled. "I've learned to do it correctly."
Kuri snorted. "Like that'll every happen, klutz."
Kaneki's smiled widened into a relieved grin as Kuri took up the thread of their old argument about what constituted as a "real" cup of coffee. "Hey! I've really gotten better, I swear."
Kuri's eyes met his. Hers weren't glowing red anymore, and she also wasn't trying to hide the tears that were filling them and flowing down her cheeks. Kaneki automatically moved to hug her, but she stepped back.
"No! I don't want you to touch me, Ken. I'm not who I was. I'm dirty and disgusting."
"Then come back to the apartment with me and wash up!" Kaneki pleaded. "We'll figure this out—I promise."
Kuri shook her head sadly and wiped at her eyes. "There's no figuring this out. When I said that I'm dirty and disgusting I didn't mean on the outside. What you see on the outside of me isn't half as nasty as what I'm really like on the inside. Ken, I have to feed. That's not eating Yoshimura's packaged flesh or drinking coffee. I have to have blood. Human blood. If I don't—" She paused and Kaneki saw a terrible shudder move through her body. "If I don't, the pain is a gnawing, burning hunger that I can't stand. And you need to understand that I want to feed. I want to tear open human throats and drink that warm blood so filled with terror and anger and pain that it makes me dizzy." Kuri paused again, this time breathing heavily.
"You can't really want to kill people, Kuri."
"You're wrong. I do."
"You say that, but I know there are still parts of my girlfriend inside you, and Kuri wouldn't be comfortable spanking a puppy, let alone killing someone." Kaneki hurried on when she opened her mouth to disagree with me. "What if I can get you human blood so that you don't have to kill anyone?"
In that horrid emotionless tone she said, "I like the kill."
"Do you also like to be filthy and smelly and disgusting-looking?" Kaneki snapped.
"I don't care about how I look anymore."
"Really? What if I said I could get you a nice soft art shirt and some splatter paint leggings?" Kaneki saw the flicker in her eyes and knew he'd managed to touch the old Kuri. His mind rushed around, trying to come up with the right thing to say while he still had some piece of her listening. "So here's the deal. Meet me tomorrow at midnight—no, wait. Tomorrow's Saturday. No way things will be settled down enough by midnight for me to sneak out. So make it three A.M. at the gazebo in the park." Kaneki paused for a second to grin at her. "You remember the place, right?" Of course he knew she definitely remembered where he meant. She'd been there with him before, only that night she'd been trying to save him, and not the other way around.
"Yes. I remember." She clipped the word in that same cold, flat voice.
"Okay, so meet me there. I'll have your outfit with me and I'll also have blood. You can eat, or drink, or whatever, and change your clothes. Then we can start to figure this out." Kaneki added to himself that he'd also have soap and shampoo and some water so the girl could wash up. She smelled way too good with her scent concentrated like that. "Okay?"
"There's really no point."
"Can you please let me decide that for myself? Plus, I haven't told you the horrors of the newest book by Takatsuki. There's a serial killer in it, and I want you to recommend it to all your customers."
A laugh burst out of Kuri that sounded so much like her old self that Kaneki's vision got all blurry with the tears he had to frantically blink away.
"Please come," Kaneki said, his voice rough with emotions. "I've missed you so much."
"I'll come," Kuri said. "But you'll be sorry."