Hide jerked upright, then immediately regretted it as pain lanced through his stomach and spiked up into his chest. He threw himself back, wrapping his arms around his middle as he hissed and groaned.

And then he saw the figure sitting at the edge of the couch, her back to him, unmoved by his outburst.

Touka turned her head at his silence, but not enough for him to see her face. "Hey," she said.

"Kaneki," Hide said, a hard edge in his voice.

Touka turned her head again, this time away, and Hide followed the motion until his eyes landed on Kaneki, asleep on the couch across from them.

Hide felt himself relax into the couch but couldn't help but wonder—

"Why?"

Touka looked down at her hands and said, "Ask him when he wakes up."

Hide lapsed into shocked silence.

He settled back on the couch, lacing his hands together behind his head and looking at the ceiling as he said, "This isn't like you, Touka. I thought you hated me."

His eyes widened slightly when he thought he heard her huff. "Don't misunderstand me, I still think you're too much of a wild card, but... I'm tired," she admitted, picking at her nails. "I'm really, really, tired right now. You can forget this ever happened after I leave."

Hide fell silent again.

"We're going somewhere tomorrow. Just you and me. The manager wants me to take you to get a mask as soon as possible. A few lost doves have been sniffing around, poking their noses into our business. It'll be annoying, but it's gotta be done, you know?"

Hide glanced at her back. Her head was still down. "I have class tomorrow."

Touka didn't respond.

"Don't you have school tomorrow?"

"I was gonna skip," she said. "But, fine, Saturday then? It's my day off."

"I don't have Saturday off," he reminded her, a little petulant.

"And I'm your supervisor," she said, making that huffing sound again. "I'm the one who's in charge of your schedule because it has to match mine, half-ass. The only reason you're working Saturday is because Enji called out, but he can stuff it and bring his lazy ass to work."

"Don't think I've met Enji yet," Hide said, looking at the ceiling again.

"He was the Devil Ape. He was a big shot back in the day. If your folks were ever sent to the 20th they'd have met him, but now he's chill. Lazy, sometimes, but not a bad guy."

"I wouldn't know if they were."

"Right," Touka said. "What you asked me before—in that alley. Do you really intend to become a kakuja?"

Hide blinked. "I heard about the One-Eyed Owl. I didn't hear that much about ghouls from my folks but that attack shook up everyone in the CCG. I know you said that's not what being a ghoul is, but let's be real. If the One-Eyed Owl attacked the café right now, could you win, Touka?"

"The chances of that happening—"

"If you had to fight Rize when she was alive, one on one, could you win?"

Touka didn't answer.

"It's not all about becoming strong," Hide continued, carefully considering his words, "It's also about being able to defend myself from ghouls like that. I get your side, I do, but you can't deny that there are ghouls out there that won't follow old man—the manager. Or they want to see this place destroyed. I want to eat ghouls as much as you want to kill people, but I know that—"

I'm not enough. You're not enough. Even old man Yoshimura isn't enough.

"It's not about ghouls or humans. It's that I don't want to die like Rize did," he finally said.

"You call me out, but you're acting different too. You haven't told a joke or flirted with me once," Touka said back. "For a second there, I forgot you'd ever been human at all."

Hide said nothing, and only looked at her back. It wasn't on purpose, him not acting like Nagachika.

He thought he had been.

Touka looked up, but not at him. "That why you were chowing down on that dumbass Nishiki?"

"No, that was so I didn't eat Kaneki."

Touka was silent for a few seconds, and then she asked, "Was it because of me that Nishiki went after you?"

Hide paused, then unfolded his hands, because his fingers were starting to ache. He looked at his bandaged hand and said, "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Your friend—the manager questioned him, of course, but something he said stuck with me. He said that it was like Nishiki had smelled something, and he didn't think anything of it at first, but he remembered it later. It was me or Rize," she explained, and he couldn't read anything in her tone.

Not anger, or guilt, nothing.

"It's no big deal," Hide told her like he didn't care, still staring at his fingers. "Seriously, I'm fine. You didn't kill Kaneki and I doubt Nishiki will mess with me again, so it's okay."

Touka held the edge of the couch and leaned back. "You're not normal, you know?"

Hide shrugged and said, "I got him back, so."

Touka leaned back further. "I didn't mean that you should hold it against him."

Hide glanced at her.

"I've been nothing but a jerk to you this entire time. Why are you even talking to me right now? Why did you ask me to put you out of your misery if you lose it? Why do you think I can after everything you said?"

"Ah. I did say that didn't I?" Hide asked nervously, scratching his cheek.

"It's way too late to play the funny guy," she said bluntly. "Just tell me. It's been eating me up inside."

Hide looked at the ceiling again and dropped his hand. "Okay, here's the truth. I trust you. I know it sounds insane, but I've trusted you from the moment we met, even if I didn't act like it."

Touka was silent for a while, and then she stood and said, "You don't make any sense at all," and strode out of the room.

Hide didn't look away from the ceiling, listening to her go downstairs. It must've been later than he thought it was, because he didn't hear anyone else.

After a minute and a half, Kaneki sat up, the blanket sliding off him. Hide blinked at him, and he looked sheepish. He only had one long, scrunched up sleeve, the other having been cut off to wrap his arm in a thick bandage.

"Very sneaky, Kaneki."

"I wasn't listening in on purpose," he said. He wordlessly got up, came over to his couch, and waited until he got the hint and pulled his feet up to sit. "You and her weren't trying to be quiet. You woke me up."

Hide studied him. "You saw me. Really saw me."

Kaneki stood suddenly, pulled out a book from a shelf above the flat screen TV, and came back. He crossed his legs and opened the book in his lap before he said, "I did."

Hide sat up slowly, holding his stomach. "It made you puke."

Kaneki nodded, turning a page.

Hide went quiet, having nothing else to say. He glanced at the book.

"Kitchen," Kaneki answered his unspoken question. "It's not what I'd usually read but... it's interesting. A lot more than I thought it'd be."

Hide looked back at him. "Why didn't Touka kill you?"

Kaneki paused, meeting his gaze. He quickly looked away. "I don't know how to say it without sounding like a complete freak."

"You watched me eat someone."

Kaneki looked at the table between the couches, and then the bookshelf. "I hugged her."

Hide leaned back, sent reeling.

"It wasn't like with Nishiki. I thought—I really thought I was going to die. But with her, after you protected me, I looked at her, and I didn't have the same feeling. Her eyes looked sad. It was like she was crying as she looked at me, but there were never any tears. Weird, right?"

Hide stared at him.

"I didn't think about myself at all. I just thought that she looked like someone who really, really needed a hug, and my feet just moved. I can't explain it better than that."

"You weren't scared?"

Kaneki reached over, took the pillow Hide had been laying on, and then buried his face in it. "I think she's scarier when she looks normal than when she looks like that. Her demeanor changes. It's like she means her glare when her eyes aren't red," he said, deeply muffled.

Hide sat there for a few seconds, completely thrown off. He leaned forward, threw his good arm around Kaneki's shoulder, and pulled him in close.

Kaneki peeked at him.

"You're a complete weirdo, you know that?"

Kaneki buried his face back in the pillow and wouldn't come out, no matter how much Hide shook him.

Hide nudged the door closed with his heel as he slipped out of his backpack. He dropped it to the floor, turned the lock, and slumped against the wall.

And then he slid down it, wondering how Nagachika did this college thing every day.

He was a freshman, and while that was all well and good, no one had thought to tell him that it was the end of the term.

He'd received too many lectures about the likelihood of him moving up to count. If he'd been a normal student, he'd be toast. So dead he'd be undead. Kaneki's warnings about his attendance suddenly made sense.

Well, more sense.

And what Kaneki had said about meeting up with people before class?

He was cramming.

Hide's head thumped back against the wall.

He only stood a chance because Nagachika had revolved his schedule around knocking out three of his required English language courses in one go. It was harder, he'd been told at least twice, than if he'd taken them later after he'd learned the fundamentals, and that was what made his chances of catching up so small.

The only problem there was that if he scored too high, they might think he was cheating.

It was the literature class he shared with Kaneki that made him want to drop out.

It took looking at a study topics sheet that made him realize what it really meant to be missing a term's worth of knowledge. If he hadn't been borrowing it, he would've torn it up right then and there.

Or cried on it.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He groaned but dug it out, leaning his arm on his knee as he clicked the notification and opened the festival committee group chat.

He'd only learned they had one that morning when Nishiki pinged everyone and said that he'd caught a stomach bug and not to expect him to be on campus for a few days to a week.

He hadn't come back online after that.

Hide had been pinged nonstop since one of the other members caught him lurking and the questions had only slowed down after he'd posted a picture of himself to prove that he was alive, and then his bandaged hand and said he'd been in an accident.

Hide scrolled down, skimming past the new posts about a few members meeting up, and thought about what Nishiki had told him the day before about everyone pestering him about where he'd been.

Nagachika was...

He didn't know. Scarily smart seemed too soft of a description. Manipulative was closer, but not quite right.

To the committee, Nagachika was the funny guy, the loud underclassman, the one people were sometimes annoyed by, but they all noticed the silence when he was gone.

They asked after him. They tried to find help to find him.

If he'd really gone missing, it wouldn't be something that ghouls could keep quiet.

It'd be a lightning rod of attention for the CCG.

And Nagachika didn't even think of them as his friends.

Hide looked at the pair of green sneakers hanging over the arm of the couch for a long moment, then back at the phone.

He'd been privately messaging a few of the members that Nagachika seemed to have been the friendliest with, asking them if they knew Nishiki's address and giving them all variations of the same excuse that Nishiki had files he was holding for him and he desperately needed them if he was going to pass but hadn't heard from him and couldn't wait.

He called it the 'Kaneki' method.

It had only been a few hours since he sent them, but some guy named Soseki had told him he'd look out for it while organizing committee receipts an hour ago.

Hide checked the others, but they hadn't even been read.

He stood, taking his backpack with him to the kitchen. He put it on the counter, unzipped it, and pulled out a squishy brown package that he immediately put in the fridge.

Probably the only benefit to being the 'wild card' was that old man Yoshimura hadn't questioned him when he'd stopped by Anteiku to ask for another package. He'd just given him that kindly smile and told him that if he wanted more he'd have to talk to Yomo when he was in about picking up a few night shifts.

Which he wasn't supposed to know meant body collecting.

Hide glanced over the sad, empty state of his fridge and sighed, because he'd have to budget for groceries now too, wouldn't he?

Two brown packages, an expired orange juice carton, and some leftover soda screamed ghoul.

He pulled out the older, cold package before he closed the fridge, put it in the sink as he unwrapped it, and absently grabbed a knife from a drawer.

It was a square, and two days ago it had been a rectangle.

He'd lost it a little coming back from Anteiku and had left teeth marks in the meat, but the cold had helped, making that hungry part of himself—it had made him unhappy, expecting something warm and fresh and instead tasting something cold and stale.

Anteiku had fed him nothing but blood-dosed coffee, but he wasn't used to relying on it.

Hide cut off a mug sized square of raw meat, trying not to think about what he was doing and failing. The bandage around his hand made his handling of the knife stiff, and he still couldn't fully clench his hand.

He wasn't eating because he was hungry, but because he needed to heal.

Because he hadn't met Tsukiyama yet.

He didn't want to meet the gourmet, but he didn't want to be underprepared either. So, he'd eat.

Even if, for the third day in a row he couldn't stop himself from thinking that human meat should be tougher to cut into. It shouldn't feel as easy as slicing carrots, but it did. It should resist his knife.

But it didn't.

Hide left the rest of the square and knife in the sink as he refolded the package and tossed it back onto the middle shelf of the fridge. He took the cut square with him as he went around the couch and considered Nagachika.

̶"̶Y̶o̶,̶"̶ Nagachika said without opening his eyes.

Hide took a bite of the square, knowing his eye was red even if he couldn't feel it.

And that's what made it so dangerous for him, didn't it, that he wouldn't know it happened until it already did.

He covered his left eye with his hand, still not too concerned, because he was more thinking about what to say. How to confront what Nagachika had said in the alley.

He plopped down, turning his back to the couch.

Nagachika breathed out a loud sigh, shifting up behind him.

"You're the only one who didn't get a happy ending," Hide finally said.

Nagachika patted his shoulder and said, ̶"̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶a̶l̶r̶e̶a̶d̶y̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶—̶?̶"̶

"No, I mean, after all you did for Kaneki, and for everybody, you end up alone. But you still don't see how messed up that is, or was—" Hide slumped down, taking another bite, unsure where he was going with this. "I still want to be pissed, but you just make me sad."

̶"̶I̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶,̶"̶ Nagachika said with a shrug. ̶"̶I̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶r̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶.̶ ̶O̶r̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶.̶ ̶W̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶?̶ ̶L̶o̶o̶k̶,̶ ̶o̶k̶a̶y̶,̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶a̶w̶ ̶K̶a̶n̶e̶k̶i̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶y̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶I̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶e̶d̶.̶ ̶S̶o̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶?̶ ̶H̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶.̶"̶

Hide was silent. He thought about what Nagachika had done for that happiness, and what he might've done if Ken Kaneki had been fully on the side of ghouls. It was unsettling how easily he could see Nagachika burning human society to the ground.

"And Rize called me the empty person?"

It was Nagachika's turn to be silent. And then he leaned down, almost hanging off the couch as he asked, surprised, ̶"̶W̶a̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶u̶p̶.̶ ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶a̶w̶ ̶K̶a̶m̶i̶s̶h̶i̶r̶o̶?̶"̶

Hide licked juices off his hand and said, "Don't get excited. It was just me working through my feelings about being a ghoul."

̶"̶A̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶?̶"̶ he asked, sounding doubtful.

"No, but now I know what I've been doing," Hide said, eating the last piece. "So, I know it's not a great thing to say because of our situation, but I don't want to hurt Kaneki, or let him get hurt. I know it looks like all I've done is drag him into the same messes, but... Kaneki and normal don't go together. Distance didn't work. If I'd let someone else get steel beam'd, there would've been another Rize eventually, but not another Kano."

̶"̶A̶h̶h̶h̶!̶ ̶S̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶d̶o̶w̶n̶s̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶!̶ ̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶o̶l̶,̶ ̶d̶u̶d̶e̶,̶"̶ Nagachika complained, throwing himself back on the couch and covering his face with his arms. ̶"̶B̶u̶t̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶g̶o̶t̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶w̶e̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶.̶"̶

Hide looked back at him, but stopped, because Nagachika was grinning, even as a tear slid down towards his ear.

His phone buzzed and he took a quick look at the screen. Soseki had sent him a photo of an old, faded form that Nishiki had filled out. It had his name, birthday, and address.

Hide stood and awkwardly patted Nagachika's arm. "Nothing to say but sorry, Nagachika," he said, but Nagachika didn't move, so he went back to the kitchen, messaging Soseki a few times to tell him that he was a lifesaver and that he owed him big time.

Hide shoved the door to Anteiku open and made it a few steps inside before he had to stop against the wall and catch his breath.

"We're not open yet, which you'd know if you bothered reading the sign on the door—"

"I work here," Hide managed, his hands on his knees.

Irimi paused in the middle of wiping down a cup, her glance turning assessing as she looked him over and said, "Oh. The new hire? You're... not in uniform?"

"I just," he began between breaths, "came to drop something off."

He had limited time. He'd decided that, but still. He was supposed to meet Kaneki before class in—he glanced towards the windows where the sky was a deep, pre-dawn blue—two or so hours, and he had to try and find Nishiki before that.

"Touka and Yomo are off today, and Mr. Yoshimura isn't here," she said.

"It's not for them," he said, straightening. "Are Hinami and her mother here? Or coming by soon?"

Irimi looked at him for a long time, then went back to wiping the cup as she said, carefully, "Hinami is upstairs but—"

"Got it. Thanks!"

Hide strode past the counter and took the steps two at a time, hearing Irimi sigh deeply behind him. He walked quickly down the hallway, stopped in front of the closed door of the part meeting room, part living room, and knocked with the back of his knuckles.

He waited, taking his backpack off, and knocked again as he unzipped it.

He heard quiet shuffling inside as he pulled out the book he'd borrowed from Kaneki, and then the door opened. Hinami, rubbing her eyes and with a quilted blanket around her shoulders, peered up at him and froze.

Her eyes widened and she took a few quick steps back, pulling the quilt tighter around herself and hunching her shoulders.

"Hey," Hide said, loosely holding the book. He hadn't expected her to be afraid of him. But then they'd never properly met after he'd spilled coffee on her. He'd seen her around after that but...

Her eyes were red, like she hadn't slept much, or she'd been crying.

She shifted a little to the side like she'd been in the way, staring at the floor.

...for her to be here without her mother, well, he hadn't thought about it but that meant...

He remembered Touka telling him that there were more doves around, but he hadn't thought about why.

...didn't that mean her father was already dead?

It was like with Touka. Like at the hospital. Reality was suddenly too real.

Hinami looked away uncomfortably, tensing up more under his stare.

Hide's fingers pressed hard against the cover. The sense of grief was suffocating.

But what could he do about it, except get himself killed?

He'd decided this already, so why—

Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe?

Hide released a long breath and got down on his knees. He put his backpack down and held the book out with both hands, bowing his head. "I heard you liked books, so I borrowed one from a friend for you. Don't know if you'll like it, but he's big into Sen Takatsuki like you—"

He heard a little gasp, and then small fingers were pulling hesitantly on the other end of the book. He let her have it, smiling a little when he looked up and saw the wide-eyed, happy way she stared at the cover.

She jerked as he stood and hugged it to her chest, like he might try and take it from her, and he quietly scoffed.

"It's yours until you finish it," he said, scooping up his backpack. "You have a notepad, or paper in there?"

She hesitantly nodded, still squeezing the book.

"He told me it might be a little too advanced for you, so copy any words you don't know, and I'll see if I can help when I'm around, okay?"

Her eyes widened at him.

"Gotta head to class, so, see ya," Hide said, waving as he turned around.

"Wait!" she called after him, clearing her throat. "What—what's your name?"

"Hide," he answered, stopping on the top stair. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Twelve?"

"Oh," he said, blinking at her for a moment before he went down the stairs.

"How old did you think I was?" she asked, coming out into the hallway, but not any closer.

"Don't want to be late! Later, Hina!" he said back and kept walking.

At the bottom he nodded at Irimi as he went past.

"Later, Irimi."

Irimi shook her head and said, "Could you at least turn the sign around on your way out?"

Hide did, flipping it around to the 'open' side as he left. He waved at Irimi through the glass as he ambled down the sidewalk, but his chest still felt heavy.

.

.

.

Hide held up his phone, comparing the number in the picture to the address number on the wall before he stepped up to the door and rang the doorbell.

He leaned on the guardrail while he waited, checking the pink-blue sky until the door opened slightly and someone he knew, but didn't, peeked out at him.

He almost shook his head at himself. He had to stop thinking like that, because he didn't know them in any way that mattered.

"Yes?" Kimi asked.

"Yo," Hide greeted, giving her a little wave. "Is Nishiki in? You're Kimi, right? I'm Hide. He had to have told you about me. I'm practically his favorite member of the festival committee. It's cool if he didn't though—"

"Nishiki is—he's sick. He said—he was supposed to send a message to the committee...?" she trailed off unsurely, opening the door a little more as she came out and quickly covered her shoulder when caught him staring at the bandage peeking out from beneath her shirt. "I'm sorry you came all this way but whatever it is, he can't do it," she added.

"Nah, it's not like that," Hide said happily, shrugging. "He just has some work for me. I saw the message, but I was hoping to swing by quickly and grab it. It's really important."

Kimi hesitated, frowning as she thought about it, but eventually nodded and said, "Okay, fine, but you can't come inside. Tell me what it is and what it looks like and I'll see if I can find it."

"It's an evaluation sheet, so, white paper, official looking, and it should have my full name on it, Hideyoshi Nagachika—"

Kimi turned quickly, closing the door a little as she looked at something behind her, and Hide heard someone shuffling closer, and fast.

Hide moved off the rail, giving up on the act, which if he'd been able to finish would've ended with him talking his way inside. But if Nishiki came to him, that worked too.

"Get away from him!" Nishiki shouted harshly, shoving Kimi back behind him.

"Yo," Hide greeted, ignoring the gasp and the quiet thump of Kimi bumping into the wall, or falling.

Nishiki was leaning heavily on the doorframe and breathing so hard he was panting for air. His right leg dragged behind him and the bandages around said leg were soaked in old and new blood.

Hide took a cautionary sniff, but he couldn't smell it. Wouldn't be able to until it was practically in his nose. He'd known as much, but testing it didn't hurt. His nose seriously sucked.

Nishiki was sweating so much his loose shirt was stuck to him. It looked like he could barely stand, but he still looked at Hide with red and black eyes, like he'd expected to stumble out into a fight.

Kimi appeared again, trying to pull him back, but Nishiki shook her off and said, without a single glance back, "Let me handle this. You need to go to my room right now. You're in the way."

"You shouldn't treat her like that," Hide couldn't help but say, hands in his pockets.

"Shut up," Nishiki said through his teeth, turning back inside for a second to hiss, "If you care about me at all, you won't make me watch you die too!"

Hide tilted his head to the side and sighed as he said, "You make me sound like some crazed maniac who goes around attacking people for no reason like you," he complained. "I didn't come here for revenge either."

"Bullshit," he spat, and then his knees buckled and he unwillingly fell, pressing a fist against the floor as he held his right leg and tried not to make a sound.

Hide looked at him and put his other act as Nagachika away too. He moved closer, nudging his way inside and around Nishiki's weak attempts to push him back out.

Hide, fully in the entryway, pushed his back against the door to close it as Nishiki stared murderously at him.

Kimi was nowhere in sight.

Nishiki's hand dropped back to the floor, the only thing holding him upright as he said, through his teeth, "You track me down, you barge into my place, and you—you think I'll believe that you came here to, what, check up on me? You think I'm some kind of idiot?"

As he spoke, Hide turned his backpack to get at the zipper and opened it enough to pull out a cold package and held it out to him.

"I came in because you were being too loud," Hide said once he was done. "And I tracked you down to give you this."

Nishiki tried to look at it but his eyes were going hazy, and the lens of his glasses had cracked when he fell. He slumped against the wall. "What is it? Something from school?"

Hide didn't get a chance to try to snap him out of whatever delirious state he was in, because Kimi was standing at the end of the hallway, holding a sharp knife towards him with both hands. Her hands shook, but her mouth was pressed into a firm, determined line.

"Back away from him!" she shouted, taking a step closer. "Now."

Hide was reminded very suddenly of Kaneki.

Hide summoned Nagachika again as he rubbed the back of his head. "You remind me of my best friend. He's just as stubborn and has no self-preservation, even though he doesn't know anything about us," he said, gesturing between him and Nishiki.

He wasn't sure if she'd heard anything he said, but she stopped, staring at him in silence.

Hide raised the package at her with his free hand. "It's food. Look, I don't know what he told you about how he got hurt, but it wasn't some one-sided beatdown," he told her, looking pointedly at his bandaged hand. "Still, I don't want to be responsible if the guy dies."

Nishiki grabbed onto his pants. Hide froze for a second before he looked down, but Nishiki didn't seem like he was aware of what he was doing. He was trying to pull himself up to grab at the package, mumbling 'meat' over and over. His leg was bleeding onto the tatami mat.

He was like a wild animal.

Like he had been that first night, stumbling down the sidewalk like a starved dog.

Inhuman, his mind said on its own, and then, beast.

Frozen in place, Hide watched Nishiki scrabble at him and understood with sudden clarity why it was so easy for the CCG to dehumanize them. It wasn't just that ghouls ate people.

It was taking one look at a starving ghoul and seeing something other. It was the way ghouls tore each other apart like they hadn't finished evolving to be better.

It was the CCG taking recruits to Cochlea, where they must be starved worse than any ghoul outside could ever be, and pointing at them, saying,

Look, look at these beasts and understand why we can't co-exist! See why they're incapable of it. They're just animals.

The package was taken from his hand.

Hide blinked down at his empty palm, then further down at Kimi as she quickly unwrapped the package and shoved it into Nishiki's grasping hands.

The way he tore into it reminded him of a lion ripping apart prey.

Kimi cringed away at first, but then squared her shoulders and forced herself to look. She settled down beside him and pulled his head to her chest, squeezing her eyes shut as he got meat juices all over her.

Hide dropped his hand and saw the knife she'd left on the floor.

Nishiki eventually jerked the meat away from his mouth, gasping like he'd been drowning and had only just learned how to come up from air, staring up at him through Kimi's arms.

He'd eaten almost all of it.

"You're still here?" Nishiki asked, looking blankly at Kimi for a second before his eyes fully cleared and narrowed at Hide in suspicion. "So, what's the catch? Hurry up and get on with it."

If a human saw the smears on his face, his greasy hands, what would they think?

Hide leaned back against the door, put his hands back in his pockets, and set his thoughts aside as he said, "Just two things. One, you both agree to stay away from Anteiku and don't tell anyone working there or involved with them that I made you do this or gave you that package. If you need another reason, I can get you another package, but after that you're on your own."

"I can do that," Kimi said immediately.

Nishiki pulled himself free of her hold and gave her a quick side glance that told Hide that she didn't know the truth about Anteiku.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," he finally said, putting the remains of the package down in his lap and not looking at his stained hands. "Bet it would piss the manager off. He's been trying to get me to work there for forever. What, those peace-loving ghouls not as peaceful as they try to make it seem?"

Hide didn't answer. He was doing Nishiki a favor. He just didn't know it yet.

"The second thing is a little harder. Stop picking fights and hunting here, and give up on defending any territory in the 20th ward," Hide finally said.

Nishiki stared at him for a long time before he spat, "You're just like Touka."

Hide lifted his shoulders. "Don't care what you do anywhere else, but the doves have been more active around here lately. Have you heard of what happened to that doctor? Fueguchi?"

"I didn't know he was a doctor, no, but I heard that he went missing months ago."

Hide paused for half a second to digest his mistake, and then said, "They found him, or what was left—"

"Let's not talk about that in front of the lady," Nishiki interrupted mildly, and didn't react when Kimi playfully punched his arm. "You're insufferable, Nagachika, but I get it. I wouldn't be wrong to guess that, even after the doves find somewhere else to be, your terms won't change?"

"No, you'd be right."

"You piss me off," Nishiki said, leaning back. "A third package when I ask for it, and I'll agree."

Hide wondered what Yoshimura would think behind that old man smile.

"Fine," Hide agreed, then told him a half-lie, "If it means anything, I also have a warning. I asked around about you, you know, after, and I heard that you're unpopular in more wards than this one. Like the 14th. If you go there, pretending to be weak, some ghouls there might try and take advantage of you. If you really want some territory, you could start there."

Nishiki frowned and asked, "Why are you telling me this? What, I owe you something else?"

"You're already paying the price by swallowing your pride," Hide said, moving off the door and turning his back to Nishiki. "You know, Nishiki, your injuries are pretty bad. You could turn me down, but I don't think the one package will be enough, especially since your leg hasn't started healing. Good luck getting the blood out of the floor by the way."

He opened the door, paused, and then added, "You know how to contact me, and maybe next time, we can actually talk about the committee."

A/N:Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto is a real book.