Work Text:
Everything had gone to shit in record time.
This confrontation was supposed to be quick and dirty. Hide’s squad would get in, take out the three low-rated ghouls as fast as possible, and get the hell out. A detailed search of their hideout would happen after the area was secured by other nearby squads. Hide always looks forward to the actual investigation part of being a ghoul investigator.
Now? He’s looking forward to getting out of here alive. It’s overly optimistic, even for him.
One of the ghouls had run, and Hide had pursued. He was the only one who had. He’d made it into the adjacent alleyway, where he could see his target sprinting away in terror from a far, far worse ghoul.
He doesn’t strike a very intimidating figure to someone out of the know — he’s lithe rather than bulky, shorter than Hide, and his white hair and all-black outfit make him look like an arts student more than a gang leader. Only the leather mask, covering the lower half of his face in an unnerving scowl of bared teeth and extending up to cover his right eye, matches his reputation. This is Eyepatch, and he is so out of Hide’s sad little Rank 2 league.
For a moment, Hide only stares in terror. Then, training kicks in as he jumps back, releasing the blade of his quinque and swinging in a wide arc that the ghoul dodges with ease.
Before he can even blink, Eyepatch is on him, shoving him against the wall like it’s nothing. His quinque drops out of his hands at the impact and skitters away on the concrete. Hide only has a split second to think I might actually die, when the skin on the ghoul’s hands bursts into a kaleidoscope of color.
Both of them freeze and stare down at his hands in complete shock, Eyepatch’s one visible eye widening almost comically. There’s more than the feeling of already-forming bruises on Hide’s shoulder and chest — under Eyepatch’s hands, he can feel a prickling, fizzy, almost hot sensation on his skin. All his hair stands on end, and there’s a ringing in his ears. It’s a feeling Hide’s read about, countless times: described clinically, poetically, and every way in between.
The first touch between soulmates.
Eyepatch drops him immediately, stumbling back. His gaze is glued to his palms, still spitting out sparks of rainbow that only the two of them can see. Hide had known there’d be color, but he hadn’t expected this. It’s pouring out of the ghoul’s skin, brilliant and captivating. He can barely breathe, hands grasping at the tingling patches on his chest, their own bleeding color hidden under his clothes.
Hide wrenches his gaze from Eyepatch’s hands to his face. With just the one eye visible, it’s hard to read his expression. He doesn’t seem angry, at least.
“Well,” comes Eyepatch’s surprisingly soft voice, muffled behind the grimace of his mask. His black-and-red eye flicks up to meet Hide’s. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
Hide barks out a panicky laugh. “Fuck, you’re telling me.”
The color sputters out. Hide knows it’s left its permanent mark on both of them — a subtle, shiny, almost iridescent patch of skin where they first touched. Soulmarks.
And just like that, Eyepatch is all business. “Do you have backup coming?” he asks sharply.
Hide’s heart sinks. “Shit. Yeah, they’ll probably come after me soon. I’d, uh, rather you didn’t kill them.”
The ghoul — his soulmate, his soulmate’s a ghoul, oh God — raises a white eyebrow. “The feeling’s mutual.”
Hide nods vigorously. “You should go, before they get here. We can talk later, when we’re not, uh. You know.” He gestures vaguely.
“At work?” Eyepatch says, and his eye softens slightly, like he’s smiling under the mask.
Hide can’t help but snort out a laugh. He should not find notorious ghoul gang leaders endearing. “Yeah,” he says, relieved that they seem to be on the same page.
“Nagachika!” comes a shout down the alleyway.
Eyepatch grabs him by the coat, and even with fabric between them the touch of his soulmate feels like pure comfort. “When’s your next day off?” he hisses, as he spins Hide in the direction of the newcomer’s voice to use as a human shield, the bastard. He can’t even get properly annoyed because of how right it feels to have Eyepatch’s hands on him.
“Saturday,” Hide whispers back, reaching up to play along with a feeble attempt to loosen Eyepatch’s grip. It’s pretty nerve-wracking to realize that he probably couldn’t escape if the ghoul was actually intending to kill him.
“Gold’s Bookstore,” Eyepatch says slowly, under his breath. “Saturday. You got that?” At Hide’s nod, he drags him closer until the zipper of his mask bites into Hide’s ear. “Sorry about this,” he murmurs, and then sends Hide crashing none-too-gently into the concrete. When he opens his eyes again, groaning, he just catches the blur of black disappearing over the roof.
“Nagachika!” The other investigator finally reaches him, panting. It’s a Rank 3. His face is pale as he helps Hide to his feet. “Holy shit, was that Eyepatch?”
Ah. So Hide hadn’t dreamed that whole thing. “Yup!” He claps the Rank 3 on the back. “Let’s go regroup with the others.”
---
On Saturday, Hide pushes open the door to Gold’s Bookstore and tries to breathe.
He's never been here before, but at first glance it seems like a regular bookstore and not a front for ghoul gang activity. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a front if it did, right?
But, Hide reminds himself for the hundredth time, if Eyepatch wanted to kidnap or kill him, he’d had his chance in the alleyway. It’s probably just a normal, average bookstore. Neutral ground.
Hoping he’s not too early or too late, Hide starts hunting through the aisles for Eyepatch.
He finally finds him in the romance section, pale and insubstantial as a ghost. Dressed in a white button-up and jeans, and missing that monstrous mask, Hide definitely might’ve ignored him on the street if it weren’t for his shockingly white hair and the medical eyepatch over his left eye. Well, and the fact that he just knows it’s him with rock-solid certainty, and he realizes giddily that it must be because he’s Hide’s soulmate before he remembers how completely fucked this situation is.
“So,” Hide says casually as he approaches, “I see that you stay on-brand even in your civvies.”
He doesn’t jump at Hide’s sudden arrival, and Hide wonders if that’s because of heightened ghoul senses or because of the whole soulmate thing. Instead, he turns, meeting Hide’s gaze with a bewildered expression in his eye (which is grey, and pretty), and says, “Huh?”
Hide pulls a hand out of his pockets and covers one of his eyes.
Eyepatch looks away, as if he’s examining the bookshelf again, before he explains quietly, “I can’t control my kakugan in this eye.”
Hide was not expecting such an honest response. “Oh,” he says dumbly.
Hide wonders if Eyepatch feels as awkward as he does. They stand there silently, sizing each other up.
The ghoul nods decisively to himself, before turning down the aisle and walking away with the ease of someone who’s used to being followed. “There’s a reading nook in the back corner. It’ll be more comfortable there.”
“Okay,” Hide says to his back, hurrying to catch up.
Eyepatch pauses at the end of the aisle and looks over his shoulder, not quite meeting Hide’s eyes.
“Thank you for coming,” he says, in a voice so soft and sincere and at odds with who Hide knows him to be.
It’s just vulnerable enough to ease Hide’s nerves. “Of course."
After a brief, silent walk through walls of bookshelves, they reach a corner with two very well-worn leather armchairs. It’s secluded and cozy, but there’s a short staircase to actually reach the reading nook, so it will be easy for them to notice any potential eavesdroppers.
“Let me introduce myself properly,” Hide says, once they’re settled into their chairs. He reaches out his hand. “I’m Nagachika Hideyoshi. But please, call me Hide.”
Eyepatch hesitates only a moment before meeting Hide’s gaze, a determined look in his eye. “Kaneki Ken.”
He takes Hide’s hand, and the soothing warmth that flows through him nearly makes Hide’s eyes flutter closed. “Nice to meet you, Kaneki,” he says. He wonders if it’s a fake name. Either way, it’s better than calling him “Eyepatch” in public.
Kaneki seems just as affected by their touch, shoulders dropping a little in relaxation. “That is so much stronger than I ever thought it would be,” he murmurs. After a moment, he seems to come back to himself, eye widening slightly, and he jerks his hand away.
Hide swallows the hurt that kicks up in him on reflex. Their touch is almost drug-like. Kaneki has things to hide — it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to be too loose-lipped during his first conversation with his ghoul investigator soulmate.
“I’m sorry,” Hide says, folding his legs up on the chair to get more comfortable. “I’m like, the worst case scenario, huh?”
Kaneki winces. “It’s not ideal, no. Myself and the group I work with… we aren’t fans of the CCG.”
“Well, yeah. You’re ghouls.”
“Exactly,” Kaneki says, in the same tone of voice someone would say Checkmate!
Hide just nods in complete agreement.
Faltering, Kaneki looks at him like he’s a particularly challenging puzzle. “Aren’t… aren’t you bothered that I’m a ghoul?”
Hide tugs at his jacket, organizing his thoughts. After a moment, he says, “You could’ve killed me in that alleyway, easy. I was disarmed and alone. A soulmate in the CCG - that’s such a headache. Plus, I’ll tell you right now that I like to listen to music really loud, and I snore. I’m totally obnoxious. You’d’ve been better off killing me when you had the chance.” Kaneki’s starting to look more shocked than confused, so he hurries to continue. “But, but! You didn’t.” He smiles as brightly as possible. “This whole meeting - this is an olive branch, right? ‘I’m willing to try if you are?’ Well, I’m willing.”
Kaneki, Hide notes smugly, is speechless. He slumps back into his chair, looking Hide up and down as if seeing him for the first time.
Finally, he says weakly, “You didn’t even answer my question.”
“What do you mean, ‘I didn’t answer?’ No!” Hide waves his hand dismissively. “That’s what that whole speech was about! It doesn’t bother me!”
“Surely, with your job, you understand what ghouls do,” Kaneki starts, and Hide cuts him off.
“Yeah, you have to eat human meat. It’s your biology, right? It’s not your fault.”
Kaneki drags his hands through his hair, like Hide’s being completely unreasonable.
“Why are you here?” Hide wonders. “Is it to convince me to run away? Because it’s not working.”
Kaneki hunches, curling up into his chair. “Honestly, when we first touched, I thought it was a cosmic joke at my expense. That I had some kind of star-crossed soulmate. That nothing good could come of this.” He pauses, and his gaze slides back over to Hide. “But…”
Hide leans forward. “But?”
Kaneki looks away from him, brow creasing. “But you didn’t reject me.”
Hide can only gape at him.
“After we touched, you didn’t attack me or run away screaming or yell at me or any of the things you probably should’ve done. You even said you wanted to talk later.” He meets Hide’s gaze again. “You said earlier that this meeting is an olive branch from me, but you’re the one who offered it first. I’m here because of you.”
“Well, thank you for coming,” Hide says, echoing Kaneki’s words back at him.
Kaneki offers him a small, hesitant smile, which Hide returns brightly.
Casting about for a lighter topic, he asks, “So, why a bookstore?”
It might just be wishful thinking, but Kaneki’s pale cheeks look a little flushed. His smile turns sheepish. “I love to read. This bookstore is one of my favorites.”
The image of Kaneki curled up cozily with a book is so adorable that Hide can hardly stand it. “What genres do you like?”
Kaneki’s face lights up so much that his eye practically sparkles, and Hide’s completely done for.
---
Hide’s poring over some case files at his desk, humming to himself, when he notices Takizawa staring at him. “What?” he asks.
Takizawa gives him a suspicious look. “You’re awfully happy today.”
Hide shrugs. “I’m a happy guy.”
“Not this happy,” Takizawa says darkly. He squints. “Did you get lucky this weekend or something?”
Takizawa’s not completely off the mark. He and Kaneki had talked for hours at that bookstore. Their conversation had never returned to the heavy topics it had started with, but he’d learned plenty about his soulmate: he’s the same age as Hide; he was raised in the city; he’s a big fan of Takatsuki Sen’s morbid novels; he’s never heard of any of the bands Hide likes, but he promises he’ll check them out. Sure, he’d expertly dodged every conversation topic that might’ve ventured into his experiences as a ghoul, but in the end they’d even exchanged numbers! But, he can’t exactly tell Takizawa any of this.
Hide’s saved from having to come up with a compelling lie by Mado’s thoroughly unimpressed voice.
“How, exactly, is that an appropriate topic for the office?” She strides around the corner, heels clacking, and levels Takizawa with a stern glare.
He turns red and snaps his mouth shut. Hide looks back at his files, not even bothering to hide his smile.
Tomorrow, he’s got plans to see Kaneki again.
---
Hide checks his phone, reading Kaneki’s text for the fiftieth time in the past five minutes. He’s got the place right (Sandcastle Cafe), and he’s got the time right (4pm). But Kaneki’s not here. Kaneki’s twenty minutes late. The server keeps casting pitying looks in his direction as he sits alone at a two-person table.
He’s just starting to wonder if Kaneki changed his mind, or if this whole outing is some kind of trap after all, when the bell above the door of the cafe rings, and Kaneki steps inside. He’s in a black sweater and the medical eyepatch, and his visible eye scans the shop wildly until it lands on Hide.
He hurries over and, to Hide’s absolute delight, the same ghoul who’d casually assaulted him in an alleyway bows in apology like a regular, polite person. “So sorry,” he says, a little breathlessly, sliding into the empty seat. “Got caught up with some, uh,” he hesitates before finishing awkwardly, “business.”
“For a minute there, I thought you were standing me up,” Hide says, shaking his head in exaggerated disappointment.
Kaneki returns Hide’s teasing smile with a small one of his own. “I really am sorry,” he insists.
Hide waves him off right as one of the cafe’s servers approaches their table.
“Hello, Mr. Kaneki, nice to see you again!” she says brightly. “The usual?”
Kaneki nods at her. “Thank you.”
The server turns to Hide, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have a mocha,” he says.
Hide doesn’t miss the way her eyes widen before she cranks up the wattage on her customer-service-smile as cover. “Coming right up!” she says, and scurries away.
Hide watches her go, thoughtful. "What’s the usual?" he asks.
Kaneki seems to mull it over, before looking at Hide with the same determined expression as when he’d told him his name at the bookstore. “I’ll tell you, but this is off-the-record, okay?”
“Sure,” Hide says, nodding.
Kaneki hesitates, so Hide holds out his pinky.
“I mean it. I promise.”
Kaneki squints at him, as if trying to decide whether or not he’s being serious. Apparently satisfied with his conclusion, he hooks their pinkies together. Even though Hide is ready for it this time, the warm and fuzzy reassurance that blankets him at the touch is so good that he lets out a contented sigh. Kaneki’s slow to pull his hand back, but he eventually does, dropping Hide back into his antsy excitement.
Kaneki leans forward and lowers his voice. “You already know that human food tastes horrible to us, right?”
Hide leans in, too, nodding. That's common knowledge.
“Well, there's one exception.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Coffee.”
Hide blinks, and sits back. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, that’s anticlimactic. Black, I’m guessing?”
“Yes. No milk or sugar.” Kaneki makes a face. “It’d ruin it.”
Hide chews on this new information. He can see why Kaneki wouldn’t want the CCG to know another tell they could use to potentially ID a ghoul. They’re not touching, but Hide feels warm and fuzzy anyway; he can recognize the display of trust for what it is.
Their server delivers their drinks, and Kaneki lowers his head to smell his cup, smiling softly to himself. It’s really cute, and Hide finds himself smiling, too.
“So, you must be a total coffee snob, right?”
Kaneki laughs, a surprised little sound that floats directly into Hide’s heart. “Um, I don’t know. Maybe.” He rubs his jaw awkwardly as he says it.
Hide leans forward. “You’re being modest, aren’t you? I bet your pantry’s just full of different roasts and grinds or whatever.”
“Not different grinds! Because…” Kaneki trails off, embarrassed. “I grind them all myself,” he admits weakly, hiding his face. Hide snickers at him, and, after a moment, Kaneki joins in, laughter soft and muffled behind his hands.
The conversation stays light-hearted and pleasant, mostly mundane. The mocha is absolutely delicious, and the coffee is, too, judging by the way Kaneki seems to savor every sip. When the server brings them the check, Kaneki insists on paying.
Hide lowers his voice and waits until she’s out of earshot before he says, “She’s a ghoul, too, right?”
Kaneki’s grey eye widens. He straightens up, expression going carefully blank. “No hiding anything from you, is there?” A dangerous edge enters his voice. “What are you going to do?”
Hide raises his hands innocently. “Nothing,” he says, and means it. “I’m not on the clock right now. And even if I was… she’s not doing anything, is she? Just trying to make some money.”
Kaneki watches Hide for a while, contemplative. “It’s hard,” he murmurs. “I want to trust you, but…”
But Hide’s with the enemy. Kaneki is undeniably dangerous and has every advantage in a fight, but Hide is suddenly reminded of why he’s so threatening to Kaneki and his ghoul friends and allies. If Kaneki thinks Hide holds all the cards, then Hide just needs to offer him some.
He reaches across the table and grabs Kaneki’s hand, the touch suffusing them both with warmth. “Come home with me.”
“I— What?” Kaneki flushes pink, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. “I don’t—”
“Not like that,” Hide says, smirking knowingly at him. “Sheesh. I just…” he softens his tone. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re the only one putting yourself at risk.”
“So you’re going to show the dangerous ghoul where you live?” Kaneki muses. He bites his lip, thinking, before getting that determined look on his face again. “All right.”
---
The sun is still out when they get to Hide’s and he gives Kaneki a brief tour of his apartment, but by the time they settle down on the living room couch to talk, it’s starting to set. Neither of them move as the light fades, leaving the room illuminated only by the streetlight seeping through the blinds. It’s easier to talk like this, somehow.
“Is Kaneki your real name?” Hide asks him in the quiet dark.
“It is,” Kaneki answers softly. “I thought I could be honest about that, at least.”
Hide reaches out to touch his hand, that pleasant, fuzzy warmth running through him. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Same to you.” Kaneki laces their fingers together and smiles, sending Hide’s heart stuttering out of control. This must be the closest they’ve been since they first met. They gaze at each other, Kaneki’s one eye sweeping across Hide’s face, taking him in, and Hide finds himself wondering about his other eye: the one he keeps hidden.
He slowly, carefully, lifts his right hand to Kaneki’s left cheek. He traces his fingers along the underside of the eyepatch, and Kaneki freezes at the gentle touch.
“You said you couldn’t control it in that eye… Is it just ‘on’ all the time?” Hide’s voice is nearly a whisper. This feels like a very personal question.
Kaneki’s shoulders curl up, confirming Hide’s suspicions that he’s being rude. Maybe he’s crossing some sort of ghoul cultural boundary. Hide drops his hand immediately, sliding it back into Kaneki’s instead. There’s a moment of tense silence.
“It’s complicated,” Kaneki starts, before faltering.
Hide starts massaging his hand. “You don’t have to answer. Sorry if it’s taboo to talk about, or something.”
Kaneki stares down at their hands for a moment, watching Hide rub comforting circles into his knuckles, before suddenly tugging himself free and reaching up to the straps of his eyepatch. Hide’s breath catches in surprise, and Kaneki gives him a nervous smile. “It’s okay. I can show you,” he says.
Kaneki hesitates for another moment, fingers twitching next to his ears, before he gently pulls off the eyepatch and lays it on Hide’s coffee table. When he meets Hide’s eyes again, it’s with two raincloud-grey irises and decidedly white sceleras.
“Ready?” he asks, and Hide scoots closer, pressing his leg into Kaneki’s and renewing the warm comfort of their shared touch. At his nod, Kaneki takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. Black seeps in from the edges, blotting out the white of his left eye, and the iris flares a neon scarlet. It glows subtly in the dark, alien and dangerous and beautiful.
“Never seen one so close,” Hide says, voice hushed, not wanting to spook Kaneki into hiding it again.
“Yeah. I know it’s unnerving.” Kaneki’s mismatched eyes dart back and forth between his, full of apprehension. Hide realizes, heart breaking a little, that Kaneki’s just as afraid of scaring him off.
He blindly reaches out and takes Kaneki’s hand again, squeezing it reassuringly. “It’s pretty.”
Kaneki flinches slightly and looks away. “Pretty,” he echoes in disbelief.
Hide shoots him a grin. “Sorry, should I have said ‘manly’ instead?”
That startles a shaky laugh out of him, and Hide politely looks the other way as Kaneki swipes the back of his hand against his eyes.
“So,” Hide asks, scared of pushing too far on what is clearly a sensitive topic, but too curious for his own good. “It’s just the one?”
Kaneki’s small smile twists into more of a grimace, and he looks away. “Yeah. I’m kind of a freak.” He aims for a lighthearted tone and falls a little short, self-deprecation leaking through.
Hide tries to read between the lines. “Do you get shit for it?”
“Not really anymore,” Kaneki murmurs, and Hide is abruptly reminded that this man holding his hand and showing him a vulnerable insecurity is also Eyepatch, the SS-rated kakuja. He doubts many ghouls would want to get on his bad side over something so superficial.
“You said you couldn’t control it,” Hide says. “But you seemed in control just now.”
Kaneki’s fingers drum against his. “If I activate it, I can deactivate it too.” He points at his left eye and demonstrates; the black abruptly dissipates, and his iris dims back to grey. “But, if I’m stressed, then it activates on its own, and I can’t turn it off.”
“Stressed how?”
“Like, if I’m in combat, or if my emotions are high, or if I’m—” Kaneki cuts himself off.
“Or if you’re what?” Hide prompts, and he can see the wall come up; Kaneki’s eyes go cold.
“Nothing,” he says. His voice is firm and leaves no room for argument. It’s probably the same voice he uses on his subordinates.
Well, Hide isn’t in Eyepatch’s gang, and he’s also very bad at shutting up and very good at filling in the blanks. Softening his voice again, he presses, “Were you going to say ‘hungry?’”
An expression of tightly-controlled anger passes over Kaneki’s face, his eye flashing red, and he stands up, backing away from Hide. He must’ve hit it right on the mark, then. The absence of cozy soulmate touch leaves Hide feeling hollow.
The line of Kaneki’s body is stiff and tense. “What are we doing, Hide.” He says it so flatly, it doesn’t even sound like a question.
Hide sits back patiently, folding his hands in his lap. “Figuring things out.”
“Figuring things out,” Kaneki repeats back to him. “What is there to figure out? You’re a human. I’m a ghoul. You’re a dove.” He snatches his eyepatch off the table and dangles it in Hide’s direction. “I’m me.”
“I know who you are, Kaneki,” Hide says calmly. “I know what you are, and what that entails. And I’ve already told you: it doesn’t bother me.”
“It should!” Kaneki clenches and unclenches his fists in agitation. “Hide, I can’t—” his voice breaks, and his left eye pulses red again. He digs the heel of his palm into it, cursing under his breath, and then yanks his eyepatch back on.
Hide’s heart sinks. “Kaneki…”
He won’t even look at Hide. “I have to go.”
Frustration finally overflowing, Hide jumps to his feet. “Kaneki. You’re being stupid.”
He can’t tell if Kaneki’s look of disgust is directed toward Hide or himself. “The feeling’s mutual.”
He doesn’t slam the door when he leaves, but Hide flinches anyway.
---
Hide’s filling out a report on his most recent mission when Takizawa smacks his hands down on his desk, hard. “Okay, what the hell happened?”
Hide stops typing mid-sentence, startled. “Sorry?”
“What happened?” Takizawa repeats. “You’ve been off lately, but today you’re miserable and it’s driving me nuts.”
Hide sinks into his chair. That morning, he’d tried texting Kaneki for the first time since their fight. I’m still willing if you are.
The workday’s winding to a close, and he’s still waiting for a response. He hasn’t heard anything in two weeks.
Hide pastes on his best everything’s-okay!-smile. “Just boy trouble, Takizawa. Don’t worry about me.”
Takizawa smacks a hand onto Hide’s shoulder, gripping it fiercely. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“Men are trash,” Mado pipes up from her desk, voice as dispassionate as ever.
Wow. Hide must look rougher than he’d thought. He manages a real smile this time: a small, grateful one. “Thanks, guys. But it’s a little more complicated than that.”
Takizawa’s eyes widen. “Oh, shit. Is he, you know…” He gestures vaguely. “The one?"
Hide lets out a sigh. “Yeah.”
Takizawa whistles. Mado leans around her computer to look at him, her eyebrows drawn. “How bad is it?”
Well, to start, he’s Eyepatch, he doesn’t say. Instead, he shrugs. “We had a fight. He was pretty upset, and, uh, now he might be ghosting me.”
Takizawa gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze. Mado meets his gaze and says seriously, “Nagachika. If it’s meant to be, it will work out.”
Hide can’t stop the bitterness from creeping into his voice. “Isn’t ‘meant to be,’ like, the definition of soulmates?”
“Exactly.” Mado sits back in her chair, typing again already. “Then, it’ll work out.”
---
It’s raining when Hide gets off work that night.
He hurries toward his apartment, backpack over his shoulders, gripping his quinque briefcase in one hand and his umbrella in the other. He’s in a sour mood. He’d stayed late to finish up a report, he’d never gotten a response to his text, and, despite his umbrella, the wind is bad enough that he’s gotten soaked anyway.
“Excuse me, sir?”
She says it so timidly that Hide barely hears her over the rain. It’s a young woman, her dark hair styled in twintails that make her look even younger. She’s standing at the mouth of a narrow alleyway that Hide is about to pass. “Yes?” he asks, slowing to a stop in front of her.
She’s clutching her umbrella in shaky hands; she must be cold, since she’s only wearing a dark t-shirt and skirt. Her bare legs are dripping wet. “Can I have your help, please, sir? It should only take a moment.” She looks up at Hide with wide, pleading blue eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Hide asks.
Twintails shudders. “Someone’s hurt.” She nearly whispers it; Hide has to step closer to understand.
“What happened?” he asks, looking around in alarm. “Where are they?”
“He’s this way,” she says, giving his sleeve a gentle tug toward the alley. “Please, sir…”
Hide follows after her. The rain picks up. Twintails stays just ahead of him, never glancing back to make sure he’s following.
“Are we close?” he asks, squinting through the downpour. He can’t see anyone down the alley.
“Not much farther now,” she says, and she sounds almost excited.
Alarm bells go off in his head.
Hide hangs back, slowing. He covertly adjusts his grip on his quinque.
Twintails glances back over her shoulder with some killer puppydog eyes. “Please hurry,” she pleads, suddenly desperate-sounding again.
Hide stops short. “Actually, I’m okay. I think I’m going to walk back to the road, and I think you’re going to let me.”
She turns around, clearly frustrated now that he’s watching her more closely. Hide just hefts his quinque, and she lets out a little gasp when she recognizes the briefcase for what it is. She gives up the act, eyes washing black and red. Hide falls into a fighting stance. They both tense, ready to attack. But, before either of them can even let go of their umbrellas, a figure drops between them with a splash.
The person, dressed in all black, must’ve jumped off one of the buildings forming the sides of the alley. He straightens up slowly, giving them both a good, long look at his mask.
“Oh, God.” Twintails looks like she’s seen a ghost.
Kaneki tilts his head in her direction. “Leave.”
She flinches, then bristles and steps forward. “This is my territory, you can’t… just... “ She shrinks under his unrelenting stare.
“I have business with him.” He doesn’t even sound threatening, just bored.
The ghoul glances over her shoulder, then back to him.
Kaneki bends a finger down with his thumb, and the crack of his knuckle is audible even over the rain. “I won’t ask again.”
He cocks his head, as if sizing her up, and the slight movement from him finally jolts Twintails into action. She scurries away, inhumanly fast, kicking up water as she goes. Kaneki does nothing but stare after her until she’s long gone.
Hide, bracing himself for Kaneki to walk out of his life again, approaches him cautiously. “You have business with me, huh?” he asks, keeping his voice light and neutral.
Kaneki takes his time slipping off his mask and storing it in his pocket. Sounding quiet, soft, vulnerable — nothing like he had moments earlier — he answers, “If you’re still willing.”
Hide nearly sighs with relief. The hope he’d just been suppressing springs back in full force, filling his chest. “Come home with me,” he says. The look Kaneki gives him is so disbelieving that Hide rolls his eyes. “Get under here. You’re gonna catch a cold.”
Kaneki wavers, but not nearly as long as Hide expected, before joining him under the umbrella, swiping water out of his face. They inevitably bump up against each other in the small space, and soulmate reassurance floods through them. Kaneki’s shoulders slump.
“Missed that,” Hide murmurs. He closes his eyes, relishing the sensation.
“All right,” he says after a moment of just listening to the rain. “Let’s get going.” He moves to step forward, but Kaneki stops him with a gentle nudge.
“Let me,” he says, wrapping his hands around Hide’s on the umbrella handle. “I’m not carrying anything.”
Hide glances down right as Kaneki looks up, and, oh, their faces are very, very close. Kaneki’s drenched from the water, hair so saturated that it’s turned silvery grey. Hide’s close enough that he can see the droplets clinging to his white eyelashes. It’s unfair, how beautiful he is. Hide’s heart is lodged so firmly in his throat that he can’t speak. If they just bent their heads a little…
Kaneki looks down at their hands and gently pulls the umbrella out of Hide’s grasp, and the moment passes.
Shaking himself out of it, Hide leads the way to his apartment with nudges and gestures. Kaneki leans into him the whole way.
---
“Hey,” Hide hears a soft voice say.
He turns from his spot on the couch to see Kaneki standing at his bedroom doorway, looking small and downright timid. His hair is damp and fluffy from being towel-dried after his shower, and he’s drowning a little in the oversized yellow sweatshirt and baggy grey sweatpants that Hide leant him. His medical eyepatch is nowhere in sight.
“Hey,” Hide answers. He lifts up the corner of the blanket he’s currently snuggled into.
Kaneki pads over, accepting the wordless invitation for contact. He settles down on the couch, half-spooning Hide, hiding his face in his neck and sagging against him in relief. Hide leans their heads together. He’s only bothered to turn on his floor lamp, so the lighting is dim and comfortable. Together, they rest and breathe and listen to the sound of the downpour outside.
“Sorry,” Kaneki says, mumbling it against Hide’s skin.
Hide lifts his head, and Kaneki pulls back, too, not quite meeting his eyes. He looks resigned.
“I panicked,” he admits.
Hide nods in acceptance. “Why?” he asks gently. “I thought it was going well.”
“It was going too well,” Kaneki says bitterly. “I knew it was only a matter of time before something went wrong and you got hurt because of me—”
“Kaneki,” Hide interrupts him. “I did get hurt. Because you vanished for two weeks.”
“I know.” His face falls, absolutely miserable. “And I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Hesitantly, Hide reaches over to take one of his hands. “Don’t do it again.”
Kaneki nods. He takes a deep breath, letting it out in an exhale that’s short and rough, like he’s trying to expel his negative thoughts through his lungs. He snuggles closer.
“What made you change your mind?” Hide asks, running his thumb over Kaneki’s palm.
“I ran into a friend of mine, actually. His girlfriend is a human. He’s never said they’re soulmates, but ever since I met you, I’ve been wondering about them… Anyway, because I thought he might understand, I told him everything. And he told me it was the biggest load of horseshit he’d ever heard.” He scrunches up his face. “Nishiki’s not a wordsmith.”
Hide startles at the familiarity. Nishiki… Fondness for saying ‘horseshit…’ “Is his surname Nishio?”
Kaneki pulls away to stare at him. “You know Nishiki?”
Hide nods, bewildered. “I went to school with him. He’s a ghoul?”
Kaneki nods back, equally bewildered, and then his eyes go wide. “You went to Kamii?!”
“Uh, yes?”
Kaneki gapes. “Me too!”
“Seriously!?”
They launch into an excited chatter about campus, clubs, classes, majors. To their shock, it turns out they were even in the same Asian History class.
“I don’t get it,” Hide says, wracking his brain. “That was in that big lecture hall, right? I always sat in the very back. How could I have never noticed your head? I know lots of college students dye their hair, but you don’t often see a bleach job that nice.” He tugs at his own dark roots. “I would know.”
Kaneki mellows at that, letting out a quiet sigh. “My hair was dark at the time. I didn’t really stand out when I was a human.”
Hide furrows his brow in confusion. Kaneki seems to realize what he just said and positively freezes...
But it’s only for a second, and then he’s smiling at Hide and sheepishly rubbing his jaw. “Pretending to be a human, I mean. Sorry, it’s an expression ghouls sometimes use.”
“That’s kind of weird to say. Aren’t you still pretending to be human?” Hide stares at him intently enough that Kaneki breaks eye contact first.
“It’s hard to explain,” he says evasively.
“Well,” Hide says carefully, hoping Kaneki hears what he’s actually saying, “if you ever feel up to explaining, I’m here.”
Internally, though, his mind has already pounced on Kaneki’s apparent slip. He used to be a human? Does that mean he was born human, but became a ghoul? How is that possible? Can it happen to anyone? Does this explain why he only has one kakugan?
Shaking his head, he drags himself back into the moment. “It’s probably for the best that I didn’t ever see you.”
Kaneki jumps on the new subject with enthusiasm. “And why’s that?”
“My grades in that class would’ve been horrible.” Hide grins. “I would’ve been so distracted.”
He’s not getting it, or he’s taking it the wrong way, because all Kaneki does is frown at him.
“Kaneki,” Hide says slowly, “you’re a very attractive guy.”
He’d been hoping to get him a little flustered, but Kaneki recoils away from him, breaking their contact entirely, face going completely red. “What are you talking about?!”
“Jeez, have you never looked in the mirror?” But without the reassurance of Kaneki’s touch, his stomach twinges with sudden doubt. Because of their situation, it makes sense that they’re physically clingy, and it might have nothing to do with romantic attraction. “Um. I know platonic soulmates are a thing. Is that what you thought—”
Kaneki, still red-faced, waves his hands frantically. “No, nononono, that’s not what I was saying—”
They talk over each other.
“—been cuddling for like an hour—”
“—can’t just say that out of nowhere—”
“—we even shared an umbrella—”
“—last real date I went on was terrible —”
“—thought you were gonna kiss me in the rain!”
“—of course I think you’re attractive, too!”
“...Wait, what?”
Kaneki’s face is at maximum blush capacity. “You’re attractive!” he blurts out. “What did you say?”
It’s Hide’s turn to blush. “Earlier, in the rain, I thought for sure you were gonna kiss me.”
Kaneki stares at him with wide, grey eyes, and asks suddenly, breathlessly, “Can I kiss you now?”
Hide’s heart does something funny. “Oh, wow. Um. Yes.”
Kaneki takes Hide’s jaw in his hands, fingers curling delicately around the base of his skull, and hesitates for only a single, agonizing second before he leans in.
The first kiss between soulmates is everything they said it would be. It’s as if he’s been plunged into a sensory deprivation tank. Everything is gone except Kaneki - Kaneki’s lips pressed against his, Kaneki’s hands in his hair, the smell of his body wash on Kaneki’s skin, the little pleased noise coming out of Kaneki’s throat. The warmth and comfort he usually feels at their touch is amplified tenfold. He feels so boneless and relaxed, like the two of them could melt into liquid and merge into one entity of pure bliss. He opens his mouth for more, more, more, and Kaneki’s right there with him, lips parting, and his tongue tastes like coffee, and Hide distantly realizes he’d expected blood. As Kaneki’s teeth scrape pleasantly at Hide’s lower lip, his hand wanders low enough to graze the soulmark on Hide’s shoulder.
The sensation is a complete and utter overload, a head rush so strong that it shocks them apart, gasping. Kaneki’s practically on top of him (when did that happen?) and he moves so ghoulishly fast to disentangle them that Hide blinks and Kaneki’s at the opposite end of the couch. The sound of their panting fills the otherwise quiet apartment.
“Holy shit,” Kaneki finally whispers. His kakugan is out.
Hide’s thoughts are so sluggish that he can only nod weakly in agreement. Free from his soulmate’s intoxicating touch, he tries to steady his breathing and calm down. He watches Kaneki’s left eye fade to match the right.
“It was my soulmark,” Hide says when his head feels mostly clear. “That big jolt. You touched my soulmark with yours.”
Kaneki glances down at his palms. Hide can catch a tiny shimmer of rainbow reflecting off of them in the lamplight. “I thought soulmark contact was supposed to feel like a sedative,” he says, brow furrowing, “not… whatever that was.”
Hide shrugs. “I think it was because it was in the middle of our first kiss. Like, a soulmark chemical reaction or something.”
Kaneki falls silent for a moment, contemplative. “Can I—” He stops, licks his lips. “Can I see them? Your soulmarks.”
Hide leers at him. “That’s a roundabout way to get me half-naked.”
Kaneki must still be flustered, because he goes red again at that, covering his face in pure embarrassment. “Why are you like this?” he groans.
“I’m your soulmate!” Hide reminds him gleefully. He sits up and slips off his shirt.
Kaneki moves closer, bending down to examine Hide’s chest. Hide’s not usually self-conscious — working at the CCG keeps him in good shape — but it’s the first time he’s ever had his shirt off in front of Kaneki, and under his intense, searching gaze, he has to fight the urge to cover up. The marks are subtle like healed scars, barely-raised planes of skin that reflect light oddly, unnoticeable unless you’re really looking for them.
Not meeting his gaze, cheeks still pink, Kaneki asks, “Can I try touching them again?”
Hide can feel himself flushing, and he tries to ignore it. This isn’t like that. Kaneki just wants to see how soulmark contact feels. He’s interested to know, himself.
But, sitting in the dim yellow light of his floor lamp, close enough to hear Kaneki breathing, exposed and waiting for his touch… It’s undeniably intimate. Somehow, it’s even worse than the kiss, which had been mostly spontaneous. Hide swallows, as quietly as he can.
Kaneki lays just a fingertip against the barely-there handprint mark on Hide’s chest, and a rush of such pure satisfaction and contentment flows through him that his eyes go half-lidded. Hide knows it’s advised not to overexpose yourself to soulmark contact as you’ll build up a tolerance to it, but in that moment, everything feels so good and floaty that he doesn’t care at all. Kaneki sucks in a sharp breath and draws his finger away, and it’s over in an instant.
“I get what all the warnings were about,” Hide murmurs. “Could get addicted to that.”
“They say you can get the feeling back if you avoid it for a while,” Kaneki points out. “But, yes. We should be careful.” He hesitates, before touching Hide’s arm. The much milder comfort of their usual contact washes over them.
Hide’s awfully relaxed, what with all this soulmate touching stuff. He leans back against the couch. “You’re the one who’s going to have to be careful. You’ve got the magic fingers.” He wiggles his own fingers at Kaneki to illustrate.
Kaneki frowns down at the soulmark on his free hand. “That’s so unfair.”
Hide snickers. “You have no right to complain!” The offended look Kaneki gives him just makes him laugh harder. “It’s your own fault! You pushed me into a wall!”
Kaneki’s fighting back a smile, now. “Should’ve used my kagune instead.”
“Ooo.” Hide leans forward excitedly. “How would that even work? Do you think the soulmark would’ve been on the skin over your kakuhou?”
“No idea,” Kaneki mumbles, distracted. His gaze keeps flitting down to Hide’s mouth, and, oh.
Hide touches his hand to Kaneki’s waist, lowers his voice. “You’re a rinkaku, right?” It’s a flimsy excuse to slip his fingers under that loose sweatshirt, to trace over the frightening power hidden in his lower back.
Kaneki lets out a little sigh, and his spine curves under Hide’s touch. “Mm-hm. Been reading my case file, Investigator?”
“Guilty.” Hide coaxes him closer. “Couldn’t help myself.”
Kaneki drapes himself over Hide, pressing him back against the couch. Cozily, he slides his fingers into Hide’s bleach-damaged hair. Hide thinks about how Kaneki could crush him into tasty little bits right now, if he wanted.
Instead, he dips his face closer to Hide’s, eyes slipping shut, and rests there, with their noses barely brushing. Just offering. Waiting.
Hide tilts his head up — slowly, teasingly, savoring the way Kaneki’s breath catches — and presses their lips together.
The soulmate-induced sensation isn’t nearly as intense as their first kiss, and Hide’s grateful for that. If he lost complete sense of his surroundings every time… Well, that would be inconvenient, at the very least. He’s overly aware of all things Kaneki Ken, certainly, but he’s also still aware of the couch that Kaneki’s pinning him against. The relaxing comfort every time their lips brush is like an extra dose of their usual soulmate touch. It’s weaker than the soulmark contact had been.
Kaneki makes it very hard for him to continue analyzing when he does something amazing with his tongue.
Hide could probably kiss him for hours. Everything about it feels right and good, like he’s not supposed to be doing anything else. Nothing could possibly be more important than Kaneki’s skin and mouth, least of all his stressors and worries. He can only hope Kaneki’s feeling the same.
It might actually be hours later when they finally tear their faces apart, disheveled and panting. Kaneki’s fingers are all but knotted in his hair, and Hide’s arms are stuck halfway up Kaneki’s (his) shirt.
“Wow,” Kaneki says dreamily.
The soulmate-kiss haze has loosened Hide’s tongue. “You’re gorgeous,” he confesses.
Kaneki draws back, looking far more shocked than he has any right to be — he’s definitely never looked in a mirror — and grips Hide’s shoulders for balance. Their bare soulmarks connect; Kaneki yanks his palm away immediately, but the powerful rush of feel-good chemicals still leaves them reeling.
“Sorry,” he says. He slouches, subdued. “I didn’t think. I’m not used to them, yet.”
Hide is not about to let Kaneki get upset over accidentally making them feel extra-good. He shoots him his brightest, most winningest smile. “All I’m hearing right now is that we’re going to have to do a lot of making out to practice.” He waggles his eyebrows obnoxiously.
Kaneki’s gloomy expression dissolves as he laughs breathlessly, covering his face with his hands. After a moment, he lets out a small, choked sound that’s decidedly not a laugh.
Hide runs his hands along Kaneki’s back. “You okay?” he murmurs.
“I’m okay.” Kaneki laughs again, scrubbing at his eyes. “I’m really, really good, actually.”
He sounds so incredulous at his own happiness that it twists something sharp into Hide’s heart.
---
Mado slaps a folder onto Hide’s desk. “The files you requested.”
“Thanks.” He doesn’t look up from the database he’s scrolling through until he realizes she hasn’t walked away yet. “What’s up?”
She’s giving him a discerning look. “Did the two of you work it out?”
Hide stares at her blankly. “Who?”
Takizawa fucking materializes from behind Mado. Apparently, he has a sixth sense for office gossip. “Your soulmate!” he hisses. Mado just nods.
Hide and Kaneki are hanging out almost every day now, whenever they’re both free from their respective responsibilities. Coffee dates, holding hands on park benches, hanging out in the reading nook at Gold’s. Kaneki even sleeps over sometimes. They haven’t progressed past making out, but kissing with their soulmate connection is intense as it is. It’s unbelievably nice.
“Well, that’s a yes,” Takizawa says, shaking his head.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“It’s obvious,” Mado says. She offers him a small smile. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
“It was your face.” Takizawa pats him on the back and walks toward his own desk. “It was the grossest, sappiest expression ever. Happy for ya, man.”
Hide smiles. “Thanks, guys.”
---
Later, Hide will remember exactly when he screwed up. It will all seem so obvious in retrospect: he was watching his phone instead of his surroundings; he shrugged off the sensation of his hair standing on end in the warm summer afternoon; he was too slow to unlock his quinque when it happened.
It’s over as quickly as it begins. A big, hulking guy grabs him by the arm, a kagune strikes him across the back of the head, and everything goes black.
---
The world returns in blurry bits and pieces. Voices talking — or rather, arguing — in hushed tones. Hard concrete underneath him. He doesn’t seem to be dead, at least. He cracks open his eyes and sees, amidst a wash of grey, vague figures standing near him.
As his vision swims, he becomes aware of a dull ache in the back of his skull. He rubs it (noting that his hands aren’t bound), groans, and the talking abruptly ceases.
One of the figures crouches down in front of him, and through his cloudy vision he can make out the distinctive shape of their hair: parted down the center, tied up on both sides of their head. As he blinks the blurriness away, his suspicions are confirmed; it’s the ghoul who’d lured him down the alley.
“Really?” he mutters, annoyed.
Twintails waves cheerily. “Hello, Investigator Nagachika! I’m sorry about this,” she says, not sounding sorry at all, “but your soulmate picked the wrong person to threaten.”
How does she know his name? Oh, they probably went through his wallet. His thoughts are moving too sluggishly for his liking. Is he concussed? Great, just wonderful… Wait, did she say ‘soulmate?’
He decides to play dumb. “Soulmate?”
She smiles sweetly. “Unless the famous eyepatch ghoul does all of his ‘business’ while snuggling under umbrellas…”
Hide goes cold. He and Kaneki had been so touch-starved from their weeks apart; they’d stayed leaning together in that stupid alleyway for so long…
She continues on, heedless of the dread washing over him. “At first I thought, wow, forbidden love! How romantic! But then I thought, how did he know you were in danger? It’s possible he was nearby and smelled us both. But, you know what I think, Investigator Nagachika?”
Hide doesn’t answer. It’s a struggle just to keep up with what she’s saying.
Twintails leans in conspiratorially. “I think he sensed that you were in danger.”
He stares at her. “Huh?”
Whatever reaction she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. She sits back on her heels. “Because… Because you’re soulmates?”
Hide just blinks.
She casts a bewildered look behind her, and Hide notices the rest of the people in the room for the first time.
There’s the big, hulking guy responsible for Hide’s current headache and possible (probable?) concussion, a tall man in a leather jacket, a girl with long pink hair, and a skinny guy taking practice swings with Hide’s quinque. They’re in an empty parking garage — an underground level, it looks like — and most of them are leaning against the thick concrete columns supporting the structure. The pink-haired girl doesn’t look up from the phone in her hand when she speaks. “Humans can’t do that.”
“Seriously?” Twintails stands, glaring down at Hide. “You really aren’t good for anything but food.”
Even as a concussed hostage, Hide can’t fight his curiosity. “Ghouls can sense their soulmates?”
“Yep,” the pink-haired ghoul answers him. “They can tell where they are and if they’re stressed.”
“We’re counting on the eyepatch ghoul to find you,” the big guy says, crossing his arms. “We’ll let you go if he agrees to keep his gang out of our territory.” He meets Hide’s gaze, cold anger burning in his eyes. “If you try to escape, we’ll have to kill you.”
“Right.” Hide sits up. With a nod from the big guy, the tall ghoul strides over to him to stand guard.
After that, it turns into a tense game of waiting. From what Hide can gather, the big guy is in charge here. It’s impossible to tell how dangerous any of them are; it’s not like he managed to put up a fight when they kidnapped him, so he hasn’t seen any of them in combat.
“So, uh…” Hide’s voice echoes through the empty parking garage. “What are we waiting for, exactly?”
The ghouls stare at him, expressions a mixture of annoyance and disbelief.
“Your boyfriend,” the pink-haired girl says helpfully.
“How hard did you hit him?” the skinny ghoul mutters to the big one.
Boyfriend? Hide doesn’t have a— Oh. Right. Is he concussed? He might be concussed.
At once, all of the ghouls go tense, backing away from the door to the stairs. Only the tall ghoul stays next to him. Hide turns and is caught between worry and relief.
It’s Kaneki.
He’s in street clothes, just a pale button-up, jeans, and sneakers, rather than his signature black bodysuit; he must’ve gotten here in a hurry. He is, however, wearing his eyepatched, grimacing mask, so there’s no mistaking who he is.
“Stop right there,” the tall ghoul says, only a little shaky. “If you come closer, I’ll tear his throat out.”
Kaneki says nothing. He’s the picture of apathetic, posture slouched, visible eye black and red but blank.
When he’s sure Kaneki’s not going to try anything, he continues, a little more confidently. “Now, we have some terms—”
And then he stops talking, chokes out blood instead, because Kaneki’s kagune is skewering him straight through, leather jacket and all. The limbs growing from Kaenki’s lower back whip viciously to the side, tossing the ghoul across the garage and into the opposite wall. The concrete crumbles with the impact, and the ghoul slumps to the floor, unmoving.
That’s one way to handle a hostage situation, Hide thinks dazedly. There’s a moment of stunned silence, and then Twintails positively screeches, kagune flaring from her shoulders and firing crystallized missiles in their direction. Hide flinches, flattening himself on the ground and bracing for sharp pain, but... Nothing hits him. When he opens his eyes again, he sees why.
Kaneki is crouched over him on all fours, snarling inhumanly, kagune thrashing above them like the tails of a furious, mutant cat. They’re touching, just barely, but the adrenaline and fear coursing through him must be overriding the relief. Aside from Twintails’ attack, the ghouls haven’t made a move.
“Ken,” Hide says softly, and Kaneki looks down at him, kakugan blazing wildly. “Be careful. Big guy’s a bikaku.”
“No,” Kaneki spits, cracking a knuckle, “he’s dead.”
He moves, and all hell breaks loose.
Despite his threat, he lunges, not for the big boss, but for the skinny ghoul holding Hide’s quinque. He doesn’t even use his kagune; he just grabs the ghoul's arm and pulls, tearing the limb clean off. Hide can’t help but wince at the ghoul’s scream of pain. With a flick of one of Kaneki’s kagune, Hide’s quinque comes flying.
He scrambles to his feet to snatch up the blade. By the time he grabs it, the skinny ghoul is down, and the big guy and Twintails are already on Kaneki, kagune out. She’s an ukaku, flitting around him like a dragonfly, firing off more missiles and generally being a nuisance, while the big guy calmly fends off most of Kaneki’s unrelenting strikes.
Hide has his own problem, though. The pink-haired ghoul is closing in on him, backing him up against the elevators. Smart; if she can capture Hide again, Kaneki will stop.
So, Hide can’t let that happen.
They circle each other. There’s no way he can move faster than she can; he’s human and might possibly be concussed. To his surprise, though, when she tries to grab him, her movements are slow enough that he can jump back, dodging out of the way. It must be hunger, because she doesn’t activate her kagune, either. He’s just lucky his combat training is muscle memory at this point; focusing on her movements is difficult through the fog in his head. Ducking her swings, he manages to maneuver so that she’s cornered instead of him. She dives forward, one last desperate charge, and he strikes, the blade of his quinque slicing nastily down her arm. She hisses, clutching the wound.
The ghoul glances behind her and then back to Hide. After a tense pause, she says, “I surrender?”
Hide doesn’t relax. “And when I turn around, you stab me in the back?”
She rolls her eyes and jabs the button for the elevator with her elbow. “I don’t even care about this group. Trust me, I’m not interested in dealing with that.” She nods behind Hide, but he doesn’t dare look.
The elevator dings, the doors open, and the girl steps backward inside. “Have fun.”
As soon as the pink of her hair disappears behind the closed door, Hide whirls around to take stock of their situation. Kaneki isn’t SS-rated for nothing; even though it’s two-on-one, he’s clearly gotten in some good strikes on the big guy; he’s bleeding pretty heavily, his careful blocks and counters looking less sure than before. But Kaneki’s missing a literal chunk of his side, which is pouring blood, and some of Twintails’ crystallized projectiles are sticking out of him like bright red knives.
The two other ghouls haven’t noticed Hide, too focused on Kaneki. Twintails is hopping to and from the same columns, pausing every couple jumps to fire a new round of kagune crystals at him. Despite her agile movements, Hide can tell that she’s flagging — the winglike limbs on her shoulders are growing smaller with each volley she sends Kaneki’s way. Maybe she’s even slow enough for Hide to catch.
He ducks behind the nearest column, readying his quinque. Following her same pattern, she zips to it, settling just for a moment in the footholds she’s worn into the concrete. As soon as her feet touch down, Hide strikes, skewering her straight in the ribs with his blade. She screams, and her kagune shorts out, dissolving into nothing.
The big boss’s head whips in her direction, face contorted in horror, and Kaneki ruthlessly seizes his opportunity. Using his kagune as a springboard, he propels himself into a kick that snaps the boss’s head back at an unnatural angle. Kaneki pounces and knocks him down, kagune curling forward like the legs of a giant spider, poised to rip into him.
“No!” Twintails shrieks from where Hide’s impaled her against the wall. “No, you can’t! He’s my soulmate!”
Kaneki doesn’t even look at her. Icily calm, he says, “That didn’t stop you, did it?”
When his kagune claw into the ghoul, shredding his already-unconscious body, Twintails bares her teeth and snarls in the same animalistic way Kaneki had earlier. She writhes, her wound spitting blood as she damages herself further on Hide’s blade. “I’ll kill you!” A tiny fraction of her kagune flickers up over her shoulder, and Hide moves on pure instinct, slicing up her chest and into her heart. She shudders and goes still.
At the sudden, ringing silence, Kaneki pauses and turns. Hide, panting and aching, stares back at him. When none of the bodies around them move, Kaneki climbs to his feet and urgently crosses the space between them, kagune evaporating as he goes. Hide tosses his quinque to the ground right before Kaneki grabs him by the arms. “Hide,” he breathes.
Hide leans forward, touching their foreheads together. “I’m okay.”
Kaneki lets go of him to undo the lower strap of his mask, fumbling with the buckle in his haste. Once the leather and mock teeth fall away to hang loosely against the side of his face, he grabs Hide’s arms again and crushes their mouths together in a desperate kiss. It works its soulmate magic on them, because Hide’s shoulders start to finally unknot themselves, and after a moment, Kaneki’s hands stop shaking. They’re still gripping his arms tight enough to bruise, so Hide pries one off and drags it up to the soulmark on his chest.
The world goes fuzzy at the edges, and Kaneki breaks the kiss and drops his head onto Hide’s shoulder with a whimper. Hide pulls him as close as possible, pressing his face into dirty white hair. They stand there, embracing, letting the soulmark contact ease them back to normal heart rates and even breathing.
“You’re hurt,” Hide realizes suddenly, pushing them apart. Damn his stupid concussion! Reluctantly, Kaneki draws his hand away from Hide’s soulmark and steps back. His clothes are completely ruined, covered in bloodstains, shredded from injuries and his own kagune alike. The wound in his side isn’t quite as nasty as when it was fresh, but it’s still huge and open and oozing blood.
“It’ll heal,” he says dismissively.
“Kaneki.” Hide takes him by the shoulders. “Don’t you need RC cells for that, after a fight?”
Kaneki’s shoulders droop, and Hide knows he’s right. “I can…” Kaneki can’t finish the sentence. He gestures at the big ghoul’s mangled body.
Hide squeezes his shoulders. “I’ll go wait by the elevators.” When Kaneki only nods wordlessly at him, unable to meet his eyes, Hide releases him and turns to give him privacy.
When Kaneki joins him again, his mouth isn’t dripping blood like Hide imagined; his face is clean and presentable, and the hole in his side is completely closed up. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
Hide hits the button to call the elevator and takes Kaneki’s hand. “Of course.”
---
Kaneki tries his best to hide his grimace when he tastes the cup of decaf Hide makes him, and Hide snorts into his own cup. “I probably should’ve warned you: I have no idea how to make coffee. I just dump creamer and sugar in it to cope, but, I guess you don’t have that luxury. Sorry.”
A bare foot nudges his ankle under the kitchen table, the touch as soothing as the warm shower he’d taken when they’d finally made it home. “It’s okay,” Kaneki says with a smile. “I can teach you.”
“You’re not even going to deny it? So cruel, Kaneki!”
“Absolutely not. This is awful.” He takes another drink of it anyway.
Hide copies him, indulging in his own sweet concoction. The hum of the refrigerator fills the kitchen. It’s not quite a comfortable silence; the events of that evening hang too heavily over their heads for that.
Finally, Hide speaks up. “How did you find me?” Assuming the ghouls hadn’t lied to him, he kind of already knows, but he wants to hear it from Kaneki.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Kaneki says, frowning. “I could feel it, that you were in trouble. I just knew exactly where to go. I can’t really explain it.”
That throws him for a loop; he’d thought Kaneki had been intentionally hiding it from him. “Those ghouls thought you’d be able to find me because I’m your soulmate.”
Kaneki’s quiet for a long time. “I thought I was past surprises like this,” he finally mutters, “but I guess there’s still things I don’t know about being a ghoul.”
An earlier conversation echoes in Hide’s head. When I was a human…
Kaneki’s watching him, gauging his reaction. Hide slides their ankles together in wordless comfort, worried that speaking will shut Kaneki up before he’s even begun to explain. The fridge hums on for a long moment, before he finally starts talking. He tells Hide about the beautiful girl who liked the same books he did; about how their date ended with her crushed and him bleeding out on the ground; about how the doctor treated him as an experiment instead of a patient; about the new, terrible hunger that nothing could sate.
Hide’s heart aches for the Kaneki of the past, scared and alone, starving and desperate. He wonders: if they’d only met earlier, would he have been able to help?
It’s not all terrible. When Kaneki tells him about the ghouls at Anteiku, his shoulders relax, his voice goes soft, and he even smiles for the first time since he started his story. Hide feels a rush of gratitude toward these strangers. When Kaneki describes them, all Hide hears is ‘family.’
Eventually, Kaneki starts to talk about Aogiri. Hide’s heart sinks as Kaneki tells him the way the dangerous ghoul gang attacked Anteiku, how they kidnapped him… And then he stops abruptly, left eye leaking red in his distress.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, a haunted look on his face. “I can’t— I—” His hands shake around his empty cup.
“It’s okay,” Hide says instantly. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
Kaneki casts him a grateful look and intertwines their legs even more. He takes a moment to collect himself. “I think all of that is why I had such a hard time believing that you didn’t mind I was a ghoul. Because, I know what it’s like to be a human confronted with all of this. I remember how disgusted I was with myself. But you accepted it without question.”
“I’m your soulmate,” Hide says simply. He stands, and reaches for Kaneki’s cup. “If someone was going to cancel out all your self-loathing with unconditional love, it makes sense that it would be me.”
He’s rewarded with a tiny smile as Kaneki hands over his cup. “I suppose you’re right.”
They make their way to Hide’s bed, curling up into the covers and each other. Kaneki’s careful not to touch his soulmarks, arms clinging around his waist instead. Hide pets his head, fingers running through fluffy, freshly-washed white hair.
“They targeted you because of me,” Kaneki says suddenly, arms tightening around him.
Hide sighs. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Speak the truth? That you could’ve died, just because you’re with me?”
“Please shut up and just kiss me instead,” Hide whines.
Kaneki pulls away to look at him. “Hide, be serious.”
“I am being serious!” Hide takes Kaneki’s face in his hands and glares at him. “I want to celebrate not being dead by making out with you until we fall asleep. I don’t want to talk about how you’re a terrible match for me, because guess what? I’m a terrible match for you, too.” When Kaneki opens his mouth to argue, Hide barrels on. “You think you can’t die from being with me? If the CCG found out about us, it could expose you and all the other ghouls you care about.”
He doesn’t have anything to say to that, so Hide softens his voice. “We’ll be careful, Ken. We’ll figure it out.” He pulls their faces closer. “I wasn't kidding about the makeout thing.”
Kaneki, fucking finally, obliges him. He kisses Hide sweetly, so affectionate that he feels downright spoiled. To Hide’s delight, he doesn’t stop, crawling on top of him and pressing him down into the mattress, kissing him so soundly he nearly swoons.
When Kaneki breaks away to kiss down his jaw, Hide lets out a contented sigh. “You always taste like coffee. It’s nice.”
Kaneki laughs low and soft against his ear, sending goosebumps across his skin. “You don’t wanna know what you taste like,” he purrs, biting playfully at his earlobe, and it’s really sexy but now Hide has to know.
“Wait,” he says, tugging on Kaneki’s hair until they’re face to face again. “What do I taste like?”
“Aren’t you the one who wanted to make out?” Kaneki asks flatly.
“You can’t just say something like that and then move on!” He gives him a pleading look. “What do I taste like?”
Kaneki looks exasperated. “Delicious. Can we get back to kissing, please?”
“Delicious? Oh, wow.” Hide’s grinning too hard, so Kaneki settles for kissing his neck instead. When it becomes clear that he’s being ignored, Hide continues, “It makes me wonder something, Kaneki…”
He takes the bait, propping himself up to loom over Hide with an unimpressed look. “Since you’re talking about it instead of making out with me, it must be fascinating.”
Hide’s grin widens. “How delicious do other parts of me taste?”
Kaneki blushes, and Hide gets to feel smug about it for all of two seconds before the bastard leans back in and says against his lips, “If you shut the hell up, maybe we can find out.”
Hide, obviously, shuts the hell up.
---
It’s a perfectly pleasant night for a stroll through the 20th ward; the sidewalks aren’t too crowded and the air is nice and cool. Despite this, Kaneki is distractingly tense, brows drawn and shoulders hunched.
“Don’t be nervous,” Hide tells him as they walk side-by-side down the street.
Kaneki startles, then shoots him a disgruntled look. “I’m not nervous,” he says, rubbing a spot on his chin. “Besides, shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”
Hide lifts up their laced fingers, which are currently soothing most of his worries. “As long as you hold my hand and stop them if they try to eat me, I’m good.”
Kaneki’s uncovered eye goes steely. “Of course I’d stop them.”
“Kaneki, I was kidding.”
Hide manages to remain calm until they've climbed the front steps and are standing just outside their destination, the air thick with the tantalizing scent of coffee. The sign on the door is flipped to the ‘closed’ side, but Kaneki reaches for the handle anyway. Stomach lurching, Hide grabs his arm to stop him.
When he turns to look at him, worry all over his face, Hide pulls him closer. “Just one kiss, for good luck?”
Kaneki’s expression softens. “Definitely not because you’re nervous, right?” he teases, touching a hand to the back of Hide’s neck.
“Definitely not,” Hide lies.
He lets himself be drawn in for a sweet kiss that loosens the anxious knot in his chest.
“Thank you for trusting me with this,” Hide tells him quietly.
“Of course.” Kaneki’s answering smile is so bright that Hide has to tear his gaze away before his thoughts devolve into embarrassing mushy nonsense.
A bell rings as they open the door, and Kaneki takes his hand and pulls him into Anteiku.