Chapter Text
#1
Tsukiyama holds Kaneki’s hands every time they are next to each other. Intertwining fingers, holding, clamping, touching, sometimes just connecting the backs of their hands. Kaneki will be talking to Miza or Ayato, Tsukiyama will come up to join in, and will naturally, gently, link their pinkies together. Kaneki never looks down to see and Tsukiyama never holds on too long. Just a few seconds, sometimes a single breath, just enough to remind him that he’s here.
#3
Can anything be really be forgiven and forgot? Kaneki looks at Touka, calm and smiling, and can’t help but remember when she told him to never come back. Every time he crosses a dark alley he sees Hide’s smile as he confesses to knowing his most darkest secret and then, suddenly, disappear. When he sees Ayato orbiting Hinami he thinks about breaking half his bones, thinks about never going to visit Hinami in Cochlea, then walks away.
The first time he sees Tsukiyama /blade to his throat/ he doesn’t know /if he made it, did he survive the fall/ what to say /why are you here?/.
Tsukiyama speaks /”There’s now way I can do that”/ first and tells him /eyes full of recognition, anagnorisis/ to forget it /stabbing him, throwing him off a building, sacrificing his own/.
Kaneki tells himself he’s been forgiven, but he just can’t let it go.
#4
Tsukiyama and Kaneki kiss like they say goodbye, often and quickly. There’s never enough time, they’re always tired, and they never know how long they’ll be apart. While one is organizing data and researching, another is talking to groups, to their army, and it takes them all day. Either one is in early or the other is out late, they barely see eachother, but when they do.. The first time after a few minutes, they lock gazes, ask silent questions. Everything alright? Anything unusual? The first time after a few hours, they look at each other they look for wounds, they look for blood, they skip their eyes and mouths and go straight to their chests, their arms, their shoulders, and backs. The first time after a day, or days, Tsukiyama’s hands talk for him, communicate his anxiety, and Kaneki let’s him; his dark red hands, clench and unclench as his nose makes sure there is no blood on his partner.
When they get home, their personal room in general headquarters, they eat and take showers; one prepares for bed, the other prepares for insomnia, but both get into the same bed and share their only unhurried kiss of the day.
Hoping, carefully and quietly, for more.
#8
Kaneki whispers Tennyson to Tsukiyama when he’s feeling nervous, even when the purple haired ghoul has told him countless of times he would prefer Shakespeare’s dramatic romances compared to Tennyson’s prayers for resignation before death. They lay in bed together while one of them is hurt and Kaneki will whisper bits and pieces..
“That loss is common would not make my own less bitter, rather more…*
One day, Tsukiyama comes back injured, “Victory, my king,” he says, strained, and promptly disappears behind the blue rag that divides their provisional HQ from the infirmary. Around Kaneki, Tsukiyama’s squad looks roughed up, but unhurt; they all wait for Tsukiyama to come out before debriefing. No one says anything when the white haired man rushes in behind him.
Tsukiyama is getting stitches, of all things, and the ghoul patching him up, looks at Kaneki sternly, “He needs to eat and sleep. This wound isn’t healing because you boys don’t get enough of either.”
Tsukiyama blushes slightly and looks away but Kaneki is right there beside him, nodding away, left hand slipping into Tsukiyama’s right. The young ghoul, the only certified nurse amongst them, sighs knowingly as he finishes the stitches. He looks at Kaneki with an exasperated expression, “I don’t even know why I try; you’re probably coming in next, aren’t’cha?”
Kaneki shrugs as he says, “I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.”**
Tsukiyama shakes his head but a small smile graces his lips as he squeezes Kaneki’s hand. The nurse buries his face in his hands and groans, frazzled.
*In Memoriam, VI, Tennyson
**Macbeth, Shakespeare