Chapter Text
Yoshimura always makes sure they get coffee at work each day. The aging manager will hand out steaming cups along with slow, wrinkled smiles to those with morning shifts; those taking over in the afternoons (always swept up immediately by the rush) he’ll tap on the shoulder to alert them to his presence behind them with a hot mug. He watches with approval as their chilled hands cup the ceramic and their heaving shoulders still, cherishing the way the worry in their brows momentarily fades. He knows all too well that his – he sometimes catches himself thinking of them as his children – that his employees need all the care and affection they can get, every one of them.
Kaneki is grateful for it. More grateful than he could say. Yoshimura will probably never know how much he does for him – for Touka, too, and Nishio, and … well, it's all of them, really. Their world is a difficult place. Kindness comes to them rarely. It's something Kaneki believes they should value more – something, even, that they should cultivate. Ghoul society isn't big on close relationships … there's a good reason for that, but still. Wouldn't it be nice to have something –
“Dumbass, stop spacing out.” Kaneki catches the muttered words and jumps to attention, realizing with dismay that the line at the register has lengthened nearly to the door as he had been standing there, polishing and over-polishing the dish in his hands.
“Sorry, Touka,” he whispers back, hurrying to take over the register. She rolls her eyes at him, annoyed, but doesn't pause to admonish him further. He's sure he'll hear all about it later. Out of the corner of his eye, as he takes the next customer's order, he admires the swift, practiced way her hands work at the coffee machine. She outshines him, even here. He wants to do better, to please her, but her approval is so hard-won.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Touka says to him, later, after the flow of customers slows to a more manageable rate. “You're making me suspicious.” Her tone turns down at the end of the sentence, irritated.
“How come?” Kaneki says, confused.
She doesn't reply for a moment. “That thing you told me about yesterday,” she says eventually. “I don't want you thinking about that.”
Now Kaneki, too, has to pause. He takes another order and prepares the drink before he answers her. “You can't stop me from thinking,” he tells her quietly, as they brush past each other. He has been thinking about “that,” to be perfectly honest, but then again, that's nothing new.
“You need to give it up, Kaneki,” she says on the next pass. “Really, you're a fucking idiot for hanging on to it so long in the first place.”
Maybe he is, he thinks, waiting for the coffee to trickle into the cup. More beans. He retrieves a can from the shelf and pours them into the grinder, the sound drowning out Touka's voice greeting the customers. Maybe he is holding too hard to false hope, to baseless feelings. Maybe he should just – well, he can't let it go, he's sure, but maybe he could suppress it. Ignore it. Maybe eventually it really would go away.
“– morning, don't you think, Touka?” a voice is enthusing, when the grinder shuts itself off. A shock runs through Kaneki, setting his pulse fluttering in his throat. He's heard this voice a thousand times before, so there's no reason it should have this effect on him. And yet …
“Hi, Hide,” he blurts as he turns around, going for casual but rushing his words far too much. Touka makes a noise in the back of her throat and raises her eyes to the ceiling, leaving the register for him.
“Hey hey, Kaneki!” his best friend says, nearly blinding him with his smile. Kaneki is forced to drop his eyes, or else his blush will show on his face.
It wouldn’t be this bad if he knew what was coming, but Hide sneaking up on him unexpectedly like this means his feelings are running far too close to the surface. “I didn't expect you to come by,” Kaneki says to the counter. “Weren't you supposed to be …?”
“In class? Well ...” Hide gives a self-conscious laugh. “I got there, but then I couldn't pay attention for shit, so I decided I needed some coffee. To wake me up, and all.” He reaches out and ruffles Kaneki's hair. Kaneki hides his reaction with a fast swallow. “Also this way I get to come bug my best bud! Win-win.”
Kaneki laughs weakly. “I have to work, Hide ...”
Hide shoots another blinding grin his way. “Work, huh? Why aren't you getting me a coffee yet, in that case?”
“O-oh yeah.”
Kaneki doesn't need to ask what kind. He knows how Hide likes it.
Touka elbows him hard in the gut as he prepares it, which makes him spill the cream. He gives her a petulant look while he wipes it up, but otherwise ignores her very obvious huff of disgust. He can't believe he thought she'd be able to help him with this – with this attraction of his. He'd thought … Yoriko … but clearly, he'd thought wrong.
Kaneki balances the brimming coffee cup carefully on the way to the counter. “Thaaanks, Kaneki,” Hide says, accepting it carelessly enough that Kaneki feels justified in hanging on to the cup a little bit longer, their fingers overlapping, to make sure it doesn't tilt. “Actually, I brought homework shit to do, so I'm gonna hit a table and keep out of your way. But dude, you'll totally hang out with me later, right?”
“Uh – I –” Kaneki stutters, catching Touka's glare out of the corner of his eye. “Y-yes,” he says, and she looks away. “When?”
“This afternoon, once you're off work? You don't have any classes today, right?”
Hide knows Kaneki's schedule so well, it's more just a formality that he checks at all. As expected, Kaneki shakes his head. “Sure, but it can't be for too long … I have studying to do. Sorry, Hide.”
“Ah, don't we all,” Hide says, raising his arms and arching his back in a stretch. “I'll come by again at one and pick you up, then? We can hit the park or something. Look at the trees. Contemplate life.”
Kaneki hides a smile. “Okay, Hide,” he says.
There aren't many more customers for a while, and Touka's busy with something else, so Kaneki is free to think. Hiding partially behind the coffee machines, he watches the customers drink coffee and chat, feeling a bit wistful. His eyes are drawn, again and again, to Hide sitting at the table by the window. He makes an effort, mostly for Touka's sake, to stop himself from staring, but eventually he gives in to temptation.
It's something he's never said aloud, but he really likes the color of Hide's hair. Hide has been bleaching it for as long as Kaneki can remember, and after so many years, it's impossible to imagine it colored differently. It suits him. Especially right now, where it catches the light just right, illuminated from behind, seeming to surround him in a glowing halo … The sun has just risen past the silhouette of the buildings across the street from Anteiku, melting the early spring frosts, and it shines bright through the window and onto Hide's face. His homework is spread out before him, textbooks open and papers scattered, but he appears to be spacing out, staring straight ahead at nothing. He holds the eraser of his pencil contemplatively between his lips. Kaneki watches the tip of the pencil rise, and drop, and rise …
“You'd better not be thinking about what I think you're thinking about,” says Touka's voice, close to his ear.
Kaneki jolts. “I –!”
“I told you,” she says sharply, folding her arms. “You have to give it up. It isn't going to work.”
Kaneki tears his eyes away from Hide, turning to face her. He tries to think of a snappy retort for a moment, but when none manifests, he gives up and sighs. “Touka … I told you about that in confidence,” he says peevishly. “I thought you'd be okay with it.”
“Then you're an idiot.” Kaneki looks around quickly, making sure that none of the customers are watching them. But they're standing out of sight, after all, behind the machines. “Haven't you been paying attention to the world at all?” Touka is saying, the line of her jaw stiff and the eye not covered by her hair staring at him flatly. “That kind of thing – love, relationships – it's not something we can have. Not with humans. There's no way it could end well.”
Kaneki sighs. “I can't help what I feel, Touka,” he says, voice very soft.
“Would you stop giving me those mournful looks?” Touka mutters off to the side, turning her face away and tucking her hair behind her ear. “I'm just trying to save you the heartbreak. It's not worth it, believe me.”
Sometimes, Kaneki has noted in the past, Touka's eyes look … so incredibly sad. This is one of those times. It's never more than a brief flicker, but he catches it despite its brevity, and once again finds himself wondering about her life. She had grown up in this world, after all, this world with all its tragedy – unlike Kaneki himself, who as a much more recent initiate, can’t imagine the things she must have endured. If he was braver, he'd ask her about her past – but truly, he's not entirely sure he wants to know.
“I … I know,” Kaneki says. He doesn't, really, but he can guess. “I know it’s not worth it … I just ...”
Touka gives a huff. “You know what, whatever,” she says abruptly. “I mean. This isn’t my business. You can feel whatever the fuck you wanna feel, it’s not my job to stop you from being stupid.” The line of her mouth hardens. “Just – whatever you do – don't let him know you're a ghoul, or let him know about us,” she says. “Because I will kill him. You know that.”
“I know,” Kaneki repeats. He turns away, and peeks around the machines towards the customers. Hide is writing, now, head bent over his paper. His headphones, left around his neck, press into his cheek, and his brow knits in concentration. Hide, killed. Above all else, he can't have that.
Hours later, wind ruffles Kaneki's hair as they walk through the park, side by side. Today is warmer than it's been in a while. The park is busy, full of parents with children running around, teenagers playing Frisbee, elderly folks picking their slow ways over to benches to sit and feed the birds.
They've been in silence for a while, but Kaneki can tell Hide’s thinking about something. Now, he hears Hide take a quick breath and smiles to himself, pleased he was right. “Soooo,” Hide begins, teasingly casual. Kaneki casts a quick glance over at him, but he's just smiling blankly, staring at the sky.
“So?” Kaneki prods, when Hide doesn't continue. Hopefully talk will distract him from his thoughts. His stomach feels odd. It's easy, when they walk like this, to pretend that Hide knows everything, about his feelings – even, that this is a date and everything is all right. The pretending feels equal parts amazing and terrible, to the point where he can hardly bear it.
“Soo-ooo,” Hide says again, a grin curling the corners of his mouth.
Kaneki gives an exasperated exhale. “So what?”
“So. Touuuuka,” he draws out the name, “hmmmm?”
Kaneki flushes. “What about her?”
Hide bumps their shoulders together. “Nothing! Nothing at all.” A pause. “I just noticed, earlier, that you and your pretty coworker were spending a lot of time hiding behind those coffee machines together … hmmmm?”
Kaneki’s hand finds his forehead, his thoughts cringing away. No. That was so much not what was going on. “And – and you thought we were –!”
“I didn't say I thought anything!” Hide says, laughing at Kaneki's embarrassment. “I was just observing.”
Kaneki folds his arms and holds himself a little more at a distance from Hide. They pass under the shifting shadows of some trees. “We weren't doing anything like that!” he says.
“Aww, you're pouting,” Hide says, and pinches his cheek. Kaneki glares. “Whoa, whoa, don't bite me or anything! So you weren't kissing Touka, I get it. But, don't you want to?”
“I wasn't going to bite you,” Kaneki mutters, adjusting the hood of his sweater and studying the cracked concrete of the path. Hide has no way of knowing how determined Kaneki is to never, never bite him, and for what reasons. Ever since he fought Nishiki …
“Kaneeee-kiiiii, don't avoid the question,” Hide insists, bringing him back to the present. “Touka! You think she's cute, right?”
“She's cute, but I don't like her,” Kaneki says. They reach a conveniently-situated bench, and Hide skips over to it, tugging Kaneki's sleeve along with him. “She's a friend. Not anything else.”
Hide throws a casual arm around Kaneki's shoulders as Kaneki sits down beside him. Kaneki inhales, forcing himself not to react. They'd always been close like this. Hide was always touching him, grabbing his hand to bring his attention to things, resting his head in Kaneki's lap while they watched movies, hugging him enthusiastically whenever they were separated for longer than usual. It only made things harder, for Kaneki, although he yearns just as much for the physical contact.
Hide is one of the few people who touches him at all. His own parents are dead, and of course his surrogate family would never offer him any physical affection. Kaneki cherishes this, what he has with Hide. It's comfort, it's home, even if it can't be love.
Why can't it? asks a small voice in the back of Kaneki's head.
Out here, the sun shines, and children laugh and play. The problems of Kaneki's world have never seemed more far away. Right now it seems simple, simple to imagine that he could have this, have what he wants with Hide, and never have him find out about the dark side of his life. Everything else is so terrible, he rationalizes – it would be wonderful to have even one good thing. Touka wouldn't approve, but maybe Yoshimura could talk to her. The manager, who offers them all coffee every morning, would surely see the advantages to him having such a relationship.
“Kaneki? Dude, are you spacing out?” Hide's voice brings him back to himself.
“O-oh, sorry,” he says with a faint laugh. “What were you saying?”
“I was saying, do you have anyone you do like?” Hide repeats, his warm brown eyes smiling at Kaneki in a way that makes Kaneki's heart do foolish things. “If not Touka. There must be somebody.”
Was that an invitation? Could Hide be prompting him to confess? He's never had a problem getting up in Kaneki's space, and now, the way he's looking at him …
“I ...” Kaneki says, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth. Oh, this is harder than he'd imagined. His hands shake a little. “There's not … I don't really have any, any girl who I have feelings for … there's something – sorry, it's difficult to say …”
Hide's face goes surprised. Kaneki's stomach drops, sure he's guessed. Hide is so perceptive, after all …
“I-it's just that, I can't,” Kaneki goes on quickly. “I have a – I can't get crushes, on people, it's ...” Hide's watching his face intently now, his mind clearly working fast. Kaneki's face heats up. This was a terrible idea. He should take it back. “I mean –! It's not a big deal, I just – it's because … because … I have this problem …”
“Kaneki,” Hide says gently, cutting him off. Kaneki presses his lips together and looks down. “No, Kaneki, look at me. Ken. It's okay.”
With great reluctance, Kaneki lifts his eyes to Hide's face. “I get it now. You're trying to tell me about it, but you don't want to. Of course you don't.” Hide looks so soft, so soft and caring and it makes Kaneki's heart stop. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you bring it up like this. But, it's okay, though,” he adds, “I already knew.”
“Hide …?” Kaneki breathes. Could he possibly …?
“I wasn't going to mention it, in case it changed things, but if you're that worried … I just, I wanted you to know it doesn't make a difference to me. I figured it out a long time ago, actually – so if I was bothered by it, you would have known already. See?”
“Are you really saying …?”
Hide gives him a brilliant smile. “Yeah. It's all fine, buddy. It's fine that you're a ghoul.”