#the image is a head on shot with the beak titled downward

[nitewrighter]

Karasu Tengu

Will we ever get that fic where a teenager Rei breaks into the Shimada Castle and gets picked up just in time from relieved-but-really-mad Shimada brothers?

(From @nerdingsince96)

The neat thing about getting this as a submission is I can save it as a draft! Nifty!

Alternate title for this fic is “This bird keeps itself in the air through sheer force of anger alone.”

—-

Kenzou cupped his hand over the end of his cigarette as he lit it, tinging his palm orange with the light. He puffed smoke out of his nose and looked out over the lights of Hanamura. The wood of Shimada Castle’s grand veranda creaked beneath his polished shoes. He glanced over at Minako, calmly scrolling through her phone. The omnic was in a suit, like him, with long black wires trailing out of her head, tied back in a sleek Heian style with white ribbon securing the wires at the lowest possible point. He had teased her about it before, but then again Minako had given him just as much shit for using ‘analog’ over e-cigs. Their workplace was a timewarp in and of itself, anyway. No one could really tease anyone for letting it imprint on them. Minako felt his eyes on her, glanced up from the phone and gave him a ‘Yes, I’m still paying attention’ nod and he gave a slightly amused huff, puffing more smoke out of his nostrils. His watch beeped and he brought a finger to his ear.

“Link check,” he spoke quietly, “Taigen?”

“Front Gate’s clear,” a voice came in over his earpiece, “Bernier?”

“West side of the shrine is clear,” said another voice, “Hisanobu?”

“No movement in the garden,” a voice huffed, “You know, it’s been years since our last breach–”

“That we know of,” said Minako, sleeking a metal hand over her wires.

“Oh come on–” Taigen started over the line.

“I’m just saying, thermoptic cloaking, teleporters….” Minako shrugged, “It’s not like management has ever been big on updating our tech.”

“Oi oi oi–” Kenzou put a hand up, “That’s the boss you’re talking about.”

“Right, right,” said Minako with a sigh.

“As I was saying, link check,” Kenzou said, side-eying Minako, “Alenko?”

There was only white noise on the other side of the link, “Alenko?” Kenzou repeated. Still only white noise.

“…Guest house,” said Minako and Kenzou loaded a clip into his gun.

“Hold the veranda,” said Kenzou, “I’ll go—”

He was suddenly sideswiped hard by a dark shape. His eyes only registered black and red. He felt his ribs crack as a clawed boot made contact with them. 

“Shit–!” Minako drew her own sidearm but a sound whistled through the air and a kunai knocked the gun from her hand, sending the gun tumbling over the side of the veranda. She quickly drew an extendable shock baton from her hip and ran toward Kenzou and the grappling assailant. “You little–!” she started.

But they were little, at least compared to Kenzou. As the two of them grappled in the milliseconds of Minako’s approach, she made out the rough shape of the assailant. Dressed in a snug but not restrictive black outfit, two dark frames arched off of the figure’s back. The figure’s face jutted up as they caught Kenzou in a headlock and in the darkness Minako made out two red eyes in a black mask, illuminating a narrow, corvid-like beak, she hesitated only momentarily.

“Minako–!” Kenzou choked under the figure’s grip and Minako flicked her baton and rushed them, only for bright red lights to flare out of the two frames on the figure’s back. Like blood-red feathers. Like an avian threat display.

Wings, thought Minako, A demon. A tengu.

And then, with those wings flaring, the figure suddenly swung their legs hard around, using Kenzou’s weight and those very wings to add to their momentum and kick her in the face—But Minako could react. She brought up her arm and baton in a block and forced the figure to push back, they were dependent on Kenzou’s balance, naturally unstable, and Kenzou was struggling against them. It was still two on one, she had to remember that. 

But then the figure pushed off of Kenzou’s back in a backflip, touching on the ground with one hand in a backhand spring, as they used the other to draw a wakizashi and the sheath from their hip, wielding both as weapons. Kenzou was coughing but he managed to raise his gun at the winged figure. They rushed him and he fired several times in their direction. The figure brought their wakizashi up and the pulsefire sparked off the blade, Minako flinched as it pocked the wall next to her head, but Kenzou grunted as his own deflected fire impacted the kevlar beneath his suit and grazed his arm and shoulder.

 Minako rushed past him and swung down with her baton, only for the figure to block her arm with the wakizashi and then uppercut her jaw with the scabbard. Feeling warm blood running down his arm, Kenzou brought up his gun in his still good hand to shoot at the assailant again, but they were thrashing around too closely with Minako for him to get a clear shot. Grunting in frustration, he tried to grab them off Minako from behind, only for those wings to flare out to buy a few milliseconds of hesitation from him. Minako brought her baton down again but the figure seized her arm and redirected the force of her downward strike, pivoting on their feet, striking Kenzou in the face with their wings in their turn before throwing Minako into him. They both grunted and splayed out with the force of the impact, but as soon as they managed to roll off of each other and Minako sprang up to her feet to see the last flicker of those glowing red wings darting around the corner heading into the main hall of Shimada Castle.

“Shit–” said Minako and Kenzou grunted and held his gun out to her. 

“Take it,” said Kenzou, holding the gun out to her.

“Are you okay?” said Minako.

“I’ll be fine! But I’ll just slow you down! Take my gun before she gets away! I’ll get you backup,” said Kenzou.

Minako took the gun and gave him a single nod before running off after the red-winged figure.

Kenzou grunted as he pushed up to a seated position. He brought his hand up to his ear. “Hisanobu–There’s a breach. I need you to back up–”

There was a whirring, whistling sound and suddenly several shuriken pinned his arm to the ground by the sleeve of his suit jacket. 

“Whuh–?” Kenzou started but he felt his commlink get plucked out of his ear. His eyes trailed up to a figure in silver armor, with a v-shaped bright green visor.

“Kenzou? Kenzou are you there?” Kenzou could hear Hisanobu on the other side of the line before the silver figure crushed the commlink in his fist.

“We’re not here to fight,” said the figure, “You have our word we’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“Who…?” Kenzou started but he felt a sharp fingertip blow between the shoulder blades and blacked out.

“…you didn’t have to do that,” said Genji as Hanzo stepped over the unconscious henchmen.

“We don’t have time for you to play Zenyatta,” said Hanzo, already breaking out into a run.

Genji huffed and ran after him.

“I still can’t believe you let her out of your sight here of all places!” said Hanzo as they ran into the main hall of Shimada castle.

“She’s fourteen! Angela and I can’t be breathing down her neck all the time!” 

“You should, in Hanamura!” snapped Hanzo, looking around, “Now where did she go?”

They heard a grunt down a hallway and sprinted after the sound, until they came upon another unconscious Shimada henchman. A bruise roughly the shape of the tip of a wakizashi sheath darkened his forehead.

“…okay she’s moving a lot faster than anticipated,” said Genji.

“Of course you would be stupid enough to put wings on a ninja!” said Hanzo as they continued sprinting down the hallway.

“I didn’t put the wings on her! And you were the one who started training her!”

“You gave her that first shinai!”

“Kendo is a sport! It’s a sport!”

“It’s still a sword!” 

“I just hope she’s alright…” Genji said quietly.

Hanzo just gritted his teeth as they kept running. 

—-

Deep in the maze of guest rooms and galleries of Shimada castle, the winged figure’s feet lightly touched down on the ground as their red wings folded against their back. They paused to catch their breath, feeling it fog up against their face underneath the mask. There weren’t nearly as many guards this deep into the castle, so they continued on foot, sliding away door frames and peering inside before moving on. They opened a door to a long gallery featuring numerous weapons on stands and painted silk screens. There was an Edo-era painting showing a woman in beautiful Heian robes holding a baby in a wheelbarrow being pushed by a servant. They were being wheeled away from a manor in flames, and another painting of the same woman now in rags, still holding the infant, now standing before a spring framed by a single Torii. The moon seemed to be descending from the sky its reflection yellow in the water and a great white dragon was twisting around the moon. The tengu tilted their head at this painting, and nearly reached out to touch it, before they caught themselves and continued on in a brisk walk.

They reached the end of the gallery where there was a large ornate door, and they opened it. The room inside was dark, and the air stale, as if no one had been in it for a long, long time. The tengu stepped over the threshold and the lights bloomed on sleepily. Atmospheric, but doubtlessly electric.

“Old building, new tech,” murmured the Tengu to themselves. The room was clearly a master bedroom, elegant in its simplicity. The Tengu walked around the room, pausing next to a bedside table. There was a black framed photo of a five people. A weary-looking man who was the spitting image of Hanzo, a woman with Genji’s smug little smirk, a sour-looking toddler with a chonmage hairstyle, and a chubby-cheeked baby. To the left of this family stood a tall woman, her arms folded confidently. The Tengu tilted their head and studied her more closely. Her hair was piled in a smart faux-pompadour with a ponytail flowing over her shoulder. The Tengu picked this photo up and walked around the room. “I guess it was too much to hope for some kind of computer–” they started before stopping at a breezy noise that almost sounded like air conditioning. The Tengu put their hand to the wall and trailed it along the wood and plaster, until their hand ran over a crack at one of the wooden frames and felt a puff of cool air across the palm.

“Hello,” said the Tengu. They pressed against the wall panel and it pushed inward and slid to the side to reveal a narrow cement staircase leading down. Tucking the photo under their arm, the Tengu headed down the stairs. The staircase lead down just deep enough to be slightly claustrophobic, to feel the weight of the whole castle on top of oneself, but at the very bottom was a steel door.

“Crisis-era panic room,” muttered the Tengu to themselves, looking at the keypad locking the door, “…dead end,” they sighed. They pulled the framed photo out from under their arm, “Well… you programmed it,” they muttered under their breath, “Any ideas?”

The family stared out from the photo in bland photogenic cheeriness.

“…didn’t think so…” muttered the Tengu, “All this way for no–” the Tengu caught themselves and noticed one corner of the photo was dog-eared in the frame. They arched an eyebrow beneath their mask and turned the photo frame over, untwisting the clips to pull away the back. There was a number written on the back of the photo: 9007.

The tengu punched those four numbers into the door and there was a loud beep and a kachunk as several locks receded and the door swung open.

Inside was a bare, all-cement mini-apartment. Dusty canned food lined the walls, a bathroom was tucked away into the corner, a cold fluorescent light shined white overhead, and several bare futons were on the floor. At the opposite end of the room was a large monitor. The tengu silently approached it and turned it on. The word ‘Passcode’ appeared on the screen in Japanese and the tengu typed in ‘9007′ into the entry field. The words ‘ACCESS DENIED’ appeared on the screen in bright red text. Undeterred, the Tengu pulled a data lamprey from their belt and stabbed it into the side of the computer. The screen fizzled briefly before blipping to a desktop.

“There we go,” said the Tengu, scrolling through files. A video file titled ‘For Hanzo’ caught their eye and they opened it.

A figure blipped up on the screen, that same man with a stunning likeness to Hanzo, though he wore his hair shoulder-length and half-tied back, and it was more heavily streaked with gray.

“Hello, Hanzo,” he spoke in Japanese, “If you’re watching this, that means you’re the head of the clan now.”

“…Grandpa?” the Tengu said quietly, watching the screen.

“The truth is, I’m making this video because I’m not entirely sure the council will be happy with my decision not to pursue a partnership with Talon. I know Talon isn’t happy either, and while I have no doubt in the competence of my retainers, I must be prepared. No matter what happens, you, Hanzo, must not allow the Shimada clan to fall in league with Talon. Their interests are not our own, and I fear to see what damage our resources may wreak in their hands. I wish I could say you can trust your family, but with the clan splitting its opinion over this matter…I feel it’s wiser to prepare you. I never told you why my sister, your Aunt Yuriko, committed yubitsume.” 

The Tengu gave a quick glance back down to the photo, to the tall woman standing next to the family. Beneath their crow mask, their eyes widened. The woman was missing a pinkie.

“Aunt Yuriko,” the Tengu said to themselves under their breath, tracing over the pompadoured woman’s face with their finger.

“Back when your grandfather, Shohei Shimada, was ailing, it was clear that the title of head of the clan would have to pass soon. As first born, I was the obvious choice, however Yuriko’s effectiveness as an enforcer lead to significant outcry in the clan and lower branches that I was too weak to take over for your grandfather—”

“There you are, you little shit!” 

The Tengu flinched, pausing the video instinctively, and their hand went to their wakizashi.

“Don’t even try it. You’re organic. I can tell.”

The Tengu whirled on their feet to see Minako on the stairs, her gun fixed on them. She descended the stairs. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming down here. What kind of stupid are you? A panic room’s a goddamn dead-end!” 

The Tengu said nothing, just stared at her, still holding the photo to themselves.

Under the light of the fluorescent, Minako made out their figure more, the size of them in relation to their environment. They looked even smaller with the wings folded in.

“Shinjirarenai…” Minako stared down the gun sights at the tengu, “You’re just a kid, aren’t you?”

The tengu seemed to flinch at the word ‘kid’ but kept pressing the photo to themselves.

“A kid in a goddamned costume…How the hell did you–?” Minako started but suddenly got hit in the back of the shoulder with an arrow and currents of electricity pulsed around her body. She grunted and the gun in her hand went off. The tengu brought up their own wakizashi to deflect but a silver shape leapt past Minako and a green flash dove out in front of them and deflected the pulsefire off into one of the cement walls. The lights in Minako’s forehead flickered out and she dropped to the ground and Genji turned on his heel to look at the Tengu.

“Are you okay!?” he said, reaching a hand toward the Tengu but they stepped back from his grasp.

“I’m fine! I don’t need your help!” snapped the Tengu.

“Who just stopped you from getting shot!?” said Hanzo.

“Then I don’t want your help!” said the Tengu.

“What were you thinking!?” said Hanzo.

“I’m thinking I’m sick of you both treating me like a kid! Or like I’m stupid!” said the Tengu finally yanking off their mask. Rei glared at them both with those big gray eyes as she gripped her crow mask with white knuckles in her other hand. 

 “Perhaps we wouldn’t treat you like you’re stupid if you weren’t doing the the most foolish thing you could possibly do!” said Hanzo, throwing his hands up.

“Maybe if you actually told me about the clan I wouldn’t have to find out for myself!” said Rei.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?!” Hanzo seethed, “Do you have any care how much danger you’re putting not just yourself, but your family in!? This was nothing but pure idiocy and egotism that put everything we have worked for, for your sake, at risk! This was not why we taught you—”

“Hanzo,” Genji put a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder and Hanzo caught himself, “I can handle this.” 

“I–” Hanzo started, glancing between them, “Right.”

Genji stepped past Hanzo and put both of his hands on Rei’s shoulders.  “Rei, I need you to understand how scared we were–”

“I had it handled–” Rei started to argue.

“Let me finish,” said Genji and Rei quieted down. Genji drew in a steadying breath. “I understand what it’s like to feel like there’s a big part of you that you don’t understand. I understand being willing to try anything to understand it. There is still so much to teach you, but we also want to protect you from the cycle of violence that defined our clan.” Genji looked around the high ceilings of the room. “This place…this castle, it is a part of your history. It’s also a place of great anger and pain for both me and Hanzo.” Genji sighed. “And…that pain is another reason why you don’t know as much as you should. As much as you have a right to know. And for that I’m sorry.”

Rei blinked a few times. “Do you mean that?” she said.

“I do. Part of this is on me–I always considered you to be so much more than a ninja, that I didn’t consider how much the Shimada aspect might mean to you. Now, we’re still very much in danger just being here, so—” Genji moved toward the stairs.

“How do I know I’m not making their mistakes if you barely tell me anything about them?” said Rei, folding her arms.

Genji paused for a beat. “To be honest, there’s so much of your mother in you that I always took it for granted that you were a good person,” he said with a slight shrug, “I thought you did, too.”

“Mom doesn’t do stupid stuff like this, though,” said Rei, turning the mask over in her hands.

“Rei, I assure you, your mother does stupid things all the time–but like you, she only does them because of something she believes in. You came here for answers, you came here wanting to know the truth, and that’s very brave, but it’s also insanely dangerous. So can we continue this discussion somewhere safer?” 

Rei looked back at the screen where Sojiro’s image was frozen for a few seconds before closing her eyes and biting her lip. “…okay,” said Rei with a single nod. She gave a glance to the data lamprey on the processor and yanked it off, “But I’m still taking this, though.”

“…it’s actually a very good idea to take that,” said Genji.

They gingerly stepped over the collapsed form of Minako.

“…Is she gonna be okay?” said Rei, putting her mask back on.

“Give or take a few hours, yes,” said Hanzo, “But we can’t wait around that long.”

—-

The three of them nimbly leapt across the rooftops of Hanamura back towards the hotel where they were staying, Rei was using her wings on gaps she couldn’t clear as easily as her father and uncle. It almost felt thrilling to Rei, like they were all on the same team, but at the same time she was absolutely dreading her mother’s reaction to all this, and felt a stab of guilt as well. 

They paused briefly to let Rei catch her breath on one rooftop before she looked back at the castle. 

“Thank you,” said Genji stepping alongside her, “For coming back with us.”

“…well they probably would have shot me if I stayed, right?” said Rei, sitting down on the edge of the building.

“Or taken you alive, found out who you were, and forced you into something much worse,” said Hanzo.

Genji gave a wary look to Hanzo but Hanzo just gave a ‘Well, she asked’ shrug.

Rei pulled the data lamprey from her belt. “So do you know what’s on here?”

Genji shook his head. “Hanzo and I will go through it first with Winston and Morrison,” he said. He held a hand out to her.

Rei made a face.

 “…if there’s someone dying in these files, I don’t want you to watch that,” said Genji, “I’m going to find out exactly what’s on here before I expose you to that. I do want you to know, and I will tell you, because you should know the truth of the Shimada clan, but I won’t traumatize you.”

“You don’t think they’d actually save something like that, would they?” said Rei.

Genji looked back at Shimada castle. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m making a point of finding out first.”

Rei gave a glance down to the data lamprey, and huffed before handing it over to Genji. “…the first file I found was a message to Uncle from Grandpa,” said Rei.

Hanzo perked up slightly.

“…you didn’t tell me I had an aunt,” said Rei.

“A great aunt,” said Genji, “I mean… she’s… not great, she’s, frankly, terrifying, but she’s your grandfather’s sister.”

“’Is?’“ Rei repeated, “As in she’s still alive?”

“Well someone has to keep sending those assassins,” said Hanzo, “We’re fortunate we did not cross paths with her tonight. If she was in Shimada Castle tonight… I doubt we would have made it out.”

Rei’s eyes widened. A long silence passed between all three of them.

“You know I love you, right?” said Genji, at last.

“Yeah,” said Rei, hugging her knees.

“You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe, right?” said Genji.

Rei huffed a little. “Yeah.”

“Good. So I want you to keep both of those facts in mind when I say you’re grounded, because you are so grounded. I cannot stress it enough how grounded you are. You are… more grounded than you have ever been in your life.” 

Rei snorted a little. “Understood,” she said. She tucked her hair back and looked at the crow mask in her hands, “And I’m… I’m sorry.  I wasn’t thinking of how hard you and Uncle and everyone worked to try and keep us safe…. I was just… angry.”

“Well that runs in the family,” said Genji with a shrug, “I accept your apology. But when we get back I want you to apologize to your mother, too. You scared her half to death. It took everything to convince her not to come and put herself at risk, she was so worried about you.”

“…that’s not going to be fun,” mumbled Rei under her breath.

“No, no it’s not,” said Genji.

Rei huffed and got to her feet.. “Well, better get it over with,” she said, spreading her wings and gliding over the gap between roofs. Genji watched as she ran on ahead toward the hotel with Hanzo standing next to him. The red tips of Rei’s wings bobbed on into the night. Hanzo watched her next to Genji.

“That was…” Hanzo itched at his sideburns, “That was good.”

“Mm?” Genji leapt over the gap after her, “Oh–Well, just ‘playing Zenyatta,’ like you said–”

“No–you spoke to her with… respect. With empathy. You spoke from your own experiences.” 

“Oh,” said Genji, “Well… yes. I owed her at least that much with how much we’ve been keeping her in the dark.”

“…I hope you don’t think it too odd of me to say that… I wish Sojiro spoke to us like you spoke to her when we were her age.”

Genji chuckled a little and rubbed the back of his neck. “So do I,” he said, before they both took off running after Rei.

[crustybaguettes]

band, did you mean kim seungmin oggling sessions - seungjin

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16587968 - read on ao3 :))

A cacophony of scales filled the room, carpeted walls absorbing most of the sound but still trapping it in, a chorus of different instruments jumbled together. Hyunjin ran his scales, C major up, C major down, C# major up, C# major down, D major up, D major down, D# major up…

           “Alright everyone, settle down, I want to start with Pictures At An Exhibition, bar 13.”

           The conductor’s baton tapped out a tempo against her stand and Hyunjin felt his foot instinctively tap along to keep time.

           “Hey, didn’t Ms Kim say to stop doing that, you know we get points taken off at competitions if the adjudicator sees.” Seungmin (Hyunjin’s crush that he, in the words of Aubrey from pitch perfect, ‘had a musical boner for’) whispered harshly, the section leader not wanting to put up with another rant from Ms Kim about proper etiquette and all the 996 ways to get 10 points taken off at an eisteddfod. The boy had always seemed a tad highly strung, but considering the regional championships nearing, Hyunjin could sense the waves of stress radiating off him. The clarinet section in their school band was decent at best, and as the two most experienced players in the section, they normally took the brunt of their conductor’s anger.

           “And 1, 2, 3.” The baton made a downwards motion as the piece began, and in any other circumstances Hyunjin would probably be enjoying himself. Despite the devastating averageness of the clarinet section, the rest of the band wasn’t too bad, placing their school in the top 3 for their province. Not seeming to take these achievements into account, Ms Kim was going as hard on them as ever, her saxophonist history forgetting that it’s much harder to play loudly on a clarinet than it is to honk out a triple forte on the saxophone.

           “Kim, what’s that bar marked as?” She asked while cutting off the band, her viper-like tone shooting directly at Seungmin.

           “Um…uh it’s…” he seemed to be struggling to find the bar being discussed, eyes scanning over the page in a panic and thumb frantically pressing and releasing the register key.

           “Forte.” Hyunjin leant over slightly to whisper, all too aware of the 50-something eyes trained on their section.

           “Forte, Miss.” Seungmin shot Hyunjin a small grateful glance before braving the gaze of Ms Kim, her eyes glaring daggers at the first clarinet.

           “And would you say you were playing forte, Kim?”

           “Um, not really Miss, but that note’s really hard to play lou-”

           “Kim, I don’t care if you chip a tooth if it means that you play what’s written on the page, understood?”

           “Yes Miss.” The 7 clarinets mumbled out in support of Seungmin, eyes trained at the base of their music stands, not wanting to aggravate the situation further.

           “Everyone, I know you’re tired, but I honestly couldn’t care less. The championships are in less than a week, so I don’t have the time to be stopping every 5 bars and remind you of what’s already written on the page. Now again from bar 13. And 1, 2, 3…”

           Rehearsal continued on for another hour in the same manner, stress radiating off the conductor in waves for some unknown reason; Hyunjin thought they sounded good (but then again, he hadn’t competed in international band competitions and conducted world renowned ensembles for 40 years, so what would he know right?). As his eyes were starting to droop downwards, despite the trumpets went over their soli for the umpteenth time, the clock finally ticked from 4:59 to 5:00 and the conductor finally ended the rehearsal.

           “Alright everyone, good rehearsal, remember our sectionals are next week so everyone needs to be practicing for 20 minutes a day. Can everyone help pack up before you leave please?”

           Hyunjin disconnected his mouthpiece from the barrel, an unpleasant popping sound accompanied by the signature trail of spit that was hastily wiped off and onto his pant leg. After clicking the latches shut, he stashed his clarinet case into the corner next to Seungmin’s and began picking up the chairs to carry into stack at the back of the room. At the end of every rehearsal, the hardest part was probably having to overhear (due to the miniscule space allotted for the band room) the section leaders being given their debrief from Ms Kim (see also; harsh criticising). Hard, because no one, not even Hyunjin’s worst enemies, deserved ‘constructive criticism’ from Ms Kim. Unbearable, because watching Seungmin’s face get more and more crumpled with every insult thrown towards the group was like watching someone kick a puppy. Unbearable.

           The circle of 7 section leaders broke apart, their crest fallen facing retreating back to the haphazardly placed instruments around the edges of the empty band room, unspoken assurances being thrown in their directions. Despite their weird not-really-friends-but-more-than-acquaintances relationship (that he would like to maybe one day turn into a not-really-friends-but-more-boyfriends relationship), Hyunjin and Seungmin picked up their clarinets and headed out of the room together and soon split away into two different directions, Seungmin to walk home and Hyunjin to the subway.

           The ride home was always full of subtle stares, a school child with a too-small briefcase-looking thing wasn’t a normal sight for the general public, and Hyunjin became the fodder for people’s curious, sticky-beaking brains. His brain, however, was devouring the anxiety bubble surrounding the thought of his parents, more specifically their expectations.

           Hyunjin’s parents weren’t mean, well, they were, but they meant well, kind of. It was their expectations of their musically inclined son (that had very little to do with music) that felt like little knives of disappointment stabbing into his self-esteem. The fact that he wasn’t the music captain, or even section leader made it worse; if their son couldn’t do what they wanted, he had to be the best at what he wanted, and at the moment Hyunjin wasn’t either of those things. The graded maths test sitting in his backpack with a large, red 59% stamped on it was weighing him down like a cinderblock strapped to his shoulders. Not good at school, not good enough in music, not a good son, he’d heard it all from his parents.

           The fact he was an only child didn’t help the situation. All his academically motivated parents wanted was a child who was the best. That’s all. For them it wasn’t much to ask. For Hyunjin, sometimes the pressure of having to make his parents proud, the pressure that was designed to be carried by at least 2 others, was overwhelming to the point where he felt like his best would only be scratching the surface of his parents’ plans for him.

           His school shoes hit the pavement as he walked through the maze like roads of his neighbourhood, the compacted windows sitting high on the house walls. A soft orange hue fell over his face, and for the first time that afternoon he didn’t feel so stressed. The sound of someone practicing piano drifted over on the wind and gave Hyunjin the feeling that he was in a movie, one where everything was okay, he had a caring family who loved him, a boyfriend who held his hand on the way to school and reminded him to take care of himself, a world that would never be his reality.

           Not only would he never escape the crushing reality of his inadequateness, but his father would never allow a relationship under his roof, let alone a homosexual one. In his dad’s eyes, a wife was like a trophy, something you receive as a prize once you’ve succeeded in life. In his dad’s eyes, a man and a man together was something that should be seen at a golf course or in a conference meeting, but never in love. In his dad’s eyes, Hyunjin wasn’t good enough, so why poke the flame when you could just avoid it all together?

           His key turned in the door, the clicking sound resounding through the dark, empty hallway and a puff of air escaped Hyunjin’s mouth in relief; no one was home. He slid off his school shoes and padded up the stairs, a soft thumping that made him feel like a little kid again. Hyunjin never knew why, but socks (especially thick ones) always gave him a soft feeling when he wore them around the house, the sensation of plopping or sliding his fabric-covered feet along the floor so much more appealing than his bare soles coming into contact with the cold floor boards.

           He flopped onto the bed with a sigh and slight arm flail and accepted the aftershocks from the wobbling mattress, the feeling giving him the image of floating on a boat. A boat in the middle of the ocean, away from everything and everyone. Just him and his mind. On second thoughts, Hyunjin couldn’t think of anywhere more like his own personal hell than his mind, just a ball of stress vibrating and building. His clarinet case was slowly dropped from his hand onto the floor, wincing after the latches hit the floor with a resounding thud.

           Speaking of clarinets, the seat placement auditions were in 3 weeks and Hyunjin hadn’t practiced anything other than band music for so long that the voice inside his head spoke in march tempo. He knew that if the weight of schoolwork was to get any lighter, the one thing he had to do well was music, and without that section leader title he wasn’t getting anywhere. Propelled by stress, he sat up, opened his clarinet case and retrieved a music book gathering dust on his shelf. After deciding on a song, Hyunjin began the slow and painful process of sight-reading a piece with more ledger lines than beats and more semi-quavers than notes in a scale. Until his fingers were cramping and his mouth was imprinted with the shape of the reed, and his front door slammed shut announcing the arrival of his mother, he practiced. The rhythm played over and over in his head as he closed his eyes to sleep, and with a startling and stressful thought he realised that Seungmin would’ve probably been doing the same thing for several weeks already. His new found stress-induced motivation was running through his veins, and even if he couldn’t succeed, Hyunjin could damn-well try.

Hyunjin’s new daily routine went something along these lines: wake up, get dressed, brush teeth. Contemplate the necessity of physical appearance as he brushed his hair. Say goodbye to his parents as he headed out the door, slightly stale muesli bar in hand and smudged lipstick stain on his cheek from a mother’s farewell. Get to school, study, have lunch, study, trek up to the individual practice rooms on the other side of the school. Get the key to the rehearsal room from a music teacher (senior privilege). Practice, and study in the breaks between practicing. At 11, (or whenever his eyes began closing on their own accord) pack up and head home. 11:45, get home and sleep. Repeat. After 1 week of this routine, not only was he falling behind in his classwork, a (not so phenomenal) phenomenon whose extent shocked his teachers of even his worst subjects, but every time he closed his eyes all he could see was staves, rests, dotted crotchets and key signatures. It was exhausting. The only thing keeping him running was the thought that Seungmin could be doing the same, and copious amounts of coffee.

           One day, it was particularly rough for Hyunjin. He’d gotten a Korean exam back and had done especially, well, shit (even for him). When he’d called his mum to tell her, she simply told him that it wasn’t good enough and that the reason he was staying at school so late better be because he was studying. Despite knowing it was far from the truth, he assured her that he would improve and that it was the upcoming regional championships that were stressing him out.

           She hung up after that, leaving the championships lingering in the back of his mind, just another thing to add on top of his mountain of stress. He’d gotten back late the night before due to trackwork on the subway line, and was running on about 3 hours sleep, which was not a lot when trying to practice a grade 8 clarinet solo while also trying to study and do homework simultaneously for two different subjects, all at 10:19pm on a Tuesday night.

           After a particularly shit run of his audition piece (Hyunjin was finding that word more and more useful, shit grades, shit playing, shit life, shit person) it was all too much to carry, like a cat storing up his energy to pounce until it finally spring to life onto unsuspecting prey. Hyunjin felt like a small mouse, his body being engulfed by an evil, all-encompassing cat, fur woven with fear and cripplingly low self-esteem.

           Before he knew what he was doing, a string of profanities (mainly comprising of shit) left his mouth and tears were flowing down his face. He discarded his clarinet in next to his music stand and sat on the floor, legs crossed over one another and head in his hands. His quiet sniffles and soft sobs filled the room, a welcome change from the same song repeating over and over, never good enough, never perfect. When he closed his eyes he could see his parents standing there, disappointed looks painting their faces. When he opened them, a reminder of his inadequacy stared right back at him in the form of notes and rests.

           A quiet knock broke Hyunjin’s self-deprecating train of thought, the fear that a teacher or cleaner had come to scold him for his hands to wipe the tears off his face, despite his urge to curl up into a ball and sob. “Yes?” He croaked out, a small crack entering his voice at the end, almost releasing another wave of tears. The door swung open carefully to uncover the concerned, glasses-adorned face of Seungmin, a familiar yet not exactly welcome face at this point in Hyunjin’s day. His maybe small but still present crush was demanding attention at exactly the wrong time, Hyunjin’s aching and tired heart wanting nothing more than to curl up in the other boy’s arms and let his worries wash away.

           “Hey Hyunjin, it’s pretty late, practicing this much can’t be good for you, you know you’re more than prepared for the championships right?” Seungmin’s soft and sincere voice filling the space with a feeling one would compare to hugging your mum after a few weeks apart. Like home.

           Hyunjin made eye contact with the boy and soon regretted it, remembering the red and puffy eyes he would not have, not to mention the tear streaked face and snotty nose. What a beautiful sight. “Wow dude, have you been crying?” The younger boy came and sat in front of him, carefully avoiding the clarinet lying abandoned on the floor. “What’s wrong? Can I help with…” he paused to look at Hyunjin’s study notes scattered around the floor “Biology? I could help you study, it’s one of my best subjects.”

           Hyunjin let out a phlegmy laugh, punctuating his sentence with a sniffle. “Every subject is one of your best. I think I’m too far behind to rescue at this point. Plus I don’t even care about science.” His voice gave into the wave of sobs building in his throat and as soon as the last word left his lips the wave crashed down, his chest burning from the crying.

           Seungmin hugged him after a short moment of ‘this person I only talk to about crescendos and concert dates is sitting in front of me sobbing what the fuck’ and began to recall some basic phrases to tell someone whose tears are staining your geography textbook. “You’ll be okay, whatever it is you’ll get past it, it’ll be over soon, it’s not the end of the world, everything’s okay.” His fingers moved in circles up and down his spine, the relaxing movement reminding him of when he was younger and his friend would write syllables on his back and make him guess what they were.

           Slowly his tears eased from a heavy downpour to a sprinkle and he sat up from being folded into Seungmin like a fortune cookie. A sniffle was let out as if it was an invitation for Seungmin to ask about his…situation, and the invitation was accepted.

           “So, and you don’t have to tell me or anything, like it’s totally fine if you don’t want to, like we don’t really know each other, but um, what were you crying about?”

           “Well, it’s pretty dumb…oh my god this is so embarrassing.”

           “You don’t have to tell me-“

           “No,  I want to, I um…I’m just really stressed.”

           “Mood…sorry, do you wanna talk about it?”

           “Well, I’ve been practicing day in day out just for this stupid fucking seat placement audition, and because of that I’ve had no time to do homework or study, so my grades are dropping, and because my grades are dropping my parents are mad, but the whole reason I need to be first clarinet anyway is because I want my parents to be stop bugging me and be proud about at least one thing in my life and my grades are terrible and won’t ever get better, no matter how much I study, so I need to do well in music, but I can’t ever be the best like my parents need me to be because you’re just so fucking good at the clarinet and I’m so shit compared to you and you probably work so much harder than me anyways so I don’t really deserve it and the champions are so soon and that’s just another thing to add onto the top of all my school work and I just can’t handle it anymore Seungmin. Fuck, my parents are gonna kill me when they see my Korean exam, fuck!” By the end of his rant, Hyunjin was crying again, his ears of stress and anger coming out warm and fast, the cussing seeming to wake Seungmin out of the daze he had fallen into.

           “Hey, do you wanna know a secret?” Seungmin said, his tone seeming to glaze over everything that had just been said, Hyunjin knowing that he was listening the whole time.

           “Sure, what?” Hyunjin had a distraction from having a full blown breakdown and at this point, he would take what he could get.

           “Well, I can’t read music. Or, not very well at least. I don’t know why, but my brain just can’t comprehend all those lines on the page.” He loosely waved his hand in the direction of Hyunjin’s sheet music to emphasise his point, being incredibly blasé to the massive bombshell he just dropped onto Hyunjin’s head.

           “But, your sight reading’s so good, how can you not read music?”

           “Well, most of the time I can play by ear and figure out basic rhythms a few bars in, or if I know the song I can normally play it fairly decently. If I have zero idea, then I mainly just, well, you might be a bit annoyed, but I sort of just listen to you play it and then copy it.” Seungmin looked down and fiddled with his fingers, suddenly becoming meek due to Hyunjin’s questioning.

           “You must a fucking super human memory, damn Seungmin, I’m impressed.” Hyunjin’s tears had dried up, the knowledge that his competition had just as many insecurities as he did making him feel a little bit better about his situation.

           “I mean, it’s not that impressive, the only reason I have to is because I can’t learn the real way, sight reading in my exams is a shit show, to put it lightly.”

           “But exams don’t matter, the fact that you made it to section leader with no sheet music or rehearsal marks or anything to rely on is amazing.”

“I guess? I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it that way. Ms Kim doesn’t know, and I have no intention of her finding out, which is how you know it’s probably not something to be proud of. “

           “Well, I personally believe that’s bullshit, and Ms Kim has a stick shoved so far up her ass I’d be surprised if it wasn’t affecting her hearing.” Hyunjin began to stand up and pack away his things, the motivation and will to live being restored by human company.

           “Do you always swear this much when you’re tired, or is this just a special occasion?” Seungmin gathered his things up as well, their mutual insecurity sharing making them infinitely closer than they were before.

           “A mixture of both I’d say.”

           They talked back and forth, the two having a surprising amount in common other than the clarinet despite having never spoken to each other properly before. It took Hyunjin 5 minutes of walking in the wrong direction to remember where he was going, his lack of awareness clear evidence of his pure exhaustion.

           “Oh, fuck I’m meant to be going the other way. Well, see you soon Seungmin.” As Hyunjin turned to head back  to the station, he felt something tug on his blazer sleeve.

           Seungmin’s worried eyes met his own, the street lights reflecting in his glasses. “You could come over to my house? It’s only 5 minutes’ walk from here and we have ramen.”

           “Well who could say no to that?” Hyunjin shot his parents a quick text letting them know that he’d be out, making sure to turn his phone onto aeroplane mode after it was sent through to avoid the onslaught of threats and insults that would interfere with the one-on-one time with his ‘possibly more than a crush now’ crush.

           They walked slowly through the streets of Seungmin’s neighbourhood, their tired bodies being weighed down by sleepiness. Once or twice Hyunjin thought he saw Seungmin looking at him, but then again, it wouldn’t have been the craziest thing  that he’d imagined about the other boy. Hyunjin broke the silence, a small and insignificant question sitting at the back of his brain like an itch that needed to be scratched.

           “So, why were you at school this late anyway? Like, you know why I was but…you know, what were you doing?” The two finally made eye contact and Seungmin stared inquisitively back at Hyunjin.

           “I was um, I was at tutoring? I don’t know, I thought you’d just assumed that’s where I was, most kids stay out pretty late for private lessons and stuff. I just came back to school to get something from my locker and I heard you playing. Don’t, don’t you get tutoring Hyunjin?”

           Hyunjin felt his heart start beating at the familiar question (one that could only be linked back to his family) was asked. “Um, well, no, my parents don’t really believe in that sort of stuff.” Seungmin looked at him quizzically, expecting a more rebellious/money related answer.

           “Well, both of them got through school pretty well, not top of their class, but up there, you know? Anyway, neither of them had tutoring because their families couldn’t afford it, and now that they can for me they don’t think it’s…necessary? I guess? I don’t really know their logic, but the last time I brought it up I was just told to study harder so, somehow I don’t think it’ll be happening any time soon.”

           Seungmin’s face turned from confused to frustrated, an angry counter-argument bubbling on his lips. “But, that’s just not how it works anymore. Like, it’s impossible to even understand half our school work, let alone be good at it without private stuff. Maybe it was when they were at school, but now it’s just not….it’s not fair for you Hyunjin!”

           Seungmin’s passion for Hyunjin’s education made his heart boil over in fondness, as odd as it may seem. No one had really cared about that kind of stuff before. Well, at least, not in the way that Hyunjin needed. He wondered if Seungmin used to struggle in school, and that’s why he was so intense about it, but before he could ask Seungmin turned left and walked up a pebble path in between two small patches of well-kept grass.

           “My parents aren’t home, so you don’t need to worry about any of that.” Hyunjin being Hyunjin, his mind quickly leapt to the most lewd and inappropriate thing he could think about, eyes boggling out like a fish, but quickly realised Seungmin meant things like talking quietly or being overly polite.

           They took their shoes off and walked/slid (the joy of socks on floor boards) over to the kitchen counter, Hyunjin dropping his bag directly next to Seungmin’s as if anywhere ese in the house would’ve been forbidden for him to alter. The odd things you do in someone else’s house. Seungmin, as if on autopilot, opened the cupboard door and reached for a packet of ramen, quickly remembering that there was two of them and picked up another one. He flicked that kettle on and went about his routine, gathering a pot, spoon, two bowls, two sets of chopsticks.

           The whole thing felt weirdly intimate to Hyunjin, like when you go to a zoo and see animals doing things you wouldn’t want to be seen doing by strangers. He felt like he was watching Seungmin through a glass window, the younger boy pottering around as if no one else was there. It was quite entrancing, actually.

           Well until Seungmin turned around and made direct eye contact with him, making Hyunjin’s shoulders jolt a little bit in fear. His tie undone, blazer discarded and glasses askew, Seungmin looked cute. Well, very cute, to put it lightly. Hyunjin didn’t even notice he was staring, eyes drifting in and out of blurriness like they do when you’re dead tired, until the other boy awkwardly cleared his throat, holding out a bowl of ramen and a pair of chopsticks.

           They sat down to eat, still in relative silence except for the slurping and chewing noises that Hyunjin found repulsive and relaxing at the same time. Like something that smells so bad you can’t stop smelling it. Suddenly, Seungmin let out a giggle. Hyunjin didn’t know why, maybe it was the thrill of not being around his parents, or the fact he was onto his 19th hour of consciousness in a row, but he started laughing too. Soon, both boys were the kind of laughs that make you cry, make your stomach hurt or make you feel like you’re going to vomit. It was pretty funky.

           The laugh’s died down and a question popped into Hyunjin’s brain, one that could possibly flip the whole situation on its head, but he wanted to know the answer, so he asked despite the possible consequences.

           “So, why aren’t your parents home?” Hyunjin instantly regretted his decision when Seungmin seemed to close into himself, fiddling with his chopsticks habitually.

           “Well, my mum’s away for work, she’s works for an insurance company based overseas, so she goes away a lot. My dad works as a bus and taxi driver, and he works the night shifts on the bus. My um, my mum earns a lot, but it’s usually only enough for the house, bills, food, clothes, you know, those kinds of things. My dad works the long hours so that he can pay for my tutoring, because, well, he didn’t have a very good upbringing and didn’t do too well in school, so he wants me to have a better chance than him. That’s why I uh, why I’m “good at everything”, I guess.” Seungmin accentuated the commonly whispered phrase with quotation marks, as if to say he didn’t believe it. Which was bull, because it was true. Well, it was in Hyunjin’s eyes anyway. “I try really hard, I study, I practice the clarinet, play baseball, I fucking…I work so hard, because I want my parents to know that their hard work mounted to something.”

           The two boys sat in silence, Seungmin staring at his ramen bowl, Hyunjin staring at Seungmin. The younger boy looked up, glassy eyes being protected by the soft gaze of Hyunjin, as if saying that it was okay to cry.

           Seungmin didn’t take the invitation, instead standing up to clear away the bowls. Hyunjin grabbed his before the other boy could, and began rinsing away the spicy remnants of their dinner. His thoughts wondered, comparing his life to Seungmin, comparing their parents, their grades, their motivation. He realised that to be motivated by love was much more powerful than to be motivated by fear, and maybe his parents could learn a thing or two from Seungmin’s. Their hands brushed together a few times, at first by accident and then on purpose, before Hyunjin have up on the hints and grabbed Seungmin’s hands in his own, the half washed metal chopsticks clattering into the sink.

           “Seungmin, it’s okay. You don’t need to be embarrassed, or ashamed, or angry or scared, because I know that your parents will love you no matter what, whether you become a baseball player or a musician or a lawyer or a bus driver, your parents will love you knowing that you did your best. It’s okay to blame yourself, and set expectations, but just know that you don’t need to, you have other people who are here. I’m here.” Their hands stayed linked along with their eye contact, a single tear running down Seungmin’s face, making Hyunjin wonder how the first clarinet kept it together when he was crumpled up and sobbing in his lap like a sad piece of origami.

           Before he could think about it anymore, or about how he wished he could give Seungmin all his happiness, even if it wasn’t a lot, he felt arms wrap around his torso and tears warm his shirt.

           ‘Seungmin’s crying, fuck what do I do?’ Hyunjin thought.  Seungmin let out a little giggle, breaking the stream of tears and making Hyunjin realise he’d done a bit more than just thought it.

           Seungmin re-emerged from the shoulder he’d been crying on and before Hyunjin even knew what he was doing, he kissed him. In hindsight, probably not the best idea, but you know, heat of the moment and all that jazz. It wasn’t like he was trying to force his tongue down the other boy’s throat, just a peck, but he did suppose it was a bit uncalled for. The more Hyunjin thought about it, the worse what he had done became and Seungmin’s frozen state wasn’t heling matters.

           “Uh, um sorry, I don’t know why I did that, god, I’m so sorry, I’ll just go now, sorry.” Before Seungmin could voice any protest and/or agreement, Hyunjin had picked up his bag and clarinet, slipped on his shoes and bolted out the door, the adrenaline of kissing Seungmin fuelling him until he sat down on the subway, the repercussions of today finally sinking in. He didn’t want to go home, actually, he didn’t want to go anyway, he just wanted to scream and cry and hug someone all at once. The first new friend he’d had in years, and he just went and fucked it up like the idiot he is. A sentimental, common-sense-lacking, gay idiot.

           Scrolling through his contacts, he was reminded of the friends he did have before completely isolating himself with his clarinet. Contrary to popular belief, he did have friends, quite a few actually, just not at his school. One of his closest friends, a boy called Jisung, used to skateboard with him on Sundays before his parents banned him from doing so, didn’t live far from the next subway stop. The announcers voice brought him back to the weekends where he could be a normal, happy 18 year old for one time slot a week. Where he could laugh and snort and yell and joke and be free for a few hours with his friends, what he’d always dreamed adolescence to be like.

           Not really thinking about anything, he got off at the next station, the familiar homeless man with his wooden flute now sleeping curled up in a duvet, and despite the lack of change in his pocket, he still mustered up 1,000 won, the smiling face of the old man playing on repeat in his mind as he walked up the stairs and out into the chilly night. He hadn’t realised how cold it was until now, but his fingers felt like they were going to stop functioning without some gloves or a heat pack, and he was probably going to need those at some point (the fingers and the gloves).

           Feet moving on instinct more than thought, he turned left and left again, the familiar waving cat in the window of a Chinese restaurant wishing him good luck, and Hyunjin appreciated the sentiment, he needed it. Not remembering the proper etiquette until 100m from Jisung’s house, he unlocked his phone and tapped on the small phone button underneath a particularly puffy-cheeked photo of Jisung. On the fifth ring, he picked up.

           “Hyunjin, bro, what is it? I haven’t seen you in ages dude, but you know it’s like 1am right?” Hyunjin hadn’t realised how late it was and felt bad, until the wind shot a shockwave of shivers along his arms and warmth was more important than manners.    

           “Yeah, I know, I’m really sorry it’s so late, I didn’t even realise, um, this is kind of random, and like you don’t need to let me, but could I sleep at yours tonight? It’s just that…well, it’s a long story.”

           “Um, yeah, sure, you can tell me when you get here, I’ll leave the front door unlocked, just come up to my room and remember where the creaky floor board is, see you soon.”

           “Thank you so much, see you.”

Hyunjin, had never been more grateful more Jisung’s chill parents or for Jisung not questioning him, and for the heat that encompassed him as he shut the door behind him and locked it carefully, slipping off his shoes for the second time that night. He was extra cautious when stepping around the loose floorboard right outside Jisung’s parents’ room, deciding that they deserved a good night’s sleep more than anyone else.

           As he opened the door to Jisung’s room slowly, he realised with a sad thought that this was probably the earliest he’s gone to bed all week, the overflowing levels of homework needing to be completed once he got home every night keeping him up until the early hours of the morning. Jisung’s bed head and familiar squirrel-like face stuck up from under his bed sheets, and the worried look in his eyes made Hyunjin almost breakdown, again.

           “Hey Hyunjin, it’s been a while hasn’t it.”

           “Yeah, it has been.” Hyunjin replied wetly with a bit of a sniffle, determined not to cry. He didn’t think he could even if he wanted to, the tear supply running a tad too low.

           “Here, put these on and then hop in. You look like you could use the sleep.”

           Hyunjin caught the sweat pants and hoodie that were thrown his way and proceeded to turn around and change. It wasn’t an uncommon thing for one of them to be getting changed in front of the other, especially due to the clothes-destroying nature of skateboarding.

           He lifted up the sheets and sat under them on the bed, Jisung’s arm coming to wrap around his shoulder and rub up and down his arm. He vaguely remembered Jisung setting an alarm and making sure that Hyunjin’s laptop and phone were charging before drifting off into sleep, the thoughts of Seungmin and school still running laps around his head.

After waking up and getting dressed, Hyunjin explained the events of the previous day to Jisung, gaining a little bit of comfort from the sympathetic gaze and sincere words. They finished up their breakfast and Hyunjin thanked Jisung’s parents, both of them making sure to remind him to come over whenever he felt like it. They’d always been more like parents to him than his own, ever since middle school when he helped Jisung get home safely after spraining his ankle playing soccer.

           Hyunjin’s clarinet felt heavy in his hand, a weighted reminder of the consequences he would have to deal with later in the day, including those during and after band rehearsal. He knew he wouldn’t be able to focus with Seungmin sitting next to him for an hour and a half, but he decided to cross that bridge when he came to it.

           After a quick organisation of plans to meet up soon, Hyunjin and Jisung parted ways at the subway station, Jisung to get on a bus and Hyunjin to take the (slightly shorter than usual) subway ride back to school. His mind raced with what he would say to Seungmin, what Seungmin would say to him, what his parents would say, what his teachers would say about his lack of homework completion. He’d taken his phone off of aeroplane mode to call Jisung last night, but hadn’t checked to see if his parents had messaged or tried to call him.

           Opening the messages app, the lack of a little red circle telling him what he already knew, there was his text conversation with his mum, the message not even read, let alone replied to. Some would take it as a blessing, but the fact his parents cared little about his whereabouts or safety filled Hyunjin with a longing for a familial relationship with his parents like the one Jisung, or even Seungmin, had. It had been like that his entire life, and got even worse with the beginning of middle school, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

He didn’t realise how awful he looked until waiting to get off the train and having nowhere to look other than his glassy, transparent reflection. His hair was a nest of flyaways and messy strands, eye bags more purple and prominent than ever, and his face looked red and swollen; a mixture of sleep and multiple bouts of crying. He accepted the stares this time, knowing what he looked like made it much easier to understand passer-bys’ fascination with him, although it really shouldn’t. He was surprised most Korean school children didn’t look like this on a day to day basis.

The sideways glances and discrete (ish) looks continued as he entered the front doors of the school, making a bee line for his classroom. As he sat down and prepared to sleep for the next hour of self-studying, his mind went blank for the first time in over 24 hours of consciousness. It was relaxing, a very welcome change from the overactive thoughts that had calmed from a storm into clear skies.

Walking back into the band room after ducking out swiftly when noticing he was going to be all alone with Ms Kim, Hyunjin’s eyes landed straight onto Seungmin’s small frame. Their gazes met and hastily shifted directions, wanting to avoid contact for as long as possible before they had to sit next to each other for an extended period of time that seemed to be getting longer and longer. It’s only been 10 minutes, 5 of which had been spent setting up chairs, but Hyunjin felt like he’d been there for hours.

           The minutes ticked past, and with every click of the clock hand, Hyunjin felt the tension between him and the first clarinet growing thicker and thicker; a fast growing fungus that fed on anxiety and angry band directors. Every time their hands went near each other reaching for a pencil, every time they accidentally made eye contact, or worse, physical contact, Hyunjin saw Seungmin visually cringe away, and he hated himself. Not only had he ruined whatever relationship might have been brewing between them, but he made Seungmin so uncomfortable that he couldn’t look at him. He broke the minimal amount of trust that had been weaving in the space between them, and for that he didn’t think he could forgive himself. Was Hyunjin over reacting? Maye. But was he also sad? Yes, and feelings deserved to be recognised, whether their dumb or not.

           When the rehearsal ended, the two stood up and faced each other, the younger quickly scurrying away to accept his weekly debriefing/insult collecting, and Hyunjin returning to his case to pack away his clarinet. Determined to keep tradition alive and to foster some spark of hope still alive inside of him, Hyunjin placed his packed up case next to Seungmin’s empty one, a stroke of despair striking through him as he realised that the other boy was still being scolded by their paranoid conductor, still convinced that their band wasn’t and would never be good enough.

           They both picked up the two remaining chairs in the room, everyone except them having scampered out as soon as possible. Considering their seniority in the school, Ms Kim could trust them enough to lock the door after they left. Avoiding eye contact was becoming one of Hyunjin’s specialties, he realised, not having looked at Seungmin properly for over an hour and a half (impressive, considering his old habits of ‘look at sheet music, Seungmin, sheet music, Seungmin). As they entered the storage room he decided that enough was enough, and spoke his proper words of, well, now that he thought about it, it had probably been around 9 hours since he uttered more than one word in a row.

           “Hey, Seungmin, look, about yesterday, I’m really sorry, I don’t know why I did it, it was really stupid and I’m so sorry.”

           The clack of a chair was all the warning he got before Seungmin was directly in front of him, hands in his own. Their faces were disturbingly (yet enjoyably) close together, and he could feel the warm puffs of breath from the other brushing against his face.

           “You know, I was going to tell you not to leave, but you kind of just, booked it out my front door without much warning. I mean, I probably would’ve done the same, but usually my crushes don’t like me back.”

           Hyunjin was silent. Seungmin liked him? Really? He blinked his eyes a few times just to check everything was really there, the little movement found cute by the other as the smaller boy let out a little giggle, before brushing Hyunjin’s hair out of his eyes and giving him a little kiss on the nose.

           “Hey, this is super romantic, but my nose is greasy as hell.” He couldn’t resist the little comment that escaped his lips, not regretting a single thing as he saw Seungmin’s eyes crinkle in amusement and his mouth twitch with a possible retort.

           “Maybe I’ll just have to kiss somewhere else then.” His mouth quirked up a little before reaching up to give Hyunjin a little peck on the lips, their mouths a little bit swollen and sore from playing. Seungmin’s hands came to rest on the bottom of Hyunjin’s blazer, fingers curling around the fabric as they leaned their foreheads against each other’s, the taller boy bringing his arms up to rest on the other’s shoulders. They swayed slowly back in forth in the musty little storage room to music that wasn’t playing, and Hyunjin, for the first time in years, hadn’t a worry in the world.

[verrottweil]

what more do you want, insatiable?

there are gritty amoneki handjobs /somewhere/ in this one-shot. i've spent way too much time on this thing. title taken from a Czeslaw Milosz quote.

summary:  This might be his only chance. It’s stupid and rash, but his hands are trembling in his pockets and Kaneki just… wants. -- or what do you do with an attraction like this?

ao3

.

i.

Kaneki gets the wind knocked out of him when the ghoul investigator slams him over the head with the end of his quinque, his knees buckle and give out, making him land flat on his belly and thud his chin hard on the wet, stone underground. His bones protest the battering they were forced to endure. With no small effort, he manages to turn his head sideways and watches raindrops pelt down on the pair of nicely-polished dress shoes the ghoul investigator wears as he came to stand in his line of vision.

There’s a calm resignation to the ghoul investigator’s voice when he says, “I don’t have time to waste on you.”

But the gears in Kaneki’s mind are churning fast, there’s too much at stake for him to fail here—and images of Touka-chan, Hinami-chan rush to the forefront of his mind, so his hand darts out to grab onto the investigator’s ankle in a desperate attempt to stall for more time. He can hear the ghoul investigator gasp for breath and then with his expression contorted into a snarl, a wedge driven between his furrowed brows and a dip to the corners of his mouth, he speaks words with thinly-veiled contempt, why, you…

I mustn’t let him pass. If I can just do something about that…  

He sees how the ghoul investigator holds onto the shaft of his quinque with both hands and raises the weapon above him—and he’s reminded of the knights in arthurian tales, the plate of their armor gleaming gray in the pale sunlight of an english afternoon and their heavy two-handers stained red with monsters’ blood. The proverbial sword of damocles hangs above his head.

But I don’t nearly have enough strength.

Then the quinque bears down on him like a muller onto wheat berries; his skull cracks open, and a searing, white-blinding pain robs him momentarily of sight. His grip goes slack and his hand falls back onto the wet stone. Blood pours from the gaping wound at the crown of his head, down to his temple, the inner corner of his left eye, along the bridge of his nose, tastes it on his lips, between his teeth.

That’s right. He stirs, determined, a faint hitch of the shoulders, a scowl on his face. There’s no way around it, is there? Kaneki opens his eyes. If that’s how it’s going to be, then just this once… And he brings his hand to the zipper that strikes along the grotesque grin on his mask. I’ll embrace you, the person within me… He yanks it open to reveal his mouth.

“Rize-san!”

Kaneki stumbles upwards, and after finding a precarious balance on his own two feet, starts to chase after the retreating figure of the ghoul investigator, who’s almost indistinguishable from his surroundings with that gray coat of his in the rain. He’s roaring as he gains momentum. The ghoul investigator pauses, looks over his shoulder and as he catches him running, whirls around to stomp the blunt head of his quinque into Kaneki’s ribs.

He skids backwards, dragging his fingertips raw over the stone tiles, and pushes himself upwards and onwards.

His mind is fogged up in a haze of hunger, and he launches himself at the ghoul investigator in desperate abandonment, legs winding to wrap tight around the man’s waist and hands coming to grip at the man’s shoulders. Like a rabid dog that caught a whiff of blood, Kaneki presses his maw to the bridge of the investigator’s left shoulder and sinks his teeth through the fabric of his coat, into his skin. He bites down hard, and the taste of foreign blood explodes into the cavern of his mouth, and then he tears out a chunk of flesh, swallowing the thread and skin and meat.

Kaneki’s never tasted anything like this before and there’s a stab down his stomach, and all he can think of is more.

The ghoul investigator manages to throw him off and he crashes down to the ground again, on his back, and his shoulder blades ache at the harsh collision. He gets back up again. I feel like my appetite’s going to consume me. Kaneki’s panting, his shoulders are hunched and his head is angled downwards, chest heaving as he struggles greedily for breath. I’m slipping into an indulgent rampage. Something tingles at the base of his spine, bubbles there until it bursts open his skin and his kagune slithers out. But I won’t lose sight of the person I am, and his body protests at the thoughts, the flavor still fresh in his mouth.

His heart stutters against the bars of his ribcage, as if to say, this too is who you are.

With the investigator stunned in disbelief, Kaneki dashes forwards, the strands of his kagune curl together to block an incoming attack and sparks dance at the impact. They go around in circles and when the ghoul investigator lashes out at him with his quinque, his kagune quickly moves to parry again and again, and aims to blow the weapon straight from his hands. If I have this much strength…

“Don’t take me for a fool!”

It’s over when the ghoul investigator makes the mistake of sweeping his quinque low over the stones for an attack. His kagune knocks the weapon into the air and it breaks into two. Kaneki feels his lungs constrict from the exertion and the two broken pieces of quinque collide to the ground behind him. Now… His eye stops throbbing as the black bleeds out of his sclera. Now he can no longer fight. His nerves are frazzled with pain and he brings a palm to his upper arm, wincing. It’s over, he thinks, relieved.

Something warm slips between the knobs of Kaneki’s spine when the investigator shifts, the fight still not knocked out of him.

It’s too heady, too heated, this feeling that blankets and warms him despite his drenched clothes, his cold skin and his chattering teeth. Kaneki looks at the ghoul investigator, at the clench of his jaw, at the gleam of a ghost in his eye, at the resolve in his posture and Kaneki wants. Desire stabs at his stomach like hunger does, or maybe hunger stabs at his stomach like desire does, or maybe they’re one and the same after all.

The ghoul investigator says with a voice of steel, “If the foe is before you, even if it costs you your arms and legs—”

“Please run away,” Kaneki cries, and holds his right hand, trying to keep his entire body from shaking, and the ghoul investigator blanches. “If this keeps up any longer, I’m going to kill you.”

The strands of his kagune spasm, coil together like a grapevine at his side, he shouts, “Please! Run away!”

But when the ghoul investigator staggers to his feet, don’t you mock me! I would never run away from a ghoul, the want translates into the nervous wringing of his kagune strands, into the tremble of his wrist, and Kaneki feels his control hanging by a thin thread.

“Hurry!” He snaps, and the whiplash of his kagune sends the investigator skidding over the underground.

The ghoul investigator tumbles to a halt on his knees and one elbow, breathing haggardly, pressing a hand to the open wound across his chest. Blood soaks into the gray of his coat and trickles between his fingers. Kaneki yells – Go! – and rasps – Please… – and when the investigator looks up at him with gritted teeth, he outright begs.

Don’t make me a murderer.

He manages to get upright, unsteady on his own two feet, and staggers away, occasionally throwing wary glances over his shoulder as he goes. Kaneki’s gaze is hawkish, glued to the man’s back, and when the man’s gone from his sight, he sinks down on his knees. His kagune twitches and the tentacles fan open above his bowed body, searching for the flesh they have been denied.

ii.

Kaneki searches for the investigator’s taste in the hollow of his inner cheeks, behind his teeth, against the flat of his palate. You want flesh, Rize insists hotly and her laughter echoes inside his skull, and Kaneki realizes she’s not wrong, in a sense at least. He desperately drags himself up by the thin bars of the metal rail, half-leaning over like he’s seasick and vomits incoherent strings of words – Flesh, I need flesh! – and – If, I don’t do something… – and when a that vague feeling of being watched trickles to the base of his spine, he asks aloud if someone’s there.

Pushing himself upright so the hood of his vest slips off the back of his head, he speaks in a dead woman’s voice, “I’m awfully hungry right now.”

After skillfully unfastening the snaps of his mask, he cranes his neck backwards in a painful angle and taunts, “You know?”

In the blink of an eye, Kaneki’s crossed the gap between them and has his kagune pushing a hole through the other man’s chest. His eyes are wide-open, but what he sees doesn’t register until the man’s taken off his beaked mask and stands bare-faced before him. Yomo-san. Tears streak down his bloodied face, jaw unhinged, mouth agape. What have I done? Rize’s voice is quieted down to but a mere murmur against the inside of his skull, demure like the person he thought her to be, once. His left eye stops throbbing in its socket.

“Eat this.”

Yomo-san hands him a small package, cardboard paper tied up tidy with a string, and it weighs deceptively light on the palm of his hand. Even in the rain, he can pick up the mouthwatering smell of meat.

“You’ll feel better,” Yomo-san says calmly and Kaneki’s kagune fades away into blood red mist.

His fingers tremble when he tears at the wrapping paper and he’s having difficulties breathing through his nose when he tears into the meat, hungry, but the texture’s cold and chewy and hard between his aching teeth, and the taste’s not what he wants it to be.

At the very least, it sates his hunger.

iii.

Some nights Kaneki wakes up from his dreams about the ghoul investigator.

Sweating and panting and always achingly hard under the covers of his bed. He doesn’t know which dreams scare him more in their intensity; the ones where he tears into the man or the ones where he lets the man tear at him.

Kaneki’s reasonably sure he’s not a sadomasochist.

But right now, at three in the morning, that semi-certainty doesn’t will away the persistent boner nestled flush against the elastic band of his underwear, and that doesn’t chase away the lingering image of the ghoul investigator’s strong fingers on his hips either, dipping down the V of his thighs, towards his cock.

Coffee, he thinks helplessly, I need a cup of coffee.

He swallows and the soft click becomes deafening in the dead silence of his apartment. Then, he slowly pulls the covers off his legs and puts one bare foot on the cold floor, and then the other, stands up and shuffles to the kitchenette, flips on the light. The movements are comforting in their familiarity; grind the beans, boil the water, set up the coffeepot, etcetera.

When the scent of coffee wafts through his apartment, Kaneki breathes in deep and feels the tension in his chest unwind.

iv.

One night Kaneki simply gives in.

He fucks into his own palm, imagining it to be the ghoul investigator’s, and he comes hard at the thought of being shoved down wet, uncomfortable stones, bracketed between the ground and the weight of the investigator’s body at his lower back, a cock hard-pressed against his ass. His fingertips clench into the sheets and he turns away, head into the pillow, lower lip between his teeth when he comes quietly. Back arched, legs stretched out and heels dug into the mattress, he allows his orgasm to white out his eyesight for a blissful moment.

It isn’t enough, some part of him whispers – his stomach, maybe, Rize maybe, his heart maybe, – it’ll never be enough.

v.

Yamori takes him. Yamori breaks him.

Steel snaps clean through the skin of his toes, bites through the bone. He trembles as a dizzying pain flares through him, shaking in the chair, desperately trying to get away from Yamori and his pincers. There’s this sickening squelching sound when the ghoul gleefully pulls Kaneki’s piggy toe off and then chucks it into the bucket. Nausea claws at the back of his throat. He retches, bile thick on his tongue, a clucking sound stuck between his own two ears, an involuntary spasm of his chest, but no vomit nor gal comes dribbling out.

Kaneki keeps counting, from thousand down to zero by the sevens.

He puts the maw of the pliers to Kaneki’s ring toe, the metal’s slick with his blood and its bite still stings. Kaneki squints his eyes shut behind the blindfold and grits his teeth in response. His hands struggle in their binds.

It never stops hurting and it never starts hurting any less either; his fingers and toes grow back after Yamori forces the cold meat down his throat, past the wall of his aching teeth. Rize reaches out to him afterwards, tugs the blindfold from his sensitive eyes and smiles down at him sardonically. It’s white all around them, until the door to the theater opens once more. Kaneki’s so tired of being the pawn on this chessboard.

“You’re a fine one, Kaneki-kun.” It sounds suspiciously like praise. He trembles harder when Yamori takes that terrifying hockey mask off. “Would you like to know why I’m so… personal to you?”

His hockey mask falls to the checkered floor tiles. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this or not,” Yamori says in a deceptively conversational tone as he rounds him like a wild cat, “But you have remarkable regenerative abilities.” Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and a mouth close to his ear. “And it’s all thanks to Kanou’s experiment.”

Kaneki can’t stop shaking; Yamori’s so close that he can hear him sniffing at him, can feel the hot exhale of breath on the arch of his ear.

“He turned you into a ghoul using Rize,” Yamori tells him and removes his hand from Kaneki’s shoulder, cracks his finger. “One-eyed. Rize’s scent. That’s who you are, Kaneki-kun.”

His eyesight’s blurred from the tears and he hears something slithering close to his ear, his teeth are chattering and soft, scared little noises escape him. Yamori speaks again, “Have you heard of the red-headed Chinese centipede? I feel like letting it wriggle around in your ear. You don’t mind, do you?”

“N-no…” He stutters, daring to glance at the centipede from his peripheral. “Don’t… Please, I beg you.” There’s only agony from that moment onwards, a stumble of words, pleas, movement and Yamori’s laughter echoing around them in the large room. Tears and snot slide down his mouth, his chin, and he wants to die.

Rize touches his face then, and plants a seed of doubt into his heart.

There’s a hand crowning the top of his head, yanking him back to look at the two persons wiggling on the floor, tied up in heavy, iron-clad chains.

“All suffering in this world is born from an individual’s incompetence.” Kaneki tries to look away, but Yamori forces him to keep watching, fingers nestled in his hair, and he continues, “The person who told me that was a real piece of shit. But right now, I’m grateful to him.”

“I’ve come to understand something rather well these last days, Kaneki-kun.” He keeps shaking. “Never mind your physical capabilities, your mental fortitude is unexpectedly tough as well.”

Yamori’s fingertips dig into his skin. “So, I came up with a little plan to test that resolve. A man and a woman.” He cracks his finger. “Who love each other very much!”

He’s been given the choice, but he can’t decide. Yamori keeps goading him on with a grip so firm on his hair that the roots ache, and of the two ghouls on the ground, the man regards him with a determined expression on his face, pick me, it says. Kaneki wants to shake off the hand on top of his head, clenching his eyes shut, crying. I can’t be the one that decides something like that! Wouldn’t that just be the same as me murdering them?!

           Pick one! Pick one! Pick one! Pick one! The man? Or the woman? Right? Or is it left? Pick one!

With his refusal to choose, Yamori’s patience seems to have frayed to but a single strand. Each footfall is punctuated, a staccato, and resounds in the red-framed dome of the room. “Watch closely, now,” he demands, coming to a halt in front of the two ghouls on the floor.

In one smooth movement, he’s picked Haru up from the ground and holds a fist around her throat, clamoring, “This one? How about this one?! No?” He looks at Kaneki from over his shoulder. “Come on! Pick one! I said pick one! She’s gonna die! Well, Kaneki?”

He screws his eyes shut once again, refusing to watch how the woman struggles against the fingers around her neck, and tries to block out the insistent taunts Yamori sprouts.

             Come on! Come on! Pick one! Pick one!

His eyes snap back open. There’s a cacophony of sounds; his erratic heartbeat, Yamori’s voice, the shuffling of the ghoul on the ground, then another voice, pick me, pick me, pick me, followed inevitably by the sickening crunch of Haru’s trachea, crushed. Yamori lets go and she falls to the floor. She broke, didn’t she? He watches how Yamori slowly lifts the man up by the hairs on his head. And it’s all your fault. His kagune skewers through the ghoul’s belly like a scorpion’s stinger, reaching up to the ceiling.

Kaneki has nothing left to give, but something should, and something snaps.

vi.

He sees all the people he wants to protect: Touka-chan, Hinami-chan, Hide. And Kaneki gives in, makes a choice, pounces from his chair and pushes Rize down the field of flowers, pinning her down by the wrist and the weight of his body. I am… a ghoul. Everything’s bleeding red around him.

Except for his hair, that turned white instead.

vii.

Everything happens fast after that, a blur: Kaneki bites at Yamori and leaves him for dead on the checkered floor tiles, prevents Ayato from hurting Touka-chan, joins Aogiri and helps them take over the ninth and tenth ward and free Naki from the CCG escort.

There’s no time for pause, always on the move.

It’s only when he participates in the assault on Cochlea and gets the shit beaten out of him by Shachi, when he’s surrounded by the fog of his thoughts, with the stench of dead ghouls in his nose, the taste of them in his mouth, that he’s reminded of his want. He crashes into a senior investigator and inadvertently saves Ayato’s life, a burst of smoke rises from the ground upon collision and he drags his companion away.

Kaneki’s become a centipede now.

They clash ferociously, and he can’t think, only feels how the strands of his now-black kagune strike at the senior investigator’s armor, at his red-gleaming quinque. Wind brushes through his hair when he gains speed and falls to perform another attack. He’s grinning and then he’s grimacing when the weapon tears through his lower back. Kaneki drops to the ground face-first, his kagune gone.

            I still have plenty of quality time left to spend with my family.

His kagune bubbles at his lower back, then the pods pop and four new strands stretch out. Kaneki claws at the solid ground, suspended in memories, muttering m-my fingers… on the bench… He pushes himself upright, grinning despite the blood dripping from his mouth down his chin. With his kagune trashing wildly around him, he shakily gets up on his feet. C-centipedes… i-in my ears. Something tears through his flanks; two large kagune strands fashioned after a centipede’s body.

           How many kagune sacs does he have?!

Kaneki just laughs and continues rambling, a thousand minus… a-a thousand minus… He bows his head, smiling away the haze of pain and hunger, s-seven… Behind him, the senior investigator readies his quinque and squares his shoulders, murmuring against the white noise of Kaneki’s kagune wiggling about, of all the ghouls, I’ve ever faced…

With a glance over his shoulder, Kaneki finishes his question, “… seven is what?”

“You’re the craziest one yet,” the senior investigator replies dryly.

He cracks his finger. In a flash, he’s behind the investigator and pinches his body between the strands of his kagune, making a dark sound that’s supposed to be a laugh when the investigator’s armor slowly starts to break under the pressure.

Gas steadily shrouds the room from through the ventilation shafts, and Kaneki lowers the senior investigator to the floor, digs into the black plating around the investigator’s torso, hungry still.

It’s blissfully quiet in his head as he crunches parts of the armor between his teeth, ataraxia. His kagune slithers around, making soft, almost metallic clicking sounds as the paws wriggle about. The armor feels cold to the touch, its sharp edges poke at the roughened skin of his palms when he brings it to his mouth, and then at his gums when he bites down.

           Eyepatch? Quick-paced footsteps manage to reach him through his stupor and he gets up, whirls around to face his assailant. Eyepatch!

His heart lurches in his chest unexpectedly, and something warm slips between the knobs of his spine. Kaneki recognizes this man from somewhere. Instinctively, his kagune reaches out to protect him from the man’s quinque and pushes him off, pushes him back somewhere in the mist. But the man’s insistent and strikes the blade of his weapon into one of the joints of his kagune.

“Eyepatch! I need you to tell me!” He pleads with Kaneki, looking at him with the gleam of a ghost in his eyes. “Why… Why didn’t you kill me then?!”

Softer but not any less desperate, he continues, “That night, you were crying. Was that… all a lie?”

Kaneki gasps out when the man lashes out and cuts one strand of his kagune off clean; it lands on the cold floor with a loud squelch. Everything starts to hurt; his body as his kagune hurries to regenerate and his heart as this familiar feeling washes over him. What does he want? The man clicks the shaft of his quinque open and reattaches one end to the red-gleaming end, switching from a one-handed quinque to two.

“I thought you would be able to give me an answer… as to why I’m still alive,” the man tells him, glaring. “You! The one who let me go!”

He’s unprepared for the assault, jerking backwards in a disconcerted way as the man hacks into him mercilessly, but manages to knock one weapon clean out of his hand. It doesn’t deter the man in the slightest. He steps down on one strand of Kaneki’s kagune and slices through, amputating another one, and another one.

Kaneki stares blindly at the man, deaf to everything but the stutter of his own heart between his ears.

There’s something oddly familiar about how the man pushes the head of his quinque into Kaneki’s ribs to push him to the ground, like he’s been in this exact same spot before. Rolling onto his stomach and getting his elbows under him, Kaneki tries to get upright, but the red flare of the man’s quinque prevents him from standing.

“That’s all, right? You’re just an ordinary ghoul, right? Right?!”

Suddenly, the memories click back together and Kaneki realizes he’s looking up at the same ghoul investigator he fought a while back. He wants… Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, slide down his pale cheeks, and he clenches a fist, -- but he can’t, -- bowing down before the investigator.

“I… don’t want to eat anymore…” Kaneki confesses weakly, feeling the intense gaze of the ghoul investigator like a tangible weight on his back.

The investigator lowers his quinque and corpses start to fall from the ceiling, followed by the One-eyed Owl. He doesn’t know what’s happening only that there are claws snug around his midriff, and he calls out hoarsely in surprise. There’s a rush and then he’s airborne.

viii.

Tokyo’s on the threshold of winter.

Kaneki stuffs his hands in the pockets of his coat and keeps his head down, crossing the street under the bright glare of the skyscrapers and their video screens. There’s a nip in the evening air. People walk around him in a brisk pace, but don’t encroach on his personal bubble, and the punctuated peeping of the traffic lights speeds up as the green light starts to flicker. When he’s back on the boardwalk, someone catches his eye, a familiar someone in a gray coat standing at the brightly-lit shop window of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

This might be his only chance. It’s stupid and rash, but his hands are trembling in his pockets and Kaneki just… wants.

He brushes past him, nudging the sharp of his elbow into the ghoul investigator’s lower back, and throws a meaningful glance over his shoulder when he hears the man go oomph. Their gazes meet and hold; and it’s like in the fights they’ve had before, something sparks. Kaneki watches how the investigator draws a deep breath, dropping the donut he just bought to the concrete, and immediately starts walking again in a quicker pace. Doesn’t need to check if the investigator’s following, the brisk footfalls echoing behind him are telltale enough. Ducking into a bystreet with a bunch of small, family-owned restaurants, he’s dead-set on leading the investigator away from the busy square.

Neon lights discolor his hair a washed-out red.

Kaneki breaks down in a jog, then into a sprint when the ghoul investigator gains ground on him, calling out a word that might as well have become his name, – Eyepatch! – and rounds the corner into a dead-end, an alleyway with a garbage container and the back exit of a restaurant. It’s dark aside from the light coming from the buzzing TL tube that hangs above the large back door. He can hear the investigator’s harsh breathing.

“Eyepatch,” the ghoul investigator rasps, before he composes himself, straightens his posture and brings the weight of his keen, knowing gaze onto Kaneki’s shoulders again. “I have questions—”

“And I might have answers,” Kaneki interrupts with a smile, standing still in the weak halo of pale light as the investigator comes closer, comes to tower over him.

He’s so easy to read, he thinks silently as he watches a range of emotions cross the investigator’s handsome face, like he wears his heart on his sleeve. Frowning, the investigator clenches his hand into an angry fist. Kaneki does something stupid—again, as if it’s a habit by now, standing here with his rival, alone and unmasked— and touches his fingertips to the man’s bone-white knuckles.

Glancing up at the investigator’s face with heavy-lidded eyes, Kaneki remarks matter-of-factly, “You’re so… warm.”

“And you’re freezing,” the ghoul investigator bristles in response, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

Kaneki interprets that as permission and shuffles closer, gingerly caressing the back of the man’s hand, up to the joint of his wrist. He brings his other hand flat to the investigator’s chest, –  the man warily raises an eyebrow – and balances himself on the tips of his toes, reaching for the investigator’s mouth, but the man intervenes, putting a hand on the handle of Kaneki’s hip.

“What are you doing?” He hisses lowly, a flush to his cheeks, and digs the pad of his thumb into Kaneki’s skin to keep him from moving.

His voice’s clipped as he replies, “I want…” Kaneki licks at his lower lip, searches for those haunted eyes and continues, “I want to kiss you.”

“O-oh,” the investigator stutters stupidly and there’s a twitch at the corners of his mouth, an involuntary smile maybe, but then his face falls, hardens. “Do you think I’m an idiot? This has to be a trap.”

He moves to pull away but Kaneki grabs him by the wrist, it’s the catalyst of a chain reaction: the ghoul investigator yanks his arm free and shoves at Kaneki until they’re in the shadows and his back’s flush against the wall, feeling the indents of the bricks against his skin, pinned down by two big hands on his shoulders. His smile’s close-lipped. His eyes are heavy-lidded still.

“I just want to kiss you,” Kaneki comments, before he leans in and tries his luck a second time, pushing back against the ghoul investigator’s strong-hold.

Their lips touch briefly, before the investigator snaps his head back in shock, blinking fast. “Eyepatch… Y-you… You can’t be serious about this,” he ends lamely, bright-faced, with his fingers drumming nervously over the knobs of Kaneki’s shoulders.

Kaneki chortles fondly, awash with warmth for this man, and simply nods, waiting for the ghoul investigator to settle down. Those big hands ease down his upper arms and then come to rest on his ribs, down his flanks, that flush on his face darkening as he eventually settles those hands on Kaneki’s narrow hips, testing how far he can go before Kaneki pushes back and snaps at him, like he apparently half-expects him too.

– Don’t stop – and – Keep going – are things he wants to tell the ghoul investigator when he steps even closer and hunches forwards, bows his head. “This is—” the man swallows, a dry click that sounds so terribly loud from this close-by. “This is a big leap of faith I’m taking here.”

“I’m taking one too, you know,” Kaneki responds softly, carefully bringing his fingers to the hinge of the man’s jaw.

When he doesn’t shake them off, Kaneki touches their mouths together again, falling head-first into that all-too-familiar dark want he felt when he tore a chunk out of the man’s shoulder. Fingertips delve into the meat on his hips when the kiss slowly deepens, hard enough to bruise and when the investigator threatens to move his hands away, afraid to hurt apparently, Kaneki places his hand on one of them, steadying.

He’s wanted for so long.

Shoving one leg between Kaneki’s in a bid to get even closer, the ghoul investigator bends down to lick shyly at the corner of his mouth, and Kaneki whines at the friction that muscled leg gives him, rubbing his crotch down. He tilts his head back, exposing the column of his throat, carding his fingers through the short, dark hair at the nape of the investigator’s back. Insistent kisses are pressed to the underside of his chin.

Kaneki helplessly bucks his hips against the man’s leg, trying to establish a rhythm that would work him up, and the springs in his belly tighten as his cock twitches. “Please,” he keens, nestling a fist at the base of the investigator’s neck, digging his nails into the investigator’s wrist.

“This is more than just kissing,” the ghoul investigator deadpans, but his voice’s thick, heated, and he nervously thumbs the elastic band of Kaneki’s shorts.

He pushes the investigator’s head back down and kisses him again, rocking down harder, and the fabric of his underwear burns against his cock and balls, but it’s so good. Fingers tug his shorts down, and teeth clank together painfully when the investigator grumbles into the kiss, having found out about Kaneki’s leggings.

“You wear this many layers of clothing and you’re still a block of ice,” he mutters breathlessly after they’ve broken the kiss, pressing his forehead to the crown of Kaneki’s head.

Every retort Kaneki had ready on the tip of his tongue dies stillborn when the investigator sneaks a hand into his underwear and palms his cock. He barely manages to stifle a gasp at the unexpected warmth, gripping the short hairs even tighter in reflex, and eases up again when the ghoul investigator winces lightly in pain. Fingers wrap around the shaft of his cock and set a slow, hesitant pace.

“Please,” Kaneki whispers groggily, dimly aware he’s still holding onto the man’s wrist. “Please, I just want…”

“Is this… okay? I mean, do you—” He pointedly rolls his hips into the loose circle of the investigator’s fingers to quiet the insecurity in his voice. “Ah,” the investigator exhales sharply, starting to stroke that bit faster to wrench a long-winded whine from Kaneki’s mouth.

He draws his head back to look in those bright, ghost-gleaming eyes, breathing him in directly, putting his palm flatly on the first knob of his spine, under the collar of his gray coat, under the collar of his neat, iron-pressed blazer. A small, almost bashful smile curls along the corners of the investigator’s mouth when he touches his other hand to Kaneki’s lower back, rubs up – between his shoulder blades to the base of his neck – and back down again, to the cleft of his ass, but not to the swell of it.

“Eyepatch…”

Another please escapes him when he feels the investigator’s bulge press against his hip bone, and he’s reminded of how much taller the other man is, how much broader and bigger, and that dark desire stabs blindly at his stomach. He groans when the investigator brushes the heel of his palm to the head of his cock, accidentally smearing the precum open over his wrist.

More, some part of him whispers, more, more, more.

The ghoul investigator kisses him, open-mouthed, searching for answers at the back of his teeth with the tip of his tongue. It’s enough to tip the scales, enough to push Kaneki over the edge into his orgasm, all little spasms and twitches and toe-curls as he spurts his spunk over his own abdomen and the sleeve of the investigator’s coat.

Kaneki wants to return the favor – and the thought of getting on his knees for this man in the shadowed corner of an abandoned alleyway where the streetlight can’t reach them excites him for some reason. Watches with a hungry expression on his face as the investigator shucks his coat and unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his pants, drags down the zipper and pulls out his dick.

“What are you doing?” The ghoul investigator whispers hotly, a dark blush splayed on his high cheekbones, when he sees Kaneki getting down on his knees.

“I’ve never…” He falters, scrapes his throat self-consciously and puts his hands on his upper legs. “I thought you might want me to do this like… this?”

Raising his eyebrows, the investigator stammers, “W-what?! No!” He bites his inner cheek before continuing, “I’d rather not have your mouth anywhere near… me.”

Unable to help himself, Kaneki laughs, because they’ve been making out sloppily for the past few minutes and of course, the man would create a fuss when his cock was concerned. He gets back up and dusts his knees off.

“Whatever you want,” he says softly, smiling, coming to stand so very close again.

Kaneki jerks the investigator off and kisses him some more, on the mouth, on the hinge of his jaw, on the column of his throat, and right above his clavicle when the investigator comes all over his hand. They jump apart when they hear the back door slam open. His eye involuntarily turns red and he hides his face away from the ghoul investigator, who hurriedly tucks himself back in his pants and bends over to collect his coat.

It’s his best shot at a fast escape, they both know this as they stare at each other, and Kaneki takes it, darts past the ghoul investigator into the pale light of the TL tube, out of the alleyway and into the bright neon signs of the street.

ix.

Kaneki asks the ghoul investigator for his name the next time he sees him.

        – Amon, his name is Amon –

And then he lobs his arm clean off.

x.

“Amon…”

His voice sounds gravelly to his own ears.

For Kaneki, an entire lifetime has passed since he’s last seen him, and he suspects the same could be said for Amon. They regard each other. Amon looks exhausted, pale and gaunt in the cheeks, having lost a decent amount of weight and muscle, but he’s still so hauntingly beautiful, with the gleam of more than a few ghosts in his bright eyes.

“Eyepatch.”

His heart lurches in his chest and something warm slips between the knobs of his spine.

           --“Why did you let me live back then?”

            --“Because I wanted you to.”

A pause, and Kaneki instinctively draws closer to Amon in the relative darkness, touches his fingers to those warm hands.

                   --“I still want you to.”

.