Everyone had their own problems. Some people it was small, like not being able to remember things, or always stubbing their toe on a chair when they passed. Others it was big. Depression, anxiety, mental illness. Uta had never had any of those problems. He'd always just rolled with the punches. The only problem he'd ever had was with Kaneki. He was conflicted for a while about what to do with him, but in the end that problem had solved itself. Now Kaneki was his lover, and he knew everything, and was so strong.

Even when his issues were monstrous.

Kaneki suffered from severe depression, and nothing could convince Uta otherwise, though no doctor would isolate it. He often woke in the middle of the night to find Kaneki sobbing in the bathroom, which also led to his next issue. He had a horrendous case of what doctor's called Conditioned Emotional Response, which was like PTSD only one hundred times worse. If someone cracked their knuckles, Kaneki bolted. If he hunted with Uta, Uta had to be excessively careful with how he ate and when he pulled things apart, if he did so at all. The snap of bones separating from each other caused an immediate and visceral response. Sometimes it was screaming, others a fight. More than once Uta had been forced to put Kaneki into a wall until he was calm. Small things like the scraping of metal on metal caused Kaneki to shake uncontrollably, jerking his legs and arms out like he was seizing. The nightmares were awful things. He would scream himself awake at times, and others Uta would wake to hear him vomiting in the bathroom. He was insomniac because of it, sleeping in short fifteen minute bursts. It made his disposition so much worse.

Many people said that, with these issues, there came a simple solution that helped everyone cope. Kaneki's, besides coffee, seemed to be his books. He would always have a book in his hands, and some days Uta could even hear the scratch of a pen on paper while he was working. It helped calm Uta down even as it did the same for Kaneki. Sometimes it surprised Uta, because Kaneki couldn't sit still, so reading was always so hard for him anymore. He had been held still in a chair for too long. He couldn't hold still, he would always be bouncing a leg, or shaking a pen, drawing patterns into his leg with his fingers, something. At times the need to move was so strong Kaneki threw his book down and started walking laps around the shop, running up and down the stairs like he was on a hamster wheel.

Kaneki always sat in the corner of Uta's shop, where Uta had moved some mannequins and set up a little futon for Kaneki to settle comfortably on and still be with Uta while he worked. He left a bedside table there and an LED lamp to help Kaneki see, and that was where Kaneki sat now, writing frantically in a journal Yomo had gotten him when he found Kaneki writing on his arms and thighs one day. Uta was working on a mask when he heard the sound, becoming slowly familiar, of the slap of the journal hitting the smooth wooden end table. He looked up to see Kaneki donning his hoodie. "Where you headed?" Uta asked casually.

"I need to walk around or something. I'm a little fidgety today, and I don't want to snap on you when it isn't your fault. I'll be back. I promise. It's the only place I feel safe." Kaneki promised, coming over to Uta with manic energy.

Uta nodded, cupping one side of Kaneki's face to settle him and pressing a kiss to him. "I love you. Please be careful." Uta told him when they broke apart from what he had meant to be a simple goodbye kiss.

"I will." Kaneki promised, and then jogged for the door and was gone.

Uta sighed, leaning back and looking down at the mask. He had been painting it's light wooden surface, and the paint was evenly dried all around it. He tilted his head, but couldn't seem to get the focus back on the manic mask. Instead, his eyes kept focusing on that journal. Kaneki had left it open facing up when he'd slapped it down, and left the pen beside it. Uta wondered if maybe what had agitated him so much was what he'd been writing, and he stood to go see what was written. Kaneki had never asked him not to read it, and Uta wasn't sure if he should, but he already missed Kaneki, and he felt a little bit alone without the manic energy of a moment ago.

When he reached the end table where the book lay, Uta lifted it and looked down at what was written. Slowly, his heart sank into his stomach, and he had to sit down as he read. He flipped it back to the first page, and still his heart sunk lower.

"Oh my God..." he whispered to the air.

I try so fucking hard not to let him see how absolutely fucking insane I'm going locked in this fucking room all night long. I was chained to a chair and now I'm chained in this dark apartment, and he's right beside me and I should feel fine but I fucking don't and I don't get it. Isn't he supposed to make me feel better? He tries so hard to make me feel better I can see that he does. But it makes me feel like an invalid. That sick fuck Yamori. Jason. This is all his fault. Or maybe it was mine. I should have just died when he beat me up in Anteiku. I would have been no fun then if I had broken sooner. What if I had broken sooner? What if I had lost my mind in Anteiku, dismembered him like I did at Aogiri in Anteiku right in front of Touka? Ha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha she would have been saved a beating and I could have been saved being this fucking thing. He probably can't even stand the way I feel God I fucking whine too much.

...You can only hit six

You can't pierce a ghouls skin with a hypodermic needle. The needle bends and breaks off, so you have to jam the needle into the membrane of the eye. it burns and stings and hurts and you think for a while that you're going to go blind and vomit and die from that pain. I'd never liked needles, but this was the worst experience I'd ever had with a needle. I wonder how Uta got all his tattoos. I don't think I could anymore, not after those needles in my eyes. I couldn't get close to a needle. I'd probably turn around and jam it right into someone else's eye. Does that make me worse than Yamori for doing it to a random innocent stranger? Oh wait. I was an innocent stranger. Guess not.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod I'm just making him hate me. Uta woke up after I did last night at 3:04 a.m. when I vomited like a stupid fucking bitch, and and and he asked me if I was okay but he sounded so sad and tired and agitated. I keep screwing up lives. Touka got the shit beaten out of her trying to protect me I stabbed Yomo Nishio almost died and even Tsukiyama spent time trying to protect me and Yoshimura had to spend his own valuable time away from little Hinami who also wanted to protect me. Now I'm doing it to Uta. I should have just let Yamori eat me. I wouldn't be such a burden then.

He keeps showing up, even in my dreams.

It was such a nice dream last night but Yamori fucking ruined it. Uta and I were making love, and it was soft and sweet and so great, and then he leaned down and whispered in my ear "What's one thousand minus seven?" I looked up and it was Yamori, and I was back in that chair, and he was tearing me apart again, and I couldn't remember which number came next, and you can only reach six. Why can you only reach six?

I tried to kill myself today. I hoped if I just made myself swallow enough human food it would weaken me enough. So I binged on as much of it as I could get my hands on, and went out to pick a fight. I blacked out a few moments before he could kill me, and when I came to I was covered in blood, and the guy I'd picked, a huge male ghoul with rage dripping off of him, was splattered on the alley around me. It's a good thing this is a bad ward, or the doves would be everywhere and it would be a big problem. Because I think I'm going to try it again soon.

The entries went on like that to fill nearly the entire thing, and Uta jumped nearly out of his skin when the door opened again, Itori and Yomo and the Clowns coming in. Itori crowed his name when she saw him, a huge smile on her face, but Yomo was more perceptive.

"Your face is pale, and that's Kaneki's journal." He stated in his simple way.

Nico nodded, crouching down beside him. "Yomo's right hon, you're ashen. What's the matter, that sweet little thing didn't bother you did he?" He asked.

Uta had to clear his throat, because on his first attempt his voice didn't come out. He looked up at Yomo. "Did you know what he was writing?" He asked, lifting the journal to him, voice weak.

"Ooh, Kaneki writes? Lemme see." Itori giggled, sounding excited. Her face dropped as well when she saw the words there.

Yomo scanned the pages, then looked back down at Uta, who was watching him, desperately hoping he was wrong and his eyes were lying to him. Yomo closed it and put it on the end table, sitting beside his best friend. "I didn't know, but what I found him writing wasn't very good either. He was writing about a drug that limits kagune activity, and makes the healing factor slow enough to make ghoul skin breakable with normal tools. I thought it was a one time thing, but just in case I wanted him to have this." Yomo explained.

Nico picked up the book and flipped through it. "When Yamori picked him up he was savage beating him. He slammed his head against walls, impaled him with his own kagune, tried everything to kill the guy there, but he just wouldn't die. Yamori even commented on how he 'just couldn't break the little guy.' It was what intrigued him so much. And Yamori used to ask the people he tortured to count backwards from one thousand by sevens. He said that when he was tortured it was what kept him sane. I've never counted down so far, but I think hitting six would make me worried that I'd screwed up somewhere." He closed it again. "The rest I don't understand."

Uta put it down like it were poison and put his face in his hands. He wanted to see Kaneki. He needed to hold Kaneki in his arms and be sure that he was alright. He wasn't sure he would be able to hold it together rationally like normally did when Kaneki came back. Not after reading that thing. He asked them to leave after a moment, and they did so quietly, keeping themselves from saying the wrong thing by excusing themselves. Only then did Uta pull away his hands, soaked with bloody tears, from his eyes.

Kaneki came back a few minutes after that to see Uta sitting on his couch, biting his black fingernails raw, and immediately sprang over to grab Uta's hand.

"You're bleeding. You're going to hurt your hand that way and scar it." He told Uta, kissing the place where he'd been bleeding seconds earlier gently and putting Uta's hand in his lap.

Uta flung his arms around Kaneki. "You aren't locked in I swear, you can go out whenever you need to. I promise you I would never lock you up like he did and you aren't a burden to me and I swear if you ever try to kill yourself again or if you manage to kill yourself I will raze this entire fucking island to the ground and raise you from the dead so that no one can hurt you again. I'm sorry I read it but I needed to know if you were okay and you aren't. I love you and I don't hate you, and I could never hate you, I don't know and never will, I love you. I love you. I love you Kaneki Ken. I love you. Marry me, don't ever leave me, please." He begged.

Kaneki was dead still for a long moment, which worried Uta, but then his arms were wrapping around Uta's waist as well, and his head was leaning on his shoulders. "Do you really mean that?" Kaneki asked.

Uta nodded frantically, taking huge breaths of Kaneki's scent. "Yes, marry me, just don't leave me. I wanted to propose in some romantic way you would appreciate but I can't wait that long because if I do you'll think I'm just doing it to make you happy. And I am trying to make you happy, but not just because I feel like I have to. Because I feel like I need you and I can't breathe when you aren't around and I need you in my life and damn it I haven't cried this much in a while, and it's your fault Kaneki, and so you have to marry me and make me feel better now..." Uta trailed off and buried his face in Kaneki's shoulder, trying hard to control himself and make it sound sensible. He knew Kaneki had been asking about the entire explosion, but he couldn't make all the crazy make sense right now. Kaneki was motionless in his arms, only squeezing Uta tight against his chest like he had since he'd returned the embrace. Then he nodded on Uta's shoulder.

"Okay. Okay. I'll marry you."