Title: all those times we could've watched the stars and didn't
Summary: Instead of best friend, Kaneki accidentally calls Hide his boyfriend when they're attacked. Now, Nishiki keeps using the B word whenever Hide is in earshot.
Pairings: Hide/Kaneki
Notes: Crossposting from ao3. First HideKane fic, because I reallllly like this ship (they're adorable, okay?), and there's just so much angst in this canon that adorableness is kind of a must by this point, haha.

Kaneki's problem begins when he does something he doesn't mean to do, which, unfortunately, happens to him quite frequently. He'll find himself tripping over his neighbour's cat, or forgetting to lock his front door, or, in this case, will accidentally call Hide his boyfriend instead of his best friend to Nishiki's face. He didn't mean to, it just… happened.

The only thing he has going for him at this point is that at least Hide hasn't heard him, and thus, isn't aware of the mix-up. Nishiki, on the other hand…

"Your boyfriend?" he says. "That's a good one. That's a long time to be grooming someone to eat, though, especially someone as annoying as Nagachika."

"I'm not going to eat Hide," Kaneki insists, feeling sick just at the thought of it – just the idea of tearing meat and muscle from bone and Hide's smile disappearing and – it's just too much.

"Suit yourself," Nishiki says, putting his foot on Hide's head. "Means there's more for me."

(Kaneki would like to take a moment to remind himself that, even though he can't entirely remember what happened afterwards, it came from a place of love. Even the part where he completely loses control and tries to eat his best friend. Especially that part, Kamishiro Rize would say, but that's a little fucked up, so Kaneki tries not to think about it.)

When he wakes up and everything is fine, he thinks that's the end of it.

As most things in Kaneki's life go, he is absolutely wrong.

It doesn't actually become a problem until Nishiki also starts working at Anteiku, and even then, they don't often share shifts, and the moments when they're there together and Hide happens to show up too occur even less.

Kaneki almost drops a cup when Nishiki appears next to him and says, "So, boyfriends, huh?" and Hide is sitting right there, bowed over one of his textbooks.

"What?" he manages, and Hide is still not looking up, one of his hands in his hair while he's completely absorbed in his book.

Nishiki gives him a Look. "You're pathetic," he says, and then turns around and leaves, in true Nishiki fashion, without explaining whatever the hell he meant.

"Can I get another cappuccino?" Hide asks, and Kaneki wants to sink into a hole and die. (After making coffee for Hide, of course.)

Kaneki may not be the most sociable person around, but he's aware that Nishiki keeps shadowing him whenever they're in the shop together, like he's a piece of tape someone stuck to Kaneki's back, and he can't reach around to tear it off. And he wants to tell Nishiki to just please go away, but the last thing he wants is to be punched in the face again, so he deals with it.

Even if also means dealing with the running commentary.

Hide's over to bring him some notes, and he's grinding more beans, because apparently there's never too much of those. Anteiku is quiet today, so Hide decides to stay a little while and bother his best friend (although the words he used were "I haven't seen you in forever, talk to me, Kaneki!").

He's fairly certain Yoshimura is upstairs, and Nishiki is in the back, counting stock.

"So I told this girl, 'No, I'm sorry, I have no idea where to find the Badminton Club, but if you'd like we could always get lost in each other's eyes forever'. And then she said she had a boyfriend. Bummer."

"Uhuh," Kaneki slowly says.

"Speaking of, I haven't seen you in class in ages. They're not keeping you locked up in here, right? I don't need to stage a rescue mission and save you from the coffee bean monster?"

"I don't think there's such a thing, Hide…"

"Still! You shouldn't underestimate the ability of coffee shops to swallow you whole, Kaneki! The stories I hear in student clubs sometimes…"

"I thought the way that story went was, 'I knew a guy once who went to take an exam, and I never saw him again'," Kaneki replies, thoughtfully.

"Almost the same thing," Hide replies. "I thought Nishio-sempai was working today too, though? He's not here? Is Touka-chan here instead?"

"Touka's still in school. I think she comes in later today. Nishiki's in the back."

"Not anymore." Nishiki appears through the door, retying his apron. "I think your boyfriend would like to be, though." He smirks knowingly and turns to the coffee grinder.

Kaneki feels the tips of his ears going red, just as Hide asks, "You have a boyfriend?"

"No!" he says. A little too quickly, he notes, because Hide's definitely raising his eyebrows now..

He can practically hear Nishiki rolling his eyes from where he's standing.

Hide takes his comment in stride, though – he just shrugs and slurps up the rest of his coffee before asking for a refill.

After that fiasco, Kaneki takes to hiding out in the backroom (and occasionally in the bathroom), while pretending to be doing really important stuff with the stock whenever both Hide and Nishiki are out front. At least until he comes to the sudden realization that Nishiki could be telling his best friend all sorts of weird stories about him and fill his head with lies. He almost comes storming out the door, accidentally running into a broom. It falls onto the floor just as he steps out, and Touka gives him an annoyed glance.

"Were you planning on using that?" she asks, her voice sharp, and he meekly shakes his head. "Well, clean up after yourself, you dolt, before I have to start telling the manager you let the broom beat you up in a moment of weakness." Nishiki snorts behind her, diligently grinding beans. "Shut up, shitty Nishiki."

Kaneki hurriedly cleans up the broom, and closes the door behind him. Touka just instructs him to go serve some customers that just came in, and he hurries over, all the while feeling Hide's eyes on him.

If he's honest, whenever he's working and Hide comes in? That's the best part of his day. He likes working at Anteiku, and meeting the people that come there, old and new alike, but it's nice to see a familiar face every once in a while. Besides, as Hide frequently reminds him, they see way too little of each other outside of the café. Not for a lack of trying on Hide's part, obviously, but ever since that incident where Kaneki almost ate him… He doesn't trust himself.

The terrible hunger he felt then hasn't reappeared – the sugar cubes do a good job of keeping it at bay – but he's scared of losing control like that again. And he knows that next time, there won't be anyone to stop him. (Not that he's going to let there be a next time.)

For the time being, he just deflects Hide's questions with statements like 'I'm too busy' and 'I have too much homework', neither of which are good enough to convince his best friend that he really can't hang out this Friday night. Or on Saturday. Or Monday afternoon, when he has no classes or shifts.

It makes it easier on him. Maybe harder than it used to be, when he still was… when he could still call himself human. At least this way he's certain he won't let any of his secrets slip.

Nishiki definitely isn't helping, however.

It's like, the more uncomfortable Kaneki gets, the more persistent he becomes. If he hadn't known Nishiki had a girlfriend, he might have suspected he was coming on to him. And he knows that, with all the words they've exchanged in the past couple of weeks, Hide's bound to come to some sort of conclusion. He's smart. He'll definitely find out if Kaneki isn't able to get Nishiki to shut up somewhere between now and the next ten minutes.

He's been prodding Hide about his love life (or lack thereof, as Hide usually says) for the past… Well, it's been a while, and Kaneki is fairly certain he's been drying the same cup for at least five (very tense) minutes now.

"Since when are you interested in that anyway, Nishio-sempai?" Hide asks. "Are you asking me out?"

Nishiki's face turns sour. "No, but unfortunately for me, I know someone who wants to."

Kaneki fervently dries his cup, despite the fact it's been dry for a while now.

"You're both equally annoying, so I suppose it works out," Nishiki continues, boring his eyes into the back of Kaneki's head. Or Kaneki imagines that's what he's doing, anyway.

"Uh," he hears Hide say, and Kaneki sneaks a look from the corner of his eye, just when Hide looks in his direction.

"Oh for the love of— You," Nishiki says, "ask this whiny child out on a date before I throw him out on the curb for taking up seats."

"Ask—ask out?" Kaneki says, his voice an octave higher than usual; his face is probably the colour of a ripe tomato by now.

"Look, I understand the need to pine just as much as the next person – well, actually, I don't. It's dumb. He's right there."

"About that," Hide says, but Nishiki just continues as if he hasn't heard him.

"Now, you can either get off your scrawny ass and do something about it, but for God's sake, stop giving him googly eyes when I'm right here in the room. It makes me want to throw up."

He storms through the back door, presumably to count stock. Again.

Hide and Kaneki share a look. "Um," Kaneki says, finally putting aside his cup.

"Is that why you've been avoiding me?" Hide finally asks. "Because, dude, it's fine. I know."

"You… do?"

"Well, Nishio-sempai is about as subtle as an elephant in a porcelain shop, so. Yeah. But… I kinda knew before he started his whole 'so about this boyfriend of yours, Kaneki' shtick."

"You… did?" Kaneki feels like he's repeating himself, but he's a little flabbergasted and his brain cells are still recovering. "Since when?"

"Um. Probably around that time where I got into that, you know, car accident, and Touka rescued us? I, uh, sorta overheard your conversation. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to eavesdrop, it was just… easier to pretend to be unconscious?"

But that also means that he knows. That awkward pause before he talked about the accident, the way his eyes had briefly shifted away. He knows. Hide knows.

"It's all right," Hide says, his gaze soft and warm. "When's your shift over?" Kaneki tells him it won't be for a few hours yet, but Hide grins anyway and puts on his coat. "I'll come pick you up and we'll go out for some coffee. In a place that isn't Anteiku. The last thing we want is for your co-workers to sabotage our first date, no?"

"D-date?" Kaneki barely has time to stutter, let alone disagree, before Hide is out the door.

The door marked 'Staff Only' is opened a creak. "Is he gone?" Nishiki asks, peering around the corner.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you," Kaneki says, and it's really not even a question, because he knows Nishiki won't bother defending himself.

"You were never going to get anywhere with that whole 'I'm going to look at him while he's not looking at me and hope he won't notice' bullshit. Obviously he digs you, too, so it all works out."

And, yeah, maybe it did, but he was still worried for a grand total of seven seconds while they just stared at each other and hoped they weren't ruining their friendship.

"Not for you," Kaneki lightly says, finally picking up a new cup. "You do realise that if this works out, Hide's basically going to be here every single time I have to work?"

Nishiki makes a face, then turns around. "I'm going to ask Yoshimura-san if I can have the nightshift."

True to this word, Hide shows up the minute his shift ends, and nearly tears off Kaneki's arm pulling him out the door.

They're going on a date. A date.

(Please excuse Kaneki, because he needs another moment, and he's a little apprehensive. Aside from this whole date business being with his best friend, the last time he went on a date he nearly got eaten and then was changed into a ghoul. On the bright side, it really can't get much worse than that, as far as dates go anyway.)

Hide ends up taking him to a small café tucked carefully away into a crevice between two other stores, one boasting amazing discounts on CDs, the other has a bunch of girls standing in front of the window, cooing over pictures of cats.

He's deliberately picked this place, Kaneki realizes when he steps inside. It's a little dark inside, and most of the furniture needs an upgrade to get with the times, so to speak, but it's… cozy. And it'll offer them more than enough privacy, something they'd be sorely lacking in Anteiku.

A waiter steps over to their table not even two seconds after they sit down, and Hide cheerfully orders a cappuccino for himself and a black coffee for himself. Kaneki isn't sure whether to feel mortified or comforted by the fact Hide knows him so well, apparently, that he immediately picks up on coffee being his preferred beverage these days.

"So," Hide says after their waiter stops by with their drinks. "I've always wondered, is coffee like crack for ghouls?"

Kaneki nearly spits out his drink. "H-Hide!"

"Well, I am nearly always seeing you with a cup of coffee in your hand. Are you doing okay? Sleeping all right? Not overdosing yourself on caffeine?"

"Hide, I work in a coffee shop. Obviously that means I have coffee in my hands ninety percent of the time."

Hide pouts. "You're deflecting my question, Kaneki. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," he replies, but at least it's nice of him to ask. Although he still can't wrap his head around Hide knowing about the whole ghoul thing, on top of what had to be the most embarrassing confession of the century.

"You know," Hide says after a moment where he just stirs his spoon and looks thoughtful, "we already do all that stuff people do on dates. Go out for coffee, watch a movie. And… you know, whatever else people do on dates."

"Kiss?" Kaneki daringly suggests, and promptly blushes when Hide grins.

"Go for long walks while holding hands beside a pond reflecting the full moon."

"I don't know what kind of movies you've been watching," Kaneki starts.

"The best ones," Hide happily says, and takes a long drink from his coffee. Kaneki follows suit, not really knowing what else to say besides mentioning Hide's obviously awful taste in movies. "But just the fact we could've been dating all along is…"

"Weird," Kaneki says, because he definitely has not spent a substantial amount of time playing out certain scenarios in his head where they end up happily ever after.

"Slightly moronic on our parts," Hide finishes. They stare at each other for a moment. "I mean, that time when you… uh, when you went on a date with your, um. Well, that time when you went out on a date, I could've asked you out instead and you wouldn't have said no? And all this shit wouldn't have happened?"

"I guess that does make me an idiot," Kaneki mumbles.

"That's why I said us, I didn't just mean you. I should've said something sooner."

"Yeah, me too," Kaneki says, softly. Maybe they did, maybe they are, somewhere in a different universe. "How long, though?" Suddenly, he's dying to know.

Hide awkwardly laughs. "A few years, maybe? Yeah, it's embarrassing, I know. I just never said anything, because I figured I didn't want to make you uncomfortable, or feel like you had to reciprocate. Is it a recent thing for you, though? I mean, I've never actually noticed anything…"

"It's… not," Kaneki softly admits, feeling himself blush. He'd quickly look out the window if there were any to stare out of.

"Really? Huh, I never would've guessed. You're usually like an open book, Kaneki. If you don't mind me asking, how long have you…?"

"Probably… since the day we met," Kaneki admits. "I—I mean, I didn't realise it at the time, but… You've always made me feel special, Hide. Even back when we were kids. I think I found out by the time we changed schools. But the way my… my feelings changed, it was so gradual that it feels like… I've always been in love with you. For as long as I can remember."

Kaneki looks up to find Hide staring at him, his mouth opened a little in what is likely an expression of shock. "I just… thought you'd hate me, or think it was gross, that I felt the way I did. So, I told you I had a crush on Sayaka from 2C, even though I didn't." He finds it hard to stop talking now that he's started, because now he knows he doesn't have to be afraid of rejection anymore. That fear was what had kept him silent for years. "I even went out on a date with her, at your insistence. Nothing really happened, except… I couldn't lie to her, so even though I couldn't tell her why, she knew it wasn't going to work out. That was awkward."

Hide's mouth is still agape. "How on earth did you manage to keep that a secret from me for, like, a decade?"

"I don't know. I—I actually thought I was really obvious about it."

Hide groans into his hands. "You know, for people who are the best friends ever, we're sure really bad at this. You'd think the universe would have thrown us a bone or something, but noooo. Everything has to be messed up first."

"I guess," Kaneki says, slowly. "Not like there's much we can do about it now."

"We should give the universe the finger and be like one of Those Couples."

"One of… what now?"

"You know, those couples that everyone discreetly rolls their eyes at because they're so disgustingly in love with each other."

"And… are we 'disgustingly in love with each other'?" Kaneki repeats, including quotation marks with his fingers.

"Well, I definitely hope so," Hide brightly says. "I feel like we should watch a movie at my place next. Or maybe yours?"

He's a little distracted by the sudden change of subject, and finishes off his coffee before he replies. "Your place is fine. Do you have anything new?"

"Well, yeah. We haven't hung out in weeks, of course I have a bunch of stuff I need to watch with you." Kaneki smiles into his now empty coffee cup. Whenever they watched movies together, Hide really got into it. He's always the one trying to give the characters advice (mostly when they're watching a horror movie and no one remembers to turn on a freaking light), throws his popcorn at the screen when they disappoint him, and he just as frequently turns his head just to see Kaneki's reaction to certain scenes.

It happens plenty of times that the credits start rolling and they discuss the movie for hours. Occasionally very seriously, and sometimes Hide just does very bad impressions of the characters, trying to make Kaneki laugh.

"Let's do that, then." They pay for their coffee, and Hide talks about the assignment he's been completing for one of his classes on their way home, about how he has to conduct a number of interviews with people on certain subjects, how long it's been taking so far, and how he still needs to write his report because he has only found one person willing to be interviewed so far.

And while Kaneki has been going to classes, he hasn't been doing so regularly, even if he wants to. Some days he just feels too sick – too dangerous – to go in, and he spends those days with his finger hovering over the call button to Anteiku.

Hide opens the door to his apartment with a flourish, inviting Kaneki to feel right at home. He quickly snatches some spare clothes off the couch before he can sit down, and then disappears down the hall while he calls out that he'll be right back. Kaneki sinks into his seat, breathing in deeply. This whole house smells of Hide. Of the specific type of laundry detergent he uses, those candles that he swears should smell like oranges, and there's a present smell of coffee, even though he knows it's the cheap kind.

"Back!" Hide says, throwing himself down right next to Kaneki as he throws a DVD into his lap.

"Sandsharks," Kaneki reads out loud, then glances at Hide. "Really?"

"Well, I figured it couldn't hurt to have a good laugh. Found it in the bargain bin."

"For good reason," Kaneki mumbles, but he hands it over to Hide anyway so he can put it in the player.

When they settle in next to each other, he realizes how much he's missed this. Hide has always been a constant presence in his life, and… trying to cut him out of it hurt a lot more than he had expected.

The movie is not as bad as he'd expected. It's worse. He snorts a couple of times, and groans even more often. This is really stretching the definition of so bad it's good.

"Hey, Kaneki?" Hide says after a while.

"Hm?" He turns his head.

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"Accidentally calling me your boyfriend."

It's only the briefest of moment, but their lips still touch, soft and warm and everything Kaneki could possibly want out of a first kiss.

"You're welcome," he says, and then kisses him again.