Author's Note: I'm back and I'm so sorry for the slow update! But thank you so much for all the love and support! Truly, your comments are what keep this fic alive, so thank you so much! Now I've kept you waiting for long enough, so without further ado, please enjoy~

In a quiet room lit only by the daylight filtering through a barred window, Kaneki found himself scanning familiar bookshelves. His father's library, he realized with some awe. It had been a long time since he'd seen it, but there was no mistake. All the books that had kept him company as a child greeted him like old friends. The shelves loomed over him in a way that should have felt intimidating, but only felt encompassing and sheltering like a hug. The books were just as big as he remembered and full of even bigger words just waiting for him to read and understand them.

Eagerly, he reached for one of his favorites, but quickly found it was too high. Rather than it being too high, he realized with a troubled frown as he observed his hands, he was too small.

'Why am I a child again?' He asked himself, vaguely distraught. Glimpses of reality scratched at his mind, feelings of an endless hunger and hopelessness gnawed at the pit of his stomach, but he fearfully shoved away those thoughts.

Desperate for the comfort of a familiar book, he reached for the book that sat just out of his reach. But no matter how much he stretched or hopped, he couldn't even touch the book. Unsure, he placed his foot on a shelf, testing his weight, only to retreat when it gave an ominous groan. With a racing heart, he glanced towards his mother's craft table and let out a sigh of relief when he found it empty.

But with the relief, came a crushing sense of loneliness. The house was too quiet and big and dark when he was the only one in it. Even though he knew he couldn't reach it, he made another futile grab at the book, crumbling to the ground with a quiet cry when it yet again eluded him.

"Is this the book you wanted?" a kind voice asked. With blurry eyes, Kaneki looked up from where he had rather pathetically crumpled and found the book he had been trying unsuccessfully to grab delivered to him. He followed the hands offering him the book up to their owner. The face that looked down at him was just as kind as the voice had been, relaxing Kaneki in a way that usually only books could.

'He's beautiful,' Kaneki thought shyly. He was also a bit of a contradiction. The young man was almost as big as an adult, but he wore a school uniform. His long, dark hair already had a few white hairs mixed in, yet his face was soft and full from youth. And he wore glasses just like his mother, but behind the lenses, his eyes were different. Not tired in the least and entirely focused on Kaneki with a softness that he couldn't understand.

He patiently repeated his question from earlier, causing Kaneki to flush and hurry to respond, realizing his own rudeness.

"Y-yes," he managed to stutter out, carefully enveloping the book into his arms, "Thank you, mister."

Kaneki flinched when the other's hand suddenly moved towards him, but soon relaxed when his head was only patted with a gentle hand.

"What a good boy you are, Ken," the man smiled so kindly yet again under Kaneki's confused gaze.

'How did he know my name?' Kaneki pondered in a daze, 'More importantly, who is he? And how did he even get in here? I locked the door didn't I? Did I somehow let him in?'

He remembered his mother's scolding about strangers with some dread. She would be so angry if she realized what Kaneki had done.

He looked up ready to politely ask the stranger to leave, but found that he just couldn't. The man had been so kind to him. Had given Kaneki the book he couldn't reach, hadn't lost his temper even when Kaneki hadn't listened to him and had pet his head so gently when he'd been thanked.

And his smile. It was beautiful and comforting in a way that Kaneki didn't know smiles could be.

And without him, Kaneki would be left alone again in a house that was too quiet, big and dark.

So when the kind stranger had neatly folded himself into a sitting position next to Kaneki with a book of his own, he followed suit, mimicking the awkward way the other sat with his legs drawn to his chest. The other only seemed amused at this, fondly smiling at him again.

Flustered, Kaneki tried to focus on his father's book again.

Kaneki only knew his father through books and what little information he'd managed to glean from his mother. There were no pictures to look at and so Kaneki would look in the mirror, sifting through his own features, matching what he could to his mom and pondering over what remained. 'Mother's nose is different from mine. Does that mean I have Father's?' he'd wonder, but never ask.

He wanted to meet his father, but you can't meet dead people. At the very least, he wanted to know him. And so he poured over the books he's left behind. He'd tried to form his father out of the words he read. He turned each page as if it was another step closer to the man that eluded his memories.

Usually when the words he didn't know outweighed the ones he knew, he sat and daydreamed about what kind of person his father was.

But today, he only found it frustrating.

"Is there something wrong?" the young man asked, observing that Kaneki had been staring at the same page for quite a while.

Kaneki nervously traced the words he couldn't understand as he contemplated telling the kind man. Would he help him to understand? Or would he be angry at Kaneki for his stupidity? With his mother, it could be both depending on her mood.

Even though he was scared, he decided that he wanted to understand those unknown words. And he wanted to understand his father, too. So shy as could be, he whispered, "I don't know what this means," as he pointed to an unfamiliar word.

The man wasn't angry in the slightest. He didn't call Kaneki stupid or a bother.

"Wither. It's what things do before they die," he explained steadily.

Processing the new definition, he timidly asked, "So, withering is a type of sickness?"

"You could say that." The man smiled, glancing down at the youth fondly, "Have you ever picked a flower?"

Kaneki nodded.

"It got smaller and smaller didn't it?" he asked, "It lost it's color and fragrance too."

"It crumbled away," Kaneki added, feeling sad when he remembered the countless flowers that he had picked.

"That's what it means to wither," he concluded.

Sweet, innocent Kaneki frowned in confusion, "Why do we pick flowers when we know they'll just die?"

"Because love is cruel," the man explained, "When you see a pretty flower, what do you do?"

"Take it home with me," Kaneki mumbled, thinking of all the pretty flowers he had picked for his Mama.

"You can't just leave it right? You pluck it from its home and take it to yours. But what happens to the flower afterwards?"

Kaneki thought of those same beautiful flowers that he had proudly showed his mother. How they would shrivel and die over time. How they would be thrown away once they lost their beauty. He suddenly felt guilty as he admitted, "They die."

"They die," the man agreed, "Because they are beautiful. And beautiful things must be loved and broken."

"I'm sorry," Kaneki blubbered, suddenly feeling wretched for all the things he'd thoughtlessly broken with his love.

"You don't need to apologize," the young man said, his voice gentling. He didn't scold Kaneki and Kaneki forgot to flinch even when his hands moved too quickly to wipe the tears from his face. "To be loved by you is worth being broken for."

When Kaneki only cried harder, the stranger only tugged him into a hug that felt as safe as his father's books made him feel. His hands were once again petting his hair gently as Kaneki clung to his shirt and burrowed into his warmth.

"It's okay," he promised, "It's okay, Haise."

Dizzy with emotion, Kaneki tried to correct him, "That's not my -"

"It's okay, Haise," he repeated, "Father is here now. It's time to wake up."

"It's okay, Haise" Arima spoke softly as he brushed away tears, not wanting to startle his slumbering child. "Father is here now. It's time to wake up."

The Reaper's frozen facade thawed into a fond smile when Haise only blinked at him groggily. He finger-combed the other's sleep-mussed hair into a semblance of order, before scooping him up. Haise only slumped into Arima's hold with a half-hearted whine, too tired to do much else.

"I apologize for returning so late. You must have been lonely," Arima concluded. Kaneki wasn't of course. He was rather grumpy though after Arima had rudely interrupted his nap.

He idly watched Arima as he bustled over him with baby wipes and baby powder. He felt like he was peering at the scene through a dream for how out of it he felt. His afternoon nap had lasted well into the evening and left him feeling spectacularly groggy. It was wonderful how little he cared now.

He hadn't even realized that he'd wet himself, until Arima had changed his diaper. Lethargically, he noted that he should be a little concerned about that. That he was accepting his role to such an extent. Losing further control over himself. Truly, reverting to an infant.

His sleepiness prevailed throughout the rest of the night with Arima. He'd accepted his bottle and the spoonfuls of mystery meat mush without his usual fuss. Even when Arima was bathing him, he found himself apathetic to what usually traumatized him. Instead of shaking in fear, he leaned against Arima and relaxed into the soft touches.

He knew he should be a little worried over his lack of reaction, but he just didn't have the energy to care. Fortunately, Arima was worried enough in his place. While he had at first been charmed by his son's sleepiness, he was growing increasingly alarmed that something was amiss.

Kaneki only whined when Arima gently jostled him from his light doze. The more Arima tried to wake him, the fussier he got until he was completely crying in misery. He couldn't understand why Arima wouldn't just let him go back to sleep. He was exhausted and irritated. But his tantrum was weak and it only worried Arima more.

Everything seemed so soft in his haze. The world was blurring out of focus and shrinking with each slow blink. Nothing could touch him. Nothing could reach him. Even the sharp worry in Arima's eyes couldn't cut through the fog that had befallen him.

Vaguely, he remembered his dream and the man he'd met among his father's books. He'd been so soft and beautiful. Sad, too, he remembered, when he talked about the flowers he loved withering away.

'It's just a flower,' he found himself thinking, 'They bloom and wither even if you don't pluck them, so don't be sad, Arima.'

'To be loved by you is worth it,' he tried to echo Arima's assurance from earlier. But he'd been without words for a while, so he only managed a nonsensical murmur before sleep took him again.

Anxious eyes raced through pages and pages of child care books, flitting to his son's prone form every few minutes. All the while, Haise slept, his expression serene though the hints of his earlier emotional outburst remained.

Every book and every website said the same thing: babies sleep a lot. He should have taken comfort in that reassurance, but it only frustrated him. His fatherly instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong with his child. And new as these instincts were, Arima was never the type to ignore his instincts. Mado had made sure to impart that lesson early.

He couldn't take him to a hospital as much as he longed to sprint him into the emergency room. They wouldn't understand and they couldn't help. But Haise needed a doctor. One that understood his unique biology.

Driven purely by desperation, he finally broke down and called the one man who could help.

Dr. Chigyou picked up on the fourth ring.

Author's Note: And I think I'll leave it there for now~ Please forgive me for the bit of a cliff hanger, but I've actually had this written for a while and realized that if I didn't do it now, it would never be published. So is Kaneki/Haise really sick or is Arima just overreacting? Find out next time~

Once again, I apologize for the lateness and thank you for all the comments, faves, and follows! You are the best! I know it's been a while, so if you're still out there, please give me a hollar. Or if you're new too~

Anyways, I hope you all have a great day and find lots of great things to read!

~Dotti3