Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul, nor do i own any of its characters. All rights belong to Sui Ishida

Note: just to clarify, this story takes place one year after Kaneki got tortured but instead of making a group with Banjou and Tsukiyama he decided to go back to Anteiku right away.

Touka stood behind the counter of Anteiku, cleaning up the store so they could open in half an hour. Nishiki and Kaneki were both 15 minutes late. She expected this from Nishiki, but Kaneki? She had to remember to give him a good scolding later.

KLING

Touka turned towards the entrance as soon as she heard the bell above the door make a sound. Speak of the devil. She was facing an exhausted Kaneki, his face covered in sweat.

"You're late, you know." She took another look at him and noticed more of his black hair was growing back, it was nice not to be greeted anymore by a gloomy man with striking white hair like last year.

Kaneki practically launched himself on one of the chairs from exhaustion, almost knocking it over in the process "I'm sorry, I got distracted at home while getting ready and had to run."

"What could possibly make you so distracted to forget that you have a job." She rolled her eyes, as if to state that she didn't believe him.

"You didn't pay any attention to the news?" Kaneki asked "It was about the pigeons."

"Why should I care about birds?" Touka said while pouring a cup of coffee.

"No not real birds, the ghoul organization. You remember them right?

"That organization that's trying to establish ghoul rights? Yeah right, what a joke as if that's actually possible. What kind of name is 'the pigeons' anyway." Touka almost burst out in laughter about the idea itself. Ghouls have always been hunted for the monsters they are. Nothing could change that and surely not a joke like that organization.

"Maybe they call themselves that because a pigeon represents freedom. If they managed to get covered on the news then they must be getting their point across right? And the organization is getting bigger by the day, I heard even Banjou and his group joined."

"Banjou really is an idiot. Just because he's weak doesn't mean he should jump at any chance to avoid fighting. Let's see if he still enjoys this little game when the CCG 'accepts' their offer and slaughters them on the spot " Touka finished making her coffee and continued cleaning the counter.

"Well it's his decision, he can do whatever he wants." Kaneki stretched his hand out to the coffee Touka was holding " Thanks for the coffee."

Touka merely scoffed at him " Who said this was for you? Make your own coffee. It's for the manager, he's upstairs and sick."

"The manager? Sick? He's about the last person I expected to get sick." Kaneki stood up from his chair with a sigh as he picked up the coffee can and a cup from the counter, pouring it slowly like the manager taught him.

"Well everyone gets sick don't they." Touka said already halfway up the stairs.

BZZZZ

Kaneki turned his head to the direction of the sound, noticing it came from Touka's phone. He would notice it from a mile away with that bunny keychain. "Hey Touka, you have a text from Yoriko."

"Yeah yeah, I heard it I'm not deaf." She turned around and came back down from the stairs handing the coffee to Kaneki. "Can you bring this to the manager?"

"As you wish." Kaneki said while making a bow and failing not to laugh.

She sent an angry glare in his direction. "Stop joking and just bring it to him already." Touka took her phone, reading the message from Yoriko.

Do you want to go shopping and have a picnic with me tomorrow? You don't have to work on Sunday right?

The shopping sounded great to her but the picnic not so much. Yoriko's food always tasted worse to her than other food since she was aiming to become a chef. Then again, it was not like she was going to refuse a day out with her best friend.

Sure, why not. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at your apartment.

Just as she sent the text the door opened for the second time this morning. Nishiki walked inside with giant bags under his eyes.

"Well it took you long enough to get here, any other place would have fired you a long time ago. And what's with the bags, skipped a night of sleep?."

"Oh shut up Shitty Touka. Yes I did barely sleep, got a problem with that?"

"I can see you're as grumpy as always." Kaneki said while closing the door that led upstairs behind him. " So why did you barely sleep?"

"I umm… I had a meeting with the pigeons…"

"WHAT?! " Kaneki and Touka both screamed in unison.

"Fuck!" Touka dropped her phone in the process and immediately picked it back up. "You of all people joined the pigeons, you can't tell me you believe in that bullshit as well?!"

"Well I was thinking maybe this would be a good way for me and Kimi to stay together without having to hide." Nishiki shifted from left to right, clearly thinking he made a bad decision by telling what he was up to last night.

"Well if you've been at the meeting then do you know what their plans are?" Kaneki asked, secretly curious about the organization.

"Well, they talked a lot about the plan they finished to try and get news coverage. Which obviously succeeded seeing by what was on the news this morning. They also picked their slogan last night."

"Freedom for ghouls"

Aaaaand done. This honestly took longer than I expected, but it was fun nonetheless. I hope you had fun reading ^_^. Don't forget to leave a review. Since this is my first fanfic I'm open for any criticism to try and improve.

Peace!