How Small and Insignificant

The end of Tokyo Ghoul's manga came as a sucker punch with so many unanswered questions and I like crying while reading through anything sad and Kaneki Ken. I want to write more like this but I don't know if I'm good at writing tragedies? Kaneki Ken really was a tragedy and GOD, I know I could never do him justice, so I gave Hide a shot! But he's also very tragic.

Warning: TG spoilers through Chapter 138-ish, blood trigger warning and I think thats it. Maybe one or two curse words.

Hide has never blamed anyone but himself.

Not even Kamishiro Rize, the source of this problem, the Binge Eater from the 4th Ward herself, could be at fault when the ruin of his friend's life rested on Hide's shoulders alone.

(And of course Kamishiro Rize was the Binge Eater, the infamous ghoul who had struck such pure terror into the souls of the 4th Ward. It was far too coincidental that she'd move to the 20th Ward just as the Binge Eater disappeared from the 4th Ward, only to reappear in the 20th. But he hadn't thought it through, hadn't taken a real look at her and what a fool he was.)

He should have seen it, he told himself, over the comatose body of his fallen childhood friend.

(Because how can you really describe someone you'd give your all to protect?)

The doctors were all idiots, he also decided, during his hours waiting for Kaneki to awaken. Construction incident his ass. The very flesh had been torn from Kaneki's lean frame, a sloppy mockery of stuffing ripped from a doll. If those damned doctors had been half as competent as they should have been, then they'd have seen it as well.

(But Hide had met the Doctor Kanou that had performed the emergency transplant of the organs - how had no one realized what this man was doing? - and knew that the slimy old bastard was darker and more sadistic than his appearance suggested. But he'd have to look into that later, not now, not now.)

Nishio Nishiki had been deemed a ghoul the moment Hide had laid eyes on him. After Kaneki's change (he was still Kaneki, just... different), Hide had done impossible amounts of research on ghouls and could recognize them almost instantly and their habits.

(Far too much research, the blonde was failing his classes and had been fired from multiple jobs but Kaneki Kaneki Kaneki.)

(In the back of his mjnd, Hide absently noted that if the CCG had ever managed to acquire his loyalty, the ghouls in the city wouldn't stand a chance. They'd be rounded up, one by one, starting with that Anteiku coffee shop. But that thought barely even flickered across the surface, not even registering in the recesses of Hide's mind. All of the ghouls in the city included Kaneki, his Kaneki, his only Kaneki, and he'd die before he allowed that to happen.)

And then Nishiki attacked him.

(And that had not been part of the plan.)

Hide can't remember anything from that moment other than "I messed up, Kaneki.". The blonde hadn't calculated Nishiki's temper into his plans, the slight margin of unpredictability that came with the older man. And that had failed him.

(Forgive him, Kaneki.)

Hide awoke hours later, body sore and in pain, with a single mantra repeating in his mind. "I'm sorry, Kaneki."

(For ruining you like this.)

After that event was smoothed over, Hide wasn't quite sure what had happened.

(He knew that Nishiki and Kaneki had somehow came to a hesitant peacefulness and that there was an odd purple-haired man that had an unexplainable lust for his dark-haired friend, that a woman had died - a Hinami was included in there somewhere - and that Mado Something from the CCG had been killed in the field by a 'Rabbit' ghoul but the specifics were quite confusing. As long as Kaneki was alright, anything was okay with him.)

But then Kaneki wasn't okay.

(But neither was Hide.)

He was missing and the Anteiku workers said he was on leave. There was no sign of Kaneki to be found.

(But the coffee shop had been ransacked the day of Kaneki's disappearance and that Touka girl, as pretty as she may be, was definitely hiding something from him and he'd die to find out.)

Just as quickly as Kaneki had gone missing, he reappeared again.

(But it wasn't the same.)

The boy had aged practically overnight, his thick dark hair now a thin and wispy white. His nails had darkened from the healthy and supple pink to a black shade that couldn't be healthy. A mask covered his face and he was dragging himself through the sewers, blood pouring from his wounds, a mere image of the boy he used to be.

(But there was no way Hide was mistaken. There was this unmistakable way to him that was inarguably Kaneki Ken and Hide could just know.)

"Yo Kaneki!"

(And he was done helping from the shadows.)

Hide had been assisting the CCG recently in order to obtain information on the ghouls' movements (if Anteiku wouldn't help him, then he wouldn't help them either) trying desperately to find anything relating to Kaneki, anything at all.

(And then he found him.)

(But he was dying.)

"What's with the getup? That in style these days?"

(But he wouldn't let him die.)

Hide's lip trembled but he held himself steady, an easy smile painting its way across his lips. His optimism, which had barely kept itself present over the recent days, wavered dangerously before falling completely into despair.

Kaneki, oh God, Kaneki. What had looked to be serious wounds had only become more alarming as the blonde got closer. Gaping holes ripped into his sides, blood pouring out, inking the nearby sewer water an ominous red.

(He wasn't going to make it.)

Hide steeled his jaw.

(So this is how it was going to be, all along?)

"Special makeup that'd shock even Hollywood..." he gave a short laugh, far from forced, at the irony of it all. All along, he had been trying to help Kaneki in any way he possibly could... but in the end, this was the only way he could be of any use? How humbling it all was.

(How small and insignificant is the life of a human being.)

Kaneki seemed mortified through the sheer haze of pain that he was so clearly in, one black and red eye widening in terrified realization.

(But it's too late for fear now.)

(Not when fate has already decided.)

Hide knelt beside his friend, his brother, reaching out a single hand to cup the edge of his mask. His expression softened tremendously, acceptance settling in as he cradled his friend in his arms. "To think you've had to suffer like this, all this time..."

(He didn't have to do it alone, he tries to say, but cannot find the strength to reprimand the other.)

"You won't need it anymore." after a moment of silence, Hide decided to clarify, "The mask."

HiDE cAN'T bE heRe

Kaneki began choking, his mask suddenly suffocating. What he had been trying to prevent all along, what he had been trying to protect all along, his secret had been thrust out into the open.

He cAn't KnoW hE caN't knoW he can'T EVer KNOw

thIS iS a niGHtmaRE

he'lL knOW WhO I aM

WHat i AM

Hide's grin was impossibly bright. "I already knew, man!"

(And he has tried to protect the other from it all along.)

Kaneki's world must have stopped, Hide supposes, just from knowing him for so long. He forces back a lump in his throat.

(He won't be alone anymore.)

Hide's grin only widens when he realizes that Kaneki is going to give in to himself- from the blood loss or shock, the former isn't sure. This would only make it easier, he thought to himself as he traced the outline of Kaneki's mask.

(Anything to ease the pain. Just not him.)

"Who cares about that? Let's just go home already." Hide shrugs easily, as if the fact that his best friend was a predator to his own prey did not bother him.

(It did. This Kaneki Ken was not his Kaneki Ken. But it had once been. And that would have to be enough.)

In response to Kaneki's speechlessness, Hide began thinking back to the CCG's force deployment plan. They had blocked off all the exits and with Kaneki this injured-

The white-haired boy collapsed, clutching at his chest, his kagune freeing itself. Hunger surely licked at his insides, especially as Hide had approached so closely. Kaneki's body longed for sustenance to repair itself. His body was falling apart, and without some flesh soon, he'd surely die within the hour.

(He's collapsing on himself. Losing consciousness.)

(There is no other way.)

"I want to help you," he told Kaneki seriously, as the half-ghoul half-human began writhing in an attempt to control his hunger. "Going by the surrounding feel and the way they've blocked off the exits, its practically impossible for a ghoul to get out-"

"Hide..." it was the first time Kaneki had spoken to him since he had revealed his own secret: that he had known all along. "I-I'm hearing these voices... R-Run... or else I'll..."

(Thank you.)

It's funny, Hide thought, ignoring the stinging of his eyes, how Kaneki keeps worrying about him. But that was Kaneki Ken, he supposed, kind-hearted and soft.

"That's a nasty wound," he said softly.

(Let him worry for once.)

"...sorry. But can you fight with all you've got just one more time?"

(The world for Kaneki Ken.)

Hide has never blamed anyone but himself.

I really love these two. Not like boyxboy dont like dont read, but more like, oh gosh, their bonds as like friends, as brothers, as people who would die for the other. Thats what really made me so sad about Kaneki Ken.

Updates for The Ultimate Sophistication: I have an outline for the next chapter drawn up so I know what I want to go down (its just the writing portion of it...)

I am expecting like zero reception on this since Tokyo Ghoul isn't that big of a show right now. It should be because God, its beautiful, but wow no reviews will be like aight saw that coming.

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LeoInuyuka

9/17/14 - Edit (I guess I didn't type the word 'like' in a place where I meant to? Sorry omfg)