Notes:
+ Here's a bonus add-on to my shameless "Backburner" AU, as requested duckling-kouhai on Tumblr :) duckling-kouhai asked for something from that AU in Sasaki's point of view. So, here's a companion piece to the original "Backburner."
+ One weird thing: the original Backburner was intended to have taken place over 10 years (since that was the Touken Week prompt)...but…let's just forget that for now and pretend the events happen relatively closer to one another haha;;
+ Yeah so I definitely finished writing this before chapter 7 spoilers arrived and rendered several details herein very un-canon. Welp, I guess that's where the "shameless" part of "shameless AU" comes in owo
+ Hope you like it~
Backburner:re
1. You'd think he'd be pretty good at controlling himself by now. Or at least accustomed to it. Or, at least, resigned.
The truth is that controlling himself is as itchy, as achy, as wrenchingly difficult as ever. But there's so much to do that his concerns go...what was the phrase he tried the other day?
"On the backburner."
Akira blinks. "Huh?"
"It's an English phrase. It refers to when you're putting something on hold, or waiting on something. But it has something to do with backs," he explains, and it's strangely fitting, because even now the skin on his is giving off disturbing little twitches.
Akira eyes him. "Were you listening to anything I was saying?" she asks, and he laughs nervously.
"Ah — yeah — of course! Um...it was about...ghouls, right?"
She doesn't buy it. The look she gives him is poisonous. The hairs on the back of his neck raise.
Get ready, a voice advises darkly.
Shut up, he tells it. It's just Akira-san.
"If only you spent even half the time you spend thinking about puns on thinking through your work instead," she mutters. But she isn't too hard on him. Quinxes have their own challenges.
Such as that voice he hears, that no one else can perceive. Such as the fact that at odd moments his vision blurs and he feels like it's hard to breathe. Like something (someone) is about to burst out of him, with embers, and smoke.
:::
2. He usually meets up with Mutsuki in front of his apartment, so they can head to work together.
"You know the area so well, sir," Mutsuki remarks.
Sasaki doesn't answer immediately. There has to be something there — something about knowing the city like the back of his hand, and maybe something about backhanded compliments. But a minute later he can't quite make the pun happen, and he shrugs.
"You'll get to know it too," he reassures. Mutsuki nods and adjusts his eyepatch forlornly.
"You'll get better at control, too," Sasaki adds.
"I'd be fine if I could get a kagune at all," Mutsuki mutters.
"It's not like all your problems stop even after you get one," Sasaki points out.
He remembers those early times himself, when there were so many more bad days than there are now. Bad days when he can't speak, when he can barely think because he's focusing too much on breathing, on maintaining control of his body. Days when the screaming in his skull can't be completely quelled, and he's forced to come in with an eyepatch that makes coworkers silently give him a wide berth.
You're not strong enough to take all of them, if they decide you're trouble after all. You're weak.
Sasaki shakes his head. Shut up.
Sitting with Mutsuki on the train, Sasaki's eyes skate casually across the faces of passerby, searching instinctively for gazes that flicker of black and red.
"Want to grab some coffee?" Mutsuki asks when they approach the offices. Sasaki's eyes narrow in thought.
I haven't bean a fan of... No.
I don't like coffee a latte... Nah.
...ah!
"Not today," he says, triumphantly, "but maybe next time I'll give it a shot."
"Alright," Mutsuki says, scratching his head. "Um, would it be okay if you waited for me, at least?"
And, it's a miss.
Sasaki makes a smile. "Sure," he replies, and follows Mutsuki to the cafe at the bottom floor of the CCG's offices, stopping to wait just outside the doors. Every time they open they release the pungent odor of newly-ground beans, and he rubs his forehead as his lungs fill with breaths of it.
His body begins to ache, throbbing in time with the weird, achy thrash of the non-human organ inside him. He feels the slither of fingers on his shoulder, feels a whisper that hisses out from an inky hole in his skull.
Go back —
The drag of something sharp against his ear.
"Sir?"
Go back —
Inside his ear.
Go back go back —
"Sir, can you hear me?"
Go back go back go back —
Sasaki jumps as Mutsuki tugs his sleeve.
"S-sorry," Sasaki says shakily. "Um, yeah, let's go."
Go back Go Back GO —
"Shut up," he mutters.
"Sir? Did you say something?"
Sasaki clears his throat. "Nothing. Sorry."
:::
3. It's always difficult to figure out which books to get next, mostly because people have started sending him requests.
Well, one person, mostly.
AK: How about Takatsuki's new one?
SH: Return the ones you borrowed first!
AK: I will once you give me a time to meet you.
SH: Any time is fine! Just find me in the office, or even just leave them on my desk.
Sasaki presses "Send" and snaps his cellphone shut, then continues forward as a bookstore register becomes free. Takatsuki's novels are featured there, and he eyes them. Skims the blurbs of a couple of them.
"Oh," says the cashier, "it's you! I was wondering when you'd come in for Takatsuki Sen's new novel."
Sasaki blinks. "I'm sorry, I think you have me mistaken. I've never bought a Takatsuki book here."
"Oh, I..." The cashier stares at him in confusion up, down and then turns red and bows deeply. "So it seems. I'm so incredibly sorry for my mistake."
"It's alright," Sasaki says. "Really, it's fine. I get that a lot."
"Then — are you interested in reading one of Takatsuki's book?" the cashier asks. "I can add it on."
Sasaki puts the book down. "No thanks."
Tragedies are just too depressing.
:::
4. They know ghouls will adapt quickly to the revelation of quinxes on the street, so their first strikes are fast, and brutal. They don masks, too, though as he wears his Sasaki can't help the feeling that it feels wrong. Off. It just...doesn't sit right.
It's because it doesn't suit you.
Shut up.
As if any ghoul's mask could ever "suit" him.
They chase down ghouls one by one, striking them down before they can share word that there are Doves with kagune. They all understand that someone's going to slip up sooner or later, and though Urie watches Mutsuki closely, in the end it's Sasaki that ambushes a ghoul with a rabbit mask, and attacks, and misses. The ghoul runs, and he gives chase, his sharpening focus drowning out the quinxes shouting behind him.
His heart is racing, so fast that it hurts, his ears are filled with the drumming of his pulse, and a loud, ticking slither, he has to catch her, he has to catch her, his rinkaku spear out and she leaps, dodges him by a hair. Her grace leaves him breathless and too late he realizes that she's already turned and has aimed a kick right between his eyes.
Something (someone) reaches over his shoulders — into them — seizes his muscles, yanks him down. A perfect dodge. The rabbit ghoul sails over him and collides into a bunch of trash cans with a cry of pain that makes Sasaki wince.
Go, he urges himself, and spins on his heel and races after her, the point of one kagune aimed at her face.
But he's not fast enough.
Something (someone) makes him pause, for just a moment, just a millisecond — and then his kagune crash down, on empty air, on solid pavement.
Adrenaline — and something else — has him whirling to face her a moment later. She's bleeding, but standing straight, defiant, even with her ukaku beginning to sputter out. One looks almost gone completely.
There she is! he hears a voice scream inside. There! Finally!
He can get her, she's all alone, he can get her. He just needs to be fast.
He aims his kagune at her again. So close. Her strength is almost gone all it would take is one stab, one hook, one twist.
But his rinkaku are heavy. Leaden. Slow as honey.
He's horrified.
I can't do it.
And she doesn't stay to watch him fail. She's gone in a heartbeat, and there's nothing left for him to do but drag himself back to regroup. The quinxes eye him. He doesn't meet their stares.
"She got away," Sasaki admits. Shirazu curses. Urie says nothing, but jams his headphones over his ears and stalks away. Saiko shrugs.
"Can we go home then?" she asks.
"Yeah," Sasaki sighs. "Let's go."
They leave, in tense silence. He makes his way back with Mutsuki, who lingers at his doorway, chewing his lip.
"Sir, I just want to say that it's alright," Mutsuki tells him. "What happened today, I mean. It's fine."
Sasaki makes a smile. "You don't need to reassure me."
"Alright." Mutsuki shifts his weight from leg to leg. "But, sir, if I could I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"How did you know the ghoul was a woman? The ghoul wasn't wearing a dress or anything...and it didn't sound like you got their mask off..."
"I...I just knew," Sasaki answers with a shrug. Mutsuki frowns at him, but doesn't pursue the matter.
Sasaki considers it later, in bed, staring at the ceiling. Was it the way the ghoul moved? Was it just the cutesy mask she had?
No, says something (someone) inside him. It doesn't offer an alternate explanation, but as Sasaki drifts into sleep he feels it crawl around him, snug. Laying its palms and its many many legs across his eyes.
That night those dreams of his begin to get stronger. Begin to get both more vibrant and more muddy. He flails, thrashes, fights to the sound of a clock ticking down: sshk sshk sshk. Shadowy figures glance and glare. One stands out from the rest, and she snarls, YOU'RE NOT A HERO.
And, DON'T COME BACK!
So much time passing. The clock ticking. Sshk. Sshk. Sshk.
His chest is swollen with words he can't form — an apology, a plead, a scream. He reaches out, to try and placate her, but the only thing he can move are the blades of his kagune, and they shred her into pieces.
How do you know it's a woman? Sshk sshk sshk.
How did you get this weak? Sshk sshk sshk.
How could you leave her alone?
The clock ticking. Sshk. Sshk. Sshk.
No, he realizes.
It's not a clock.
It's the sound of his fingers clipping off joint by joint it's the sound of scissors snipping off bangs it's the sound of ribs cracking beneath a steel beam it's the sound of coffee grinding it's the sound a centipede makes in —
:::
5. No one thinks it's strange when he suddenly begins spending his spare time in cafes. Mutsuki even remarks, worriedly, that it makes a little bit of sense — after all, sir, you look so tired — are you sure you're alright?
"Yeah," Sasaki replies noncommittally, before leaving and heading to a new cafe. The poignant smell of coffee, which had always bothered him, is suddenly annoyingly soothing. Like bitter-tasting medicine. Like iodine.
Keep searching, something (someone) urges.
"Shut up," he mutters.
"E-excuse me?" the waitress says, and Sasaki straightens.
"Ah — ah — I mean — an espresso, please," he says, and the waitress blinks at him.
"Kaneki?"
"What?" he says.
"That is — Kaneki Ken?" she asks.
"S-sorry," Sasaki says, "I don't understand."
The waitress laughs nervously.
"I'm sorry — you just — you really resemble —" She shakes her head. "I'm very sorry, it's clear I'm mistaken."
"I-it's alright," Sasaki assures her. "I get that a lot."
"Thank you so much for your understanding," the waitress says, giving another flustered bow. "Did you want anything else?"
"No thanks," Sasaki tells her, and the waitress nods.
"Then, I'll be right back." She leaves, and Sasaki watches her go, feeling strangely shaken. Who was she? People often give him mistake him for someone else, despite his unusual hair coloring — but there's never been a whole name attached. Kaneki Ken.
Before the waitress enters the kitchen, she pauses by another table, looks down at the customer there — and then, without a word, continues on.
Sasaki continues to watch the waitress carefully after she brings back his drink. Sips. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, but gives up when he sees her take off her apron and sit down to join the customer she looked at earlier.
"We should get out more," the waitress says wistfully. "We're getting older, you know? It would be nice to have a boyfriend."
The woman — her friend, most likely — shrugs. Her back is to him, but something about the motion gives him pause.
"You're really not interested?" the waitress wonders. "Oh — what about — a girlfriend?"
Her friend shrugs again. And this time he's sure there is something familiar about it, something that makes his throat dry, that makes everything hot, that makes something (someone) ache inside.
And he feels…relief.
Finally, the voice in his head cries, and this time when Sasaki mumbles "Shut up," there is silence.
True silence.
He leaves the cafe, shaking, stunned by the quiet in his brain. It comes back again, soon enough; but it doesn't take a first-class investigator to put two and two together. He comes back to the cafe again, and, when he hears the two women arranging a group date, he commits the location and time to memory. When the day arrives, he comes in after work, just in time to see the waitress and — and her friend tip back a glass of sake.
He blinks. And he's not sure who it is that thinks, She's beautiful.
The way her smile doesn't come after every joke that's told at the table. The way she idly brushes her hair out of her face. Her sudden enthusiasm when she drinks another glass of sake, and —
He looks away hastily, blushing with embarrassment, as the friend stands and rushes for the bathroom. Just as she turns the corner, he glances up again, just in time to see her hand press against her mouth before she goes out of sight.
His head chimes with warning.
No way, he thinks. Not her. Definitely not. No.
She notices him. He's sure she's noticed him, because he can read her expression as well as any of his favorite books, and he can hear the panic in her voice as she declares to her waitress friend, "Oh, no, no, no, come onn, none of that! I looove it!"
It can't be.
He goes to the cafe again — spots her easily, in her usual seat. She doesn't look up at him, but he feels the edge of her gaze burn into his back. She turns, very slowly, the page of her book. She orders fruit juice, and a scone.
And though all the signs say otherwise, he knows.
She's a ghoul.
:::
6. And he thinks he likes her.
What do I do? he asks, but the voice doesn't answer. This isn't the type of problem it can help him solve, and he's fairly sure no one in the CCG would take kindly to this sort of dilemma. Days pass and the only thing he feels for sure is that he can't leave her alone.
Still, the chasm between not wanting to leave her and not having the courage to say "hello" is pretty huge, and when she finally confronts him, he's relieved.
And bewildered by the shock in her eyes.
"It's — me," she says, so quickly the words tumble over one another. "It's — it's Touka. Kirishima Touka."
"Oh," he says. And then: "Nice to meet you, Kirishima-san."
The waitress comes to save her from her shock, and he remembers again the first day that he was here in the cafe, and that first verbal stumble: Kaneki Ken. There's a story there, and he's sure he's read it already: something that involves uncomfortable exes, and broken promises, and affection lingering long past its welcome. It's a story type he isn't overly fond of, and he launches forward, filled abruptly with hope, and excitement, and certainty. If that's the story, he's sure he can rewrite it for her.
"Weird cafe, huh?" he says, trying a smile. And she doesn't laugh at his joke, but it doesn't change the fact that he feels more cheerful than he's felt in a long, long time.
:::
7. The afternoon, and the next day, and the next week, passes in remarkably compatible chatter. Kirishima Touka shares his opinion on books (though he's surprised to learn she's read everything of Takatsuki Sen's). The few stories she tells about her waitress friend and her cousin are hilarious, and she even seems to tolerate his puns, though not without protest.
"So a ferris wheel is also a ferrous wheel, huh," she says after a moment, and he's warmed immensely by the ghost of a smile she couldn't quite kill away completely. "Why do you like puns so much, anyway?"
He shrugs. "I like comedy. Though I know a huge Takatsuki Sen fan like you might not be able to understand..."
He trails off as her gaze gets distant. He swallows.
No Takatsuki Sen. Got it.
"Puns are just interesting," he says, trying to pull her back. "They simultaneously are something that you know, and aren't. And they only make sense if you and someone else share the same knowledge in the same moment. The same pun five minutes later won't have the same effect. You know what I mean?"
"I can't really say I do. You have an unexpectedly romantic view of puns," Kirishima says dryly. But not dismissively.
"Aha...maybe my explanation was a little too heavy. I would have snuck a pun in there if I had been able to think of one," he says sadly.
"Guess you're just not punny enough," Kirishima says, with a voice that is equally sad, and he bursts out laughing, and can't stop until they leave the carriage.
He suggests all of their meetings: the ferris wheel, a movie, the observation deck of a tall government building, a ferry that they take at sunset, watching as the skyline lights up. She is always guarded when they meet but her small smile becomes easier and easier to coax free. Her mere presence is enough to quiet the din of all his nightmares, and that voice in his head. It's in her vicinity that he feels, for the first time in memory, like…himself.
He hides, successfully, the nature of his job; and allows both of them, too, to maintain the illusion of her humanity. They give each other no labels, and make no promises.
"Goodbye," he says, each time he leaves.
"Goodbye," she responds with a nod.
"See you later," he says, looking back a few steps later, and she brushes her hair from her face, and sighs, and gives the faintest smile.
"See you later."
:::
8. "You seem so energetic recently," Mutsuki says over breakfast. "Have you been getting better sleep?"
"Yup," Sasaki says, and then chuckles. "Good thing, too. I was getting pretty tired of not sleeping."
"Sounds great," Mutsuki says, and Sasaki's chuckle quells.
And, it's a miss.
But even that can't dampen his mood. He counts the days between their meetings, escapes to her as soon and as secretly as possible amidst talks of increasing efforts to eradicate ghouls.
"You're always busy nowadays," Shirazu remarks one day before he can quite get away.
"Yeah," Saiko sighs, fishing a bag of noodle snacks out of her pocket. "How can you handle it?"
"With both hands, usually," Sasaki says distractedly, and the words have their desired effect; everyone turns away with a groan and leaves him alone to think, and confirm CCG strike plans.
There are going to be actions in multiple wards this weekend, which might spill into others, if things go well. In other words, an amusement park or a government building on the opposite side of the city won't cut it this time. He needs to take her far away.
He waits, for an internal protest that should be inevitable. What are you doing? he's expecting. She's a ghoul.
But, by some morbid miracle, there is nothing.
He sighs. Pulls up a tourism site and skims. He was always getting ragged on for sympathizing too much, but this seems like a new low.
Or, he thinks, straightening excitedly, a new high.
An island a whole two hours away by train and ferry — perfect, perfect. He reaches for the phone, taps through the address book without looking until he hits the innocuous (if embarrassing) entry that reads, T-chan.
"Okay," she mumbles, eventually, on the other end of the call. "I'll go."
And when he searches for her at the train station that weekend — when he finds her waving back at him — it feels like nothing could ever go wrong.
:::
9. Of course, it does.
His heart drops when the report comes in.
"It's Rabbit," Urie says, the instant he sees the photo of the investigator's corpse.
"Huh?" Mutsuki says. "How can you tell?"
"The splash of the needles!" Shirazu says excitedly. "Right?"
"Yes," Sasaki confirms. He's their first-class leader; he can't lie about this, especially if two people have already picked up on it. Still, his voice is leaden. "See how the tracking is uneven? It's clearest here, over his cheek."
"Ah," Mutsuki realizes. "And Rabbit only has one wing."
Track it down, is the order written on the folder, and the rest of the day is spent investigating: checking out the scene, searching for and interviewing eyewitnesses, examining the vicinity for clues. A woman weeps as she describes finding the body, and her daughter demands why they haven't done their job. An old man goes on and on about his missing jacket from the war days. They follow a trail of blood left on the eaves and on laundry hung out to dry, and to Sasaki's mixed relief and anxiety, they find it leads nowhere.
"Rabbit got away," Mutsuki murmurs, taking samples. "And I'm willing to bet most of this isn't Rabbit's blood."
Sasaki hopes so.
They search until it gets dark, and then Mutsuki goes home and Sasaki searches more. He takes up all the records he can think of that might be related to her, and then several extra, and mixes them into incoherent chaos on his desk. He flits through census data and database entries and flags a couple suspects who definitely aren't Kirishima Touka.
On his way out of the office for the night, Urie stops, takes one headphone off his ear, and surveys Sasaki's desk with narrow eyes.
"You're unexpectedly busy," he remarks.
"Is it that unexpected to find me doing my job?" Sasaki laughs.
Urie eyes him. "You must really care about this ghoul," he says.
"Rabbit's been on our list for a long time," Sasaki says with a shrug. "It's possible this could even be the same Rabbit that got Mado Kureo-san."
"Possible?" Urie snorts. "More like obvious."
"Want to help me out?" Sasaki asks, and Urie shakes his head and replaces his headphone.
"No, I'm done investigating Rabbit for the day."
"Good night, then," Sasaki calls after him brightly.
As soon as Urie is gone, the smile drops from Sasaki's face. He rubs his eyes beneath his glasses. Let her be okay, he begs again, and continues drowning his anxiety with work. He covers her trail with densities of false targets and misdirection. Akira finds him the next morning and kicks his chair until he wakes up, with a start.
"Go home," she tells him flatly. "And get some real rest."
"Uh…u-understood." He stumbles out, only half-conscious the whole way back to his apartment and his bed.
He wakes up again at the sound of his phone ringing. The screen reads T-chan, and he grabs it. The only thing that prevents him yelling into it is that his voice is hoarse from lack of sleep. "H-hello?!"
For an instant he's afraid that it won't be her voice that answers. But then he hears a quiet: "Hey."
"How are you?" Sasaki asks, hoping he doesn't sound as frantic as he feels.
"I'm good," she says, and his head drops onto his pillow.
She's okay. She's okay. She's okay!
Pause.
"Um...how are you?" she asks back.
"Good," he sighs. "I'm good."
Pause.
"Do you want to go to a bar?" she asks.
"Ah…sure," he says. "When?"
"Tonight."
He glances at his clock. "You mean in a couple hours?" he asks with a tired half-chuckle.
She doesn't laugh. "Are you free or not?"
"Ah, yeah. I'll see you there."
When they meet, her eyes are dark beneath, but she looks otherwise well and unharmed. He only just holds back his sigh of relief, which is good, because she is watching him closely.
"Had some troubles yesterday," he admits with a humorless chuckle.
"That makes two of us," she mutters, pouring him a glass of sake. They exchange glances, then cheer each other, and tip their glasses back.
He doesn't protest when she follows him to his neighborhood. His home. His door. He turns toward her and she regards him with exhausted eyes, then smooths a hand over his wrinkled brow. Removes his glasses and folds them into her collar. Presses her mouth to his.
His stomach twists, exquisitely. He sighs against her, kisses her back, tasting gently. He winds his arms beneath her blouse and around her waist.
She's so different, he thinks. And he isn't in the mood to wonder how her body could ever feel different when now is the first time that his hands have ever touched the luscious softness of her skin, the first time he's felt her shiver and hold him closer.
He kicks apart his messily-folded futon and they collapse onto it, she tearing at his jacket and shirt, he pulling her dress over her hips. He finds his breath coming raggedly, and he freezes as his eye flickers black — but just as it does, Kirishima places a hand over his face.
"Close them," she says.
"Kirishima-san," he whispers, and in the interstices of her fingers his human eye sees her blush.
She repeats, "Close them."
He does. No argument, no puns. After a moment he hears and then feels the slither of satin against his skin — she's wrapping his tie over his eyes — and he almost, almost protests.
I know already, he wants to say. I've known. I've always known.
Kirishima-san, I — have always —
But he's too breathless to explain anything, much less something he can barely understand. He raises his hands to her shoulder blades, and feels — only because he's expecting it — the near-imperceptible fog of warmth of there, brushing against the whorls of his fingers, like a flame of feather down.
She fumbles with his zipper, sets her legs on either side of his waist. His nails dig in with a sharp inhale as her weight settles and twists down.
"Touka," he gasps, before he can stop himself, and he pulls her close, closer. Her hands rest everywhere he wants them to, and it's like she knows him already, to the marrow.
"I feel," he murmurs, "like I've been waiting for this for a long time," and she kisses him, sucks the tip of his tongue, and each of his trembling, curling fingers.
She murmurs back. "Me too."
:::
10. "I want us to last."
There are so many translations of those words; there's so much potential. "Last" itself can mean the end, but when something "lasts" it also remains.
So if he were to tell her something like, I want us to last —
Would it mean they would be together forever?
Or is it too close to the idea that they would be the end?
He's still toying with those words, turning them over and over in his head, when a shout echoes through the office.
"Urie-san and Shirazu-san found Rabbit!"
Sasaki is up in an instant — and running, running, running. Yells chorus behind him, but he ignores all of them, even ignores the cries of Mutsuki, who tries to keep up but falls behind as soon as Sasaki bursts out of the office doors.
He takes the quickest route he knows to the place listed in the census as her residence, and finds nothing but the busted-open door, and her shattered rabbit mask, and the splatter of glass and blood beneath her window. He shoves his way past bystanders, following the trail of shouting and property damage, stumbling with desperation, panting. His mind is filled with screaming, with berating, with demands that don't make sense.
How could I have left her alone —
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm —
Please don't let her be —
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm —
This is why I did it, because I couldn't lose her —
I can't lose her, not again, I can't, I —
Up ahead, the investigators are crowded around something, no, no, no, red is pooled on the ground, no, I'm sorry, no, he pushes them aside and maybe it isn't her after all — but no, it is, and she's alive, but her black eyes are hazy, and the mouth he kissed is spitting blood, and gaping, and gasping.
"Goodbye," she manages.
And, "See you later."
Something (someone) breaks inside him. Spills out all across his insides, gooey and dense as an egg yolk, saturates every vein with black. He reels, raises a hand to his brow as his vision becomes both vibrant and muddy.
I need strength, he thinks, and for the first time it's not so much a plead as it is an echo, from months past. Ages past. A whole life past.
He's sweating, panting. When his hand comes down, his ghoul's eye regards her, sees the way astonishment makes her slowing pulse fast.
It slips out in a breath, before he knows exactly what he is saying, or exactly who is saying it.
"Touka-chan."
And.
Her eyes water. Her teeth, her fists, clench. Suddenly, he knows.
"Please," she gasps, trying to push herself to her feet. "Help me."
And his hand grabs hers.