Happy Holidays, Kido!

Touka knew that letting go was a vital part of moving on from painful experiences but she always wondered how she was supposed to let go, when her past kept catching up to her, again and again and again, throwing sticks between her legs to have her stumble and fall again like so many times before.

She wanted to let go, especially of the pain that holding onto her past inflicted on her, but it was hard when the ghosts of her past wouldn't let her live in peace.

"How sure are you about this, Yomo?" Touka asked as she pulled down the blinds of the café, closing off the interior of :re from the outside world. "We can't just act on a rumour."

She was tired, so tired of being thrown a bone by some unknown source, only to follow the trail and come up empty handed in the end.

She turned around in time to see him nod in agreement as he wiped down the counter meticulously, a serene look on his face. Sometimes she still couldn't believe how at ease he was while working here with her. But there was an edge to his calm demeanour. An edge that spoke of the same thoughts Touka had. He was tired too, of false hope and fresh wounds.

"Itori is very sure," he said simply. "She didn't see his face, but she recognised his kagune and fighting style."

"Itori didn't even know him that well," Touka interrupted him. "They met like how many times? Once? Twice? He's been missing since the ... since that day and there have been no reports on him in over a year."

Touka tried to lock the door properly but her hands were rattling the key against its lock almost too violently. She took a deep breath to get a grip on the emotions threatening to go overboard and tried again. This time she could lock the door, but as she went to turn the door sign around to Closed, she could hear it clattering against the glass of the door with her trembling form.

"If it were him, don't you think he would have returned to us by now? He was part of our team."

"We don't know what's going on in his life, Touka," Yomo tried to reason with her but she wouldn't have any of it. It was her who had spent days after days working alongside him for several months, not Yomo. She knew him better than Yomo did.

Touka sighed, then took a few more deep breaths to get a grip on the anger crawling up her chest.

Yomo was right. They didn't know what was going on in his life. It had been more than a year since they had last talked. A lot could have happened in so much time.

She shook her head, suddenly weary and drained.

"What do you think we should do, then?"

Yomo seemed to sense her dropping mood and stepped closer, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I think we should bring him home."

##

It was easier said than done, they both realised only a few days later as they followed a seemingly cold lead, masks strapped onto their faces for the first time in months. They had kept a low profile after the raid, flying under the radar, as Uta called it, usually with a teasing smirk, and left the fighting to ghouls who actually wanted to.

Yomo had long gotten tired of the constant battles that led nowhere but to death, he had admitted to Touka one day. And she understood him. She had never liked fighting, like some ghouls did. For her, it had always been about survival and revenge. It had been a necessity to stay alive or what she judged to be a necessity to make others feel better.

Now she didn't have to fight anymore. Yoshimura had left them a decently sized apartment in the 16th Ward and enough money to get them by for a few months, before they had to start worrying about bills.

But that wasn't the main reason Touka had given up fighting. If she was being completely honest, she was just sick of it.

All it had ever done for here was dealing her wounds and breaking her heart. It hadn't made her happy or content. It hadn't helped her cope with her anger or grief. It had only ground her down until getting out of bed in the mornings was too hard to accomplish.

Staying away from fights had been an easy decision to make.

But as her luck would have it, she was back on the streets, ducking as a ghoul flung his kagune at her like a deadly whip and his attack on her busied him long enough for Yomo to step up behind him and knock him out cold. He didn't even bat an eyelash as the ghoul sank to the ground, out cold but still alive as far as Touka could see.

"Thanks," she said and tried to control her hitching breath. "I'm a bit out of practice."

"Good," Yomo said and stepped over to her, righting her mask sitting askew on her face into its correct position.

Touka gritted her teeth and pulled away from his hand, annoyed with his comment and babying.

"It's not good. That's what gets people killed."

"Touka-"

"Let's go now. Maybe the trail isn't cold yet," she said and turned her back on him, walking away.

She had always known that wanting to fight and having to wasn't a free choice for her kind.

Touka followed her nose, picking up scents and unravelling them until she could make out different sources as she jumped up onto a low roof. Nothing here smelt familiar, none of the hidden figures down in the streets looked familiar to her. Maybe it was a waste of time after all.

"There?" she heard Yomo say quietly next to her and she automatically followed his outstretched arm with her eyes, having a look herself at a figure clad in a dark coat.

"Are they running from us?" she asked him and squinted her eyes as if that could help her see better. The person was too far away to determine anything.

Yomo nodded.

"I think so. They looked in our direction and started running."

They exchanged silent glances, then fixed the fleeing figure again.

"What do we have to lose?" Touka asked with a shrug and Yomo shrugged right back before they jumped from the roof as if they were one body. They landed silently on light feet and took off running.

Touka hated that part. Running was tedious and even more tiring for her than hand-to-hand combat. She was an ukaku type, they weren't known for their excellent stamina and she found that once again proven as she felt a stitch in her side and the tell-tale signs of hitching breath. She could hear Yomo panting as well, but he was slowly taking her over. His body was still more used to this life than hers ever would be.

"Split," Yomo said with a calm voice, as if he was talking about the weather and Touka sidestepped to the left easily, without thinking, ducking into the street to the left out of reflex, while Yomo disappeared to the right.

They had established a system of code words over the years of training together, but they had never needed to use it in a real situation. Now they actually could get good use out of it, since the person they were chasing knew their dynamics fairly well and could get away from them easily, if they couldn't catch him off guard.

No matter how well they knew Touka and Yomo's fighting dynamics, they didn't know that level of teamwork.

Touka kept running, just two alleys to the left before she turned back in the direction they had been running before, towards the faint scent of their target. She could still smell it fairly well but it was getting weaker, more diluted by garbage left out in the streets and the scents of the humans living in the buildings surrounding them. There was no doubt about who their target was. She could still make out his unique scent which hadn't changed at all in the last year and she clung to it, determined not to lose him.

"30 m right," she could hear a whisper, barely loud enough to reach her ears but Yomo had pitched his voice perfectly so she could still hear him enough to understand his directions. They were closing in on him.

"Got it. Stay back," she answered, hoping that he would not only hear her but also listen to her.

She was pretty sure that two masked ghouls in fighting stances approaching at the same time could be seen as a sign of attack and she didn't have it in her to battle him tonight. They wanted to take him back home and get back a part of their family they had lost. Fighting wouldn't help with that.

The next corner Touka turned opened up to a barely lit and apparently empty alley but she knew better. His scent was everywhere, his presence almost tangible.

Bracing herself she stepped forward, slowly, and lowered her hands to swing next to her body in a relaxed manner. She was anything but relaxed, the muscles in her thighs and arms jumping as if they couldn't wait for an attack and to counter it. Her breathing hadn't calmed down from her extended sprint yet and she felt like it wouldn't happen any time soon anyway.

Scraping together all of the snotty arrogance she didn't feel right now, she stood in the middle of the street, taking up as much space as her small frame could and just went for it.

"You wanna get yourself killed?" Touka asked and crossed her arms across her chest defiantly as she faced the figure hidden in the shadows of the alleyway. "Because that's a surefire way there, obnoxious idiot."

She could feel her biceps twitch and she crossed her arms harder. It wouldn't do to show her nerves.

The figure came closer, leaving the shadows and revealing a dark coat, hood pulled up over the head. He stepped closer and pulled down the hood and laughed mirthlessly. Touka felt gooseflesh rise on the back of her neck at the sound.

"Ah, Touka. Fancy meeting you here," he said and finally reached for the mask resembling a snake, pulling it off theatrically. "Good guess there."

She didn't comment on how he just admitted to being an obnoxious idiot. She was too on edge for that kind of banter.

"I didn't have to guess, I could pick your disgusting good-for-nothing scent out of a million, shitty Nishiki," Touka said and scrunched up her nose in disgust. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Disturbing the power balance in this ward? Haven't you learned anything in the 20th?"

"Oh, I have learnt something in the 20th Ward," he said and even though his smirk lasted, his eyes were suddenly a lot harder. "I learnt that living in peace is useless and only results in loss and anger."

"Nice pathos, did you get it in a set with melodramatics?"

Nishiki scoffed and kicked his foot. A tiny stone hit Touka's shin but she didn't react to it.

"You can mock me all you want, Manager, but my decision still stands."

"And which decision would that be?" she asked and tried not to think about his words. So he had been keeping tabs on them?

"My decision to go ... freelance, so to say. No more organisations, no more allies."

"And your human accepts your stupidity just like that? Ghouls keeping to themselves and scoffing at organisations is exactly what's getting them killed in the end."

Nishiki laughed, a cold and brittle sound that raised Touka's hair on the back of her neck. His laugh had always been annoying, but never downright horrifying like this.

"My human-," he mimed quotation marks with his fingers. "- doesn't factor into my choices anymore."

Touka could feel her blood run cold.

"Did she ... die?"

Nishiki bellowed out another laugh, less hostile this time. Touka could hear a note of hysteria tainting it.

"Who knows. I haven't seen her since that day."

Touka was surprised, but his admission gave her the leverage she needed to get him to join them again.

"We can keep her safe. You could be together again."

"Keep her safe?" Nishiki's eyes widened comically before he threw his head back and dissolved into manic laughter, clutching at his stomach as his whole body shook.

"You want to keep Kimi safe? Do you mean as safe as you kept Hinami? Because we all know how well that turned out."

Touka's hands balled into tight fists, her knuckles turning a pale white at his words. Hinami had left them for good only recently and the wound of her loss was still too fresh and raw for her. But it also meant Nishiki had indeed kept a close eye on them.

"Talking dirty to me like that? Shouldn't you at least take me out for a meal before you do that?" Touka asked, the words just relaxed enough to be innocuous but she suspected that he saw right through her façade. It wasn't a hard feat.

"I don't do romantic anymore, Manager."

Touka smirked as she saw the movement in the shadows right behind Nishiki.

"So you don't plan on coming back home with me, shitty Nishiki? What kind of flirt are, if you refuse that?"

Nishiki shrugged his shoulders and extended his arms in an exasperated innocent way and Touka wanted to bash his head against the brick wall.

"A bad one apparently. Well, I can actually live with that. If that's all, I'd like to go now. It was nice catching up with you, but let's not do this again anytime soon."

"Nishiki," she said and shook her head. "Still as dull as usual."

She stepped away from him and prepared herself.

"Seven X five," she shouted, taking a deep breath, and then dropped into a low crouch just as ukaku shards zoomed by across her head. Touka could see Nishiki stumbling with the force but there weren't any critical hits. Every shard pulled at his cloak only. There wasn't even a scratch on him.

As soon as she heard Yomo lunge, Touka jumped forward to draw Nishiki's eyes to her, keeping his attention on her. He bared his teeth in an animalistic growl as he saw her approaching and easily fell into a fighting stance, ready to attack her any second.

He never got that far.

Barely the blink of an eye later Yomo had struck him down, rendering Nishiki unconscious with one blow.

Touka heaved a sigh as she looked down at his crumpled form and shook her head. That was not the way she had wanted to start rebuilding their Anteiku family, but if they had to go rough on him to save his life, then they would.

"Let's get him home," Touka said, her voice devoid of any emotion, but inside there was a storm brewing.

##

When Nishiki woke up a few hours later, head pounding and mouth dry, he felt almost obliged to put up a fight and scream at Touka but when he saw her sitting in the corner of the room, two cups of steaming coffee next to her and the scent of Anteiku wafting into his nose, he just couldn't.

##

"I swear I'm going to kill him."

Yomo huffed a breath and Touka could see his lips twitching.

"What did he do now?"

"He's blasting his shitty music so loud, I can't even hear myself thinking," she answered through gritted teeth as she stocked the counter with fresh coffee beans.

"I couldn't hear anything."

"Of course you couldn't. He's only playing it loud enough for me to hear it."

"He's riling you up on purpose, you know?" he asked in his best dad voice and Touka wanted to slap him over the head.

"Of course I know that, but that doesn't make it any less annoying."

"Just try not to get worked up and he'll stop. I used to do that every time you ripped out my hair as a baby. When I stopped being upset, you stopped being a brat."

Touka sent an aggravated look his way at his comment.

"Just because he's doing it on purpose doesn't make it any less annoying and shitty."

"Then try and talk to him about it. Lay down your weapons and get along again. Be adults about it."

At this Touka had to laugh almost hysterically.

"Nishiki and I getting along? Are you high?"

"No. An optimist maybe."

"Crazy, probably."

Yomo shook his head but it was obvious that his exasperation was a façade. He looked more fondly annoyed than anything.

"Just behave." His face took on a more grave edge and Touka had a hint of what was to come. "We are all-"

Touka cut him off before he could say too much.

"Yeah, I know that. You don't need to remind me, Yomo."

Of course Touka knew that they only had each other left. She didn't need any reminders to feel the gaping wound in her chest where her Anteiku family used to be.

##

Touka had enough.

She had enough of his aggressive snarling and copious frowning.

Of his insults and bad moods.

His fights and apparent death wish.

She had hoped that working at :re full-time and helping out with Yomo behind the scenes would distract him enough from his almost manic path of vengeance he'd set out on but he wasn't letting it go.

Kimi wasn't even dead, Touka knew that for sure. She had found her at the office building the human girl was working at and had followed her home. Kimi lived in a good and peaceful area, dominated by humans with only a few docile ghouls living there. She was safe.

But her eyes had been dull and her hair duller. Her cheekbones seemed more pronounced than Touka could remember and for a second she had thought about all these diseases frail human bodies were prone to succumb to.

But Kimi hadn't smelled sick. She had smelled of fresh apple body wash and vanilla hand cream. Of public transport and ... a hint of salt.

Touka had seen the way Kimi had fiddled with a leather band around her wrist and the crumpled up tissues in her purse and hand.

And she understood. She could see the grief written in the young woman's face who should glow in joy and happiness. Her features resembled Yomo's face for those few months he and Touka had to cut off all contact to their friends in order to shake suspicions of being ghouls. She understood the pain Kimi was going through because Touka had felt it for herself.

What she didn't understand was Nishiki's stubborn idiocy of staying away from the one person he loved when that person was still just within his reach. Kimi wasn't dead.

She was alive and there unlike the people Yomo and Touka mourned for. Kimi knew about and accepted his ghoul nature, unlike Yoriko who Touka had to leave behind.

There had been a silent agreement with Yomo when they had taken Nishiki in, a silent agreement to not question him about Kimi and his decisions in the past regarding her. She respected Yomo.

But she had enough and Nishiki wasn't going to get away with any more bad behaviour.

"Oi, asshole," she shouted at him as he came back from taking out the trash.

"Talking to yourself again?" he quipped and went to wash his hands with a disgusted look on his face. He hated handling the garbage, which was exactly the reason Touka let him do it every single night.

"You need to stop this," she said, ignoring his flippant comment and looked at him pointedly. He had his arms crossed over his chest, looking defensive and aloof. "Your rampages are drawing too much attention."

"Oh come on, Touka, they can't trace me back here," he dismissed with a patronising shake of his head. "No one knows that Serpent resides at the good Manager's home."

"I said stop fucking around, Nishiki," Touka growled and she knew immediately that she head his full attention. She hardly ever said his name as simply as this.

"I'm not fucking around."

The vein in his temple was pulsing.

"I always make sure I don't leave any trace or a trail back here. You should know that."

"But can you be sure?"

"I'm not a fucking idiot, Touka," he screamed and lunged forward, crowding her against the counter as his face flushed red with anger. "I'm used to this shit, covering my trail so I don't lead the CCG where I don't want them to follow. Have a little trust in me, for fuck's sake."

Nishiki was breathing heavily and Touka felt herself tense at their closeness. She could feel every inhale in his chest as it pressed against hers. This whole situation was so weird and it rushed to Touka's head, clouding her thoughts with every heavy breath that scraped along her cheek and something in her chest crumbled to pieces.

"You're all we have left," she said quietly and she realised in horror that she felt close to crying all of a sudden. She hadn't cried since the day Hinami had left and she couldn't, wouldn't, cry over this idiot. Especially not now.

"Don't get yourself killed, Nishiki."

His face fell, all the anger draining from it and he stared, openly gaped at her with his jaw hanging open and eyes widened more than just a fraction. He would have looked hilarious, hadn't Touka been so upset all of a sudden. She wanted to abort their talk, it wasn't going the way she had planned it to go and it hurt. It hurt to think about the possibility of him dying, another member of her mismatched family lost to the war waging in their world.

She wanted to back out, tell him to never mind her words, but she found herself unable to say those words.

Nishiki's lips were soft and hard at the same time and Touka could barely register his kisses to her neck before her instincts took over and her hands started to move of their own accord.

It was messy.

Their hands fumbled with ties and buttons and zippers, shoving clothes aside enough to get to the vital parts and Touka hesitated only a fraction of a second before she shoved her hand down Nishiki's underwear and took him in hand. He exhaled in surprise but didn't show anything else.

He was only half-hard, Touka guessed by the way he felt in her grip, but she didn't have any grounds to compare, so she tentatively moved her hand slowly, loose fist moving up and down until she felt a twitch and it filling out in her hand.

"Turn around," Nishiki instructed as he hiked her skirt up and out of the way, replacing the awkward and sentimental air from before with heated urgency that Touka had never really experienced before.

Nishiki moved on to her tights and panties and tugged them down forcefully until they dangled around her ankles. Touka eventually complied and turned around, resting her arms on the counter as he pushed her down on it. She could hear the clatter of Nishiki's glasses being discarded on the counter, then the rustling of foil, ripping and the languid sound of Nishiki stroking himself, before he lined himself up with her and pushed in.

It felt weird and Touka involuntarily clenched at the intrusion, her body telling her to keep him out even if her mind wanted him to go on.

"You need to relax," Nishiki said and his usually harsh voice was softer now, placating. His hands moved from where he had held her hips around to slither up her blouse and toy with her breasts, pinching her peaked nipples through the fabric of her bra.

"I am relaxed," she pressed out between gritted teeth and pushed back, forcing him in deeper. It twinged but didn't seriously hurt. Maybe it was supposed to feel like that.

"You're really not," he shot back and his voice sounded oddly strained and thin. "It's almost painful for me. I don't even want to know how it feels for you!"

"Shut up and just move already," she snapped at him and wiggled her hips to try and provoke him to move. Just standing there frozen to the spot wouldn't achieve anything.

Nishiki mumbled something Touka couldn't hear since her senses zeroed in on his hand slipping down her stomach until he cupped her in his hand. His fingers slid between her lips and started to toy with her, timing a few shallow thrusts with his stroking fingers and drawing a shaky sigh out of her.

And as he started to move in earnest, she dropped her forehead to the counter and let go.

##

Falling into this kind of relationship with Nishiki should have been harder than it ultimately was, or so Touka thought. In reality nothing changed much save for the fact that their shouting matches usually ended with them clinging to each other, pressed against any surface that was close enough to them.

It was weird, this new kind of intimacy, and yet she couldn't step away from it even if she tried.

Sleeping with him was like a fresh breeze of air, blowing away the stale stench of pain and grief and letting Touka breathe easy again for a minute. But when their cooling bodies detangled and Nishiki withdrew from her, suddenly silent and distanced again, she felt cold and lonelier than ever before.

##

They spent the second anniversary of the raid clawing at each other and biting deep wounds into sore flesh. They only stopped when neither could move any longer, unable to lift even a finger. Touka was sure she wouldn't be able to walk straight for days to come.

As she got out of bed a long while after, she tasted salt on her lips and bit the inside of her cheeks, determined to keep her emotions in check.

She ignored the wet sniffle she could hear from the other end of the mattress as she reached for her underwear and readied herself to leave.

##

He was thinking about her.

She could feel it in the way his body melted into hers, hands gentle on her skin, his thrusts more deliberate and purposeful than usual, hitting an angle every other thrust that Touka didn't quite like but guessed Kimi must have.

Touka couldn't get herself to care.

Instead she raked her hands through his hair, tender and careful and as she buried her nose in it, she imagined it to be stark white.

##

Touka was hurting.

And as she looked at Nishiki, she could see the same hurt reflected in his eyes. But there was a difference.

While her heartache had just risen from the dead, his was just as cold and unattainable as it had always been in these past two years. For more than two years Touka had thought that Kaneki was dead and she had dealt with it. Now he was back and the faint bit of hope she wouldn't admit she still had, had flared back to life like a wildfire.

For Nishiki, nothing had changed. Kimi was still human and safer without his presence endangering her – there was no hope for him as long as their general reality didn't change significantly.

Touka knew that hopelessness. She had felt it every day she had spent with Yoriko, and every day ever since she had cut her best friend out of her life to keep her safe.

There was something else in his eyes, though, too. A notion she had never seen with him, a notion she had never thought she would ever see, but it was obvious and real and Touka found herself moving forward and cupping his face in her hands. She tried to catch that notion, that genuine sentiment with her bare fingers but it seemed to slowly trickle from his face like the teasing smirk he would always put on would make way for his poorly hidden vulnerability.

I'm glad for you.

It hurt to see him like this, so unlike the obnoxious, snarky man she had gotten to know and tolerate.

For the first time since their paths had crossed and intertwined, Touka realized, really understood and felt that he was a real friend to her, who cared about her and supported her, even as he was suffering himself.

Her heart ached at the realisation. She wanted to thank him for being there but the words wouldn't come. Words weren't their thing anyway.

So she just leant in closer and pressed their lips together, projecting all the gratefulness and appreciation she felt for him into this small gesture.

Nishiki flinched so violently that he almost broke the contact and Touka was wont to do it in case he wasn't willing. But then he pressed back, his lips suddenly searching, scorching, and Touka realised one thing.

In all their time of seeking comfort in each other, in all these months, they had never once kissed.

##

"You should call her," Touka said one night in early December as she was just pulling on her clothes again.

It was getting worse. She could feel him slipping away more and more when they spent time together. Where he had been rough and passionate before, he was almost soft and unbearably gentle with her now and it burned her skin like hot iron dragging across her body. She in turn caught herself muttering a name that wasn't her partner's and Nishiki never said anything. She was sure he could hear her, though.

"You should tell him about his past," Nishiki answered as if on reflex. He was reclined on his bed, unfazed by the fact that he was naked and the sheets lay crumpled up on the ground. He hadn't put his glasses back on yet and he squinted at her.

Touka sat back down on the edge, the back of her dress gaping open in its unzipped stage. She wanted to grab the lapels and tug them together, holding herself together so she couldn't unravel.

There was a soft touch, fingers on skin, and Touka could hear her zipper being pulled up.

"When the time is right," she said quietly. "Some day."

"Me too," he said in an eerily flat voice. "Some day soon."

The following silence was deafening and Touka wanted to flee, but she didn't move.

It was no surprise when she felt his fingers unzipping her dress and she let herself be pulled into bed again, ready to drown out the ache in her chest with heated passion.

##

"What do you people want to do?" Uta asked and he sent a pointed look at Touka, telling her that he meant her especially. "Wait for Kaneki? Or..."

Touka felt the pressure of it, the pressure of being the new Manager and calling the shots, but at the same time she felt pride swell in her at the trust laid into her decision. A second feeling mixed into her pride, the sensation of a warm gaze on her back and she turned around, looking at Nishiki.

He was smiling, a real smile devoid of his usual snark and bite and she found herself smiling back at him.

Some day, his face seemed to say and Touka inclined her head.

Some day soon, she thought back at him and he tipped his head forward before Touka turned back to Uta.

The ache in her chest she had lived with for close to three years wasn't snuffed out, but there was a fresh spark of hope. The corners of her mouth curled up as she locked gazes with Uta, who looked at her with a certain kindness that filled the gaping wounds of her past with warmth.

"Uta," she started and held the words to come in her mouth, testing them, savouring them.

"I will just continue doing what I decided to do."

We will.

I'm incredibly terrible with keeping my account here updated, so if you like my work and want to read more (as well as NSFW content), please head over to /users/Sasassy.

Happy Holidays, everyone!