Hi all, happy holidays and all that...I was unfortunate enough to fall ill a day before Christmas, so my family and I are actually only celebrating it today. A such, I thought I'd be nice and finally publish this story, which I've been uncertainly dithering over since I first completed it two weeks ago...

This fic was intended as a fill for the following prompt (I'd give you guys the link, but we all know how well that works on this website):
"Everyone/Kaneki, showing someone your/touching someone's kakuhou is considered flirting, humor
Since Kaneki was a human, he wasn't taught all the intricacies of ghoul society - one of things members of Anteiku forgot to inform Kaneki about it the social niceties surrounding the kakuhou!
What if touching someone's kakuhou is a very strong come-on and a clear indication of desire? (or the area near it, for example, if a ghoul has the bikaku type, touching/slapping their bum suffices.) What if exposing the kakuhou is a very intimate act? (I'm thinking something like Kaneki drops something, and bends to pick it up, and in the process his shirt rides up a little and his back is completely facing a ghoul.)
Basically I'm interesting in something funny where Kaneki is accidentally flirting with EVERYONE. ALL THE TIME. And the poor thing is confused! Some ghouls (I'm not really picky who) take this is a clear invitation to start pursuing Kaneki."
But in reality, I followed the spirit of part of the prompt far more than the letter of it, so to speak. There's no actual romance anywhere in this story, at any rate, or even any smut, so, yeah, I don't think it's what the OP was looking for...but there it is. For a TG fic, this is incredibly child-safe and light-hearted: no freaky kagune sex, no major character deaths, only minor violence and slight, occasional brushes of angst.

(This is unbeta'ed as always, so feel free to let me know if you spot any horrendous typos or missing words!)

Pairing(s): hints of one-sided Nishio/Kaneki, Koma/Kaneki, Touken, TsukiKane, various OCs/Kaneki, various OCs/Haise...

Word count: 9477

Warning(s): ...save for one or two dirty pick-up lines, pretty much nothing, really—this is a humor fic, after all.

Disclaimer: I disclaim.

. 1 .

Kaneki Ken would be the first to admit that, for all that he was turned into one of them several weeks prior, he still has yet to become proficient in deciphering many of the puzzling behavioral patterns of the beings known as ghouls.

Given that they're often forced to live on the most obscure fringes of human society for their own safety, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to conclude that ghouls must have, over time, developed their own culture and customs, ones that are entirely separate from those of their prey. For all Kaneki knows, he could be deeply offending all of Anteiku's nonhuman customers every time he bows at them in greeting; hell, even smiling might, in the ghoul world, be seen as a threatening baring of teeth instead of an expression of friendliness and/or happiness (that would be one way to explain why Touka-chan's always scowling at him).

For the most part, Kaneki thinks he's been getting by well enough so far: he's yet to make any major faux pas, at least, inasmuch as his continued survival can be considered proof of such a thing. But there are still moments when he finds himself utterly baffled by his ghoulish coworkers' actions, and this is most certainly one of them.

Kaneki's never been a great fan of public locker rooms. Unlike his more athletic male classmates, he was never particularly eager to show his skinny body off in front of his peers, and so he has always been in the habit of dressing quickly and efficiently, all the while keeping his eyes firmly forward. No lingering, no wasted movement: he would just get in, change, get out and finally go back to blissfully immersing himself in his latest novel.

But no matter how dearly he wishes he could keep following this routine at Anteiku as well, Nishio-senpai and Koma-san's…interesting locker room habits make that more than a little difficult.

First of all, they always change with their backs to their lockers, and their fronts facing the rest of the room. Always. As long as they are shirtless, if they need anything from their locker (deodorant, a comb, their respective cellphones…), then they will reach back into it and grope around blindly until they find the item in question, without ever turning around.

Second and most discomforting of all: seeing as their respective lockers are directly across the room from Kaneki's, it means that they always end up changing with their eyes trained squarely on him. And, instead of politely averting their gazes as just about anyone else would in such a situation, they just stand there, shirtless and staring at his equally shirtless form until he's done getting dressed! Kaneki likes to think he's quite tolerant of other people's odd quirks but damn it, it's just really, really uncomfortable.

(Now, Kaneki has nothing against people who are attracted to their own gender, don't get him wrong—but Koma-san is too old for him, and Nishio-senpai has Kimi-san: he shouldn't be looking at other men while he's in a committed relationship with such a sweet, loving woman!)

Kaneki's a pretty good actor when he wants to be, so he thinks he's done a decent job of pretending to be unfazed by his coworkers' gawking so far, but his urge to bark at them to just knock it off already is growing with every new day that he's forced to endure their piercing, disquietingly expressionless stares on his half-clothed person. So, because Koma-san is an SS-rated ghoul and because Kaneki is pretty sure that his win against Nishio-senpai was more of an adrenaline- and rage-fueled fluke than anything else, Kaneki feels incredibly relieved when Yoshimura-san, one day, wanders into the locker room while all three of his male employees are making use of it.

Surely, surely the wise and worldly manager of Anteiku will rein in the two wayward full-ghouls? Yoshimura-san has a wry sense of humor and a strong tolerance for youthful shenanigans, but he usually steps in when his staff members go too far in teasing one another, so Kaneki thinks he can count on the man to tell Nishio-senpai and Koma-san to drop it; but, for the sake of insurance, Kaneki still makes sure to flick a significant glance back at his colleagues—who are still goggling at him!—before throwing the stately old ghoul the most pathetic imploring look he can muster as he slips his cardigan and button-up off his shoulders.

Yoshimura-san, instead of acceding to the once-human's unspoken plea, freezes on the spot for several long moments, staring at Kaneki like he's never seen anything quite like him before. Kaneki wants nothing more than to sink into the floor and disappear. So even the Manager is in on it? What is with this obsession ghouls seem to have with half-naked staring contests, anyway?

Then Yoshimura-san blinks, and is composed and genial again. "Koma-kun," the man says warmly, "would you be opposed to putting in some overtime tonight? I'd like your input in organizing next week's cleaning duty roster."

"No problem, Tenchou!" Koma-san replies in kind, suddenly all easy-going charm again, no creepy unblinking stares in sight. The two older ghouls exchange a few more words before Yoshimura-san heads back out into the corridor leading to the café proper, sparing Kaneki and Nishio-senpai a polite nod as he leaves; the Manager's smile is as placid and knowing as usual, but Kaneki could swear that there's a new twist to the man's mouth that makes him look sly, like he's enjoying a private joke the rest of the world isn't in on.

And of course, the moment the door closes on his retreating form, Nishio-senpai and Koma-san go right back to gawping unabashedly at Kaneki.

Kaneki kind of wants to scream and throw something. He really needs this job and the mentorship of its staff, though, so he starts mentally reciting the names of all the bones in the human body and imagines repeatedly kicking his older male coworkers in the most fragile ones, instead. Then, sighing quietly under his breath, he throws on his uniform's dress shirt and vest, knots up the tie, and makes a break for it as swiftly as he can without looking like he's running away with his tail between his legs.

He must be imagining things, is all. If Yoshimura-san, of all people, didn't comment on his fellow staff members' odd staring habit and even joined in, then it's probably just some kind of weird hazing ritual to freak out the newbie worker. After all, there's no way that anyone, much less self-proclaimed ladies' men like Nishio-senpai and Koma-san, would peep on a scrawny kid like him while he's changing because they're—attracted to him, or something. He's just being paranoid.

But, he wonders distractedly as he fires up the espresso machine and prepares himself for another long day of trying not to mess up too badly under Touka-chan's gimlet eye, why is Nishio-senpai also in on it, then? I've been working here longer than he has.

. 2 .

If Kaneki had to name one positive change his forcible transformation from human to ghoul has brought to his life, it would have to be his improved health.

He was never a sickly kid, exactly, but he was always small for his age, and frail enough to frequently have most of the neighborhood's old ladies clucking over him as they nosily advised his mother to feed him up more. Even after he finally grew to a more respectable height once puberty came around, Hide used to joke that Kaneki was probably lighter and more lacking in muscle mass than most of the girls in their class—and the worst thing was, yearly school-wide health assessments never failed to prove his best friend right.

Now that he's got a ghoul's inborn superior physical abilities and is…eating better (more in an effort to avoid Touka-chan's blistering lectures and Hinami-chan's worried gazes than out of personal preference, to be honest), though, he feels like he could probably lift Hide up with one arm without even breaking a sweat.

His body feels light and limber and strong, and it's an amazing feeling for someone who's always been so embroiled in more intellectual pursuits that exercise fell to the wayside. He's actually starting to enjoy the jogging- and calisthenics routines he's taken to completing every morning; the first time he managed to hold a flawless handstand for over a minute, he then fell into a bout of breathless, pleasantly exhausted laughter the likes of which he hasn't had the chance to enjoy since he left Hide behind. What was once a dreaded chore that unfailingly dragged down his overall grade average has become a refuge, a mindless activity he can lose himself in whenever the reality of what he's been turned into becomes too much to face.

Touka-chan's Spartan training sessions, though, unfailingly remain something to be feared.

They always begin with a single order: "Fight." He then spends the following hour ducking, running, bending, rolling, jumping, spinning or even, on a few memorable occasions, cartwheeling away from her lightning-swift strikes as she comes at him in a whirlwind of kicks and punches. She hollers at him to stop being a wimp and fight back already, but, being an ukaku type, Touka-chan is inevitably faster than his still inexperienced self; even when he does dredge up the guts to try, he never actually manages to hit her. By the time she deems the first phase of the training over, he's almost always black and blue and sporting a handful of broken bones.

After that, she tosses him a can of iced coffee seasoned with one of the Manager's special sugar cubes, and has him drink it while lightly jogging around the underground chamber until the worst of his wounds have started to heal; then, once he's well and truly warmed up and any fractures in his skeleton have knitted themselves back together, it's time for evasion training. In other words, Touka-chan releases her kagune and chases him around the room with them, shooting razor-sharp shards of crystallized RC cells after him while he runs like hell.

Lastly, once he's more than half-dead on his feet—about three-quarters or maybe even four-fifths, he'd say—she has him drop to the floor and begin the most agonizing exercises of them all: flexibility exercises. Touka-chan, having been born a ghoul and raised accordingly, has been doing those since she was a toddler and must have looser skin than a cat, because she can contort her body into poses that Kaneki has never seen outside of expert-level yoga instruction manuals or Hide's seedier girlie mags. Kaneki, for his part, only managed his first split a few weeks ago, and dislocated a hip in the process. He's made some progress since then, but he still maintains that it's impossible to do a full backbend when I only started training a few months ago ah Touka-chan you're going to snap my spine I give I give ah ah ah!

This torturous stretching routine is actually Kaneki's favorite part of their training sessions, though, because it typically means that said sessions will soon be at their end; but pain is pain and, sure, his whole body will feel right as rain by tomorrow morning, but it still hurts now, Kaneki mentally grumbles as he heaves himself back to his feet with a small grimace.

"Don't forget to hydrate," Touka-chan says imperiously as he drags himself towards the nearby bench to pick up his water bottle and do just that. She's standing behind him, so Kaneki takes advantage of this rare opportunity to roll his eyes at her without any risk of being maimed for it, and absentmindedly pulls up the hem of his damp shirt to wipe away the worst of the sweat that's dripping off his chin.

A loud choking sound rends through the peaceful silence of the basement, startling Kaneki out of his exhausted, endorphin-saturated daze. Whirling on his heels, he's met with the sight of Touka-chan bent in half at the waist as she struggles to cough out the mouthful of water that just, by the sound of it, shot straight down her trachea. He hurries over to her, fluttering about uselessly for a moment as he tries to figure out if the Heimlich maneuver will be necessary; but, just as he decides that maybe a few firm pats to the back would do the trick, she straightens her spine so suddenly that she all but surges upward like a jack-in-the-box. Upon finding him standing so close to her, she immediately reddens with fury.

"Sorry, sorry!" Kaneki yelps as he hurriedly backpedals away, remembering the vomit-inducing sucker punch to the gut he earned himself the last time he accidentally invaded her personal space. She actually staggers a couple of steps forward before regaining her balance, as if she had been leaning into him before he scrambled away, and he shudders to imagine what kind of horrible punishment she would've inflicted on him if he had been just a second slower to retreat.

Touka-chan, oddly enough, looks as disoriented as he feels. For a few moments, they just stand there staring at each other—him, aiming a perplexed look at the half-puzzled, half-frustrated look on her face, and her alternating between glancing at his own flummoxed expression and at his middle, just about level with the dip of his waist, for some odd reason. Then a light of comprehension sparks in her eyes, and the flush on her cheeks darkens as forebodingly as her scowl.

Kaneki is completely stumped as to what he might have done to piss her off so much this time. Is it because he saw her choke? Because he now knows that she can sometimes show instances of human-like weakness? Because he wasn't quick enough in coming to her aid? He has no idea, but he has a feeling he's about to pay for it.

And indeed a bare moment later, Touka-chan, kakugan glowing with all the bloodthirst of a snarling tiger, growls out a new order, the contents of which nearly bring him to tears:

"Get back to running, moron! You're getting a double helping of dodging practice today!"

. 3 .

Now, just for the record, Kaneki has become much less body-shy in recent times. There's just something about having one's toes and fingers ripped off over and over again and a twenty-centimeter-long centipede shoved in one's ear that can make a guy feel a lot less hung-up about things like modesty; besides, Kaneki thinks that most of his dignity went out the window the first time he salivated himself up a veritable puddle upon catching the smell of fresh human meat.

(Yes, he's aware that he's being more than a little morbid in his sarcasm, but there are some days when it's either sass up a storm or curl into a tiny ball and cry. Kaneki tends to opt for the former.)

But despite his recent decrease in interest in such trivial concerns as prudery, the fact remains that, over the course of his nineteen years of life, he's never been all that bold in his choice of clothing. In the past, he always stuck with simple, admittedly rather dowdy semi-formal clothing that left little exposed save for his wrists, head, and part of his neck; sometimes, if it got very hot, he would ditch the knitted sweaters Hide's always ribbing him for and throw on some neatly pressed cargo shorts to replace his slacks, but that was the extent of his adventurousness when it came to fashion.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone that, at the first sight of the so-called "battle suit" Tsukiyama-san proudly presents him with, he almost screams and defenestrates the Gourmet out of sheer reflexive mortification.

It's a bodysuit, made of some kind of leather-spandex hybrid that looks just clingy and shiny enough to hint at everything and hide absolutely nothing. It's black, with some kind of odd white pattern on either side of the torso that looks almost like the outline of ribs—who does Tsukiyama-san think Kaneki is, Jack Skellington?—and there are holes cut out between the high collar and the sleeves—for ease of movement, Tsukiyama-san assures him—as well as another, far larger hole in the back that is clearly designed to leave the small of his back and its surrounding area completely bare, obviously in an effort to make space for his rinkaku.

It is a backless black pleather bodysuit. Kaneki cannot stress this enough.

He slaps his apathetic mask back on as quickly as he can manage once he gets over his shock, but he's fairly sure it's a wasted effort, seeing as he spent a full five seconds just gaping at Tsukiyama-san in appalled affront beforehand. Tsukiyama-san can't actually expect Kaneki to go out in public wearing that, can he? Forget being a ghoul, he'd be arrested for public indecency in five seconds flat! Just traipsing about on the streets while stark naked would be less embarrassing than this…this thing; if he wears his mask and manifests his kagune while wearing that, he'll end up looking like some kind of ghoulish male dominatrix straight out of a sleazy tentacle porno!

Kaneki opens his mouth to tell Tsukiyama-san just where the Gourmet can shove this disturbing piece of fetish wear, but Banjou-san, surprisingly enough, beats him to it.

"You disgusting pervert!" the imposing ghoul thunders, a vein visibly pulsing on the temple of his beet-red face as his large torso heaves with the force of his fury. "What the fuck kind of clothes are you trying to shove Kaneki into?! Get out! Get the hell out of here before I rip you to shreds!"

Kaneki, dumbstruck, can only stand mutely by for a few moments as he watches Banjou-san verbally tear the smug-looking Gourmet a new one on his behalf. Sure, Banjou-san's been a bit overprotective of Kaneki since they escaped from Aogiri's clutches together, but this isn't like the short-tempered man's usual blustering—Banjou-san is genuinely very angry. Surely the older ghoul is overreacting? The suit's design is…disconcerting, sure, but it's also just practical enough that Kaneki's pretty sure Tsukiyama-san isn't trying to make trouble just for the sake of it, for once.

Kaneki glances around at the other members of his "gang", as Ichimi-kun has taken to calling their informal group, and is surprised to find that they all look almost as outraged as Banjou-san. Ichimi-kun, Jiro-san and Sante-kun, with their ever-present gasmasks, are unreadable as always, but they're clustered together and watching Tsukiyama-san with a tight, tense body language that speaks of indignation and disgust. Even sweet, forgiving Hinami-chan looks disappointed in her "Flower Man", regarding him with an expression of motherly disapproval that she probably, Kaneki thinks with a stab of pain in his heart, learned at the late Ryouko-san's knee.

Kaneki doesn't like seeing such tension and strife between people he considers friends (however loosely, in Tsukiyama-san's case), so he bites his lip as he begins to rethink his previous stance on the Gourmet's choice of battle gear for him.

It's…not all that bad, really. Kaneki has seen—as far as he could tell—perfectly normal human teens dressed in even more outrageous outfits during his rare visits to the 13th and 1st Wards. If Kaneki's really that uneasy at the thought of being seen in such tight clothing, he could just throw on a pair of shorts over the suit in order to cover the more, ahem, crucial areas of his lower half (and maybe some kind of top as well, because your average passer-by might simply think of the hole in the battle suit's back as a provocative fashion statement, but any ghoul investigator worth their salt would be a lot more suspicious).

…And besides, Kaneki's loath to admit it, but a backless battle outfit is actually a really good idea.

In a way, he's lucky that ghouls have no need for the kind of sustenance that can be found in your average convenience store, because, ever since he first learned to release his kagune, the money that used to be his weekly grocery shopping funds has almost completely been going towards purchasing new shirts, sweaters and coats, instead. Now that Kaneki has left Anteiku, he no longer has a stable source of income; he's now depending on Tsukiyama-san for everything from his new lodgings to running water and electricity, so he's not about to ask for even more from the wealthy and eccentric ghoul by creating a constant need for new clothing. Kaneki was raised better than that.

And, from a strategic standpoint, it's not a bad choice, either. An edge of even a millisecond can make all the difference in battle—those countless training sessions with an ukaku-type ghoul as fast as Touka-chan have certainly taught him that—so the faster he can release his kagune, the better. Considering the kind of opponents he's likely to run into during his search for Rize-san and Doctor Kanou, Kaneki has a feeling he'll need all the advantages he can get.

In conclusion, no matter how mortified he'll no doubt feel the first time he dons this so-called "battle suit", he can't honestly think of any good reason, save for his own shyness, to opt for more modest garments. And, frankly, it'll take a lot more than a little embarrassment to stop him from grabbing with both hands onto anything and anyone that might help him on the way to his goal.

So, setting his jaw and rolling his shoulders back even as he forcefully wills away the blood struggling to rise to his cheeks, Kaneki cuts through Banjou-san's still-ongoing tirade and Tsukiyama-san's silkily mocking replies, and declares, "It's fine, Banjou-san."

Both older ghouls instantly abandon their argument in favor of gaping at him, Banjou-san with horror and Tsukiyama-san with a suspicious sort of disbelieving glee. "Kaneki!" Banjou-san yelps in dismay, large hands shooting out to grab Kaneki's shoulders and shake him as gently as the larger man's bulging biceps will allow. "You can't be serious! Look at that thing! You'd seriously be willing to be seen in that?!"

Even Hinami-chan chimes in, the full effect of her large, concerned brown eyes nearly devastating enough to change Kaneki's mind. "Onii-chan, are you sure? This suit is really…" She trails off and scrunches up her face in a look of acute disgust which he's never seen her wear before, but somehow looks just as adorable as the rest of her expressions (yes, Kaneki's well aware that he's got a bit of a sister-complex going on. Sue him).

Still, in spite of his companions' reservations and even his own, Kaneki has thought his decision through and is quite certain that, until he's proven wrong, he won't budge on this matter. So he reaches out to gently ruffle Hinami-chan's hair and smiles at the room at large with far more confidence than he actually feels.

"Yes, Hinami-chan, I'm sure. I doubt I'll ever be comfortable wearing such a thing, but if it means I won't have to constantly buy new shirts that'll just get in the way while I fight, then it's worth the embarrassment. Stopping Kanou is more important than bowing to my own inhibitions," he explains awkwardly, closing his eyes around a weary sigh.

When he opens them again, he almost does a visible double-take upon seeing the variety of looks he's on the receiving end of.

Banjou-san and his followers have actual tears in their eyes (how Kaneki is able to see that through said followers' masks, he will never know) as they gaze at him with mingled admiration and pity, as one might look at a man ready to die for his own convictions as he walks towards his executioner with grim dignity. "Kanegiii…" Banjou-san blubbers as he swipes ineffectively at his watery eyes, his rough, masculine voice thick with emotion. "Your sacrifice won't be in vain! We'll…we'll definitely help you find that bastard! We won't let you down!" Ichimi-kun, Jiro-san and Sante-kun nod frantically along in the background.

"Me too! I'll do my best too, Onii-chan!" Hinami-chan promises, little hands fisted at her sides, her mouth set in a moue of determination that makes her pudgy cheeks puff out the slightest bit. Kaneki is patting her hair before he even realizes he's moved.

Then he turns to the last member of their little group, feeling somewhat puzzled by the flamboyant ghoul's uncommon silence so far—and blinks in surprise.

"Tsukiyama-san, are you alright? You're looking feverish."

. 4 .

From the very first time Kaneki had met Banjou Kazuichi, he has felt a connection to the man.

Like Kaneki, the man was once thoroughly ensnared by Kamishiro Rize (unlike him, Banjou-san hasn't quite managed to fully disentangle himself from her web). Like Kaneki, the man wears a mask, an invisible suit of armor to protect his softest spots or better yet, hide them all away (unlike him, Banjou-san hides behind fake strength rather than false guilelessness). Like Kaneki, the man prizes the lives of the people under his protection above all else (unlike him, Banjou-san has the resolve needed to keep his loved ones happy and not just safe).

Kaneki trusts Banjou-san, likes Banjou-san a lot; Kaneki could say that he loves him, even. Not in the way he might love a paramour, a family member or even a pet, but in the way a lord might care for his most devoted knight—a comparison that had Banjou-san wiping a way a few tears of joy the first and only time Kaneki spoke it aloud, but which never fails to make Kaneki feel uncomfortable over the disparity in statuses that this implies between them.

Banjou-san isn't Kaneki's servant or underling, the man is one of his very closest friends. Kaneki survived for so long with only Hide's sunny presence motivating him to keep clinging to the edge of the abyss known as depression that he treasures every new friend he makes, wants to guard them jealously, wrap himself around them and hiss at any ill-intentioned interloper who dares come near like a dragon defending its hoard. All of Anteiku and its associates, Banjou-san and his group, Hinami-chan, and even Tsukiyama-san, he cares for them all dearly. He'll do just about anything to keep them alive—they're all so good to him, so wonderful, they deserve to live as happily as any human and more. Kaneki knows for a fact that he wouldn't survive losing them all, not now that he's already lost Hide to his own selfishness and fears.

He loves them so, all of these still new bright spots in his life that make it worth living, that allow him to look at high buildings and scarcely populated bridges without feeling a tug of exhausted longing for the first time in forever.

But that doesn't mean he isn't struck with an urge to wrap his hands around their necks and throttle them from time to time. Today, the irritant in question happens to be—you guessed it—Banjou-san.

It's a lazy summer afternoon, the weather is 29°C and sunny, and the AC unit in the apartment is broken. Given that it's a Sunday, no one can be called in to repair it until tomorrow, and Kaneki is pretty sure that this is what being roasted alive feels like.

It didn't take him long, after he was turned into a half-ghoul all those months ago, to notice that his body had started running at a slightly higher temperature than it ever had when he was human, especially in the area around his kakuhou. In the winter, it's quite pleasant—like having a small hot water bottle permanently attached to the skin of your back, heating you up from the inside even as icy winds flay your cheeks red and cause a bone-deep ache in your hands.

In the summer, though, it feels like a miniature sun eating away at your insides, like being stuck in a sauna of your own making with no way out. So far, Kaneki has yet to discover any way to alleviate the heat, save for frequent showers as cold as the building's lukewarm water tank can provide; and even then, he's always back to sweating like a pig not ten minutes after he's dried off. There seems to be no end to this fiery torment, and he's pretty sure he'll be sleeping in the freezer tonight (never mind the meat that'll inevitably spoil once he digs it out to carve himself a hole to burrow into—he'll cross that bridge once he gets to it).

He's craving another shower already, but he can hear Hinami-chan running herself a bath and he wouldn't be surprised if she was planning on just staying in it until the AC is repaired. If Kaneki's feeling sluggish and agitated due to the heat, it's got to be even worse for her, given that she's got two kakuhou and a much smaller body through which the heat they generate can circulate; he's not about to chase her out of the flat's only bathroom just so he can cool himself down and, despite her young appearance, she's already a teenager—far too old for him to even consider sharing a bath with her. So he's doing his best to just tough it out.

The heat would be a lot easier to bear if he didn't have this to deal with on top of it all, though.

"Kaneki…aren't you cold?"

Kaneki snorts. "I wish," he grumbles in reply, rubbing away the sweat dripping into his eyes with an irritable swipe of his hand as he tries, vainly, to focus on reading the MMA instruction manual on which his grip is tightening more dangerously by the minute.

"Are you sure? I think it's a tad…chilly in here," Banjou-san insists, sounding quite unconvinced of his own words, himself.

Kaneki stays silent, exerting herculean amounts of effort to keep his face from contorting into a vicious scowl. He can't help the way his shoulders tighten with mounting irritation, though.

"Yes, I think we might both catch a cold at this rate," Banjou-san goes on with a sage nod of his head. Then he glances significantly at Kaneki and adds, "We really ought to bundle up a bit more, I think."

Don't punch his face in, don't punch his face in, don't punch his face in. Banjou-san is just concerned. Don't punch his face in, Ken. Come on, deep breaths.

"The both of us."

You like Banjou-san, remember? He's your friend, right? You'd feel awful about it later if you ripped his arms off and gagged him with them.

"Sunburn! You might even get sunburn if you stay like this! And we don't have any sunscreen in the house, so you really should cover up before you end up all red, right?"

Kaneki is a rinkaku type with one of the highest levels of ability for high-speed regeneration ever recorded. He's pretty sure that, after everything he's endured, sunburn won't be what finally does him in. He tells Banjou-san so.

For three blessed minutes, the burly older ghoul is silent. Kaneki does his best to concentrate on the contents of his book, but Banjou-san, even when quiet, remains distracting—fidgeting with his hands as he huddles in a corner of the room like a scolded child, continuously throwing Kaneki anxious little glances that make the back of the half-ghoul's neck itch.

Kaneki can hear Hinami-chan happily humming and splashing about in the bathroom, enjoying her cold bath to the fullest, and Ichimi-kun, Jiro-san and Sante-kun napping on the kitchen's floor in hopes of absorbing the coolness of its tiles. Kaneki's hair is tacky with sweat, his bangs sticking to his forehead, to his cheekbones, to the bridge of his nose. His brain feels like it's cooking in his skull, and the small print on the page in front of him refuses to stay still, crawling all over the crisp white paper like a myriad centipedes.

"Kaneki, are you absolutely certain you don't feel like…putting something on? Right now?"

"No," Kaneki bites out curtly, now well and truly reaching the end of his tether. Banjou-san has been fussing over him like a scandalized Victorian governess for over two hours now, and even Kaneki's near-legendary patience for the antics of his loved ones isn't infinite.

"Think about Hinami-chan! She's too young to be exposed to such sights, you know that."

"Hinami-chan is in the bath." Kaneki's read somewhere that grinding your teeth is bad for you, damages the enamel or something, but he still has all of his fingers and toes despite them having been cut off nearly a hundred times each, so he's not too worried. It'll heal.

"I know you're used to walking around in such a state by now, unfortunately, but really, it isn't proper—"

Kaneki slams his book shut, slams the living room's door on his way out, and slams his bedroom door as well for good measure. Then he seriously considers slamming his head repeatedly against the nearest wall until he passes out. That way, at least, he wouldn't be bothered by the scorching heat—nor by his self-proclaimed "shield", who seems to have suddenly decided that protecting Kaneki's virtue so ferociously that one might think the younger man an unmarried maiden of high standing, is suddenly within the scope of his duties.

He knows his friend means well, but damn it, a man should be allowed to walk around topless within the boundaries of his own apartment at least, shouldn't he? Kaneki may have had Rize-san's organs transplanted into his body, but that particular fiasco only turned him into a half-ghoul—not into a woman!

. 5 .

As soon as Kaneki had started down the path of a kakuja, he had known that he would inevitably earn himself something of a reputation for it in ghoul society.

After all, in the world of ghouls, there exists a general, unspoken understanding that one is never to refuse help to a fellow ghoul unless a preexisting grudge has the two individuals in question at odds. Loathed and demonized by the general public, hunted indiscriminately by the CCG, ghouls are forced to rely on each other for companionship, hunting and, occasionally, aid in battle—even some of the notoriously ruthless Aogiri Tree's higher-ups have been known to sometimes lend a hand to weaker ghouls they see locked in combat with CCG personnel, as long as they don't have to go too far out of their way to do so (if nothing else, this makes for an excellent recruitment strategy). It's, in large part, thanks to this "us VS. them" mentality ghouls harbor towards humans that the man-eating population of Tokyo hasn't dropped significantly in numbers since the invention of the quinque.

Cannibals, though, are usually excluded from the tight-knit ghoul community, for obvious reasons.

Kaneki remembers that feeling with perfect clarity, that incredibly sharp sensation of betrayal he had experienced for the first time the day he had almost been killed and devoured by Rize-san. That sense of loss, of hurt and humiliation upon being dehumanized by someone whom you thought of as like you, someone whom you had thought saw you as a fellow sentient being but who, in fact, saw in you only meat, only their latest meal. Ghouls are not anymore incapable of feeling than humans are, and wish to die at the hands of beings that resemble- or even are their own kind just as little as humans do.

So Kaneki isn't surprised when he grows to be feared; he isn't shocked when ghouls start switching sidewalks to avoid him, warded off by both the bitter stench of a kakuja that clings to his skin, and his admittedly intimidating appearance—a mask displaying a toothy, rabid snarl like that of a barely restrained beast, a body encased from head to toe in black leather, kagune the color of blood and hair the color of death.

(There's a small, dark part of him that's thrilled by their obvious fear of him—the part that Jason yanked out of him like a ribbon of entrails and then lovingly nurtured into an ocean of toxic, cadaverous flowers until Kaneki grew just as wretchedly twisted as he—but he mostly just feels resentful, in an tired sort of way (after all, whether he eats humans or ghouls, in the end he'll always be a cannibal).)

But he is very, very taken aback when, as his notoriety grows over the course of his first few self-appointed vigilante missions, most of the ghouls he meets throughout Tokyo—even the ones who reek so strongly of fear upon meeting the gaze of his single uncovered kakugan that even Kaneki's weak senses can pick up on it—start systematically making passes at him, instead.

The first incident takes place during one of Kaneki's earliest battles after his move to the 6th Ward. Tsukiyama-san's favorite informant has made them aware of a new arrival in the Ward, one who has a particular taste for middle school-aged children and a large appetite. Kaneki, with Banjou-san and Tsukiyama-san at his heels, tracks down the man in question and corners him in the most deserted abandoned building he can find; he knows, of course, that it isn't his place to judge the actions of others as if he were above making mistakes and being selfish, cruel and petty, but any ghoul who eats children out of anything but sheer, desperate necessity is irredeemable in his eyes (bad beans must be plucked, lest they sour the whole pot).

But, after Kaneki is done giving the burly, bearded and brutish-looking ghoul his ultimatum—the gist of it being change your eating habits or die, and also, get out of our damn Ward—said ghoul doesn't grovel at his feet and beg for his life, doesn't nod mutely and do as he is bid, doesn't even laugh in his face before hunting down even more youthful prey just to spite him; instead, the man simply asks, "You the Eyepatch?"

Kaneki nods slowly, his expression impassive despite how little he appreciates the ghoul's stalling.

"You're just as they say…" the man mumbles to himself, apparently lost in thought as he gives Kaneki a long once-over; then he looks the half-ghoul right in the eye, licks his lips in an unsettlingly hungry way, and declares, apropos of nothing: "I've got a big one. Wanna see how hard it works?"

Tsukiyama-san and Banjou-san bristle at Kaneki's sides like offended cats, for reasons he won't understand until later. For his part, Kaneki only notices that the man's words aren't ones of immediate surrender and acquiescence to his demands, and decides that this is unacceptable.

They fight; Kaneki kills the man in short order and chokes down the leftover meat, no matter how nasty and sour it tastes (on top of being a ghoul and thus, by definition, unpalatable, the man just had to be a smoker). As it turns out, the man did have a rather large bikaku and was a dab hand at using it, but, given the results of their very brief battle, Kaneki thinks that the man's boasting was really quite baseless after all. He isn't quite sure what to make of the looks on Banjou-san and Tsukiyama-san's faces when he shares his insights with them.

The second time it happens, the flirtation is blatant enough that even Kaneki, who's yet to have his first kiss and has only been on a single date in his life (something which, given how said first and only date turned out, he's not too keen on repeating), can't possibly miss it.

He's in the middle of confronting a scrawny, rat-faced ghoul known to be a frequent customer of Kanou General Hospital's morgue—and thus, likely to be associated with Doctor Kanou in some way, however distantly. The man gives Kaneki the creeps, what with that way he has of staring with such eerie intensity that Kaneki feels like the ghoul's eyes are leaving trails of slime on his skin as they rake up and down his frame. Moreover, he appears entirely unimpressed with the threats Kaneki and Banjou-san have thrown at him so far; in fact, Kaneki doesn't think the man's even listening at all, despite the razor-sharp tips of two of Kaneki's rinkaku being poised millimeters away from either side of the man's throat.

Kaneki is just starting to lose his patience with the ghoul, bracing himself for putting what he learned from Yamori to use no matter how nauseated the mere thought of it makes him feel—when the man suddenly seems to snap back to himself, no longer captivated by whatever it was the man had seen on Kaneki's body that was interesting enough to capture his attention so thoroughly. Pleased to find his prey more receptive to questioning at last, Kaneki repeats for the fourth time, "Answer my questions and I might let you go. Lie, and you're dead. When was the last time you were in contact with Kanou Akihiro?"

The man slowly opens his mouth and Kaneki leans forward attentively, his heart in his throat as hope of finding Kanou at last surges to life in his breast.

But instead of providing Kaneki with the information he desperately wants, the skinny ghoul only bares his teeth in a salacious grin before bending down to lick Kaneki's kagune and declaring, "That suit's very becoming on you. If I were on you, I'd be coming too!"

Kaneki blushingly decapitates him, remembering only after the man lies dead at his feet that, oh right, he had wanted to get some kind of answers out of the guy before getting rid of him. He is suddenly, disturbingly reminded of the myriad harem anime Hide once forced him to sit through as compensation for enduring the horror movies that were Kaneki's own favorites, and wonders, with an absent sort of terror, just when he started to acquire the pervert-smiting reflexes of a tsundere anime heroine. (Looking back on it, those instincts probably awoke in him the instant he met Tsukiyama-san.)

And from then on, it never really stops.

Of course, many of the ghouls he meets treat him with the respectful wariness that a fighter of his caliber deserves, while others speak to him as amiably as they would to anyone of their kind (though some of them do so with an understated kind of icy disdain that Kaneki, for lack of a better explanation, can only attribute to either personal dislike or, again, disgust for his status as a kakuja).

But somehow, all of ghoul society's seediest, most sordid characters seem to feel compelled to come on to him, though few do so as brazenly as the two aforementioned ghouls did. Instead of reciting dirty pick-up lines at him, they carefully skirt the line between flirtatious and simply overly friendly—standing just a little too close to him for comfort as they exchange information, "accidentally" brushing against him or trailing "casual" hands along the lines of his arms and waist, speaking in low tones almost right next to his ears, and generally invading his personal space like it's going out of style.

Whatever the cause for his sudden and unwelcome rise in popularity is, Kaneki isn't happy about it. He's busy—with trying to find Rize-san and Doctor Kanou, with monitoring Aogiri's movements in hopes of thwarting whatever nefarious plans they'll be concocting next, with struggling to keep his loved ones safe somehow despite all of his actions, all of his mistakes, seemingly bringing them nothing but misfortune over and over again. He doesn't have time for relationships or even random hookups, and even if he did, he certainly wouldn't look for such things in the sort of people who keep offering them to him.

Kaneki has tried to ask his companions why random strangers suddenly seem to find him so irresistible (yes, he knows he's not unattractive now that he's finally put on some muscle and has acquired what Jiro-san likes to call an "edgy" look through means of enduring extreme torture, but he highly doubts that even his "new look" has left him charming enough to have quite so many suitors) and, more importantly, how he can change that, or at least get all of his new admirers off his back once and for all. But, while his friends never outright ignore his questions, they don't actually answer them, either.

"Ah, well," Sante-kun, or Ichimi-kun, or Jiro-san will say uncomfortably every time Kaneki raises the same inquiries yet again, "it's kind of…to be expected, given the circumstances." The sibling in question will then throw a significant glance at all others present at the time, which will be met with looks that speak of an understanding that Kaneki regrettably doesn't share.

"You can't really blame them for, uh, getting the wrong impression, after all!" another sibling will chime with a sheepish smile aimed at Kaneki, followed by a guilty, "No offense, Kaneki-san."

(Kaneki took plenty of offense the first time he heard that, and still does every time he hears it again, though the sting of the insinuation has mostly faded by now.)

"Yes, but still, it's not right," Banjou-san will insist indignantly, nostrils flaring like those of a bull about to charge, as they always do when this particular topic is brought up in conversation. "I don't care what those perverts think they know about Kaneki, they should still respect his boundaries! …Argh, it's all that bastard Tsukiyama's fault!"

Hinami-chan will then jump in to defend the quirky ghoul whom she, against all odds, genuinely likes. "Flower Man didn't do it on purpose! We all forget sometimes, that Onii-chan didn't grow up like we did. Flower Man had no way of knowing that Onii-chan had no idea that—"

And then, abruptly, all of Kaneki's full-ghoul roommates and comrades will fall silent, sneaking abashed glances at him as if to see whether or not he's noticed the abrupt and completely obvious way they abandoned the well-rehearsed argument just when Kaneki's questions were about to finally be answered. Kaneki will reply with a deadpan look that tells them that yes, he most definitely has—would be hard not to—but he's willing to let them off the hook again for today.

His curiosity is eventually set aside when he finds his first real lead in ferreting out Doctor Kanou and, like a ragged woolen sweater whose loose threads have been tugged on just a little too strongly, his whole life starts to unravel at the seams as unpleasant revelation after horrifying realization threaten to destroy what little is left of his sanity. But he never quite forgets.

(In the end, he decides with a distant, morbid kind of hilarity that, perhaps, in the same way that women these days rave relentlessly over their favorite bishounen idols but never fail to swoon over sumo athletes, kakuja are seen as celebrities in the world of ghouls, instead of monsters.)

. +1 .

Sasaki Haise has a bad feeling about the impending Tsukiyama family extermination operation.

It's like some kind of sixth sense is warning him that the objective of the mission itself is flawed, that he shouldn't be doing this, that something is going to go very, very wrong and possibly destroy everything he's worked to build since he first awoke as himself three years ago. He wants to ask to be pulled out and given time off until it's all over, god does he want to, but he can't.

(His kids are still so inexperienced and so very naïve (even Urie-kun, who, in the way of most teenagers, is utterly convinced that he understands the world and its most obscure, innermost workings far better than any of the slow-minded old coots around him—this including Haise himself—ever could). No matter how invincible they believe themselves to be, as combatants, they're baby chicks who have only just begun to learn to fly, and Haise is too much the consummate mother hen to allow them out of the nest just yet, not when he knows the truth of just how unready they are.

Even if they resent him for what they perceive as overprotectiveness and lack of confidence in their abilities on his part, he can't in good conscience leave them to the figurative wolves in the state they are now. He has to do his best for them, be his best for them so that they'll be able to go on believing that the ideas of justice and fairness have any kind of grip on cold, hard reality for just a little while longer.)

It's an unusually clear night, with a dark, cloudless sky that could be beautiful, if only Tokyo's copious emissions of smog and light pollution didn't completely hide both the moon and stars from view. The air is cold, and is rendered even chillier by the brisk, icy breeze that blows, unimpeded and all the stronger for it, across the rooftop on which the CCG's Quinx squad is huddled as, one by one, they make their respective reports regarding the results of their mentor's latest harebrained information-gathering scheme.

Haise has been running himself ragged lately, struggling to retain his sense of self even as his hallucinations become more frequent and vivid than ever, striving to keep his career afloat and his subordinates safe despite his doubts as to whether or not it is truly his place to remain by their side growing stronger by the day. For all that he possesses a ghoul's naturally stronger, more resilient constitution, he hasn't eaten in quite a while and wants nothing more than to go home, slip into a warm bath, and then collapse onto his bed for a very long-awaited good night's sleep.

He feels a bit ridiculous, loitering on a blustery rooftop instead of heading down to a nearby café so that they might all discuss their findings over a cup of coffee in a well-lit place equipped with central heating—in fact, he did offer to do exactly that; he even promised that it would be his treat. But the Quinx all insisted that this place was fine, they weren't cold, and could we just get on with it so we can go home already?

If he didn't know any better, he'd think they were trying to wriggle out of having to spend any more time in his presence than absolutely necessary (Urie-kun, in fact, probably is), but Haise's actually pretty sure that they elected to stay because they like the cliché theatricality of it all. He had to hide a smile behind his hand when he realized this, but he's not going to begrudge them for it: if playing at being superheroes helps them cope with the hard life of a ghoul investigator, then he's not about to spoil their fun. Freezing or not, dog-tired or not, he loves them enough to play along.

So here he is, standing on the roof of a skyscraper at half past midnight like some kind of comic book vigilante (hell, he's even wearing the cloak and mask for it).

He's proud of his kids, he really is. Some of them are less sympathetic than others, but none possess the kind of fanatical, vengeful, obsessive hatred towards ghouls that many investigators are plagued with, the kind that rots you from the inside and leads you to an early grave. Perhaps it's because they're as close to ghouls as one can get while still remaining human, or perhaps it's because they're simply exceptional people—Haise, personally, is of the belief that it's both—but the members or his squad all possess an understanding of the very narrow margin of difference that exists between humans and ghouls that only First Class investigators and above usually display.

(Haise would even like to think that their tolerance, perhaps, might also stem from whatever measure of affection they hold for him, the only half-ghoul currently under the CCG's employ.)

They've all done good work, remaining personable and silver-tongued enough to have the ghouls they encountered within their assigned scouting sectors singing like canaries, all without having to resort to violence. Timid Mutsuki-kun, antisocial Saiko-chan, hot-tempered Shirazu-kun and haughty Urie-kun have come a long way from the rebellious, undisciplined brats they all were when they first came to be under his command. They'll make fine investigators one day, and the information they've just relayed to him is invaluable.

…Which is why he's so ashamed to admit that he, unlike them, has nothing to show for his own hours-long scavenger hunt throughout the city's various ghoul communities.

The fact that his tiny white-haired hallucination identified it on sight, the way it felt so familiar between his hands and looks so natural on his face…well, with all that in mind, it wasn't hard to deduce that "Kaneki" was once a regular client of Uta-san's, and that the intimidating ghoul had taken some kind of mischievous pleasure in offering (what he thought to be) an oblivious Haise a model similar to "his" old mask. So the fact that Haise—or rather, the aforementioned mask—was easily recognized by fellow ghouls wasn't surprising; but the kind of reactions his presence was received with certainly was.

The ghouls who scampered away in horror the moment they saw him, those he had half-expected. After all, until his illusory past self decided that manifesting in his conscience as a small child was preferable, "he" had always been quite a terrifying creature—one who smelled of the violent fear and terrified bloodlust of a cornered animal, whose ghostlike fingers felt like barely sheathed claws as they caressed his shoulders, whose wrists tinkled with the metallic chime of broken shackles. To this day, Haise still only knows the barest bones of the person he used to be, and for the most part, he's perfectly fine with that, because he has a feeling that, for a long while, "he" wasn't the nicest guy around.

But the sheer number of ghouls who didn't run away from him as if hellhounds were nipping at their heels, and stuck around to flirt with him instead—expressing their disappointment that he had "gone straight" and was "dressed so conservatively now", asking him where "the sexy beast of before" had gone, none-too-subtly rubbing up against him like overly-affectionate cats—soon had him revising his opinion of the person he once was in ways that he's not entirely sure he actually prefers to his previous impression.

Now, Haise knows he isn't a troll: he has been propositioned by quite a number of people of both sexes before, after all (he once even had his backside groped pretty blatantly on a crowded train, which Saiko, who was, mortifyingly enough, present at the time, sagely informed him was due to excessive exuding of his natural "ditzy, four-eyed young professor" charm). But he's never actually taken any of his suitors up on their offers, gently explaining to all prospective lovers that he was too swamped with work, and too busy with the upholding of his duties as the Quinx's foster parent of sorts, to spare a thought to romance.

He's always sort of assumed that he's a virgin in every way and, though he wouldn't go bragging about it from every rooftop in the city at the top of his lungs, he's always been more than okay with that idea. Now, though, he's beginning to suspect that maybe his body isn't as pure as he'd thought it was, and he's not sure how to feel about that.

(Flustered, kind of violated, and very, very betrayed by his past self, mostly.)

So, when Shirazu-kun asks him how his own information-gathering endeavors went, Haise mentally offers fervent thanks to Uta-san for making his mask large and opaque enough to hide his brightly flushing cheeks, and offers a sheepish, noncommittal "Not going too well," that's enough to stall his subordinates' questions at least temporarily.

Many times, since he was reborn as Sasaki Haise, he's wondered about the time he spent as a dangerous rogue ghoul outside of the CCG's control, mostly with an undercurrent of horror and remorse at the thought of all the atrocities he's surely committed over the course of his life as a halfling. Many times, he's asked himself, Just what sort of person was Kaneki Ken?

Now, however, that question echoes through his mind without any guilt or fear to chill his veins in its wake. Today, when he speculates as to its answer yet again, it's with an undertone of very acute embarrassment, instead.

- THE END -

Couldn't help but mentally picture the "burly, bearded and brutish-looking ghoul" as Chuu from YuYu Hakusho, and the "scrawny, rat-faced ghoul" as Lippo from Hunter X Hunter. I'm in a Togashi sort of mood, I guess.

I actually had a scene planned out wherein a female teenage ghoul would recognize Kaneki in a café or something and be like, "Mom, Mom, it's the Eyepatch ghoul! Can I dress like him, oh please, can I? All my friends are saying it's the newest trend!" and her mother would reply with something along the lines of, "Absolutely not, young lady! Human girls can traipse around with their backs bared all they like, but for a ghoul to do so…No, I won't have it! No daughter of mine will dress like a two-yen harlot!" Haha. But I was never able to fit it in. Shame…

Hope you guys enjoyed this fic, despite it being significantly gore-, porn- and tragedy-free!

Saggezza out.