The dim, shadowy light of the glow-in-the-dark paint above them made Yoriko's skin look ghostly. The green tinge haunted her every movement with an unearthly, haunting light that touched her slim wrists and slender neck. Touka watched with nausea as her best friend took another bite of the small cake that sat primly before them.

She'd tried eating to no avail. It's not like she'd ever been fond of sweets, but at the moment, hunger evaded her.

"Nothing much has been going on. Aside from Ayato, I guess. Yomo took care of everything with your professors. All I had to do was deliver some papers from the hospital you were staying in," Yoriko had said, pointing towards the room's desk. Touka looked over her shoulder to see several sheets of paper left on top of her desk. "Those are you lectures from last week and this coming week. They wanted to make sure you'd have everything you needed."

She wondered who supplied the forged hospital records so quickly, but then decided that she didn't care.

They sat on the floor of Touka's bed room, in front of the queen sized mattress laid out on the floor, for which she'd never bothered buying a frame for. Ayato was splayed out on top of the sheets off to the side, barely enough space left over for her. His snores were audible but soft, almost feline in the way they dragged like purrs. Touka had been getting ready for bed, reading, when her roommate popped in with a cake in hand, wondering if she'd like some.

Touka didn't want any. It was also a not-so subtle way of attempting to interrogate her in her own worried way. But, the sweet was an offering of her presence. Her friend had been concerned for her, probably deliriously so, and it would have been too cold to turn her away even if she was exhausted. And Touka tries not to push away the people that matter these days.

So they sat underneath the light of her ceiling's glow in the dark paint, dotting stars breathing pale green light above them, lackadaisically devouring the chocolate cake.

Touka frowned. Yomo might have told to the truth with his falsified hospital papers. None of her professors this semesters seemed remotely polite enough to do all of that for her. "Guess I should thank them," she murmured.

"You guess?"

"I didn't ask anyone for favors."

Yoriko poked her mildly in her good arm, and Touka sighed through her nose. "It was still kind of them," she said sternly.

Touka knew that she should, but it just seemed like an unnecessarily awkward encounter that would almost certainly involve pervasive questioning that she didn't have the energy or social prowess to maneuver competently at the moment. Or ever, maybe. She'd just end up being rude. It would be much easier for her to just slip back into her labs and lecture halls invisibly, continuing on with her life.

"You're right," Touka muttered. It wasn't exactly a lie - yet.

Yoriko yawned then, for the third time in the past half hour, and it was a huge one. Touka rolled her eyes as the honey blonde's head bobbed back, her mouth stretching painfully wide. She shoved another bite of cake into her mouth.

"Aren't you going to class tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I am. I guess I should be in bed, huh?"

Yoriko smiled as she shifted onto her feet, taking the cake with her. "I put this back in the fridge, then," she said, reaching for Touka's fork. The dark haired girl let her take it, watching her as she slipped quietly from the room. "Sweet dreams, Touka,"

"'Night, Yoriko," Touka said softly, the first real smile of the past week pulling at the corner of her lips.

She watched her best friend leave, closing the door behind her. Touka immediately sighed, leaning sideways against the mattress and propping her arm up against the end of it. In the almost complete darkness, she could see mainly outlines of things, a few small objects coming into detail within her gaze. The book that she'd been reading earlier was the clearest - the thin, neat copy of Romeo and Juliet sat, a slim highlighter holding her place in the page.

Ayato still snored on blissfully.

Touka was fond of her life now. She liked her major, even if it was difficult, because the challenge excited her. There weren't many things she'd been good at academically as a child, but science was one of them. She liked her apartment, because it was cozy and warm and her's (and Yoriko's, but still). She liked her peers, because they were too busy and frazzled enough for her to hide in plain sight. She liked her best friend, because she was consistent and forgiving and kind enough to break her heart.

Touka grimaced to herself. It didn't feel good to acknowledge that once she was gone, leaving all of this behind would hurt. Badly.

"My fault," she murmured to herself, shrugging slightly. It was difficult, standing, but she managed. Touka headed towards her closet to pull out her second comforter. She'd already showered and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Because, really, it was her fault. And it wasn't like she could have seen the ramifications of her actions the second she'd seen the woman with the violet hair take aim at Kaneki. Her own life wasn't just the only one she'd carelessly decided to toss away. Ayato was settled now. He had friends, or at least peers who knew and respected him. He had a routine, a familiarity with this city and his life around it. He was healthy. He was at home - he'd probably worked twice as hard to build a life here than she had.

Touka leaned against the door frame of her closet and swallowed thickly, spreading her hand over the wall and reaching awkwardly for the light switch.

The documents would be ready by tomorrow. A new life and a new identity for both her brother and her. Itori is never busy at Helter Skelter early in the afternoon, so she would pay her a visit to the safe at the other apartment before coming to collect her papers. The process wouldn't take too long if she figured out everything first, before moving. She wondered how Yoriko would be able to pay the rent after she was gone. Was she going to get another roommate? Or-?

The sound of muted footsteps against carpet- heavy, booted footsteps, made her flinch.

But the sound disappeared all too quickly, as if she'd imagined it. The dark haired girl froze for several moments, waiting to hear the noise again. Her lungs had found their way into her intestines at the moment.

Again, the awkward shuffle of boots, nearly silent, as if a misstep in the overall direction, made her jerk in thin terror. Touka was moving then, sliding onto her knees in the carpet and quietly pulling out a shoe box hidden on the floor of her closet, situated underneath other shoe boxes filled with files. She opened the small cardboard box to reveal a hand-held tranquilizer gun, fully loaded. The sight of the silencer already attached to the end reminded her of her laziness from the month before.

Touka scowled grimly, sickeningly grateful. She was glad she'd never bothered to take apart the weapon the last time she'd inspected it - there would be no way to attach the silencer now.

Can't reload either, she thought grimly.

As silent as a ghost, Touka made her way towards the door of her bedroom, quick and careful footsteps. She pressed her ear to the door, and again, the shuffling became more distinct. She grit her teeth.

They were down the hall, towards the living room. Where Yoriko's room was.

Her door thankfully didn't creak as she opened it, tranquilizer gun sticking out first. From the very small crack she'd made with the opening, she couldn't see anyone, although the shuffling did become louder. Touka raised her weapon higher, pushing the door further open and focusing her aim as the blood began to rush in her ears.

The sound of a muffled, stuffy moan that could only come from her best friend pushed her forward.

Touka encountered the first one as he rounded the corner, jovially walking down the hall and undoubtedly scuffing the wood with his ugly black boots. She shot the tall, well-built man directly in the chest, and he went down. The muted thud brought an immediate silence all around, before the noises got more distinct. Yoriko's room door opened, and a hand reached out.

She shot this one in the arm, and he fell lazily over his comrade, an almost dramatic flopping of limbs and weightlessness as he fumbled to the floor.

And without preamble, she was sprinting, breathing hard and heavy.

Touka leaped over the fallen bodies as she entered Yoriko's room, which was slightly disturbed from the slight footprints on her cream carpeting. She laid half slumped over the bed, her upper body leaning over the side helplessly. A small puncture wound at her jugular was visible, the small mark beginning to slightly bleed. The bead of blood ran up her chin, towards her face.

Once she reached her, Touka dropped her tranquilizer gun and wiped away the blood on her friends face. With her one arm, she managed to shuffle the honey blonde back into her bed, gritting her teeth at the exertion. Once she'd managed, breathing hard and heavy, Touka picked up her weapon once more and watched her friend breathe too deep and too slow, curled up on one side.

The panic was starting to swell up in her throat, but she pushed it away, heading out of the room. There was a perimeter to secure, and-

The sound of gurgling had Touka sprinting back towards her room, this time stumbling slightly over the arm of one of the men she'd felled. Scrambling, she made it down the end of the short hallway and yanked her bedroom door open-

Ayato stood on her mattress, twirling a kitchen knife in his hands as she stared down at the body beneath him. The whole of her bed was beginning to be stained a bright, eye-catching red, a splash of life against the cool monotones and darkness of her room. He looked up, dark hair mussed, with sharp calculation.

"Oops," he drawled sarcastically, looking up to meet her gaze. He stilled the knife in his hand.

Touka sighed, bending over and placing a hand on one knee as she let out a breath she didn't realize she wasn't holding. The panic seemed to burst and simmer down all at once inside of her chest. Her little brother was covered in blood, none of it his own. The room was beginning to smell thickly of it, and every new inhalation seemed to clog her throat.

"Nee-san?" he called out, a question in his voice.

"Just...just bring me my phone," Touka ordered breathlessly.

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Calling: Kaneki Ken

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Touka sat on her desk with slumped shoulders as she watched two masked men she did not know begin to haul her bare mattress out of her room. There was a small, quiet, yet very visible commotion going on outside of her room, and at the moment she didn't want to be in the midst of it.

The tranquilizer gun sat on her right thigh placidly, as innocuous as a notebook. Still within reach.

"How are you?" Kaneki asked.

It hadn't taken the One Eyed King to arrive at her apartment with a slew of people she couldn't really recognize through their masks, Yomo standing at sharp relief to Kaneki's immediate left. She'd let them all in placidly, Ayato sitting bored on the couch in his fresh (bloodless) clothes. She'd left the passed out intruders where she'd shot them, and then promptly went back inside of her room.

Of course, her intention had been to sleep then, having already forgotten the mess that her brother had made of her bed. But again, she saw the fresh body laying out before her, slit throat curved into an odd, second mouth smiling and bearing flesh. The sight was so draining, all she could do was walk over her her desk and slip onto it, knocking over her stapler and two highlighters. She'd stared at the walls around her mutely, and no one really had the gall to directly address her.

Never had she craved sleep like this before.

Touka shrugged, turning to meet his gaze. His mask was awful, an odd, horrific smile of bared teeth. "Tired," she said honestly.

His eye crinkles, and she can tell his smile is apologetic. "I understand," he replied. The sleep is still thick in his own voice. "I'm sorry."

She wants to tell him to shut up, but can't find the energy for it. She can only manage to shake her head and watch as her mattress full disappears from the room. They leave the door wide open, but now alone, she still feels a shade nervous at being alone with the yakuza member before her and she isn't really sure why.

"We'll take the ones left alive to interrogation and see what we can find out," Kaneki murmured, shrugging off offhandedly. It was as if he were moving through a protocol run. His black haori flowed with every soft movement he made. "I had a blood sample drawn from your friend to see what she was injected with - certain operations use specific tranquilizing agents that could immediately identify them. Four scouts are looking through the immediate area. We'll secure all entrances and post a guard once we're done here."

There were too many words coming out of his mouth, and again, she wanted to tell him to shut up. A headache was beginning to pulse at the very nape of her neck.

"You can start packing now."

Touka blinked, eyes narrowing in focus. "For?"

Kaneki smiled. "You'll need a place to stay for the moment," he said purposefully, turning to leave her room. "We don't have a lot of time."

"And I'm guessing that'll be wherever you live," Touka drawled. A sneer began to twitch onto her face.

She could see him shrug again. "There's no one who can protect you better than I can," Kaneki said easily.

Something welled up in her throat, a discomfort that made her so upset at being bossed around so passively by the likes of him. As if he knew that she had no other choice. And she really didn't, of course. Whatever dangerous game she was trapped in now, she'd relinquished her control the minute she called him. Willingly. But it was still hard to hand over her metaphorical cards to a stranger and watch them make moves for her.

"Just like there's no one who puts me at greater risk," she shot back lowly, tossing her tranquilizer gun off her thigh and onto her desk as she slipped back onto her feet. He paused, turning around, seeing eye assessing her.

"You need to trust me, Touka-chan," Kaneki said softly.

"And that's hard."

He nodded. She thought he was about to say something, the slight shift in his mask at the mouth, but Nishiki was suddenly at the door with a slim briefcase in hand and a sleek snake mask obscuring his face. "Kaneki," he says, demanding, and immediately she knows he has to get back to work.

"I need a moment," Kaneki asks.

"We don't have a moment. Ichimi's found something."

Kaneki turns back to her with another apology surely at the tip of his tongue, but she holds up a hand. "Don't," she says pointedly. "I'll pack. You work."

He's slightly surprised at first, but also pleased. His laughter is soft, roughened with sleep and exhaustion as acute as her's. He leaves the room, and Nishiki follows, pointedly raising a brow at her as he follows his boss back out into the hall. Touka flips him off with her good hand and watches him flare in anger for a moment before he disappears from view.

Touka sighs, looking around hurriedly as her migraine began to pulse more acutely.

This was going to be awful.

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To: Itori
From: Touka

I'll come by later today to pick up everything I need. Around noon.

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Touka set her phone down in her lap as she stared out the windshield, the muted traffic in the dead of the night not as bright and not as loud as it should be. It was just past three in the morning. Some cities never really went to sleep, and for the moment, it seemed like neither would she.

Kaneki was beside her driving, looking oddly normal in his business suit and soft, expensive haori that fell over his slim shoulders. Out of a lack of anything better to do, she watched him drive, the grip on the steering wheel a shade too relaxed, leaning back against the seat and making lazy, practiced turns. A route he knew well. His eyes slipped back to her's every few moments, but she didn't really care. The midnight black SUV was seemingly too large for his slim frame and short stature, but he seemed to maneuver it with practiced ease.

In the two backseats, her brother and Yoriko sat asleep next to each other, both seemingly comatose to the world. Every time she glanced back to check on her friend, her stomach began to cramp in guilt, so she forced herself to stop.

It was hard.

"Are you close?"

Touka blinked, turning from Yoriko to Kaneki. She met his gaze through the rear view mirror, the awful mask thankfully absent.

She knows he isn't talking about her brother. "She's my best friend," Touka replied quietly. To deflect, she pointedly turns the conversation. "What were you doing in the middle of the night?"

He frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"You picked up on the fifth ring," she said pointedly, deciding that it would be easier to look at the road. "You were up already."

His sigh is surprisingly shameful. "Readings," Kaneki mumbled.

Somehow, she smirks. "You're a student at Kamii," she says, without preamble. The car in front of them is going irritatingly slow, and she watched him switch lanes. "It's a big campus, but if I've never even heard of you before, then you're probably in the humanities. It was probably the first place you looked. "

"I'm a graduate student, actually," he said, grimacing. "Literature."

She nods. He doesn't look like he reads, but she ignores this.

"How normal of you," Touka drawled, leaning her head back and letting her eyes flutter close.

A apart of her wanted to reply more sarcastically, wanted to be callous for the sake of it, because there will be nothing normal about a man who kills people for money. But she'd already decided she can be as callous as she wants in the morning, when they'll both have more energy to deal with everything. And each other.

He's quiet after that though, because there's nothing really more to say.

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His home is large and expensive. Modern, with the large window that situates on the living room, covered by dark curtains. The lights are on inside, and soft yellow spills from the space between the two sheets of fabric. Touka eyes the second garage beginning to close as they pull into the driveway as she unbuckles herself.

Kaneki steps out of the car, suit and all, and Touka follows him. She opens the door to the back, reaching forward to shake her younger brother awake. He jerks, hand clasping down over her own on his chest, and the wide blue eyes drooping as he registers her face. From beside him, Kaneki carefully unbuckles Yoriko and carries her into his arms.

They don't bother bringing the duffle bags from the back. They head straight towards the front door, and Touka craves a bed. Touka has to slip in front of Kaneki quickly to open the front door for him, left unlocked.

It a short exchange of opening the front door, the small group of his employees gathered in the living room, collectively leaning over a tablet and swiping through several pictures that she can't quite make out from her distance. She ignores them though, because Kaneki is already leading her and her and Ayato further into the home. She wonders how some place so big can fit inside such a cramped city when he takes her down a wooden hallway. Yoriko is deposited on a bed in one room, and right across, Ayato is led to another. Touka watches for a moment as her brother stumbles sleepily towards the bed before closing the door behind him.

The circles under his eyes are almost as dark as her's, she thinks.

Kaneki leads her back down another hallway, a rounding corner, towards another door. He opens it, and this guest room is less sparsely decorated than the last two. She notes the studying desk placed neatly towards the side of the room, office supplies taking up much of it's space.

"If you need to work," Kaneki says, shrugging.

Touka scowls.

He sighs with a chagrined smile, but doesn't take long to amend himself. "My room is two doors down to the left," he says quietly. "If you need anything, feel free to tell me."

To keep any eye on her, she knows. He'd be an idiot if he didn't go out of his way to, because between her brother and her, she's leagues more cunning.

It seemed like he didn't quite trust her yet either.

She allows it though. "Are you going to finish your work?" Touka asks casually, stepping further into the room. It's a blue color scheme, dark sheets and light walls. "If you have class tomorrow, it would be awful to just stay up."

"Not until the afternoon, so I have a few more hours," Kaneki says hopefully.

She nods, then turns, poking him sharply in the chest. It flusters him instantly, and he's backing away from her sudden advance towards him, taking several steps back over the threshold of the doorway. "Work hard, Kaneki Ken," Touka says dully.

"Eh- um, sleep well, Touka-chan," he replies, looking mildly distressed.

She's already closing the door in his face, so she takes none of it to heed. He's intimidated, she realizes slowly, through her tired fog of logic. He's quite intimidated by her. It's intriguing, but she sets the small revelation aside as she stares at her new, inviting bed.

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A/N: Wow? It's really been a year? I'm really a whole different person? I hope you are to? Or not, if you liked who you were last year.

Anyway, life happened. I'm so so sorry. But the good news is, summer is coming close. About a month of school left, so expect the next update in May. I'm still not sure if I really like what I'm writing so far, or what I've written before. I was initially convinced that this would be a Kuroneki Kaneki but with Shironeki tendencies as a sort of...blend between the two? And now I'm just like hmm paa-kaa's original idea was way more fun. This is so not gonna be fun. Just like how once I wake up back from this nap, I'll have to go back and re-edit the errors. Totally not fun. But necessary. I've been up since 3:40 ish for no reason.

Also, I'm about twenty chapters behind so no spoilers in the reviews pleathe. I beg of you. Hopefully by the next chapter I'll have finished planning out the course for this fic. Until then loves.