Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul :')

Though they'd certainly been off to a rough start, Kaneki and Rize had been happily dating for three months. As different as they were from one another, they had found enough common middle ground to make things work. And while neither of them sought to change the other, they'd been good influences on one another.

Most of their days were spent peacefully enough. They were actually pretty boring as far as couples went, choosing to spend much of their free time operating as a two person book club. Which basically meant they read and discussed a variety of morbid books while cuddling like the two losers in love they were.

However, today wasn't so peaceful. Rize was clearly agitated. Her rinkaku tails were out and waving around restlessly as she made a half-hearted attempt to read. Kaneki, well used to this phenomenon by now, fetched them both some coffee before broaching the subject.

"So," he began as Rize hummed into her cup, "Is everything alright?"

At Rize's flat look, he was quick to change his question, "I mean, what's bothering you?"

She sighed, blowing away the rising steam from her coffee. "Your friend."

Kaneki made a noise of understanding. These days, Hide seemed intent on bugging Rize. Probably as some childish revenge for stealing away Kaneki. "What did he do this time?"

"Oh you know," she grumbled, "He was just his usual, obnoxious self. Kept asking me questions and wanting to see my kagune."

"Sorry about that," Kaneki apologized wearily, "I'll have another talk with him."

"No, talking isn't going to get through to him," Rize declared, her eyes squinting as her mind raced, "What he needs is a distraction."

Sitting up from her sprawl, she leveled her boyfriend with a serious look as she solemnly concluded, "Your boyfriend needs his own boyfriend."

"My boyfriend?" Kaneki questioned, though he had to have known already. When Rize shot him a look, he was quick to defend, "Hide's not my boyfrie-"

"He always gives you his jacket when you're cold," she cut him off.

"Yeah, but that's usually because I gave you my jacket," he grumbled.

She only raised her eyebrow at this, knowing she'd win this argument. "He shows up to walk you home from work every day and he takes you out to eat on the weekends."

"He's just worried about me," Kaneki argued, blushing.

"You have him saved in your phone as 'Bae' and some sappy love song as his ringtone," she pointed out.

"He did that! As a joke!" Kaneki had begun gesturing with his hands frantically as if that would help. It very much didn't.

"You two sleep in the same bed most of the time," she grounded out, growing increasingly frustrated at Kaneki's continued denials.

"That's what you're supposed to do at sleepovers." Kaneki knew he was fighting a losing battle. But his whole life was a losing battle and Kaneki clearly hadn't stopped fighting that either.

"Damnit, Kaneki," she threw her hands in the air in exasperation, "He goes on dates with us. And he has the balls to treat me like I'm the third wheel!"

Kaneki was quiet at this and let out a sigh of surrender. As much as he loved his best friend, even he was miffed by his third wheelin' ways.

"Look," Rize offered, "I understand that you two are close. Like practically conjoined. I just want a little more you and me time without –"

Unfortunately, she was cut off midsentence by an exuberant shout and rapid knocking at Kaneki's door. Of course it was Hide. It was always Hide.

"As I was saying," she waved at the door and shot her boyfriend a look.

"My boyfriend needs a boyfriend," he finally agreed before he went to reluctantly let his friend in if only to stop him from breaking his door.

A/N: Hi! This is just something small I wrote to test the waters in the TG fandom. You can also find this on ao3 under my pen name TheLovers.

Reviews of all types are welcome, so please let me know what you think. Even if it's just a ":)" or a ":(", I will greatly appreciate any feedback.

Thank you for reading this! I hope you have a wonderful day :D

Dotti3~