Averment

The cube-shaped room he was in was bigger than many of the others despite its meager offerings. It had a private bathroom next to it, and Tsukiyama had even managed to pilfer (Kaneki didn't see him getting it legitimately) a queen-sized bed for the two of them. He wasn't one to be cynical or even ungrateful for his friends' gifts, but the water pipe above him pulled him back to his brooding.

Kaneki sat on the bed and leaned his back against the concrete wall. He felt he had to catch his breath, even though he had come nowhere near exerting himself that day. Wedding festivities had an odd way of doing that—driving a man toward different emotions and mental barriers he never even knew he possessed. It was fun, Kaneki thought. Not necessarily my idea of fun, but it made the others and Touka happy and that's what matters.

But like many things in his life, Kaneki could find the negatives hidden underneath, like excavating an old grave.

Seeing Yomo reach a rather outlandish mood earlier started to get Kaneki to think about how paltry his current knowledge of some things was. His own friends had actual personalities, after all, but it seems he had forgotten that some time after they had all retreated underground. He had really only known danger and fear the last few years, to be honest; his days as Sasaki had involved some pleasant escapades, to be sure, but they had never really developed into anything as permanent as he felt now. The celebration had awakened him, it would seem, as if he was finally able to get his bearings after the smoke lifted. And he saw something, something between the smudge and shadows that had accumulated after the battles and tragedy of his hasty decisions, something he hadn't been expecting: joy.

Do I really believe I deserve something like that? No, I don't think I do. But I sure as hell appreciate it.

He didn't really understand his friends.

He liked them, really cherished them, but there was still so much about them he wasn't certain about. It was as if humans were concealed beings, only revealing themselves slowly and deliberately for years at a time until they died and still left numerous unanswered questions afterwards. Maybe that thought excited some people. Maybe they could see the opportunities in it, but Kaneki only felt dejected by it, detached from the warm feelings friendship should have brought. He was fighting for all their lives, but was it in vain? Did any of it really matter?

A delicate drop of brown water dripped from the pipe, splashing into a puddle near the edge of the room. The puddle was small and muddy. Kaneki wondered if he could ever really escape from his past decisions, if he could ever try to change what had already been done.

Hearing Touka in the bathroom adjacent to their little "honeymoon room" startled him from his thoughts. The doorknob clicked and she stepped out. She had washed off the make-up from the ceremony (something he suddenly wished he had thought of doing) and was wearing a purple nightgown. She nodded to him when she saw him staring at her.

"What is it?" she asked, slightly amused.

"Nothing. I'm just thinking." His eyes felt tempted to look back at the water pipe, but she would pounce on that pretty quickly. She would probably mention how easy it was for him to get distracted.

"Oh?" she said absently. She closed the door and sat next to him on the bed. She leaned into him and eyed him curiously. "About what?"

"Um, about how drunk Yomo got tonight…" He wasn't lying, but it still somehow stung his conscious.

She smiled pleasantly and sat up straight. "Yeah, it's rare to see him like that. You think you know a person and then they just surprise you with more later on, huh?"

Kaneki looked at her critically. How the hell did she get so close to his own thoughts so quickly? Maybe this was what marriage was like. But it was supposed to take longer than that, right?

"I guess," he said scratching his chin with a bemused expression.

Touka pointed at him. "That's it."

"Huh?"

"That look. That's your brooding look, the one that makes me feel cut off."

"Oh. Sorry." Kaneki certainly didn't want to exclude his new wife, but he couldn't help it. He had never been a man of words, more a reader of them. There were many things he wanted to say to people, especially Touka, but it was difficult to elaborate when he was thinking about too much at once, which was often. Maybe it was time to change that.

She folded her arms. "I sure wish you'd talk to me."

Kaneki's lips thinned, stretching tightly. "Says the girl who didn't tell me she was pregnant for weeks."

He had been expecting some biting reply from her, but she merely lowered her eyelids and sighed. Maybe the wedding had calmed her normal tendencies a bit. "I tried to tell you, but you're too damn clueless for your own good. Fine, we're both terrible communicators. Agreed?"

Kaneki chuckled at that. "Yeah, sure. I don't think we need to agree on it, though."

"Gotta find common ground somewhere." She paused and seemed to think about what she was going to say next. "Are you worried about the expedition on the 21st? Is that what's bugging you?"

To be honest, he had barely thought about it that day. His attention had been on her during the whole ceremony. Within his intense cycle of uncertainties, his feelings for Touka were not one of them. "Not really."

"Was it about how distant you feel from everyone?" she asked bluntly.

And there it was. She saw right through him. He'd be lying if he said he didn't find it attractive. "Yeah, a little. I mean, I'm kind of the odd one out here."

"And that's why you're the king." She smiled ardently. "The ghouls look up to you, because you understand them, you know."

"And you look at me because...?" He realized he had never really asked her why she loved him. Her prickly attitude often detracted him from fully perceiving her personal feelings, even when she was directly relaying them.

"Does there have to be only one reason?" she asked.

That stumped him. He ran a hand through his white locks, lost in the simple question. It seems as much as he tended to embroil his circumstances, Touka tended to simplify her own. "No, I guess not. But are you satisfied with them? Like, can you really say that after looking at everything I've done and said, you can still accept who I am and what I'm going to do? Even if you say yes, I'm not sure I can just understand that."

Touka sighed and reclined her head on his shoulders. It was a gesture that made him flush (even more than a kiss would) because it reminded him, despite how straightforward she could be, she was actually quite complex.

"Then don't," she said placidly. "You don't have to understand it. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm here and I want to be with you. It's not like I'm not aware of who you are. It's more like the more I realize about you and the more I see you struggling, the more I fall in love with you. You're not trying to put on a brave face and you're not getting angry at the wrong things; in fact, you make it a point to find the things we should be mad about. I like that. I like that because it means you care a lot. You care a lot about me and everybody else. How could I not love someone like that? How could I not wanna know more about a person like that?"

His brain immediately wanted to discern her words, to break down and analyze every possible meaning of them, but instead it just heard them. He didn't take long to respond: "I see."

Perhaps humanity was not supposed to understand the finer points of itself all at once. Maybe it was supposed to take time to unravel its mysteries. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong. I shouldn't just shove away what's good for me just because I'm not used to it.

"I am scared, though, Touka," he admitted after the silence between them seemed to thicken the air a little. "Scared for our friends, for all the ghouls...for our baby."

She wrapped her hand around his, stroking his fingers lovingly. "I am, too. But that's part of caring, I think. And that's a good thing."

He could get behind that. He shucked off his plated tribal-looking shirt and embraced her. He slipped under her nightgown and she allowed him to take her away, far away from any other fears and cares they shared.

Droplets fell into the puddle next to the bed. They didn't hear its rhythmic, foreign sound as it carelessly carried on. Their own feelings were stronger, wilder, and they crashed harsh against the rocks on the shore, eroding the barriers they had built to shield themselves. This is where they would really start—in this place of unadorned words and passion that couldn't be easily ignored.

And the last thing Kaneki thought about before he drifted off to the comforting pool of sleep was the fact he could at least know (and save) the one he was holding now.

I had been meaning for a while now to write a little TouxKen one-shot. I think they're probably one of my favorite fictional pairings. I knew I had wanted to write about their own feelings a little more directly than they do in canon (although that vagueness is something I really enjoy about the manga) so I figured the night after their wedding was a pretty good setting for that. Hopefully, I kept them somewhat in character and the dialogue seemed natural enough.

This little scene was fairly organic to write out, so I'll probably jot down some more one-shots with this pairing in the near future. Anyways, thanks for reading!

-CM