#Just another way in which Kaneki fucked over Yoshimura and anteiku

[javaghoul]

do you have any fun headcanons for how Shironeki and the gang would react if he was casually listening to Shuu and Banjou argue on a bridge, when suddenly they hear a thud instead of a splash and the gas mask triplets start freaking out, so he turns around and discovers that while they were arguing about ketchup on fries they had accidentally killed an innocent elderly man with a large rock while throwing them off the bridge for fun?

I hope this isn’t too incomprehensible

not Headcanons, but enjoy this masterpiece.

A dull thud punctuated the night.

The group went silent, each trying to determine where the sound came from and what it was. Then they smelt blood.

Jiro took off her gas mask, and, leaning over the railing peered into the darkness. Almost immediately she spun back around facing the others and whispered, "There's someone lying on the ground!"

She raced towards the path, quickly followed by a confused Banjou and a no-longer smiling Kaneki. Shuu folded his arms, rolled his eyes, and followed at a leisurely pace.

He was never going to run after a gas mask.

When they reached the path under the bridge, they all stood in horror at what they saw. An elderly man lay face-down and spread-eagled, with blood pooling around his head. One could say, it was an UNHEALTHY amount of blood pooling around his head. His fedora hat lay a few feet away.

Banjou began to shake. "Di-did we kill him? That was us wasn't it? Throwing rocks? Oh my God, I didn't know anyone was there!"

Kaneki crouched down and checked for a pulse. The man was indeed very dead.

Kaneki closed his eyes briefly, either in prayer or annoyance, before sighing and standing up.

"He's dead... I told you guys to be careful."

Banjou and his minions started defending themselves immediately, stumbling over words.

Shuu looked vaguely amused.

"It appears aim is another of Banjoi's talents. Bravo Banjou, most people would only be able to hit the vast river they were standing directly above," smirked Shuu. Banjous' face flushed.

"It was an accident!"

Kaneki looked around. They were alone, thankfully.

"We can't just leave him in the path."

"Let's throw him into the river!"

"No, idiot, the body will float."

"We could eat him?"

Silence descended as they all looked at each other before turning their attention back to the corpse. Eating him wasn't a bad idea...

"Well, I shan't be eating him; I would never eat road kill," Shuu huffed.

The gas masks, Kaneki, and Banjou all laughed merrily at Shuu's silliness, before dragging the old man under the cover of some conveniently placed trees so that they could dismember him in private. Ichimi made a tasteless joke about 'old man with ketchup', which made them all chuckle. Even Kaneki couldn't suppress a smile.

The next morning, a runner noticed a fedora hat bobbing in the river, before running through a dark substance which looked like a large amount of coagulating blood. She never reported it, because she needed to get to work and people are inherently selfish.

The End.

[tg-headcanons]

I see Kaneki being close to Ayato like- he sees him as a younger brother. So I’m wondering if Hide gets to meet him and if so, what will be their friendship will be?

The emo kid!

One day Touka and Yomo just say “fuck it we’re getting our bastard back” and Drag Ayato to anteiku kicking and screaming

When away from Aogiri and not backed by other ghouls, he’s easy to keep contained since his rc type is built for speed rather than strength. While everyone is figuring out what to do with him, Kaneki is the first to notice that the boy is too on edge even for a captured ghoul. Turns out that hanging around war criminals who believe that any comfort is weakness wasn’t great for Ayato when he was a young and impressionable preteen, and neither he nor anyone else was taking care of him. He’s been avoiding kagune cuddles, not keeping himself clean enough, and has been pushing himself through overstimulating environments since he doesn’t want to look weak. The gang ends up getting him to shower, eat something, and wrestles him into the cuddle pile to get him to agree to stay an anteiku for now

It’s weird for him. He’s not used to feeling safe or comfortable after spending so much time as a homeless child soldier. He had planned on bolting once he got the chance, but between the warm bed in the room of his own, a place to shower with products that didn’t smell so strong, and the environment geared towards making ghouls feel safe, he couldn’t bring himself to. He agrees to stay on the condition that no one goes in his room, his goal was to sound like this was an even negotiation when really he did want to come back and feel safe and have a family again, but feared that saying it would make them lose respect for him

Kaneki starts out too scared of Ayato to be in a room alone with him, but after watching the kid struggle to calm down after loud noises and try to mask clear panic attacks with anger, he decides to help him. He gifts Ayato a cheap pair of noise cancelling headphones and an old iPod touch, and the boy almost cries at having something that can Block Out The Bad Sounds. After that he opened up more to Kaneki, holding him in the same category of loyalty as his biological family

He agrees to let Kaneki bring him in on the early morning Coffee+reading lessons he does with Hinami. He was extremely frustrated at being so far behind her in reading ability which translated to anger. They two had a small fight which ended in the girl simply holding him with her rinkaku until someone came to break it up. After learning that she is a chimera who can rock his shit If she so pleases he respects her a bit more. She becomes like another sister to him and he lets her teach him how to read better

He’d seen Hide around and assumed he was a ghoul since he smelled so strongly of ghoul. Turns out that’s just from Kaneki rubbing off on him a lot, and once Ayato learned that he was human he was entirely ready to kill him until physically stopped by his sister and Ken. He begrudgingly allows the human to live but doesn’t trust him

Unsurprisingly, starting puberty surrounded by war criminals who didn’t care about him wasn’t good. Hide was over at Anteiku the day one of Ayato’s heats started, and rather than staying in bed like a normal person he had wobbled his way to downstairs to work. Hide ushered him upstairs to explain that he’s not sick, what’s happening to him is totally normal for a ghoul his age and okay, and there’s nothing wrong with taking time to rest and recover. It was the first he heard of it being natural and not some sickness he needed to work through, so he’s decided to trust the human

He opens up gradually. First it’s the physical affection required of him to keep himself from entering My Pack Is Dead And I Must Kill mode, then talking to people on purpose, and finally actually caring out these people. It was hard for him to accept that he really is a child who should have been looked after, but he had to. He finally apologized to his family and Yoshimura from running away as a kid

Once he’s more open Hide talks to him more. They both tease Kaneki together and share music recommendations. Sometimes their talks can be quite helpful, such as the time Ayato was making fun of Hide for being gay and was told “I saw you googling ‘boys kissing’ earlier.” He’s been diagnosed with fruit and coached through it until he could understand that he doesn’t have to be the flamboyant stereotype he thought all gay people were and that he’s been in the closet due to sheer ignorance for a while now

After a while he’s doing better. Healthier, more stable, and with better relationships. Now when he mocks someone there’s no threat behind it. He’s been given the chance to act his age and be a kid, so he’ll take it

[toukaisbetterthanyou]

Capricious (Part 1 of 2)

(AO3)

Authors: Mod A (Tanagers) and Mod K (fangirlingforeverz)

Ratings: T (for now, the next chapter won’t be)

Word count: 4,955 words

Summary: In which, Touka is not content to sit on the sidelines waiting for Ken to visit her. (Post-aogiri AU, where Touka joins up with Ken’s group.)

Notes: You can blame Mod A for us breaking this fic into parts. I wanted to post the entire thing, but she was like, you know what’s better than giving them the entire thing? Breaking it into parts.

--

He’s leaving again.

Touka can see it -- his back, turned away from her as he speaks to the others.  There’s a pain in her chest, and then pressure. Constant pressure, that seems to build and build. What is that pounding sound? Is it her heart? She touches it, only to feel it racing. Her chest tightens, as though a thin wire had been pulled taut around the organ. He speaks softly, first to Banjou, the idiot who had mistaken her for her brother, and fucking Tsukiyama, who he is allowing to come with him as well. Fucking Tsukiyama, of all people! Had he forgotten that he had tried to kill him -- that he was probably still trying to kill him? He’d stab him in the back the first chance that he got.

Why couldn’t she say anything?

Her hands clench and unclench tightly, and she can feel her nails digging into the skin of her palms. God, it’s happening again isn’t it? Someone was about to leave again -- after promising her that they wouldn’t.

She can’t let that happen.

“K-Kaneki,” she forces her mouth to move, even though she’s sure that her voice is trembling pathetically. “I also --” she licks her lips, raising her eyes towards his. “I also want to go with you --”

“Touka-chan,” he cuts in swiftly in that soft, but firm voice of his. She knows what he’s about to say before he even says it. “Aren’t you going to college?”

No.

“Huh?” She asks, bewildered. Suddenly, it’s even more hard to breathe. This had happened before. First, her mother had looked back at she, Ayato, and her father as they ran, promising that she would return shortly after dispatching a dove. Next, she thinks of her father, always smiling so gently at them but hiding a simmering madness behind that soft demeanor. He had promised to return too.

And Ayato -- who had called her weak before taking off in the middle of the night.

Somehow, Kaneki resembled all of them at this moment. Their images all melding into one in front of her.

His eyes are soft and bright, a steady contrast to his gaunt face and lithe frame. He looks as though he were on high alert, like his body had not forgotten, will never forget what he endured in Aogiri. She recognizes the same tightly controlled madness that had also bubbled inside of her father. She had been too young to understand it back then.

Maybe -- he was trying to protect her.

Her father had tried too, in his own way; and he had failed.

Touka  wants to reach out and tell him that it was okay. That it wasn’t his fault -- he could be himself again and that she -- they can help him get better. Her words are clogged in her throat, threatening to spill from the maddening worry that he was going to leave if she didn’t do something.

“Touka-chan likes school, right? And you’ve wanted to go to college,” he keeps speaking, as though his words would make this any less painful. “I can’t ask you to come with me.” His eyes are downcast now, like he was hiding.

There’s a thousand different thoughts swirling in her head right now -- different images all merging into one, single moment. She’s being left behind again, she realizes. In an instant, she’s a child again, alone and carrying her sleeping brother as she struggles to hold back her own tears. It’d been cold that night, and somehow she can feel the chill from them seeping into her clothes.

He’s still speaking, but she can’t hear him. Her legs feel restless, ready to spring and run as far away from here as she can possibly get. They twitch.

No.

She can’t listen to this anymore. Her eyes are already starting to blur, her throat starting to tickle, as though she were about to choke on a sob. He’s not even looking at her now, still smiling, like he hadn’t just lied to her and then stabbed her in the heart.

Touka runs.

--

Days turn into weeks, and then weeks into months until it had already been three months since he had left.

Hinami goes off to him, and she expects him to send the girl back, but he doesn’t, which stings even more. Hinami had been allowed to join him, but not her. She’s boiling mad when Hinami calls her, telling her about what had happened.

“I can’t tell you where I am,” Hinami says, sounding apologetic. “I’m sorry, onee-chan.”

She throws her phone at the wall after that, unable to control her temper. Liar. He was such a fucking liar!

--

Unlike what he had originally promised, he hadn’t come back to anteiku once. She hadn’t gotten so much as a phone call or a text message. Touka would have known, after all, after her anger at being abandoned had faded after that first month, she had sent him a text message. And then another.

None of them had been answered.

She doesn’t even think he opened them. The thought should solidify her thoughts on how he thought of her. His thoughtless actions should speak volumes, but she knew the pain well enough herself.

He was hiding himself and trying fruitlessly to protect her, even if it meant isolating her into her own corner, taking away the last vestiges of companionship she could have. If it meant easing her burdens, he would do it.

She wished he didn’t try so hard to make decisions for her.

With that in mind, she makes a couple of decisions of her own, having had enough.

--

“A break?” Yoriko asks her in a concerted manner during lunch. “But this is our final year, you know… Didn’t you want to go to Kamii?” There it was again.

“I did,” Touka answers quietly. “But my dad -- and my brother, they are both insistent that I go overseas. They miss me too much.” Her heart hurts at her own lie. If only. Yoriko, ever the sympathetic and gentle girl, nods in understanding.

“Promise me, we’ll keep in touch?”

Her heart is at her throat. I’m so sorry for lying to you, Yoriko.

“Promise.”

-- The conversation with Yoshimura is much easier and locating Kaneki’s whereabouts, which both Yomo and Yoshimura had been aware of from day one. They just didn’t feel like telling her. Or didn’t want to. That bothers her.

She’s being protected again.

Yomo was far more displeased than Yoshimura but he also knew that if Touka wishes to follow Kaneki into whatever hell he chooses, there was very little they could do to prevent her. “You’re your own person,” he says, “I just hope that you’ll be careful -- but you’ve never been an idiot,” she can hear the, unlike your brother in his words, and she smiles despite herself.

Sometimes, she feels like she can be an even bigger idiot.

“Thank you, Yomo-san.”

--

She’s annoyed to find that Ken’s den of operations isn’t even all that far from anteiku. It’s about one ward over -- a twenty minute drive from the coffee shop, meaning that he hadn’t even been all that far. She’s incensed. Twenty minutes away and he hadn’t come to visit once? Even after he had promised?

“Then again, he also promised that he’d stay,” she mutters wryly.

His base is located in a large, dilapidated looking building. There were signs on the outside, claiming that trespassers were forbidden and would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. She walks up to the door, turning the handle, only to find it locked. She supposes that made sense. If you were a secret ghoul organization trying to track down another ghoul organization in a city crawling with dove, you would want to keep a low profile.

At least this building looked ruined enough that no one would live there.

Touka readjusts the backpack on her shoulder before squeezing the door handle again. It doesn’t take much effort to break it, and it crumbles in her hand. She pushes the door and it gives way, creaking loudly.

It’s pitch black inside on the first floor, very much resembling an old and dust covered old office. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, and even then it’s hard to make anything out. She takes out her phone, turning on the flashlight before pointing it around to illuminate some of what is in front of her. There were cobweb covered office cubicles, and ceiling tiles hanging from the ceiling, about to snap and fall. She coughs from the pervasive layer of dust coating almost everything and pinches her nose.

Why was shitty Kaneki even staying in a place like this? Did he seriously have Hinami staying here as well?

She walks further inside and then feels her leg walk through what feels like wire, snapping from the slight force.

What the--

An alarm doesn’t sound -- not does anything come crashing through the ceiling to crush her, or slice through her like she imagined most booby traps doing. At least, that’s what they did in the video games that she sometimes played.

What she doesn’t expect is for a figure, all dressed in black to sneak up behind her. The person grabs her from behind, covering her mouth tightly -- hard enough that she’s sure her skin is going to bruise.

She’s immediately on the defense, it could be some idiot in Kaneki’s group, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t going to defend herself against whatever this was. The person -- was very adamant though, treating her like a threat and dragging her off into some corner, shuffling and dragging.

In her haste, she drops her flashlight, unable to free up herself from the person’s hold to retaliate in someway.

“Who are you?” The person’s voice is rough, but familiar. She can’t immediately place it, though. The person is taller than her, and strong as his other arm comes to wrap around her waist, pinning her in place against him. She doesn’t get a chance to answer him, and he applies more pressure to her mouth. “No screaming -- or I’ll snuff you out where you stand.”

He removes his hand from her lips, and she can hear the crack of a finger.

“I have to pluck anyone who’s a threat.” The man’s voice takes on a darker tone and she knows that she can’t just talk her way out of this. Had Ken gone and picked up a crazy helper?

She shifts in his grip and her backpack falls from her shoulders, it frees her up to release her kagune and shoot the crystal bullets right at them, which has them jump back and block with their own kagune. They were extremely quiet but she hears the slightest gasp before the sound of leather being pulled aside. “T-Touka-chan?”

She bends down to pick up her fallen flashlight, shining it right at him as she tries to calm herself down. This was Kaneki?! What had happened to him?

“Yeah it’s me, you idiot! That fucking hurt!” She couldn’t really fault him for going on the offense to protect his den of operations, knowing who he was going after, but the thought that he was going to hurt her really freaking hurt.

He holds a hand up to cover his eyes from the light’s glare and awkwardly coughs.

“I’m sorry, I - I didn’t know it was you.” An awkward silence falls upon them, not helped by the fact that there were still some bitterness leftover from their goodbye. “What are you doing here?”

How did she even find him? Had Hinami told her?

At his question, her anger returns no matter how much she told herself to remain calm and rational.

“Didn’t think I would find you, huh?” She laughs bitterly. “Seems as much, you practically told everyone where you were except me.”

She wondered if he was doing all this because he was trying to protect her or because he hates her.

“I’m sorry--”

She holds up a hand awkwardly. “Save it. Yoshimura-san told me where you were.” She moves the flashlight away to spare his eyes. “I came to join your group.”

What?

“Um. What?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, exactly as I said. I came to join you guys, withdrew myself from school and everything. Yomo-san told me to not do anything stupid and I’m still planning on going back to school. And to college too, but that can wait.”

He tenses and she doesn’t need the light to shine on him to be able to tell. He was taking this like some kind of personal tragedy. God, why was this guy so depressing and easy to read?

“Now are you gonna get me out of this dusty hellhole?! I think a spider was crawling up my leg.”

--

To say Ken was unhappy was putting it lightly, not like she gives a fuck. Grudgingly, he brings her further into the building, past some stairs that were concealed, by a tarp that lead downward into the basement of the building.

It was a far cry from how old and disgusting the upper floor of the building looked. Everything seemed new and pristine, as though it had been completely renovated. There was even working electricity. She whistles, “Some base you have here,” she notes, “I’m guessing Shittyama’s money is paying for all of this?”

Even Ken can’t hold back a chuckle at that and she smirks, walking beside him.

He sombers quickly, though. “You can stay here for the night,” he says, “But you should return tomorrow morning. I’m sure your school will let you return--” Her hand balls into a fist and it takes all of her restraint not to smash his face in. She hates it -- someone was always, always trying to make her decisions for her. Always trying to leave her behind. Enough of that.

“What did I just say?” She demands, “I’m joining and that’s that. Did you forget that I beat Tsukiyama? I’m stronger than him -- and you have Banjou -- the one who can’t even use his own damn kagune here with you!” And there was Hinami. That one stung the most. That he would allow Hinami to come, but not her. It couldn’t just be about protection, could it?

His eyes look pained, “Touka-chan--”

“I’ll track you down again,” she warns him, “So there’s no point in trying to get me to go back.”

--

Ken had fallen silent after their argument, wordlessly leading her into a large common area. Hinami is sitting on one of the couches, reading one of her books, but she freezes the moment that they enter the room. She turns, shocked, “Onee-chan?!”

She grins as the girl launches herself at her, and pulls her into a tight hug. Touka sighs. She had forgotten how much she missed the younger girl. After she had left, her small apartment had felt bigger, and nothing seemed to feel the emptiness that her absence had left behind. She had gotten used to the girl’s presence in the short amount of time that they had lived together. “Onii-chan let you come?”

Ken doesn’t answer her, and instead says, “You can stay in Hinami-chan’s room,” and then he turns on his heel and leaves. Hinami frowns, looking worried, and she knows that she can feel the tension between them.

Luckily, she doesn’t ask about it.

Hinami is all too excited to begin showing her around the base. She shows her to Tsukiyama’s room, and Touka playfully flips him the bird as she passes. He gapes, but she’s already moved on.

“This is just one of the bases that we operate from,” Hinami says, “We’re staying here for the month, and then moving back to one of our others,” she says, though Touka finds her thoughts drifting throughout the tour. They walk by Ken’s room, but it’s closed tightly, which Hinami comments is odd.

“Onii-chan usually reads with the door open around this time,” she says, worried. Touka’s lip curls into a barely restrained snarl. “It’s fine,” she says to the younger girl, “Keep showing me around. Did you say that there was a sparring room too?” She smiles, even though she’s burning inside.

His anger stings -- mostly because she doesn’t understand it. Did he really not want her around that much? Or was there something else going on here?

Would he ever just come right out and tell her what was wrong? She was tired of playing these guessing games with him, just as she was tired of him pushing her away. But she knew that going to his room now and trying to get answers from him would be fruitless.

So in the end, she just goes to the sparring room and shows Hinami some defensive techniques and the two of them play around with the yoga ball until they grow bored. Hinami helps her prepare coffee for the meeting that was supposed to occur and the two of them take back trays of steaming coffee mugs back to the living room where everyone was gathering.

Touka takes her seat right next to Ken as Hinami takes the chair opposite from the two of them.

He doesn’t look as displeased or saddened as he did in the beginning when she had shown up, and it didn’t matter if he was because nothing was going to get her to leave. She didn’t care if her presence upset him, until he tells her, to her face, that he doesn’t want her there, remain she would.

--

“Can we talk?”

He looks up from the files in front of him, his mug of coffee empty on the table and the room empty of everyone but the two of them. Hinami had already gone to bed and the others went off to wherever it is they go to continue their nonsense. Shuu had returned to his family’s home and promised that he would be over first thing in the morning.

“Sure,” He sounded uneasy. But he puts the file down and gives her his attention.

“Is something wrong?”Just like her to get straight to the point, when it bothered him in the beginning, he now appreciates and misses it when she wasn’t around.

That was only part of his problem with her.

“No,” He says unconvincingly, “Why would there be something wrong?” Her lips tighten, jaw hard from the obvious lie. “Because you’re acting like I kicked your puppy, is having me around so bad?”

He tries to laugh weakly, “No, it’s not I’ve just been tired, that’s all.”

‘I wouldn’t believe that even if you were a good liar, Kaneki. Tell me the truth.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “Do you have some kind of problem with me? Because you seem to have all these other people in your group, but didn’t even think of including me when I was the one that taught you how to fight.”

He exhales, looking utterly drained before the conversation even began. How was he still so bad at confrontations?

“I thought you wanted to go to college, that you wanted to graduate from high school. I couldn’t ask you to abandon all of that to come with me.” “Well I made that decision,” She snaps. “I wanted to come with you, because that’s my decision, I offered to in the first place. You have no right to tell me what I do and don’t want -- so don’t do that in the future.”

She was so tired of everyone treating her like she was made of glass or something. Like she hadn’t endured the harsh realities of the world early on as a child.

He looks even more displeased than when she had shown up and announced her intentions of joining his group, which pisses her off because it only meant that he was hiding the real reason from her.

She was driven to find out exactly what it was.

“Now if the matter is that you just don’t want me around you, then say it to my face. If you don’t want me around, then I’ll leave.”

He grows silent, refusing to answer and she sighs, disappointed. “All of this talk of taking down aogiri, and you’re still the same coward that you always were,” she’s satisfied when he flinches. She smirks, and then leaves him to his own devices, making her way back to Hinami’s room.

She had gotten the final say, but she still didn’t feel as though she had won.

--

They lie low for the next few days as Ken plans his next move. She learns from Hinami that they were currently looking for information on the ghoul restaurants.

“You mean the gourmets?” She asks as she brushes Hinami’s hair. “Wouldn’t Tsukiyama know about that?” Hinami doesn’t seem to have any more information. It seems as though Ken kept certain things from her, not that she could blame her. The idea of a gentle ghoul like Hinami being apart of this group at all still didn’t sit well with her, but at least Ken kept her away from the more dangerous missions.

Still, she’s beginning to grow somewhat stir crazy.

In her downtime, she takes to training in the sparring room. Ken tended to use it in the mornings to train Banjou, but it was normally empty in the afternoons. Fighting comes easily to her, clearing her head and working off some of the frustration that had building inside of her since she had gotten there. Ken hadn’t spoken much to her since their last conversation had turned out so poorly, and she didn’t have the faintest clue how to fix it.

There’s nothing to fix, she thinks to herself. He has no reason to make decisions for me. And if he can’t tell me that he doesn’t want me around himself, then I’m not going anywhere.

Besides, this team was filled with greenhorns who didn’t seem to know much of the ghoul world’s dark underbelly. Banjou and his two friends had been apart of aogiri, but it was clear that he had been nothing more than a grunt and Tsukiyama had connections and was a good fighter, but she also didn’t trust him. And then there was Hinami -- who could only contribute so much without endangering herself.

And Ken.

He seemed as though he were teetering on the edge of self-destruction, completely unrecognizable from the boy that she knew. Even though he was determined to throw himself into this world, there was still a lot that he didn’t understand.

She couldn’t leave him alone in good conscious.

Touka breathes deeply, allowing the familiar burning sensation in her eyes to spread as she activates her kakugan, and then her kagune. It was smaller than before, even since Ayato had nearly ripped out her kakuhou, but at least she could still summon it. She focuses on spreading it out, as far as it can go before she’s at her limit, and her muscles burn from the effort.

She doesn’t expect Ken to walk into the room.

He freezes when he sees her, and she’s almost surprised that he doesn’t walk back out.

“Your kagune…” he says quietly, more to himself, but she hears him. She sighs, before releasing it, letting it fade out of existence and closing her eyes. “It’s been a pain in the ass since --,” she pauses, catching herself. She didn’t want to mention that in front of him, especially when she remembers how he had looked after he had snatched her from the floor, just as Ayato was about to land the finishing blow.

“--since my last fight,” she says. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

Judging from the way his expression darkens, she can tell that he had already finished her train of thought in his head. That night on that rooftop, she was sure the only thing stopping him from killing Ayato was the fact that he was her little brother and nothing else.

She didn’t even want to think what happened after she passed out.

“Training rooms big enough for both of us, so don’t just run off.” He was bandaging up his knuckles, smiling as he heard her cheeky retort. “I’m not going anywhere,” He answers softly, “I was actually thinking if you wanted to spar.”

Her eyes widen. Spar?

A wry smile crosses her lips. “Like old times?” He nods, “No kagune, just regular fists and kicks.”

She grins outright, bright and blinding -- he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look like that. It made his chest squeeze at the thought that he was the one responsible for that smile on her face. “Fine! You’re on.”

They get on opposite sides, standing in defensive positions. She smirks, “Don’t go easy on me, just because you’ve gotten a little better.”

He smiles, sliding his hoodie off, leaving him in a tank top that showed off his wiry build and newly acquired biceps.

This was not the Kaneki she remembers, she has to tear her eyes away from the rippling muscles and the way he stands with so much confidence.

What the hell had happened in the last 3 months?!

“Ready?” She shakes her head, thinking of a quick strategy to knock him right back on his ass so he can see that she hasn’t gotten rusty at all.

"I'm curious to see how much better you've gotten," she can’t help herself from goading him. She feels hopeful -- it was the first time that he had approached her since she had gotten here. Perhaps he had finally taken the stick out of his ass about her joining? He smiles and sinks into a defensive stance. His eyes are the warmest that she’s seen them be in some time. "I've learned a lot," he warns playfully. She snorts, "And who taught you?"

"You did," he answers softly, "and the rest I learned from books." She rolls her eyes but not unkindly. He was always going on and on about his books so she was glad that he had gotten some help from them. They both begin sparring, matching each other's hits and defenses perfectly. It was just like before, how easily they seemed to fall back into sync with each other. He was right about getting better, but she’s still able to anticipate most of his jabs and kicks. He always tended to favor his right side, kicking and punching using those hands, so it’s not hard to block his attacks. Together, they were like a well oiled machine, knowing what the other was going to do before they even did it.

It was exhilarating. "You finally learned to take the offense," she compliments, genuinely impressed.

"But you're still holding back, don't do that." They pant from exertion. They weren't using their kagune but just physical practice alone was enough to get them breaking out into a sweat. "I-I'm not,�� He insists,  “we're just sparring, I don't want to hurt you." She frowns, there it was again, his stupid ass excuses, The same excuse she’s gotten before just worded differently. This idiot was really concerned that he was going to hurt her. It annoys her so much, to hear this from shitty Kaneki of all people. "I don't need you treating me so gently. You can get rough, treat this like a real battle. Like I’m really going to kill you, defend your life." Then she pounces on him.

He's caught off guard for a moment, gasping as he feels his back and ass hit the ground as she straddles him and pins his wrists down to the ground. He breathes heavily while she smirks down at him, proud of herself.

That would show him -- "See?" Touka says with a hiss, "That's what you get for underestimating me," she hates it when people do that, but sometimes, she uses it as an advantage. Being underestimated meant there was more chances to win. Lord knows she had used it against her opponents when she was younger and weaker. "Yield," she encourages, squeezing his wrists, but she doesn't expect Ken to suddenly turn the tables, pinning her down by pushing her face first to the floor, and twisting her arm behind her back. She yelps in pain, as Ken leans down, not letting up. He whispers into her ear. "Satisfied?" She blinks -- had his voice always sounded that deep?

She freezes up, feeling his hips pressed against her ass. Somehow this was feeling way too different for a normal training session. "That's a dirty move," she tries to joke. But it definitely doesn't feel like a joke when her thighs feels so shaky and he was completely pressed against her. She’s not prepared for the way that her body reacts to his proximity. She feels hotter, suddenly more light headed as she tries to process what’s happening.

This is silly. She had been this close to him before and had never had this kind of reaction.

“We’re fighting for our lives now, aren’t we?” Ken asks, and then he releases her with a smile. “I’m sure you told me to treat this like that,” he stands, and she doesn’t have the presence of mind to turn the tables around on him. She simply lies on the ground, trying to will her racing heart to calm.

Well, fuck.

She had long since acknowledged that she felt something more than friendship for this self-sacrificial idiot, but knowing that he had such a physical effect on her was unnerving. He didn’t even know what kind of power he had, did he?

“Touka-chan?”

“I-I’m fine,” she says quickly as she stands. She rubs her chest in irritation. “So yeah, I guess you got a little better.”

He laughs.

[breakfast-at-anteiku]

THIS IS BY FAR MY MOST FAVORITE CHAPTER THIS YEAR. Akira. Akira and Kaneki. Amon and Touka (!!!!), AYATO AND HINAMI (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dying and I’m dead-

[Warning: TG:re 117 spoilers, long-ass post, Akiramon spazzing] [My AyaHina spazzing got so real I had to put it in another post]

x A GOLDEN EYEPATCH. How on the nose, Ishida-sensei. He’s the One Eyed King. We Get It (c). lmao

x I MISSED YOU MOM. Gundammit Akira is so beautiful gahhhh. x Also, when I saw this, my first thought >> shit is about to hit the fan.

x Kaneki in glasses. I am such a little whore for Kaneki in glasses.

x Kaneki being rejected by “Mom”. This hurts me so much, especially since Kaneki has abuse and neglect issues with his real mother, as well as that twisted thing he has with Rize, another “mother” of his so to speak. Akira was the mother figure he had a more positive relationship with and I’m sad - though completely unsurprised - to see this turn in their relationship. I hope they pull through.

x OH Kaneki. You’re a hypocrite, but you’re sweet.

x I simultaneously love and hate this. On the one hand, one interaction I’ve been dying to see ever since Akira was introduced was her meeting with Hinami. Also, I think it would be beautiful to see them put aside their differences and see each other as more than their polar opposite.

But at the same time, I’m a little pissed at Kaneki? I know that he loves Akira a lot but at the same time he’s going to end up putting the burden of saving Akira on Hinami full knowing about Hinami’s trauma. Of course, narrative-wise, they’ll probably end up in better terms, but I can’t stand Hinami being hurt. I’m a Hinami stan, that is all. 

I guess I’m most annoyed at the fact that Kaneki hasn’t really had any on-panel interaction with Hinami after they split up at Cochlea, and now he’s putting quite the burden on her. Maybe this opens up a way for them to have a conversation though.

Well, I love it more than I hate it I guess

x SCMREEMAMING

x Honestly, Ishida is cruel. He can’t draw Akira with her hair down, Kaneki with glasses, Ayato’s exquisite bone structure, Hinami’s fuwafuwa cuteness, and Amon’s sexy clavicles in one chapter????? It’s not fair??? Oh dios mio. My ovaries. He can’t get any more cruel-

x OHMYGOD TOUKA. My goddess. That’s it. It’s over. I need new ovaries.

x Getting back on track, Amon and Touka is an interaction I didn’t know I needed. They’re kidding around with each other. There’s a level of comfort there. What the shit. I didn’t know how much I needed to see this until I saw it. Amon and Touka for Best Unexpected BrOTP.

x D-does Touka... lowkey ship Akiramon? Touka for Best Unexpected Shipper on Deck.

x Add this to the list of things I’m glad Ishida is addressing: Amon knowing how hard it was for Akira to lose him. And him knowing it was douche-y (important, but douche-y) of him not to give her an idea of his status. I can’t wait for the eventual Akiramon (and maybe Takizawa) confrontation. It’ll be so steeped in angst. Delicious.

x If I had even thought of wishing for a Touka and Amon confrontation, this is the way I would have wanted it. This was perfect. I like that they skipped all the messy business of the revenge cycle and went for this resolution. And I’m a whore for enemies reaching an understanding.

x And a word to Touka haters who are salty because she’s the “violent but useless tsundere” type - spoiler alert: she’s not. She has now spoken to Amon, is willing to speak to Akira, and she’s taking care of everyone in Goat while Kaneki takes care of the dirty business. She’s advocating for bringing together everyone with a common cause, something that she inherited from Yoshimura and that which Kaneki is striving for. She is what Anteiku stood for, in the old days. She is the safe haven. And that, my friends, is what is called character development.

x Yep. Touka ships Akiramon.

x Also. AKIRAMON. All my Akiramon feels have come back full force from this chapter asdsdjksdsa. I mean. They had all that sexual tension going in TG but now it’s going to be even more explosive because Amon’s a half-ghoul now and Akira has no idea what’s going on with her life?? Ohmygod. OHMYGOD. I can’t wait for the Akiramon confrontation.

x Yes, I know I already put this panel up but I need people to appreciate how beautiful Touka is here.

x On a more serious note - this is how Touka and Amon reach an understanding? By Touka explaining that Touken x Akiramon parallels are explicitly canon??? What??? Ishida is just hitting so many of the right OTP buttons today.

x With so much going on in the Goat side of things, the fucks I usually give for the CCG have run out. I think it’s significant that Urie has nearly peaked promotion-wise, which was his old motivation, but I can’t say much else until I come down from my AyaHina/Akiramon/Touka x Amon (Toukamon?) excitement.

x Okay, maybe one more fuck to give. Nimura WHY. WHY.

[toukaisbetterthanyou]

I've seen many posts assume that fans of Touka, as well as Touken, cannot explain why kaneki & her relationship is not abusive. They say, she beat him up when he was defenseless (at the start of TG), she beat him up on the bridge, she hit him in re after the Cochlea arc, & now in ch 130 of re. Of course they always seem to fit in the "& on many other occasions" line. Not to mention the emotional and sexual harassment accusations... Could your lovely team prove them wrong & answer the question?

Mod K:

I think it goes back to what you personally define as abuse. I personally do not think that touken is abusive. I think it’s a relationship that has some unhealthy dynamics, but at the end of the day, I think that both of them make each other better based on what I’ve seen from the series. Generally, Touka has her reasons for hitting Kaneki. I’m not going to say that they’re okay - but she has never hit him just because. Usually, when Touka hits Kaneki is meant to be “funny” and goes back to slapstick humor in Japan. There is lots of running gags in Japanese manga and anime of someone hitting another person. Usually, this happens in male/female relationships where the woman is doing the hitting, but there are also comedic gags when a man hits a woman, a woman hits another woman, or a man hits another man.

In Monthly Shoujo Nozaki-kun, there is one particular couple when the guy is always hitting the girl (and the pairing is canon) but it is played as being a funny thing, a gag. Now, you can argue that it’s still bad – but authorial intent is authorial intent and when critiquing these things, you need to think about the cultural norms and comedy that is present in what you are watching. Gags that are acceptable in japanese media are not always the same as those that are present in our media.

While most of the violence from Touka @ Kaneki is slapstick, I will admit that there are a small number of moments when it is not and it meant to be taken seriously.

Now, going back to the original TG, Touka is not initially mean to Kaneki. When she first meets him as a ghoul and drops her kind waitress act, it is when she kills a man who is sexually harassing her. Kaneki justifiably gets scared by this and runs away from her when she offers him a piece of her kill. Touka becomes upset about this.

Touka is 16/17 and has led a difficult, cruel life. Her entire life humans have rejected her for what she was, and Kaneki had just done that as well, after she tries to help him. She is pretty mean when he does come to anteiku after this and refuses to help him because she’s still upset about it.

Then, when they meet again, Touka saves Kaneki from Nishiki and tries to help Kaneki again. He is starving and near mad from hunger, and she tries to feed him. Then, Kaneki freaks out and calls her a monster (not that I blame him) – and this pisses Touka off more and she begins to beat him before she is stopped by Yoshimura.

From that point on, Touka is mean to Kaneki and bullies him at anteiku. She huffs at the idea of helping him, and calls him names rather than referring to him by his name. This changes after Touka goes after the doves who killed Ryoko and Kaneki comes out to help her.

From this moment on, Touka’s attitude towards Kaneki changes. She is caught off guard by his kindness and concern from her and she is less aggressive with him. She even begins calling him by his name after this and begins to train him. Now, I’m not counting any of the times that she hurt him when they were sparring because they were training and she needed to do that to get the fight of flight response necessary that he needed to use in order to use his kagune and learn to control it.

The next time she hits him seriously is during chapter 120, Penetration.

Note – prior to this Kaneki had promised to stay with her and didn’t, then he promised to visit and didn’t. Then, he lies to her about what he’s trying to accomplish with his group and Touka flips out. Is it right? No – but she is also a 16/17 year old girl at the time that this happens. She cares about Kaneki deeply by this point and she sees that he is trying to throw his life away and has no real purpose for what he is doing other than self-gratification and self-sacrifice. He is still being the person “who gets hurt,” just going about it in a different way. He is really protecting no one. She punches him, and then tells him to not come back to anteiku.

She later regretted this outburst.

But, what I love about this scene is that Kaneki after reflecting on his actions while he is “dying” thinks of her words and realizes that she was completely right about him.

After that, Touka is doesn’t give up hope that Kaneki is alive and builds re: for him for the chance that he does get his memories again and wants to return to them.

She doesn’t hit him again until they return from cochlea, but this scene is meant to be more comedic in tone.

Was this right? Nah, it wasn’t – but Kaneki has been putting his loved ones through emotional hell for the past few years. He ran off to die, became a dove and lost his memories, and did some TRULY reprehensible shit as the black reaper for awhile. This is all very frustrating and I took this at Touka’s way of getting out that pent up aggression. I don’t think it was right, but I also understand the reason.

The last time was when Touka threw Kaneki out of her room, and she didn’t punch him. She pushed him out.

Now, you can go back and forth about whether this is abusive. Has she hit him? Yeah, but it’s a common trope in Japan. If you use that definition of the barest definition abuse then it would be considered abuse but so would almost every ship in the series save for Hi//de//kane and Tou//ri/ko. As I said, many of the people claiming abuse refuse to even try to understand the reasons behind Touka’s actions, but will spend hours analyzing other ships that I’m not naming that also meet this definition of abuse.

What I dislike about many of the anti–to//uken blogs is that while they point out the negative aspects of those ships, they NEVER, ever, call out some other ships in this series that meet this criteria. If they are so against what they preceive as abuse, then why don’t they also have callout blogs for those specific ships? If Kaneki is such a poor and traumatized abuse survivor, when why the hell are you pairing him with people who had physically harmed him, nearly killed him, or tried to eat him?

At the end of the day, I have no problems with those ships, but it’s hypocrisy at it’s finest.

Even in that anti–tou//ken blog, they stan Mut//suki, which is fine, but Mut//suki also  basically “raped” that U//ta clone thing that looked like H//aise and is actively trying to fuck over Ken for his own selfish reasons. But they don’t call that abusive? Do you see what I mean? Either it’s all abusive and awful, or it’s not. Either you are going to hold all of these ships to the same standard or you’re just a hypocrite that hates Touka because she doesn’t fall into the perfect parameters of what a female character is supposed to be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯