#i write fics sometimes (but mostly for bnha lololol)

[ssghoulhaise]

mini-fic bc hide’s origin story made me sad™

Hide stands by an open grave, his black suit swallowing him whole.

The preparations had been hasty.

His death was almost insultingly mundane—a skirmish with a B-rated ghoul, late one night and with no back-up to be had.

Not even a big operation.

His father merely walked out the door that afternoon with a casual “be back later.” Hide hadn’t even bothered looking up from the book he was browsing.

And just like that, he was gone forever.

However, he was far from the first CCG investigator to die on the clock. There was protocol to be followed. There were formalities to be addressed.

Father and son lived alone. Their apartment was small, clean, and unlived in. It was just a place to sleep: his father spent the bulk of his days in the CCG quarters, and Hide killed time wandering the streets.

When the movers came, they fit all of the familial possessions in 4 measly cardboard boxes.

The house cleared and the boy retrieved, the next matter of business was the funeral.

He’s sitting on the dorm bed, dully gazing out the window at passers-by, when they enter the room.

Place something black and heavy on his bed.

Tell him to put it on, and be ready in 15 minutes.

He’s struggling with the tie as he steps into the hallway, tongue sticking from the side of his mouth as his small fingers fumble.

Heavy polished shoes make their way over and practiced fingers do the loops for him. The man says nothing as he gives the final tug, as he smooths Hide’s collar down.

This is just one orphan in a million. They blend together, after a certain point.

Regardless, Hide offers a smile up at the officer as thanks, running a hand down his tie front and looking himself over.

His father taught him what a good suit looked like, and this one is far too big. He didn’t have one already and they didn’t bother measuring.

His shoulders droop and the bottom of his pants pool at his feet. The tie goes past his belt line. The sleeves hide his fingers.

But there are no more adjustments to be had. The officers usher him down the stairs and into the car, and suddenly they’re there.

So as he stands at his father’s graveside, listening to some higher up say something generic about courage, he can’t help but shift awkwardly within his too-big suit, trying to even it out on his shoulders.

He wants to be mad.

Mad that they couldn’t just get him a suit that fits, one that wouldn’t distract him from his father’s rites.

He wants to be sad.

Sad that his father is no longer here, sad that this is his new life. Sad enough to leak tears, sad enough to sob like he knows he’s supposed to.

But these emotions don’t come easily to Hide. He’s hardly ever felt them before—he was too young to remember his mother, so this degree of loss is foreign.

The pain swirls beneath his skin, churning his stomach and squeezing his throat but not strong enough to manifest on the surface.

So he shows his emotions the only way he knows how.

He stands still, save for the occasional suit adjustment as he tries to fit himself into the new life the CCG is going to make for him, after taking his old one away.

X

They ask him if he wants to be adopted.

Not all children do. For some of them, the pain is too fresh, the memory is too clear. Shrugging off their old parents for a new one so quickly seems like an insult.

These are the kids that go into the Academy. The ones that live for the CCG alone, and ultimately die for it.

Hide doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want this to be a cycle. He doesn’t want to marry some nice receptionist, to have a kid and to leave them to the same fate.

So he agrees. New parents, please.

(Sorry, Dad.)

It takes a year or so to work out the details.

A year of wandering the dim, empty halls.

A year of meeting other kids—kids just like him—and trying to make this temporary home less of a morgue.

A year of learning how to make others smile.

He becomes more familiar with loss and its effects than he’d ever thought he’d be.

There’s the girl next door who shrieks herself awake every night. When Hide brings it up, she pretends she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But he can see it in the bruised purple under her eyes and the pallor of her face.

She likes knock knock jokes and badly singing along to pop songs—it’s the only time Hide sees her smile crinkle her eyes.

There’s a boy, down the hall to the left, who spends his time leaning against the wall, gazing at his feet. He doesn’t look up when Hide first addresses him.

So Hide just talks to him—about what he’d seen out the window that morning, about a new show he’d seen on TV, about everything and nothing.

There’s no indication that he’s listening, until one particularly short conversation when Hide turns to leave and a hand hooks itself into the hem of his shirt.

“Please don’t go,” a small voice murmurs.

So Hide sits down with a smile, launching back into the book he’d been recounting.

There are some twins, two right turns and a left away, that refuse to let go of each other. They hold hands, they link pinkies, they hug. They never stop touching.

Hide coerces them to join him in the playroom—he’s wanted to try this new video game for so long, and he needs a couple people to play with him.

And he watches as they relax their grip on each other ever so slightly, as they settle for leaning instead as their hands dance across the gaming controls.

Hide becomes an expert at befriending those who have lost. At making them forget the fresh hole torn in their lives.

And somehow, it makes him forget, too.

His purpose in life becomes making others smile. In easing their pain, and his own.

He refuses to let the sterile white walls and thick quiet of the orphan dorms suffocate him. He refuses to lose himself, as well as his father.

He serves as an escape, a ray of sunshine in a bleak environment. Hide has a purpose.

And then, 13 months later, the paperwork is done. He has a new home.

He steps outside the chain link fence of the dorm and the sun has never felt so warm, the air has never felt so crisp.

But even as he walks away, he spares a glance over his shoulder and tells himself to never forget.

That even if no one else remembers these orphans, at least he will.

X

He has two fathers, now.

They greet him at the front door to their small, yellow house, with a neatly trimmed lawn and a line of flowers under the windows.

It feels like a weight is lifted off his shoulders, the second he’s handed off from the black suit officer to the color-clad couple.

One of them gingerly places a hand on his back and it feels so good, so paternal, he could cry.

He hasn’t forgotten his father. A year has worn the jagged edges of his loss down, but the dull ache still lingers.

But he sees his father in this new couple.

He sees him in the square frames of one of their glasses.

He sees him in the innocent dad humor of the other man, in the sly grin as his husband bats his shoulder.

He sees him in the way they ask him what he’s reading, what he’s watching, what he’s doing.

He misses his father. But these two are the next best thing.

And, unlike his father, they’re present.

They’re unaffiliated with the CCG: one is a teacher, the other a real estate agent. He can always find one of them around the house.

Even though they just met him, they already care about him. So, so much.

They ask what they can do to personalize his room. Take him to a department store—let him pick clothes, let him choose posters. They paint his walls in vibrant yellows and line his shelves with CDs.

It’s been a while since Hide felt himself in his room. Been a while since he dressed like himself. Been a while since an adult genuinely smiled at him.

Life settles into a happier rhythm. He almost forgets the past year and where he came from.

And after two weeks, they tell him that he’s going to school.

The opportunity to meet new kids—kids in the outside world—is exciting beyond belief. He picks out an outfit, stuffs his new backpack with notebooks, and thinks of all the conversations he’s going to have.

He waltzes into the classroom that autumn day, grinning from ear to ear.

But the kids aren’t quite as receptive as he’d hoped. School has been in session for a month, and they already have their friends.

Recess comes around and a mass of kids flocks to the field, kicking a soccer ball around.

But Hide lingers. He watches them play for a moment, then scans the rest of the area for his first target.

And then he spots him.

A dark-haired boy, seated on the hill leading down from the school. He sits alone, intently staring at the thick book in his hands. His clothes are bland and his face is drawn in a way that Hide has only seen back in the orphan dorms.

Hide knows why he’s sitting alone. He can feel it.

Loss hangs around this boy like a gray cloud. It radiates outwards, it darkens the air around him. It’s the reason for the slump of his shoulders, for the downward tilt of his head.

He’s been forgotten. Hidden by the loss wrapped around him.

Well, that decides it. Target number one.

So Hide works up a smile—the one he’s practiced for a year—and walks over to the boy.

“Hey!” he shouts, beaming as he climbs the hill. “Whatcha reading there?”

The boy startles, dropping the book in his lap and hands forming a barrier. When he spots Hide, his hands lower and arms cross in front of him, shoulders scrunched.

“Um. Some poetry,” he stammers, his voice weak with disuse.

“That book looks huge! How long have you been working on it?”

“Like… uh,” the boy trails off, picking the book off his lap and leafing through to try to find his place. He dog-ears the page almost daintily, then looks back up. “Maybe two days?”

“Whoa! You read fast!” Hide exclaims, coming to sink down next to him. “My name is Hide, by the way. What’s yours?”

The boy blinks, like the question is foreign to him. “My name is Kaneki. Kaneki Ken.”

“Nice to meet you, Kaneki! Now I have a weird question for you.”

“...Yes?”

“I’m new in town, so I don’t have any friends,” Hide admits, glancing down at the other kids frolicking on the field and then back at the boy beside him.

Kaneki follows his gaze, taking a moment longer to meet Hide’s eyes again.

“So, Kaneki: can you be my friend?”

The question is blunt and unexpected; Kaneki leans back for a moment, staring at Hide as if waiting for him to yell, “sike!”

But Hide doesn’t.

He just stares back at Kaneki, his smile never faltering.

And slowly, the corners of Kaneki’s mouth rise.

“Yeah,” Kaneki agrees. “I’d like that.”