#kaya and kurona are today’s cameos

[ipsen]

Blank Canvas, Chapter 5

Read on AO3. Summary: Kaneki is teased, and Takatsuki plans a special outing. Word Count: 3368 CW: Brief history lesson on comfort women in Japan during WW2 Chapter 6 Chapter 4 Master Post

Unbelievable.

From across the table, she glared at the man that was supposed to be her father. Tall, old, and dressed in all black. Like a mafia figure in stories. If this were like those stories though, they wouldn’t even be here.

But instead, she was being given away to someone else. Again.

Her eyes, thin as snakes, followed the paper that was slid over to him: despite not being there for her for fourteen years, his consent was still required for someone else to adopt her. She watched him pick up the pen without any trace of hesitation and sign off on it.

How.

It was his fault that Papa died. If he’d just done the bottom line job of being a parent, or even just being there for her and Papa, then maybe they wouldn’t have been attacked by that weirdo, and Papa wouldn’t have been stabbed in the neck eight times, and she wouldn’t have had to slice that guy’s belly open before she suffered the same fate. If it weren’t for the man in front of her, neither of them would be here. It was his fault.

He seemed indifferent to her curses on him— that, or he was oblivious to them, and both were equally infuriating— as he passed the paper to her new foster father: some middle-aged guy with beady eyes and a tall face— Shouji? Shinji? It didn’t matter, even as he signed the paper as well and attached her to his hip. Who cared about him.

She scowled again at her ‘father’. Papa— the one that actually raised her— had told her about the organization. Some weirdo adults with god complexes who thought they could just walk all over anyone outside their circle. An organization that acted like the world belonged to them.

What a joke. And her ‘father’ was a part of them? Was power so intoxicating to the human mind that nothing could serve as an antidote?

“Well, Mr. Shiono, thank you for this.” Her ‘father’ stood up and held out his hand. “Take good care of *^~ for me.”

She hated that name. It was so cruel and unusual given the circumstances.

“Er, of course, Mr. Yoshimura,” Shiono replied nervously, shaking it. “You can count on me…”

And her ‘father’ turned his back on her once more.

She swore she would ruin him. Somehow, she’d do it. Him and his precious organization both.

———

It was now the middle of August, meaning summer was in full swing.

During the past three months, Kaneki drew concepts, backgrounds, and characters. He paneled key scenes and showed the sketches to Takatsuki, upon which her eyes would glow with approval. In return, she would show him her draft for future chapters, explaining her thought process, and he would give a thumbs up and a smile.

All in all, they worked surprisingly well together.

Where she was too angry, his empathy cooled the flames, and where he was too hesitant, she happily crossed the line. It was a dynamic that served to balance the story on a tightrope as it pedaled down the path to the end.

And between the outlining and the storyboarding, whatever image he had of Sen Takatsuki, the author, happily faded into the background in favor of Sen Takatsuki, the person.

Whenever they grabbed food together (which was often; she seemed to like dragging Kaneki to new restaurants he’d never heard of), she usually cleaned her plate. She liked her vegetables steamed and fresh— otherwise, Kaneki found himself with a fuller plate— and her favorite foods were meats and seafood. She especially liked takoyaki, and ordered a plate every time they went somewhere new.

She was also always quick to pay for both of them, even after Kaneki’s paychecks started rolling in. “You should spend that on more important stuff,” she told him, taking his wallet and shoving the bills he’d handed her back in. “Leave the monotony to me.”

(Even though there was nothing monotonous about it.)

Another thing he learned about her was that she didn’t care for her birthday. When June 19th hit, and he couldn’t find a suitable gift in time, Shiono assured him that she didn’t want anything. It was probably obvious based on how she didn’t call off their session that day, but Kaneki couldn’t help but be curious. He wondered why.

When they traveled for inspiration, research, or both, Takatsuki liked to spout trivia about the location. However, it wasn’t inconsequential stuff like the year something was built, but rather the bloody history behind it. The types of things that weren’t in childhood textbooks, even adult textbooks. The shameful things. The darker things.

While they were investigating a certain building, she pointed at it and said, “This is actually a repurposed brothel from World War II. They plucked women straight from their homes and brought them here to be raped by Japanese soldiers.” She then glared. “Not that the government wants you to know that; they still haven’t apologized for it.”

Most people would be uncomfortable with such knowledge, Kaneki imagined, but the fact that Takatsuki trusted him to bear the burden softened the blow. In fact, learning about the suffering of the world made him a little bit more confident in himself. If others could experience worse and still live to an old age, then why couldn’t he? At least, maybe he could.

Plus, it was those moments that the simmering layer just beneath Takatsuki’s friendly demeanor poked its head out. A creature whose jagged edges occasionally cut the cloth that hid it— a hint of the angry thing that inserted itself between the lines of her books.

It was those fascinating glimpses that Kaneki drew. In secret, of course. When he wasn’t storyboarding. For himself. In a separate sketchbook. That he locked in his drawer. Where the key was tucked in his copy of Frankenstein. Not the special edition that he usually brought around when he was feeling the itch for a reread, but the paperback cover with missing pages that he had bought in middle school.

Point being, only he would ever see those drawings.

———

“Ken,” Kaya spoke gently, but Kaneki could tell by her smile she was ecstatic, “Touka tells me you’re dating again.”

Kaneki groaned. “Why does everyone think that I’m—”

“You can fall in love with a coworker. It’s not illegal.” She chuckled. “It won’t always work out, as we both know, but it’s perfectly normal.”

The two of them were at Apes & Dobers, the nonprofit charity co-owned by Kaya and Enji. The members— mostly remnants of the old Devil Apes and Black Dobers gangs— offered shelter and food to those who could not yet afford it. Located in the 20th ward, it (secretly) took unused food from Anteiku and gave it away for free; Mr. Yoshimura, as Anteiku’s owner, simply looked the other way.

In fact, Kaneki and Kaya were working on organizing that food right now, along with donations from the latest food drive, in one of the many storage rooms.

“Th-That’s not what’s happening!” Kaneki protested, lifting up a box full of soup cans. “I just— I just admire her, that’s all! She’s my favorite author, and now I’m working with her. E-End of story…”

“Mhm.” Kaya shrugged in such a way that was so unbelievably fake. “Ken, you miss every single shot you don’t take; you know that, right?”

“Of course I do, but—!”

The door flew open, and in stepped Hide and Touka, bringing a cart full of new foods between them. “Yo!” Hide said, hand raised in greeting. “Work’s finally slowed down a bit, so I figured I’d come help!”

“Hey, Hide! Hi, Touka!” Kaneki said a little loudly, grateful for the chance to change the subject. “Great to have you!”

“Yo.” Touka made the same greeting as Hide. “Just dropping by to help.”

Kaya checked her watch, then raised an eyebrow. “On your lunch break?”

“Yeah.” Touka shrugged. “Why?”

Kaneki watched as Kaya circled around him, approached Touka, and promptly shoved her out the door. “Excuse me,” she looked at him and Hide, “but I have to make sure someone eats. Can you take care of the rest for me?”

“Sure thing, boss!” Hide saluted with a laugh. “Have fun, Touka!”

Touka protested the entire way out, but it was mostly inane phrases, and she was clearly smiling. Kaneki, chuckling, couldn’t help but think she lied to get Kaya to eat instead; it was one of her worst habits, and part of why he got along so well with her. That, and she was the only one who could understand how he felt when Rize disappeared.

Hide glanced about as he unloaded the rest of the cart. “No Enji again, huh?”

Kaneki shook his head. “No…” It went unsaid that Enji was taking care of Mr. Yoshimura. The decline was getting steeper.

“That’s too bad.”

A beat of silence. Food was organized. At least Kaneki got to spend time with Hide, which was surprisingly rare. Hide’s work kept him so busy during the day, and that didn’t change with Kaneki’s new job. So hearing that Hide would be around more often eased the invisible tension in his shoulders.

“Sooo… How’s Takatsuki?” Hide asked, grinning.

“Not you too…” Kaneki groaned, fighting a blush. “But she’s… fine, I guess?”

Hide cackled. “Just ‘fine’? Doesn’t sound ‘fine’ to me.”

Of course Takatsuki wasn’t fine. She was great. More than great. But calling her ‘great’ would just earn Kaneki some heavy teasing, and he’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.

But he couldn’t let Hide’s opinion of her get sullied. “She’s… Uh, a really good coworker.” It was safe, and it was apt. It didn’t encompass everything about Takatsuki, but it was a good start. “She doesn’t wear any business clothes like everyone else at Shoeisha, which is nice, so I’m not pressured to be fancy all the time.”

“Oh, wow. That’s cool.” Hide grinned, counting some canned fish and recording the number on a nearby clipboard. “Pretty casual environment, then? Actually, what’s it like working on a story?”

“Well, we go to a lot of different places to study the area. We also study some of the local people to inspire character mannerisms. When we’re not doing that, it’s just me and her in her office.” As soon as Kaneki said it (plus Hide’s lack of interjecting), he knew he slipped up.

Hide gasped like a true gossiper. “No shot! Just you two, alone, in an office space?! Scandalous!” He cackled at his own joke.

Kaneki palmed his face, then crossed the room to double check Kaya’s work on a previous stack.

“But seriously man, be honest with me.” Now that he’d had his fun, Hide went into serious mode. “What do you think of her?”

Kaneki paused mid-count, then looked at Hide and smiled gently. At the end of the day, he knew he could always count on Hide to look out for him. “She’s amazing,” he confessed comfortably. “I think we can make something great together. And we will.”

Hide smiled back at that. “Sounds like a dream come true.”

Kaneki chuckled. “I guess so.”

“I’m serious!” He trotted over to pat Kaneki’s back. “I know what they say about meeting your heroes or whatever, but you seemed to have lucked out!”

“You think so?”

“I know so! Think about it: despite having zero experience, she thinks you have the chops and personality to make her work shine!” Hide wrapped his arm around Kaneki and pulled him close. “I mean, that’s, like, a one-in-a-million chance of happening! You, sir, are the luckiest rabbit of them all.”

Kaneki laughed, and Hide laughed back. As they did, crouched on the floor in front of a stack of canned beans, footsteps rounded the corner and stopped at the doorway.

“Kaya, you in here—? Oh shit,” a new voice sounded from the doorway.

The pair turned to see a young woman with straight black hair and beige eyes, dressed in dark clothing.

“Kurona!” Kaneki exclaimed, shooting to his feet. “I didn’t realize you were here!”

The (younger) Yasuhisa twin was actually a member of Taiwa Act, one of the sister organizations of Apes and Dobers, after her family fell out of public favor and her father was murdered. However, she and her (older) sister, Nashiro, went over to offer their services when work wasn’t holding them up. Nashiro was an independent investigative journalist while Kurona worked closely with Kimi, head of Taiwa, on organizing events.

“Hey, Tree Branch,” Kurona greeted back. It was her stupid nickname for him using the kanji of his family name. “Hide.”

“Yo, Kuro.” Hide waved, and serious mode was over. “I was just trying to figure out if our dear mutual friend here has a—”

“A great time at his, uh, his job!” Kaneki interrupted, scratching his chin. “A-And I am, Hide, thanks so much for asking!”

“Oh, you got a job? Well, shit, I thought— Never mind.” Kurona shook her head and sighed. “I guess making you the butt of the joke is just that easy.”

“Okay, yeah, it’s a job, but he totally has a crush on his coworker,” Hide said, cackling.

“Hide!” Kaneki hissed.

Kurona, dead serious, walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “You have my pity.”

That was a new one. “W-What?”

She raised a brow. “You’re kidding, right? Imagine if you had to work with your ex. Sounds like a shitty deal to me.”

In response, he glanced down at his shoes, which were suddenly very interesting. He hadn’t even thought about that. If he was considering dating Takatsuki— which he wasn’t— then the risk was way higher than the reward. He wouldn’t just lose a relationship— he’d probably lose his job, as well as all future hope for a career as a comic artist. Not that he’d ever commit career suicide this early on (even for someone as amazing as Takatsuki stop it), but it was certainly an angle to keep in mind.

“Oh, Kuro, where’s Shiro?” Hide glanced behind her. “She outta town again?”

Kuro backed off and shrugged. “Sorta. Said she’s pursuing something more local this time, somewhere in the 13th, but won’t say a peep more. I’m sure she’s fine, though.”

“What about that Torso guy, though?” Hide stuffed his hands into his pockets. “They’ve been really active lately; should she really be alone like that?”

“The Torso only targets women with visible scars.” Kurona traced lines on her arms. “Nashiro doesn’t have anything, so she’s not their type.”

Hide went quiet, but the strange moment passed as quickly as it came. “That makes sense. Phew!” He stretched then. “Well, the food won’t sort itself!”

Kaneki swallowed. Women with visible scars… Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen Takatsuki without her tights or in short sleeve attire. She was always covering up her whole body, and he’d never thought to ask until now. What if…?

He tried to ignore the new sense of dread growing in the pit of his stomach.

———

“‘Cruelty is permanent, but it can be tempered’,” Takatsuki recited aloud.

Kaneki, on the couch, didn’t respond, idly drawing scars in his sketchbook. Cuts, bruises, burns— marks that interrupted the smoothness of skin like nothing else. Flesh crumpled and darkened and changed under the weight of such things, never to return to the halcyon days of normalcy. And when the Torso saw such things, he—

“Haise.”

Kaneki jolted up. “H-Huh?”

Takatsuki shot him a rare look of irritation and repeated the line. The story itself was split up into chapters, and each chapter had a poem that she wrote; she must have been working on the chapter after Fushimi, the protagonist, learns about the lobbyist organization’s connection to the antagonistic serial killer.

Serial killers… He cleared his throat, trying to laugh it off. “O-Oh, it’s, um… I-It’s good!”

It was clear it wasn’t the response she desired, and returned to scrawling in her notebook. “Okay.”

A wave of shame washed over him. He shouldn’t be thinking about this; Takatsuki was smart. She wouldn’t get caught like a deer in headlights like him. Right? Right. She probably had way more experience dealing with crazed fans too; a stalker killer was probably not too fundamentally far off from an unhealthy fan. But what if she was caught and subsequently froze up? He couldn’t know until it happened, and if it happened, it’d be too late; she’d already be doomed and he’d be powerless to help her.

He had to ask. But what if she suspected him? No one had ever seen the Torso’s face; Kaneki could be him, for all she knew. An unsociable artist with an eye for anatomy— he wouldn’t have much ground to stand on if he started asking about Sen Takatsuki’s body scars. He shouldn’t risk his reputation this early into his career, but…

He looked at Takatsuki as she crossed out a few lines. She was using her left hand today, he noticed. She liked to switch it up every now and then, much like her hair. Today was two buns instead of one, the bunches of hair gathered up in a messy style on either side of her head. She rested the end of her pen on her mouth, gently parting her lower lip from her upper. Kaneki didn’t realize that he ran his tongue over his own lips as he stared.

What he did realize was that he was drawing her again. A focused expression, representing a mind trying to pry apart the future and ignorant to the present. The sunlight through the window worked with the shadows to glint off the rim of her glasses, lightly obscuring part of her face and creating an air of comfortable mystery. A dash of indescribable weight to her irises to top it off.

He looked between the finished product and his muse, then smiled in defeat. He still could only capture a fragment of the real deal. He closed the sketchbook and sighed.

“I-I’m sorry, Takatsuki,” he said, getting her attention. “I’ve been… worried about something. It’s been distracting me for a while.”

She glanced up. “Oh?”

“The serial killer… A real one. The Torso. I learned that he targets women with scars.” If he was going to do this, he had to be honest with her. “And… I was just worried about you. B-because you, um… you cover up a lot.”

He hoped his question was implied. He watched her expression dip deeper into the shadows, obscuring itself from his vision.

“I-It was just a passing thought,” he hastily explained. “Stupid, really, in hindsight. I let it get the best of me, so I’ll, uh—”

“You want to know if I have scars, then?” Takatsuki had stood up and crossed the room, and now she stood before him.

“W-Well, I, um—” Kaneki scratched his cheek, looking everywhere except at her— “I-I don’t have to, but—”

“Tell you what.” She was smiling, and he immediately knew there was some sick enjoyment coming out of watching him squirm. “You show me one, I’ll show you one.”

He froze.

“Deal?”

“U-Uh… Sure… D-Deal…” What was he supposed to do, say no? If he didn’t show any scars, then the deal was basically invalid, anyway! Now he could just move the conversation along to—

“Great! If I remember correctly, I owe you for the park, don’t I?”

Oh, no. She meant metaphorical scars.

Takatsuki giggled. “Kidding, kidding! Your face was just too funny.”

Kaneki let out the biggest sigh of relief in his life. “You almost gave me a heart attack…”

“And I loved every second of it.” She tapped his arm with the back of her hand.

He gave a hesitant laugh. Well, at least he wasn’t distracted by the Torso anymore. Now he could focus on… another serial killer. A fake one, but a serial killer nonetheless. The Torso was terrible for becoming active again.

“Oh, but before the topic grows cold— Haise,” she turned to him now, “have you ever met a serial killer?”

His brow furrowed. “No…”

She tilted her head and gave him a toothy grin. “Would you like to?”