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lilacflamesss · 6 years ago

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Shattered (Chapter 11)

Smutty Ayahina College AU

Summary: Hinami tries to deal with her sorrows through seeking Ayato out. Ayato can never turn away the girl he loves far more than he should. Two people with unrequited feelings, dealing with them in very different ways. Human AU. (13.4k words)

Warning: This fic contains unhealthy coping mechanisms, heavy sexual content, and plenty of problematic/ dubious things which I absolutely do not condone at all. This is a work of fiction that takes on a more mature, physical take on Ayahina’s relationship as opposed to the typical conventional one. Please feel free not to read this fic if it’s not your cup of tea! Additional trigger warning for stillbirth since this is an add-on to the previous chapters and infidelity.

A/N: I’m really sleepy so I’m not going to say much. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Please do reblog this and feel free to leave some comments!

Preview

Ayato doesn’t deserve a sheep like her. The accident must be the Gods’ reminder to her. Never again should she have the cheek to think that they’re meant to be. Never again should she try to fool him with her half-assed feelings.

She lies in bed, curling up to herself and for the first time since the start of the day, she cries. Her eyes have teared up a lot in the past few hours, but right now, she’s a mess of tears and screams. She buries her face in her pillow and shouts. She yells out her frustrations, her hatred, her anger, her despair and her fear. Everything comes out— curses, apologies, pleas, prayers. She wants all this to end right now. She’s so exhausted. She never thought things would get this bad and she still doesn’t know how bad Ayato’s condition is. For all she knows, he might not even be around tomorrow. He might not even be alive now; maybe Kaneki called to say that he died. The thought makes her scream even more. Her chest hurts. It feels like there is an invisible claw grabbing her, digging its long fingernails right into her heart.

She hopes he’s okay. She wants nothing more than him being well and alive right now. She doesn’t even want to think about him gone, but she knows that no matter what, he is gone to her. She shouldn’t go back to him anymore— or even to Kaneki and Touka since they might just lead her back to him. She needs to go back to the time before she and Ayato became friends, back to her first two years of high school, when even though she saw him in class every day, she never talked to him and he never really meant anything to her except for being that random soccer guy who everyone is really into for some reason.

She hears a knock on the door but pays no mind to it. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now. She knows that some people might genuinely worry about her. Everyone knows that she and Ayato are close. Her friends must be worried about her. But she really doesn’t have the mental capacity to deal with anyone right now.

There’s a part of her that’s also worried. These people might be carrying bad news. Maybe they’re trying to tell her about something. Maybe they’re here to call her to his deathbed— he might go anytime, so you don’t want to miss this, do you Hinami? But she doesn’t want to know about such news. Maybe oblivion is better. Even if he’s dying right now, she can pretend he’s still healthy and well— it doesn’t hurt as much.

Before she fell asleep, it felt like she was going to end up spending the whole of that night waiting-- first, it was Kaneki and now, it is Ayato. Touka’s not even sure if Ayato is planning on returning or if he is going back to his own apartment. Since it’s raining, she assumes it would be the latter but lately, it’s hard to predict what Ayato is thinking. She doesn’t want him to be trapped outside in the heavy rain if he happens to come back so she had decided to keep waiting in the living room. Yet, even after hours, he still isn’t back yet.

Her eyelids are drooping even as she tries to focus on whatever there is on the television. She doesn’t even know what she’s watching. One moment, it’s a movie and in the next, she realises it’s a nature documentary. She dozes off occasionally but finds herself jumping awake whenever she hears anything loud and sudden. Eventually, she starts wondering if she should just give up. She turns off the television and picks up her phone. She had already dropped Ayato a few messages but it seems like he hasn’t read any of them yet. A part of her wonders if he and Hinami are together right now and if they might be doing something yet again.

Touka sighs, slumping down on the couch. She wants to believe that they’re okay but she knows that they are far from that. Ayato might pretend everything is okay when he’s with her but she knows her brother better than he thinks she does. She’s sure that he spends most of his free time moping in his room rather than do anything productive. She doesn’t blame him; it’s not easy getting over someone you really love, especially if it’s been for a really long time. She’s not sure how Hinami’s taking all this either. She had looked pretty bothered when Touka had asked him to go along with her just now. She didn’t want to make Hinami needlessly awkward but she’s heard the stories from Kaneki about people who walk alone out in the streets at such late hours of the night. It is better to be safe than sorry.

It bothers Touka because she can no longer tell Hinami’s feelings. Initially, she had felt nothing from the girl. It had looked like Ayato was merely a toy to her. But her perception of Hinami has slowly begun to change. It changed when she had her honest conversation with Hinami at the swings. She questioned back then if Hinami really felt nothing for Ayato-- she gets far too worked up over him for someone who has no feelings for him. It’s the same thing right now-- if she really doesn’t have feelings for Ayato, why all this awkwardness? Why does she look at him as if she has something buried deep down inside of her?

The phone rings and Touka groans, getting up and walking towards it. It’s 4 am by now and she doesn’t know who’d be calling at such an hour. Ayato would normally call her on her handphone instead.

She picks the phone up. “Hello?”

“Hello, is this the home of Kirishima Ayato?” The voice on the other end sounds deep and stern.

“Yes, he’s my brother, but he’s out now,” she replies.

“Yes, Ma’am. We called to inform you of something. Your brother’s been in an accident.”

There’s a moment of silence after those words are said. Touka freezes. Those words made no sense to her.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Your brother, Ma’am,” the person on the other ends says. “He’s been in a car accident and was brought here to Kanou General Hospital.”

“My brother has been in an accident?” she repeats. Her mind tries to keep it together, to keep herself in the moment, but she can’t. She feels herself moving away, going back to that day. Ayato in the middle of the road. A truck. Tyres screeching. A horn. A loud bang. Him bleeding on the floor. She chokes, almost doubling over.

The woman on the other end of the phone continues to speak and it takes almost all of Touka’s willpower to listen and focus on what’s she saying-- he’s fine, he’s not dead, just some bruises, he’s there now. Touka can’t wait. She knows she’s can’t. They might say he’s okay but she isn’t going to be able to rest until she actually sees him. The moment the woman gives her the ward number, she slams the phone down and grabs her car keys.

She should wake Kaneki up and tell him what happened. But she’s too worried. Her heart is beating too fast. The longer she wastes, the crazier she’s going to get. Kaneki can stay at home with Ichika. They’ll be fine. It’s Ayato she’s worried about now. It’s Ayato that’s not okay. As she drives to the hospital, she tries to stay calm, knowing that panicking will only make things worse. She needs to at least make sure that she ends up safely in the hospital as well. But her mind is in shambles and it feels like she’s thinking about a thousand and one things at once. What happened? What did Ayato do? Is he really okay? Why was he out there? Was he alone? What about Hinami? What happened to her? The woman hadn’t mentioned a single thing about Hinami.

She reaches the hospital but doesn’t bother to park her car right. Even though she’s wearing simply her home clothes, she doesn’t look out of place in there at all. Everyone’s frantic or worrying about something and the atmosphere doesn’t help to calm her nerves at all. She remembers the room number the woman had told her over the phone. The moment she finds the directions to it, Touka rushes towards it.

Please be okay. Please be okay.

She might have Kaneki and Ichika now. Ayato isn’t her only family anymore, not like the last time he’d been in a hospital for an accident. But even then, she can’t lose him. She can’t lose anyone anymore. He’s still her younger brother and she can’t imagine the pain of losing him— she doesn’t want to.

When she arrives at the room, she sees a doctor standing by the door, talking to a couple of nurses. It takes a moment but she recognises the doctor immediately-- Nishino Kimi, the girlfriend of one of her close friends.

Kimi looks over and her eyes widen a little. “I thought Kirishima sounded familiar. Is he your brother?” she asks.

“Yes,” Touka says, gasping for breath as she speaks. “How is he? How is Ayato?”

Kimi smiles. “He’s okay. He hit his head quite badly and got a concussion from that. Other than that, there’s a couple of bruises here and there. He has a cut on his arm. He did mention his leg is hurting but there’s nothing wrong with it when I checked it. I might have to run some more tests.”

“His leg?” Touka murmurs. She tries to peek into the room but there’s nothing much she can see from aside except for the edge of the bed. Even if Kimi tells her he’s okay, it feels like she can’t rest unless she sees him for herself.

“His left leg,” Kimi says. “It says in his records that he once injured it very badly. I figured we’d keep an eye on him for a bit so I’ll have him here for a few days.”

“Oh, okay, yeah sure. Can I see him now?”

Kimi nods towards the room. “Go ahead. He’s in there.”

“Okay, thank you so much,” Touka says and before she gets any sort of reply from her, she’s pushing past her and entering the room.

Ayato’s lying on the bed with his back turned towards her. Kimi closes the door behind her, leaving the two siblings alone in the small room. She knows Ayato well enough to know that he’s not asleep right now and that he’s very much awake but he doesn’t acknowledge her presence in the room at all, not even when she walks up to him and runs her hand through his hair.

“Ayato,” she says softly.

“I’m fine. Leave me alone,” he grumbles. He pulls the blanket up to his face and curls his body up even more.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says quickly.

“You were supposed to be with Hinami, weren’t you? Where is she?”

“She’s okay. This happened when I was on my way home,” he replies and before Touka can say anything, he continues, “I want to sleep now, Sis. Good night.”

“Sure, go to sleep,” Touka murmurs. She’s desperate to know what exactly happened and to rip the blanket off him so she knows exactly how badly he’s hurt. But Ayato does sound very tired and given what had happened in the past, she hadn’t expected anything else. She walks to the other side of the bed so that he’s facing her right now and pulls a chair up to sit by his bedside. Ayato has his eyes closed but she’s still sure he’s awake. With his head buried in the pillow and the blanket pulled up to his face, she can’t see much aside from the small bandage on his forehead under his bangs. She remains silent but reaches for him, taking one of his hands in hers and holding it tightly. A couple of heartbeats pass before she feels his grip tightening as well and even though she can’t see it clearly, she can tell he’s relaxing a little.

She leans forward, resting her head on his bed as well. “I’m here Ayato. Big Sister is here.”

When she wakes up, it’s already bright outside. It must be midday by now, or close to it at least. Hinami opens her eyes, squinting at the sunlight streaming in from the window, before turning around and burying her face into the pillow. She’s so tired. She feels like going back to sleep again.

It takes a moment for her to remember where she is right now and how she had ended up there. She’s in Ayato’s apartment, in his bedroom, on his bed. That’s nothing new to her, but being in that place alone? That is new. She doesn’t ever recall being alone in this place for longer than ten minutes. The only other time when he had left without her, she had run after him.

She’s alone but she doesn’t feel lonely. His blankets and pillows smell just like him. Being wrapped up on his bed feels like she’s being enveloped by his arms, snuggled up against him like she had been doing every night up till two months ago. Or maybe she is lonely. Substituting him with blankets and pillows sounds exactly like something a lonely person would do. He’d probably call her an idiot if he ever finds out; she has to make sure he never finds out about this.

She wonders when had it been since she had started craving for him this hard. It feels new to her, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe she had always felt this way but had never noticed since he’s always right there beside her. Or maybe it is new. Maybe it’s something that came out just yesterday when Kaneki had planted the idea into her head and her Kaneki-worshipping mind had immediately jumped to accept whatever he had said. Ayato has a point. It might not definitely be the case, but she can’t rule it out as a possibility. Whatever she said to Ayato yesterday was entirely unfair. She shouldn’t have done it; she should have kept it to herself until she’s very sure of it. He had told her to think about it and she supposes now’s a good time to do so. He’ll be coming back soon and she’ll have her answer out by then.

She turns to lie flat on her back, looking upwards at the blue ceiling. Kaneki had been so sure of it. Ayato had been so sure that she’s mistaken. She wonders what Touka thinks about it. It would be nice if she can talk to her again. Maybe Touka might be able to sort things out better. But she also knows that Touka doesn’t know her as well as Kaneki does, but Kaneki doesn’t know her as well as Ayato does. Would that make Ayato right?

She shakes her head. No. Ayato might be wrong. He has his own beliefs and he’s stubborn when it comes to them. If he had convinced himself that she doesn’t love him, even standing on top of a building and professing it to him in front of the world might not change his mind.

She can’t rely on anyone. She just needed to make her own judgement. She supposes that she’s relied on people enough at this point.

Rolling about in Ayato’s bed is nice but she supposes getting some coffee might help her think better as well. She gets out of bed and enters the kitchen, only to stop at the soft, but clear buzzing noise she hears. She looks around and spots Ayato’s phone on the kitchen counter. He must have placed it there where he was smoking last night and forgotten to take it along with him since he had left in a rush after their argument.

Hinami ignores it initially, going to make coffee for herself, but the phone continues to buzz. Ayato’s a pretty popular guy but she doesn’t recall his phone ever being this busy. She wonders if there’s an emergency that someone needs Ayato to attend to or something; maybe it’s better to check. She picks the phone up and takes a look at the screen. There’s a bunch of different messages which she chooses not to read, but there are also 20 missed calls from Rio.

Hinami stiffens at the name. She knows Ayato and Rio are close and Ayato had told her that there’s nothing between them, but the rumours mentioned by Tomoe still surface in her mind. In this one month, anything could have happened. Things could be changed; feelings could be changed. For all she knows, the reason he turned her down was that he might have moved on.

The phone starts vibrating again and Rio’s name appears on the screen. She knows she shouldn’t do it. She knows that she should be respecting Ayato’s privacy. She should leave the phone be Ayato gets back. He should be getting back soon. It’s already way past noon. But even when she knows all of that, her hands move on their own accord, picking up the call and moving the phone to her ears.

“Hey! You finally picked up! Is everything okay?” At the other end of the line, Rio speaks with an urgent, worried voice. He’s talking so quickly that Hinami can barely make out the words he’s saying, especially amidst his hard pants. “Your sister called me but I didn’t pick up till morning and I got caught up in something so it took me awhile. I’m on my way to the hospital right now. Are you okay? Everyone’s really worried. You should reply to their messages when you feel like it, okay?”

Hinami remains silent, her mind spinning from what she’s heard. None of this makes any sense. Hospital? Why is Rio going to the hospital? Why is he telling Ayato about this? What’s going on and why did it seem to make everyone worried? She knows she can simply ask Rio about everything but the words were failing her.

“Hey, are you there?” Rio asks. Hinami still chooses not to say anything. There’s silence for a long while before Rio sighs and continues speaking. “It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. The accident must have been hard, huh? I’m almost there. We can talk more then if you want to. See you.” He hangs up right there, leaving Hinami with a bigger headache.

Accident? What accident?

She takes another look at the phone but this time, she scrolls through the notifications and reads the messages. A voice in her head is screaming at her to respect his privacy but it’s too faint now for her to give it any attention. She skims through the text she sees, picking out the important bits— Miza, Naki, their group, Rio, the soccer guys from high school, an accident, hospital, worries, visiting. It doesn’t take long for her to piece everything together from what she’s read and heard from the call.

Her knees go weak and she chokes up, dropping his phone in the process. Shit, no. She needs to hold herself together, but she can’t. She can’t believe what she’s seeing. There’s no way.

Ayato got into an accident last night— after he left; after she chased him away. Touka had called Rio and he had told everyone else. They’re all messaging Ayato asking how he is and everyone’s really worried. But he can’t reply to any of them, not when the phone isn’t with him right now.

Hinami freezes, her eyes widening at another thought. The last time this happened, he had almost died and had gone into a coma for months. Maybe it happened again. Maybe something worse happened.

She doesn’t even want to consider what happened, but she knows she needs to find out. If something happened to him on his way home from the apartment, the only person who can be blamed is her. It is her fault. If he dies right now, it is because she didn’t stop him and because she had made such a big fuss and had made things too awkward for him to stay with her. If he had stayed with her, they’d both be here right now. If he dies, she can’t think of anything else aside for the fact that it would have been just as good as her sending him to his death.

She rushes back to the room for her phone. If Touka informed Rio, she must have done the same for her— or at least Kaneki would have. She scrambles to turn it on and waits for the messages to load up. She waits and waits, staring at the screen for minutes. But no matter how much she waits, there isn’t a message at all.

It seems like they didn’t want her to know at all.

He doesn’t sleep well that night. Every time he closes his eyes, he’s jolted awake really quickly from the images that flash through his mind and the sounds that ring through his ears. It doesn’t feel like he’s slept at all. He’s so exhausted, his body hurts everywhere and his leg throbs continuously.

But he knows that he’s sleeping. One moment he opens his eyes, Touka is still there holding his hand. The next, she’s standing and she’s on the phone. After that, he doesn’t see her but he hears her talking to Kaneki behind him. The next moment, his uncle is there with Ichika as well. He must be falling asleep and waking up at intervals.

“You should eat something.”

This time, it’s Kaneki who’s there and it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else. Kaneki is sitting on the chair Touka was sitting in the beginning. He has a book in his hands and he speaks without looking up.

Ayato sits up, ignoring the screamings of his body. Looking down at himself, he realises he’s not that badly hurt at all. He has bandages on him but he knows that beyond cuts and bruises there are no other injuries. He didn’t break anything this time. His leg is still hurting but when Ayato lifts the blanket of it, he sees that it’s not badly twisted or anything, just bandaged and a little swollen. He moves it and realises that he can move it and surprisingly, there aren’t any sharp pains that shoot through it like the last time.

“You’re fine,” Kaneki says. “Your injuries are not bad at all. You only gave everyone a huge scare, yourself included.”

Kaneki is smiling at him now, a weak but very concerned smile. Ayato looks around the room. It’s only the two of them now. He doesn’t see Touka anywhere.

“Where’s Touka?” he asked.

“Touka’s been here since the accident so I told her to get some sleep at home. She brought Ichika along. Yomo went back to the cafe,” Kaneki says.

“Oh.” He wants to say more; he knows he should say something at least— an apology or at least show some gratitude for them making the time to keep him accompany. But his mind is reeling and his voice is failing him. He doesn’t know what to say to Kaneki. He doesn’t even know what’s going on. It still feels like everything is a mess right now. Everything had happened so fast, just like it did before. One moment he’s okay and the next, he’s not. One moment he’s walking back to his apartment and the next, he’s in the hospital.

“We told your friends already. Touka called Rio and he’d inform everyone else,” Kaneki says. “But… about Hinami…” Kaneki hesitates, looking up at him with a grimace and although Kaneki didn’t say anything he knows Kaneki is asking him about her.

“She’s at my apartment. She’s safe,” he says slowly.

“Okay, sure. Do you want us to tell her or do you want to do it yourself?” Kaneki asks.

The thought of informing Hinami hadn’t crossed his mind. Hinami had barely crossed his mind. She should still be at his apartment if she hadn’t already left. He hopes she isn’t waiting for him. He doesn’t know when he’d get back. If she is waiting, he supposes he should come up with an excuse. He doesn’t know how “I got into a car accident and couldn’t come home for a few days” would work on her.

It’s strange how distant he feels with everything that had happened. In his sleep, it had kept coming back to haunt him. Maybe he’s used up all fear he had in him in his dreams. Right now he feels empty, drained. He feels like a spectator watching everything unfold.

“Ayato?” Kaneki calls out softly. “Do you want me to call her instead?”

“You haven’t called her yet? You told Rio about it.”

“We don’t know what happened between you and Hinami so we didn’t want to be too hasty. You were fine so Touka thought she’d leave it up to you if you want us to tell Hinami about what happened,” Kaneki explains. When Ayato doesn’t say anything, Kaneki sighs and continues talking instead, sitting forward in his seat to move closer to him. “Look, Ayato, I don’t know if I’m thinking too much into this and it’s totally fine if you don’t want to talk about it, but did something happen between you and Hinami last night? The time of the accident… I know you went to walk Hinami back home but the accident happened about two hours after you left our home. It’s too late and I really want to know why exactly you were walking in the middle of the heavy rain by yourself.”

He thinks for a moment, running himself through the events of the previous night. He feels his heart beating faster and he calms himself down by trying to avoid the incident entirely. It’s fine if he pretends it never happened right. Maybe he should imagine that he slipped and fell in the rain instead— that would help. He remembers everything that had happened and the events that had led up to him walking out of that door— Hinami’s words and Kaneki’s part in all of that. He had been angry— so angry— but he’d also been stupid and he realised that, didn’t he? That’s why he stopped; that’s why he was in that very spot when the car came skidding towards the sidewalk.

He was going to go back to her. He was going to apologise, to talk. But he wasn’t allowed to do it. It’s as if the world was stopping him from going-- as if it was telling him that he and Hinami were meant to be apart.

He forces the lump down his throat. “We went to the dorms but they’ve been closed so I walked Hinami back to my apartment and started coming back home when it started raining. That’s why I was late.” He’s lying through his teeth and he knows that Kaneki out of all people can tell. He’s a cop. He’s used to dealing with liars. He can read people like a book and know when they’re being untruthful. This lie is useless.

“Ayato,” Kaneki says, a little more sternly this time. “What happened?”

He wants to scream at Kaneki. He isn’t one of Kaneki’s criminals. He isn’t in an interrogation right now. He has no reason to abide by it and tell him every single thing that had happened. Kaneki has no business in his life. Just because he married his sister doesn’t give him the right to pry into every single nook and cranny of Ayato’s life. He hates this. He hates this situation. He hates Kaneki. He hates everything.

“Look, Ayato, I’m worried about Hinami too. I remember saying some very weird stuff to her last night and I have no idea if it contributed to all this. If you don’t want to talk right now, that’s fine, but please don’t lie to me,” Kaneki continues.

He feels a little guilty. Ayato knows that Kaneki has his best interest at heart. Kaneki’s always like that, taking things up that he really shouldn’t need to and helping them out when it’s none of his business. It was Kaneki who had paid for Ayato’s hospital bills and Arata’s funeral expenses a few years ago even though he and Touka were not married yet. He’s always like that and Ayato knows he should be thankful— he is thankful. But it pisses him off as well. All of it was his mess; he fucked up big time. It should be him who’s paying for and dealing with it. But instead, it’s Kaneki. It’s always Kaneki.

“I’m sorry for causing trouble for you again,” Ayato murmurs.

Kaneki shakes his head. “It’s not like that at all.”

“All of this is none of your business. You don’t have to get involved. You never had to. But because you did, things had been easy on me and it’s not fair,” Ayato continues. “You should just leave me alone. Just let me deal with all this. This is my problem, not yours. Don’t pay for this. I will.”

“How? You barely get enough to cover your rent from your part-time job,” Kaneki says.

“I’ll deal with it,” Ayato snaps.

“No, no you’re not,” Kaneki argues, raising his voice a little. “Touka and I are not leaving you alone in this. We’re not going to leave you in anything. You’re part of the family, Ayato.”

“We’re not family—”

“We are,” Kaneki interrupts. “We’re family and family helps one another, okay?”

“This is… All this is…” Ayato stops, breathing hard, his hands gripping the edges of the blanket tightly. He’s mad. He’s just so mad at everything right now— at Hinami who had said all those stuff, at the stupid driver for running into him last night, at the rain which caused the accident, at Touka for getting him to walk Hinami back, at Kaneki for always helping him and at himself, for being so useless at the face of everything that life throws at him, for always needing someone and having to rely on people.

“You know, my father died when I was very young and my mother and I struggled a lot. She died a little after that because of how much she worked. We had a lot of debts to pay and my aunt also kept asking for more money. Mom just worked and worked and in the end, I suffered a lot from it,” Kaneki says. “It’s never good to be in a position where you always need money. A part of me always wanted Mom to stop giving Aunt money because we had none ourselves. I could never understand why Mom would do it. But I see you now and I see how you and Touka are. I’m not like my Mom. I have money. I have money but before you and Touka, after Hinami moved out, I had no family. It was lonely. But I met Touka and things started getting better. I want to protect this, Ayato, and that includes you. It won’t be the same without you. Trust me, those years showed us enough.”

“I’ll still be there even if you let me pay my own bills,” Ayato grumbles. He doesn’t want to look at Kaneki right now. He doesn’t want to know the kind of expression Kaneki has on his face.

“You know, I have every reason to hate you,” Kaneki continues, “ and sometimes, I wonder how the hell you even are related to Touka. But if not for you, I will do all this for Touka. She will fall apart if something happens to you and I will not let that happen.”

“My sister is not weak,” Ayato snaps. “She’ll be fine.”

“She’s not weak, you’re right. But she’ll still fall apart. Her strength will help her pull herself together again, that I am very sure of. But she will still be hurt and I don’t want that to happen as much as I can.”

“What does that have to do with my bills?” Ayato grumbles. He lies back down on the bed, pulls the blanket over his body and turns away from Kaneki.

“I want you to accept my help, to let me help you, for your sister’s sake. Ayato, please.”

For Touka’s sake… Ayato glances at his hand— the very hand Touka had held onto last night and had helped him through his nightmares. She must have rushed here the moment she found out what happened to him. They must have woken her up. She must have been tired. But she still came.

“If it would give Touka a peace of mind, then fine.”

He hears Kaneki’s grunt of approval behind and he closes his eyes. He falls asleep surprisingly fast, but the images appear again. He’s in the sidewalk again. Kaneki is there now for some reason. He’s pushing him to the middle of the road. There’s a truck on one side and the car on the other. He’s trapped. His ears are overwhelmed with the screeching of tires. He closes his eyes and he wants to scream. But his voice is stuck in his throat. He can’t say anything. He can’t do anything. He opens his eyes and looks towards the sidewalk. Kaneki isn’t there anymore. It’s Hinami, looking at him with a big frown, eyes streaming with tears mouthing some words.

He doesn’t see anything else afterwards.

Ayato opens his eyes and he’s back in the hospital, still on the same bed. He’s stuffy. Everything around him feels like it’s burning. His body is wet and sticky; his clothes are drenched in his sweat. Hinami was in his dream and he’s sure she was saying something to him. He frowns at the ceiling, taking a moment to collect his thoughts and recall what she had said.

I’m sorry.

She has nothing to be sorry about.

This is all my fault.

It’s not. She asked him to stay. He chose to leave.

He’s glad Touka and Kaneki hadn’t told her about this. Maybe Hinami not knowing would be a better idea. He’d get out of the hospital and go and see her after that. He’ll just pull some act about being really pissed off or something and then he’d apologize to her. It would be better than having her needlessly worry about all this.

He turns his head to the side. Kaneki is still there, but he had dozed off. Beside Kaneki, he sees another face, flipping lazily through the book Kaneki was reading just now. It’s Rio. It confuses him for a moment what Rio is doing here, but then he remembers Kaneki mentioning that Touka had called Rio over.

“Rio?”

Rio’s head snaps up at the sound of Ayato’s voice and he jumps to his feet, leaning over and smiling widely. “You’re okay. Thank god.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Ayato tries to sit up and Rio immediately offers him a hand, just as he always used to do in the past when he’d gotten injured during soccer.

“Sorry I was late. I had soccer training,” Rio explains. “I didn’t check my phone till after and I saw Touka’s messages and missed calls so I called her immediately. You gave me such a fright, you know. You didn’t even say anything on the phone just now.”

“The phone?” Ayato mumbles dumbly.

“Yeah, when I was on the way just now, remember?” Rio says, laughing a little.

Now that he thinks about it, he hadn’t checked his phone at all. It’s the last thing one would think of after getting into the second car accident of his life. Ayato glances over at the two tables he has beside his bed. He doesn’t see his phone anywhere. His clothes are neatly folded and placed on one of them but he can’t find any of his other belongings with him. He might have left it at home. He doesn’t recall taking it along with him when he left.

“I… left my phone at home,” Ayato says, looking around again. Maybe he missed a spot. But it doesn’t seem like it’s anywhere.

“Really? That’s weird. I was really sure one of my calls got picked up,” Rio says. “Was it someone else, then?”

“It’s at my apartment so…” Ayato says slowly, letting himself collect his thoughts. “It’s Hinami.”

“Hinami?”

“Yeah, I told her she can stay over since it was late and the rain was heavy,” Ayato says.

She knows.

He had wanted to keep it a secret from her. He needs to talk to her.

“Give me your phone,” he says to Rio immediately and before Rio can even question him, he’s reaching into his pockets and pulling the phone out. Rio watches him, partly annoyed, as he dials his own number and waits for a call. The ringtone goes on and on but there’s no answer at all. He tries again but to no avail. He tries the landline and gets nothing as well. Hinami might have left already. He tries Hinami’s phone number as well, but that doesn’t work out either. She doesn’t pick up.

“She’s not picking up,” he complains.

“Yeah, that’s because I don’t know her that well, Ayato, and I don’t have her number so there’s no way she’s going to pick up some call from a random stranger,” Rio points out.

Rio’s right and Ayato knows that. He looks around and his eyes fall on Kaneki, who’s still sleeping at the chair beside the bed. Maybe if it’s Kaneki, Hinami will answer.

“Kaneki!” he shouts.

Kaneki jumps at Ayato’s loud voice and wakes up immediately, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Ayato? What is it?”

“I need you to call Hinami now,” he says urgently.

“Huh?”

“Just do it,” Ayato snaps.

“Okay okay, calm down,” Kaneki grumbles. He pulls his phone out and starts to call her. The moment he sees Hinami’s name on the screen, Ayato reaches out and grabs the phone from Kaneki’s hands.

Hinami answers almost immediately. “I’m so sorry, Big Brother, this is all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

“Hina—”

“Ayato ran out because of the things I said to him. I messed up again. I’m so sorry. I can’t do this anymore,” she continues, not giving him a chance to speak at all. “I keep hurting him no matter what I do. I’m just not right for Ayato. You’re wrong about it all. You’re wrong, Big Brother! I’m sorry I should never have come into his life. I don’t think my feelings for him are real either.”

“Wait—”

She really must not be listening or she’d have been able to tell the difference in the voice. But she continues speaking, thinking he’s Kaneki. “I can’t face Ayato anymore. Even if he doesn’t blame me, I know this is my fault. I can’t bring myself to see him anymore. Please tell him how sorry I am and that I wish him all the best. I will see you soon. Goodbye.” With that, she cuts the line. Just like that.

The silence that follows drags on for a long time. Both Kaneki and Rio watch him without saying a thing until Kaneki reaches forward and grabs the phone of out Ayato’s hands.

“She hung up already,” he says bitterly.

“Yeah, she did,” Ayato murmurs.

“What did she say?” Rio asks.

“She said…” Ayato pauses, thinking back. She said a lot of things. She said everything that he thought she would say. Everything went like he thought it would. It’s bad. He needed to stop her; he needed to tell her it isn’t his fault. But he didn’t. She didn’t give him a chance to.

Kaneki groans as he watches the blank expression on Ayato’s face and dials Hinami’s number himself. Ayato looks over, only to see the call cut almost immediately after.

“She turned off her phone,” Kaneki says.

He hadn’t gotten a chance to say anything to her yet and at this rate, he doesn’t think he will. Hinami won’t give him a chance to say anything; she’s not going to talk to him on the phone. But Ayato knows he can’t just sit by and leave everything be. He needs to clear everything up with her. Hinami can’t blame herself. It isn’t her fault.

It hurts to move but he forces himself to, sliding off the bed and getting to his feet. His left ankle screams in protest but he knows he has to ignore it.

“Wait. What are you doing?” Rio asks, grabbing his shoulders and trying to push him back to the bed.

“I need to go and see her,” Ayato insists. He tries to push Rio off him but it’s hard to fight against a fit person when you’re injured and had been spending the past twelve hours or so in bed.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ayato, you need to rest,” Rio says.

“I need to settle this,” he argues.

“No, you don’t!” Rio snaps. “I’ve been telling you since Day One that this whole thing is a bad idea but you’ve never listened to me. You don’t have to go to her now. Whatever it is, you can wait till you’re better.”

“No!”

“Stay down, Ayato!”

It’s useless. He knows Rio isn’t going to budge. He turns to Kaneki, who frowns and shakes his head. “No, Ayato. I’m with Rio on this. If anything happens to you, Touka will kill me.”

“It’s just this once, Kaneki. Please let me go,” he says. Ayato has never pleaded with Kaneki before. This is a first, but if he has to resort to begging, he would as well. He knows that keeping silent about this is wrong. He needs to clear up the misunderstanding as soon as he can. He needs to let her know she’s wrong.

“Ayato, I can’t.”

“I need to do this, Kaneki. Please. For Hinami,” he whispers. He’s never been this sincere with Kaneki. It’s always been the opposite. He never wants to rely on Kaneki. Ayato had just made it clear to him how he hates having to accept Kaneki’s help. But right now he doesn’t have any other choice and he knows Kaneki is able to tell just how desperate he is from the way he’s begging right now. If he has to fall on his knees, he would.

After a long moment of silence, Kaneki closes his eyes and sighs. “Fine. Just this once, and make it back as quick as you can.”

Ayato blinks in disbelief. He really did want Kaneki to agree but he hadn’t thought Kaneki would actually give in. Rio seems annoyed but Kaneki doesn’t notice it-- or if he does, he doesn’t bother to acknowledge it. Instead, Kaneki goes over to take Ayato’s clothes and toss them to him.

“Rio and I will distract the nurses. You try to make it out in five minutes and I want you back as soon as possible,” Kaneki instructs. “Don’t exert yourself.”

Ayato doesn’t think Touka could have married anyone better.

She decides that barricading herself in her room is probably a good idea. After the incident with Ayato’s phone, Hinami had run out of the apartment and all the way back to her dorm. She isn’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with anyone. She wants to be alone. Miza and Tomoe drop by but she ignores both of them. They’re probably here to talk to her about Ayato, especially since she hadn’t returned their calls or replied their messages either. She gets a call from a new number as well and she supposes it has to be Rio. He’s probably calling to inform her about what happened. But she already has everything figured out from Ayato’s phone. She doesn’t need them telling her.

She feels terrible enough and no one else needs to know about it. Or so she thinks.

A short while after the call from the number she assumes is Rio, she receives another one. This time, she rushes to pick it up. It’s Kaneki. She picks up already knowing what he is going to say, which she still doesn’t want to hear. She picks up for a whole different reason. She picks up because she needs to say something instead. It’s Kaneki who had given her all those ideas. It’s Kaneki who had prompted her to start that conversation with Ayato. She knows it’s not Kaneki’s fault everything happened— it’s hers— but she wants Kaneki to know the truth. He is wrong. She isn’t fit for Ayato. She doesn’t love Ayato. They’re not meant to be. They’re not good for each other. She shouldn’t be with him at all.

The moment she picks up, she starts talking. The words flow out of her mouth like a heavy torrent. She barely has any idea what she’s saying. She can’t be bothered. She speaks and speaks, letting her heart guide her through the words and emotions. She pours everything out, not giving him a chance to say anything. When she’s exhausted of things to say, she hangs up immediately, turns her phone off and tosses it away. She doesn’t want to talk to Kaneki. She knows what he’ll say in response. He’ll tell her she’s wrong and that it’s not her fault. He’d ask her to go and see Ayato. Maybe he might blame himself for even telling Hinami all those weird things, but he’ll insist that those things are true. He might convince her again that she’s in love with Ayato. He might convince her to go back to Ayato. Hinami knows how weak she is. She knows how pathetic she is. Ayato is right. She can’t think for herself. If she gave Kaneki the chance to say that she’s wrong and that she should go to Ayato, her stupid mind might have believed it and done just that.

There’s a knock again. “Hinami? Are you in there?”

Hinami freezes, recognising the voice immediately. What is he doing here? Is this her imagination playing tricks on her?

“Hinami, it’s me. It’s Ayato. I really need to talk to you.”

It is his voice. She’d recognise that voice anywhere. If he’s here right now, does this mean he’s okay? Had he gotten discharged? She gets up immediately, rushing to the door and reaching for the doorknob, only to stop right before opening the door for him. Isn’t it too soon for him to be out? No matter what, hospitals would keep him for at least a day, right? How can he be outside? Her mind wanders through many countless possibilities, even the absurd ones. What if it’s someone else pretending to be him? What if it’s someone else but she’s hearing his voice out of desperation? What if that is his ghost here to bid farewell to her before he moves on to the afterlife? The third one, no matter how ridiculous, makes her choke up.

“Hinami, I can see your shadow again, you know,” he sighs. “Please. Don’t ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you,” she whispers. She hurriedly wipes her eyes with her sleeves and opens the door.

Ayato stands before her, but she has to pinch herself to believe that this is real and that this isn’t a dream. He’s breathing hard, slumped against the door frames, eyes narrowed as he watches her with his typical annoyed expression. Neither of them says anything, not even as Hinami reaches forward and runs the tip of her finger down along his cheek— the left side, which wasn’t bandaged. He’s real. He’s here. It’s really him. He’s alive. She studies him carefully, eyes focusing on every small bruise that she could find and the various areas of him which are bandaged. She wonders how many injuries he has under his clothes and how bad they actually are. His face doesn’t look bad, but she can see that his right arm is still bleeding. He’s clutching it with his other hand, but the bandaged is clearly soaked with wet blood.

“Your… hand…” she says, nodding towards it.

Ayato looks down at it and grimaces. “Yeah, I think I might have reopened the wound or something when I was running here. I went to my place and you weren’t there so I came all the way here.”

“You were running— No, whatever, come in.” No matter what the situation is right now, she can’t have him standing at the doorway. She should at least let him sit down. She’s not such a heartless person that she’s going to put him through that sort of pain. She watches, trying not to react much, as he struggles to kick off his shoes and walk in. As Ayato limps into her room, she knows she’s made the right decision letting him in but she’s sure Ayato has done something stupid.

“What are you doing here?” she asks as she gently pushes him to sit on the bed. She pulls his hand away from the bleeding bandages and observes it carefully. She doesn’t have any first aid in her room but she has some towels she supposes he could use for now.

“I needed to see you,” he says. She remains silent as she’s talking the towels, giving herself time to think through what he’s saying.

“Did they let you out of the hospital already?” Hinami asks. She sits beside him and presses the towel against the bloody bandage, letting it soak up some of the moisture. “You still look very bad to me. Where else does it hurt?”

“My ankle but they said it was nothing too bad,” he says looking down at his bandaged foot. He winces as he moves it. Hinami can tell despite the bandage that it probably hurts a lot. It’s not bleeding but it looked a little swollen-- much bigger than his other foot.

She realises that he hadn’t answered her first question and turns to look at him. “They discharged you already? When you’re like this?”

He grimaces. “Hinami, there’s something I need to tell you.”

He’s avoiding her question again and that gives her the answer-- he hasn’t been discharged and he probably snuck out of the hospital to come here. Her throat feels dry, clenching up in her attempts at holding in her frustration. Just why is he like this? He left the hospital despite being injured like this to come and see her.

“Kaneki called you just now and you picked up, right?” Ayato continues speaking, either completely oblivious to her silence or blatantly ignorant of it. She nods and he frowns, sighing. “It wasn’t Kaneki who called you. It was me.”

Hinami freezes. Her mind immediately goes back to the call, trying her best to remember what she had said, but she can’t remember a single thing. She had just spewed out whatever came to her lips. Her brain hadn’t been functioning. Thinking it was Kaneki, she had said a bunch of stuff and had been completely open and honest with him. Even though she can’t remember what exactly she said, she knows for sure that those are words not meant for Ayato’s ears. But while she has no idea what they are now, Ayato does.

“Please ignore that call,” Hinami says immediately, trying her best to remain as composed as she can. She gets up and walks over to her table to pick up her phone. “You shouldn’t be here. I’ll call Big Brother to come and pick you up.”

“Don’t,” he hisses.

“I’m calling him.” She’s right about to call him when she notices Ayato beside her, reaching over and snatching the phone out of her hands. She turns to him, annoyed, holding her hand out and staring at him instructively. He simply frowns back at her, holding the phone behind him, still breathing hard.

“You shouldn’t be here, Ayato,” she argues. She considers reaching over to take it. He’s hurt so she might be able to successfully take it away from him. But she can see his bleeding arm from the corner of his eyes. She might hurt him more in the process. She’s done enough of that; she can’t hurt him more-- she shouldn’t.

“We need to talk,” he says.

“We can talk when you’re better,” she says, though she has no intention to. She doesn’t have any plans to have anything to do with him at all. It’s not that hard. They’re in their final year of college when the next semester starts. She doesn’t think they’ll see each other much. It’s not that hard to avoid him since she knows his usual hangout places. At most, she’ll have to find somewhere else to stay which is not that hard at all.

“No, we need to talk now,” he insists, grabbing onto her arm with his uninjured hand. “I can’t have you going on thinking those things you said.”

“What things? I can’t remember,” she grumbles. She’s tired and exhausted and continuously seeing how injured he is right now isn’t helping her mood. He’s like this because of her. She knows he’s going to try to talk her into thinking otherwise but she doesn’t see how this can be anyone else’s fault.

“All those things you said, Hinami. They’re wrong. They’re scary. They hurt,” he whispers. They hurt. Of course, they hurt him. That’s all she’s ever done to him and all she’s ever going to do. “You’re not at fault Hinami so don’t ever say stupid things like how you can’t show your face to me.”

“Did I say that?” she wonders bitterly. “I’m not in the mood to have this discussion right now. Please let me call Kaneki.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ayato insists.

“Ayato, stop.”

“No, listen to me. It isn’t your fault at all, okay? You didn’t do anything. You asked me to stay,” he hisses. He’s gritting his teeth as he speaks, trying to pass it off as his annoyance but Hinami can tell that’s not the case. He’s in pain right now. He’s perspiring so much. The colour is being drained from his face. He needs to be at the hospital right now. He needs rest.

“Ayato now’s not the time for this. Give me the phone,” Hinami instructs, holding her hand out. She takes a step towards him and he takes a step back, wincing. She glances down. His leg is trembling. “Ayato, at least sit down.”

“Not until you listen to what I have to say.”

“You need to calm down. You’re getting worked up and it’s not healthy for you right now,” she says. Another step forward and he takes another one back. Maybe if she keeps walking closer, he’d walk back to the bed and she can push him to sit at least.

“It’s not your fault. Don’t cut things off between us because of this.” She’s still moving forward and he’s still backing away. She sees the bed right behind him and reaches out, pushing him lightly. Ayato stumbles backwards, falling to a sitting position and dropping her phone. He groans in pain and taking this slight moment of distraction, she snatches the phone and rushes to call Kaneki. Ayato watches her in disbelief, his eyes wide.

“Wait, Hinami, don’t call,” he snaps, but by the time he’s said it, she’s already on the phone and she can hear Kaneki picking up.

“Big Brother, Ayato’s in a bad condition right now. Could you come to the dorms and pick him up? Don’t let him leave the hospital again please,” she says.

“Hinami? Did something happen?” Kaneki asks, confused but also worried.

“He’s just in a lot of pain.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She hangs up and tosses the phone on the bed. Ayato is frowning at her now and she can tell he’s really angry, though she doesn’t think he has any reason to be. She supposes she can entertain him a little.

“We have ten minutes,” she informs him.

“It’s not like you’re going to listen to me, are you?” Ayato mutters.

“I’ll hear what you have to say at least,” she offers.

“I just needed to see you after all that you said. I want you to know that nothing is your fault, but talking to you now I realise I cannot convince you. You’re too stubborn,” he complains.

“I shouldn’t have made things awkward in the first place. From the beginning I should have asked you to stay when the rain was so heavy,” she says.

“You did.”

“Not at first,” she points out.

“You didn’t put me at the sidewalk, you know,” he says, clearing his throat a little. “I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. I should have just dealt with everything and control myself a little. I got too angry.”

“You’re right. You got too angry, because of the things I did and said,” she says. “Ayato even if you try to convince me that it isn’t my fault that this happened, you cannot convince me that all this pain we’re going through is not the culmination of that stupid arrangement we had.”

“It’s hard to think that us fucking since two years ago led to my accident,” Ayato grumbles.

“But it did. If we had stayed friends, none of this would ever have happened. If we never got acquainted in the first place--”

“Maybe I might have killed myself over depression after my father died,” Ayato cut in. “You saved me Hinami; you gave me hope. I already told you that. Don’t give me the we-should-never-have-met bullshit right now. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She doesn’t know how she can accept those words. She can’t be the best thing that happened to him, not when she has reduced him to the state he is right now. He would have been better off without her. This time, she’s going to make sure she can’t fuck things up for him anymore.

“Then will you do something for me?” she asks in a small voice. She’s asked him this so many times and as always, he looks up at her, eyes wide, slightly wary but mostly curious.

He nods. “Yes, anything for you.” His voice is a whisper as he says it, just as it always sounds, mainly because he always knows that he’s going to regret it-- that what Hinami says is not going to be something good for him. But he always does it anyway, because he always wants to make her happy.

If she’s in love with him, which she is not-- she has to keep telling herself she’s not or she might just believe it-- she thinks this is the part of him she’ll love the most. He’s so dedicated and loyal to her. Whatever he does, he does it for her best interest. When he left last night, she’s sure it’s because she made it seem like she was uncomfortable when they first got there. She was. She really was. If it wasn’t for that conversation they had, she would have continued to feel that way. In fact, she only saw him in the kitchen because she felt too awkward that she wanted to leave his place. Ayato knew all that, which is why he left. He wanted to make her feel better so he left. He was only concerned about her so it didn’t bother him that he had to leave.

He’s always done things for her sake, but she’s never been able to do things for him the same way. He had gone on about the studying thing but Hinami knows that’s nothing. He thinks it’s big but it’s simply his warped senses talking. There was nothing special about what she did for him-- nothing at all.

But right now, she’s going to save him for good.

“You were right, Ayato. I don’t love you,” she says. It pains her to say this more than she thinks it ever would. But she holds her head high and stands firmly by her words-- the feelings aren’t natural and they’re because of what Kaneki had said.

There isn’t a change in his expression. That statement must not have been a shock to him, which is understandable since he didn’t believe her in the first place. He must be relieved now to know that he’s right and to know that he didn’t make the wrong decision by believing her.

Hinami gets to her knees in front of him. Ayato seems confused as he watches her but he doesn’t say anything, not even when she places her hand on his knee, rubbing it slightly.

“Will you please forget me?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“Nothing you say can change my mind about my feelings. I know what I want and I do not want you in my life anymore,” she says.

Now, she sees the pain in his eyes. He shakes his head immediately, grabbing her hand with his. “No, you listen to me. You don’t have to punish yourself for this accident.”

He’s wrong. She does.

“Being with you is going to hurt me more,” she says. “Everyday I will think of this and never will we move on from it.”

“But… but…” He tries to argue back but his voice is failing him. He shakes his head again, frowning, probably thinking deeply. “There has to be a way.”

“Will you respect my wishes, Ayato?” she asks.

“You don’t have to put it that way--”

“Will you?”

“I…” He hesitates, looking away from her, refusing to make the promise. “I was going to come back to you. I thought it didn’t matter anymore. Your feelings… I couldn’t be bothered about it. I thought if that’s what you believe that so be it. It doesn’t matter how you came to the conclusion. I couldn’t care anymore if Kaneki planted it in your head. When walking away, I realised we should have talked things out more calmly, about your feelings especially.”

“You were right. I don’t love you. There’s nothing to talk,” she says. Her throat clenches and she chokes as she speaks. She doesn’t know why it feels like she’s doing something terribly wrong by saying this. She feels a stab to her heart the first time she did it and she feels it again now. She wonders if it means that maybe she might be wrong about it and she’s jumping into conclusions after everything that happened, but she immediately discards the thought. She doesn’t want any of this anymore. She wants to move on; she wants both of them to move on.

He looks at her and smiles. He hadn’t smiled in a while, especially not to her. This smile is void of pain. This smile is true and genuine. This is the smile she thought she’d see when she confessed to him the previous night. This is what she had wanted to see.

“If that’s the case, why does it sound like it hurts you to say that?” he asks.

“Even if it hurts me, it is the truth that we’re not good for each other and we should not be together. We need to--”

There’s a knock on the door that cuts her off and she sighs in relief. She opens the door quickly, letting Kaneki in. Ayato looks horrified. Clearly their conversation is being cut short as well; clearly, he’s not going to get what he wants. Hinami feels a little bad about it but she knows this is for the best. She has let him say what he wants to and she has given him a reply.

Hinami remains silent as Kaneki looks disapprovingly at Ayato, nagging about his recklessness as he helps Ayato to his feet and starts to help him out. He gives Hinami a nod as he walks out the door while Ayato stares at her, a silent plea passing between them.

One more time.

She can’t give this a second chance. She can’t give herself a second chance.

She shakes her head, holding onto the door as she watches them leave. When they’re out, she closes it, only after murmuring a final farewell to the both of them. She stands by the door, envisioning them passing through the dorm’s hallways, down the elevator and out the building to Kaneki’s car. The further they go, it feels like more of her gets sucked away from herself.

She doesn’t want to see Ayato anymore. It’s for his own good. But even then, tears stream down her eyes. They continue falling out of the corner of her eyes as she picks up her phone, turns it off and removes the tiny SIM card she has inside before tossing it into the bin. She stares at it for a moment. Then, her knees give away and she collapses. Her eyelids are heavy again. The tears are falling out rapidly. She’s crying again.

She can still turn back. She can take that card, put it back into her phone, call Kaneki and ask him to let her talk to Ayato. It’s still possible. It’s not a lost cause yet. Maybe she can imagine that her love for him is real. That might lessen the pain, right?

Hinami shakes her head. She reaches into the bin and picks up the small card. Without giving herself time to doubt her next decision, she snaps it into two.

She’s going to need a new number.

His injuries look worse than they actually are. In actual fact, they’re not that bad at all. But his little expedition had worsened a couple of them and he ended up staying in the hospital much longer than he initially had to. Kaneki was wrong; Touka did not kill him when she found out what happened, though she was right on the verge of it.

Even then, aside from the cut on his arm and his ankle which took a longer time to heal, it’s in a matter of days that Ayato notices his strength returning. His body is scarred a little, his limp has gotten a little worse than before-- thought the doctor assures him that it will get better and he’d revert to his pre-second accident self in a matter of time-- and it takes him a long time before he stops jumping everytime he hears the screeching of tires. But given everything that happened, he thinks he’s okay.

The only thing that didn’t come out of this unscathed is his relationship with Hinami, who pulled a complete disappearing act on him. When he got back his phone, he left her probably close to a hundred texts. Every time he called her, he gets the notice that the number is unavailable. He tries it with Touka, Kaneki, Rio, Miza and Naki, borrowing their phones to text and call her. Everyone got the same result. It’s like Hinami has her phone permanently switched off.

Two weeks after the accident, he heads over to her dorm, only to find that she had vacated it. Tomoe and Miza who live beside her hadn’t known about any of it at all either. She had left without telling either of them. But he continues to give her space and time. He’ll see her in school. They’ll talk then.

And he does. It’s about a few weeks into class when he happens to see her in a walkway. They make eye contact and the moment this happens, Hinami turns around and hurries off. He chases after her, calling her and trying to catch up but right as he’s so close, she slips into the women’s washroom. He could wait for her and he tries to, but the walkway is small and crowded and waiting outside of the women’s washroom for someone who ran away from him is just plain disgusting. Instead, he leaves. He supposes he could lie in wait for her somewhere else like the main entrance but since he doesn’t know where she’s staying now, he can’t guess where she’d come out from. He could alternate and spend a day waiting at each entrance but again, he knows better than to be a creep.

As much as it pains him and as much as he knows that all of this is as a result of a misunderstanding on Hinami’s part, he knows he has to respect her space and decisions too. He can’t force her anymore. He doesn’t want her to suffer from being with him anymore. If there’s anything that made sense from what she had said to him two weeks ago, it was that their relationship is the root cause of all their pain.

It’s weird and ironic. It had been him who had been adamant on ending everything initially. But now he’s running after her like a dog would its owner. Ayato doesn’t even know what he wants to do when he reaches her. When he manages to catch her and turn her to face him, what will be the words he’s going to say to her? It’s not your fault? You did nothing wrong? He laughs at those options. He has already said them to her. He’s never going to be changing her mind on them.

One semester passes and he doesn’t get to talk to her. He’s convinced at this point that she has changed her number. He had seen her with her phone one time. He was standing at a distance and she had not noticed him. He called her but the line was still unavailable. He supposed that maybe she must have had his number blocked. It’s easy to confirm this. All he needed to do was borrow someone’s phone while pretending that his died and he had to make an urgent call. When he did this, he realised that her number is still unavailable although Hinami was happily using her phone a distance away. She couldn’t have blocked this random person as well. The chances are likely. She must have changed her number.

Tomoe might know a thing or two about what’s going on but asking her gives him nothing, though it’s not like he expected something either. Tomoe is clearly going to be on Hinami’s side here.

He sees her less in their final semester and he fails again at getting a chance to talk to her. He still doesn’t know where she’s staying right now. He never manages to get his hands on her new number. She still runs away whenever she sees him, but he gives up on chasing her. He’s confused. He’s hurt. Hinami thinks she might have hurt him before, but he doesn’t think that can compare to what he’s feeling right now. He rather gets hit by ten cars than have her ignore him so openly like that (he takes back the statement the moment it surfaces in his mind though-- he’s good with what he has).

No one tells him anything but he has a feeling burning deep in his gut that graduation would be his final chance at setting things right. Somehow it feels like, after that, he’s never going to see her again.

He’s right, but he’s wrong as well.

He doesn’t see Hinami after graduation. He doesn’t see her during graduation as well. He hears from people that she called in sick all of a sudden so she can’t make it. Whether that’s true or not, he realises he missed his final chance.

After that, no matter how hard he looks, he doesn’t see her again. He could rely on Kaneki for help again but he stops himself. This has nothing to do with Kaneki. This is something he can do on his own, for himself. He will find her and he will tell her what he wants to tell her.

A year in, and he’s pretty stable now. Ayato did what Hinami suggested. He got a job at a reporting agency, writing short commentaries in the sports column. It’s more fun than he thought it would be. He gets to go to most of Rio’s games and he doesn’t miss anything. He gets to write about anything his best friend does as well. He realises he’s better at it that he thought he would be. He never really liked reading and writing, but maybe writing about sports is not too bad. It’s fun.

Two years in, he tries to move on. He has made no progress in his Hinami hunt at all. He realises he doesn’t know anything about her aside from her relationship with Kaneki and him. He knows Hinami was on a scholarship but he never knew what it was for. Maybe if he did, he would have some leads, but right now, he has nothing to go on.

He goes on with life blindly. He goes to work, hangs out with Rio, drinks with Miza and Naki and spends quality time with his family. He moved back home and he spends most of his free time playing around with his niece. Ichika gets excited whenever he teaches her soccer. She seems talented at it as well and she spends a lot of time happily kicking balls around the house, much to her father’s chagrin whenever he hears the smashing of yet another vase.

Three years in and he tells himself that he needs to move on. It’s not like he swore himself to a life of celibacy. How he went a year without having sex and merely relying on jacking himself off is beyond him, but maybe keeping himself busy with work and Hinami hunting had helped. He starts dating this one girl but it doesn’t work out. He dates another one and it doesn’t work out either. Third time’s a charm, they say, and Ayato gives it one more go, only for this too to end in failure. He simply can’t forget Hinami at all.

When dates fail to satisfy him, he opts for something else. If he can’t fall in love, he can still fuck others. Sex is sex no matter who it is. Or so he thinks. He sleeps with a few people-- he tries to ignore the similarities between them like their brown hair, their short and small stature or their gentle voice-- but something feels wrong. The sex feels empty and boring, even though he’s actually feeling really good. Something is missing and even though he knows what that is, he refuses to admit it.

Four years in and he’s slowly starting to forget her, which is ironic because love is all around him right now. Naki and Miza are engaged. It happened after Miza found out she’s pregnant. Rio finally finds himself someone, but he refuses to tell Ayato anything about that person. They met online apparently. Hooguro has a girlfriend too. Ayato never thought that guy would ever take any relationship seriously but apparently, this one is different.

Touka gets pregnant again. This time, he tries to be there for her and to support her, even though he’s making plans to move out to his own apartment. When he does move, Touka, Kaneki, Ichika and Yomo (who was dragged along by Touka) help out. Ichika gets really excited by her uncle’s new place. She especially loves one room in particular. When she looks out the window, she can see the playground in the park and it makes her very excited. Ayato uses that one as his guest room, mainly for Ichika to sleep in when her parents decide to come and stay over in his place. They set it up mainly to her tastes as well-- a pink room with apple-patterned wallpapers. It’s cute, though it doesn’t match the whole theme to the house. Touka had laughed when she saw it.

Touka’s weekly visits to the cemetery stop for a moment as she gets too big to travel around much but Ayato continues doing so. Occasionally, he drops by Hinami’s parents’ graves. He’d accompanied Hinami there once before so he remembered the location. Going to the cemetery without Touka gives him the confidence to take a peek. He doesn’t know how Touka would react seeing him there; he had managed to convince her and Kaneki that he had forgotten and gotten over Hinami completely. While he supposes he is moving towards forgetting her, he knows he’s still far from it.

The graves give me a clue to Hinami’s whereabouts. He knows that no matter what she feels about him, she’d continue visiting her parents. But as he continues to visit them every week, he realises that no one else had come. There aren’t flowers; Hinami always leaves flowers behind. He wonders if she had left town. If that’s the case, he has no chance of finding her.

He thinks of Hinami the most when he’s in his apartment, alone. It’s bigger than his previous one and it looks so much better. It’s clean. The fridge is well stocked. He has room for bigger tanks for his fish. The furniture is new and they did not come with the place. Everything is to his taste. But he has no one to share all of this with. He tries his hand at bringing girls home again. But just like before, the sex keeps feeling empty. Eventually, it starts to feel like a chore. He craves for contact and companionship but even then, he can’t find any that satisfy him.

In the fifth year, he tells himself to give up. He openly declares to himself that he isn’t going to look for her. He discards the oath he had told Hinami a long time ago. He will find someone else. He will settle down. He will start a family. He doesn’t know where Hinami is anymore. He doesn’t even know if she’s alive. Life is so transient. Youth doesn’t guarantee anything. He knows this better than anyone.

He should not wait anymore. She should not seek her out anymore. He has to find someone else.

Touka’s delivery is a safe one this time. He’s there when it happens, holding Ichika outside and entertaining her along with her granduncle. It’s a boy this time. As Ayato watches Kaneki and Touka with both their son and daughter now, he wonders how nice it would be to have one of his own as well. He’s already in his mid-twenties now. He’s pretty stable careerwise. He’s not advancing fast, but neither is he at any risk of a sudden retrenchment. A family isn’t ideal but it’s not an unattainable fantasy either.

Of course, he has to find someone to start a family with. Ayato sighs at this thought. He’s not too desperate for one, but he supposes he has it pretty high up in his future plans now. It weird. He actually has plans for the future. The Ayato of the past never did; he just went with the flow.

Hinami has changed him in many ways he realises. Some for the better and some for the worse. But he realises one more thing as he sits and contemplates his future. If he’s ever going to get married and have children-- that’s a big if-- he can’t do it with Hinami absent. He cannot imagine a wedding without Hinami. Even if she’s not on the altar with him, she has to be present there, just like Kaneki, Touka and everyone else who are really important to him. She’s someone very important to him and that goes far beyond simple romantic interest. Sometimes, there’s more to relationships with other than romance. He knows that. He wants Hinami to know that.

They don’t have to be in love. They can still be friends. He wants to tell her that, but he can’t do it without finding her.

He supposes he just can’t give up in his search just yet. He sighs. After all of his progress, it looks like he had slipped and fallen back down to the first square.

This is going to be a long year.

A/N: Again, I am not going to say anything since I’m really sleepy and I’ll leave my comments for tomorrow. Only one more chapter to go guys! Once again, please please do reblog if you like this! It’ll really help me out. Feel free to leave comments in the tags/ reblogs/ replies or through asks!

#tg #tokyo ghoul #ayahina #kirishima ayato #fueguchi hinami #far writes stuff #my fic: shattered

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