There were a dozen things wrong with this, but one stuck in Judal’s head the most as he stared at the other man. The CCG. Rank one investigator.
Judal himself had never directly encountered the CCG… But that didn’t mean he didn’t cringe whenever it was mentioned. The organization had a million associations – None of them good. Primarily fear. Because he had always been afraid. Afraid that one day the people with the briefcases would arrive to tear his life apart. Take away everyone he cared about, leave him alone. But, of course, that was what had happened. He just hadn’t been present to witness it.
So now, discovering that the CCG was continuing to fuck him over was only twisting the knife in deeper. They hadn’t killed Kaneki, they had… What? Brainwashed him? Made him into a new tool for their sick uses? The very thought of Kaneki being used like that brought bile to his throat and the bite of tears to his eyes.
“N-No, come on, don’t–” (Don’t do this to me please don’t reduce what we had to nothing) “That’s not who you are, you’re–”
And a pause. Even as desperate as he was, he wasn’t stupid enough to go blurting about ghouls. Not here. Not to someone who was apparently an investigator. “You’re not an investigator, you’re… You work at a coffee shop, you like reading. You’re Kaneki.”
(”See? Even he knows that this body doesn’t belong to you.”) He’s free of his chains now; phantom fingers gripping Haise’s shoulders tight enough that he swore he could hear the bones themselves groan in protest. (”He knows it’s mine, knows that you’re just a-”)
“Shut up.” Haise ground out between clenched teeth, one hand coming up to clutch at the side of his head (he could just barely catch a glimpse of a memory as it teased at the edges of his consciousness; a slender form with striking eyes and an easy smile.. and then it was gone again, leaving him with nothing but a gnawing ache in his chest.)
“I-I’m not...” His voice positively shook at this point, along with the rest of his body Haise realized belatedly. “I’m Sasaki Haise... a rank 1 investigator with the CCG..” The throbbing pain in his skull intensified along with his own stress levels, bringing with it a wave of dizziness that was enough to bring Haise to his knees. (His quinque was a long forgotten thing at this point; the heavy case hitting the ground with a sharp ‘crack’ that failed to even register with its owner.)
Haise tried his hardest to calm himself; to steady his heaving breaths and put his mind back into at least some semblance of order, but he just couldn’t. There were just too many emotions, too many things that hovered barely out of his reach that he wanted so desperately to both grasp between his fingers and run away from at the same time.
“Please...” The half-ghoul gasped out, so quietly he wasn’t even sure that Judal could hear him. “Help me...” Before this, what ever this even was, swallowed him whole.
Judal never thought that he’d be happy to see Kaneki plummet into a pile of trash, but desperate times called for desperate measures. A soft wheeze broke free of him as he stopped running, and he clung to the side of the building next to him to stay stable. It had been a while since he had needed to run like that.
He stared the other man down, gaze raking over the features he had been afraid he would begin to forget after all the time apart. Part of his mind focussed on the moment, part of it far away, making a list of everyone he had to tell. Kaneki was alive, he was–
…What? Any excitement dropped dead at the hesitant questions aimed at him. He gaped for a moment, confused and dismayed. What kind of fucking question was that?? What the fuck did he mean??
“I– K-Kaneki it’s me… Judal? Your boyfriend…?”
He trailed off, suddenly uncertain. This all seemed like some huge fucking joke but… “Are you telling me you… You don’t remember?”
Haise stared at the man opposite from in hin shock, grey eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. “Boy.. Boyfriend..?” He repeated the term slowly, letting the syllables linger on his tongue. (The natural-ness of it unsettled him greatly; bringing with it a flare of longing that he couldn’t even begin to understand the reasoning behind.)
There’s no way it could be true. Haise tried to reason with himself. Even if he had been in a relationship before he’d lost his memories, Haise was sure that someone would’ve at least had the decency to tell himabout it. But no mention of such a person had ever been brought up, so itmust be-
(”Why would they though? They’ve never bothered to tell you anything else.”) The voice in the back of his mind interjected in a scathing whisper.
Shut up.
“I’m sorry but...” Haise paused, swallowing thickly around the growing lump in his throat. “You must be mistaking me for someone else. My name is Sasaki Haise, I’m a rank 1 investigator for the CCG.”
No. No. No no no no, this was not how it was supposed to go.
Judal paused for a second, steps faltering as Kaneki began to back away from him. Even from here he could see the panic swirling in grey eyes, and sudden anxiety made him ill as he wondered what he could have done to deserve a look like that.
And then, to make everything worse, he ran. Before he lost sight of the one he had so long missed, Judal dug his heels in and sprinted. People now parted before him, glaring at him and muttering as he raced to catch up to the other.
Damn it damn it damn it damn it. Several thoughts consumed him as he ran, none of them good. (Maybe this man wasn’t actually Kaneki…) But no, there was no mistaking it was him. (Maybe he had a reason for vanishing…) There was no reasoning in the world that could make this okay.
Away from the crowds it was easier to run, and easier to make himself heard. “Kaneki please!” Words torn through a constricted throat, tears flowing freely down his cheeks now. There was a slight cramp forming in his side, but he found it incredibly difficult to care about such a minor pain. “Stop, please just stop!”
His chest heaved from the effort it took to keep ahead of the other man, but Haise forced himself to keep running anyway. Taking a sharp turn onto an empty side street, Haise stumbled over a couple poorly placed trash bins; crashing to the ground in a heap among the mess of garbage. (He was glad that Akira wasn’t here to see the completely rookie blunder, she’s surely give him hell for weeks for such an error.)
Panic flared anew in his chest when the stranger rounded the corner as well, the echo’s of his shouts still ringing in the investigator’s ears. Haise sprung to his feet quickly, snatching his fallen quinque up off the ground in case he needed to fight. (The one on the checkered room howled at that, thrashing in the chains that held him.)
After realizing that the stranger wasn’t going to rush him just yet, Haise forced down just enough of his rising panic to speak.
“Why... Why are you chasing me?” The words came out barely above a whisper, strained from the running and his own abundant (misplaced) panic.
Time heals all wounds. An old saying, and one that did tend to ring true. Although if Judal had any say in the matter he’d change the quote. Time bandages all wounds. Time tends to the wounds that continue to fester under its care. Time slaps a fucking band-aid on wounds; Sure it fixes them for a while but it hurts twice as much when you rip it off.
This was it. This was the band-aid being ripped off, the resurgence of the aching agony that loss had ripped into him.
Judal was aware that people were trying to get around him as he froze on the sidewalk, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care. Because across the street, because right there was something impossible. A face he never thought he’d ever see again, except in rosy dreams that turned into nightmares as soon as he realized they were false.
It was Kaneki. He knew it was. Three years hadn’t done much to change his features, excepting his new hairstyle. Sure he was with people Judal didn’t know, and sure it was weird as hell for him to show up after this long… But Judal was pretty positive that he was beyond the point in grief where he imagined Kaneki everywhere he went. This couldn’t just be wishful thinking. And, with the life he had become used to, stranger things had happened.
He unfroze from his momentary trance, and shoved his way through the people around him to get across the street. Desperation clawed at him as tears started to gather in his throat, and with a voice cracking under the weight of his hope he called out to him. “H-Hey!! Kaneki, wait!”
A slight frown tugged at the corners of his lips as Haise continued listening to Saiko’s latest video game conquests, acutely aware of someone’s eyes focusing rather... intently, on him. He chanced a glance over his shoulder once, but came up empty handed. Whoever they were, he couldn’t pick them out from the evening rush.
It could be nothing, but just in case...
He refocused his attention back to the bluenette with him, sending her home ahead with a smile and the promise of a home-cooked meal once he returned. He continued walking for another block, before a frantic shout drew his attention.
He turned on his heel, looking to see what the shouting was about when he saw a young man with black hair shoving his way across the crowded street. He looked worse for wear with his unkempt black hair (the mass stuck out in odd directions like it hadn’t been properly taken care of for a while) and slightly disheveled cloths, but it was the man’s eyes that made his steps falter and his chest tighten. The person was staring at him, heading right for Haise as he shouldered passed a group of school girls and suddenly Haise found himself taking a step back, and then another.
There’s that name again. He’d heard it a couple of times before; whispered in dreams that teetered dangerously close to becoming nightmares. Before Haise could even stop to consider it himself he’d turned and bolted away from the busy main street, overcome by the need to put as much distance as he could between him and the stranger.
(This was ridiculous, one part of his brain would tell him. But the other, kept under tight control in its checkered space was screaming for him to turn around, to go back to the stranger; for once sounding as raw and desperate as the voice that called after him.)
