The Pink Eyeball ( Uta Tokyo Ghoul )

Shattered

Touka's P.O.V

She sat alone, staring mournfully at the empty desk beside her, feeling the heavy burden weigh down her mood. She haven't seen in her three weeks. Three weeks and not even a peep. She sighed and collected her books slowly as the school ended.

Her head hung dismally as she walked home, something that was usually done with her best friend, chatting and gossiping like a magpie all the way home. But she is not here now. The thought of Akira changing schools without telling her truly upsets Touka.

Her days passed like a chore which she no longer enjoyed, all her laughter seems to dissipates into the thin air just like Akira. As Nishiki so tactlessly suggested that it is due to a broken heart since Kaneki left Anteiku to be on his own; which is a half - truth that shr would not admit. That was also something that put a damper in her mood. The two person she held closer to anything on Earth, both dissapeared from her life without as much as an explanation.

But today her unhappiness was slightly different, a difference which she could not fathom. For some unknown reason, her heart beats uncomfortably as if a huge rock is placed upon her chest.

So, instead of walking home to Anteiku, she turned and took a different route to Akira's apartment. With every step she take, her ghoul's senses seemed to be tingling. She sniffed the air but came close to finding nothing, other than the smell of rotting rubbish and filthy drains. She did not possess the ability to detect smell strongly that Kaneki has.

She fidgeted nervously as she stood in front of Akira's door. Surely she would be back by now? Touka was afraid that Akira would not want to see her. After all, she was pretty sure Akira changed school because of her. Guilt coursed through Touka for causing inconvenience to Akira and caused her to change school. She must be lonely and miserable at the new school, where fresh faces meant new stranger to be ignored to Akira. After all, something as simple as walking into the school canteen is 'charging into the battlefield', as Akira so tastefully put it.

She pressed the doorbell hesitantly and waited for a reply.

There was a looming silence. She pressed the doorbell twice. And five times more. Maybe she was not in.

Somehow Touka felt more uncomfortable than impatient, and it was not just about finally deciding ti meet Akira face-to-face after such a long time.

Something felt wrong. Something just felt so wrong.

Without further ado, she grasped the doorknob with her hands and crushed it silently, reducing the knob and the locking mechanism to dust. She pushed open the door and stepped in cautiously.

Her senses immediately prickled as if an impending doom awaits her in the depths of the small apartment.

"Akira-chan?"

There was no reply. The tiny sitting room was empty, and her school books were strewn messily across a brown coffee table. She pushed open the bedroom door to find it empty, too. Slowly, she went into the kitchen.

She gasped aloud as she saw the shattered glass on the floor, which was still wet with water pooling around it omnimously like a small pond. There seemed to be a lot of water and by Touka's estimation either one whole glassful. Which means this incident had happened very recently.

Dread filled Touka like a storm that numb her senses and mind momentarily. She rushed to the bedroom and cast an urgent eye around and went into the bathroom after that. Her heart went up her throat as she saw the small framed mirror.

There, in the mirror, is her own shocked reflection, and an elegant epithet scrawled across it written in... blood.

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