Your sword to cut through the thorns

II

II

In the short while since shuu had began to believe kaneki was alive and in use of an alias, his appearance grew to be more suitable, he still was extremely thin from starving himself to the point of near death, but yet a seemingly small glow had risen again. He quickly found out that he had lost a considerable amount of muscle mass as well, he could hardly carry his kokahku properly when it rose from beneath his shoulder blade.

Kanae seemed pleased that shuu was beginning to recover from his depression, shuu wouldn’t have called it recovery, there was hope that his dear kaneki was alive still, and it was keeping the ghoul partly alive himself; shuu was clinging onto a hope that could be so dreadfully false that it could cause the ultimate plummet.

Kanae was also unaware that chie had told him of the survival of kaneki, she told shuu it was a good thing and that he would only deter him from finding sasaki/kaneki.

The taste of coffee was something that shuu missed, especially that of anteiku it had a flavour that was definitely one of a kind, however…that place was gone, but perhaps kirishima-san was still around somewhere? making coffee for herself perhaps…

He alone made his way to a lone coffee shop that he had heard made fantastic coffee, also chie had said something about old friends? Tsukiyama only had the interest in a good cup of coffee, he wasn’t ready to converse with anyone. Even under the pretence that he knew them before his depression, besides his thoughts were twined with the enthrallment of if the sasaki was indeed kaneki.

“:Re, huh?”he murmered thoughtfully reading the sign, the near heavenly scent of coffee swept into his senses, even if his sense of smell was still terrible, he could smell a good brew of coffee in an instant.

The door swung open for him easily, as he inhaled the scent of coffee further, there was something else- a ghoul, perhaps his sense of smell was actually returning now.

“welcome to-”the waitress sounded familiar to him but she  had cut herself off from him recognizing her voice, that was when he looked at her, the girl was recognizable despite she changed her hair color, the bangs she always had lay across her right eye lazily but she looked better than he did. Her eyes wide she suddenly broke in.”tsukiyama what are you doing here?”

She obviously thought him to be dead or quite possibly gone for good, especially after two years of being very under the radar.

“if you don’t mind kirishima-san I would like to just sit and enjoy a cup of coffee before we get into this, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve had a good one.”

She stared at him bewildered, it seemed that kirishima-san had almost not changed one bit, but there was a dwindled flame in her eyes, now, soft to the world.

The one thing shuu was good at was keeping up appearances, kirishima probably had no idea how physically low he felt, and also that he had been partly dead since the raid.

“sorry tsukiyama-san, but we’re closed,”she tapped her finger lightly against her arm staring at him, warning him silently to leave or there’d be trouble.

“so either you tell me why you’re here of all places or you can get lost,”

“I meant it when I said I came for coffee kirishima-san or are my words that unbelievable to you?”

She scoffed, same old touka, same old shuu, other than acting out he was fine.

“well even if you’ve only come for coffee, this shop is off limits last time you were around you fucked shit up,”

Shuu was able to deduce she was talking about kaneki, he had tried to devour him then which was understandable about his personality, he was quick to write kaneki off as food rather than an actual friend.