Miscellaneous Anime/Manga One-Shots!

sing me to sleep (Tokyo Ghoul)

 The day of her father's funeral, Akira wears white.

How disrespectful, she hears the onlookers murmur, swathed in heavy black wool, medals and brooches gleaming from their breast pockets. Who does she think she is?

But she pays them no mind, tilts her head to the sky and twirls the white lily between her fingertips. The wives of the bureau head are sobbing into their handkerchiefs behind her, but she ignores them, too.

Her grieving had been brief but intense, hours of staring at her dinner table with that gnawing feeling of guilt. You madman, you freak ringing through her mind, she'd hug her knees to her chest and rock back and forth, just like her father had always done.

You're gonna be strong, just like your mama, he'd croon. Promise me, Akira. Promise me you'll be strong?

Her nails dig into her palms. I'm so weak, Dad. So weak.

The grieving was for him, not for the neat rows of his comrades standing at command beneath the stormy skies, entire legions of men who only knew him as quinque maniac, not as Dad, I'm bleeding through my underwear or Dad, I got an A this semester or oh God, Dad, I'm so alone.

So she pretends.

Akira swallows back a gulp and approaches his casket. Kureo Mado looks so shrunken in death- cold, hollow, sunken. Exhaling shakily, she places the lily on his chest and leans in to press a kiss to his cold, cold cheek.

"I'm sorry. I broke my promise," she whispers as her hair falls against his forehead, steps away and closes the coffin with a soft thud.

A gunshot goes off, and everything is silent.

He visits her father often, the man with the gray eyes and clumsy hands.

Amon Koutarou, she soon learns, his name like a death sentence upon her lips. Her father's last partner.

Amon Koutarou, the last person to see her father. Amon Koutarou, all knife-sharp creases in his slacks and steely eyes, the reverence as he strides through the halls; top of the academy and senior investigator by twenty-seven, they all whisper, like a mantra. Polished and groomed, poised for success- everything her father hadn't been.

Somewhere deep inside her, she resents him. Resents this perfect, perfect being who couldn't save an old man's life.

But more than anything, Akira blames herself.

He sweeps all around her father's grave, often doing more harm than good, and replaces her wilted flowers with fresh ones. (They change every week, depending on what's on sale at the florist's.)

This week, it's carnations. Akira clutches her bouquet close to her chest as he kneels down and, his hands clasped into prayer, and begins mumbling words she can't quite hear. Something about the cases he's been working on, a skirmish with another division, Kureo's favorite meat bun stand shutting down.

Listening to his fumbling words, Akira makes a vow.

I'll catch up to you, even if it's the last thing I do.

"Your new partner, Amon Koutarou."

Shinohara shows her his file. He looks much more intimidating on paper, his lips pulled taut, eyebrows knit together in a sharp v.

Akira knows she's supposed to see a monster- ruthless, invincible, ready to strike. But instead, she sees a patient man, the one who sweeps her father's grave, leaves behind the musk of cheap cologne and a bouquet of flowers, talks of meat buns and new leads with a telltale glimmer in his eyes.