Fades to Black [ hidekane ]

what more can they take

dignity
pride
left eye
sanity
freedom
mobility
sunlight
black hair
strength
privacy
friends
family
school
future
present

Kaneki is making a list of all the things the cancer has taken from him. It's a long list. He doesn't like to think about it, but he's made lists for everything else, like "what I would do if I was free" and "why I want to go home" and "reasons why hate". Coherent or not he likes his lists, the order they bring. They ground him. He has three notebooks filled with his lists, something his psychologist disapproves of because most of his lists are negative and self-depreciating and filled with angst and Kaneki just says that's all he has left and the woman shuts up.

He adds "peace of mind" and "happiness" to his list.

His aunt didn't believe him at first when he said he couldn't see out of his left eye. Then when he kept getting hit in gym class and walking into corners she finally took him to a doctor.

That was when he was first diagnosed with cancer. It was skin, originally, but it had spread to his eye and it was too late by the time they found it. The organ had to be removed along with the cancerous skin cells. And there went Kaneki's eye.

For months he looked like Frankenstein's monster, patches of skin missing from his hands and body and face and new skin stitched back on with thick, black sutures. His friends avoided him, afraid they would catch his cancer too-- even though that's not how it works. Looking back, they were probably glad to be rid of him. He was a wet blanket. They'd been drifting apart anyway. Good riddance to bad trash. Yeah.

That was third year, middle school. Four years ago. He never went to high school or university because soon, too soon, after that the cancer had come back with a vengeance, spreading again and again in a forever-war until Kaneki's hair turned white from the radiation treatments and his fingernails grew in black. He picked up the habit of cracking his joints, specifically his fingers, now that the bones were brittle and popped so easily. Screw the damage he was potentially doing to his fingers. They could do little more than use a pen and turn book pages and hold a toothbrush and on good days turn doorknobs and push the wheels on chairs and during remission he could even use crutches or a walker.

he didn't have much left. he had his thoughts, but the psychologist liked to poke around in them. he had his sunlight, but the dirty windows weakened it. he had his will, but the cancer was breaking it. he had his body, but was it really even his own anymore?

he had once had hope.

whether or not he still had it was up for debate.