Mourning Doves | Tokyo Ghoul

9 | A m i t y

It was getting later in the day rather quickly as the pair stood in the middle of Etsuko's bedroom, sewn into an embrace that ceased to weaken even as the time tumbled by. The light poured into the chamber in streams of gold, immersing them both waist-deep in the nostalgic waters of solemnness and solitude. She was genuinely stunned into silence, unable to move as his arms remained entangled around her like strong, sturdy branches. He, enraptured and indulging in what was the closest to bliss he had ever experienced, breathed softly into her feathery hair with his eyes closed in placidity, remaining adamant like a granite statue; she smelled intoxicatingly like caramel.

It was she who broke the sacred stillness, stirring inside his embrace and sliding her slender hands over the man's abdomen and up to his rather broad chest; she gently pushed herself away from him, gazing down at the ground only to flicker them back up to catch his enticing dark gaze; it held all of the passion and hurt she could ever imagine a human could go through, and it bore down on her like the weight of the entire world. She stared back into them, furrowing her brows as she tried to contemplate what exactly would create that look, especially from a human.

In his face, she suddenly remembered him, the only ghoul she had ever known to have gone to such measures to cherish the human race, and unconditionally the only ghoul she had ever learned to love.

She became angry, tearing herself away from him completely and breaking herself from him, wrapping her own scrawny arms around her body and turning away so that her white back confronted him instead. His dark eyes narrowed upon seeing her skeletal figure, her shoulder blades protruding out like ledges on a rugged mountain and her spine forming monstrous ridges, dipping in and out of her shallow, slender flesh. He gulped.

"Etsuko-chan," he started softly.

"Why haven't you left?" she hissed, her voice trembling. "Why have you stayed?"

Ichijou narrowed his eyes, intuitive.

"I already told you," Ichijou murmured, reaching out a hand towards her shoulder. She shook it away violently, letting his hand fall back limply to his side. He sighed. "I already told you. It's obvious that I care about you, isn't it?"

She ducked her head dangerously under her cascade of white hair, shrugging up her shoulders as she hunched over her back and clutching at her face with her palm, a red iris peeking out from the crevasse of her bony fingers.

"A lot of men claimed to have 'cared about me,'" Etsuko spat, a sudden malicious smile creeping upon her porcelain skin. "And inevitably, they all ended in one-night disasters."

"But that's the thing, isn't it?" Ichijou asked, his face stern.

Etsuko puffed.

"What?" she seethed.

"I haven't left yet," he said. "And I don't plan on it anytime soon."

"But why?" she hissed in irritation. "Out of all the people you could have picked, why the fuck did you choose me?"

She whirled around in rage, her fiery golden eyes blazing and emitting a ghastly, explosive aura that snatched away his breath in both fear and awe. He stood there, taking in the glare that she pierced him with, unyielding and holding steady in place. He softened his eyes, surprising her, and reached out to cup her flustered cheek in his hand; she stiffened.

"You desperately remind me of someone I used to know," he murmured, strain inflicting upon his voice as his fingers shook. "And I want to protect you, because I wasn't able to protect her."

Etsuko blinked her narrowed eyes, glistening yellow and menacing.

"So I'm just a replacement for her?" Etsuko spat at him, gripping his hand upon her cheek with firm fingers, praying it off of her face. "What makes you think you have the luxury of making me so?"