Mourning Doves | Tokyo Ghoul

14 | L e a r n i n g

She was awakened by the aroma of coffee drifting through the cool air, laced with some other revolting human odors, and fluttered her eyelids open to find herself in an unfamiliar room. She was tucked under white sheets, cool and smooth to the touch, and her head lay caressed on a small pile of downy pillows. The shades were drawn and the room - despite the latter scents - smelled like fresh laundry and crisp linen. The only thing that didn't appeal to her in the situation was the fact that she was stark naked under the blankets.

She scrambled up on the mattress, clinging the sheets to her chest as she frantically bolted her eyes around, her heart thumping wildly and her breath drawing into quick, shallow gasps.

"Ichijou-kun?" she asked instinctively, her voice desperate. She shook violently in her spot, cowering into the blankets as she backed up against the headboard; her eyes were round with fear.

There was a clatter of metal and a scuffle of footsteps before he appeared under the threshold, an apron wrapped around his figure and a sincerely worried look carved into his suddenly rigid features.

"What is it?" he asked in a flurry. "Is something wrong?"

Upon seeing his face, her shoulders eased, and she could feel the relief flood over her as she let out a long sigh.

"Thank goodness..." she breathed.

Ichijou stood there for a second, perplexed, until he realized what was going on; he was at her side in less than a second, couching by the side of the bed as he rested a hand on her leg, stroking it gently through the thin sheet.

"It's alright, Etsuko-chan," he murmured softly to her, his dark eyes gleaming. "You're safe."

Etsuko gave him a small, sincere smile and placed her hand upon his, gazing into his eyes with swirling liquid gold irises.

"I'm glad," she murmured, choking on her own voice.

Ichijou gave a soft laugh, lifting his other hand so that he cupped her cheek in his palm. He gazed into her eyes, deep and full of longing, as she leaned into his touch, breathing in his mind-numbing scent and feeling all of her stress ebb away like snowmelt. His breathing quickened.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured quietly, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

Etsuko stiffened, her eyes turning hard and widening a bit as she continued to stare at him. She held her breath, as if there were toxic gas roaming in the space, and shakily reached a hand up to the one on her cheek. Perplexed, Ichijou watched her as she guided his hand off of her and set it gently down on the bed. She gave him a small, tense smile.

"I'll go get ready now," she announced softly. She swung her legs off the mattress and pushed off the bed, walking past Ichijou, who still sat crouched by the bedside, and into the bathroom. She shut the door quickly with a soft click, leaving Ichijou to bury himself in his thoughts.

Puzzled, he rose slowly from his spot, turned his face to the bathroom door and stared at it for a second, only to make his way back to the kitchen.

Etsuko leaned against the cold counter, feeling the iciness of the stone seep into her pale skin as she glared at herself in the mirror with equally chilling, amber eyes. She could see that her face was etched in a sense of spite, despising and dark with hatred, framed with a slightly frazzled mop of long white hair. She saw the faint lines brushing into her skin, and the powder-lilac half-moons sinking underneath her eyes. Her ribs were still poking out from her skin, though it no longer looked thin as paper; her hipbones however still jutted out violently. She had a long way of recovery from her former starving state, and an even longer distance from anything remotely to what could be described as "beautiful." She was once ravishing, enough to entice and draw in men as though they were moths and she was a burning kerosene lamp; she was once extraordinarily stunning, and she knew it. But now, considering circumstances, she didn't give two shits about her appearance, and just did her makeup out of routine habit. Not once did she ever stop to analyze her own self in the mirror, and never once in that time span did her appearance ever cross her mind, and his words just then had dug into her like some fearsome dagger.