Butterflies

Chapter 6

Blyke's eyes flicked up as footsteps tapped across the floor. Remi walked up to him from the open door of the hallway in her flat.

His weight shifted on the mattress of the bed as she sat down next to him.

"Who were you calling?" he asked. Her voice had sounded out from Isen's room to a response that never came, continued in her soft voice even with the strain of annoyance.

"Arlo," she replied. Her eyes stayed locked on the floor, refusing to look up to him.

"The guy your brother mentored?" he questioned.

"Yeah, kind of," she replied. She twisted the cord of the collar of her hoodie. "That's how their relationship started out like. It was different by the time he died."

"I thought they still got along then?"

"Yes." She dragged the 's' through her teeth. "It was more he rose above him. My brother struck out on his own. But that's beside the point. I've asked to move in with him temporarily. Both of us."

"Why?" His eyebrows furrowed as he tilted his head to look into her fire red eyes that still refused to look at him.

"He's..." She hesitated. "He's a ghoul as we.."

He stared at her and then blinked. "You... You know I'm part ghoul now?"

"You..." She cleared her throat, bringing her hand up to her mouth. "You should have seen yourself when I found you."

"It was visible?" he questioned, his voice rising.

"Your kakugan was visible," she replied, "but only in one eye."

"Oh," he said. "I should probably work on that now." He bit his lip. "You didn't think I was a ghoul the whole time."

"What?" Her head suddenly shot up, eyes open wide. "You were part of the CCG. There wasn't any way you could be one before. And anyway, I've heard about those artificial half-ghouls they had in Japan."

"No one believed those were real though."

She looked at them through the side of her eyes. "I've seen it with my own eyes." She glanced away with a pause. "You didn't even questioned that I know a ghoul."

"Remi." He laughed. "You were always a ghoul sympathiser. I'm not surprised you reveal now that you actually know one."

"So you're not going to hand him over to the CCG?" she asked.

He paused. "I trust you. I doubt he's a particularly violent one that you know of. I would be more interested in giving them the location of the ghouls that took me." He riffled through his thoughts. "Not that I remember it."

"You're not going to give yourself over to them, are you?" she asked. She grabbed his hands with both of hers and stared up into his eyes.

"If it prevents me from hurting-"

She grabbed him by the shoulders. "I don't want to lose you." A tear built up in the corner of her eye. "I thought I had and I don't want to go through that again."

He pushed her away. "I don't want to lose you either, so can you not touch me right now."

"Oh." She turned away from him, pulling her arms into herself and hunching her shoulders. She took to her feet. "I'll tell you when the gets here."

"Wait, who's driving?"

Several hours later, Remi left Isen's room to tell him that their ride had arrived. He had forgotten that neither Remi or Isen had a car due to their flat lacking a car parking space. Apparently, Arlo's place did have a car parking space.

Outside of the steps, a sleek black car rested. On the driver's side, a tall man with curls of blonde hair made to look formally messy. From where Blyke stood at the top of the steps, he wore a grey jumper over a white button-up shirt with no tie to match.

On the front passenger side, a slender woman leant up against the window frame. Her hair had been feathered with patches of blonde dyed into her magenta hair.

"Come on." Remi pushed past him out the front door, suitcase in hand. She leaped down the steps and stared back up at him. After a pause, he followed her down the stairs at a much slower pace. Arlo had gotten out the car and open up the boot, where Remi slipped the suitcase the suitcase inside.

"Hello, you must be Blyke." Arlo held out his hand, which he took. "I've heard a lot about you."

Blyke's eyes flicked to Remi. "And I haven't heard anything about you."

He gave a small chuckle. "I can imagine why." He turned back to the front door up the steps. "Isen, hurry up."

Blyke jumped out of his skin at his shout. He followed his gaze up to the front door where Isen had pulled the door shut, a suitcase by his side. Keys rattled in his hands as he deadlocked the door. then he headed down the steps.

"You're coming?" he asked, staring up at Isen wide-eyed. Isen pushed his suitcase next to Remi's in the boot before it was shut. Unfortunately, he would have to return to his own flat to get most of his clothes and that would alert the CCG. He had no idea what they would make of it.

"Of course. I'm not going to be left in this flat alone," he replied.

His words swam around Blyke's head as they got in the car. He was pressed up against the car door with Remi next to him in the middle seat.

He looked to where Arlo sat in the driver's seat and the woman, who had been introduced as Seraphina, in the passenger seat next to him. It must be hard for them to be forced in a confined space with two humans, their scent filling the unventilated air. Three, potentially. He didn't know if he retained the scent of human flesh or not yet.

The predator sense of smell of a ghoul had not kicked in from yet. He didn't know why. He presumed he wasn't hungry yet, but, as Remi had pointed out, he had fainted yesterday. That could be a sign.

He didn't want to entertain the thought of what would happen when he could smell Remi. He didn't want to see her like that.

A/N: So, it's been about four years for this specific fic. My thoughts did come back to this fic occasionally and I did consider rewriting this as a vampire au instead of a Tokyo Ghoul crossover. This is due to basically not interacting with Tokyo ghoul for like four years. Probably about the same amount of time since I last updated this fic. However, I've reread this today and I've decided a significant change would have to be made. This is due to Blyke being an artificial half-ghoul, which didn't have a good translation to vampires. He could be transformed, but this isn't exactly rare.

I'm not sure when I'll update this again as I'm currently working on my own original work. I did just write this in a few hours because I was interested.

Also, to say, I've decided all characters are 21+ and it takes place in the USA. This is due to the first scene taking place in a club. I think I was a bit vague with it in previous authors notes.

I don't know where I left the plan for this fic as I believe from authors notes I did actually have one for this one. It might be in a notebook at my parents house as all the ones at my uni house are basically empty, or on my old laptop, which wouldn't turn on the last time I checked. The plot for this one is based off memory of where I wanted to go with it, but somethings will change. I do plan to change some of the tags on this.