who are we

Touka

{ dedicated to starbirds for kicking my butt into gear! their comment was so cute I couldn't not finish this off, haha. I literally wrote it 4 hours after ur comment (aka immediately upon seeing it, 16 months after the previous chapter... forgive me!).
anyone have any requests for the next character/chapter?there is no plan for this that isn't already in the comments lol.
fun fact: this is the shortest chapter yet.
and OWL-15 my old friend sakura-kyoko!!! I miss youuu!! we bonded over this stuff!!!! }

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Kaneki isn't sure when he met Touka. She was just there one day, a sharp contrast to all the monotonous days before, days of Rize's whispers and Hide growling at her and to be honest the perpetual migraines were getting annoying.

She cut through all the nonsense with a rough, "Hey! Tell 'em to fuck off or leave 'em alone, but don't bitch and moan like an indecisive pansy!"

Kaneki squeaked, nervously asked Rize and Hide to keep it down so he could study, and... that was that.

It was just so Touka.

She wasn't really mean, but she wasn't nice either, and she refused to tolerate most people. So Touka is blunt, and Kaneki is awkward, and Rize coos ominously in the background, and Hide hisses like a feral cat, and all is right with the world. Except for the part where it isn't, but Kaneki passive-aggressively hates thinking about the things wrong in his life so he doesn't.

(Like how his aunt has stopped cooking lunch for him, and he gets in trouble for outshining his cousin, and his books get ripped up at school, and his left eye keeps itching like something is trying to explode out of it and sometimes he just can't take it anYMORE—)

Things aren't perfect by any means, but he has Hide and Touka and even Rize and really? Kaneki's life is great.

(—e're losing him!—get the doc—efibrila—lear!—nresponsiv—upping the voltag—CLEAR!—oxyg—ucking IV sali—no!—BEEEEEEEEEEEE—)

Yeah. Life is pretty damn good.