The Torture I Go Through

Chapter 2 : Cleaning, Shopping, & Thinking

3rd POV

It was the middle of the day when Kaneki woke up. He yawns, stretches, and gets out of bed. He walks over to the large windows and looks down at the city below. A few people were up and walking around.

Today Kaneki had to start cleaning and get the suite in proper condition. Kaneki had noticed yesterday that there were dark shadows on the walls of most of the room in the suite. Paintings must of been hung there where the shadows were. Despite all the books, clothes, paintings, and pictures being missing, the suite seemed to be in the exact same condition as it was before it was abandoned. The only things that had changed were the dust and cobwebs.

He walks over to the bathroom and goes to the sink. He opens the cupboard and find that there is a toothbrush still in its packaging. He also finds a tube of toothpaste. Opening the packaging, he puts some of the mint flavored white substance onto the bristles of the brush. He then starts brushing his teeth.

Finished brushing his teeth, he spits out the foam and washes his mouth with some water. Looking up into the mirror, Kaneki sees that his eye has heal completely. There are no marks from the attack left. All the cuts and bruises on his body are also gone.

Kaneki walks out of the bathroom and to the closet. Opening the doors, he finds a pair of black boxer briefs and puts them on. He also finds black shorts and a sleeveless dark grey colored croptop. Though the closet was mostly empty, there were three tops and bottoms, two pairs of underwear and socks, a black hoodie, and a pair of red converse sneakers.

'A boy my age who really liked wearing sceneish clothing must of lived here,' Kaneki thought as put the clothes on. He walks over to the full length mirror. His eyes widen slightly at how good the clothes fit him. He might start wearing this type of clothing style.

Once he finished dressing, Kaneki gets to work. He walks to the washroom and finds some wash cloths, cleaning equipment, and cleaning chemicals. He starts cleaning the walls, floors, ceilings, the kitchen, the washroom, the bathrooms, etc. He cleaned the whole suite until it was spotless. Cleaning helped his mind from wandering. Books also helped.

Two hours and a half later, the entire suite was spotless. Kaneki had scrubbed the floors, dusted the furniture, cleaned out the refrigerator without throwing up, and many other things too. He had decided to "buy" all the clothes, books, and other things when the night arrived. He didn't want people to be around him. He didn't want to smell their sweet blood or hear their hearts beat around him. He didn't want to eat at all.

Finally finished cleaning the suite, he makes himself a freshly brewed cup of coffee. He sits on the stool that is for the small isle table that was attached to the counter with the sinks. The isle was a few centimeters shorter than the counter. He sips his coffee as he waits for night fall.

--- time skip ---

The wind tussled Kaneki's snow white hair as he was perched on the roof of the abandoned and broken shopping mall. He slipped in through the opening that used to be for a window and down onto the first floor. Kaneki didn't even falter in his steps as he started walking towards one of the many shops in the building. The shop he was walking towards was a clothing store.

Silently breaking into the shop, being careful not to sound an alarm off, Kaneki headed towards the tops. The shop had many gothic and emoish styled clothes. He lifted a long-sleeved black shirt with pleather sleeves up. Kaneki really liked this style of clothing for some reason after his "reincarnation". He shivered slightly at the memories.

Shaking his head, Kaneki started picking out different shirts, pants, jackets, and other accessories. When his arms were filled with different articles of clothing, he headed to the changing rooms. After a long time of putting on clothes and seeing if he liked them, Kaneki finally picks his favorite articles of clothing from his quite large pile. He ripped off the tags and threw them into the trash. He found a large plastic bag and placed all the clothes into it.

Kaneki guickly ran into the grocery store and grabbed some fresh coffee beans. Once he got the beans, he started making his way home. Home, such a strong word. Home can mean the place where you live, the place where your family or bestfriends live at all together, or many other things. His home when he was younger living with his mother and Anteiku used to be his home. Now they were just places, buildings, that had alot of memories.

Kaneki sighs softly as he walks into the suite. He places the coffee beans in the kitchen cupboard, before going to the washroom to wash his brand new clothes. In the washroom, Kaneki sorts the clothes into pile according to their color. There were only four piles, the blacks, the whites, the greys, and the reds. These four are his favorite colors.

Thwe was two washing machines, so he places the whites and really light greys into one. He places the blacks and dark greys into the other washing machine. He turns on the machines and lets them start washing after adjusting the machine to the required settings. While the clothes were in the washing machine, Kaneki goes out again.

While he had come back to the suite, he had noticed a book store nearby. He really needed something to do if he was going to stay here. So why not do the one thing he loves to do? Listen to music while reading. He hasn't done that in a long time.

He makes it to the book store, which he also found out was also a music store. Numerous amounts of books and manga were stacked onto shelves, same with the cds in the music part of the store. Kaneki walked down through the isles, once in a while taking a book, manga, or cd off a shelf and looking at it. The building had three floors. The first floor was for books, the second floor for manga and comics, and the third floor was for the music.

After finding two large plastic bags, Kaneki gathered a big pile of books, manga, and cds and placed them into the bags. The bags were quite heavy, so he puts another bags over the filled ones. Making sure they are sturdy, he makes his way home, being careful not to sound the alarms and cause alot of attention. In the bags were some books he's read before and some new ones. He had gotten into manga with the help of Hide. Kaneki sighs sadly remembering his best friend who died. He wasn't strong enough to even save his childhood best friend from death.

Walking into the suite, he set the plastic bags onto the floor next to the empty shelves in the living room. He went into the washroom and unloaded the first load. Placing the cleaned clothes into a large basket, he then started the next load. He had to do the last load tomorrow. Kaneki looked at the clock and sees that he had been gone for about five hours.

Walking into the bedroom he got ready for bed. He had gotten a little bit dirty and sweaty from all the cleaning, so he was going to take a shower. Stripping his clothes off and placing them into the wash bin, Kaneki got into the shower. Letting the warm water wash over him, he started thinking about how he had gotten to the place he was now in. He had gone through alot.

His thoughts remembered the moment when he had fought Touka's brother, Ayato. Kaneki was intrigued by the boy. When he was on a 'rampage' with Tsukiyama and Banjo they would cross paths with him once in a while. He sometimes followed Touka's brother and started to investigate the boys movements and personality. He had felt something in his stomach when he and Ayato had fought.

When he had half killed. He had felt really bad. Something inside him had stirred.

Letting a single tear slide down his cheek, he finishes his shower. He dried off and got ready for bed. Once under the covers, Kaneki hoped that Ayato was safe. He didn't know why, but it felt right. Maybe, he was in love with him. Kaneki had a small smile on his lips as he fell asleep, thinking about the times he spent with Ayato.