Traitor (Renji Yomo x Reader) [Continued in a second book!]

Make The Best Of It

The following hours felt like an eternity that simply didn't want to pass by. The longer I waited, the more aware I grew of every little sound around me. Some water dripped onto the ground every few minutes, the wind was somehow blowing through the halls, every now and then a person walked around or even passed my cell, rats and mice roamed around the area ..and sometimes it smelled of food and coffee. To distract myself from thinking, I started counting the seconds between each sound. It took approximately 85 seconds for a water drop to reach the ground and 6824 seconds for footsteps to walk nearby or past my cell. Aside from that, I counted 3542 seconds between the smell of fresh coffee. Between food and coffee were around 1874 seconds. Not only did it distract me, it also helped me grow tired. So after counting for quite some hours, I closed my eyes and eventually fell asleep. The last thing I noticed were the drops of water increasing as if it began to rain outside. It was surprisingly calming. The breeze that sometimes flew through the hallway almost made it feel like a thunderstorm was coming. So finally, using my imagination to picture a nice environment around me, I managed to doze off entirely.

Over all those hours, I managed to calm down but I couldn't feel guilty for attacking Ayato. Not after he was the reason my child died. Somehow self-defense or not, it didn't matter to me. What he did was unforgivable. However, at least I stopped feeling as much envy for Touka as I did before. But.. Knowing she had everything I wanted, frustrated me. I still doubted myself, wondered if I wasn't good enough for Renji - even though those worries were absolutely uncalled for and unnecessary; he wouldn't have wanted to get back together with me if that were the case and I was very well aware of that. And somewhere deep down I knew we just never had the time to deepen our relationship otherwise we would probably be married already. Just something was always going wrong. Countless times did I remind myself that he did have a ring for me - a ring that was now rotting away in the box he gave me at Koutarou's house - even wanted to propose to me.. And he gave me a promise on that Christmas so many years ago.. But all that still didn't erase that unwell feeling within me. It was stupid, irrational but out of my control. All I could do was distract myself while this phase lasted.

This everlasting eternity of darkness came to an abrupt end when I suddenly heard two pairs of footsteps head in my direction. One seemed to walk fairly soft, while the other one almost stomped on the ground.

"Kaneki, you can't just lock her away" I heard my favorite voice say from a far distance, "She defended herself - did you even ask what shook her up so bad?"

"She just said she assumed he was an intruder and therefore attacked him" Kaneki explained to him.

"So why do you lock her away if she just tried to protect others?" Renji argued, his voice soft yet hinting some kind of determination.

".. She seemed shaken up and I thought locking her away would be best to ensure she'd calm down" Kaneki continued to explain, "I don't know her well enough to be able to judge her moves. In order to protect all other ghouls, I decided to lock her away until now."

"You should've just given me a call. You'll never know her nearly as good as I do and I can guarantee you that this is the last thing she needs. If anything, you just made it worse" Renji scolded him, "If she was really panicking or anyhow seeing a threat in him, it will have a good reason."

"Then she lied to me bec-"

"Yeah, probably. And that's because it's none of your business. Have you been speaking to Ayato about this?"