Black Water | Tokyo Ghoul

Chapter 24: Exposed

A long time ago, specifically five years ago, Rin witnessed a lobotomy first hand.

That night, he had just come from a successful fight against a mob boss who bothered him at the wrong day and the wrong time, accusing him of a massacre in one of their properties. Rin never remembered coming across humans with guns before this entire conundrum. Bullets may not have much effect on ghouls but they were annoying and required tedious amounts of time to properly get rid of. Unsurprisingly, Rin was forced to fight the gang and won against 10 other humans wielding pitiful guns and silencers. In the end, Rin found out that this specific gang was wanted by another, higher and frankly, more powerful gang.

After a few phone calls, smiles, and charming persuasion, Rin was promised 500,000 yen in cash at the delivery of the pitiful humans who accused him of treachery. Those years ago, Rin didn't care about what he was doing, who he was hurting or killing. He needed money. More disguises and excuses to hide into another ward to live for another day.

But going into a mafia gang's basement was one of the very few choices he regretted.

If only he thought better, if only he remembered how sick humans really were, that there are some humans more terrible than ghouls, he wouldn't still hear the sound of wet crunching and thick stickiness that was louder even over the gush of water crashing against the basement window pane.

His life may have been a series of disgusting and morbid events (usually started by his own hands), and he may have been the son of doctors who in fact have done brain surgery before, but actually being forced to watch someone dissect a human's brain was something else entirely.

At this moment, Rin felt like he was the one strapped to the gurney, eyes wide underneath a hot and bright ring light, and fingers twitching at every stray tap of cold, sharp metal against the soft tissue in his skull. Like the poor human he caught and beat half to death before being taken and strapped into that cold gurney, Rin felt like he was being violated and searched for something even he couldn't find.

Amon calling his name almost made him jump.

Realizing that the cold had bled into his cheeks, Rin took a subtle breath through his lips and returned to reality, ignoring the way Aki looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

"You alright?" Aki asked, "You look pale."

Rin kept his eyes on the screen, pretending to be confused but he could see Amon staring at him intently form the corner of his eye. And for a moment, Rin wanted to break and tell him the truth, that he felt like a steaming hot iron bar was being shoved down his throat, and that he actually wanted to let the stinging in his eyes burn hotter and wetter until his own walls finally fell.

The truth...didn't even sound like the truth. And Rin hated that he had to question its authenticity. Was his brother really once a Dove before he was discovered by his own partner and slaughtered like an animal? He couldn't believe it and found it harder and harder to stop his fist from shaking underneath crossed arms.

But Aki was there. Waiting for an answer with that annoying way a spoiled child looks at his parents for something it wants immediately or it will scream bloody murder.

So Rin sniffed and straightened himself and perked a nonchalant brow. He wasn't going to break now especially that he found something about his brother. Even if this was something he still couldn't wrap his head around.

"Yeah." Rin said, "Just sad that his partner had to be the one to kill him." It was still an easy lie but Aki didn't seem to buy it and raised a conceiting brow while his fingers continued to impressively clack away at the old keyboard like he had done this kind of job a long time ago.