(Takes place after Jason's torture and Hide's death in Anteiku. I do not own Tokyo Ghoul or Ghost Whisperer! This is slightly AU.)
Kaneki has runaway after realizing he had killed his best friend. Escaping to Grandview, New York in America, the half...
"I had a good hunch. You don't seem to be the type to give up just because of a little blood."
The bluntness of the statement had Melinda cringing. "It was more than a little."
"Maybe to you, but I've seen worse."
Melinda didn't comment on that. "I'm still waiting for my answers."
"And I'm still waiting for you to give up." Kaneki snarked. "Guess we'll both be waiting for eternity."
"On the contrary," Melinda glared lightly. "I'm not too sure I want to wait that long."
"Nobody wants to wait at all, but life goes on." Kaneki shrugged.
"Can you kindly tell me why there is a police force here to arrest you?" Melinda asked, ignoring his previous statement.
"They're here to execute me, not arrest me. It wouldn't do so well with the higher ups for them to do anything less with a monster such as myself." Kaneki corrected the woman.
"Then why must they be here to kill you? And why are you a monster?"
"I've killed, Melinda. You've gotten that much, I'm sure. I've killed the monsters that roam the darkness and I've killed humans." Kaneki admitted. "I'm not too proud of killing the humans, but I wasn't exactly stable then, so it should have been expected. Those Tokyo police forces have every right to hunt me, but at the same time, they have no right to ridicule me. Tell me, Melinda," Kaneki paused and leaned forward to appear mere inches from the woman's face.
"What gives you the right to demand answers?"
Melinda shivered as a chill crept up her spine. "I don't know. Maybe I don't have a right to ask for answers, but I'm doing so anyway. Who knows? Maybe someway, somehow, I do have a right to answers. That's why I'm asking."
Kaneki let a small smile appear in his face. He had to give her credit. He knew she had become slightly disturbed, but she managed to hold her ground. He was impressed.
"And what will you do with any answers I give you?"
"It depends." Melinda shrugged. "I guess I'd try to help you."
Kaneki's expression suddenly became much more suspicious and cautious. "Why?"
Melinda was surprised by the turn of emotions, but figured trust was a sensitive spot for the misunderstood criminal. "There's a lot of missing puzzle pieces and even if I were to find them all, the puzzle would still be broken. The pieces are crumbled, but you've tried to glue them back together, haven't you?"
"Maybe I have." Kaneki snapped. "So what? It changes nothing. Whatever I tell you will only lead you to the CCG's side."
"CCG? The police force from Tokyo? So they have a name?" Melinda smiled slightly.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the CCG is no police force. More like monster hunters to be exact." Kaneki glared.
"If they hunt the monsters that roam here now, why do they pursue you?" Melinda wondered.
"Has it never crossed your mind, girl?" He hissed.
Melinda was shocked by the turn of attitude. He seemed to refer to her as if she was a child, a stranger. In his eyes, she might have been.
Melinda let the boy continue.
"The monsters are ghouls. That is their proper term and I suggest you address them as such. Many will not take kindly to being called a monster. You've already discovered first hand that they survive off of human flesh."
Melinda grimaced, but didn't have room to disagree.
"Did it ever occur to you, that maybe, I was not human?" Kaneki sported a small glare, a raised brow, and a frown.
The missing pieces in Melinda's mind were suddenly found, and clicked into place.
At this point, she watched as his eye changed to the cursed ghoul eye she had seen just a few nights before.
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He slipped off his mask to reveal that his other eye was still normal.
"I'm what they call a one eyed ghoul. I am an artificial ghoul. I was human once, then turned to a flesh eating creature. Though I may be referred to as half human, I am superior to a full ghoul in more ways than one."
Melinda forced herself to keep her composure. "Then why do you kill other ghouls?"
"I don't like ghouls who mess and play with their food. It's sick and they deserve to be called monsters. Besides, I'm a kakuja, meaning I can eat ghouls instead of humans. It's just easier to eat evil ghouls instead of searching for suicide victims."
Melinda didn't move. "Does this have something to do with why Hide won't move on?"
Kaneki glared at her, kakugan still active. "If I answer that, will you leave me alone?"
"Yes." The answer could not be hesitant or else he wouldn't believe her.
"Fine." Kaneki caved. "Does it help to know that while I starved, I could do nothing, but watch as I devoured my best friend? I had no control of my mind anymore. All I had was instinct and that instinct, my instinct, led me to killing Hide. Is that a good enough answer for you?"
He disappeared and Melinda could feel nothing but guilt.
__________________________
Melinda drowned herself in her thoughts for the rest of the night, thinking about his answer.
It made sense, in a horrid kind of way.
She couldn't begin to comprehend what the young adult had gone through since the time she'd met him and before.
To be human one moment only to realize you had to eat them the next?
Melinda couldn't fathom the mental stress that could cause.
Melinda cursed herself for thinking like this, for thinking it was sick and terrifying, when she had no room to say anything. She had not gone through it, not that she'd ever want to, selfishly.
Kaneki was unstable, he'd admitted that.
How unstable was the question? It was obvious Ned knew, so he might have had experience with it.
She didn't know. For God's sake, she was still trying to digest the fact that the boy she'd casually let into her house and talked to ate people such as herself!
Her thoughts wandered to Hide. The young ghost was also suffering. All of the things both of them had said to each other suddenly made sense, and she internally frowned.
Hide blamed Kaneki in no such way and the ghoul had literally used his own two hands to kill the boy.
Kaneki had no control, that she was sure. Hide would not be so forgiving if that wasn't the case, or at least she hoped.
