For When Your Heart is Broken

14: Too Much

A/N: Yo, what's up? I've cooked up a little update for you all today. I know, I know, my updates are slow and shitty, and a lot of it is just filler content, but LISTEN, man, I just wanna get into Shuu's perspective on shit, you know?
If you're still reading this story: thank you.
I'd like to dedicate this upcoming chapter to my good friend Laurence.
Thanks for always motivating me and listening to my rants, man.

...

        Immediately following the call, along with his senpai's aggravated leave, Ken sunk down to his knees and sobbed some more. Why for, he wasn't entirely certain.
Was it relief? Happiness? Anger?
No, he wasn't angry, certainly not.
There was a weight that had been lifted off of his shoulders. The tightness in his chest was loosening, finally.

It really hadn't been a long time, in hindsight. Shuu was travelling for three weeks, and he had been settled in his new living space for another four and a half.

        Time tends to drag whenever your heart is trying to mend itself together again.

        Dragging himself up from the ground that he had been left on by Nishio (who was aware that Ken did not want to be seen, let alone comforted by a person that wasn't that person, the one he needed to see so desperately), he stood, and brushed his knees off, wiping his face while trying to clear his head.

Tsukiyama said he was coming back... but... He was torn away from his 'what if' by the sound of a voice speaking to him:

"Onii-chan," Hinami's voice reached the Rinkaku, and he peeked up from behind his bangs to see the girl with her activated Kakugan and a chunk of meat, "You need to eat." She told him. 
With a nod, he took it from her, and they trudged off silently back to the underground hideout of the 24th Ward together.

...

        Whenever his hunger had been curbed, Kaneki washed off his hands and prepared coffee for the two of them. (Hinami had it made down here. Where the hell did she find these things? The upper levels have them, but damn, she was deep, deep in the tunnels of this place, much farther underground than their tech-room.)

Ayato was also there, wordlessly lurking about and looking after Hinami with a protective gaze. Kaneki waved to him, and the Ghoul inclined his head slightly to acknowledge Ken's presence before ducking into a doorway and closing said door immediately afterwards. (Not before swiping some coffee for himself, of course.)

         Sitting down in the love-seat beside Hinami, Kaneki handed her a mug of coffee with a tentative grin. She returned it, and then closed her eyes as she took a drink.

"You always brew the best coffee, Onii-chan." She told him, "A lot like Yoshimura-san's..."
"Well, he taught me well." Shrugged the white-haired male. He drank from his mug as well, and they sat there together in a comfortable silence until Ken decided to crack open the chest and pluck out another letter.

"Did you ever read any of these, Hina?" He asked her.

With a shake of her head, she hummed, "I read what was addressed to me."
It occurred to him then:
"Why... why didn't you say something to me... about him leaving?"

    She sighed, stood up, and hugged him wordlessly.

Soon, she pulled away and met his gaze, her honey-amber coloured irises shining with a sadness she had not openly displayed since Ryouko's death. Ken seemed to have underestimated how Hinami must have felt about Tsukiyama having left... Tsukiyama had been, along with Ken himself and Banjou, somewhat of a father figure to this parentless child, despite how young he was.