just a wish // haise x touka
inspired by pare’s tweet 💖
~1400 words, no content warnings. excerpt:
"I'll just keep doing...what I've planned.”
She said it with such conviction. She's sure she had it, then. And she's sure she has it now.
Somewhere.
“Your coffee,” she announces. She brings it out to his table, a single-seater closest to the bar. She only delivers coffee like this to customers when he comes to visit. No one comments on it, not even Nishiki; though one day, Nishiki took the mug from her and ran it out himself. He grinned when he did it, which proved to Touka he knew exactly what he was doing, and both of them were surprised to find Touka visibly infuriated by it.
After that, Nishiki let her have her time alone with — him. As small and trivial as it was.
“Thank you for waiting.” She smiles at him, and pretends not to notice how hastily he sets his book down, how awkwardly he clears his throat. He always acts like he's only just noticed her. Like his stare hasn't been raising the hairs on her neck, and the warm goosebumps all along her arms.
"I'll just keep doing...what I've planned.”
She said it with such conviction. She's sure she had it, then. And she's sure she has it now.
Somewhere.
“Your coffee,” she announces. She brings it out to his table, a single-seater closest to the bar. She only delivers coffee like this to customers when he comes to visit. No one comments on it, not even Nishiki; though one day, Nishiki took the mug from her and ran it out himself. He grinned when he did it, which proved to Touka he knew exactly what he was doing, and both of them were surprised to find Touka visibly infuriated by it.
After that, Nishiki let her have her time alone with — him. As small and trivial as it was.
“Thank you for waiting.” She smiles at him, and pretends not to notice how hastily he sets his book down, how awkwardly he clears his throat. He always acts like he's only just noticed her. Like his stare hasn't been raising the hairs on her neck, and the warm goosebumps all along her arms.
“O-oh — thank you.”
At first, she turned away as soon as he thanked her. Nowadays, she waits until he takes his first sip (still too hasty, despite the heat). She waits until he purses his lips to lick them, briefly, and then beams up at her, in a way that he — that...Kaneki — never did before.
“It's delicious.” His smile is always too messy. No person is this happy just to receive a cup of coffee. “Thank you.”
She nods at him. There's always a moment, then, when she can make some kind of comment. The air between them almost seems to swell, to yawn open. She feels her chest ache with its hunger for words to pass between them.
How are you doing? How are your students? Isn't coffee nice on a rainy day like this? Though I hear tomorrow the sky should be bright and clear.
Usually, she just lets him watch her walk away.
:::
Sasaki Haise's life seems so idyllic. He has his playhouse, his playmates, his master, his new simple morals stacked neatly one atop the other. He has his bed, his toys, his treats. She imagines him eating the food on his given plate with enthusiasm, going to bed peacefully, waking up bright-eyed and ready for a new, uncomplicated day.
She has an instinctive knowledge of things that delight him, the same way someone might be aware that a puppy would love cheese and meat. Sometimes she can't help herself, and dangles these things in front of him, enticingly. She finds different cups and platters to furnish the photos he always takes of the plain black coffee she makes him; she furnishes his table and the nearby shelves with bestsellers and fresh flowers; she sometimes ties her hair up to better feel his gaze on her nape. Sometimes she sits at his table, briefly, briefly, and sometimes, most of the time, without even planning it, she laughs.
And one day —
“Oh,” he says, blinking. “Takatsuki Sen?”
She dropped it in front of him, exactly the way Rize did, with exactly the same flustered and embarrassed expression. Well, almost exactly. She isn't really as beautiful as Rize, but...
“Ah, yes,” Touka says. “I just started it. Do you like her too?”
He surprises her with a paler smile than usual.
“I’ve read their work,” he admits. He seems about to say something more, but then pauses, and then tries again.
“So you…you like tragedies, Manager?”
She’s too taken aback to lie. “No,” she blurts. “I…don’t.”
:::
What…am I doing?
Why did she do that? What was she expecting?
What did I want?
It’s so easy to get caught up in playing with him. Her heart races so fast that it’s easy to throw his ball and tug the rope in and out of his mouth and forget that the whole thing — the effort, the game, the point, everything — is fake.
Do you like tragedies?
He notices. After a week of Nishiki running the coffee out, he starts waiting by the bar while she works his order, even starts requesting complicated things, mochas and lattes that give him a little more time to throw lines to her.
“It’s been busy recently, huh?” he says, friendly, nervously, and Touka spares him a smile.
“Mmhm.” She yanks down the milk steamer.
“Maybe…maybe you haven’t really had time for anything? For — for reading, I mean.”
“Not too much.” She sets up a plain white cup and pours.
“Have you ever tried poetry?” he stammers. “I mean…reading poetry. It can be shorter…a little easier. It’s the kind of thing that’s good when you just have a couple minutes to yourself. Because they’re…shorter.”
“I don’t know much about poetry,” Touka admits, and he brightens.
“I could show you. I can bring some books in, if you’re interested. You can borrow them as long as you like. Or maybe — maybe we could…that is, there’s this…bookstore…”
He is staggering. Touka can’t look at him, suddenly. She blinks hard and stalls, slowly dolloping a swirl of foam into the cup, slowly pretending to search for a toothpick she finds very belatedly in her apron pocket. She draws a rabbit into the coffee, with incredible focus.
She knows what would soothe him immediately.
Yes. I’ll go with you.
To the bookstore, where they would walk together through the aisles, where they would peruse poetry and magazines and rabbit care manuals, where in exchanging and pointing out excerpts their hands would brush more than once or twice or a dozen times. She would make some comment about dieting to avoid a visit to some restaurant after; or, maybe, she wouldn’t. She’d find a place with a bar where they could sit side-by-side, some impossible place with stools so close they can’t avoid nudging shoulders and elbows and hips, some implausible menu where she would order cake and both of them would gulp it down and almost really actually taste some sweetness in it, an illusory sensation really just part of the glittery, too-rich, too-bright throbbing feeling between her ribs.
Yes. I’ll go with you. Yes.
She could do it. Playing a human isn’t that bad, she can play this too. She could join the cast of his world as the person he invites somewhere for Christmas, the person he follows into a love hotel room, the person who is the first to hear his voice in the morning.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
One day, he might even say it again. If you died…
And maybe it would mean something different this time. Maybe it would stick. Maybe she would forget that even now she’s dead to him, and here he is, not sad at all, but smiling at her with delight when she hands his coffee to him.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I have plans.”
She tries and fails to make herself watch his face fall.
“Ah,” he says. “Well…of course. Maybe…maybe sometime next week? Or the week after,” he tries, when she is silent. “Really anytime.”
Yes. Yes.
“I…”
Just once wouldn’t hurt, right? Just once. Go. Go.
“I…can’t. I’m sorry,” she manages, only barely. “I…have plans.”
For a moment they both stand there, wordless, separated by the counter between them. The air between them almost seems to swell, to yawn open. She feels her chest ache with its hunger for words to pass between them.
Actually, sorry, I was mistaken. I’m free. I’m almost always free. I only really work when I know you’ll be visiting. Well, no, I work all the time really, but I would always get out of it for you. It’s a rainy day today, but what about later? I hear tomorrow the sky should be bright and clear.
Her mouth is dry. There are too many words for her to pick one to say first. And he is quiet too, maybe he wondering whether he should try again. If he asked just one more time —
“Touka?” Nishiki calls finally, from the back. “Everything alright?”
Was he watching? For how long?
“Yeah,” she says, more weakly than she wanted. “It’s fine.”
She looks to Nishiki, and then, finally, back to — him. He blinks at her, and then smiles.
“Touka is a beautiful name,” he murmurs. And then, before she can respond: “I’m, um…sorry. I’m very sorry for bothering you.”
“You weren’t,” Touka says. “I just…”
She trails off. “Just please come back again, okay?”
“Alright,” he says. He lightens, a bit, though maybe it’s just her imagination, just her wishful thinking. “I have a…an assignment, though. So it might…be a while.”
Her hands are trembling.
I’ll go with you.
She takes in a quivery breath.
“That’s alright. I’ll wait.”
