The first bite came as something of a surprise. The boy screamed as teeth tore their way into his flesh, rending skin from muscle and drawing a stream of blood gushing from his shoulder. He turned and tried to run. For all the good it did him, he may as well have been standing still. She caught him again before he even made it two steps, sinking her teeth into his thigh and tearing another strip of meat from him. The boy's whole body went into spasm as he tried and failed to absorb the pain, toppling from his feet and down onto hands and knees. Tears began to flow freely down Ken Kaneki's face as Rize, the girl of his dreams, began once more to devour him. He felt fingers force their way through his skin as she tore chunks from the backs of his legs with her bare hands, stopping short his desperate attempts to crawl away. She laughed as he began incoherently trying to beg, pulsing tendrils of red arching forth from her back and pinning him face-down to the floor. Each tendril brought forth a fresh wave of agony as they drove themselves in, one through the knee, one through his lung, and one in his gut. The boy tried once more to scream, reached out a hand in some futile attempt to crawl away. Pointless. A pool of crimson was becoming more and more visible all around him, the energy draining from him like water from a broken glass.

"Aww, too tired to run, Kaneki?" Came Rize's disappointed voice from somewhere behind him, strangely soft and sweet; out of place in a nightmare such as this. "That's a shame. I was looking forward to catching you again." The boy felt teeth once more dig into him, this time tearing strips from his back. He let out a piteous groan, lacking even the energy to cry anymore. He wanted this to end. He wanted nothing more than for the blackness to take him.

The last thing Ken Kaneki heard before he blacked out was the clamoring sound of metal striking concrete. He felt what seemed to his dulled senses to be a tremendous amount of pressure around his midsection, then all was silence.

The doctors had told Hide that he couldn't see him yet, that he wasn't fully recovered. Hide didn't care. He needed to see Ken, to make sure that he was alright, the poor guy didn't have anyone else to be there for him.

Hide waited in a bathroom until night time, well after visiting hours ended, before stepping out. He moved silently through the darkened corridors, trying not to alert anyone whatsoever of his presence. It was only a short distance to Ken's recovery room and he slipped through the door thankfully unhindered.

Ken was asleep, eyes open, but glazed over in the pure catatonia of hospital grade anaesthetic. The kid looked awful, dark bruises and bandages crisscrossing over his skin. If Hide hadn't known better, he'd have said his friend had been run over by a bus or thrown off a building. None of that held Hide's attention, however. He was far too busy staring at the single, solid black eye gazing sightlessly out from his friend's face, a single point of glowing red marking its monstrous nature.

Hide stood there for minutes, maybe even hours, trying to absorb the horrific sight and its equally terrible implications. After what felt like the longest silence of Hide's life, broken only by the quiet beeps of hospital monitors in the otherwise quiet room, Hide spoke.

"H-hey, Kaneki…" The teen paused, unsure of what else there even was to say. He felt a slight trace of cold as a thin trail of liquid wound its way down his cheek, but ignored it. "…Good to see you still kicking. G-gotta say, the doctors made it sound a hell of a lot worse than it was. You don't look hurt at all." Hide tried to laugh at his own feeble joke, but it came out sounding pitiful and false. He fell silent again for a long time, staring at his toes. He couldn't bring himself to look any longer at that eye. He felt more tears begin to flow down his cheeks. Hide moved his sleeve across his face, sucking in a long, shaky breath, before he spoke again. "Look man… get well soon, okay? I don't think I can take school without you…"

Hide left quickly, not wanting to let his composure break in front of his friend, even now. He snuck his way out through an open window, before making his way home to think. When he finally made it back to his room. Hide opened up his computer and began searching, looking for every bit of information he could find about ghouls.

Ken lifted the chopsticks to his mouth cautiously, trying to ignore the smell wafting off the salmon. It was disorienting. Kaneki had inspected the food thoroughly when it was first brought to him, trying to figure out where that repulsive odor was coming from, but there was nothing wrong with it. For all the boy could tell, his meal had been cooked perfectly. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, popping the first morsel inside and chewing once or twice before swallowing. Kaneki began to choke. The taste was indescribable. To call it vile would be to put his previous concept of the word to shame. The boy bent over the side of his hospital bed, coughing and spluttering as the tiny chunks of crushed salmon were expelled from his throat and out onto the floor. "W-why can't I eat?" He asked of no one in particular, panting for breath after the sudden exertion. "What's wrong with me?"

"Where do I even start?" Came a familiar voice from behind him. Kaneki turned to see the grinning form of Hide standing in the doorway, hands held behind his back as he leaned against the frame. "You look awful, dude."

Ken let out a dry little chuckle. "Wow, thanks man. I'm glad to see you too."

Hide laughed. "Yeah, I knew you would be. That's why I brought you a present." He stepped forwards as he moved a hand out from behind himself, producing what looked like a perfectly normal water bottle of the sort that people used when they went running. "Couldn't just let you waste away on hospital food, could I?"

The dark haired boy gave his friend a weak little smile. "Thanks, Hide, but it doesn't really look like I can keep anything down right now."

Hide paused mid-stride, a sad look crossing his face for just the briefest of moments, before he once again began to smile. "Yeah, I noticed. This should be a little bit easier to manage though. Give it a try?"

Ken sighed, not really annoyed so much as touched. How could he say no when his friend went to the trouble of caring for him? He reached out a hand, taking the offered bottle, and brought it to his lips. He tugged the little stopper open with his teeth and squeezed the bottle slightly to pump a little of its contents onto his tongue. The taste was exquisite, bordering on inconceivable. It was sweet and salty and warm all at once. Ken let out a moan of relief as he drank greedily, forcing the sides of the bottle together as he pumped the contents into his mouth. When it was all gone, he sagged a little, letting the bottle fall from his hands and onto the bed. He slumped back onto his pillows, feeling better than he had since waking up a few days ago. "Wow," he murmured, turning his gaze to his friend and smiling a more relaxed smile than he'd managed in days. "What was that stuff? It was great."

The euphoria of the drink was so great that it took Kaneki a few moments to register that Hide was staring at him, his eyes wide and face pale. By the time he'd become aware of it, Hide had already regained his composure. He gave a weak little chuckle, one hand unconsciously moving to scratch at a fresh bandage covering his wrist. "Ah, you know, just some juice from a place I know. I can bring you some more tomorrow, if you like."

Ken cocked his head a little to the side, confused at his friend's apparent shock, but decided to let it slide. "Yeah, if you could, that'd be great." He let out a relieved laugh. "Thank goodness. For a while there, I thought there must be something wrong with me. I guess the food just kinda sucks here."

Hide laughed, reaching out and picking the bottle back up off the bed before kneeling down to stow it in his bag. "Yeah, I guess so. Well, being the stellar friend that I am, I brought your homework here with me from class. You don't want to fall behind just cause of some hospital stuff now, do you?"

Ken nodded, making a theatrical little groan as he reached for the papers his friend was beginning to unpack. He had to thank god for Hide. Just a few minutes, and the guy had already made him feel totally okay again.

Back at his home, Hide stood in front of his bathroom mirror, confused thoughts swirling in a jumbled mess through his brain. He held the kitchen knife at his wrist, wincing slightly as it nicked his flesh, drawing forth a thin trickle of blood which he quickly caught, holding the lip of the drink bottle underneath it. He had so many questions that had been left unanswered. If Ken was a ghoul, then why was he surprised that he hadn't been able to eat food? For that matter, why didn't he recognize the taste of the blood Hide had fed him?

Hide shuddered a little as the memory rose back up in his mind, painfully vivid. Had Kaneki even been aware of what he'd looked like when he was drinking? His whole face had changed, one eye going that same black color as before, his whole face taking on a look of desperate hunger. That was another thing that bothered Hide. Why did only one of Ken's eyes change? He'd been researching everything he could for days, and except for a few unconfirmed folk stories, no one had ever heard of a ghoul with only one black eye before.

Hide shook his head with a sigh, sitting the now filled bottle down on the sink and setting about re-bandaging his wrist. This was not the time to get muddled over all his questions. He had nothing to work on and losing three quarters of a liter of blood wasn't exactly helping his thought process. Better to just focus on what he could do. Hide finished binding his wound, being careful to do it properly as he didn't want an open arterial injury, before closing the drink bottle and carrying it through to the fridge for tomorrow. Hide made sure to eat a little more than he normally would that night. He wanted to regain his blood supply as quickly as possible.

For now, he would focus on helping Ken however he could. That was all there was to it.

Ken made his way through to the small toilet adjoined to his recovery room with only minimal effort. Whatever that meal was that Hide had brought him, it seemed to have done a world of good. This morning, he hadn't even been able to walk, and now he was managing it virtually unaided, albeit leaning against a wall occasionally for support. He readied the brush that Hide had brought for him, and set about cleaning his teeth with the thankfully flavorless hospital grade toothpaste. It was remarkable how much he'd missed being able to do that for the last few days, the simple act of maintaining himself was strangely reassuring. He thought back to the attack, suppressing a slight shudder. He could still feel a ghost of a tingle in the patches of flesh that Rize had torn from him. Ken hadn't told the doctors what had happened to him, piecing together what had happened in the aftermath from what they told him. Ken wasn't a doctor by any stretch, but he knew well enough that his injuries had been severe, and that he was healing from them much too quickly. None of the doctors had seemed to have seen any of the injuries Rize had dealt him, so he had simply remained silent. Something was clearly wrong here, and if there were ghouls involved, he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to know.

Kaneki sighed before moving the brush to the other side of his mouth, trying to shift his thoughts to happier places. At least Hide was there for him. He had no idea what he'd have done without that. His mom and dad were long gone and, true to form, aunt Tisane hadn't made any effort to contact him since he'd landed in the hospital. At least he could always count on his best friend, despite the overabundance of energy the guy often brought to a situation. The guy even brought him food.

Ken felt his mouth begin to water a little at the very thought of the sippy bottle. What could it have been that was that delicious? Hide had refused to say, but Ken was still curious. More than just curious though, he was thirsty. So very thirsty.

The dark haired youth was so out of it thinking of the drink that he didn't even notice his eye shifting colors in the mirror at first. It took him a few long seconds to become aware of it. He dropped his toothbrush into the sink with an aborted attempt at a scream, drawing in a sharp breath and, with it, a large quantity of the foam coating his mouth. He gagged, beginning to splutter and cough as he dropped forwards against the sink to steady himself. In retrospect, he was lucky. If he'd managed to scream, someone might have come to check on him. Ken stared, horrified, at his own reflection, the single, black eye staring back at him. "What the hell is this?" He asked himself quietly, tears streaming down his face as he utterly failed to come to terms with what he saw. Sinking slowly to the floor, Ken Kaneki began to weep, quietly crying himself out on the cold hospital tiles.

Hide made sure to fix a grin to his face before he opened the door to Kaneki's room, the sippy bottle held tightly in one hand. Whatever he had been about to say died on his lips as he caught sight of his friend's face gazing across at him, expressionless, even to his eyes. Whatever life Kaneki had ever had in those eyes, it seemed to have flickered out. The dark haired boy's voice was strangely listless as he asked a single question. One to which Hide genuinely did not know how to answer.

"Hide… What's in the bottle?"