Hide:

It was about halfway back to Anteiku that Hide realized just how bad of an idea it would be to walk in during business hours carrying a bloodied girl on his back. He leaned himself against an alleyway wall, resting Touka against it as gently as he could, and dug in his pocket for his phone. He typed in the numbers and made the call. The phone rang for a few seconds, before, with a small click, a voice sounded on the other end.

"Hello, you've reached Anteiku cafe, would you like to place a pick up order?" The voice was a female, the tone polite, yet Hide couldn't help but feel a sense of dread upon hearing it.

"Uhh," he started awkwardly. "This uhh... this is, umm... a friend of Touka's... She got into a fight. She's pretty badly hurt."

There was a moments hesitation at the other end of the line before, eventually: "How bad?"

Hide took a moment, then opted for honesty.

"She's unconscious and I'm carrying her on my back because even though we beat the dude who did it, his friends are probably coming soon and I wanted to get her far away."

There was silence on the other end of the line, stretching long enough that Hide checked just to make sure he hadn't been disconnected, before a man's voice asked: "Did you see who did this to her?"

Hide recognized the man's voice; the elderly manager. Hide liked the old guy. He made good food.

"He said he was her brother," he admitted, before pushing onwards. "Look, some stuff went down, and I wanna stay out of the way, but it felt wrong leaving her there with him. So where should I take her?"

Hide heard the old man sigh on the other end.

"We'll clear the shop. You can bring her there."

Hide swallowed.

"Uhh... I kinda don't wanna do that."

"... Why not?"

Hide was quiet for a few long seconds, contemplating the problem at hand. Touka had tried to call Anteiku when the ghouls attacked, so it was a fair bet that they were already aware of what she was. Hide nodded to himself, and proceeded.

"Cuz I'm pretty sure you'll kill me to keep me quiet about her being a ghoul."

The old man winced.

"So, you saw that, huh? That's quite a shame. Not to worry, though. No one here is going to kill you for saving Touka's life. We like to think we have more honor than that."

"Sorry to say, sir," Hide muttered. "But I don't believe you. You think you have to kill me because you think I might tell the CCG about you. I'm not gonna, but you have no way to know that. So here's my idea. I'm gonna leave Touka in an alleyway, and I'm gonna give you the address to come pick her up. Then, I'm gonna run away and hide in my apartment for a few days. In the time it takes Touka to wake up and tell you who I am, I'll have had time to call the CCG if I wanted to. The fact that you aren't gonna be attacked by them will be my proof that I don't wanna turn you in, so you won't have any reason to come after me." Hide tried to sound confident in the plan, he really did. It had flaws, holes in logic that would likely render it untenable, but it was the best idea he had been able to come up with in the time he had. Before he'd even finished speaking, the old man was chuckling.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders," he said gently. "And it's a good enough plan, given how fast you probably had to come up with it, but you don't need it. We really do mean you no harm. You helped Touka. That alone makes your life worth more to me than my own is. Believe me when I say that I do not intend to hurt you."

"Yeah, well," Hide grumbled. "We'll see about that. For now, we'll go with my plan, okay?"

"If you insist." The man murmured. "If that's the case, though, please smash your phone, and leave it with her so we know you aren't going to call anyone about us for at least the half an hour or so it takes us to get her somewhere safe."

Hide considered this for a moment, then nodded.

"Will do." He agreed. Then, he knelt down, moved Touka gently into the shadow of a nearby dumpster, and stepped out into the street to check a sign, before telling the old man the address. He hung up, dropped the phone on the floor, and stabbed it with the anti ghoul knife until he was quite certain that it was destroyed. Then, he began to run.

Yoshimura:

The old man placed the phone back in its holder with a sigh, before turning to Yomo, stood impassively behind him.

"How is she?" The man asked, his voice even, in spite of the strain he doubtless felt.

"Your niece is fine, I think." Yoshimura replied. "You come with me to pick her up, then get her to a safehouse and see to her injuries. I don't expect the boy will be making any calls, but it's best to be safe about this. Agreed?" His friend nodded, and Yoshimura made his way to the coat rack, retrieving his hat and coat, before heading out into the city streets.

Touka had been left only a few blocks distant, and Yomo wordlessly scooped the girl up, covering her with a jacket brought along for the purpose, before departing at speed. Yoshimura remained in the alleyway for a few minutes, utterly still. To all observers, he would have just seemed an old man standing quietly. In truth, he was searching. With every deep breath he took, he caught new scents, new traces of people who had passed this place in recent hours. He saw the broken phone on the ground, and bent down to take a sniff. It was covered in the boy's scent. Hands tended to sweat quite a lot when people were nervous. He stood, took another deep breath, found a trace of the same scent leading away from the intersection between the alleyway and the street, and began to follow it at a light jog. It took him less than half an hour to trace the boy back to his apartment.

Hide:

Hide returned to his home out of breath; he'd been running flat out practically the whole way there. He fell down into his sofa with a groan, then stood up again. He couldn't lie down. Too much energy. He began pacing the length of the room, arms folded over his chest, trying desperately to work through the ramifications of everything that had just happened. He decided to make himself a pack of supplies, just in case he needed to leave in a hurry, and spent about ten minutes stuffing every conceivable object into his rucksack, before it became too full to fit anything else inside. He decided he needed to calm down, and went to his room, opened a cupboard, retrieved his headphones, lay down on his bed, and resolved to force himself to listen to an entire playlist before he moved again.

He grabbed his old, outdated Ipod, found the playlist in question, pressed play, realized his headphones weren't plugged in, swore, and fumbled with the cord, before having his attention wrenched away by the sound of the doorbell. He stood, took a deep breath, forced himself to at least look outwardly calm, and moved towards the doorway into the hall. He leaned forwards, pressed his eye to the peephole built into the door, and looked out into the hall.

Hide recognized the man standing out there immediately. The old manager he'd spoken to on the phone. He resisted the impulse to let out some noise of fright, and took a step back from the door, as quietly as he could, making his way to the supply laden backpack.

There was a small coughing noise from the other side of the door, before a voice spoke.

"Young man, I know you're in there. I can smell you. Please let me in. I promise I'm not going to hurt you."

Hide didn't reply, simply hoisting the bag up onto his shoulders, and tiptoeing his way over towards his kitchen window. His apartment was on the fourth floor. It was a long way down.

There was a sigh from outside.

"Hideyoshi, if you don't let me in, I'm afraid I'm going to have to break the door down. There are no escape routes, you are completely trapped and, I repeat, you are in absolutely no danger. If I wanted you dead, I'd have broken in already. Please let me in."

Hideyoshi moved to the landline phone positioned against the kitchen wall. He pulled it from its socket, and began dialing.

"I'll call the CCG," he replied, trying to sound tougher than he felt. "I swear to god, old man. I'll call them before you kill me."

There was another sigh from outside, before, with a surprisingly quiet snapping noise, the door swung open. The old man had apparently chosen to simply rip out the locking mechanism rather than kick through the door, and now held the small metal contraption in his hand. Hide's eyes went wide, and he hastened to dial in the last few numbers, his thumb just millimeters from the call button, when the man threw the locking mechanism with surprising accuracy, at the bracket of Hide's landline. The old, outdated machine fractured with a crunch of broken plastic, and the phone went dead in Hide's hand. He stared at the old man, wide eyed.

"I-I'll scream," he started. "S-someone'll hear m-"

"Just stop." The manager groaned, taking a step inside and closing the door behind him, the knob now hanging slightly loose from its socket. "I'm not here to kill you, or hurt you, or anything else. I came here to thank you for looking after my employee, so will you please stop acting like I'm some sort of monster?"

"Okay," Hide replied, his voice quavering slightly. "Not a monster. Just a superhuman cannibal with a really good reason to want me dead."

The man chuckled.

"Well, yes, fair point, you do have plenty of reasons to fear me." He stepped forward towards the couch, leaned over it, took hold of the back of it with one hand, and lifted it, pivoting the heavy, four person chair towards Hide, before taking a seat. "But, like I said before, I am not here to cause you any harm. No, I came here to ask why you decided to help Touka. She's a ghoul. You're a human. The natural response is to call the CCG and leave us to our fate, so why did you put yourself on the line for her?"

Hide gazed at him silently for several long seconds, then groaned.

"Cuz I'd be an asshole if I let a pretty girl die for me." He said simply, trying to keep the note of bitterness from his voice.

The old man stared at him for some time, his mouth open slightly as if surprised. Then, he began to laugh, a surprisingly cheery sound.

"What?" Hide asked, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. If he was about to die, the least the old man could do was not laugh at him first.

"Oh," the man replied, still chuckling. "It's just rare to see such a straightforward view of right and wrong. I find it refreshing."

Hide cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing. Soon enough, the chuckling died away, and the two were left gazing at the floor between them in silence.

"I wonder..." The manager murmured, seemingly more to himself than anyone else. "Well... it would be nice to have an answer. Yes." He raised his head towards the boy. "Would you mind doing me a favor?"

"... What favor?" Hide asked, uncertain.

"Well, it's hard to explain without showing you, but I've wondered for a long time what a human would think if they knew what we do at Anteiku. Your perspective is... Well, I'd go as far as saying you're the sort of person who I would actually allow to pass judgement upon me. So, would you mind accompanying me? I think it'd be easier, knowing what a truly good human would think of us. It... it would help me see whether the future I want is possible."

"... What future?" Hide murmured, genuinely curious. Something had changed in the old man in the last few moments.

"Peace between the races." the manager said quietly, staring at his hands. "Just an old man's dream, really."

Hide wasn't sure what to say to that. It caught him off guard. The old timer sounded sincere, but then again, he was a ghoul. Eventually, he gave a resigned shrug. It couldn't be any worse than the death he'd been expecting.

"What the hell," he muttered. "Sure, tell me what it is you guys do."

The old manager looked up at him and smiled, the expression strangely gentle.

"Thank you very much, young man."