Chapter Text
It happens as an accident — an unexpected consequence of not having time for each other, except at work, where their interactions are limited to announcing drink orders to each other and brushing hands or shoulders casually as they serve up lattes or wipe milk and coffee grounds off the counters.
It’s the most they have, thanks to recent issues. Touka is worrying about her brother, and Hinami, and her finals; and Kaneki needs to find a new apartment. In the meantime he’s staying in Anteiku’s break room, which is fine, but affords no privacy unless Touka manages to get the closing shift with him.
Which she does, finally, today.
They mop up and sweep and restock the milk fridges, tensely. As soon as they dim the lights, Kaneki’s hands circle her waist, and she turns around and threshes her hands through his hair and rips his dark wig right off.
The whole thing — it’s an accident. They’re too desperate — his heart is pulsing way too fast — and he’s way too hard, after just feeling the heat and heft of her skin beneath her uniform. They stumble, from one wall to the other, emitting nothing but desperate breaths until they finally make it to the break room and collapse onto his makeshift bed.
Touka loosens her uniform tie, and Kaneki does the same to his own, hooking his index finger into the knot and tugging. Once hers is undone, Touka reaches for him, and Kaneki grabs her wrists in one hand and shoves them over her head.
It happens so fast. He’s kneeling over her, her legs bent to either side of him; he loops his tie around her hands, once and then again, crosswise, and knots them together. Her eyes widen; impulsively she jerks her hands down, and effects only a clack and thud. He’s tied her to the stem of the break room’s standing lamp.
Touka’s impermeability is so constant that seeing her like this — laid out, and vulnerable, and open — is like a dream. She is just as needy as she made him, when he returned, and he wonders if she enjoyed it as much as he is enjoying seeing her this way now. Her face is beautifully flushed and the lamp shudders again.
“K-Kaneki,” she gasps. “H-how — how am I supposed to —”
He puts a finger to his mouth, indicating, Hush.
“I’ll do it,” he tells her, and she turns redder.
“I — I can’t just let you — do all of it — K-Kaneki, just —”
But her protests fall on deaf ears, and then dissolve into incomprehensible groans as he undoes her vest, and her blouse, and her bra, reaching behind to its clasp. Kaneki lifts the loose cups like dish cloches. Her breasts tremble as she gasps; he prods one to watch it quiver more, and then lays the pad of a finger onto one stiff nipple and rolls it around.
“Touka-chan,” he murmurs, “you’re already hard,” and Touka grits her teeth.
“S-so are you,” she snaps, shakily, and then gasps and whines as he descends on her with grips and squeezes and broad, hungry licks.
“That’s right,” he replies belatedly, hoarsely, and then he says, “Lift your legs,” and she does it. Her legs shake as she strains to keep them up while he unzips her skirt and flings it aside. His nails scratch lightly against her skin and leave it pebbled with goosebumps as he rakes off her tights and underwear.
Well — as he almost rakes them off. He leaves them bundled around her calves and ankles, and her eyes widen as she kicks and realizes her limited motion, and that he’s going to leave her that way.
“Ka — Kaneki —”
Kaneki sighs. Her voice.
Pleading — cracking — high, and breathy. A sound and a side that she never shows. He crooks his hand, angling precisely. His palm cradles her clit and fondles it with every stroke of his longest fingers into her sex.
“K-Ka — Kaaahh —”
Her back arches — her hips jerk — she’s trying to position himself better against him, but she can’t brace properly. The lamp bulb rattles and flickers as she squirms and he presses her wrists into the bed to prevent her from getting carried away and toppling the lamp onto both of them.
It turns out to be a good idea; her orgasm is abrupt, and hard, and her body goes into paroxysms of helpless thrashing and cries. Even when she falls still her breasts heave, and her arms give occasional spasms. Kaneki presses against her, feeling the throes of every one, relishing how her panting huffs the hair on his face. He brings his hand up from between her legs and slips his fingers into his mouth, cleaning them off with audible smacks.
Touka swallows; she licks her lips. Her legs pedal, feebly, until friction against Kaneki’s body allows her to roll off her tights and underwear. Her legs bend, knees digging into his waist, and Kaneki takes the hint, though he makes her wait as he stands and strips. Then he lies against her, arms framing her head, and fucks her again, this time with their moans right up against each other’s ears.
:::
She is still not totally sure what happened to him while he was out running around out who-knows-where, or while he was out under Aogiri’s claw. But this sort of — …thing — is the last thing that she would have expected him to develop.
“It’s not…really…a new thing,” Kaneki says quietly. And then he adds, again, “I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
“You obviously have no idea what an ‘accident’ is,” Touka replies, and persists. “What do you mean, it’s not new?”
“I-I don’t know,” he says, and she grabs his hand just as it raises to rub his fucking chin, which is really a feat, given how sore her arms are.
“You’ve done stuff like that before,” she says, trying to goad him, and he turns red.
“N-no! I…just…a book,” he says, helplessly.
“A book?” she echoes, and he misinterprets her disbelief.
“W-well…more than one. Maybe, um. A lot of them.” He’s starting to look a little ill. “But they’re all gone now, with wherever they took all the stuff in my old apartment. A-anyway, um, thank you for — for indulging me. I won’t…again.”
Touka frowns, and finds that with him being this awkward about it, she can’t really say anything either.
“It’s alright,” she tries, “you don’t need to apologize,” but his returning smile is weak, and she figures he is misinterpreting this too, and not hearing properly that this is the one thing that she has experienced in weeks that she has been able to indulge in fully, without thoughts of where her brother is, or whether she’ll fail out of school. Her next chance to communicate properly is when she goes to help him move his few possessions into his new residence.
“I’ve got a gift for you,” she announces. “A moving-in gift.”
The book’s cover is wrapped in paper. He blinks, and takes it, and opens it, and then shuts it with a clap.
They stand in silence. He stares at her, and Touka meets his eyes, briefly, and then looks down at the floor.
Then they move to his bed, and open the book again, together.