Kaneki:

The teen sat against the hood of the investigator's car, staring at the small, paper wrapped bundle in his hands. Shinohara had gone inside the building alone, the two of them both having agreed that it may be a bad idea for Kaneki to go inside a building full of raw meat when he was hungry. The older man had returned after a few minutes with the small package the boy now held. It was weird, thinking about it. It was wrapped just the same as meat from the butcher. That seemed wrong, somehow.

"Well?" Shinohara asked, leaning down against the bonnet beside Kaneki. "You gonna eat that or what?"

The boy made no move to open the package, sighing a little to himself. "C-can I ask something that might sound weird?"

Shinohara shrugged, glancing sideways at the teen. "Sure, what's on your mind?"

"Do you..." Kaneki hesitated, shaking himself a little before he continued. "Do you know who this was?" He lifted the parcel slightly, the kilo or so of its contents rustling gently against the paper. "I feel like I should know."

Shinohara chuckled. "Thought you might ask that, so I checked with the guy in the prep house." He patted the packet slightly with a hand, settling Kaneki's nervous jostling a little. "His name was Jouchirou Suraba. He was a businessman who died of liver failure at the age of forty seven. Too many parties with overseas clients. He left behind a wife, a dog, and two children, both in their early twenties. He was an organ donor. The hospitals got whatever they could use, and with the family's permission, we harvested the rest to use as food for the inmates. So there you have it. What you have in your hand died of natural causes, was freely given, and led what seems to have been a good life." He patted the boy on the back reassuringly. "Now eat it. We have places to be and I don't want you getting scraps all over my car."

Kaneki sighed again, reassured, at least a little. He pulled slightly at the paper lining one end of the package, tearing a hole and exposing one end of the preserved lump. Closing his eyes, the boy brought the little parcel to his lips and opened wide, biting down on the contents and beginning to chew. A few seconds passed in tense silence before the boy swallowed, opening his eyes once more.

"Well?" Shinohara asked gently. "You okay?"

Hesitantly, Kaneki nodded. "I'm not gonna lie... That's the best thing I've ever tasted. I'd almost prefer it if it was gross, you know?" He glanced at Shinohara and the older man winced.

"Uhh, kid? Just in case you don't know, your eye's gone black again."

Kaneki groaned. "Really? Damn. I guess that just happens when I eat now, huh?"

"Guess so," Shinohara replied, watching as the boy took a second, slightly larger bite. "Wanna hear something gross?"

"... That depends," Kaneki said cautiously. "What is it?"

"The butchers in there divide the meat into cuts based on where in the body it comes from. What I picked up was a rump steak. Long and the short of it, kid... You're eating a butt right now."

Kaneki snickered slightly in spite of himself, turning the packet slightly to examine the flesh. "Huh... There's virtually no muscle here. This guy needed to work out more."

Shinohara snorted. "Wow, way to disrespect your elders, Kaneki."

The boy shrugged. "Hey, if he had a healthier lifestyle, maybe I wouldn't be eating him right now." He took a third bite, the two of them falling into a surprisingly comfortable silence as he finished his meal. "Well," he murmured eventually, wrapping the remains of the package up into a little ball in his hands as he stood. "At least I'm not hungry any more. That's a plus."

Shinohara stood, stretching slightly. "Yup. Now, I've arranged to have them courier a package like that to your apartment every morning, okay?"

"You can do that?" Kaneki asked, one eyebrow slightly raised.

Shinohara shrugged. "Took some explaining, but yeah, I can do that. Unusual circumstances and all that. Now come on, it's time for a shift change."

"Shift change?" Kaneki asked quietly. "What do you mean?"

Shinohara shrugged. "I mean that I'm tired. I was too busy watching you to get any real sleep last night and I was up all day yesterday. We need to do a changeover before I collapse where I stand."

Kaneki nodded. "Okay, makes sense, I guess. Who's taking over for you?"

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"No idea," Shinohara admitted. "I'm gonna take you home and leave you there until someone's free to watch you, okay?"

Kaneki cocked his head slightly. "Umm... okay? I mean, it's fine with me, I guess, but weren't you guys supposed to be watching all the time in case I went postal?"

The investigator shrugged. "Not really. We were going to figure out what to do with you as we assessed the risk you pose. You seem like a nice enough kid to me and you got fed just a few minutes ago. There shouldn't be any problems. Besides," Shinohara chuckled. "No offense, kid, but you really aren't that dangerous. You barely pulled even with Amon in terms of strength and you aren't even immune to regular damage yet. Without a real understanding of tactics, we could take you out pretty easily."

Kaneki nodded, opening the passenger side door of the car and moving back into the seat with a squeak of leather on wool. "No skin off my nose. But you said yourself, I could be getting stronger all the time."

Shinohara shrugged, settling back into the drivers seat. "Yeah, I guess we'll need to keep an eye on that."

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Touka:

The girl finished her shift early in the afternoon, meandering slow as she pleased up to her room on the second floor. She wanted it to look like she wasn't nervous. The girl pulled out her laptop from its slot beside her bed and sat down, flipping it open on her knees. Touka drummed her fingers impatiently as she waited for the thing to load up. She wanted information, and having to wait for it was infuriating.

Eventually, the outdated old laptop finished booting, opening to her desktop with a series of musical trills. Touka wasted no time in opening up her facebook feed. Touka loved facebook. The site allowed her access to the daily lives of her friends despite how little time she spent at school. This time, however, she ignored the latest happenings in Kana's life and even skipped leaving the habitual like on Yoriko's latest food blog post. Instead, she checked her friend requests, remembering one from a boy she'd met a few days ago. After a few seconds, she found it. Hideyoshi Nagachika. Touka had planned on ignoring the request, not having been very fond of how the boy flirted with her, but needs must as the devil drives. She clicked on the accept button.

The screen pinged a little message. 'You and Hideyoshi are now friends, Congratulations!'

Touka groaned. Thank you, facebook. The girl checked her new friend's status and grunted in satisfaction. Good, he's online. Guess I won't have to wait very long.

Touka opened up a message window and started typing.

'Hey. Hide, right?'

The response was not short in coming.

'Yup, that's me! Nice to hear from you again.'

Touka shrugged. 'Yeah, nice to hear from you, too. Hey, can I ask you something?'

'Sure, what do you wanna know?'

The girl considered for a moment. How much did she want to reveal? What approach did she want to take here? Eventually, she settled for 'I heard your friend got into some kind of an accident. He seemed nice, so I was gonna go check up on him and say hi. Do you know where I can find him?'

The response was not as rapid as those that had come before, and as she waited, Touka began to wonder if she'd been too forward. Maybe she should have been more subtle, maybe she should have waited a little longe-

'Wow, that's really nice of you! I was just about to head over to check on him myself. If you want, I could swing by and pick you up.'

Touka let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding and replied. 'Sure, that sounds great. Gimme about ten minutes to change.'

----------------------------------------

Kaneki:

The teen slumped down on his couch, exhausted and yet, at the same time, strangely energized.

Kaneki turned on the tv, staring blankly at the flickering screen without taking anything in for a few moments before turning it off again. Homework. He could do homework. The teen retrieved his bag from his room and dug out the assignment list Hide had brought him at the hospital. He checked the first item on the list.

'Twenty four hundred words on the central themes of Kafka's Metamorphosis and the modern filmic adaptation The Fly. Identify at least seven ways in which the texts are pertinent to themes found in your everyday life.'

Kaneki pursed his lips, deciding to skip past that one and move on to the second. 'Identify a literary device used in fostering character engagement and its more common implementations (one point five thousand words). Theorize a method of subverting common uses of this device and demonstrate said implementation in a written piece of a minimum of one thousand words.'

The boy shrugged, digging out a pen and paper and starting to brainstorm.

The work was simple, straightforward, and utterly mundane. Exactly what Kaneki needed at that moment. He whiled away a solid hour working on his concepts, outlining them all through a short story about a boy named Jun. He was about halfway through when the bell rang. Kaneki stood, his spine cracking slightly as he shifted from his acclimated position on the couch, stepping over to the doorway to buzz the intercom.

"Hello?" He murmured, curious.

"Hey there!" Replied an unfamiliar, voice enthusiastically, the small video screen flashing on and showing an androgynous, white haired youngster who looked to be of an age to Kaneki. "Nice ta meetcha, Kaneki! Mr Shinohara's told me a lot about you!"

Kaneki raised an eyebrow. This person knew Mr Shinohara? Not too surprising, the older man had said he'd be sending someone. Kaneki just hadn't been expecting someone so... bubbly. "Uhh... hi," He replied automatically. "Are you the one on guard duty now?"

"Yup!" The youngster replied, taking a step or two back from the camera to snap a flamboyant salute, a hand brushing up against what appeared to be a series of red stitches embedded in their forehead. "The name's Juuzou Suzuya. We talked on the phone."

Kaneki chuckled in spite of himself, the strangeness before him reconciling suddenly with his previous understandings. So this was Juuzou, then. Somewhere else in the back of his mind, Kaneki was finally able to place the newcomers gender. His look and his voice had left the matter ambiguous at best. "One sec," He said, smiling. "I'll buzz you in."

"Awesome!" The pale boy replied, lifting a small white plastic box to the camera. "Guess who brought MarioKart!"

The line cut out just as Kaneki snorted with amusement. He liked this kid.