Chapter Text
There's blood everywhere.
Hide realizes that something had gone terribly wrong with the mission when he felt a rock sink in his gut. Rumble surrounds him with dust and stones littered on the ground. There's the monster remains. Silence.
It wasn't a peaceful silence. But rain droplets poured as the first trickle of water touched the ground, then his cheeks.
He watches as blood pools from the ground. There's the remains of the dragon, which he thinks is quite gross but hey he has other priorities besides the smell of decay inciting vomit to build in his mouth, he desperately searches drastically for any sign of his idiot friend.
His idiot friend that transformed into this.
Kaneki is so stupid.
He needs to see Kaneki. Hide needs to find him before its too late. Touka had tried to convince him to wait but Hide hadn't listened. Maybe he's going a little paranoid but Hide regrets not being there for Kaneki more. There's so much he regrets and honestly it makes him feel worse since Kaneki has been through way, way tougher situations. Touka, he thinks, is probably trying to also find Kaneki at this moment too.
And it's a little messed up to say but sometimes Hide wishes he stayed from Kaneki. He loves his best friend and wants the best for him. But in these moments of panic and stress, he wishes he did more. He doesn't hate Touka, and cares a lot for her, but Kaneki is the most important person in the world at this time.
He needs him.
Ah, maybe he's too attached to his best friend. Akira has always asked why and Hide hadn't given her an answer. Kaneki was something Hide would grab and hold to himself if he could, but he kept a safe distance and let his friend live his life. Because isn't that what people are supposed to do?
Kaneki. The longer he walks, the less hope he manages to retain about everything. Shallow.
Hide can't live without him. Hide can't-
His earpiece rings. Tap.
"-bzz. Bzz. Hid- can you hear-"
"Yeah, Touka?" Hide breathes, picking it up quickly. "Did you find anything?"
"-Hide," Touka's voice is almost like a river to him. He keeps looking through the closest area he could find, watching for any enemies. He pauses when Touka says something he doesn't quite register.
"Huh? Can you repeat that?"
Touka sobs in his ear. The sounds are muffled and Hide could barely make out what she's saying.
"K-Kaneki. We found him. He's-"
Hide's heart beats terrified in his chest.
He's dead.
When Hide dies, it's three days later.
Toyko had already fallen into chaos with the news of Kaneki's death and the children of the dragon were killing too many CCG and ghouls. Instead if dying bravely out in combat, Hide falls asleep in his room.
He doesn't wake up. He drowns instead. Hide can't smile but if he could, he wouldn't be able to anyways.
Hide wakes up from the dream. He also still feels dead.
He wakes up, apparently, with disorientation in every muscle. His neck aches and he feels a little empty. Like he's hollow for days and nothing else is important enough to bring him back to earth. His hands feel smaller, chubby and short. Hide tries to blink and roll over but finds his body going against him. Weird.
He goes a little crazy alone. He looks around-
He's on a bed with starfish designs and the rooms are painted yellow. It vaguely registers as somewhere he's not supposed to be. Every effort he makes to move fails him and his memory lags.
Someone eventually opens the door and their hands grab him. They hold him and almost coo. Hide doesn't respond. Maybe he's just sad, kind of like Kaneki but he hadn't suffered as bad. Man, even thinking about it still creates an ache in his chest.
Hide ends up dreaming.
Maybe he was going crazy but the longer he lived through this dream, he feels more and more like a child. Hide wants to scream, cry and run away. He doesn't get what she wants, he wants and what it all means. Especially confused, lost, and doesn't speak.
He wants something to cling to. But he's dead.
He cries for what seems like weeks.
One day he's in the shower. There's singing beside him and Hide watches the bubbles from like foam on the water. There's soap in his eyes and hair and hands trying to comb through it.
The woman behind him hums and starts singing a lullaby. It strangely calms Hide. He wonders if she knows he doesn't know her. And had been living in her house for the past...how long?
He frowns slightly and has no energy to move. The woman eventually stops singing and tears form in her eyes. Her voice goes wobbly.
"The doctors said they don't know," she starts saying to Hide. Her fingers tighten slightly in his hair but release the tension. "I don't know what's going on. Is it my fault? My colleagues all say my baby is a late bloomer. I just don't know. You don't talk. Babies are supposed to talk by your age."
She sobs and cradles him gently with her arms. She sounds like a mother grieving for her child.
Hide almost feels bad.
There's this realization two years later that she was his mother. But she passed away before he could say anything back to her. His dad takes him in.
(The most interesting part was how different his dad viewed him this time around. When Hide feels like he's given up on everything and can't take care of anything anymore. Himself, his mom, and his dad's still an CCG investigator.)
His life feels still detached. It's like it's only hours after he drowned with blood inside his broken down apartment, alone and hollow with grief. Grief truly changed him forever and did its damage. It was an injury he never could fully recover from. His dad is mainly busy with work and doesn't say anything besides preparing food and sending him off to play in the park. He's still a mess but he learns how to practice smiling more in the mirror.
He even tries to speak by watching videos in his room. It's still hard to process everything and Hide used to think he was smarter than he is now. He wonders if he figured it out but his brain was slow and took it's time trying to piece everything back together.
When he finds the books Kaneki loves sitting, collecting dust in his dad's bookshelf, he cries and cries. He holds onto them with his hands and can't stop crying for hours. His dad finds him like that when he comes back home, with tears on the ground and holding a book. It's a littld concering to his dad.
Hide falls asleep and wakes up a little less clouded. He tries to hit his brain to start working again. It becomes a bad habit but the weight of the book in his hands feel comforting. Hide realizes that it's himself that can't wake up, almost like a lucid dream.
He needs to wake up. He needs to be able to feel again.
Hide just misses him so much he feels sick. He sleeps with the book in his hand. The weight provides him a little bit of nostalgia.
They called him crazy when his dad registered him in his first day of school. Hide finds himself lucky that he skipped over daycare because he doesn't remember it. His classmates all find him annoying.
Days past.
He punches a kid for something he doesn't remember and gets into a lot of trouble. He transfers schools and his dad looks disappointed.
He wonders if he's the only one in the world who feels this way. Lost with no light. He used to have goals to stick to, but now it's only grief and emptiness. It's the book he can't let go of and the memories that reappear at night.
Hide has no idea what he's doing anymore.
His dad takes him to the hospital again at some point. Hide is six. He doesn't interact with the doctor and only stares at the aquarium and walls.
He feels different from everyone around him. The doctors do not understand Maybe it's a taboo or something but the logical part of his brain is so internally slow.
He gets hospitalized for a few days before his dad decides to send him to his uncle in the 20th ward.
His uncle is the only one who doesn't seem to mind the fact that Hide is constantly in moods where he's not aware of his surroundings, sleeps a lot and doesn't try in school. All his uncle says is to keep going, keep trying and eventually he will find something to live for.
So he tries.
When he sees a certain black haired boy in his class, he stops in his tracks. The dream ends when he accidentally makes contact and his reality shatters.