Angered roars erupted through the air deep in the woods of Washington. Two grizzly bears were in a loud standoff with Emmett as he toyed with them playfully. He would come in reach of one of the bears' large claws only to dash out of the way with his enhanced speed when it attacked.

"Emmett...," cam an exasperated, yet amused sigh from Carlisle who stood with Edward and Jasper at the edge of a clearing. "Quit messing around before you-"

There was a sound of ripping fabric as one of the bears took the opportunity of distraction and snagged its claws through Emmett's shirt. He wasn't fazed in the least and let out a booming laugh before going forward and sinking his teeth into the bear's thick neck. Jasper quickly took care of the second grizzly.

Edward eyed Emmett's tattered shirt that hung from his body in strands as he came over to them. He held out a spare white shirt, shaking his head. They always brought spare clothes during their hunting trips, mainly for Emmett as he always seemed to get his clothes destroyed one way or another.

"Alice is going to kill you," he said. "That's what, The fifth shirt this week?"

Emmett responded with his usual unconcerned shrug and swung an arm over Edward's shoulder. "Oh Eddie, my dear boy. Lighten up, it's just a bit of fun."

Edward gave him a deadpan stare before ducking from under Emmett's arm and chucking the clean shirt at his face which his brother easily caught. Jasper chuckled.

"He says all that now, but just wait until Alice and Rose get their hands on him. I'm sure going on one of their lengthy shopping trips will get him to tone down the 'fun' for a while."

Emmett cringed at the thought, snatching the remains of his shirt from his body and pulling the new one over his head. Carlisle chimed in. "Alright, come one. We should get back before the girls start worrying."

The four walked at a human's pace, just to prolong what they liked to call their "Boy's Night". It had been a stressful while for everyone, especially Emmett, and they liked to see him finally relax a little bit. They all talked amongst themselves, laughing and joking together when Emmett froze mid-step.

A heavenly scent had hit his nose. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply. It was a strange, yet still pleasant mix. Coffee and ivory soap, and a hint of what Emmett believed to be men's cologne.

"Emmett?"

Jasper, sensing his brother's sudden off course emotions, and Edward who scanned his thoughts, stood at Emmett's sides. Emmett opened his eyes; if he had been human, his heart would have been racing rapidly from within his chest.

"He's here."

"Your mate," stated Edward. It wasn't a question.

Emmett nodded frantically, his fingers twitching at his side, and his feet shuffling against the forest floor. Then he darted off in the direction of the scent. He didn't know how far he had run, but as he entered the area where his mate's scent was the strongest, arms grabbed onto his arms and around his middle.

Jasper released calming waves towards his larger brother, trying to get him calm enough to at least know what he was doing. He was reacting on instinct, they noticed. Emmett could have easily broken all three of their holds on him, but Edward's hissing in his ears and Jasper's powers taking effect on him had him slowly coming back to a rational reality.

"Calm down!" Edward hissed. "You don't want to just come rushing at him out of nowhere. Especially not in the middle of the night, and especially not out in the middle of the ing woods."

Emmett blinked and turned to Edward who continued. "Not only will that possibly expose you and the rest of us, but you might scare him off. Do you want your mate to be afraid of you?"

"Of course not," Emmett snapped. That was the last thing he wanted. He inhaled slowly and stopped struggling, which he hadn't even realized he was doing. His body going slightly limp in the others' arms, he stared forward, his gaze pulled towards the source of the scent that had been teasing him all day, and he took in his first-ever sight of his mate.

His mate, Kaneki, sat with his back against a huge pine tree, his head bowed forward with arms hanging at his sides. If it wasn't for the steady beating sound of his heart, Emmett would have thought he was dead. Kaneki's pale skin that rivaled his own and his snowy white hair blended together almost perfectly.

Emmett wondered why his hair was that color. He smelled no hint of chemicals usually found in hair dye or bleach, and he didn't see any different colors coming from his roots, so his hair wasn't purposefully dyed. He appeared to be asleep, or rather unconscious.

He went to take a step towards his mate. He needed to know that he was all right. But the arms around him only tightened, holding him back in protest. Not wanting to hurt his family by forcing to break their holds, Emmett looked at them before his pleading gaze landed on their father.

Carlisle hesitated, then nodded, pulling his arms from around his son's torso and motioning for Jasper and Edward to do the same. Emmett slowly began approaching Kaneki's form. What was he even doing out here in the middle of the night? There were no hiking trails that came out this far. He was only a foot or so away when the young man suddenly spoke.

"I'm fine."

The four vampires froze, surprised since they believed that he had been unconscious. Kaneki looked up and met Emmett's gaze, shiny gray-silver meeting melted gold. If he had been human, his heart would have surely stopped at that moment. Emmett had to restrain himself from pulling the man into his arms. His eyes drank in the sight of his mate, darting over his body for any sign of injury. There was no scent of blood, nor could he see anything wrong. But that did little to settle his nerves as he glanced back and looked into Kaneki's eyes-well eye, as his left eye was covered with a black eyepatch.

Kaneki squirmed under Emmett's unblinking stare, and Emmett quickly shook himself out of his trance, realizing that he was weirding his mate out.

"My name is Emmett," he stated rather lamely, "Emmett Cullen. What are you doing all the way out here?"

Kaneki stared up at him blankly. "I was taking a walk..." he said slowly, with a faint accent, Emmett noted, "and I got tired. I'm fine."

The tone he was using was guarded, Emmett noticed. He watched as Kaneki got to his feet and eyed the four men with wariness. Now standing, Emmett took note of his height. Around 5'6, maybe 5'7; a major difference compared to Emmett's 6'5. He stood with his feet apart and looked ready to take off running at any moment if need be.

"Taking a walk," Emmett echoed his words with his eyebrows furrowing together. "But there are no trails that lead out this far. And its the dead of night."

"And?"

That floored him. He blinked twice, not understanding. The guy responded as if Emmett's question wasn't reasonable

"S-so you must have gotten lost?" It came out a question, rather than the statement he had intended it to be.

Kaneki shook his head. "I know how to get back out with or without a trail to guide me. Like I said, I got tired and wanted to rest. As for the dead of night comment, I couldn't sleep."

Emmett glanced behind him at Edward, wanting to know if he was being lied to or not. Edward's eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed.

"I can't get a good read on him," he told his brother, to quiet for the other male to hear. Or so he thought. "I'll explain later."

Emmett turned back to his mate, not sure how to respond to that. Edward's powers had not worked before, thoughts were always clear to him. He stared down at Kaneki, wondering what made him so hard for his brother to read. He took notice of his height again. If Emmett were to hug him-oh how he wanted to- he'd have to bend for the top of Kaneki's head to come to his chin.

Normally, Emmett wouldn't find someone that much shorter than him as any sort of threat, but he'd be lying if he wasn't wary of the man before him. He hated that feeling, he didn't want to feel like he had to be wary of his mate, and vise versa.

His one visible eye was hard and cagey, his body never leaving that tense stance. Never mind him being prepared to run, he looked ready and prepared to attack if he had to, which only added to his feelings of wariness. His companions had said that Kaneki was the overprotective type, especially when it came to his own it seemed, but Kaneki was by himself right now.

"What's your name?" Emmett asked after a moment of silence, even though he already knew. He just wanted to hear his voice again.

Kaneki scratched at the skin beneath his eyepatch. "...Kaneki Ken."

He nodded when Emmett repeated it. "My family and I just moved here."

"In that old building next to Newton's business, right?"

"Yes," Kaneki said. "We're originally from Japan." His eye narrowed a fraction. "You asked me why I was out here in the middle of the night. Why are you people out here?"

Emmett rubbed the back of his neck. Where was he picking up these nervous mannerisms? It wasn't unreasonable to be asked that. "Our family is known for hiking sometimes."

He cringed. What a excuse! Who hiked in the middle of the night anyway.

"At night?"

"Y-yes..."

"," came Jasper's voice, and Emmett bit back a remark at his brother.

They all stood in silence as they watched Kaneki regard them with even more caution than before. But he made no attempts to move, standing his ground. It was rather...animal like, the way he acted.

Carlisle decided then to step forward, Kaneki's eye immediately snapping to him. He took a step back in response and to the side before stopping, leaving Emmett staring and confused.

"He's trying to keep all of us in his view," Jasper murmured, recognizing the tactic from when he was in the war, before and after he was changed.

Edward was still trying to get tapped into the man's head. His mind was very chaotic behind the neutral expression that Kaneki put forth. It was unimaginably frustrating, never had someone have a way of blocking him out. He couldn't really pinpoint one thought over another because his mind was all over the place, and in a different language at that. Japanese, he assumed since Kaneki had said that he was originally from Japan.

"My name is Carlisle Cullen," their father stated calmly, opting to stay where he was rather than coming closer. "These are my sons," he gestured to Emmett, "Emmett, obviously. And Edward and Jasper." He pointed his thumb over his shoulder.

"We own a property a few miles from here. And we were just about to head home. We could drive you back into town if you'd like."

Kaneki shook his head almost immediately. "Thank you for the offer, sir. But I can get back home on my own perfectly fine."

"I don't feel comfortable with leaving a young kid out in the middle of the woods with no-"

"I'm 24, actually. I can take care of myself."

"Could have fooled us," said Jasper in his normal voice volume, causing Emmett to snort. He was right, Kaneki looked not look his age. Definitely not older than Emmett who was forever stuck at the age he had been turned: 20.

Kaneki glared at him and Emmett quickly cleared his throat, forcing the smile off his face. "That's not really a good idea, man. There are bears and mountain lions out here."

The others hoped, for everyone's sake, that Kaneki would just agree to at least let them drive him back into town. There was no way in hell that Emmett was going to leave the man out here, and they knew that.

The white-haired man huffed in a somewhat childish manner, annoyed. "I said, I'll be fine. I can handle myself, now if you'll excuse me..."

Kaneki started walking around them, keeping his front to them until he had Edward and Jasper standing between them. He gave them another glance over before he turned and started through the woods. Carlisle went to grab Emmett's arm, but the large man was already two steps ahead and had already rushed forward.

---

Kaneki, who was listening out just in case, quickly spun around at the sound of rushing feet heading towards him, and before he could do anything, he was lifted suddenly into the air as if he weighed nothing.

"Hey!" He yelled, struggling in Emmett's grip as he was pulled firmly against a solid body. "Get the off!"

He turned in his grip to face Emmett, his hands landing on the man's broad shoulders and pushing against them. Kaneki was seconds away from releasing his Kagune on the large man who had dared to touch him, to lay a hand on him. None of these men were human, Kaneki knew that. They didn't smell like regular humans did, but they didn't smell like ghouls either. He didn't know what they were, which made him wary of them in the first place.

He could handle a human, another ghoul too if he had to, but he didn't want to get into an altercation with something he knew nothing about.

Kaneki hadn't lied when he told them that he was out there because he couldn't sleep. He rarely ever could, so he wasn't really lying. Just leaving the majority of the situation out. He had been wandering the woods ever since he'd left Hinami at the highschool. He wouldn't do something like that normally, but towards the end of getting Hinami enrolled in school, he had felt the very distant echoing in the back of his mind. He tried to ignore it at first, but Rize and Jason's voices only grew louder and louder the longer Kaneki tried to ignore their presence.

Somehow, he'd made it to the end of the tour and was just walking out the school's doors with Hinami. At this point, his fingers were twitching visibly, followed by body trembles and an aching headache. Hinami had taken notice, asking if he was alright which he had nodded in response to. He knew it wasn't convincing. He told her to head back to the house without him; it wasn't far. He didn't give her the chance to respond and was already running towards the trees near the school. He could hear Hinami calling his name, but he pushed that aside. He didn't want her to see him if and when he eventually broke down.

He didn't know how long he ran; all he knew was that he was miles deep in the woods and he wasn't stopping anytime soon.

Echoing, echoing voices pulsed in his head, taunting, instigating. They brought forth the past, memories that Kaneki just wanted to forget, but couldn't. His shoulder slammed into a tree trunk that he hadn't been able to dodge fast enough, sending him stumbling. He quickly regained his balance and continued running, running, running. Images of Hide's death flashed in his head, the attack on Anteiku, his time with Jason...the situations a lot more gruesome than they had actually been, though they were still bad.

If Rize and Jason were making it out worse just to make Kaneki lose his mind, a punishment for him daring to ignore them, then it was working. They showed him the day when he and Hide had been attacked by Nishiki, an event that Kaneki had forgiven him for, and where Rize had almost gotten him to devour his one and only friend. Only in this memory, Touka wasn't there to stop him.

He watched helplessly as he watched himself tear apart Hide's still live body. The blood, the screams, the red staining his teeth, and chin-stop, stop, stop!-

Kaneki felt himself flying forward, rolling along the forest floor. He didn't bother trying to stand; he doubted he had the ability to at this point. He clutched at his head, gripping his hair in his hands tightly. His breath coming way to fast as he sank into the chaos of his own mind.

Away from the world of reality, Kaneki found himself in that field of flowers Rize had manifested in his mind during his torturous time with Jason. Lycoris Radiata, red spider lily, Kaneki remembered The red magic lily. They had been such a prominent thing during his time in his head, he had looked them up once he had escaped. The endless meadow was still that bloody red rather than the original white they had been before he'd accepted Rize...

He actually liked the flowers, despite their symbolism and the role they played in regards to him and his sanity. But the rich read color was entrancing to the eye; oh how beautiful they were, he thought, caressing the petals softly with his fingers.

This wasn't the first time he had revisited the field, so he knew the silence, the peacefulness, he was sitting in wasn't going to last long. It never did. He snorted bitterly because as he thought that, Rize and Jason made their appearances.

The next thing Kaneki knew was waking up face first in the dirt, the voice finally gone, retreated for now, and allowing him to return to reality. He stood up on his tired legs, wiping the dirt from his face and clothes as he walked to the nearest tree and slid down the trunk, head bowed.

It was night, the noises of nocturnal animals around him. Kaneki hoped that the others weren't out looking for him or anything, he hated being an inconvenience. He sighed, bringing his hands underneath his eyepatch to run his eyes before letting his arms fall back to his side. He had maybe sat there for a few minutes when he heard someone enter the area. More footsteps came to a halt and a hiss conversation, then one pair of steps started coming towards him. He looked up.

The human that had started to approach him was a large man, with three others behind him. At least he thought they were human? Their scents were one of a typical human you'd come across. The man was tall, taller than even Jason had been, and looked like an avid weight lifter. Intimidating, to say the least. His body just screamed strength. Handsome, with brown, almost black hair and golden eyes.

The other three had similar characteristics. Mainly the very pale skin, almost like porcelain, and golden eyes. Could eyes naturally be that color? When he got to his feet, Kaneki got the full effect of the man's, Emmett, height. The top of his head just hit his broad shoulders.

He wanted to just go ahead and head home, he was sure Touka wouldn't sleep without knowing he was ok, but this Emmett person seemed eager to have a conversation. And when he explained why he'd been out there, leaving out the episode and passing out and settling to say he'd been out walking and got tired, one of the other boys said something about not being able to "read" him. Whatever that meant.

Both boys, the copperhead and the blonde, spoke in quiet tones. Clearly speaking amongst their companions, but it wasn't loud enough for anyone without a heightened hearing to pick up. Kaneki had to stop himself from reacting visibly to the blonde hitting on the mark on what he was doing when he moved to keep all of them in his line of sight when the other blonde step towards him. He declined the dad's offer of a ride back into town; he'd find his way back eventually. And then he found himself in the position he was in now, glaring into the golden eyes in front of him.

"Put. Me. Down."

Kaneki already didn't like being touched, but this seemed different. Wherever his body touched Emmett's, which were his hands and his chest down, was erupting in tingles. It...wasn't necessarily a bad feeling. He had never felt anything like it, and it was overwhelming. He wanted to remove himself immediately, but the strong arms around his waist refused to budge.

"I-" Emmett started.

"Emmett," came the dad's voice. "Release him."

Emmett looked conflicted with the situation, but reluctantly lowered Kaneki back onto his feet, but kept him in his arms. Kaneki had to bite back the growl that threatened to rumble in his chest. What was this guy's problem?

He tried shoving against his chest again, but it was like pushing against a solid concrete wall. And why was this guy so cold? He opened his mouth to yell, a better alternative than using his Kagune. But he was cut off by the stuttering, desperate, and pleading tone that surprised Kaneki.

"Look, I understand that you're wary of us, rightfully so. I mean, we are four random men that you've never met or seen before coming up to you in the middle of nowhere, and that's actually a very responsible thing, being cautious and all that, but I was being serious when I said that there are mountain lions and bears and out here and it's really not safe to be wandering out here by yourself, especially in the middle of the night.

Kaneki opened his mouth again, but Emmett wasn't done.

"And we really just want to help you out and don't want to leave someone out here in the dead of night if we can actually do something to prevent that, so please allow us to at the very least drive you back into town so you get back safe."

Kaneki was blinking rapidly. Did he even take a breath during all that rambling? Hell, Kaneki was fluent in English at this point, and even he had a hard time following what was said.

Silence settled as Kaneki continued staring up at Emmett. His gold eyes held so much emotion, some Kaneki couldn't understand as to why he'd be feeling that. They were intense, and so was the tingling. Oh, why was he still being held?

"A-alright fine," Kaneki finally said, shuddering and breaking their staring contest. He could understand to an extent, the want to help someone. They had thought he was just some kid after all, based on Jasper's comment when he had stated his actual age. Besides, if they wanted to harm him, this would be the perfect time and place to do so.

Emmett's face lit up with a beaming and relieved smile, and almost reluctantly dropped his arms and Kaneki took an instant step back. The tingling was gone almost immediately, which was what he'd wanted. Yet why did he have the urge to step back into the man's arms just to feel the sensation again?