Yoma was correct about Touka being on Kaneki as soon as she woke. She got up around 11 that morning, remembered the night and couple hours before she went to bed, and she was speeding off to Kaneki and Yoma's room in an instant to see if he was there. If he was, she was ripping that man a new one. If not, the same results whenever she saw him next. He'd have to come home at some point.

Touka knew Yoma had gone out scouting for feeding grounds, and she doubted he'd be back until later on. So she didn't hesitate to kick the door open, sending it slamming against the wall behind it.

"Hey, ty Kaneki, what the hell-"

She cut off her yelling mid-sentence and cringed as her eyes landed on the bed. Kaneki was curled up, the blanket halfway on his body, sleeping relatively peacefully from the looks of it. He hadn't even stirred at the loud noise she'd been making.

She went over to the bed, staring down at the white-haired man who was her brother in everything but blood. Touka carefully lowered herself onto the edge of the mattress by his head. He didn't even wake to the dipping of the bed. Kaneki not being woken up by the noise earlier was very out of character in itself, as he was a very aware person. Very in tune with his surroundings 99% of the time. Any slight change in the atmosphere would have tipped him off usually.

Just as carefully as before, she dropped her hand into his snowy white hair, and Touka smiled when Kaneki unconsciously pressed his head closer and nuzzled his hand further into her palm. Running her fingers softly through the strands, Touka noticed a different scent coming from the male. Looking down, she took in the very oversized hoodie Kaneki was wearing.

Yoma didn't usually own any hoodies, especially none of that size. And it wasn't a scent she was familiar with, so she didn't think it was something Yoma would have bought at some point.

Whose clothes would Kaneki be wearing? Wearing willingly at that. Touka contemplated waking him up to get her answers. He still needed to explain his whereabouts the night before too. But…

Touka's fingers pressed into his scalp, massaging as Kaneki slept on. She couldn't bring herself to disturb him. His sleeping habits were already trash, practically nonexistent. Even when he did sleep, it was never a deep one like he seemed to be in now. That's what black-haired ghoul had observed over the years, at least. He'd always be woken up by the smallest things. Whether that be someone walking around the house or doors closing and opening down the hall.

For someone to be able to come into his space while he was asleep, to even be this close and touching him without so much as a twitch, Touka wondered what had gotten him so at ease. Whatever it was, it was doing him some good. Sleep wise, at least.

"Touka, is everything alright?" Hinami's voice traveled down the hall. She'd been asleep in her and Touka's room when she'd heard Touka's phone going off, and then the yelling. Her face popped up in the open door seconds later. "I heard-"

"Shh!" Touka hissed, holding her finger to her lips. She felt Kaneki shift underhand before settling again.

"Oh," Hinami said, her eyes falling on her big brother. "Sorry. Is he okay?"

Touka shrugged. "I guess. I didn't wake him," she whispered.

Hinami came over and sat by Kaneki's feet.

"He slept through all that? He's sleeping like the dead."

Touka chuckled. "Yeah." She leaned down and planted a kiss on Kaneki's forehead, and turned to Hinami. "Come on, let's get some work down. We can integrate the 'suspect' later."

Hinami laughed and nodded, and they left the room, carefully shutting the door behind them. Hinami held out Touka's phone, which she had shoved into her pajama shorts pocket before she'd left the room.

"Yorika called."

"Thanks," Touka said, taking the device and going on the messaging app she used to keep in contact with everyone in Japan. International calls were pretty expensive, they realized.

She'd revealed that she was a ghoul to her highschool friend before they left. As much as she loved Kaneki, she didn't want to make the same decision he'd made when dealing with Hide. Just disappear with no possibility of seeing that person again. Touka would rather have Yorika know the truth and hate her for lying to her for all their years of friendship than disappear without a word and leave her to worry, wondering what had become of her best friend.

Yorika had surprised her. Her instant reaction, after she'd sat and listen to Touka explain everything, was to start rapidly apologizing for having Touka eat the food she'd make when it only ended up making her sick. There had been a massive burst of relief exploding in her chest as she reassured her dearest friend that it was fine.

Last they'd spoken, a few weeks ago, she believed, Yorika was had been accepted into a culinary school that coming fall. Touka got her friend on a video call, and she and Hinami chatted with her as they worked around the cafe.

---

Kaneki slowly woke from the inky, dead like sleep to squealing traveling through the house. It took a few minutes for his brain to bring itself out of its foggy state and caught up to what he was hearing. He jumped out of bed, tripping over the blanket wrapped around his legs. Out in the hall, he didn't find anyone upstairs, so he went downstairs to find Hinami and Touka crowded together at the counter. They were jabbering with someone on the phone that was propped up against a salt shaker.

"Is everything okay?" He asked, making the two girls jumped.

"Oh, Kaneki, did we wake you?" Hinami asked guiltily as he walked up to them and peeked over her head at the phone screen. Yorika's face greeted him.

"Kaneki, hello!" She waved with a wide grin on her face.

Kaneki waved back, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was calmer now that he saw that nothing was wrong.

"Why all the ruckus?"

"Yorika's engaged!" Touka stated happily, bouncing on the heels of her feet.

"Ah." Kaneki turned back to the phone and smiled. "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

The girls were back at their excited chatter. Kaneki, who wasn't really into the whole wedding talk, slipped away into the back room and into the walk-in fridge. In the far back, placed away from the human food and hidden away in a container, they stored the human remains they collected. They were wrapped in their individual packaging. They didn't want to just have a whole human body lying around.

It had been a while since he'd eaten. Once he was done, eating only as much as he found necessary, he returned to the cafe. He started making himself a cup of coffee when Touka approached him. Kaneki glanced over her shoulder at Hinami, who was still having a conversation with Yorika.

Touka watched him start the process of the coffee. "You were sleeping like the dead," she stated bluntly, leaning her hip against the counter.

"Was I?"

"Yeah, you were. What happened? Yesterday."

Kaneki sighed, pouring the liquid in a circular motion, and pushed down his instant reaction of saying 'nothing.' He explained everything as he'd done with Yoma.

"I agree with Yoma," Touka said once he'd finished. "If they don't bother us, we won't bother then."

Kaneki nodded.

"That, however, doesn't explain why you're still wearing that man's hoodie, though," Touka said with a smirk. "Everett, you said his name was?"

"Emmett." Kaneki cringed internally and visibly grimaced at his immediate correction. Touka's smirk grew, but she had the decency to hold back her laugh. She watched as he dropped his sugar cubes into the coffee.

"Do you want one?" He asked.

He was trying to change the subject. Touka rolled her eyes and hit him with a deadpanned look. "No, but I do want you to stop avoiding the question."

Kaneki looked to the side, taking a sip of his drink. Touka leaned towards him to try and meet his gaze, but he avoided it.

Kaneki was...conflicted. He wanted to be honest with Touka. He felt that out of everyone in his family, she'd know why he was acting the way he was. But it was a habit of sorts to keep things to himself. And the last thing he wanted to do was make his family worry. The white-haired ghoul didn't realize that that was precisely what made his family worry about him the most.

"I...I have nightmares...sometimes"-old news, Touka thought- "Wearing this," Kaneki said quietly, trying his best to be honest and not downplay it, "It makes me feel...calm, put me at ease I think. I think it has something to do with his scent, maybe? Or maybe just him in general...I-I don't know how to explain it…"

Touka was silent, mostly because she didn't know what to say. She honestly hadn't expected him to actually explain himself. He would usually clamp up if he didn't want to discuss something.

She grabbed the front of the hoodie and leaned in, and inhaled. She pulled her head back quickly as she got a noseful of an icy, sweet smell. She didn't know where he was getting the word "calming" from when describing the scent. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it did overwhelm her senses.

Well, she did practically shove the fabric in her own face, so maybe that was it. But she felt if she was around it long enough, she'd be able to smell it from across the room even and have it be just as potent as having it right under her nose.

And Kaneki had slept in it, and most likely had it on for at least an hour beforehand. Yet, it didn't seem to bother him.

"That smells really ing sweet and icy," she confessed, holding her hand against her nose. "I don't know how you managed to sleep buried in that all night."

Kaneki shrugged at that, but his eyebrows furrowed. He and Touka's thoughts coincided there. Now that he stopped and thought about it (there had been a lot going on at the time), all the Cullens had a sweet, icy smell to them. That was one of the reasons that tipped him off. It wasn't the worst smell in the world, but it definitely not something you'd want to breathe indirectly.

But it was Emmett's scent, despite being exactly like the rest of his family (the ones he'd met at least), that had something different about it. And that 'something,' whatever it was, made Kaneki want to drown in it. Drown in the strange form of comfort it brought him.

"But it sounds to me like you might have a crush."

That had Kaneki choking on his drink and abruptly slamming his cup down on the counter in front of him, coughing. The cup didn't break, but it was loud and sudden enough to get Hinami's attention and startle Touka as well.

Coffee sloshed over the edges of the cup, dripping onto the counter and the still-hot liquid running down his hands, which had him snatching his hand back. He cursed.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "Sorry."

Touka and Hinami watched him rushed to the sink and turn on the faucet, sticking his hand under the cold water. It wasn't as painful as it should have been, thanks to Kaneki's pain tolerance, but it still burned.

Touka grabbed a clean dishrag and wet it, then wrapped it around the burn on his hand. His ghoul healing had kicked in by now. The most that would be left behind would be pink patches where the coffee touched.

"Just adding more scars," Kaneki said humourlessly.

Touka snorted. "Are you okay? I'm sorry if I hit a sour subject…"

Hinami came over after saying bye to Yorika. She took Kaneki's cloth-wrapped hand from Touka.

"No, no, I'm fine," Kaneki reassured Touka. "I just didn't expect that."

Kaneki turned to look at Hinami as Touka looking like she wanted to speak more, but took a step back and started cleaning up the mess Kaneki had made. Kaneki smirked down at the smaller girl.

"Aren't I supposed to be the older brother here, taking care of you and being protective?"

"Trust me, you got those parts down packed. Perfect to a T." Hinami gave a matching smirk. She then smiled, almost sadly. "You should let people take care of you," she said.

She unwrapped his hand. They were healed now, leaving behind pink patches just like Touka had thought they would. They hadn't hurt that much, to begin with. He was used to it, he guessed.

Kaneki placed his hand in Hinami's hair, and he smiled softly. "There's nothing to 'take care of' when it comes to me. But thank you."

He kissed her forehead and was heading towards the stairs before Hinami could respond. "I'm going to shower."

Kaneki, as soon as he was out of sight, stripped the hoodie from his body as if it were on fire. He didn't care that it left him standing in the living room in only his pajama bottoms. He went into his room and tossed the hoodie in the laundry basket with the other clothes.

He couldn't believe he'd just confessed all that out loud. And Touka had been so blunt too! He grimaced and blushed. He didn't have a crush. Who had a crush on someone they didn't even know? That was a stupid question. The real problem was why, out of everyone he knew (people who'd been there with him for years, at least ever since his life went to and onwards), did he find comfort in someone he'd just met?

Noone had succeeded in making him feel the way he was now. Not even Rize, who'd he'd actually had had a crush on. An exceptionally short-lived crush that he had gotten his hopes way to for, but a crush nonetheless. How naive he had been back then, he thought.

Kaneki retreated into the bathroom and soon found himself under the warm spray of water. He turned the water on hotter as he just stood there under the water, most likely overthinking the situation.

---

Back downstairs, Touka had made herself and Hinami some coffee after cleaning up. She was fiddling with her phone.

"I hope I didn't push him too far…" Touka sighed.

"It's not like you said anything super out of pocket," Hinami said.

"We don't know that. Last crush Kaneki had literally tried to eat and kill him, which led to him being a ghoul. He might still be sensitive about the subject." Touka shook her head. "I don't want to put him through those memories again."

She opened the messaging app again, wanting to call Yorika again. "Anyways, what were you and Yorika talking about when I was busy with Kaneki?"

"Just ideas for the wedding. She said she'd really like to have it a winter ceremony."

"A winter wedding would be nice. I should call her back," she said, pressing the video call button. She hoped she wasn't busy and interrupting anything. She wanted to apologize for being distracted while she was still on the phone. That had been rude of her.

Besides, she needed to know the details of the wedding. She was going to be the maid of honor, after all.