Binge eating

      The next day was the first time in quite a while Touka Kirishima and Ken Kaneki were on the same work shift at "Anteiku". Nothing in particular, however, distinguished it from all the previous ones: Ken would still confuse different sorts of beans with each other, accidentally pour boiled water on his hands and absentmindedly add sugar or milk in the ghoul customers' coffees; perhaps, only not as frequantly as before. Touka, obviously, hadn't stopped scolding him for all of this — perhaps, only not as harshly as before.       But with the exception of work formalities, young people didn't appear to discuss anything else for quite some time. When it began to get dark outside, the coffee shop was not surprisingly becoming emptier and emptier. Whilst baristas were standing idly behind the counter, the silence between them threatened to become so awkward Touka finally decided to break it.       "How's your shoulder, Kaneki?"       "Oh, yeah. Good as new, would you believe it!" he patted the spot with his left hand. "By the way, heard Nishiki also got a job here the other day. Now, who would've seen that coming, right?"       "Right..." she tried to adjust her bangs, which hid her right eye under their canopy, as naturally as possible. "You know what, could you tell me... well, I mean, if you still remember, that is... How would you describe the taste of curry?"       Ken was lost in thought for almost a minute before giving an answer.       "Spicy, at times even frankly acrid. Its dense moisture usually softens the boiled rice, enriching its vapid flavour with an exquisite... combination of piquant palates. Seasoned meat garnished with vegetables loses its rigidity, and becomes homogeneous with every other ingredient in the dish..."       "You bookworm," muttered Touka. His vivid description didn't make her feel any better, as she had hoped.       "Why ask me about this so suddenly, though?"       "Just happened to be on my mind the other day," lied she in a frivolous tone of voice.       Several more hours passed. At a quarter past nine, workmates were already preparing the establishment for closure, right when the girl suddenly stumbled her collegue with an unexpected request.       "Would you let me take a look at it? I mean, your right shoulder."       "Well, um..." he terryed for a second, "if you insist, then, I guess..."       "Just make it up to the upper floor when you're done with everything else," as mysteriously impassive as always, she retreated towards the stairs.       Having completed his share of tidying up, the youth, surprised by this caring gesture to come, was already heading upstairs. Entering one of the spare rooms, he found Touka leaning against the wall with her arms folded just below her chest. Without saying a word, Ken sat down on a nearby stool and, looking down a slight bit, began to unbutton his vest, then his shirt.       Fingers of his clumsy, repeatedly burnt "paws" failed numerous attempts of releasing tiny buttons from their tight loops. Trying to bear with this prolonged sight, Touka could feel her patience slowly expiring.       Being completely unable to stand it at one point, Kirishima knocked the innocent stool over with a bold kick of her loafer, same fate reaching the one who was sitting on it. Before Ken even had the time to figure what was going on, he was already down on the floor just right under Touka: the high school student unceremoniously placed her hips on his waist, spreading her bent legs in opaque stockings apart. For a brief second, before the edges of her skirt completely dropped down, the seductive blackness of what appeared to be lace panties flashed before the guy's eyes.       "T-touka!.. Hold on a second!" he "mewed" in panic, having managed to take it the wrong way no less than a hundred times, while the girl mercilessly tore the remaining clothes off his body.       Torn buttons shot right out of their loops, rolling across the floor in every possible direction. When there were none left at all, Touka turned the shirt's cloth to the side to once again witness the right half of the frail, unimpressive torso that belonged to Ken Kaneki. Starting off with the easily countable, bony ribs, her gaze quickly proceeded to the flat, innocently hairless chest, and only from there — straight to the shoulder in question.       "Amazing... In what, less than a week?" she caressed the white scar mark, which still strongly resembled the shape of her gaping jaws. "And on Yoshimura's 'sugar' cubes alone, too. You've inherited Rize's regenation ability in full, no kidding."       It seemed so to the young man, that the girl more likely considered him an interesting object now, rather than a human or a ghoul altogether.       Bending down for his skinny arm, which, therefore, momentarily covered itself in goosebumps, she pressed her lips to the skin just below his shoulder joint. Touka's hardened teeth bit through the half-blood's epidermis, despite its usual metal-like toughness, with insensitive mechanicalness of a hole punch. They seeped into the soft flesh of his almost feminine, underdeveloped muscle so slowly and so deeply, as if tasting a tender steak — in other words, making this time be not even remotely as quick and painless as the last one had been. Ken squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, but for some reason, just as he did then, the guy didn't allow himself to utter out loud even a squeak.       She straightened her back in one sharp movement, thus tearing a significant triceps chunk out of an already thin arm of his. The un-chewed hunk of meat was swallowed as soon as it entered her mouth, therefore, getting immediately stuck in her throat, a large, protruding lump bumping on the outside. While Touka continued her unsuccessful attempts to swallow, which muffled, throaty sounds accompanied, the bluish pupils of her eyes shamelessly met at the bridge of her nose. It took her a few struggles for the lump to finally move and resume its slide along the esophagus in the direction of her stomach, where a certain company had patiently awaited its arrival since afternoon. The female ghoul licked her blood-sullied lips with satisfaction.       "Why... why would you have to do this," moaned Ken, breathing heavily, "if there's a freezer compartment... hidden in the basement... and still full to the brim?.."       Fresh blood constantly oozed from the torn wound, staining his henceforward not so very clean clean working shirt.       "And what would you, I wonder, personally choose given you still had the chance, you pathetic excuse for a ghoul," suddenly snapped she, "a crust off a callous toast or a sweet serving of dessert?!"       "But I'm not... a serving of dessert..." tears welled up in his eyes.       Touka grabbed him by the hair. The long-awaited satiety, apparently, drove her no less insane than a lean week of fasting already had.       "Oh, yeah? And how exactly are you gonna prove me otherwise?! You obviously lack in strength to fight me back, not to mention the resolve to even try to! You don't seem to know how to do anything properly, not only you're incapable of protecting others around you, but your sorry self, even! The sole benefit obtainable from your very being is satisfaction of my hunger, save for nothing more. Did you catch that right?! From now on, this will remain the one and only purpose to your entire miserable existence, parasite."       Ken silently endured her sincere revelations until the very moment she disdainfully dropped his head back on the floor.       "'An exquisite combination of piquant palates', my ass," mocked Touka, adding inaudibly: "Bet if I tasted diarrhea, wouldn't notice any difference one bit. Hence the visual likeness, I guess..."       "Wait... what did you just?.." started the quick-witted, bleeding university freshman.       Touka, however, got on her feet without giving an answer and walked away just so, wiping her mouth clean as she made it to the door.       "Tomorrow morning, right before school, I'll check how thoroughly you'll have rid this room of any traces of what has just happened," added she by the doorway in cold blood, "and decide how soon I'll go hungry again."       Descending footsteps on the stairs could be heard from behind the wall, proceeded by the recognizable sound of entrance door's sashes on the ground floor. Left alone and half undressed, Ken spent some time laying motionless on the floor "in his own juice", so to speak, making guesses concerning the level of sincerity his friend had just shown, while speaking to him. What could her words about taste possibly mean? That not so long ago she had consumed or at least tried out a real portion of curry — is that what she implied? And if so, then why even would she... Oh, well. As if she'd tell him all this just like that, that distant one. None other than a predator with a rabbit's soul, she was.       Ken barely got up from his prone position and, in search of a bandage, quite absurdly hobbled to the lavatory, holding himself by the wounded arm. It took at least an hour and a half before he, having put himself and "Anteiku" alike in order, was the last one to leave the deserted place.

***

      Tomorrow day, both baristas' schedules were not supposed to overlap at all, but by a heartfelt request of Mr. Yoshimura's, the young man had to lose a few of his afternoon hours and stand in for Irimi, who, apparently, was busy visiting the neighboring ward on some occasion. And around the same time, just so it turns out, began Touka's shift.       The usual awkward silence between them appeared even more awkward to Ken that day. Although Touka somehow managed to behave as if nothing was up at all, except unobtrusively making sure that her coworker's injury wouldn't become obvious to anyone. For that purpose, she took almost all of the manual work on herself, and stole undelivered orders, if consisting of more than few saucers or cups, right from under his nose. The guy really wished he could be sincerely grateful to her for this, but couldn't help but to see right through her selfish intentions.       "Good boy, Kaneki," the colleague suddenly whispered in his ear, casually passing by. "The floor in the spare room looks as clean as a new pin. Honestly, I wasn't sure you'd be able to handle such a job."       "Please, Touka, the least I deserve is some explanation..." he began.       "Not here, dumbass," she glared at him angrily with her left eye. "I know. Why don't you make it to the restroom right after you take this Americano to the table by that window? I'll join you there in a couple of minutes and explain anything you want to know."       Ken had no choice. Having delivered the order and left his apron back in the staffroom, he restlessly circled the tiny and dimly lit bathroom in waiting. At last, the elder Kirishima joined him as was agreed upon.       "Your determination to our little secret is deserving of a reward, don't you think?" she began right away, closing the distance with Ken.       "Touka, listen to me. I'm not sure what the deal is, but lately something's definately been up with how y..."       The young girl pressed him against the tiled wall with unexpected aggressiveness, cutting him off mid-sentence. Immediately after, which could be considered even more unexpected, she stood up on her toes and... kissed him with all the might and passion she had in herself. With such fussiness, confidence and, notwithstanding, full realization that this kiss was probably his first. The ghouls' mouths didn't part for so long the perplexity Kaneki was struck with at first simply changed into pleasant humility, whereas the contents of his underwear wouldn't stop uncontrollably enlarging under the fabric of his trousers with an elastic bump.       However, at one point, Touka abruptly landed back on her heels, turned noticeably pale and buried her forehead in the spot Ken's collarbones met.       Warmth. He felt his chest enveloped in warmth for those very first few seconds he, naively enough, didn't yet fully grasp what had happened. And only when Touka coughed the remnants of her vomit up and took a step back, the front side of his uniform finally appeared before his eyes, completely covered in former contents of her stomach.       It wasn't that difficult to still distinguish large lumps of white bread from one another, all equally soaked in gastric juice. Just this very morning they were all part of one diagonally split jam sandwich, which the high school student used as her everyday substitute for lunch. It goes without saying that they remained completely untouched by digestive acid and its enzymes, as if only swallowed less than a minute ago and regurgitated back at that same second. Not a single bread crumb, not a single drop of jam had been digested inside of her, despite the passed time. The school lunch was as naturally and convincingly as possible, yet still pretendedly chewed, forced to take a humiliating bath at the bottom of the stomach, and, upon the passing of a few hours, vomited back out almost in its original state. The ghoul's lifestyle was filled with such perverse irony from beginning to end, and Ken seemed to only now had met with it this head-on.       Wiping a translucent thread of thickened saliva sticking to her lip, which stretched from her mouth all the way to the fabric of his soiled shirt, Touka exhaled with relief.       "Let's hope nothing made it to the bowels this time, sheesh... I don't usually take this habit outside of my school's bathroom, but today, you see, all the stalls there were occupied for some reason. Mass food poisoning or something like that, no idea..." she waived the gut-wrenching stench emanated from Kaneki's soaked shirt away from her rabbity nose. The latter still found it difficult for himself to move or even blink. "What makes you look so surprised, idiot? Don't get me wrong, I had to do something unthinkably repugnant to make myself sick in the gut enough, and as soon as possible, too. Thank god you were around," Touka indifferently turned around and headed for the exit, "though, I never imagined I'd ever fall that low, you know. Would rather stuff my mouth full of shit next time..."       She carelessly went out into the corridor without closing the door behind her. Ken, nevertheless, continued to stand right there in his hopeless stupor, pressed against the tiled wall, unable to hide a ridiculous erection in his pants nor do something about the increasing smell of his yet again ruined shirt.       For some reason, a certain premonition that all of this was just the beginning of god knows how long a series of his undeserved suffering was born in his worried mind.