Chapter Text
It began, as many things did in the strange and mostly rebuilt world of the 24th Ward, with Ichika.
Specifically, Ichika Kaneki, aged nine, standing in front of her class on "Family Storytelling Day," proudly misremembering a story she'd overheard at the dinner table four years ago and had since rewritten in her mind as a mythic romantic epic.
“My mom used to date Uncle Nishiki,” she declared, chest puffed out with the confidence only a child with no concept of consequences could possess. “But then she dumped him for my dad, and that’s why Uncle Nishiki lives far away now and is allergic to our house.”
The class gasped.
Her teacher, a sweet young ghoul who’d only recently graduated from an underground pedagogy program, blinked in confusion. “Uh… Ichika-chan… are you sure—?”
“She told me herself!” Ichika insisted. “They went to a restaurant. She said he paid! That means it was a date.”
And so the story spread.
By the end of the week, Nishiki had received seventeen text messages, four anonymous letters, and one very long voicemail from Enji, who had become something of a gossip courier in the new era.
“What the hell is going on?” Nishiki asked on speakerphone, pacing his apartment as his wife Kimi watched him with vague amusement.
“Apparently, you and Touka used to date,” Enji deadpanned. “And you only left the Ward to live elsewhere because Kaneki stole her from you.”
“WHAT?!”
Kimi sipped her tea. “Well, you did go drinking with her once, remember?”
Nishiki wheeled around. “You’re not helping.”
Meanwhile, at :re (now re-reopened for the third time), Touka was attempting to keep a straight face as an elderly woman asked her for the “heartbreak menu.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The one you used to serve when you were tragically in love with that handsome doctor boy,” the old woman clarified. “Before your husband seduced you away from him.”
Touka blinked. “Do you mean Nishiki?”
The woman nodded, utterly delighted by her own knowledge. “You poor girl.”
Behind the counter, Hinami choked on her coffee.
“Okay,” Touka said slowly, eyes twitching. “What the hell is happening?”
Soon after, Touka confronted Ichika in her room.
“Did you tell your teacher that I dated Nishiki?”
Ichika, in her pink pajamas and surrounded by stuffed rabbits, tilted her head. “Didn’t you?”
Touka rubbed her temples. “No. And you’ve created an international incident.”
Ichika gasped. “I did?”
“Yes.”
Ichika beamed.
“That wasn’t praise.”
“But I’m famous!”
Touka groaned. Somewhere across town, Nishiki had migraine.
The next morning, re: displayed a new chalkboard sign out front:
“No, Touka did NOT date Nishiki. Please stop asking. Order or leave.”
Underneath it, someone—most likely Hide—had added in a different color chalk:
#TeamKaneki #NishikiNeverStoodAChance
Touka left it there.
Ichika, when asked at school the next week, declared her parents’ love story “complicated but epic” and then changed the subject to how she planned to marry Sui’s best friend, because he shared his lunch snacks.
The teacher wisely decided not to ask questions ever again.