Improbable Domesticity

At 6:38 one rainy morning, a tired-looking young man carrying a backpack and a yellow umbrella steps off a train that had just arrived at Chitose-Karasuyama Station.

Walking towards the exit, Ando briefly contemplates buying something from the vending machines on the platform before deciding against it. Despite being tired and wanting nothing more than to have something to eat, have a shower to wash off the smell of the incinerator, and go to bed, he’s alert and aware of his surroundings. Home is still fifteen minutes walk away and although it’s quiet this early in the morning and he’s done this dozens of times, he still feels a familiar anxiety involving the contents of his backpack and the possibility of one sort of person or another catching him with it, coupled with an equally familiar quiet thrill from having got away with it so far.

Walking quickly through the wet early morning streets, he eventually reaches his apartment without incident and, after shaking the water off his umbrella and closing it, steps inside and closes the door behind him.

Inside the apartment it’s dark and he gives his eyes a moment to adjust while he feels himself relax. Propping the wet umbrella by the door he took off his coat and shoes before walking past the tiny bathroom and even tinier kitchen to the main room of the apartment, which is currently dominated by a futon with a vaguely human shaped lump on top off it. Putting his bag down next to the table tucked into one corner of the room, he walks towards the window and opens the curtains just enough to allow some daylight into the room. The lump on the futon responds by grumbling and burrowing further under the covers.

Yawning, Ando glances at the clock; 6:59am. Re-crossing the room he checks the water level in the electric kettle before switching it on and moving on to the next part of his morning routine; waking up his roommate. Given the amount of noise he’s made so far and how sharp said roommate’s hearing is, odds are that he’s already at least fifteen percent awake but that’s nowhere near awake enough.

“Hey, Hiroshi. Time to wake up.”

No response.

With a sigh he walks over to the futon and prods the lump with his foot.

“Hey bro, it’s after seven. Wake up.”

A few more prods produce a muffled reply that may or may not have been “I’m awake”. Satisfied, Ando goes to the tiny kitchen and retrieves four things; a mug, instant coffee, Cup Noodles and a bottle of peach tea. Once the kettle has boiled he adds hot water to the noodles and makes a mug of black coffee, topping it up with cold water so that it’s not too hot to drink.

Turning back around he sees his best and only friend sat up in bed.

“Morning Hiroshi.”

“Morning.”

By the sound of things he’s still half asleep but his nose twitches ever so slightly before he drags himself out of bed with a groan and staggers towards the coffee, which Ando hands over with a smile.

“Want some breakfast?”

Hiroshi looks at the bag next to the table and sniffs again before shaking his head.

“Nah. Not hungry at the moment.”

“Okay.”

As they did every morning when Ando has had the night shift and Hiroshi has to be up for work, they sat at the table together while Ando eats his dinner and Hiroshi finishes waking up with the aid of caffeine. Finishing his coffee before Ando finishes his noodles, he get up and heads into the bathroom. A moment later Ando hears the shower turn on.

By the time Hiroshi emerges from the bathroom, Ando has finished eating, thrown away the rubbish and washed Hiroshi’s mug, closed the curtains and turned on the light and is idly drawing on the back of his left hand.

“You’ll give yourself ink poisoning if you keep doing that.”

“I don’t think that ink poisoning is actually a real thing.”

Hiroshi made a non-committal noise then went to get dressed, Ando keeping his back turned and his attention focused on his drawing. By the time Hiroshi was ready to leave the doodles had spread half-way up his forearm.

“See you later.”

“Have a good day. Stay safe.”

After Hiroshi had left, Ando finished the drawing he was working on, then got up, stretched and got on with his final job of the day. Spreading a sheet of plastic over the table, he readies his equipment, a red plastic chopping board and a selection of sharp knives,and pulls on a pair of latex gloves before opening his backpack and taking out a rather weighty looking plastic bag.

Inside is a rather mangled calf and foot. If Ando had to make an educated guess about what had happened to it, he’d be inclined to go with some sort of car accident. Picking up one of his knives, he got to work. With practiced efficiency he first cut the mostly intact foot off the mangled leg and set it to one side, before skinning and boning the leg, grumbling slightly about having to dig out bone fragments. The biggest pieces of bone are put into one freezer bag and the diced meat is split between two others. That done, he turns his attention back to the foot, wondering if he should dissect it before deciding that doing so would be too much effort and settling for burning the hairs off with a lighter before sticking it in another freezer bag which is in turn wrapped in white plastic bag from a convenience store. The bone fragments and shreds of skin are flushed down the toilet, the meat put in the bottom of the fridge, the plastic sheeting wiped down, and the knives and chopping board cleaned with bleach.

His work done for the day, Ando finally has his longed for shower and gets ready for bed. As usual Hiroshi has forgotten to put his futon away and Ando quickly decides that he can’t be bothered to do so and get his own out before simply turning the light off, flipping the pillow over and crawling into bed some time after eight. He’s asleep soon after.

The life of a Ghoul, is one of ironic philosophy; a life wherein all things are open to debate, as there is no true foundation for belief. Humanity exists within a figurative glass bowl: they are only capable of seeing things from inside the bowl's perspective, but the ghoul, is an outsider looking into the bowl from beyond. From some other place.

Nikuya knew that place better than most. He never had the kind of contact with Humans that other Ghouls had. It lent him a unique view of things, a cognitive filter which sorted out that information which is most useful, and that which is not.

Most humans always employ some kind of security method in districts as poor as 12, unless...they have some sort of insurance, or a contingency protocol. Furthermore, Nikuya smelled a mix of both Ghoul and Human. Like oil and water... How some Ghouls managed to coexist was beyond him, but, it wasn't any of his business. As long as I never see the human in question that is.

Managing to get into said apartment was easy, and the chance to satiate his own curiosity regarding such a rare and...intimate living arrangement between ghoul and man, was enough to draw him in.
He's sleeping.

Nikuya sat on a chair by the bed in darkness, watching the rise and fall of the humans chest as his diaphragm drew air in. Most appetizing. "When a Ghoul claims to be friends with a Human, I normally just shake my head and say I don't know how they do it, but, when they are living together, and from the smell, preparing each other's lunch? Well, that just gets me pretty damn curious."
He leans into the lamplight with an unsettling cast to his face; part smile, and part predator gazing down on his prey.

OOC: Didn't expect this thread to be the one you were asking about. Oh well, here goes nothing.

Ando wasn't entirely sure what woke him up and it didn't feel like he'd been asleep for long, but even though he was still half asleep he could sense something wrong. Trying to act like he was still asleep he held his breath and listened carefully. A moment later he heard someone else breathing, and the resulting adrenaline kicked him straight into fight or flight mode. To make matters worse there wasn't anything that could be used as a weapon within arms reach.

"Are they human or ghoul? If they're a ghoul who's planning on eating me then I'm probably screwed either way, but if they're human I might have a chance."

Thinking quickly, he shifted as though he was still asleep so that he was facing the intruder and his hand was resting on his pillow.

"One, two, three."

Moving as fast as he could, he opened his eyes, flung the pillow towards the intruder before their actual appearance had time to register, then dived across the room towards the kitchen and its assortment of knives and other impromptu weapons and beyond which was the way out.

OOC: By the by, this is taking place during the day; in my first post Ando came home after working the night shift and would normally be waking up at around 3-4pm. So, among other things there wouldn't be any lamplight.

ooc: Ah, bonehead move on my part. Lot of stuff going on.

Nikuya, taken unawares, smacks the pillow out of the way and tears towards Ando, Kagune ripping from his back and propelling him through the doorway in much the same way an octopus pulls itself from a crevice. He then slams one of his large cleaver-like blades between Ando and the doorway.

"Now now, let's not get ahead of ourselves."
He could feel the rapid increase in his heart rate, smell the remains from earlier permeating the air.
"Tell me a few things, and you might leave here in one piece."

Ando narrowly avoids colliding with the kagune suddenly blocking  his path.

"Shit!"

Backing up, he watches the ghoul in front of him warily. He doesn't recognise him and as far as he can tell he doesn't match any of the descriptions Hiroshi gave him of the more notable ghouls in the area.

He's afraid but, although he doesn't realise it, the fear is not the same sort of overwhelming terror that most humans feel when faced with a ghoul, the terror of being at the mercy of an inhuman monster, but rather a more ordinary kind of fear that comes from being unarmed and faced with a stronger, armed opponent whose motives are unknown, and although afraid his head stays clear and focused on surviving the situation at hand.

"I wish Hiroshi was here. Or not, depending on how strong and how nasty this guy is."

He licks his lips nervously.

"What do you want to know?"


OOC: Is Nikuya masked up or not?

OOC: Nope.

"Glad to see you can be reasonable." He says with a sociable, dead-eyed smile.
"Question A: What exactly causes a functioning relationship between a Ghoul and a Human? If you're a prisoner, I saw no chains."
His kagune weaved about the room like a snake seeking the heat.
His eyes seemed to flash brighter with each word, culminating in a peculiar flashing, like the glint of one witnessing some great spectacle. "Furthermore, if he has a pet Human, he is either strong enough for your presence here to be negligible, or weak enough that he needs your help. Which is he? I don't need another power player in my territory."
He seemed hungry, as though he was divvying him up in his head already like cattle.
"And on the subject of food, where does he get his? Competition around this ward has been getting worse."

Inwardly, Ando groaned. This was one of the things they'd been worried about when they first started living together; the possibility that their living arrangement would attract the wrong sort of attention from other ghouls but after almost five years without incident they'd thought that they were safe. Apparently not.

Ando was very aware of the nature of the looks he was getting, looks that were far more predatory than any Hiroshi had ever given him. The last time a ghoul had looked at him like that, said ghoul had ended up on the business end of a bikaku, but Hiroshi wasn't around to save his neck this time.

"Could be worse; at least it's not the Doves. Then we'd be multiple levels of screwed."

He frowned slightly as something the ghoul had said finally registered.

"Hang on, 'his territory'? He must be new or something; I don't remember Hiroshi mentioning any red heads. The lack of a mask is a worry, he doesn't seem stupid so either he doesn't care about me being able to ID him or he's planning on killing on me anyway."

Ando silently prayed that it was the former. Doing his best to stay calm, he considered how to answer the questions.

"Okay, first off, I'm not a prisoner and I'm not his pet. We're friends, have been since we were kids. I don't care about the ghoul thing, him being my friend is way more important."

His lips twitched upwards in a weak smile.

"As the saying goes, friends help you move, best friends help you move bodies. Not exactly sure why he's friends with me, although me helping him escape from the Doves probably helped. That doesn't mean that he's weak by the way; we were kids at the time and it was just lucky that I saw them arriving. Don't know how strong he is compared to you of course but he's won his share of fights. Either way we don't want any trouble. We're not interested in power-plays or anything like that, we just want to live our lives. He doesn't even go hunting; most of his food is stuff I get from work or suicides. Well, there was this one mugger about a year ago who picked the wrong victims but that was kind of an exception."

Realising that he was on the cusp of nervous babbling, Ando stopped talking. Although he was still doing a pretty good job of remaining calm given the situation, his gaze kept nervously shifting between the ghoul himself and his kagune. He wasn't sure if they were rinkaku or koukaku (he kept getting those two mixed up) but they were interesting even if mortal peril was preventing him from admiring the aesthetics. The rather random thought that if he survived this the kagune or something like them would find their way into one of his sketchbooks popped into his head and was firmly pushed aside. Now was most definitely not the time.

Nikuya's brow gradually knotted further and further as the man rambled on, bordering on hysterics. This guy will not shut up...
"Alright, that's enough"
He took a moment to recompose himself. "If what you say is true..." he paused, straightening out his thoughts "then killing you would only really stir up trouble that never would have come up otherwise. I won't pretend to like you, but you're not hurting anybody."
His kagune retracted slowly into his back once again, twirling in a spiral as they coiled up within him. He straightened back to his full height and, begrudgingly, extended a hand. "Call it a gentleman's agreement; neither of us bothers each other. In fact, I don't see why you should ever bring up this encounter again." He says, raising an eyebrow to get his point across.
Ugh, this has got to be the worst day in months. Hungry, landlord's riding me over payments, and now I have to make nice with a human. Why don't I just live in one of the more ghoul heavy wards again?

Relaxing ever so slightly at hearing that he apparently wasn't going to be lunch, Ando nodded.

"Agreed."

He didn't mention that he was going to tell Hiroshi about this when he came home and that even if he didn't he'd still find out about it; the guy had a nose like a bloodhound and there was no way in hell that he wouldn't notice another ghoul's scent in the apartment.

Then, because a less hungry ghoul is always a good thing and because he was and always will be a weirdo, he added;

"I don't know if you'd be interested, but there's some meat in the fridge if you want it. It's fresh; in fact it was still walking around yesterday evening. Call it a 'thankyou for not eating me' present."

Nikuya could only groan internally as the human continued to speak. This would never end, would it? "No" he said, not deigning to look back at Ando "I grabbed a bite to eat before I came in. I hope you weren't overly fond of the woman downstairs with the curly hair."
With that, Nikuya departed through the front door. Strange to see the ghoul leave in such a normal fashion, after such an abnormal visit.

The description of the person who'd got eaten didn't ring any bells so he wasn't too concerned about her demise, beyond hoping that the ghoul had had the sense to clean up after himself. The last thing they needed was for the CCG to be nosing around the building.

When the ghoul finally left, he almost sagged with relief, before hurriedly getting dressed. He may have had less than a couple of hours of sleep but there was no way that he'd get any more anytime soon and he didn't want to stand around waiting to see if the ghoul changed his mind. Lots of coffee and killing time in public until Hiroshi got back was definitely the order of the day. Running straight to him was tempting but rejected since he didn't want to bother him at work. Before leaving the apartment he took a moment to write a message on his phone;

[Hi Bro. Had some trouble at home but am OK. Will explain later. Let me know when you're on your way home. Watch out for red heads.]

Hitting send, he put the phone back in his pocket. Hiroshi wouldn't get the message for hours as his phone would be off until he finished work but some sort of warning seemed like a good idea.

"Okay, let's see if Mr Breaking and Entering has left a mess."

*********************************

Several hours later, Hiroshi left work and checked his phone, frowning when he saw the message on it.

"What's he gone and done now? And what does he mean by 'watch out for red heads'?"

Worried, he texted back.

[Just finished work. Will be home in half an hour. Are you still okay?]

He was in the middle of unchaining his bike when he got a reply.

[Yeah. I'm okay. I'll explain when you get home.]

Although reassuring, the message wasn't enough to stop him from spending the entire ride worrying. Arriving at their apartment building to see a very tired looking Ando standing outside with a couple of convenience store carrier bags was a major relief.

"What happened? What were the messages about?"

"One of the neighbors got eaten. I don't think anyone else knows about it yet though; I couldn't find any mess and as far as I know no one's called the Doves."

"Oh."

They entered the building.

"Hang on, how do you know about it?"

Ando shuffled awkwardly.

"Er, I kind of had a run in with the one who did it."

"What?!"

"Don't worry, I'm fine. I'll explain when we're indoors."

At this point they were about halfway up the stairs.

"You'd better. Have you been out all day?"

"Yeah. I'm going to have to have a nap in a bit or tonight's shift is going to suck. Coffee can only do so much."

"Have you had anything other than coffee?"

"Bought some oden at around one. I got vegetables and everything."

"Good, you eat too much junk."

By now they'd reached their apartment. Upon entering, Hiroshi froze and sniffed the air. An inspection of the apartment revealed an unmade bed, a very out of place pillow, marks on the wall and the scent of a ghoul other than him. Narrowing his eyes, he turned back to his now rather nervous looking roommate.

"Ando, start talking. Now."

The human grimaced slightly.

"Okay. You know the ghoul I mentioned? Well, he broke in here while I was asleep."

At this point Hiroshi was wondering how his friend was still alive and unharmed and it showed on his face.

"Don't worry, nothing happened. Well, not much anyway. He just threatened me a bit and asked how and why a human and a ghoul were living together."

"What did you say?"

"That we were friends. Oh, and he wanted to know how you got your food."

"And?"

"I told him the truth, that I got some of it from work and the rest is suicides. Lying seemed like a bad idea, the guy was pretty scary. He had his kagune out and everything."

"Did you say where you work?"

Ando snorted.

"No. I'm not stupid. Besides he didn't ask."

"What else happened? What did he look like?"

"Not much. He said that killing me would be more troble than it was worth, said that he would leave me alone if I left him alone and left. I didn't recognise him but he was going on about his territory so I'm guessing that he's local. He was young, tall, slim and had red hair and kagune that looked like four big ass black knives on the end of tentacles. Oh, and he more or less told me not to tell anyone."

"You're telling me."

"Of course I am. I couldn't not tell you. I tell you everything. If I didn't you'd pick me up by my belt and refuse to put me down until I talked."

"I haven't done that since I was sixteen."

"So?"

Hiroshi let out a long sigh and slumped against the wall. The description wasn't ringing any bells, which was kind of a bad sign.

"What are we going to do about this?"

Ando shrugged.

"I have no idea."

It went unspoken but they were both thinking the same thing; they had a big problem on their hands.


OOC: And that's a wrap. Time to move on to another thread.