Ryouko and Hinami at Anteiku

Kaneki walked into Anteiku and immediately heard Enji call out to him. "Could you get some coffee beans from the bean storage room upstairs?" Kaneki nodded and headed upstairs. As he walked up the stairs, he winced in pain. His ass was still sore from his lesson with Ryouko yesterday, where she had somehow managed to fit some larger toys inside his ass. It was the first time he took anything larger than two fingers, and he was certainly feeling it.

Once on the second floor of Anteiku, he paused for a second. Which room had the spare coffee beans? He took a guess, and opened a door at random. Sitting on a couch in the room was Hinami, blood coating her face, with a plate of flesh in front of her. She glanced up at him in shock as he opened the door, and her face turned red.

"S-sorry!" Kaneki stammered out. He quickly closed the door and turned back, heading downstairs. He knew he was a ghoul, but the bloody site he'd just seen still left him feeling squeamish. He walked back to the front of the shop to ask where the beans were, when the manager called out to him.

"Kaneki, please do be careful if you go upstairs. Hinami is eating and she wouldn't like to be disturbed," the manager said.

Kaneki glanced down as a hand reached up to scratch at his head. "It would've been nice if you had said that earlier . . ."

"Oh, my apologies." The manager quickly made a cup of coffee and handed it to Kaneki. "Why don't you bring this to her as an apology. Just wait a bit and she should be done."

A few minutes later, Kaneki knocked on the door to the room Hinami had previously occupied. "Hinami, I'm coming in," he called out, before he swung the door open. Hinami sat on the same couch she had earlier, but her face was clean and the plate of food was gone. A book was in her hands instead.

Kaneki walked over to her and placed the cup of coffee in front of her. "I brought you some coffee," he said, as he placed it on the table. Hinami's eyes drifted down to the cup in front of her as she set her book down on the table.

"Kaneki?" He was surprised to hear her call out his name. "You . . . you used to be a human, right?" She continued. "How, how much like us are you?" She glanced down timidly, as if she had used up all her courage just to ask the question.

"Well, ever since my surgery," he began. "I can't eat normal food. So,I guess my existence is pretty similar to yours." Kaneki paused for a second. "I still feel like a human, but I have the body of a ghoul . . ." he trailed off.

"Sorry for asking something strange," Hinami said, still embarrassed to have asked him something so personal.

"Don't worry about it," Kaneki said with a small smile. "My existence is the thing that's strange."

"It's not strange," Hinami said. "Just, kinda shocking."

The air in the room was awkward. Neither he or Hinami were very social people, and so for them to discuss something so personal was rather uncomfortable for the both of them.

Kaneki's eyes darted around the room, trying to find something to say to break the atmosphere, when his eyes landed on the book she had been reading.

"Hey, this is 'Monochrome Rainbow' by Takatsuki, isn't it?" He asked her, surprised someone her age was reading such a book. "It's got some difficult concepts in it," he continued. "But maybe it's easier to read since it's a collection of short stories instead of a novel. Which was your favorite, Hinami?" he asked her. The awkwardness in the room evaporated with Kaneki's genuine excitement. If there was one thing he could discuss forever, it would be books.

"Um, Koyo . . . Tokiame?" Hinami said.

Kaneki glanced at her confused for a second. "Ohh, Sayoshigure!" She had misread the characters for the title of the story.

Hinami glanced up at him, then down at her book. She flipped it over and pointed at one of the Japanese characters printed there. "Um, how should I read this?" she asked.

"Ajisai." Kaneki responded. Hinami pointed at several more characters, flipping through the pages to find one's she didn't know. As she pointed at them, Kaneki called out how to read them. He quickly realized that she couldn't read kanji very well.

"This is . . . 'Haku'?" She questioned, pointing at another character.

"You could read this as 'Hakuhyou,'" Kaneki said. "But you can also read it as 'Usurai.' That one sounds prettier, doesn't it." He smiled at her, happy to be discussing something he enjoyed so much.

Kaneki saw Hinami smile back at him. It was the first time he'd seen her smile. She reached into the bag next to her on the couch and pulled out a notepad, where she quickly began jotting down the characters they'd discussed, and their pronunciations.

"You're taking notes? Amazing." Kaneki said.

Hinami blushed slightly, and looked away from him. "I don't go to school, so I write down what I want to remember in this," she explained.

"Oh, I see." Kaneki supposed it was hard for ghouls to attend school normally. He knew Touka did, but Ryouko apparently wanted to keep Hinami safer than that. He couldn't really blame her, but it must've left Hinami curious, and hungry to know about everything she didn't get to learn. Kaneki sat down on a chair across from her. She couldn't receive a proper education, but Kaneki had. And he would do his best to pass it on to her.

Kaneki began teaching her all the words she had trouble with in the book. Hinami paid close attention, and wrote down everything he said. They were so focused on what they were doing, that neither noticed as the time crept by.

Eventually, they heard the door behind them open. Ryouko walked in, with the manager behind her. "Hinami," she said as she entered. "Sorry for the wait, but we can leave now."

"Mom!" Hinami got up and ran over to her. "Kaneki taught me a lot of words," she said excitedly.

Ryouko gave him a smile. "That's great. Thank you, Kaneki."

"Oh, I also had fun." Kaneki said, blushing at Hinami's praise.

Hinami turned back to look at him as she left with her mother. "Kaneki," she called out. "Thank you. Please, teach me some more next time!"