Chapter 19: Routine
After my encounter with Eto my life took on a steady pace.
Not very normal.
But constant.
Every day I worked at the CCG, I went in the anteku and next in Eto's house.
Not necessarily in that order.
I found out that working as an investigator at the CCG is not just about killing ghouls.
No, actually to my disappointment we spent more time investigating things than actually out in the field.
And taking all that away as I worked I found the thing I hate the most, my biggest enemy.
The paperwork.
As an investigator I had a lot, a lot of paperwork to sign.
It had paperwork on the use of quinques, on field missions, and on any information that is relevant to an investigation.
In other words, there was paperwork about everything.
And the worst thing for me is that I had to do Juuzou's paperwork too.
At least sometimes Shinohara helped me, but unfortunately he used to be busy babysitting Juuzou.
At least that wasn't enough for me.
I liked Juuzou, but he was... Juuzou too much.
And the worst thing about the paperwork was that the CGG had to change some policies.
One was about ghoul capture/execution.
Any suspect can be learned by the CCG.
But to be executed in the field there must be video evidence that the suspect is a ghoul.
This made all investigators always carry something like a camera.
More equipment and more paperwork.
This and other changes were due to the CHAOS video.
On one of the days I was full of paperwork Eto had called me over to her house to pack her lunch.
I had even forgotten that she had given me that order too because she liked my burger.
So that same day I arrived at her house in my CCG uniform, visibly tired and with a bag full of papers.
-Looks tired huh...
She teases me as I enter.
-Hahaha I think I'll die of boredom before you can do anything...
I say dryly and Eto laughs.
I go in and throw the papers on a table.
She looks surprised.
-Wow, that's really a lot...
-Yes....damn you CHAOS for making that video....
I murmur.
Eto gives me a strange look.
-You are CHAOS.
I freeze.
-Damn myself of the past that didn't feel empathy for the poor workers...
I mumble and Eto laughs even harder.
And after that she threw me two human arms.
-Want a hand?
she asks sadistically.
"What a bad joke..."
I thought while laughing.
So I did in both arms the same thing I had done before for kaneki.
I started slicing through the meat, pulling out the bones, and still sorting out anything with a pewter texture and everything about Eto's hungry gaze.
-You know, it's weird for me to do this normally, but doing it after spending the whole day at the CCG is even more...
I say playfully and Eto laughs.
- You're really good at it, but that's something that takes practice...
Eto speaks in a curious way.
-The janitor hated getting dirty...
I reply simply and Eto looks surprised before letting out a snort of derision.
-I hate these gourmets.
I am surprised.
-Serious?
-I'm a half-ghoul, a rare ingredient...
Eto responds mockingly.
That day I spent the rest of the night working, "cooking" and talking about hating gourmets with Eto.
It was incredibly nice.
And absolutely every day I went to anteiku, mainly for coffee.
I started needing coffee.
And all my visits there were interesting.
I always played with Hinami, even though I sometimes got some weird looks from playing dolls with her.
Do what I liked children.
But first of all my first visit to anteiku since the video was definitely interesting.
I had just left CGG and the anteiku was already closed so I did the only logical thing.
I broke the lock and went inside.
Well, it really was a bad idea to go into a place that only ghouls in the CCG uniform.
Even though my uniform is different.
When I "graduated" from the academy and I became an investigator and I got the uniform and I noticed something.
It was white.
White didn't suit my style.
So I refused to use it, and that caused some problems.
Because I refused to wear the uniform, I could not be presented as an official investigator.
Mado said I could be fired before I even started work.
And I replied that I'd rather get fired than wear something so against my style.
I think Mado wants to hit me at that moment.
Not even Juuzou took my side.
That traitor.
And it was thanks to Shinohara (blessed be) that I got permission to wear whatever I wanted as a uniform.
And since then my uniform is the same as everyone else's, only black.
That is.
My uniform is different from everyone else's but still recognizable as being from the CCG.
And the moment I entered the area like the anteiku where everyone was standing I got a glare from everyone present.
Kaneki, Yoshimura, Irimi, Touka and Ryouko.
Kaneki and Yoshimura seemed only mildly surprised by my report.
Ryouko looked betrayed.
And Irimi and Touka, well I didn't see their looks.
Because they attacked me automatically.
Touka this time seems to have learned from the last time as she flew me towards me and Irimi chose melee combat but she was much faster than touka.
Touka's kick I dodged easily just by lowering my body forward but Irimi's punches were already harder she was more skillful than Touka and I knew a single blow would be deadly so I just struggled to keep my distance and she kept trying to closer until Yoshimura coughed and spoke.
-Irimi, it's okay he doesn't have the CCG.
-How not? He's dressed like a damn Dove!
-Hey....!
I exclaim, offended, Irimi stops attacking me but still looks ready for a fight.
At that moment Touka appears and attacks me again with a punch that I dodge and jump running towards Yoshimura and Kaneki.
-....if you're going to call me a bird call me a crow!
Kaneki sends me a dry look.
-Of course that's what you would care about right now...
He mutters.
Yoshimura sighs and starts to explain the real reason I'm in the CCG and because of Sen takatsuki and so I've applied to help them from anteiku when needed.
Ryouko's betrayed look passed and Irimi was no longer inclined to fight.
Touka however came to try to hit me again.
One punch, I dodge right.
A kick I deflect, throwing myself backwards.
-ehhh....why are you still attacking me?
I ask curiously while detouring.
-DO YOU KNOW!
She growls and stops attacking me.
-That friend of yours Hide came here...
"I think your where this is going..."
-...and asked if Kaneki and I are dating...
Kaneki turns red and I start pulling away from him.
-...it looks like his suspicion came from a certain photo...
Touka stares at me with his kakugan active.
-...do you know anything about this R-Y-O?
To an amused silence in the air.
"Damn Hide..."
I start towards the place I entered.
"...could at least have filmed their reactions"
-I know it's time to say goodbye!
I speak and run out of the anteku.
I hear a frustrated scream of anger from Touka, a laugh from Ryouko and a kaneki trying to calm Touka down.
Since then, whenever I go to the anteiku outside office hours and every time I break down one of the doors, I am greeted by Touka trying to hit me, the vision of me dodging his blows became common.
Kaneki tried to give me some kind of ice to show his displeasure.
He failed in a single day, he is too good for that.
So that was it, the anteiku ghouls weren't even surprised anymore when I showed up out of nowhere or when I showed up tired and full of papers or when I showed up smelling like human blood and a different ghoul.
In this last one Yoshimura always seemed uncomfortable for some reason.
My main activity in anteiku was playing with Hinami who always seemed excited about my arrival.
I usually tease Touka about how Hinami likes me more than her.
And on those trips I found out some things like Ryouko is constantly training to improve her skills.
The fact that Touka likes cute things.
Irimi and Enji were once violent SS class ghouls.
Irimi didn't surprise me but Enji, yes, he didn't have a face for it.
And when I commented about it everyone laughed a lot at Enji's face who looked offended.
And finally I found that the kaneki training was going much better than before due to now he was able to use his kagune.
Due to the amount of work I had at CCG without even considering my extra work I couldn't even go home so I slept at anteiku and a few rare times at Eto's house.
Even though he was always afraid of being devoured completely or at least waking up with some part of his body missing.
Eto seemed to love causing this tension in me.
Fucking Eto.
But most of my time was undoubtedly spent at CCG.
First I met many new people like Shinohara himself who was a very kind person, so kind that at first I didn't think he was a good investigator.
Then I saw him struggling and that thought passed.
I was part of his squad which was made up of Shinohara, Juuzou and me.
We were strong and had our duties well defined.
I took care of Juuzou's paperwork and mine, Shinohara kept Juuzou from killing someone while trying to make Juuzou more "human" and Juuzou did Juuzou things.
The next one I actually met was Koutarou Amon.
He was nice, he was more laid back than his old mentor who was Mado, he was also very strong and it was a lot of fun to piss him off.
I'm sure he finds me weird since it's public knowledge that I was an ex-scrapper who didn't hate ghouls.
And Amon in turn religiously believed that ghouls were all that was wrong with the world.
And it seems he made it his goal to make me share that belief.
He looked like some kind of priest preaching his faith.
But I know something in his past that made him have all this hate.
And I will know what it is.
Then I met his current partner who is conveniently Mado's daughter.
Mado had to be replaced for missing an arm and to improve public relations a bit.
Akira beloved.
She's young, maybe twenty-one years old with blonde hair and purple eyes she's really pretty.
(Even though whenever I think about it a voice in my head tells me that Eto is more)
But she is so boring, she is very serious at work I understand that this is just her taking her job seriously.
But she's still boring, and I make a point of making that clear.
She's also quite smart but unfortunately seems to share her father's quinque fetish which was luckily much smaller than his father's.
And by the way, how come she's his daughter?
Her mother's genetics must be pretty good.
But I must admit her professionalism is good to trust in a battle.
But outside of her I think she could be more sentimental, keeping everything inside must be bad.
It is obvious that she is obliged to hide her opinions and feelings in general.
Like sometimes she looks at Amon as if she blames herself for her father's injury even though they never talk about it.
But that's something I leave to me, I don't think he would feel comfortable if I talk about it.
Because she's always a professional I don't know exactly what she thinks of me.
Another person I met was Seidou takizawa.
My first impression of him was that of a lost puppy.
He had brown hair and brown eyes and he was pretty plain overall.
But I think he's someone really fun and he's very sincere and direct, a part of me doubts he's even capable of lying.
He really admires investigators so he once told me that he has pictures of Arima on posters at his house.
He's so easily manipulated that becomes cute.
The main thing about him and his insecurity, he has the potential to be a good fighter but something stops him.
Akira used to be very cruel, no, very direct about this failure of his.
And Juuzou also used to irritate him a lot.
But he knows they are better and ends up letting it go.
I was the only person he could talk to without stuttering and he respected me a lot.
Even though I knew I used it to play pranks on people.
His partner was one Kousuke Houji, who seemed like a nice guy but we never talked.
There was of course Shinohara who was a really nice person.
He would always help me and talk to me when he could and even help out with some of the pranks I used to do to piss people off.
He didn't have a lot of time between being a special investigator and taking care of Juuzou, but he still made time to get to know me better.
For this kind of care he almost made me regret the reason I was there for real.
Almost.
And lastly he had the person I didn't like.
Itsuki marude.
He was one of the division directors.
He was a skinny old man with black hair.
He is the most annoying and unpleasant person I have ever met.
He's a really dedicated guy but he's too strict and doesn't care a bit about others.
He's my main target for pranks, he always knows I'm the one to blame but because he's strict he wants the evidence.
And I never leave evidence.
Overall the CCG is very calm, so far I haven't been on any field missions myself and I took advantage and researched about the cochlea.
Only on top because I needed Rank 1 authorization to access the files.
So I came up with a plan, but for that I needed to capture a ghoul.
That without being on field missions was impossible.
I also did my Quinque in the meantime.
According to Mado, my quinque is the first of its kind, as it cannot even be considered a quinque straight.
Speaking of Mado, this old man has been chasing me ever since he learned that my needles were kagunes.
He looked fascinated.
I always ran away from his questions.
CCG staff generally thought I was weird, I was very different from Juuzou so they didn't really know what to think of this new resident scrapper.
I was more sociable and easier to deal with, of course I had my own eccentricities like the uniform itself.
The ones who didn't like me were just because I said I don't hate ghouls.
The only real incident that happened besides LITERALLY EVERY DAY Juuzou fights me when I arrive at CCG.
It was the day I had slept on anteiku and Hinami drew kittens on my face.
I woke up late and ran to the CCG and the first thing I saw was Juuzou lying on the floor crying with laughter, Shinohara and Amon laughing and even Akira looked like she wanted to laugh.
I was confused until Seidou warned me and I saw the drawings on my face.
I cleaned it right away.
And as revenge I made Hinami dress up as a bunny and took pictures.
(Which I could even use as a bribe for Touka as Hinami looked really cute)
And that brings us to the day I'm bored going through paperwork until Shinohara arrives.
-Ryo get ready, tomorrow we will assist with an operation.
I cheer up instantly.
-Serious?! Which?!
Shinohara smiles slightly.
-What do you think of attacking a ghoul restaurant?
I just scream with joy.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Grinmy
Grinmy Thanks for reading
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