Work Text:
Question 1
You are Kaneki Ken. You are a literature student. You have just gone on a date, much to the disbelief of your best friend in the whole wide world: the one and only Nagachika Hideyoshi, inimitable and golden and gleaming.
The date didn’t go well, to make an understatement. You are now in the hospital.
Your eye itches.
Let’s say that someone is making a story out of your life. What genre is it?
A. Romance
B. Comedy
C. Action/Adventure
D. Horror
E. Tragedy
Question 2
What do ghouls eat?
A. Vegetables
B. Hamburger steak
C. Please let the answer be hamburger steak
D. …
E. Humans
Question 3
Nishino Kimi is a sweet young woman, lying bound and unconscious on the altar. Tsukiyama Shuu kidnapped her. Nishio Nishiki almost killed you, has tried to kill Hide. Almost succeeded too. Also, Touka thinks he’s a jerk. You’re inclined to agree.
He is currently crawling on the ground, not even able to stand. There is so much blood everywhere and he is still crawling. Centimeter by centimeter, struggling along the floor. Just to reach Kimi. He had so much pride in his eyes when you saw him before. But now.
Do you help him?
A. No.
B. Yes.
C. Of course.
D. It was never a choice.
E. You still think he’s kind of a jerk.
Question 4
You are counting down from 1,000. Everything hurts. When will the pain stop, and why?
A. Soon, because you will be dead.
B. In another 60 years, give or take. Statistically speaking.
C. When you reach 0, because that’s how countdowns work.
D. Now. Please.
E. Never, because 1,000 does not divide evenly by 7; you know this from elementary school arithmetic. There is a remainder of 6; you know this from personal experience. You can never reach 0. There will never be an end.
Question 5
You’ve just finished snapping Kirishima Ayato’s ulna. Now comes the tricky part; there are lots of bones in the hand, especially the wrist, and they’re very tiny. You have to do this right, though. There’s a nice neat order to it: working down his arm, then left to right, assuming that the back of his hand is facing you. And we can’t forget: you have to do it one by one.
Which one breaks first?
A. The scaphoid bone
B. The triquetrum bone
C. The trapezium
D. The trapezoid bone
E. The hamate bone
Question 6
Is it better to hurt, or be hurt?
A. Hurt.
B. Be hurt.
C. Neither.
D. Aha! A trick question. Syntactic ambiguity, you see. Because “to hurt” is different from “to hurt others”, isn’t it? The trick is that the question gives you no choice. You can choose to let yourself be hurt, or let yourself be hurt. Talk about a no-win situation. Story of your life, eh?
E. It is better to be strong. The strong cannot be hurt. And the strong can choose to protect instead of hurt. Strength. The answer is always strength.
Question 7
You know Tsukiyama Shuu has been obsessing over you. Always saying how he wants to eat you. He’s a big part of the gourmet scene. And now here he is, practically genuflecting before you. He wants to come along with you, and Hinami, and Banjou and the rest. Haha. What a turn of events.
What is he angling for?
A. You don’t know.
B. You don’t trust him.
C. But you’re going to let him come along anyway.
D. You could use some of that blind loyalty.
E. (Because he reminds you of yourself; there used to be someone else, someone smiling and always there and kind and perfect, someone you would’ve followed to the ends of the earth–of the universe–if maybe things had turned out differently. You look at Tsukiyama kneeling, throwing his life into your hands, and you let him come because once, a long time ago, you did the exact same thing. But the difference is you left and he let you go and every day those decisions grow heavier and heavier. So maybe you’ll give Tsukiyama this chance. To have what you couldn’t. To follow when you didn’t.)
Question 8
What does ghoul flesh taste like? (What does madness taste like?)
A. Like chicken. (Like mom’s home cooked meals.)
B. No different from human flesh, really. (Like power.)
C. Disgusting (Save me)
C. Disgusting (Save me)
C. Disgusting (Stop me)
Question 9
The CCG will attack Anteiku soon. You haven’t seen Touka for a long time. You… won’t see her for a long time after this either. She’s angry. That’s understandable. You’d be angry with you, too.
“Why did you have to change?” she asks you.
A. Because you had to become strong.
B. Because you were afraid. Still are, in fact.
C. Because where does staying still leave you? Dead. That’s where.
D. Because what else was there left to do, in a changing world so determined to leave you behind?
E. Because. Because now you know how to make good coffee, how to throw a punch. How to spare a life, how to take one. How not to act when asking your favorite author for an autograph. How to leave good people behind, to leave bad people behind. To be the one being left behind. How to teach a girl difficult kanji, to forgive those who deserve it, to be a leader to those who need one. How to fight; why to fight. How to be Kaneki Ken, and to lose Kaneki Ken. To find him again. Of course you changed. Does there need to be a ‘why’?
Last Question
Someone you love is dying, and you can see every involuntary shiver through his bulletproof jacket. His face screwed up in pain, a grimace that shows teeth stained red. In your imagination he is a field of sunflowers, blooming, bright and carefree in the sun; here he is downtrodden, on his knees, broken and bleeding out and smiling through it all. Smiling for you. As he always has.
“Please don’t look, look away please. I don’t want you to see me like this,” he says–gasps, really.
How do you tell him, “I love you”?
A. Say, “I love you.”
B. Say, “I’m sorry.”
C. Keep looking; because you rejected him before, and you haven’t seen him for so long and you miss him with an ache that startles you because you’ve been numb for a very long while; because you want to take in every detail of him, and let him know with your unwavering gaze what you cannot say in words.
D. Look away; because you spent too long ignoring what he said and it’s only on his deathbed that you can listen to him again; because it hurts it hurts it hurts and you want to remember him like he was, you want to remember him as sun and breeze and life; because you can’t (don’t want to) see him die, and maybe that makes you selfish but then again it makes you human–he has always been what makes you human.
E. Bring him home.
Bonus Question
What is your name?
A. …
B. …K-ka…ne…ki?
C. …
D. …
E. Haise Sasaki, rank one investigator, sir!