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Ken had barely stepped out of the shower when his phone rang. Water still clung to his skin in slow rivulets, his hair dripping as he padded across the room to answer it. His brows lifted slightly when he saw the name.
Touka.
“Hey.” Her low, unhurried voice filtered through on the phone when he picked up at last. Touka’s voice always sounded a little different at night—more real, somehow. Less bite maybe. “You’re opening tomorrow, Kaneki.”
Ken waited, but the line had gone silent. “So...That’s it? You called me just to tell me that?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” she replied easily, but there was the faintest smile he could hear in her voice. He could practically see her lounging in bed, one hand behind her head, phone pressed lazily to her ear. “I figured you wouldn’t see my texts in time. You always ignore them.”
“I don’t ignore your texts!”
“Mmhmm, sure you don't.”
"I seriously don't." Ken grabbed a towel and scrubbed it over his dark hair, letting it fall around his shoulders afterward as he sat on the edge of the bed. “But fine. Thanks, I guess.”
Neither of them hung up. Not right away. There was a pause, filled only by the faint sounds of each other breathing, too soft and steady to pretend they weren’t both listening.
“You sound like shit,” she said finally.
Ken laughed softly. “You're the one who called me in the middle of the night.”
“It’s eleven thirty, you old man.”
“Which is basically midnight,” Ken countered. “I was getting ready to sleep.”
“God, you're so lame,” she said. “You’re probably in bed all clean and shirtless, pretending you don’t sleep with a light on.”
Ken froze for a fraction of a second, pulse skipping.
“...I don’t sleep with a light on,” he muttered in protest. “And I—wait, how do you know I’m shirtless?”
“I don’t,” Touka said, sounding a little too smug. “Just a guess.”
“Uh-huh.” He tugged the towel around his neck, suddenly hyper-aware of how he didn’t have anything on except the towel. “Well. Great guess.”
He could hear her shifting—soft rustling, a breath of fabric, maybe her legs brushing against her blanket. Then a creaking, probably coming from her bedframe. He imagined her stretched out on her back, light hair messy, probably smirking at the ceiling. The mental image did something to his stomach.
“My back’s killing me,” she muttered. “That shipment yesterday? I swear one of those boxes was filled with cement.”
“Oh my God, thank you. I thought I was just weak.”
“You are weak though.”
“Okay, wow,” Ken replied, grimacing. “Ouch.”
“You can argue against it,” Touka said. “But we both know I’m right.”
“Sure, sure,” he replied, dropping backward onto the bed, still holding the phone to his ear. His towel slipped a little, but he didn’t bother fixing it. “Next time you strain your back, don’t come crying to me.”
“Are you kidding me? I’d never cry to you,” she said, her voice dipping lower as it rasped across the phone. “I’d call you and gloat about how strong I am while wincing.”
“Sounds like something you’d do, yeah,” Ken replied, a little breathless.
The silence came again. It wasn’t uncomfortable, not really. But it was new. And it pressed around him expectantly as he listened for her breathing. The phone was still tucked between his ear and shoulder, and he could hear the faint sound of her inhales and exhales.
“You still there?” he asked, his voice softer now.
“Yeah,” Touka said, and for once, there wasn’t any sarcasm in her tone.
“Feels weird,” he confessed, turning on his side. “Talking like this.”
“You mean without trying to make me roll my eyes every five seconds?”
“I wasn’t trying to—” he muttered, but it made her laugh—just a breath, short and real—and something in his chest tightened. A flare of heat that traveled downwards without his permission. “I’m just…well. I just mean that it’s late and it’s surreal. Talking with you. Instead of texting. Like I can actually hear you.”
Touka shifted on her end of the line. He could hear it. Sheets moving. She must have been lying down now too.
“You’re in bed?” he asked, then instantly regretted how that sounded. “I mean—not that I was—it just sounded like you sat down or something.”
“I’ve been in bed,” she said, and it came out husky. Or maybe he wanted it to be. “I’m just…lying here now.”
Ken swallowed, suddenly unsure where to look, even though there was nothing to see but his own room. “Oh.”
“You?”
He hesitated. “Just got out of the shower.”
A pause. Then: “So you’re, like, not dressed?”
Ken covered his face with his free hand, his cheeks already burning red. “Why would you say it like that?”
“I didn’t mean—” she started, but she was already laughing, and he groaned.
“I have a towel on, okay? Not that it matters. You can’t see me.”
“Right,” she said, quieter, as if she was thinking carefully about what to say next.
Something had changed between them, as if the air itself had shifted from playful to tentative and uncertain. His heart was thudding in his chest, and every breath that passed between them felt heavier than the last.
“I keep thinking,” Touka said suddenly, “that we’re gonna hang up any second.”
Ken’s fingers curled in the blanket. “Do you want to?”
“No.”
He let her answer sit there. Let it wrap around him. Encourage him to say what he was truly feeling. Like an exchange of truths.
“Me neither.”
Another pause. Their breaths were the only thing filling the space between them. He could hear her breathing quicken. He wondered what she was thinking.
“Kaneki?”
“Yeah?”
“If I... if I asked what you looked like right now, would that be weird?”
His stomach flipped, heat racing down south. “I mean… maybe. But I wouldn’t mind.”
She waited. “Okay. Then... what do you look like right now?”
Ken swallowed, hard. He looked down at himself—bare chest, towel slung low around his hips, felt his damp hair clinging to his forehead. He felt strangely exposed, but in a good way.
“I’m... just lying here,” he said. “Still a little wet from the shower. Towel’s almost falling off but... I haven’t bothered fixing it. It’s uh…barely covering anything.”
Touka didn’t respond immediately, but he heard the way her breath hitched.
“Is that weird?” he asked, half-laughing, but his voice shook a little, maybe from arousal, maybe from the nerves. “Sorry.”
“No,” she said, exhaling so slowly he could almost feel her breath in his ear, as if she was closer. Here. It made his skin tingle. “Not weird.”
She paused before speaking again.
“I can picture it.”
Ken closed his eyes. “And you?”
“I’m lying down,” she described. “One leg’s out from under the blanket.” There was a pause before she continued. “I’m wearing a baggy T-shirt. And shorts. Really short shorts.”
The image of her took shape in his mind, slow and vivid, unspooling heat in his gut as he pictured the bare curve of her thigh against her sheets, and the way her hair might fan across the pillow around her like a halo, a little messy from tossing and turning. He could see her in one of those oversized shirts she always wore outside of work, the ones that slipped off one shoulder without her noticing. The thought was enough to make his cock stir against the towel.
“Kaneki?”
He swallowed hard, eyes still closed. “Yeah?”
“You’re a little too quiet.”
He hesitated. “I was just… thinking.”
“About?”
His voice dropped, barely above a whisper. “You.”
A beat of silence passed. Touka didn’t say anything snarky, didn’t deflect it with sarcasm. She simply let it hang between them, until she spoke again. “Oh.” She didn’t sound too surprised. Maybe she had been thinking of him too. The thought roused his erection even further as he shifted against the sheets to relieve some of the tension.
“I’m trying not to say something I’ll regret,” he admitted, barely more than a whisper.
“Oh,” Touka breathed, again.
“But I think I’m past that part.”
There was a hitch in her breath. A subtle sound, but he felt it like static in his chest.
“I keep imagining how you look right now.” His body vibrating with so much need that the words were just coming out one after the other. “In those really short shorts.”
She inhaled sharply.
“Kaneki.”
The way she said his name—low, unguarded—made his cock twitch. He didn’t know if she meant it as a warning or a plea. Maybe both.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said, his voice rougher now. His hand slid lower over his abdomen, hesitating just above the hem of his towel. “About how good you’d look.”
He stopped there and let the line go silent. It was a gamble...too much and too fast, maybe. He wasn’t even sure she’d let him keep going. Any time now, and she was going to laugh, or insult him, or shut it all down.
But she didn’t.
Touka let out a slow, shaky breath and she said, “Oh yeah?”
It was just two words, but it was enough. It was permission for him to continue.
Ken’s grip on the towel tightened, his fingers toying with the hem. “Yeah,” he echoed. “I can’t stop thinking.” His breath faltered as he swallowed hard, emboldened now, voice lower than before. “About what I’d do to you if I was there.”
She didn’t answer right away. But he could hear it, the way her breaths had quickened, and the faint catch in her throat as she exhaled. She wanted this too.
Ken’s heart slammed against his ribs. He closed his eyes, already undone. Just the thought of her like that, sprawled out, skin flushed, doing this with him and only him, was enough to leave him breathless.
“Would you let me touch you?” he asked quietly. “If I was there with you?”
And the sound she made—half a gasp, half a whispered yes—was all he needed.
His hand moved with a mind of its own, going lower and lower until his fingers were wrapping around his hard cock. The abrupt contact made him groan a little louder than he had intended to, the sound filtering over to Touka’s side and drawing a moan out of her too.
“Touka,” he whispered. “Are you…?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. Shaky. Sure. And so quiet, like if she said it too loud it might all break apart like a dream. “Yeah, I am.”
He could hear the way she was touching herself in how her breathing stuttered like she was trying not to make too much noise and failing. Every bit-off moan that slipped through hit him low and deep, coiled up tight in his gut as his hand moved faster without meaning to. He stroked himself faster, the ache in his groin not slow and uncertain anymore, but urgent and gnawing at him from the inside out.
“I’m picturing it,” he confessed, even more daring now. “What your hand is doing. Your expressions. Your sounds. All of it.”
“Kaneki…” she warned, clearly getting riled up by his words. “Keep talking like that and I’m going to come.”
Her blatant admission made his dick jump. He couldn’t help the moan that escaped his throat as he bucked up into his hand, snapping his wrist as he fisted his cock desperately, more pre-cum leaking out of his tip.
“God, Touka,” he muttered, his voice pitched lower. “You sound so—” He cut himself off with a harsh exhale. “I wish I could see you.”
“Kaneki, keep talking,” she whispered.
Something snapped loose in him. Touka’s plea, soft and wrecked, did things to him that he couldn’t even begin to describe. His voice dropped, slower now, darker in her ear as he talked her through it. “Don’t stop what you’re doing,” he murmured, low and steady. “Keep your hand right there, Touka. Just like that.”
He could hear the small, desperate whines she made in response—sharp and breathless, like she couldn’t help it. “That’s it,” he said, losing himself in her moans and his own hand. “I know you’re feeling so good. I can hear it.”
She whimpered, and it only made him bolder.
“You’re all worked up now because of me, huh?” he rasped. “You said you would let me touch you?”
She uttered an affirmative moan again.
“Well,” he began, swallowing at the sound of his own tone. “I want to. I want to run my hands all over you, to feel every inch of you writhing under me.”
She cried out, the image fueling the liquid heat at the base of her belly as she pressed the heel of her palm to her swollen clit, rubbing her own throbbing epicenter to the sound of his voice. Her pussy pulsed, another wave of fluid seeping out from between her eager folds, wetting every glide of her hand as she coaxed pleasure from within.
“Keep going,” Ken continued, voice like smoke, almost a growl over the phone. “Let me hear you. Tell me how good you feel.”
Her whole body tensed at his dirty talk, her pussy clenching around nothing as she imagined him stroking himself, his cock hard and ready. He didn’t sound like the Kaneki she knew. Not right now. How was this the same boy who couldn’t make eye contact when she called him “pretty boy” in the break room? How was this the same guy who dropped a whole stack of receipts once just because their hands touched when she was brushing by him?
He sounded hungry. Like he wanted her, no, needed her. Touka’s lips parted on a sumptuous moan as her own hand sped up. He had told her not to stop, to keep touching herself. And she wanted to obey.
And so she did.
“Ken,” she gasped, voice cracking.
Ken, not Kaneki. And she always called him Kaneki. Always. She would say it with a smirk, or an eye roll, or that smug and taunting tone meant to push his buttons. But not now. Not in this moment. The sound of his own name uttered by her needy voice threatened to unravel him completely. He grabbed his own cock, curling in on himself as his pleasure spiked dangerously in his core.
Ken cursed under his breath, hand moving with a swift urgency as he pumped his wrist up and down his shaft. It was too much—the image of her, the way she sounded like she was falling apart with just his voice in her ear and his name on her tongue.
“Touka,” he choked out, breath catching as his body clenched tight, desperate to chase that edge with her.
She moaned his name again, louder this time.
And how could he resist?
Ken came first, his whole body tensing as heat surged white-hot through his spine. Cum exploded out of his cock, surprising him with the force of his orgasm. His head shot back against the pillow as ropes of cum splattered onto his stomach. He lost it completely at the sound of her moaning his goddamn name, his whole body shuddering as he gasped and groaned into the receiver. “O-oh god, Touka—”
Touka followed soon after, her clit throbbing hard against her hand as she came apart, her whole pussy contracting with wave after wave of her orgasm. She had never come this hard in her life. “Mmm…aahh fuuuckkk…Ke… Ken!” She moaned and whimpered as the orgasm tore through her, hitting her all at once like a tidal wave as she twisted about in her sheets.
For a few long, suspended seconds, neither of them spoke as they panted into the phone. Just the sounds of their breath filling the space, soft and shallow and utterly spent.
Ken stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling too fast, heart still thudding in his throat. The air in his room felt too thin. Too warm. On the other end of the line, he could hear her catching her breath, coming down from her high too.
Neither of them spoke for a long while, but neither of them hung up either.
“So, uh…” Touka was the first to crack. “That was... definitely something.”
Ken let out a half-laugh, half-exhale. “Yeah. It was.”
More silence.
“I wasn’t… I didn’t mean for it to get like that,” she said quickly, like she was trying to shove everything that just happened in a box and pretend it wasn’t embarrassing.
“Me neither,” he admitted. “It just... happened.”
“Yeah.” Her voice was softer now. “It did.”
There was more silence, a moment where they both waited for the other to say something funny, to make a joke, to fix it. To start the usual banter they had between them. But whatever happened between them tonight wouldn’t go away so easily.
“So... uh. Opening shift,” Touka muttered. “You should get some sleep.”
“Right,” Ken said, staring at the plaster of his ceiling like it could give him the answer to how to move on from this moment. “Yeah. Good idea.”
“Okay. Goodnight, Kaneki.”
He smiled faintly at that. He was Kaneki again. But it was too late. She’d said Ken when it mattered. He’d heard it. Felt it.
“’Night, Touka.”
She hung up first.
Ken lay still in the dark, the phone still pressed to his ear, long after the call had ended. He should’ve felt relief. Or confusion. Or panic. Instead, he just felt…different.
Whatever they were before, he knew he’d never see Touka in the same light again