Arieto. Just… Arieto.

You’ve brought this upon yourself.

“If we’re only talking exterminations, we’ve got good results.” Tsuneyoshi Washuu glowers at the two men before him. “But we failed to capture the crucial owl.”

Arima stands beside his half-brother, before their father, silent and diligent as always.

It’s Yoshitoki, the kind one who once protested why his brother was kept in a garden and not in their house with him, the one Arima can’t trust now, who speaks. “We are deeply sorry, sir.”

The owl’s laughing eyes stare up at Arima. He has her pressed into his bed not even a week ago. Morning light filters around them. She’s free and dangerous and unique, and kissing him with a ferocity unmatched in even her fighting – which he also knows is pretty damn ferocious. 

Tsuneyoshi’s expression remains stern. His displeasure oozes from him. “We must defeat Aogiri’s One-Eyed Owl – no, the One-Eyed King -”

Arima feels completely alone. 

“King and Owl, we are,” she once sang into his ear, and he pushed her away, and she pouted and told him this was why he’d never been with anyone. 

She’d caught him in a particularly low point, and then she realized his insecurities. 

“Aw, I’m sorry. I can show you,” she suggested, and he felt more frightened than he’d ever been, but he found himself nodding.

Yoshitoki was supposed to breed. Arima was a failure and good for death. But Eto taught him that lovemaking could be just that – love – and that ideals meant more than familial duty.

“Whether or not it’s worth it will depend on your actions. Kishou, you have ownership rights.” Tsuneyoshi nods.

Arima always feels a little sad when Tsuneyoshi calls him Kishou. It’s a familiarity that feels like disrespect, because Tsuneyoshi doesn’t know him and never will.

Eto knows a thing or two about parental conflict. Not that she’s dealt with hers well, to Arima’s mind, but at least she sympathizes.

Arima bows to his father. Ownership rights were Eto’s idea. She already calls Kaneki their child, and she has the perfect new name for him – Haise Sasaki. 

It’s the name she told him she would have picked for a kid if they lived in a world where they could marry and live happily ever after, like “a fucking fairy tale.” 

She’s profane and childlike, and he loves her. They’re the One-Eyed King and the One-Eyed Owl, and like Eto reminds him, “Put together we’re a full set of eyes.”