Aw thank you! And thank you for introducing me to the song – I’m now a proper crying mess.
“It’s so peaceful outside.” Kaneki watches the snowflakes drift to the frozen earth.
Touka pulls him closer to their crackling fire. “This evening reminds me of the day we met.”
Kaneki blushes. “I remember.”
Do you have room? A beautiful woman with ukaku wings appears before him. CCG is hunting me.
So he lets her in, and since then she’s never left his side.
They snuggle together for warmth that night, and Kaneki thinks himself the luckiest man in the world.
Touka awakens to the first signs of spring.
“The birds sound like you. So beautiful.” Kaneki murmurs, pulling her closer.
Touka kisses him. He’s radiant in the morning light.
In the heat of summer, Touka toils in the vegetable garden they planted. They can’t eat what they grow, but someone can, and Touka likes that. And growing something happy warms her heart.
A crash from behind her catches her attention. “Kaneki?”
As autumn comes, Kaneki has not improved.
“He’s aging at a frightening pace,” says their friend Nishiki.
Touka shakes her head. “Don’t worry – Kaneki. I’ll save you.”
She sells vegetable after vegetable and pounds ukaku shards into jewelry. She will find a way into CCG, to save Kaneki.
Kaneki pulls himself upright. “Touka, your hands…they’re so beautiful.”
“Would you love them if they weren’t beautiful anymore?” Touka asks. All she wants is to hear and hold his unconditional love.
“Of course.” Kaneki holds her hands in his, but he’s soon racked by a cough.
Touka comes home one day, one day when she almost has enough to bribe a CCG doctor, to see Nishiki standing at her door.
“Where’s Kaneki?”
Touka sobs by an empty gravesite. CCG had already taken the body by the time she arrived, but she’s constructed a memorial nonetheless.
“If, one day, I was no longer mistakable for a human, would you still love me?” she asks, dropping an ukaku shard into the moist earth.
“Of course I will. I will always…remember that snowy day.”
Touka turns around with a gasp to see a dragon standing behind her.
“Even now, I still love you.”
She breaks into happy tears. “And I love you.”
Mercy and Magic 