Chapter Text
It was in his eyes. They were deep and violet and unusual, not a colour one would normally expect to see. They were always focused on the ground ahead of him, partly shadowed by the blue hair that hung over his forehead, but their intensity was visible if one looked close enough. If one looked closer still, they would noticed the slight crease of his eyebrows into a small frown that was permanently etched into his face every day. His lips pursed so they looked thinner than they were. His eyes were vivid but they were glazed—as though his mind were somewhere else.
His skin was white as paper in the light of the afternoon, clear and bright. The paleness was so accentuated by the contrasting of his dark hair that sometimes it seemed to glow. Smooth as porcelain, but less fragile. He would be considered frail, but always hid beneath a black coloured jacket or coat—one wouldn’t be able to tell. The way his eyes occasionally flitted up from the ground to analyze his surroundings before quickly shying away from making possible eye contact, or the way his hands were always in his pockets, his shoulders hunched enough to express an introversive hostility, made the message clear.
Still—it was all in his eyes. That he was inaccessible, that it had always been so, and he preferred it that way.
Kaneki had never seen him before—he must be new. The kid that was clearly much younger than him, never gave him so much as a glance, walked with a distance like a five-meter radius around him even when he was in a crowd. Another face in the crowd, and yet that face—the indigo hair like the depths of the ocean, and his eyes swimming with the tide—it sunk its way into his mind like an infection; his everyday thought contaminated and somehow wondering if every person with blue hair was him.
It was exactly what he was doing in class. His eyes wandered over every head in the room. There was blue hair, but not that blue hair, and Kaneki didn’t know his classes—he’d never even made eye contact, let alone spoken to him—but he found it satisfyingly sufficient to search all of his own classes, just in case. The kid was no friend of his—their relationship only stretched as far as the unreturned glances Kaneki gave him when he did see him—which wasn’t often, Kaneki wondered if he was attending all his classes—but he felt a small stroke of luck when he saw him enter the class. He was five minutes late, and he muttered an apology to the professor that Kaneki didn’t hear before making his way to an empty seat about four rows down from him. As he was walking towards the seat, Kaneki caught his gaze. His eyes looked a little bloodshot, though it wasn’t uncommon in an early morning class. When they spotted Kaneki, he could see the acrimonious glare in them, even though he could imagine no one else would have noticed.
After that the class went by normally. The kid didn’t talk or move a muscle except to write things down. Kaneki averted his concentration to the actual class, although his eyes tended to head towards the boy every now and then. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about him, but he found himself wishing to know more about him—if even only his name.
When the class was over, the boy had already packed up his things, and was one of the first people out before Kaneki had even had a chance to close his book. Discouraged with another missed opportunity at talking to him—even though he wasn’t sure what he would say even if he did—he put his things away and left the class with his bookbag slung over his shoulder. When he stepped outside, he was once again rendered invisible by the crowd—not that it was big, but it still consumed him as soon as he entered it and became another face—one everyone saw, but none would remember.
Kaneki wondered if he would ever get the chance to know the boy. To know why his eyes looked dark despite their brightness. Why the waves looked bleak despite the shimmering sunlight dancing on the tide. He wondered if he would ever take the chance should it pass him by.