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After the Tsukiyama Family Extermination Operation, the congratulatory reports and formal commendations meant nothing to the new Associate Special Class Investigator - Haise Sasaki. The real blow arrived in six cold words: He would be leaving Arima’s squad. A simple administrative reshuffle. Efficient. Clean. And for Haise, it was devastating.
When he stood before Arima to receive the directive, he kept his expression composed, polite, obedient. His hands hidden in the pockets of his coat were clenched so tightly that crescent-shaped wounds formed in his palms. Arima merely nodded, eyes unreadable behind his glasses, his tone flat and professional. No hint of reluctance. No subtle pause. No acknowledgment of the years Haise had spent orbiting him, wanting him, trying to be enough for him.
Just a nod, as if Haise were nothing more than a completed task.
He understood.
He always understood.
Hours later, Haise stepped into his new office, a room that felt colder than the morgue, too white, too empty. The silence pressed on him like a weight.
He had barely set his coat down when the door swung open.
Furuta Nimura strolled in like he owned the room, hand in pockets, smiles stretched in a mock-innocent curve that Haise had already come to distrust during the operation. His eyes were bright, intrusive, too observant.
“Welcome to the team, Sasaki-san,” he chimed. “Thought I’d bring a little gift. You know…something to help us bond.”
Something small and rectangular slid across the desk and stopped with a soft thud.
Haise stared at it with a sinking feeling. Furuta’s smile never reached his eyes.
He opened the box.
Inside, nestled against dark velvet, lay a string of black anal beads. The beads were made of a smooth, glossy silicone material, each one perfectly spherical and increasing slightly in size as they progressed down the strand. There were six beads in total, the largest one at the end being about an inch and a half in diameter, while the smallest at the beginning was merely the size of a pea.
For a heartbeat, his mind went blank.
Then the shame hit, white-hot, rising from his chest to the tips of his ears. Heat flushed over his pale skin as if someone had stripped him bare. The humiliation burrowed deep, because Furuta wasn’t teasing blindly.
Furuta leaned in just slightly, voice a whisper of feigned sympathy.
“Your old teacher must be difficult to move on from,” he murmured. “People get so… attached. Especially to someone like him.”
Haise’s breath caught. He forced the box shut with a sharp snap.
Furuta’s laugh was quiet, delighted, and cruel.
He slipped out of the room without waiting for a response.
The door closed. A soft click.
And the silence returned heavier, sharper, suffocating.
.
Haise’s new assigned quarter was empty, white, with nothing to evoke memories except Arima’s old coat that Haise had not returned. His scent had almost faded, but Haise still hung it in the most visible place like a self-torturer.
As night fell, the house went still, no footsteps, no noise from the Quinx children as usual.
Haise sat on the bed, back hunched, head bowed. Memories emerged in fragments: Kuki Urie’s rigid dedication during training, Tooru Mutsuki quietly helping him organize reports, Ginshi Shirazu dragging everyone into late-night convenience-store runs, Saiko Yonebayashi curling against his arm during movie marathons. Small, ordinary moments of closeness.
Then came the more intimate memories like the light touch on his shoulder as Arima corrected his sword stance; the breath in his ear as he whispered an instruction; the eyes that never looked at Haise longer than necessary. The fragments coalesced into a cruel, tender longing.
He pressed his palms to his eyes. He hated how easily those fragments could hollow him out.
Before the dark room, before the shameful longing that hollowed him out from within, there was a beginning. A single moment that lodged itself in Haise Sasaki’s bones and rewrote the course of his existence. A first meeting that did not feel like fate, yet quietly shaped itself into the axis around which his entire life would turn.
It was a different time. Haise Sasaki was nothing, not even a name. Prisoner number 240, a thin, trembling thing folded into the corner of a concrete cell. Hands constantly poked it's own eyes out while screaming from the top of it's lungs like a horrendous ritual for the devil… yet it was a prayer for forgiveness, 240's ankles pale and exposed beneath tattered fabric that hung off his body like discarded scraps.
The door screeched open, metal groaning like a beast in the dark.
And then he entered.
Bootsteps, steady and measured, approached with an unhurried confidence that made the air itself grow sharper. Even without sight, 240 felt the presence, it was cold, controlled, inhumanly composed. A quiet power that filled the room like a slow, inexorable tide.
Arima Kishou knelt before him.
The movement was effortless, almost silent, but 240 felt the shift in the air, the subtle lowering of something colossal. And then unexpected, bare, calloused fingers brushed it's ankle through the synthetic fabric of Cochlea's uniform. The touch barely lingered like a whisper of warmth but against a body accustomed to rough handling and restraint, it flinched, not from fear but from shock, shock that someone like this man could touch it without violence.
After that day, the footsteps kept returning.
Sometimes the visits were brief like standing in the doorway, exchanging a few quiet words with the guards. Other times Arima stepped inside and sat with him in the muted silence of the cell.
Arima read to him too. Sometimes reports, sometimes fragments of novels, poem sometimes passages Haise never quite understood but memorized anyway because Arima’s cadence soothed him more deeply than sleep. The sound of Arima’s voice wove itself into the boy’s consciousness slowly, patiently.
In a world of harsh commands and cold concrete, Arima’s voice was the only sound that did not hurt.
240 lived for those moments. He counted Arima’s footsteps in the corridors. He waited for the rustle of the coat, the faint scent of blood and steel, the soft scrape of a chair pulled closer.
Then came the moment that shaped everything.
Arima stood before him, silent for a long time. 240 didn’t dare breathe too loudly. He felt the shift of fabric, the quiet exhale, and then those bare hands rose to his face with a care so deliberate it made Haise’s pulse stutter. Fingers brushed the blindfold.
And then the darkness fell away.The first thing Haise saw was Arima’s eyes looking back at him. Arima Kishou’s gray eyes are framed by pale lashes. He didn’t smile. But he looked at 240…really looked at him and that alone felt like grace.
A face that should have belonged to someone distant, unreachable, untouchable yet there it was, inches from his.
Haise would later realize that he fell in love at that very moment.
In the years that followed, that face became the axis of his world and Arima’s hands became a constant in Haise’s world.
Living under the same roof meant hearing Arima’s footsteps in the hall at night, the soft clink of cups in the early morning, the rustle of pages as he read reports in the living room. He remembered the heat of Arima's body against his back, the firm grip of his mentor's hand on his arm as he guided Haise through the steps of a technique. The way their fingers would brush, the way Arima's thumb would linger on the inside of Haise's wrist, sending a secret thrill through him.
These touches were small, practical, almost careless in their simplicity.
To Haise, they were everything.
A brush of fingers on his wrist could unravel him. The brief weight of a hand on his shoulder could stop his breath. And the rare moment when Arima leaned closer, close enough for Haise to feel the faint warmth of his breath could carve hours of sleepless longing into his chest.
He stored every detail like a secret treasure: the scent of Arima’s coat, the sound of his precise footsteps, the faint warmth of his hands even through gloves, the rare almost-smile that appeared for a fraction of a second when Haise exceeded expectations.
Affection turned into devotion.
Devotion into longing.
Longing into something sharper, deeper, far more dangerous.
Haise's breath grew shallow as his mind drifted back to those moments. His cock throbbed in the confines of his pants, an insistent ache that he couldn't ignore. He knew he should stop this line of thinking, and should push away the rising tide of lust and longing. But he was powerless against it, a willing prisoner to his own desires.
With trembling fingers, Haise unbuttoned his pants, hissing out a breath as he finally freed his aching erection. It jutted out obscenely from his body, flushed a deep, angry red and leaking at the tip.
"Arima-san..." Haise breathed out, his voice barely above a whisper. He wrapped his fingers around his throbbing cock, a moan escaping his lips at the contact. He could almost feel Arima's hand on him, that large, strong hand that had once gripped his arm, now wrapped around his most intimate place.
As he began to stroke himself, Haise let his mind drift further back, to a moment months ago when he was still the dutiful, obedient Haise Sasaki, the “native” version of himself he tried so hard to uphold. A version who smiled too easily, who worked too earnestly, who believed that staying close to Arima was enough to fill the hollow space inside him.
It had been an ordinary afternoon in the CCG office, fluorescent lights humming above, papers strewn across desks, the metallic smell of steel lingering faintly in the air. Arima had suggested they spar, as he often did calmly, with that quiet authority that made refusal impossible. Haise followed, heart pounding with a mixture of fear and anticipation that only Arima could awaken.
The match was brief.
It always was.
Arima moved like a blade given human form, precise, untouchable, terrifying in his efficiency. Haise had improved, yes, his body stronger and quicker than before, but compared to Arima he was a flickering candle held up against the sun. Within seconds he was disarmed, weapon skittering across the floor with a sharp clatter.
Then Arima seized him.
That moment had carved itself into Haise’s memory with excruciating clarity. He could still feel the heat of Arima’s hand wrapping around his jaw, strong fingers spanning the delicate angle of his chin, tilting his face upward with controlled force. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t cruel either.
Arima raised the IXA spear in the other hand, the black metal gleaming under the office lights. The tip hovered less than a millimeter from Haise’s right eye, so close he could feel the faint whisper of displaced air against his eyelashes.
Haise remembered the temperature of the moment: the cold edge of the spear, the warm pressure of Arima’s hand, the suffocating stillness that settled between them. His own breath stopped somewhere in his throat.
Then Arima asked him.
“Would you like to die again?”
The words were delivered in that emotionless tone. A question, a warning, a reminder of everything Haise didn’t understand about himself. It should have terrified him. It should have opened his eyes to what man he was facing.
Instead, it rooted itself deep inside him like a forbidden seed.
Because in that breathless instant caught between death and survival, pinned under Arima’s touch. Haise felt something he could never name aloud. A shiver that wasn’t fear. A heat that wasn’t panic. It’s the thrill of being seen, held, and judged by the man he revered above all others.
Arima’s eyes were unreadable. Cold. Unmoving. A pale gray abyss that refused to soften for anyone. But Haise felt consumed by them. Devoured, even. As if Arima saw straight through his skin, his bones, his borrowed identity, down to the trembling number 240.
Then it was over.
Arima released him, stepping back, lowering the spear as if nothing meaningful had occurred. But Haise remained frozen, heartbeat ricocheting in his chest, body humming with an electricity that refused to settle.
Later, alone in his room, he had replayed it countless times: the heat of Arima’s palm, the sharp nearness of the spear, the cool breath of Arima’s voice brushing against his skin. The ambiguity of the moment: threatening, tender, punishing, intimate wrapped itself around him like chains.
Lost in the memory, Haise's strokes became more urgent, more insistent. His hand pumped faster along his aching length, the slick sounds of his desperation filling the room. He could almost feel Arima's large hand engulfing his own, guiding it, urging it on. "Fuck," Haise gasped out, his hips jerking as he chased the pleasure that always seemed just out of reach.
But even as he lost himself in the fantasy, a small part of Haise's mind whispered that this was wrong. That he shouldn't be touching himself like this, shouldn't be craving his teacher's touch with such wanton abandon. But that voice was drowned out by the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood to his painfully hard cock.
Haise's fingers drifted upwards, palming the soft mounds of his chest through the fabric of his shirt. He imagined Arima's large, strong hand replacing his own, the calloused skin of his teacher's palm scraping slightly against the sensitive flesh.
He could almost feel Arima's fingers circling his nipple, tracing the areola, teasing the delicate pink bud that strained against the black and white striped cotton of his shirt. The fabric, neither too rough nor too smooth, added a delicious friction that sent sparks of sensation racing through his nerves.
In his mind's eye, Haise saw Arima lean in closer, his breath hot against Haise's ear as he murmured, "So sensitive, aren't you, Haise? Your body responds to even the slightest touch, like a finely tuned instrument." Arima's voice was a low, approving rumble that Haise felt in his bones.
Haise arched into the phantom touch, a breathless moan slipping past his lips as he imagined Arima's fingers plucking at his nipple, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, pinching it just shy of too hard. The mix of pleasure and pain sent a bolt of lightning straight to his still throbbing cock.
"My, my, look how it pebbles under my touch," Arima purred, his voice a dark, seductive caress. "Like a ripe berry, ready to be plucked and savored."
Haise's hips jerked as he pinched his own nipple harder, imagining it was Arima's fingers, his teeth, tugging and nipping at the sensitive bud. He could feel the heat of Arima's gaze on him, the intensity of his mentor's attention burning into his skin.
"Arima-san..." Haise whimpered, spreading his legs wider, presenting himself to a lover who wasn't there. "Touch me, Arima-san. Please, touch me..."
"Arima-san..." Haise breathed out, his voice a needy rasp in the quiet of his room. "I need you..." He increased the speed of his strokes. Each pull of his hand brought him closer to that edge, closer to the release he so desperately craved.
Haise fucked his own hand with a fervor bordering on madness but he knew that this was not enough. This fleeting, shameful pleasure was a pale imitation of what he truly yearned for.
What he truly wanted, what he needed with every fiber of his being, was Arima. His teacher, his beloved, his father. He wanted to feel Arima's touch, to be claimed and possessed and owned in a way that would brand his very soul. He wanted to feel Arima's weight on him, pinning him down, holding him in place as he finally took what Haise had been offering him for so long. What he had been screaming for in the depths of his heart, every stolen glance, every lingering touch, every moment of quiet desperation.
Haise's hand moved faster, more urgently, as he chased that impossible dream. Each stroke was a cry for Arima, a plea, a prayer. "Please, Arima-san," he gasped out, his hips jerking into his own touch, seeking more, always more. "Please, I need you. I need you here, helping me, completing me. I want to be yours, only yours."
He could feel the pleasure building, the pressure mounting, as his climax approached, as the first stirrings of release began to coil in his gut. With a choked cry that was almost a sob, Haise came undone. His cock pulsed and throbbed in his grip as he spilled his release, his seed splattering his hand and shirt. Haise's chest heaved with ragged breaths, his skin flushed and damp with a sheen of sweat. Even as the aftershocks of his release tingled through his nerves, he felt a gnawing emptiness deep within him, a hunger that could not be sated by his own touch alone.
With a sense of detachment, as if he were watching someone else, Haise raised his hand up to eye level. It glistened obscenely in the dim light, coated in the slick essence of his pleasure. A part of him recoiled at the sight, at the depravity of what he was about to do. But the larger part, the part that craved Arima with every fiber of his being, urged him on.
Haise's slender fingers trembled slightly as he brought his hand closer to his backside. He could feel the heat radiating off his skin, the lingering warmth of his release. Slowly, almost reverently, he trailed his slick fingers down the curve of his spine, feeling the bumps and ridges of his vertebrae.
He hesitated for a moment at the small of his back, his fingers hovering just above the swell of his ass.
Then…
Haise's fingers sank into the soft flesh of his ass, the pliant skin yielding easily to his touch. He circled his entrance, feeling the puckered ring of muscle fluttering beneath his fingertips. It was a foreign sensation, but not an unwelcome one. His body was soft and flexible from his recent release, the muscles relaxed and open.
Haise's breath caught in his throat as he slowly pushed a finger inside, biting his lip against the unfamiliar sensation. It was tight, but he persisted, working his finger in and out, stretching himself. It was a strange sensation, a pressure he had never felt before. But it was also a relief, a way to fill the aching emptiness inside him, if only for a moment.
He began to move his finger slowly, carefully, working it in and out of his tight passage. His other hand drifted down to wrap around his spent cock, squeezing gently as he fucked himself with his finger. He couldn't stop thinking about Arima, about the way his mentor's large hand would feel holding him in place. He wanted to feel Arima's weight on his back, pinning him down.
Haise's breath grew ragged as he worked a second finger into his tight heat, then a third. Each digit sank in a little deeper, a little further, until his hand was pumping in a steady rhythm, plunging into his own needy hole.
Haise's body tingled with a mix of anticipation and trepidation as he reached for the gift box on the table, his fingers brushing against the polished wood. He knew, with a sinking certainty, that Furuta had guessed his darkest desires, his most shameful cravings. The thought made his cheeks burn with humiliation, but it also sent a thrill of excitement racing down his spine.
Ignoring the voice in his head that screamed at him to stop, to push away the temptation that threatened to consume him, Haise took a deep, shuddering breath and opened the box. The anal beads lay nestled in the velvet lining, glinting under the dim light. They were larger than he had thought, the graduated spheres tapering up to a size that made his breath catch in his throat.
With trembling fingers, Haise picked up the toy, turning it over in his hands as he steeled himself for what he was about to do. He knew his fingers would never be enough to reach the depths of his desire, to touch the places that ached for Arima's touch. But this... this might be close enough.
Haise lay back on the bed, spreading his legs wide, exposing himself completely. He could feel the cool air on his heated skin, the way his entrance fluttered and clenched in anticipation. Taking another deep breath, he reached back and touched the first bead
Haise's body shuddered as he slowly inserted the first bead, his breath hitching at the unfamiliar sensation. It was a different shape to his fingers, stretching him in a way hadn't stretched himself before.
Gritting his teeth, Haise forced himself to continue, working the beads deeper into his body one by one. Each sphere stretched him further, hitting places he never knew existed, sending jolts of pleasure-pain shooting up his spine. He could feel his body resisting at first, his entrance clenching tight around the intruding objects, before yielding with a gush of slick heat.
"Ah... fuck..." Haise gasped out, his hips rolling and twitching as he fought to relax, to accept the toy that mimicked the cock he truly longed for. In his mind's eye, he could see Arima watching him.
The thought made Haise moan, a desperate, needy sound that filled the room. He wanted that, wanted to be used, to be claimed, to be owned completely by the man he loved. He wanted Arima to take him, to fill him, to ruin him for anyone else.
Haise inserted the final bead, his body now stretched wide around the toy. But it was still not enough, still not the thick, pulsing heat he craved. He needed more, so much more. He needed Arima.
He could feel every ridge, every curve of the toy as it sank deeper, hitting that spot inside him that made his vision flash white. "A-Ah! Arima-san!" Haise cried out, his back arching as pleasure exploded through him like a supernova. He bucked into the toy, fucking himself harder, chasing that feeling, that blissful oblivion.
The room was shrouded in darkness, the only sound Haise's ragged breathing and the occasional creaking of the bedsprings as he writhed in a haze of longing and desperation. His hand moved feverishly between his legs, slick with his own essence, as he imagined it was Arima's gloved hand caressing him, claiming him, possessing him utterly.
"Arima-san..." Haise gasped out, his voice a needy whimper in the darkness. "Sir... please..." He arched his back, pushing down on the toy buried deep inside him, craving more, always more. He wanted to be filled, stretched, split open by his beloved mentor's thick cock. He wanted to feel Arima's weight on him, pinning him down, dominating him completely.
In his mind's eye, Arima loomed over him, that cool stare boring into Haise's very soul, his deep baritone sending shivers down Haise's spine. "So desperate for my touch, for my approval, my affection..." Haise could see the faint curve of Arima's lips, not quite a smile, more a smirk of dark satisfaction. "Crave it, don't you, Haise? Crave me, like a man craves air to breathe."
Haise's hips jerked as he fucked himself harder, faster, the obscene squelch of the toy in his ass filling the room. "Yes! Arima-san~" he gasped out. "Yes, I crave you! I need you!" Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as he lost himself in the fantasy, in the all-consuming yearning that had haunted him for so long. "Please... I'm yours. I'm your greedy, needy boy. I'm..."
A choked moan cut off his words as the pleasure crested, his cock pulsing in his grip as he spilled his release. Haise collapsed back onto the sweat-soaked sheets, panting harshly. His body ached, his behind tender and sore from the rough treatment
The climax came with an aching tightness, leaving him breathless, shaking, and empty.
The toy slipped from his fingers onto the sheets with a dull sound. Haise curled forward, gripping the fabric as his chest tightened painfully. His breathing slowed into ragged pulls of air, and the quiet settled again, heavy, suffocating.
Tears slid down his cheek before he realized he was crying.
Not from pleasure. Not from relief.
From the stark truth that even in his most intimate, vulnerable moment, he had held an object against his skin and imagined it was Arima’s.
He lay there in the dim room, trembling, shame flooding him in cold waves. His desire, his idolization, his hollow longing reduced to something pathetic and lonely on an empty bed.
On his chest, his breaths came in heavy, ragged rhythms. A small sob escaped even though Haise tried to swallow down his emotions. He turned his face into the pillow, his shoulders shaking slightly.
When the night was so deep that only the sound of his heartbeat and breathing echoed in the darkness, Haise reached behind him, searching for Arima’s coat. His fingers touched the cold fabric. Not enough scent, not enough warmth, not enough comfort. But it was the only thing he had.
He held it like as a solution for his empty self. He felt everything in that moment: the forbidden desire, the thick loneliness, Furuta’s cruel joke, Arima’s indifference tore at him
Haise stop crying. He just lay there, holding the older man's coat, breathing in the darkness as if his entire body was waiting for someone who would never came.
Not because Arima was cruel.
But because Haise had loved a man who was absolutely not meant for love.
.
In the haunting stillness that followed their final, brutal battle at the flower pit at the very bottom of the Cochlea, Kaneki cradled the man who had sculpted his very being. Arima's once strong body lay heavy and limp in his embrace, the last fragile breath having fled his lips, leaving behind an unsettling, eternal silence. Crimson blood from the deep gash in Arima's throat painted the pristine flower field a final crimson hue like a macabre benediction.
Kaneki leaned in, closing the distance that had tormented him for years. His lips brushed Arima’s softly, light, desperate. A kiss stolen too late, delivered to a man who could no longer return it. Yet it was a wish he had carried since the moment his blindfold first came off, since the moment he saw that face and unknowingly gave his heart away.
The taste of cold lingered. The ache in his chest hollowed wider.
Kaneki pressed his forehead to Arima’s, fingers tightening around the lifeless shoulders as if he could anchor himself to the moment, to the memory, to the man.
“I understand,” he whispered.