Imagine a little 4th grader whose busy parents' jobs had forced him to move schools and states (provinces, in japan speak), who was thrown into a big city school with a bunch of random kids who already had their cliques and groups and weren't too sure about what to do with the new kid
Now imagine the new kid wandering alone on the playground, driftless and unsure, totally powerless and feeling super vulnerable to the world he couldn't control, parents busy with moving/work
And imagine another kid who the other 4th graders leave alone because he's shy, he's kinda weird, he reads books way above their level and doesn't know how to talk or play like the others
The first kid is Hide, and the second kid is Kaneki, and Hide's best memory stretches all the way back to the day he walked up to a Kaneki sitting alone in a corner of the playground with a book and asked the loner kid to be his friend, and Kaneki had accepted with a wobbly smile, absolutely baffled that anyone would want to be his friend. Hide, a tiny 4th grader, saw someone who wouldn't hurt anybody, who had a quiet demeanor but knew a lot of fun things to talk about, and Hide could honestly have listened to him go on about books and characters and plotlines (whatever those mattered) and, eventually, moral and worldly crises and all the other angsty business middle schoolers get up to. Kaneki was an honest, secure figure, someone who gave Hide a sense of safety and place in the world. Being with Kaneki felt like belonging, even in that first moment, and it was all Hide (whose mind runs a little too fast to be normal) needed.
But it all ties back to that moment where Hide found someone willing to give him a chance just because he asked, and furthermore, someone who wouldn't change with the tide and would never, ever (or so he thought) switch things up suddenly on him. He found somebody worth being best friends with--- for all Hide's an out-going, extroverted figure, Kaneki counts as his one and only best, BEST friend, the one he could share everything with (even though he didn't share /everything/ himself) and the one he wanted to experience everything with. He trusts Kaneki with his life because he knows a kid who wouldn't mind giving the nervous transfer student a chance is worth any pain. And, honestly, he hasn't been disappointed... He just wishes Kaneki would realize Hide would stand by him through anything, even ghoulification, and tell him more.
But even while separated, Hide thinks back to that first connection and grins, because hell, they'd been friends THIS long, there was nothing that could come between them now.
best memory.
Now imagine the new kid wandering alone on the playground, driftless and unsure, totally powerless and feeling super vulnerable to the world he couldn't control, parents busy with moving/work
And imagine another kid who the other 4th graders leave alone because he's shy, he's kinda weird, he reads books way above their level and doesn't know how to talk or play like the others
The first kid is Hide, and the second kid is Kaneki, and Hide's best memory stretches all the way back to the day he walked up to a Kaneki sitting alone in a corner of the playground with a book and asked the loner kid to be his friend, and Kaneki had accepted with a wobbly smile, absolutely baffled that anyone would want to be his friend. Hide, a tiny 4th grader, saw someone who wouldn't hurt anybody, who had a quiet demeanor but knew a lot of fun things to talk about, and Hide could honestly have listened to him go on about books and characters and plotlines (whatever those mattered) and, eventually, moral and worldly crises and all the other angsty business middle schoolers get up to. Kaneki was an honest, secure figure, someone who gave Hide a sense of safety and place in the world. Being with Kaneki felt like belonging, even in that first moment, and it was all Hide (whose mind runs a little too fast to be normal) needed.
But it all ties back to that moment where Hide found someone willing to give him a chance just because he asked, and furthermore, someone who wouldn't change with the tide and would never, ever (or so he thought) switch things up suddenly on him. He found somebody worth being best friends with--- for all Hide's an out-going, extroverted figure, Kaneki counts as his one and only best, BEST friend, the one he could share everything with (even though he didn't share /everything/ himself) and the one he wanted to experience everything with. He trusts Kaneki with his life because he knows a kid who wouldn't mind giving the nervous transfer student a chance is worth any pain. And, honestly, he hasn't been disappointed... He just wishes Kaneki would realize Hide would stand by him through anything, even ghoulification, and tell him more.
But even while separated, Hide thinks back to that first connection and grins, because hell, they'd been friends THIS long, there was nothing that could come between them now.