Warning for typical Tokyo Ghoul things (angst, blood, cannibalism, etc). Set pre-series.

Binge eating is the new black.

So says Sanagi, self-proclaimed maven of trends in Tokyo, over a thermos filled with blood. Mekura, who sits across from her in a nightclub in the 13th ward, is not nearly so bold; hers has coffee instead. The best way to avoid a flirtatious stranger offering them a drink is to already have one—this, too, is something Sanagi has told her, but only Sanagi would spend so much time around humans that she actually needs a strategy for dealing with them in a social setting.

"You've gotta try it sometime," Sanagi insists, "At least once."

Mekura is the slightly younger and far less adventurous of the two, and she says, very politely, "I guess I don't see the appeal. Isn't it bad for your health to eat when you aren't hungry?"

"You don't get it," Sanagi snaps, "The truth is we're always hungry, we just don't know it until we eat a little more. I was a little skeptical at first, too, but I met someone over in the 11th who was doing it, and she told me it's really the only way to live."

"And do you agree with her?"

"See, this is your problem, Meku," Sanagi says with a melodramatic sigh, "You've got no sense of adventure. Why would you ask me something like that when you can go and try it for yourself?"

"I'm not so sure I want to find out."

A passerby might assume they're new friends discovering they have nothing in common, but they've known each other for years, two ghouls from families that had tried desperately to integrate into human society and enrolled them in public school, and they didn't really have anyone else in those days. As long as she's been alive, Mekura has done everything with Sanagi. They were the only ghouls in their whole school, so they skipped lunch together, walked to and from school together, and hung out together, because it was a necessity that they become friends.

They haven't gotten together like this in a long time, since Sanagi claimed that the 13th ward was dead and she was wasting her time by staying there. She's changed since the last time they went out for drinks together, grown her hair out so it falls gracefully like ink over her shoulders and down her back, and she doesn't have the nervous ticks she used to, like picking at the skin on her hands or drumming her nails against her thigh. She sits perfectly still, smiling with a confidence that Mekura is envious of.

But there are probably a lot of things that haven't changed, Mekura is certain, and she's proven right when Sanagi is startled by something that makes her sit straight up and nearly knock her thermos over. "Meku," she whispers, "Meku, look. Behind you. But be subtle."

Mekura tries to glance discreetly over her shoulder, pretending to stretch and roll her shoulders, and doesn't need to ask Sanagi for clarification. There's a man sitting alone at the bar, large as well as tall. He's wearing an off-white suit and his hair is swept out of his face. His eyes are widely spaced apart on his face and he has a hooked nose, profile striking. He sticks out like a sore thumb, imposing and memorable. Mekura turns back to Sanagi, frowning in anticipation. "What about him?" she asks, but she already knows where this is going.

"I want him," Sanagi hisses.

It's too late to change her mind, but Mekura still tries. "He looks dangerous. You sure he isn't an undercover dove?"

"I doubt it." Sanagi is already sliding out of her seat with a crooked smile, "Besides, does it matter if he is? Then I get dinner after the show."

Mekura remains seated, turning slightly to watch Sanagi saunter over to the strange man, who dwarfs her at least two heads. She taps on his shoulder and gives a coy smile, and they exchange words. His lips split into an interested grin as he says something that makes her laugh. When Sanagi gestures back towards Mekura and says something inaudible, he drags his eyes up to meet hers across the room, and Mekura frowns tightly when they make their way over to her. Sanagi is already hanging off of his arm. "Meku," she says, "This is Yakumo."

I don't want his name, don't tell me his name. Mekura nods, trying not to look sick as she sizes him up. She hates getting to know Sanagi's partners.

"This is my best friend, Mekura," Sanagi says with a derisive laugh.

Yakumo gives a nod and a smile that's anything but pleasant. Mekura has to look away.

"We're gonna take off," Sanagi goes on, "I'll text you later, okay?"

Mekura gives a weak nod and watches them head out the door. She can't help but notice Yakumo glance down at Sanagi the same way she looks up at him—grinning hungrily. For a moment, it occurs to her that he doesn't smell quite right, but he's already gone and she decides to stop thinking about it.

She won't have to see him again anyway, so it won't matter.

Mekura has told Sanagi before that she has terrible taste in men. Sanagi always laughed hysterically and insisted that the men she'd been with had all tasted very good, and the innuendo had actually been accidental because Sanagi always ate her boyfriends.

Mekura has lost track of the number of times she's been woken in the night by a phone call from Sanagi, who would choke out, "I just ate my boyfriend, Meku, I just ate him!" Like it was some big damn surprise. Like she hadn't done it a dozen times already. Really, it's Sanagi's fault for dating humans in the first place, though Mekura thinks the first time must have actually been an accident. She'd known the relationship hadn't been going well by the way Sanagi got all quiet when Mekura brought her boyfriend up, the way she'd stared down at the ground like she was expecting to find the answers to all of life's questions somewhere in the floor tiles. Mekura still hadn't expected to get that phone call, but ever the dutiful friend, she gave words of encouragement, something like, "It's alright, Sanagi, everything is going to be okay."

It wasn't okay. Sanagi had been at his place when she ate him, and some of his friends came by the next day when he didn't answer their texts, only to find his mangled remains drenched in Rc fluid and ghoul saliva. Doves swarmed the neighborhood and asked around about who the victim had been with recently, and one of his friends remembered him mentioning a girlfriend who lived in another ward and came to see him every so often, one none of them had met.

It had been a mess, but in the end, Sanagi came out no worse for wear, and two weeks later she'd started going out with another human and eaten him too, and then another, and suddenly she'd been kicked out of half of Tokyo's wards by ghouls with more sense for over-hunting and putting them all at risk. At some point, the evening news started calling her the Nightclub Stalker, infamous for preying on young men, luring them in with sweet words and false oaths of affection, or at the very least the promise of a one night stand, before killing and eating them.

But Mekura knows Sanagi better than anyone, and she knew that the news had it wrong. Sanagi really did want to be in a relationship with the boys she ended up eating; it's just that something went catastrophically wrong along the way, because that's what happened when ghouls and humans tried to live too close together. She thinks the problem is that Sanagi likes taking risks, and that no risk will ever be great enough for her. She always needs more, bigger, better, and this inevitably causes her to destroy everything she touches.

Mekura supposes Sanagi has a point when she says she has no sense of adventure; she has the exact opposite, a deeply-ingrained survival instinct that overreacts to the slightest disturbance. She's a coward, and rather than risk inciting Sanagi's displeasure, she'll go along with whatever new scheme she's cooked up.

Sanagi will always invent danger, and Mekura will always let herself be swept along for the ride, offering her condolences and reassurances. It's probably in their natures, she reasons, and that absolves her of guilt.

The next time Mekura sees Sanagi, she sees Yakumo, too.

Her friend is standing on the sidewalk outside of the nightclub they're supposed to meet up at, leaning against the wall with her neck craned to talk to Yakumo, who towers above her. Mekura doesn't have high hopes for this relationship; nobody has ever lasted more than a few weeks. And yet, Sanagi is showing an uncharacteristically high level of interest in him, even after days have gone by. Mekura isn't sure what to make of it.

"Hey, Meku," Sanagi says when she notices the younger girl, pushing off the wall and walking over, "How've you been?"

"Fine," she says evenly, "What about you?"

"I've been great," Sanagi says, glancing back at Yakumo, who saunters over to join the conversation, "Better than great, actually. We've been officially dating for a week now."

Mekura chances a glance up at the large man and attempts a smile. "Congratulations," she says weakly. Something about Yakumo just sets her on edge, and she can't quite put her finger on it.

"We were just talking," Sanagi goes on, "And I was telling him about how I'm pretty much your only friend, so he said you should hang out with both of us."

"Oh," Mekura says, "No, that's alright. I'd hate to trouble you."

"No trouble," Yakumo insists with a chilling smile, and suddenly black and red bleed into his eyes from the corners and Mekura's breath catches in her throat in surprise.

A ghoul, she realizes, and it all makes sense.

"I don't want to get between two good friends. You haven't seen Sanagi in a long time, isn't that right?"

"Ah. Right." When they start to walk, Sanagi makes a sharp motion with her chin, telling Mekura to follow, and she reluctantly does so.

"You seem like a nice girl, Meku," Yakumo says, and she bristles at her nickname coming out of his mouth, but then she hears Sanagi laugh.

"She's too nice, I'd say."

"Oh?"

"Well, yeah. You know how I was telling you about the time all those doves came looking for me in the 12th ward? Meku came to my rescue, or tried to, anyway. You remember that, right, Meku?"

Mekura doesn't think she'll ever forget it. She'd never seen a quinque before; she'd never had any reason to, because she kept her head down and lived with an ear to the ground, only hunting when she needed to and steering clear of doves.

But Sanagi had been quiet for a while before suddenly calling Mekura and asking for advice, and the call coincided with a news report earlier that day about the CCG getting a lead on an unsolved murder. She'd hurried to the 12th ward because Sanagi was her friend and, poor decision-making or not, she was going to help her. The doves were just a few steps ahead of her, and she arrived to find Sanagi with her back to the wall and a chipped mask on her face, staring down two men with weapons that pulsed like kagune and smelled like ghouls and looked all wrong in the hands of humans.

"Meku came to back me up," Sanagi says. She's smiling now, and Mekura thinks she must have been smiling then, because even though she shrieked when the doves closed in on her, she didn't sound scared. She'd sounded elated, like this was the high she'd been chasing, something even better and more dangerous than dating humans. "But when she got there, she totally froze up. Can you imagine? She hurried over as fast as she could from another ward, and she couldn't even throw a rock or something when she got there, let alone use her kagune."

"It's the thought that counts," Yakumo says, sharing a chuckle with Sanagi, and Mekura can't help but feel they're laughing at her.

"I guess," Sanagi says, "It turned out okay in the end, though. The Harvestman showed up and took care of everything."

Yakumo's pace has slowed, and he's looking at Sanagi. "Really?" he asks, sounding far too interested, "The Harvestman?"

Any ward with a significant ghoul presence has a bogeyman or two, and the 13th ward, saturated as it is with them, has more than most. The Harvestman is a story that Mekura remembers growing up with; he would loom out of the shadows, six rinkaku with tips like needles at his sides, and skewer entire CCG units, only rarely leaving one dove alive to limp back to headquarters and relay the tale to his superiors. He had to have one of the most comprehensive profiles in their database and doubtlessly a cell waiting in Cochlea since he'd been active for more than five years, but the doves had yet to successfully detain him.

A lot of ghouls came through town looking for the Harvestman, maybe to ask for protection or a favor, but few could claim to have actually met him. Occasionally, a rumor popped up that someone had seen him elsewhere in Tokyo, but no one could really be sure.

No one except for Mekura and Sanagi, of course, but that's a secret they've sworn to keep.

"Yeah," Sanagi says with a casual shrug, then shoots him a smile, "Why? Do you know about him?"

"I've heard stories," Yakumo says, "He's something of a local legend, after all. I didn't realize you'd actually seen him."

They're far away from metropolitan downtown and in some dark, sketchy part of the ward with seedy bars and shady second hand stores that look like yakuza fronts all around them. Mekura becomes acutely aware of how quiet it's gotten, and it only seems to be the three of them on the street. "What about you, Meku?" Yakumo asks, suddenly turning to her, and she shrinks back a step reflexively. It's odd; timid as she is, she considers herself to be on the same rung of the food chain as him, yet there's something about Yakumo that makes her feel like she's prey. "Have you ever seen the Harvestman?"

"She saw him that night, when I did," Sanagi says as she circles around to stand in front of Yakumo again, putting herself between them and frowning at being ignored.

Mekura is glad to let her have the attention, though there is something she wants to know. "You seem really interested in the Harvestman," she says, and instantly regrets speaking when he looks at her again, gaze pinning her in place like a butterfly on corkboard.

"This might sound presumptuous," he says, "But I think he and I have a bit in common. I have some infamy in the ward, as well, and I'd like to meet someone else on the same level. That's actually the whole reason I came back here."

Sanagi's smile falters and Mekura can practically hear the words her friend hissed that night as they stood in the middle of dismembered doves, blood spattered on the walls and all over the hands that held Mekura in place against the wall.

"We are never going to tell anyone about this, okay? Nobody has to know, ever. Just forget about it. Forget tonight ever happened, forget what you saw, forget everything."

"Just be my friend, like always. Let me pretend that nothing's any different."

But Sanagi manages to salvage the conversation with a forced smile, turning the attention back to Yakumo. "Oh, so you're a celebrity!" she laughs, "I had no idea! Do the doves have a nickname for you, too?"

Mekura hears a loud crack that makes her jump, and she realizes Yakumo is popping the joints of his fingers on one hand, his index finger bent at an odd angle beneath his thumb. His smile twists into something chilling as he says, "They call me Jason."

This is going to be a pretty short story.