«Mommy?» Touka's eyes opened immediately. Her 3-years-old son rubbed his puffy eyes with his free hand while he was carrying a blanket all the way from the bedroom with the other. Touka put her cup away and kneel in front of her son.

«What's wrong Yoru? You had a nightmare?» Touka caress his soft cheek. Yoru shook his little head and looked at her straight in her eyes.

«I smelled tears. You were crying mommy?» Touka smiled. Her son's grey eyes were piercing her soul. Touka picked him up and sat on the couch. She cover him with the blanket he was carrying and caressed his head without answering him. Sometimes, even staring at her son was too much for her. His resemblance to his father was too much for her to bear. A lock of her long black hair was wrapped around Yoru's fingers. «You were thinking of daddy again?»

Touka never lied to her son. She could, but she didn't. She could have provided him a better life, a more rich life and a father figure. Kazuki proposed to her when she was still pregnant but she refused. She knew that he did it only for to protect the wife of the One-Eye King. Even so far away from home, the news were spread around to all the ghoul community. A hot tear fell without noticing on Yoru's cheek but he didn't seem to notice. Or he just didn't mention it. But she couldn't do that to her son. No one will ever replace his father. Neither in her son's life and, especially, in her heart. Kaneki will always be the one who holds her heart inside his hands. His dead hands. Touka shallowed a quiet sob.

That night when the Black Goat fell, Touka fled. The kids forced her to do it. They released their premature kagunes and protected her until their last breath. Touka put up a good fight but the human food in her system, to prevent her from devouring her child, was making her extremely weak. The kids although fought back. They begged her to flee, to take her child away and survive. For their future, to not let their lives go in vain. Touka did it. She left everything behind her and when she heard the transmission from the radio that the Black Goat's Egg fell, she knew she took the right decision. She regreted it every single moment of her life though. Her sleep is full of screams and blood and CCG tearing apart her husband's body and the kids laying lifeless on the floor with their glassy eyes empty. But those are the good days. She could deal with those dreams. But there were some other dreams, empty promises and undisclosed desires and her son swaying on a swing laughing and Kaneki pushing him lightly with a big smile on his pretty face and his eyes full of love watching their son screaming in joy. Those are the dreams Touka couldn't fight. Those were the ones she called "nightmares".

Her first one was inside the hold that she entered at the ship who brought her to London. The trip lasted for almost a month, not that Touka could count. She was only hoping for the freighter's crew to not find her. And they didn't. The few times someone entered the hold to take or put something in there, she managed to go unnoticed. No one could ever know how hard she was trying to resist not to attack the fresh human flesh in front of her eyes, almost begging her to be ripped apart. But she managed. She forced her mouth and stomach with that shitty human food and she succeed to keep her child unharmed. When they reached the first port, she put her plan into action. She was waiting for everyone to leave the ship and then she left. The London's cold embraced her providing her shelter and the fog gave her the best cover. She hit the London's streets ignoring the pitiful looks from the citizens. Her clothes were stained with blood, her skin was dirty and her body was too skinny making her growing stomach too obvious for her liking. She quickly joined the shadows and found a shelter in an abandoned store nearby. The windows were broken and the store was full of trash but she couldn't care less. It was just a stop by. But to where? Her mind couldn't proceed everything that happened to her, she was just acting by pure instinct. For two nights, Touka stayed at that store with only a dirty t-shirt protecting her from the freezing cold. The third night was the night she was saved. Kazuki caught her smell while he was in a coffee store nearby. He followed her smell and found her almost frozen to death. He admired the way she stood up to defend herself and her unborn child even if she could barely stand. Kazuki smiled to her and raised his arms in a sign of peace.

«Ι won't hurt you» he told her and he kept his promise. He took her to his home, no questions asked, and gave her some proper care. She didn't know how but when she woke up the next morning she was clean, dressed in a clean pair of pyjamas and so warm. She owned him her life. Yoru's life too. There was no room for pride when it came to Kazuki. He took her to a special doctor that helped her through the last semester of her pregnancy. She was a ghoul too. Touka was really impressed from the small community of ghouls that hugged her immediately. They helped her deliver her baby safely. They found her a job and a small apartment. Touka could never repay them for their kindness.

Touka looked at her son. Yoru was fast asleep once again, safe in her arms. She kissed his tiny hand and he released her hair. She took him to the bedroom and put him in their bed. She then drank her coffee, cleaned the cup and entered the bathroom. She washed her face from the tears and looked at herself in the mirror. Her dyed black hair was falling in waves until the underline of her breasts. She chose this color to match her son's. At his birth, her hair turned white. She could finally understand Kaneki's hair color. So much pain and agony, even with the drugs that Reina filled her system to help her ease the pain. She brushed her long hair with her fingers to straighten them just a little. Kazuki said that black was her color. She laughed remembering it. Only if he knen what black meant to her. Loneliness, agony and darkness. Pain, destruction and loss. But in another life it meant hope. And shy smiles full of awkwardness. And broken cups. And Touka wanted that back more than anything. But she couldn't have it. Because when Kaneki died he sucked all the light that he brought to her life. And he left only darkness.

But there was that period of time between the sunset and the sunrise, when the sun is below the horizon... That his absence didn't hurt so much. It was at that moment that she felt that the loss of her Sun is just temporarily. And that time was at night. Yoru.