#''....munch...''

Karren’s official opinion on Master Shuu is that she wants nothing to do with him.  Her heart is a greedy, angry, wounded creature that neither observes nor understands official opinions, but last time she let let that thing take the reins she ended up jumping off a building.  She is officially done with Shuu.  Her emotions can catch up in their own time.

When she overhears a conversation at :Re with Nathanael, overhears that Kaneki Ken is working for the CCG as a ghoul investigator, she doesn’t know what to think.  Kaneki used to be a great friend of Shuu’s, before that Haise guy showed up and completely stole his attention.  She used to be quite jealous of Kaneki, used to dislike him, but after the whole Haise nightmare she honestly practically forgot he existed.  If she isn’t interested (officially isn’t interested) in Shuu anymore, is she still jealous of Kaneki?  ...If she’s not jealous of Kaneki (officially isn’t jealous), does she have reason to dislike him?  Because if she doesn’t dislike the guy?  She feels sorry for him.  Almost feels like she should maybe try to help him out if an opportunity ever presents itself.  He and Shuu were practically family at one point, right?  She isn’t loyal to Shuu or the Tsukiyamas anymore, of course.  Officially.  But it still seems like... somehow she feels like this is still relevant to her, or could be.  The Tsukiyamas used her, manipulated her into thinking serving them at the expense of everything was some lofty aspiration.  That’s why she isn’t loyal to them.  All Kaneki Ken ever did was make friends with Shuu.  He never hurt Karren.  And he used to fall into the category of people she should protect.

She considers that it would feel darkly satisfying if she ended up becoming esteemed by one Shuu used to idolize; if someone who didn’t seem to like Shuu that much chose her to appreciate....but that decidedly belongs on the list of opinions she shouldn’t officially have.

It’s curious to think about, certainly.  But weeks later, when she’s almost forgotten him again, he appears in front of her.  She and Nathanael are helping a minor ghoul organization pass out some donated books to ghoul families with children.  Doves must have found out about the event somehow because a whole group of them shows up, unexpected and murderous.  Nate tries to tell Karren to scatter with the event organizers; she has a hell of a lot to recover from, there’s no shame in running.  But that’s about the time Karren realizes that helping kids better themselves so they don’t end up getting jobs as servants at mansions owned by people who Do Not CARE is actually pretty damn important to her?  This isn’t an auction selling people for fuck’s sake...how dare these filthy humans?  She hasn’t fought doves in a while.  She tells her brother not to wait for her, tells her dog to shoo, and that’s the last he sees of her for a while.

The most vulnerable of the event attendees are long gone.  She’s pulling her kagune out of a sticky mess that was once a dove.  Her heart is pounding in her ears.  For all her anger, she has a deeply-ingrained fear of her traditional enemies.  She’s already killed a few of the brutes; it doesn’t feel prudent to try her luck for too long.  The simmering rage she feels at the injustice of it all remains unquiet, but she knows Nathanael and Arunolt would be very upset if she died.  She’s already eaten her fill, which is always a convenient development considering how tricky it is for a ghoul to get food.  She’s starting to think about turning and running.

And suddenly, there’s Kaneki, of all people, approaching her.  She looks at him in surprise; curious red eyes through slits of a mask covered in roses.  She makes no move to attack.  She doesn’t even know what to make of this development yet, she’s just surprised to see him.  A casual drop of blood falls to the floor, from her chin.