Three weeks had passed since Eiríkur woke in the morgue.
The memory of it clung to him like damp mist — sterile lights overhead, a faint scent of antiseptic and death, and the terrible silence that followed his first gasp for air. He remembered the panic of waking in a body bag. The scream that never left his lips. The cold that had seeped into his bones, not just from the slab, but from within.
He wore gloves now — not because he liked the way they looked, but because of what he feared others might see. When his emotions swelled — when the hunger grew, or the stress boiled over — his skin turned… wrong. A mottled grey-blue, like frozen flesh left too long in a grave.
Food no longer tempted him. The idea of bread or rice or meat made his stomach churn. Only coffee offered him any comfort. Not sustenance, but a ritual. A warmth he could still pretend meant something.
That was how he found Anteiku — a quiet coffee shop tucked away between the worn alleys of Nishitama and Suginami. He'd stumbled on it during a night walk, led by a hunger he didn't yet understand. It was the smell that stopped him: not the acrid rot of the city, but the bittersweet aroma of roasted beans and aged wood.
The shop was old-fashioned, almost timeless. A sanctuary against the chaos of the outside world.
Inside, he met Yoshimura, the man who ran it.
There was something commanding in Yoshimura's presence, though he never raised his voice. He moved with the certainty of someone who had seen much, perhaps too much. Eiríkur couldn't tell whether the man knew the truth — whether he recognized the thing that stirred behind Eiríkur's pale eyes. But if he did, he said nothing.
Just served him coffee. Smooth, dark, grounding. And never asked questions.
Eiríkur became something of a regular.
He sat by the window and watched the city go by. He listened to conversations he didn't join, watched laughter he didn't feel part of. But it was better than the streets. Better than his cold, silent apartment.
Sometimes, he spoke with a boy named Kaneki — a university student with dark hair, haunted eyes, and bandaged hands. Their words were few and cautious at first. But Eiríkur felt it — a strange kindredness.
There was something broken in Kaneki, too.
Something trying to hold itself together.
At night, when the shop closed and the city sank into shadow, Eiríkur walked. The parts of Tokyo others avoided called to him — the alleys, the rooftops, the forgotten underpasses. There, the hunger returned. Not for food. For flesh. For RC cells.
And with it came the wyrd — a word from another life, from old Norse myths his mother used to tell him. The pull of something ancient in his blood, whispering truths through bone and instinct.
One night in the 20th Ward, it became impossible to ignore.
He caught the scent of blood and fear. His feet moved before his thoughts caught up.
In a derelict alley hemmed in by broken signs and rusted metal, he found them — a teenage boy, no older than fifteen, backed against the wall. Two ghouls loomed over him, tongues wet with anticipation, kagunes already unfurling.
Something in Eiríkur snapped.
His breath caught. The air around him dropped in temperature.
A pulse of unnatural cold radiated from his spine as his kagune erupted — jagged tendrils of obsidian black laced with frost, coiling like serpents in the rain. They struck with terrifying speed. One ghoul was hit mid-lunge, his kagune freezing solid before shattering like glass. The other turned and fled without hesitation.
Eiríkur stood over the boy, chest heaving. Rain soaked his coat. His hands trembled — not from fear.
From hunger.
From exhilaration.
From something primal that screamed, You are the monster now.
The boy ran. Didn't thank him. Just vanished into the night, wide-eyed and terrified.
Eiríkur didn't chase. He stared at his hands, the frost melting from his skin, his gloves torn and useless.
He wasn't a hero.
He wasn't a savior.
The draugr protected its territory — not the innocent.
Unbeknownst to him, he wasn't alone.
From the rooftops, Touka Kirishima watched. Her violet eyes narrowed beneath damp bangs. She had followed the strange ghoul for days now. Or… whatever he was. He didn't eat like them. Didn't hunt like them.
But he was strong.
Too strong.
"He's not human," she muttered under her breath. "But not one of us either…"
She reported back to Yoshimura that night, tension thick in her voice.
"He freezes ghouls like they're nothing. He didn't even flinch."
Yoshimura stirred his cup calmly.
"Perhaps," he said, "or perhaps he's simply lost. Like so many others who walk through these doors."
Touka frowned. "You trust him?"
"I give him time. Trust comes later."
The rain continued for days.
It was during one of those evenings, with the shop nearly empty, that Kaneki approached Eiríkur.
They sat across from each other, two strangers bound by invisible scars.
Kaneki's voice was low, barely above a whisper. "You… feel it too, don't you?"
Eiríkur didn't pretend not to understand. He nodded once.
"The hunger," he murmured. "The changes. The feeling that you're something else now."
Kaneki looked away, his hands tightening around his cup. "Sometimes I think I'm going to lose myself."
"I think I already did," Eiríkur said softly.
The words hung between them. Two young men drinking bitter coffee, each caught between two worlds. Not quite ghoul. No longer human.
They didn't speak again after that.
But they didn't need to.
In the silence, something unspoken passed between them — a fragile bond between broken mirrors.