Equilibrium

Business, regrettably, was business. Didn't matter how little Kaneki liked it, didn't matter how against it he was. Whatever work found it's way into his place of employment, he was bound by the cost of living to complete it.

So when he was approached by the same businessman who had called for the closure of a community park, Kaneki had to bite his tongue about the seedy hotel that had been built in its place. He took the order for several decorative floral displays in tense silence. They were to commemorate the opening of the hotel. Kaneki wordlessly wished it would burn.

Once the businessman left, Kaneki looked at the flowers in his shop and he schemed. He had enough in his criminal record that he couldn't do anything blatantly malicious. Perhaps he could be more subtle? He gently took the tendrils of one of his plants into his hand and thought for a while.

His ivy was propagating. Kaneki had watched it reach its stems down to the floor of the shop, searching fruitlessly for bare ground to spread roots. He had trimmed the plant back on several occasions, but the plant was voracious. Kaneki was equally unstoppable. A thought dawned on him. Under his mask, he managed a smile.

Kaneki couldn't deviate too far from what had been ordered, but there was nothing to say that he couldn't base each display in a bed of ivy. It would live like this long enough to propagate, Kaneki was certain. He arranged the ivy just as beautifully as the rest of the display, then closed up shop. If this worked...

-----

Kaneki rolled down the window of his delivery van, grinning from ear to ear. It had been months since he had delivered the ordered displays, and the hotel staff were still unable to keep the ivy under control. It had grown up much of the walls and support beams. It covered huge swaths of ground around the parking lot. It looked terrible, and Kaneki reveled in it.

Business was, and would always be, business. Kaneki knew that. But that didn't mean he couldn't do things his own way.