Kaneki sat in his little unlit apartment.
He sat looking out the window, the wind pushing in like a current over and into his room, pushing the curtains around him like the wide mouth of a wolf, like fingertips attempting to reach around him.
He sat with a dull ache, thrumming like the low, continuous snarl of a cat, a low hissing that rose and fell back again, crashing against rocks like sea foam.
Around him darkness hugged his body-the wind breathed on him, heaving and heavy, but with only a silent whistling about the ears.
Somewhere the moon is full and somewhere the moon is loved by wolves and dogs, raising their heads and showing their teeth-glistening saliva. Somewhere Kaneki bore the threads of comet dust around his throat and believed that he was innocent.
Somewhere there is a couple kissing underneath the moon and somewhere there is the sheen of a knife pressed firmly to sweating skin. Somewhere under the moon there is love and there is death and he smelled it on the wind's gasping breaths, a silent cry of choked spittle.
Okay, he thought. Okay.
Tonight you will not open your mouth like your mother did, tonight you will sit with mouth shut and a nervous tongue dancing behind your lips.
Tonight you are the tree, fighting against nature.
And Kaneki sat. He sat with long eyelashes, the faint nuance bending over the slope of his cheek.
He watched like a crying raven-upright and still with eyes full of sea.
Look behind you.
He didn't.