Haruka stands at the edge of the ocean with the wind stinging his cheeks. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here; it’s long enough that he can’t feel his fingers or his toes in his sturdy leather boots.

He opens his eyes when the icy cold of seawater starts to fill his shoes, trying to drown him and making him panic.

He almost drowned himself in his sleep again.

Every time, he gets a little closer. This time was the closest of all. His pockets feel heavy, and he sticks his numb fingers inside, jamming them against the seams a few times before he manages it.

In his pockets: more cold shit. Weights, lead weights, like the kind you use to weight fishhooks down to the bottom, so they can snare hapless animals with metal in their mouths.

Haruka makes a loud sound of alarm and quickly turns out his pockets, dumping all of the greasy lead onto the sand.

Someone wants Haruka to die, and it’s very unsettling.

The worst part is that Haruka doesn’t even know who it is. Who hates him so much? Who drags him to the edge of docks and lakes and tries to push him in?

He wakes up to a letter in his own handwriting, with his hand wrapped around the pen.

I see you, it says.

* * *

Haruka should move to a landlocked city, but his apartment is rent controlled.

“You know, I think you’d be better off if you got a dog.”

The coffee at this diner tastes like sludge in Wren’s mouth. Haruka looks like shit, and Wren tells him so.

“Gee, thanks,” Haruka says.

“I mean it. A dog could, like, wake you up and shit. Don’t they have those like… seeing-eye dogs, or something? The ones that like, alert their owners if they’re gonna have a heart attack or stroke or something.”

Haruka sticks his head in his hand. “You’re mixing up like three kinds of service dog.”

He starts to fall asleep sitting up, and Wren reaches out to pinch him.

“Ouch! —thanks,” Haruka says, rubbing his arm. “Who’s gonna give me a dog? Like you said, I look like shit.”

He looks like he’s on drugs.

Haruka hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time for the last few weeks. Every time he does, he wakes up on a bus, or barefoot on the side of the road, sticking his thumb out.

One unsettling time, he’d woken up riding a bike. It gave him the fucking creeps to think of his body doing that, just doing shit without him. Doing whatever it wants, driving sightless down the highway.

Wren says, “My neighbor’s dog is really annoying. I think I could steal it and give it to you.”

“You’re insane,” Haruka tells Wren.

“Yeah, I know. But so are you.”

When Wren smiles, he has too many teeth. Looking at them gives Haruka a headache.

* * *

One of these days, Haruka is either going to drown or lose his mind. He’s waiting to see which one.

Maybe he should get a dog.

* * *

Haruka isn’t sure when he started being Wren’s friend. Actually, he isn’t sure that Wren is his friend at all.

Wren has too many teeth, and his eyes turn red in every photo.

“That’s just the camera glare, baby,” Wren tells him.

Haruka is pretty sure there was no flash, though.

“Why don’t I ever try to, I don’t know, drown myself in the bathtub or something? Or the sink? That would be way easier, right?”

“I dunno,” Wren says, slurping obnoxiously on his milkshake through a straw. Nothing comes out. He takes it out of his mouth and peers inside, fangs turned down in a frown. “But it’s very Virginia Woolf of you, isn’t it? Pocket full of stones and all that.”

“I prefer Plath,” Haruka mumbles, half asleep.

He’s pretty sure he never told Wren about the weights in his pocket, either.

* * *

His landlord is trying to evict him for the dog he doesn’t have. He gets served papers saying he’s in breach of contract. His lease specifically says no pets.

“This is insane,” Haruka says. “I don’t even have a dog.”

His landlord glares at him, and his curdled stare makes Haruka’s insides feel like they’re shriveling. Like the landlord can tell that there’s someone who wants to kill Haruka, and he doesn’t want him dripping seawater in the rental.

He slams the door in Haruka’s face. When Haruka gets back upstairs, he trips over the dog’s bowl of water, splashing it all over the floor.

* * *

I’m too tired for this shit, Haruka writes on a note later that night, right before he falls asleep. He feels stupid doing it. Look, I’m broke as shit, my life sucks, and somehow I have a dog to feed. Can you please go try to kill someone else?

He wakes up on the M-line, with a homeless guy rifling through his pockets. The front of the bus is empty, there’s no one in the driver’s seat, and the ocean waves beckon in the distance.

When he gets home, he sees a response scrawled on the paper in his own handwriting.

It says, Pussy.

Haruka crumples up the paper and feeds it to the dog.