Chapter Text
“Superior Private Ogata,” Tsurumi says. He says it like he’s stretching out a piece of melted candy, like he’s tasting the shape of Ogata’s name. He’s exactly what all the rumors made him out to be. Tall and charismatic, dark hair swept back neatly and wearing the sort of liquid smile that mothers warn their children about. “Your skill precedes you. That number of confirmed kills at your age... most impressive. You’re the talk of the division.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ogata wonders how loaded the statement is. There are plenty of reasons, after all, for there to be talk about him.
“Popularity must run in the family,” Tsurumi adds. “Your brother may finally have some competition, hm? He’s got quite the little fan club here.” He stands from his desk and drifts around behind his chair, his gloved hand trailing along the high winged back. He looks as if he’s stepped straight out of a Western portrait and he carries himself as if he knows it.
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Ogata says honestly. “We haven’t spoken.”
Tsurumi affects a look of scandalized shock that’s as fabricated as the rest of him. “Well, we can’t have that! It’s a great point of pride, you know, having the two of you here. Why, the prestige alone...your father must be very proud.” Something in his eyes tightens as he speaks, curling like a finger around the trigger guard of a rifle. “Surely he’s mentioned it.”
Ogata takes a slow, even breath, like he does when he’s lining up a shot. It steadies his hand and his mind, the world folding down to two singular points of existence. “I wouldn’t know, sir,” he says again. His voice holds rock solid.
Tsurumi regards him for a moment, his head tilting at just far enough of a degree to almost seem unnatural. Ogata doesn’t enjoy being regarded. There’s a reason he took so avidly to learning to kill from the back lines, after all. “That’s a pity,” Tsurumi finally says. “I suppose you’ll have to ask Second Lieutenant Hanazawa.”
The name alone is enough to bring the taste of the sea to Ogata’s tongue. The last time he saw the sea, he turned his back to it and marched straight into a war. “I wouldn’t want to trouble him, sir,” he says lightly.
Tsurumi waves a hand. “Now, now, there’s no need to degrade yourself. You have many fine qualities of your own, Superior Private.” Tsurumi fixes Ogata with a lightless gaze, the falsity of his demeanor suddenly gone brittle. “And someone like me,” he continues, with the air of delivering a death sentence, “will always have a need for someone like you.”
He’ll betray this man one day, Ogata realizes. He knows it as soon as Tsurumi smiles at him, something sinister in the perfect white line of his teeth. Whatever is rotten inside of him, Tsurumi carries the same stench deep within.
Ogata touches the brim of his cap in a salute and smiles back. “Of course, sir,” he says. “Just say the word.”
***
Ogata’s first impression of his brother is that he’s too damn tall. Where does he get it from, he wonders. Must be from his mother. Those eyelashes too, long and full like a girl’s, brushing his cheeks every time he blinks.
There’s no part of him that Ogata doesn’t dislike immediately. His upright posture, his polite speech, the way he hunches down reflexively when speaking to Ogata. Ogata would prefer it if he took more after their father. At least then, the condescension would exist in more than his own head.
“What did you think?” First Lieutenant Tsurumi asks him later that day. The curtains are half drawn in his office, and a swatch of sunlight slices brutally across the room. It catches the tip of Ogata’s boots, glinting off the fresh polish, and he steps back into the comfort of the shadows.
“Seems like a lost cause, sir,” Ogata says. “We’re nothing alike.”
“Oh, I think you’ll be able to find common ground somewhere.” Tsurumi smiles at him and folds his gloved hands neatly on his desk. “Family is important, after all. Try and make some memories together.” The weight in his voice suggests that this is less of an encouragement and more of a command.
Family. As if Ogata has any real notion of it. His mother and grandparents are mere logistics in his memory. They happened and they are gone. His father is even less than that. “Yes, sir,” he says, for lack of anything else to say.
***
“Brother, brother,” Yuusaku calls to him, whenever they happen to meet in the hallway. Usually, if Ogata hears him coming, he turns the other way, but he’s only lucky so many times.
“Sir,” he says, as politely and dismissively as he can muster.
“You can drop the formalities, brother, it’s just the two of us.” Yuusaku smiles encouragingly at him, as if this is supposed to be some sort of reassurance. Ogata does not understand how someone can possibly lack self-awareness to this degree. “You can call me Yuusaku.”
“If you say so, Yuusaku…dono,” Ogata says. It’s a compromise that Yuusaku seems to accept.
***
The Nikaidous have always fascinated him in a detached, perverse sort of way. He wonders if all brothers are like this, clinging together through life like one soul divided in two. If one died, would the other drop dead in response? His trigger finger itches at the thought.
“He’s watching us,” one of them says to the other, completely uncaring of Ogata sitting just a few feet away. “Perhaps he’s a pervert?”
“If only he took more after his brother, then…” The rest of the sentence is whispered into a tilted ear, and Ogata averts his gaze. Ironic, he thinks, that they should all think each other to be more perverted. He’s never gotten along with the two of them, but he’s seen the way they nod at Yuusaku in passing, how they touch their caps in unison. Respectful, if not friendly.
It isn’t that Ogata wants the same treatment. Being treated like Yuusaku is a thought that makes his stomach churn. But it’s the fact that Yuusaku is seen...differently. As if he is special. As if he is something to aspire to, something beyond flesh and bone.
He watches Yuusaku smile and nod and glide his way through the barracks like some untouchable saint. He wouldn’t look so saintly in the trenches, covered in the same stinking blood and mud as the rest of them. Even a rose smells like shit when it’s been dipped in it.
“Eh, brother, did you need something?” Yuusaku tugs at the brim of his cap, suddenly bashful for reasons Ogata cannot decipher. “You’ve been staring at me all day.”
“I wasn’t, sir.”
“Oh, is that so?” Yuusaku looks down sheepishly. “That’s presumptuous of me, isn’t it? My apologies.”
Ogata lets his silence do the talking.
***
Smoking is one of the few prohibitions strictly enforced in the 7th Division, but Ogata has his own ways of dodging around it. Latrine duty, for one, is a task usually assigned to a couple of privates per barrack, and leaves him plenty of opportunity to sneak a couple of cigarettes in the end stall.
It isn’t as if he does it for any strong reason. He doesn’t particularly care for the bitter taste it leaves or the way it tightens the edges of his thoughts. The smell is a hassle, as well, and clings to his uniform if he isn’t careful. But there’s something about the way the smoke settles in his lungs that fascinates him. He imagines he can feel it coiling in his chest, bleeding black poison into his tissue. He wonders how long it would take to poison himself to death across years, across decades. If it’ll catch up to him before a bullet will.
He leans against the latrine wall, the small window near the ceiling eased open to let the night air in, and clamps the end of a cigarette between his teeth as he reaches for a match. Across the room, he hears the door creak open and the light tapping of footsteps as someone enters the far end stall. It doesn’t bother Ogata. Whoever it is will do his business and leave soon enough. He waits, thinking idly that this is one long piss, then blinks when he hears a loud splash.
It’s the kind of splash that spells disaster in a setting like this. Ogata waits for a moment, expecting a loud barrage of cursing, but all he hears is a quiet groan of despair.
Then a quavering, hesitant, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Fuck, Ogata thinks. Of all the people it could’ve been…he supposes there’s no point in pretending he isn’t here. The stall walls are more of a formality than anything, raised high enough off the floor that a simple sideways glance will show Ogata’s feet standing at the end of the row.
He sighs and tucks his cigarette back inside his jacket, then walks down to the end stall. He isn’t sure what he expected to see, but Yuusaku leaning awkwardly against the wall with a drenched trouser leg and a scarlet face isn’t it.
His first thought is that his previous observation is incorrect; Yuusaku somehow manages to look saintly even soaked to the knee in shit.
“Brother,” Yuusaku says, so clearly relieved that Ogata takes a step back before he can catch himself. “Oh, brother, I’m so glad it’s you.”
Ogata can’t imagine why. He’s hardly a reassuring presence by any stretch of the imagination. He puts on a placid expression of concern as he looks Yuusaku up and down. “Did you have an accident, sir?”
Yuusaku looks down at himself, the tops of his ears bright red. “Just- just a misstep,” he mumbles. “You must think I’m so incompetent, making a fool of myself like this.”
The worst part of it is that Ogata doesn’t. In all the ways that matter, there is no one more suited for the flag bearer’s role than Yuusaku. Incompetence, at least, is not one of Yuusaku’s flaws. He sighs and gestures at the door. “Wait here,” he says. “I’ll bring you a change of clothes.”
“Oh, you don’t-”
“What would the men think, sir, if they saw you walking around like that?” Ogata asks dryly. “Stay put, please.”
Only as he’s returning with his spare pair of uniform trousers does he begin to wonder if this is what Lieutenant Tsurumi meant by making memories. It isn’t as if he has anything to reference, but it seems to him that most brothers don’t make their memories together in the latrines.
“Here you are, sir,” he says, thrusting the folded trousers at Yuusaku. They both stand there for a moment, Ogata waiting expectantly and Yuusaku gazing back at him in helpless silence.
“Could you...turn around, please?” Yuusaku finally asks, his eyes flitting away. “I’m a little embarrassed with you watching.”
Ogata stares at him, struck dumb. It’s impossible to parse the ridiculousness of the entire situation, he decides. He turns around and looks down at the floor between his feet while Yuusaku changes behind him.
In the end, the trousers are too short, displaying a naked stretch of ankle that somehow seems more obscene than the way the fabric draws too tightly across Yuusaku’s hips. Ogata sucks his lips in against his teeth and says nothing of it.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Yuusaku says fervently. He looks like an idiot, his dirty socks dangling by one hand and his shoes dripping with water, but he still beams so brightly that Ogata finds himself squinting. “I owe you one, brother, really! I’ll take you out to dinner sometime, how does that sound? The other officers recommend this place down by-”
“There’s no need for that, sir,” Ogata says, alarmed.
“Ah.” Yuusaku deflates visibly before him. “You’re probably busy, that’s right. You must be popular with your other friends.”
Ogata makes a strangled noise reflexively. “No, not that,” he says, then curses himself.
“Oh really? Why not? You’re so kind, after all.” Yuusaku looks at him earnestly. “You sure you won’t come to dinner? I hear their nabe is great.”
“No, not there,” Ogata says. The way Yuusaku blushed and fluttered at the idea of Ogata watching him change, how he seemed so overly aware of his own body, prods the beginnings of an idea into existence. If this fate is inevitable, Ogata thinks, he might as well seize it by the throat. “I know a better place.”
***
The local brothel has known its fair share of discreet appointments, from the military and otherwise. The two of them are quickly, but enthusiastically ushered in from the street, then swept into a private room in a gust of silk and perfume. Ogata made certain inquiries beforehand, and the girls that latch onto Yuusaku’s arms are the best the establishment has to offer.
Turns out, it wouldn’t have mattered if they were beauties or dogs.
If Ogata knew ahead of time, he would’ve saved his damn money. He watches the way Yuusaku blushes, his hands clenching on his knees as he stares down determinedly at the rush flooring, so rigid that he looks like he’ll snap with a touch. He couldn’t look more aggressively virginal if he was a trembling bride kneeling by her wedding bed.
Ogata sighs and leans forward, pulling the front of his uniform back together. He’s suddenly immensely and overwhelmingly exhausted. “That’s enough,” he says, waving away the clinging hands of the prostitute by his side. “Take him out the back.”
The walk back to the barracks is silent and strained, Yuusaku plodding along behind him like a lost child. It’s a shame, Ogata thinks. For a moment, he thought he was close. There was a particular shade of red Yuusaku turned when his girl pressed her breasts to his arm that held such promise. A moment of vulnerability that wasn’t there when Ogata tried to tempt him with a drink the day before, and a cigarette the night before that.
No doubt Tsurumi knew how trying a task this would be from the start. There was a certain tilt to the smile he wore when Ogata reported to him their plans for the night that should’ve warned him it would be a fruitless venture.
He only realizes Yuusaku is still following him when he reaches his dormitory. He pauses at the door and turns to see Yuusaku standing there, looking down at his feet. The oil lamp at the doorway slathers what little Ogata can see of his face in shadow, but he can clearly make out the way Yuusaku’s hands knot anxiously around the edge of his jacket.
There’s something gratifying in the sight.
“Brother,” Yuusaku begins, his voice wobbling. “Brother, are you angry?”
“No,” Ogata says, bemused. “Why would you think that?” Anger is the furthest thing from what he’s feeling. It simply disconcerts him that Yuusaku can live like this. What’s so different about him, he wonders. They have half the same blood, after all. What’s buried inside him must be in Yuusaku as well. Yuusaku simply is more stubborn about denying himself.
Is it not the role of an older brother, Ogata thinks, to lead by example? Perhaps this is what Lieutenant Tsurumi meant all along.
“You’re disappointed, aren’t you?” Yuusaku tilts his face up beseechingly as he speaks, revealing the unhappy twist of his mouth. “You made all those arrangements...it was inconsiderate of me to refuse.”
Yes, Ogata wants to say. “It’s alright, sir,” he says instead, then tries a smile. It feels like wearing the stretched out pair of trousers that Yuusaku borrowed. “We’ll try something else next time.”
Yuusaku brightens visibly at that, the corners of his mouth angling upwards. “Do you mean it? I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to spend time together anymore.”
Ogata regards him for a moment, silent. He wonders if it’s more telling of Yuusaku’s virtues or his shortcomings that even after this disaster of a night, he still clings to Ogata like a soft-eyed leech. “Of course I do.” He manages an approximation of a smile. “We’re brothers, after all.”
***
“I saw you last night.”
Ogata glances up, and Usami takes the opportunity to lean across the table and snag the umeboshi from his bowl.
“Sneaking back to bed, like a truant little boy,” Usami continues, one cheek already bulging with the pickled plum. He points his chopsticks at Ogata accusingly. “Naughty of you, Hyakunosuke. Guess even you’ve got your needs, huh?” He makes an obvious gesture with his right hand, then snorts with laughter. “Didn’t think I’d see him with you, though.”
“Who?” Ogata asks, feigning ignorance. It’s just as likely, after all, that Usami’s talking out of his ass again.
“Everyone’s favorite little virgin, of course.” Usami grins at him. It bears an eerie resemblance to Tsurumi’s. “Our own lucky charm. Maybe not so lucky, though, after last night.”
Ogata takes a bite of plain white rice. He can taste the lingering salt from the umeboshi, the cold rice sticking to his throat when he swallows. “Sorry,” he says, “but neither of us got lucky.”
“Tch.” Usami makes a sound of genuine disappointment and pushes up from the table. The mess hall is nearly empty; Usami must’ve waited until the end of lunch hours to come harass him. “Well, you know what they say. If you want something done right, better do it yourself.”
Ogata gazes into his bowl, his appetite gone.
He hates it, he decides, when Usami is right.
***
The first time Ogata fucked a woman, he was eighteen and gangly, still growing into the new uniform that hung too stiffly on his shoulders. His commanding officer at the time took him and three other privates to the brothel after their first assignment, already reeking of drink and going on loudly about keeping his best at their best.
“What you boys need,” he said, his face a broad and hairy blur in Ogata’s memory, “is to learn your way around a woman.”
His recollections of the act itself are hazy and perfunctory. He remembers the hot clench of a soft body, perfumed skin sliding against his own and firm thighs squeezing around his hips. He remembers a moment when her smile reminded him of the way his mother smiled, towards the end. A curve of bright red with nothing behind it.
Afterwards, she lit a cigarette and asked him how many men he’d killed. He thought for a moment and told her he couldn’t remember. “Guess they’re all the same after a while,” she said. “We’re not all that different, are we, little soldier boy?” The smoke she blew into his face made his eyes sting, and he remembers the smell of it more clearly than her face. In the end, he still knew his way around a rifle far better than a woman.
The first man that Ogata fucked had much less to say. It was quick and clumsy, like every other affair in the trenches, a matter of necessity more than anything else. A hand in his mud-stained trousers, harsh breath dampening his neck above the collar of his uniform, and for a moment he could feel something besides the cold numbness in his hands and feet. It was a way to stay awake, if nothing else, in those long nights spent huddling in the dirt.
Hondo, he thinks the man might’ve been called. A fresh-faced private transferred from the Sixth, better with a bayonet than the gun it was attached to. Ogata finds him dead two nights later, a charred bullet hole etched in black and red in his breast, and thinks to himself that he should’ve practiced his aim more.
In any case, to call himself unpracticed in seduction would be the understatement of the century. Sex has always been an event that occurs to him, not one he seeks out. At least, it’s safe to say that Yuusaku has no point of reference for quality.
He waits until his rotation on the cleaning shifts lands him in the officer quarters. The supply closets here are far cleaner and larger here than in the main barracks and have known its fair share of hurried rendezvous. They’re longer than they are wide, with just enough shadow at the far end for giving the benefit of the doubt if anyone were to walk in. There’s a suspiciously polished spot in the floorboards that Ogata can’t stop looking at. It’s in the shape of knees, he thinks, or perhaps an ass?
The private he sent to fetch Yuusaku took off five minutes ago. Ogata estimates another five at the very least before he’s here. He looks around critically at the shelving and pushes a few crates to the side with his feet, clearing a decent space at the end of the closet.
He sits down with his back to the wall, his trousers pushed down to his ankles and his dick shriveling in the cold air. After a moment’s thought, he pulls the trousers off and folds them neatly. Yuusaku might appreciate the gesture, and he needs all the help he can get.
At least getting himself hard is a simple enough act. He licks his palm and squeezes his fingers around himself, thinking of lying on his belly on a clifftop, coldness seeping from the stone and through his uniform, the heft of a rifle against his shoulder. It’s times like this when he feels most alive, when each breath pushes the world into the space within his sights.
He’s warm under his collar now, his cock swelling decently in his grip. He looks down at it and wonders if this is stupid - but no, it’s too late to be thinking like this now. The fucking irony of it all, that he has to resort to opening his legs for a Hanazawa. Like mother, like son, he supposes.
His erection flags slightly at the thought. He gives it a fortifying squeeze, then wipes his hand against his bare leg before reaching inside his jacket for the final touch.
The leaflet was stolen from Usami’s stash, the first one that Ogata saw that had the least obvious stains on the paper cover. He flips it open to a double spread of a woman in a disheveled kimono, her hand between her legs and her hair cascading down over her bare shoulders.
Ogata looks at it doubtfully, wondering if it should be facing him or the door. Better safe than sorry, he decides. He doesn’t trust Yuusaku to know pornography when he sees it, much less recognize it upside-down.
He’s reaching out to rearrange the pamphlet when there’s a tentative knock at the door. There’s only one person who would even think to knock on a closet door. He glances down at the drawing and does his best to imitate the loose sprawl of the woman. “Come in.”
“Brother,” Yuusaku begins, before the door is even fully open. “This is such an odd place to meet, I wasn’t sure if I had it...right…”
“Don’t just stand there,” Ogata says. “Come here.”
Yuusaku closes the door behind himself automatically, his body following the command before his brain can intercept it. It’s almost interesting to watch, like a worker ant dutifully marching along its path. Ogata shifts his knees higher and waits.
“What…” Yuusaku halts a few steps away, his hands knitting worriedly before him. Ogata works himself faster, lifts his hips slightly into his grip, and Yuusaku’s face grows bright red beneath his cap. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Ogata nudges the pamphlet closer to Yuusaku with his foot. “You must know what this is, at least.”
Yuusaku doesn’t spare the pamphlet a glance, his eyes shifting nervously from Ogata’s face to his hands and up again. “I-I’ll leave, I’m sorry for interrupting.”
Ogata resists the urge to roll his eyes. Any much more of this, and his dick is going to start chafing. He lets go of himself and wipes his palms along his thighs, letting his legs fall open gracelessly. Yuusaku swallows hard enough for Ogata to hear it.
“You know, you talk a big game, sir, but in the end, we’re all the same.” Ogata palms himself for emphasis and nudges the pamphlet closer. “You’re hard, aren’t you?”
It’s a complete bluff, but Yuusaku reacts as if he’s been kicked. “Eh? What’s-” His shoulders hunch forward, his hands flying down to cover himself in a panic. Yuusaku’s hands are larger than his, Ogata notices. He imagines how they would look on a rifle. “Sorry, I don’t- don’t know what’s gotten into me, I’m sorry for-”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, sir,” Ogata says blandly. He stares at Yuusaku’s lap, morbidly curious. Are his hands proportional, he wonders. “It’s only natural. You’re a man, after all. Why don’t we help each other out, man to man?”
“I-I can’t, I’ve told you. I promised-”
“It won’t count,” Ogata says. “I’m not a woman, am I?” He says it lightly, jokingly, as if Yuusaku is the one taking this far too seriously. “Your father didn’t say anything about this, I’m sure.”
Yuusaku is visibly struck by this, his mouth opening and closing as he turns this new thought over in his mind. Ogata feels some vindication at the sight- Yuusaku’s just a man, after all, prone to all the things that men are.
Come on, he thinks. So fucking close. He sighs loudly and lets go of himself, his dick bobbing as he reaches for his trousers. “Never mind,” he says, with as much disappointment as he can muster. “I shouldn’t have expected anything.”
“No, wait.” Yuusaku looks startled by his own interruption.
Ogata waits.
“I don’t...I don’t want to take advantage,” Yuusaku says hesitantly.
Ogata would laugh if this doesn’t make him want to die instead. “Of course not,” he says. “I told you. We’re just helping each other out.” If anyone’s being taken advantage of here, it certainly isn’t him.
Yuusaku looks at him for a long moment and for once, his face isn’t completely transparent. If this doesn’t work, Ogata thinks, he’s truly out of ideas. If women won’t do it, then maybe he’s just not Yuusaku’s type. Maybe he’d prefer someone like that bear-like private, or someone small and square like Tsukishima-
“Alright.” Yuusaku takes on an expression of brave determination, despite the wobble in his knees as he crouches down.
Ogata knows he should feel relieved, but instead he’s…well, he doesn’t quite know what he is. He knows what he should be, though, and that’s as enthusiastic about this as possible. He makes an encouraging sound when Yuusaku settles down beside him, reaching down to stroke himself again and grinding into his palm.
Yuusaku makes a vague, lost gesture with his hands. “What...what should I do?”
“Anything you want.” Ogata lets his head thump back against the wall and closes his eyes. It isn’t as if he has high expectations, at least. At most, it’ll be a quick and messy rut, maybe he’ll even get off if Yuusaku’s lucky enough-
“Can I kiss you?” Yuusaku blurts out.
“Eh?” Ogata opens his eyes and turns his head. Yuusaku has taken off his cap, clutching it in front of his chest like a talisman. He looks so earnest that Ogata can feel himself choke on it. “What for?”
“Well...it’s what you do, isn’t it?” Yuusaku asks, with more confidence than he ought to have. “When you make love.”
“Make…” Ogata repeats, feeling slightly ill. For fuck’s sake. “Sure. If you’d like.” He’s about as unpracticed at this as he is at seduction, but he figures there can’t be much to it. It isn’t as if Yuusaku has any standard to go by, anyway.
Yuusaku leans in, eyes closed, and Ogata stares at him, wondering if he’s meant to close his eyes as well. In the end, he keeps them wide open, and he only blinks when Yuusaku turns his face at the last moment to kiss Ogata’s cheek.
It’s over in an instant, and before Ogata can ask if that’s really Yuusaku’s idea of a kiss, Yuusaku kisses him on the mouth. It’s brief enough that it can almost be mistaken by an accident, a dry graze of skin on skin. Yuusaku’s redder than Ogata’s ever seen him when he pulls back, his eyelashes dark against the blood pooling beneath his cheeks. “Thank you,” he says.
Ogata makes a derisive noise at that and hoists him forward by the collar of his jacket. Yuusaku’s mouth is jammed shut with shock at first, and Ogata lifts his hand to grip his jaw. Perhaps Yuusaku takes it as some sort of caress, judging by the moan he makes as he softens into the kiss.
It turns out that what Yuusaku might lack in experience, he makes up for through sheer level of determination. He kisses Ogata like he’s dying for it, his arm working its way between Ogata’s shoulders and the wall so that they’re caught in a sideways tangle. His other hand fumbles downwards, squeezing around Ogata’s bare thigh.
The heat of it catches Ogata off guard. It’s what he tells himself, when his cock jumps and his belly clenches. Yuusaku breaks away with a wheezing gasp, then immediately dives back in to mouth at Ogata’s face and neck.
“Stop,” Ogata says, without thinking. He doesn’t like the sound of his own voice when he says it. It’s too thin, thready, like a kid who doesn’t know what he wants.
Yuusaku makes a muffled sound of confusion against him, pressing his face harder into Ogata’s throat before abruptly jerking back. “What’s wrong?” He looks like he may cry, his eyes wide and glassy.
Ogata says nothing. There’s nothing wrong, he ought to say. And there isn’t. This is all going exactly as planned. There certainly isn’t anything wrong with enjoying himself a little along the way. It’s the least that he’s owed.
“It’s nothing.” He reaches out and grabs Yuusaku through his trousers when Yuusaku looks unconvinced.
“Just thought you might want to do something else, sir,” he says. He tries not to look as appalled as he feels when Yuusaku swells even harder beneath his hand.
“Do you have to call me that?” Yuusaku asks plaintively. “Right now?”
“You don’t like it?” Ogata gives an experimental squeeze and Yuusaku shudders, his hand clenching around Ogata’s shoulder. He squeezes again, curious, and this time, Yuusaku groans aloud. His arm tightens around Ogata’s shoulders, and Ogata gives a startled huff when Yuusaku’s weight tips their balance to the side.
He has to catch himself with a hand against the floor to keep the two of them from falling over entirely. Yuusaku tugs at him, his hands clumsy but purposeful as he pulls Ogata around to face him.
Ogata’s always been better off letting other people move him about as they please. He leans back on his hands and watches as Yuusaku situates himself between Ogata’s legs, his knees tucked under Ogata’s thighs. “Can I touch you?” Yuusaku asks.
Ogata sighs. “Anything you want,” he says again. Yuusaku could do, he thinks, with acting more like the young master sometimes.
Yuusaku leans in, his head bobbing oddly, and Ogata realizes he’s trying to come in for another kiss. It’s as clumsy as the first, but more confident, his hands slipping up under Ogata’s shirt and jacket with a shocking amount of initiative.
Yuusaku’s mouth tastes like fruit, sweet and warm behind his teeth. Ogata closes his eyes and relaxes into the feeling of Yuusaku carefully mapping out the cut of his hips, his fingers spreading over Ogata’s flanks and tracing down to the crease of his thighs. He’s suddenly reminded of the way his mother would stroke his hair as he fell asleep, the way her perfume smelled at the end of the day, tinged with sweat and smoke.
His memories of his childhood are like old photographs, moth-eaten and fading at the back of his mind. He remembers the events, but cannot remember what he felt when they happened. Perhaps he didn’t feel anything at all. He remembers being told to play outside when men would visit, and he would sit beneath the window of his mother’s bedroom and watch the clouds while they fucked on the other side of the wall. Son of a whore, they called him.
He doesn’t remember feeling anything about that, either. A whore is a whore, he supposes, and the son of one is just that. “You have your father’s eyes,” his mother would tell him, over and over as she palmed his cheek and dug her thumbnail covetously into his brow.
He does recall a certain distaste at those words. In his own opinion, there is nothing to be proud of in the comparison. He’d rather have no eyes at all than the eyes of someone else.
Yuusaku touches him like Ogata is all he sees. Not his father, or his mother, or the blood they share. Just him and him alone. It’s thrilling in its novelty, the most indecent form of kindness.
Ogata turns his face away, tilting his chin back when Yuusaku tries to follow. “Yuusaku-dono,” he says, aiming for sultry and landing somewhere south of impatient. “Why don’t you get undressed?”
“Huh?” Yuusaku mumbles. “Oh- yes, that’s…that’s a good idea.” When Ogata cracks his eyes open, he sees Yuusaku’s flushed cheeks, the pink of his tongue as he wets his lips. He closes his eyes again.
He hears the rustling of Yuusaku’s clothing, feels small gusts of air against his skin from the movement. He opens his eyes again and looks at Yuusaku kneeling there with his jacket hanging open around his chest, his trousers undone and pushed down to his knees. He’s hard enough that Ogata can see the line of his cock pressing against the fabric of his fundoshi. He nearly says something about Yuusaku never putting his saber to good use, but catches himself at the last second.
Look at you, he thinks instead. Greatest pride of the Hanazawa line, desperate and panting between the legs of a bastard. Satisfaction pools in his belly, hot and liquid.
He angles his knee and nudges it against Yuusaku’s groin, feeling the itch of a smirk building inside him when Yuusaku shudders. The smirk slips when Yuusaku pulls him close by the waist and buries his face into Ogata’s neck. His dick slides against Yuusaku’s, hot even through the layers between him, and his knees jerk tight around Yuusaku’s sides reflexively.
Fuck. He doesn’t entirely know why he does it, only that Yuusaku is warm and smells clean and it isn’t...it isn’t bad at all. It’s better than the smell of perfume, almost better than the scent of blood. He holds onto the cuffs of Yuusaku’s sleeves with a strength he didn’t know he could muster and bites his tongue when Yuusaku begins grinding against him in short, unsteady thrusts.
“Brother,” Yuusaku gasps, over and over like each breath could be his last. His breath pants out against Ogata’s jaw, leaving a trail of damp heat as he mouths his way upwards and presses an open kiss over Ogata’s cheekbone. “Brother, don’t look.”
Ogata gives an absent grunt that Yuusaku seemingly interprets as a question.
“It’s embarrassing,” Yuusaku says.
Yuusaku’s eyelashes, Ogata notes, look even longer when wet and clinging together with tears. He briefly imagines taking them between his teeth.
He closes his eyes, if only to stop Yuusaku from whining about it, and immediately regrets doing so. He can feel too much like this without the luxury of sight, his body grasping for any and every sensation available. He feels the slight burn of friction wherever Yuusaku’s clothes rub against him, the pressure of Yuusaku’s fingers against his ribs, the way his legs grow weak whenever Yuusaku fucks against him just right.
It would be better without the clothes, he thinks dimly. It could be better, if he just-
He works a hand down between them and tugs at Yuusaku’s fundoshi, loosening the twist of it just enough to get a hold on Yuusaku’s cock.
It’s just a dick, not at all that different from his own, but the angle of his hand renders this a completely unfamiliar experience. Yuusaku makes a pitched, shocked sound at the contact, and Ogata squeezes tighter. Yuusaku is thicker than him, and curved slightly to the right. There’s something validating about the normality of it- he had vaguely imagined something so perfect and flawless that it formed some sort of barrier against temptation.
“Brother, don’t.” Yuusaku twists above him, his brow creasing. “If you do that, if you- I’ll be d-done.”
“That’s fine,” Ogata says. Surely even Yuusaku knows the whole point of sex.
“No!” Yuusaku clutches Ogata closer with a sudden surge of strength, flattening his hand between their stomachs. “I want you to feel good, too.”
Ogata sighs through his nose and relents, rolling back onto the floor. He supposes he signed up for this, after all, though he didn’t think Yuusaku would be so insistent.
Yuusaku’s hand closes around him tentatively. His palm is more calloused than Ogata expected, for someone who’s never fought in battle. He looks up over the top of Yuusaku’s head at the ceiling. There’s a single window high on the wall where a beam of sunlight makes it through the wooden slats, dust motes drifting through it like gold dust caught in a current.
Yuusaku kisses him again, slow and sweet. His fingers are long enough to wrap around the both of them, the dryness of his skin making Ogata’s toes curl. His other hand slides under Ogata’s shirt to rest in the curve of his lower back as he begins rocking against him, the shape of his handprint burning into Ogata’s skin.
Yuusaku’s weight bears down on Ogata with each clumsy thrust, as heavy as the harsh breaths that he tries and fails to stifle against Ogata’s shoulder. Ogata wishes he took off his shirt before this. He’ll stink of sweat and sex after this and Usami will never let him hear the end of it.
Yuusaku’s thumb drags over the head of his cock, possibly by accident, and Ogata makes a muted sound. Yuusaku does it again, this time unmistakably on purpose, and Ogata sucks his lips against his teeth in denial.
Unfortunately, instead of dissuading him, it only seems to egg Yuusaku on. He kisses Ogata with a growing rawness that’ll leave Ogata’s mouth bruised red, his grip tightening until Ogata’s knees twitch against Yuusaku’s sides. He realizes he’s barely breathing, every muscle in his body clenched tight in anticipation.
As far as handjobs go, he’s managed to have better in the trenches. Yuusaku has no real sense of rhythm, and he can’t seem to make up his mind on how hard to squeeze. But the two of them are slick enough now that the drag of skin against skin is just on the right edge of uncomfortable, and it isn’t as if Ogata is particular about the finesse involved in getting off.
He’s far more distracted by the sound of Yuusaku’s voice in his ear, the way it trembles and breaks when he remembers to take a breath. “Brother,” Yuusaku finally groans. He sounds like he’s bleeding out, his breath hot as blood against Ogata’s cheek. “Ah, I’m- I think I’m-” His hips give a telltale shudder, hard enough to send Ogata sliding a couple of inches along the floor. “Brother, I feel-”
“Go on,” Ogata manages. His head feels muddled, like he’s drunk too much or sat too long in the sun. He doesn’t do this often for a damn good reason- he wouldn’t be able to shoot a gun right now if his finger was placed on the trigger for him. Then what would be the point of him?
“Brother, is it good?” Yuusaku’s voice comes tearing through the growing fog in his mind, leaving him blinking and confused. “Do you like it?”
Ogata doesn’t understand the question, but he gives a grunt that he hopes is vague enough to serve as an answer.
Yuusaku smiles down at him, then, so warmly that Ogata feels it shooting down his legs to his toes and back up to the crown of his head. It’s a disorienting thing to see and it leaves Ogata dumbfounded. It’s the shock of it, he decides later, that makes him come.
It almost hurts, his release torn from him like hide stripped from a carcass. He remembers the first time he shot a rifle, the way the stock kicked back against his shoulder and turned his bones to water. There’s something familiar now in the way he can’t stop himself from shaking, in the way his breath becomes a solid weight in his chest as he curls in tight on himself and spurts white streaks across the dark fabric of his jacket.
White on black, white on flushed skin, white on the back of Yuusaku’s stainless hands.
When Ogata can focus his eyes again, he sees Yuusaku tugging at himself desperately, his eyes slitted and dark and his ears burning red. He garbles something unintelligible when he comes, his voice trailing off to a hiccupping whine as he empties himself across Ogata’s stomach. He collapses to his side afterwards, his leg askew over Ogata’s thighs, and heaves a long, content sigh.
Ogata sits up slowly, his muscles protesting, and grimaces at the mess smeared across his front.
Beside him, Yuusaku stares at the glistening strands dripping between his fingers in dazed fascination. Ogata wonders if he knows that his mouth is open, that he’s aware of how he looks when he touches the tip of his tongue absently to his lip. He reaches out and grabs Yuusaku’s wrist before Yuusaku can do something stupid. “That’s dirty,” he says. “Here.”
He wipes Yuusaku’s fingers clean on the hem of his own ruined jacket, then shrugs it off and bundles it together unceremoniously under his arm. Yuusaku pulls his hand back to his chest like a child, watching him drowsily.
“We should go, sir,” Ogata says. “You shouldn’t sleep here.”
“I won’t.” Yuusaku yawns and stretches his legs, like he’s got all the time in the world. Ogata wonders if dimwittedness also comes with an elite upbringing. “Will you wait for me?”
He shouldn’t.
“One minute,” Ogata says. What’s a little longer, he reasons, when he’s already come this far? He waits, and if it’s longer than a minute, then it’s just another secret of theirs to keep.