Chapter Text
Night has already fallen by the time he arrives, the pale grey moonlight barely filtering through the heavy cover of the late winter clouds, but there’s no particular need for stealth anymore. Ogata lets himself in by the same small side gate he always uses – has always used, every time he’s come here – letting it fall closed behind him as he makes his way across the gardens.
Lady Hanazawa has long since left this house and returned to Hagi – Not that she was there very often to begin with, First Lieutenant Tsurumi had once told him, with a slight curve of his lips beneath his moustache and a knowing tilt of his head, as if he’d been relaying something salacious. At the time, Ogata had neither known nor cared – all he’d cared about then was that he wasn’t going to be interrupted in what he’d been sent to do. Tsurumi had sent him off this evening with the same small smile, the same knowing look, but all he’d said was You will remember what I’ve asked you, won’t you, Superior Private Ogata?
He leaves his boots beneath the engawa, folding away the buckles of his gaiters before he slides open the outer doors and passes into the house, closing them behind him and leaving the coldness of the night outside. He knows his way around now – the first time he’d come here it had been different, of course, and he’d had to rely purely on Tsurumi’s sketched map, meticulous and precise though it had been, and his own instincts. Back then, of course, Ogata had never expected he’d return here ever again, but he has a good memory for places he’s been before, and he moves easily through the house, despite the darkened corridors and unlit rooms.
Ogata resists the urge to pause as he makes his way along the corridor, passing by the room where he’d seen his father’s face at close quarters for the first and only time in his life, the deep shadows, maybe, and the pain of his wound making him look older than he had been. The shouji are shut, and Ogata wouldn’t risk opening them just now. He knows he wouldn’t see anything anyway – his father’s blood would have eventually soaked through the white robes he’d been swaddled in, of course, and stained the tatami beneath, but those mats would have been long since prised up and replaced, leaving no trace of what had happened there. Only Ogata knows what went on in that room, the only conversation he and his father had ever had, gently lit by the soft orange glow from the hibachi.
He’s not trying to be quiet, but his feet barely make a sound against the floorboards as he moves on. Perhaps he should feel it more – the lingering presence of his father, here in this place where he’d rasped out his last few breaths – but he doesn’t. There’s no such thing as ghosts: there can’t be, or Ogata would have no end of vengeful spirits dogging his heels. There’s nothing here but quiet air and the near-midnight darkness, and Ogata keeps his eyes on the faint haze of light from behind the closed shouji at the end of the corridor, from the single occupied room in this cavernous, silent, hollowed-out place.
Resting his fingers on the soft wood of the frame, Ogata pauses and breathes. Then he slides the shouji open and steps into the room.
“Ani-sama?”
Ogata swallows – he’d forgotten how grating it was to hear that in the months since he and Yuusaku had last seen each other – most especially since he’d thought, at one time, that he would never have to hear it again. It scrapes along his every last nerve, and he has to suppress a hiss of irritation, just as he had every time Yuusaku had said it from the moment they’d met in Asahikawa to the last time he’d seen him in Port Arthur. Now, here in Tokyo, in this house, Yuusaku turns from where he’s been kneeling in front of a low table with papers spread out across it, a tentative, faltering smile on his lips.
“You didn’t reply to my letter,” Yuusaku says after a moment, lifting his eyes to find Ogata’s face in the uncertain glow of the table lamp. “So I didn’t think you’d come – or perhaps you –”
“No,” Ogata says, cutting him off. He doesn’t really want to hear any more of what Yuusaku thought, since if it had been up to him, of course, he really wouldn’t have come. Still, he takes another step into the room, before turning to close the shouji behind him, to keep the hibachi’s heat in the room. And it gives him a moment to unclench his jaw, to soften his eyes – to find the right arrangement for his face when he turns to face his brother once more. “No, of course not.”
*
Ogata remembers nothing about Asakusa, and he certainly remembers nothing about the journey from Tokyo to Ibaraki, even though he imagines it must have been somewhat memorable, two women alone with a very young child, travelling such a long distance.
His earliest memory is of cold water, a stream murmuring at his bare, dirty feet, the sunlight catching on the creases of its surface. There’s a voice in his ear from someone standing behind him with their arm around his waist, saying, But why did you take your shoes off, Hyakunosuke? My, my, look how filthy you’ve gotten! as they dip his feet into the bright, cold stream, and the mud that covers his toes is washed away, borne off by the current. There, that’s better. Now shall we go inside?
He barely remembers his mother’s voice now – she so rarely spoke directly to him, except for the lullabies she used to sing in a thin, reedy, rasping voice, just as he teetered on the edge of sleep, and the times she’d told him, Your father will be coming home soon. He’s a soldier, so it’s normal for him to be away. But when he returns, he’ll see how much you’ve grown. She would never thank him for the ducks he brought, though – she’d never even seemed to notice them, no matter how many he brought, after having spent the dark of the pre-dawn hours walking to the lake, sandals crunching over the frost, watching his breath drift away from him into the frigid autumn air.
It had remained a habit even after his mother had died, to rise before the dawn and take his grandfather’s gun out to the lake to shoot a duck just as the sun’s first rays began to break over the hills in the distance. His grandmother, at least, would cook them. It had continued that way until the day his grandfather had sent him into service at a neighbouring farm, saying they were getting old, and Ogata would need to take care of himself for now and, in time, take care of them. Ogata gets no time to go out hunting now, and in any case, he’d had to leave his grandfather’s gun behind. Farm work is occupying, at least, if dull, and every day is more or less the same – at least until the morning the foreman comes to fetch him, telling him, “There’s an army man here who wants to see you, Ogata.”
“So this is the eldest son of Lieutenant General Hanazawa Koujirou,” the army man says, resplendent in his uniform, its pristine whiteness as out of place as a shimmering patch of snow amidst the late spring greenery. Ogata stands before him, caked to the shins in mud, his knuckles red from dipping his hands into the cold water of the stream to wash them. A prickle of unease licks down his spine at the sound of his father’s name, and he can’t stop himself from swallowing, his jaw clenched. But he says nothing, silently returning the man’s stare. He wants to ask him who he is, if his father has sent him – You’re too late, he wants to say. My mother is dead, and he never came. Why has he sent you now, when it doesn’t matter anymore?
The man looks him over, his eyes dark and quick – and then he smiles. “Shall we go somewhere else to talk?”
“Ah, yes,” Second Lieutenant Tsurumi says a little later, after he’s introduced himself properly and bought Ogata a meal of rice and vegetables. He’s not here on behalf of Ogata’s father – he’s here for himself. Ogata is still sceptical of that, but he’s not about to turn down an offer of food. Tsurumi regards him through half-closed eyes as Ogata eats, his head slightly tilted. “I can most certainly see it – the family resemblance, I mean. It’s something in the eyes, I think – certainly no one could miss it once it’s been pointed out to them. You look far more like Lieutenant General Hanazawa than his son with his legal wife.”
Ogata says nothing, chewing on his rice, eyes lowered. He already knows all of this – his grandmother had told him the reasons they’d had to leave Asakusa, why they’d had to come back here to Ibaraki.
“And your mother – Tome-san, isn’t it?” Second Lieutenant Tsurumi’s eyes are on his face, dark and intent.
“She’s dead,” Ogata mutters through his mouthful of food.
“Oh, I am sorry. What, may I ask…?”
Ogata swallows his rice, then reaches for his tea. “They said it was something she ate.”
“Well. I see. That’s a terrible shame.” Tsurumi leans back in his seat, and Ogata can’t help but notice he hasn’t touched even a morsel of his own food. “I would have liked to have offered her something, for her troubles. But it would also be a terrible shame for a boy with such noble blood in his veins to waste his life out here in the fields, when he could be so much more.” As Ogata raises his eyes, Tsurumi leans forward, smiling gently, teeth glinting wetly beneath the shadow of his moustache. “It seems you can farm – but is there anything else you can do?”
Ogata stares down at his own face, reflected back at him from his cup of tea, marred by one or two floating tea leaves drifting across its shimmering surface. He looks away.
“I can shoot.”
*
“I’m sorry,” Yuusaku says, as Ogata seats himself at the chabudai, within the pool of pale yellow light cast by the small table lamp. Yuusaku clears away the papers littered across it, stacking them neatly and carrying them across the room to put them inside a chest of drawers. “When you didn’t reply I didn’t think you were coming, so I don’t have anything to offer you to –”
“It’s fine,” Ogata says, cutting him off. “I’m not hungry.”
Ogata doesn’t have to wonder how Yuusaku knew he’d be accompanying Tsurumi to Tokyo to hear Central Command’s decision about the punishment the 7th Division will receive in the wake of Lieutenant General Hanazawa’s suicide. He’d known he’d find himself back here from the moment Tsurumi had turned to him, eyes glinting darkly, and said, A visit from his brother would be a comfort to Yuusaku after his recent bereavement, don’t you think, Superior Private Ogata? He’d paused, and a small smile had passed across his lips. Especially in the case of so sudden a death – it must have weighed heavily on the general’s conscience, that his own son returned home safely when so many others did not. It must have been unbearable, for a man of Lieutenant General Hanazawa’s scruples.
Yuusaku looks soft and well-fed – the time he spent in Hagi recovering from his wound has agreed with him, clearly. Ogata stares at the broad line of his back at he puts his papers away and wonders why he’d return here, to this house, when he has somewhere else to go.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while,” Yuusaku says, as he sits down again, across from Ogata. He drops his eyes. “I thought of writing you a letter, but then…”
He trails off, and Ogata waits. He stares at Yuusaku’s face as he looks away, his tongue darting over his lower lip. It’s not every day, after all, that he gets to look at a man who should be dead.
“I was always sorry I never got to say goodbye to you in Port Arthur,” Yuusaku says eventually. “It’s my own fault – and I could have written to you afterwards.” He pulls in a breath, raising his eyes to Ogata’s face again. “I wanted you to come to the funeral. But…”
Ogata wants to laugh – he doesn’t have to imagine what kind of meaning that But… might contain. As if Hanazawa Hiro would have allowed it – as if she would have allowed the kind of gossip and tongue-wagging that would result from having the bastard product of her husband’s affair with an Asakusa geisha to openly attend his funeral. Ogata can’t even blame her for wanting to spare herself the extra humiliation, even if it doesn’t make him dislike her any less. Even though she has more to be grateful to him for than she will ever know.
The only person who would ever possibly think, even for a moment, that it would be appropriate for Ogata to have come to their father’s funeral is Yuusaku – But it’s all right, Ogata wants to tell him, feeling a smile twitch at the corner of his lips, even as he struggles to suppress it, I already said my farewells to our father. We said everything we had to say to each other.
“It’s fine,” is what he actually forces himself to say. “I understand.”
Yuusaku’s brow furrows as he looks at him. “I wish you’d had the chance to meet. I know, if he could have met you, he would have…”
That at least wipes the smile from Ogata’s face. He can barely keep the acid that surges suddenly up his throat stopped up behind his teeth. “He what, Sir?”
Yuusaku looks a little pained by the Sir, but at least he doesn’t say anything about it. What he does say is worse, though.
“I know, if he could have met you, things would have been different,” Yuusaku says. His eyebrows draw together, his eyes seeming to range across Ogata’s face. “You look more like him than I ever did. Perhaps he would have –”
“I should be going, Sir,” Ogata says, unfolding himself from beneath the table. The churn in his stomach has become unbearable – if he doesn’t leave now, he’ll end up saying something he regrets. Or rather, that First Lieutenant Tsurumi will make him regret later, once the full force of his disappointment in him becomes apparent, not that Ogata has particularly cared about that for quite some time now.
Yuusaku blinks at him, looking startled. “Yes, of course,” he says after a moment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think before I spoke. But I wanted to tell you –” He hesitates, looking utterly lost, and Ogata pauses, wondering what else he could possibly have to say. “I wanted to say that I don’t think it’s right that they’re planning to punish the 7th Division for what happened. It’s not what Father would have wanted at all. I’m sure if he’d known, he never would have –” He stops, drawing in a breath. “It was from remorse at how many men were lost,” Yuusaku continues a moment later, both looking and sounding utterly miserable. “I wrote to General Itou, to tell them what I thought – I’ve asked to meet with him in person.”
Ogata feels that same small smile tugging on the corner of his lip as he looks down at Yuusaku and the wretched expression on his face. The table lamp flickers, the shadows jumping across his face as Ogata watches, and it suddenly comes to him how tired Yuusaku looks. “And you think you can persuade them, Sir?”
Perhaps the irony in his tone is a little stronger than he intended, because Yuusaku looks up at him, blinking, surprise clear in his eyes. Ogata thinks he might be about to ask a question when he opens his mouth, but then, instead, he says, “Well, I don’t know, Ani-sama. But I hope I can explain that punishing the 7th Division can’t possibly be of any benefit to Father’s memory.”
Ogata stares down at him a moment, at where his fists are folded on the table in front of him, his knuckles stark and white against the dark brown wood. “Yes,” he says. “Perhaps you’re right.”
He is across the room, his fingers resting on the frame of the shouji, ready to slide them open when Yuusaku calls out to him again. “Ani-sama,” he says, his voice sounding muffled in the thick, dead air of the room. “I hope that if you’re ever in need of any help yourself, you’ll think of me.”
Ogata pauses, pressing the tips of his fingers into the wood of the shouji frame. When he lifts them again there is a line running through them, a sharp dent through the calloused tips. He swallows, and without turning back, he says, “I’ll remember that, Sir.”
“That sounds very promising,” Tsurumi says later, once Ogata is back at the barracks and has relayed the conversation to him. It’s late, and Ogata is tired – speaking with Yuusaku has that effect on him. But Tsurumi hasn’t yet given him leave to go. He stands in the centre of the room Tsurumi has been assigned, as the first lieutenant stands at his window, the dark blue moonlight filtering over his face. Ogata watches him – he’s still getting used to the way Tsurumi looks now, with the raw, red scars around his eyes and the headplate, pale as a slice of exposed bone in the moonlight, covering the wound in his forehead. A lesser man would have died, Ogata reluctantly admits – it’s only someone as tenacious as Tsurumi who could continue on, who could turn such a hideous injury into an advantage.
Finally, he turns back towards him, and despite the shadow that falls across his face, Ogata can see that his eyes are still the same as they always have been, ever since the first time he saw him when he was just a boy in Ibaraki. “Thank you, Superior Private. We must remember to keep your brother’s generous offer in mind. You’ve done well – you may go.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Ogata mutters, before turning and making his way to the door. Once he’s on the other side of it, however, he immediately senses Usami’s lurking presence in the darkness of the hallway – probably peeping through the keyhole or pressing his ear up to the door. When he turns, he finds Usami lounging with one shoulder against the wall, just visible in the deep shadows between the softly lit lamps.
“What are you looking at?” Ogata snaps at him – he’s at the end of his patience, nerves frayed, and in no mood for whatever Usami might want to do or say.
In the end, Usami just smiles, exposed canine shining as it catches the scant light. “Nothing,” is all he says.
*
Before Yuusaku had arrived in Asahikawa as a newly commissioned second lieutenant, Ogata had asked Tsurumi whether he would even know him and how – I doubt my father would have mentioned me. And he didn’t recognise me at the Imperial Hotel. He can still remember it, the oppressive weight of Hanazawa Yuusaku’s presence as they had passed by each other in the hotel hallway, after that naked man, who’d probably been the rich girl’s plaything, had run off. Yuusaku’s respectful salute as Ogata had passed him by hadn’t been intended to cover up his distaste at seeing his unwanted half-brother in this most unexpected place – there’d been nothing feigned about it, of that Ogata is certain. Yuusaku had been completely oblivious to what they were to each other, who Ogata was. But Ogata had known him – he hadn’t needed Tsurumi to point him out.
Oh, he knows about you now, Tsurumi had said with a kind of blithe indifference, as if it was nothing, and Ogata, staring at him through narrowed eyes, had thought, Of course he does.
He’d realised some time ago that things tended to fall the way Tsurumi said they would, and it had been the same this time as well – though Ogata could never have predicted that Yuusaku would, from the first time they met, call him Ani-sama, or just how persistently he’d try to become his friend. Ogata expected haughtiness, arrogance, disgust, or perhaps that Yuusaku wouldn’t acknowledge him at all – he’d expected Yuusaku to behave like the officer candidates he’d sometimes seen in Tokyo during his time there, loose from their families for the first time in their lives, spilling out of bars, getting into street brawls, calling out even to respectable women walking with their maids, spending their evenings in the parts of the city that Ogata imagined his father had gone when he’d been a younger man. Instead, he’s gotten this, a gentle-eyed, mild-mannered boy who’d approached him with a wide, unguarded smile after mess one day and told him that he’d always wanted a brother.
“How did you find out about me, Sir?” Ogata asks Yuusaku one day, when his curiosity gets the better of him – they’re still in Asahikawa, though rumours have been swirling for weeks that they’ll be getting their deployment orders any day now. Yuusaku had come to find him, voice quiet in the dry, still air, asking him if he had some time to talk, asking if he was warm enough out here in the cold.
Yuusaku glances at him, a pink tinge colouring his ears. For a moment he doesn’t answer, and then he exhales, his breath a warm cloud in the frigid air. “I – the commanding officer when I went to do my field training knew Father when he was in the Imperial Guards, so he said – he said – well, I don’t think he realised –” Yuusaku cuts himself off, swallowing, his tongue darting over his lips. “It’s… not so uncommon, after all,” Yuusaku continues after a moment, his voice small. “Is it?”
“I wouldn’t know, Sir.” Ogata looks out into the twilight, blinking. He wonders how Yuusaku had felt, finding out his father had kept such a secret. Why he’d listen to the words of such a man after such a discovery, such a long deception. Ogata wonders if he’d been angry, or if he could even admit to having felt anger. “But I assume you know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I –” He hears the soft, watery sound of Yuusaku swallowing again. “Well, I thought at the time that it would mean I had a brother after all. I’d always wanted one, growing up. But I never thought…”
Yuusaku’s voice has taken on a slightly dreamy tone as he trails off, and Ogata watches him out of the corner of his eye as he tilts his face up towards the grey-blue of the twilit sky, eyelashes flickering in the half-light.
“And do I live up to your expectations, Sir?” he asks – he means it ironically, of course, but Yuusaku can’t possibly know that.
Yuusaku blinks, looking mildly startled as he lowers his head and turns to face him, eyes wide. “Why, of course you do, Ani-sama. How can you even ask that?”
*
Ogata has never felt the cold – even the winters in Port Arthur hadn’t affected him the way they’d affected the other men, and he’d been able to stand unmoving for hours, waiting for a chance to take a shot, only to discover that his feet and lower legs had gone numb from standing in the freezing wind, his feet sinking into the icy mud of the trench.
He doesn’t feel it now either, but the winters here in Tokyo are mild compared to the ones in Port Arthur, or even in Ibaraki. He’d waved off Yuusaku’s offer to get him a scarf or a winter coat – I’m in uniform, Sir, it wouldn’t be allowed anyway – as if anything that had been made for Yuusaku would fit him well. The day is cold enough, however, that the streets are largely empty of anyone who can afford to stay off them, and cold enough to turn the tips of Yuusaku’s ears pink, and turn their breath to streams of white vapour as they walk. It’s winter’s last gasp before it gives way to spring, the last truly cold day they’ll have this year, or so Tsurumi had said this morning when he’d given Ogata leave to accept Yuusaku’s invitation – an invitation Ogata hadn’t known about until Tsurumi had told him of it, but then, Ogata shouldn’t really have been surprised that Tsurumi had been intercepting his messages.
In the cold, white sunlight of the day Ogata can see that Yuusaku has let his hair grow out a little from the strict regulation cut he’d kept it in during all the time he’d known him, first at Asahikawa and then at Port Arthur – the same closely shorn style as his men. The jacket he’s wearing seems almost too small for him, however, the collar biting into his neck when he turns his head to look at Ogata, pressing against the skin at the side of his throat.
“I’m so pleased you decided to come with me today, Ani-sama,” he says, and he does in fact sound genuinely pleased, not that this should surprise Ogata any more than Tsurumi stealing his mail should have. “It didn’t cause you any difficulty?”
“No, Sir,” Ogata says, as they pass between the komainu guarding the south gate of Yasukuni Shrine. Of course Tsurumi had given him permission to come. Of course he’d sent him here with that small, knowing half-smile and a gentle, indulgent glint in his eye. It had made Ogata grind his teeth.
Yuusaku seems to be waiting for him to say more, the same way he often does – when they’d first met, Yuusaku had always talked enough for them both, telling Ogata things that Ogata had barely listened to and asking questions that Ogata had barely answered. Over time, he’d seemed to notice more and more how little Ogata actually spoke to him – he’d paused occasionally, waiting, eyes hopeful, almost like a dog waiting for confirmation that it had done the right thing, completed its task to the satisfaction of its master. But of course, Ogata had never given him that; he’d simply made his excuses and slipped away, at least until Tsurumi had suggested to him that it might be time to see if Second Lieutenant Hanazawa Yuusaku truly lived up to his reputation.
And then, just as now, Yuusaku had been so pleased, pink rising on his cheeks, a bright, surprised smile on his face, when Ogata had said to him, I have the evening off next week, Yuusaku-dono – would you like to come into Asahikawa with me? I have some places I’d like to show you, as if Ogata had been doing him some immeasurable kindness by asking him.
The water of the temizuya is freezing cold against the palms of his hands, against his tongue. Ogata remembers all this from when his grandmother had taken him to their small local shrine as a young boy, since she’d been very pious about that kind of thing, showing him how to purify himself, her gnarled fingers, callused from a lifetime of farm work, wrapped around his wrists to guide his hands. Still, Ogata watches Yuusaku from the corner of his eye, the way he ladles water over his hands, pouring it into his cupped palm before lifting it to his lips, eyelashes lowered. He has to bow his head to his hand after a certain point – he can’t raise his left arm quite high enough to reach his mouth. Maybe it’s the weather – maybe his now-healed wound troubles him when it’s this cold. Or maybe it’s simply permanent at this point; Ogata doesn’t know how much flesh they had to cut away in order to pull out the bullet and then sew Yuusaku’s shoulder back together. Ogata wonders what it looks like – the mass of scar tissue that sits just below the layers of his clothing. He’s never seen it; it had been covered by bandages in the field hospital at Port Arthur, and after that, Ogata hadn’t seen Yuusaku again until last week.
“I know I shouldn’t take up all your free time while you’re here,” Yuusaku says after a moment, as they make their way along the flagstone path. “But I thought –”
“It’s fine, Yuusaku-dono,” Ogata interrupts him. The trees on either side of the path are wrapped for winter, bound in twine, and their footsteps seem loud in the surrounding quiet. “I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.”
Yuusaku nods, blinking. “I’m so glad. But I was sure that First Lieutenant Tsurumi would allow it – I hoped he would. I knew you would want the chance to come here. I attended the goushisai last year – I met the family of Private First Class Katsumoto. You remember him, don’t you?”
Ogata does, vaguely – he remembers how he died, anyway, in a field hospital with his gut split open by a Russian bayonet, the bullet from a Mosin-Nagant lodged in his chest. He’d asked for Yuusaku with what little breath he’d had left, and Yuusaku, of course, had come, holding Katsumoto’s hand and stroking his face as he died, while Katsumoto’s other hand had pressed against the belly wound that had killed him, fingers curled in agony, coated in his own blood.
“It must be such a comfort to their families,” Yuusaku says softly. “Knowing that all our fallen comrades are –”
Ogata glances over at Yuusaku as he abruptly stops speaking, only to find him wiping the back of his right hand across his face, scrubbing away the tears that have welled up in his eyes. Ogata stares at him a moment, wishing he could still feel astonished by the things Yuusaku says and does. But now, he simply feels a low, sickening churning in his stomach. Of course Yuusaku says these things. Of course he believes them. What else could possibly be expected of him? And if nothing else, Ogata has come to learn that Yuusaku will always try to do what’s expected of him.
This is what you get for being so stupid as to believe those lies in the first place, Ogata thinks, after they’ve clapped their hands before the offertory box and lowered their heads to pray. He struggles to keep the sneer from his lips as he watches Yuusaku’s face – Yuusaku’s eyes are closed, of course, tears still sticking his eyelashes together into damp clumps, as he prays to all those dead men lying out there in the fields Tsurumi is so keen on possessing – they’re dead, with no one to blame but themselves, all because they swallowed the same lies. If they hadn’t, then perhaps they’d still be alive.
It all means nothing, Ogata thinks, watching from the corner of his eye as Yuusaku finally raises his head, exhaling, his breath freezing in the cold air as it leaves his lips. He looks like he might start crying again, which, to be honest, Ogata would rather avoid. “Shall we go, Sir?”
He hasn’t had the chance to talk to Yuusaku about the things Tsurumi had told him to press him on, but all Ogata wants to do now is get away – he feels suddenly disgusted and irritated with this, all of this. Why can’t Tsurumi wheedle Yuusaku himself, if he’s so desperate to get his support? Yuusaku would come if Tsurumi asked him for a meeting; he’d be only too glad to. But Ogata understands that Tsurumi won’t expose himself until he’s sure Yuusaku is already ensnared. Or else…
Or else he simply wants to see what Yuusaku will do. Or what Ogata will do.
“Yes – I know you don’t have much time.” Yuusaku turns to him with a watery smile – sad, perhaps, that their time together is already at an end. It would be a perfect time to talk to him, Ogata realises, while he’s still on the verge of openly crying over dead men, while the ones who are still alive are about to have their just rewards stripped away from them. But Ogata can’t force the words past his lips – he thinks if he opens his mouth now, the only thing that will come out is a surge of bile.
They make their way in silence down the steps and back down the path towards the gate. Ogata thinks he might be spared any more useless talking, but just as they step beneath the gate’s wide shadow Yuusaku says suddenly, “I didn’t consider my words very well the other evening. I’m terribly sorry if I offended you, Ani-sama.”
Yuusaku isn’t looking at him, and it takes Ogata a moment to understand what he means: Yuusaku thinks he left their father’s house so abruptly the last time they met because of what he’d said about their father – how he’d wished they could have met.
“Perhaps it wouldn’t have been, after all… well, I shouldn’t have…” Yuusaku swallows, a flush creeping up his cheeks. Then he presses his lips together, perhaps gathering his resolve, perhaps coming to some kind of decision. “What I mean to say is that I wanted to meet you, Ani-sama. It was my choice. I knew that perhaps Father might not have wished it, even at the time. And to be honest, I didn’t write to him to tell him that I had spoken to you, because I thought he might order me not to associate with you anymore. But I felt that – that I wanted someone to –” He cuts himself off again, lowering his eyes.
Ogata’s throat has grown tight, his mouth very dry.
“I meant what I said though, Ani-sama. I think that if Father could only have seen what a credit you are to the 7th Division, perhaps he would have –”
“I suppose we’ll never know,” Ogata interrupts him, forcing his words out at last. Of course, that’s only half-true, however: he knows. “Sir,” he adds belatedly.
“No. I suppose not.” Yuusaku both looks and sounds completely miserable. They stand together in the empty street on the other side of the gate – Yuusaku seems, once again, to be waiting for Ogata to say more, do more, and for a moment, Ogata toys with the idea of asking him – If you had written to our father, Sir, and he’d told you to break off talking to me – would you have done it?
He can already imagine the stricken expression on Yuusaku’s face, the small, dismayed sound he would make. The reassurance that No, Ani-sama, I would have found a way, I would have told him, I would have explained –
Ogata doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear any of it. But still, he can feel the words pressing against his tongue, trying to force their way past his teeth. “Well. Goodbye, Yuusaku-dono. Thank you for inviting me. It was very thoughtful.”
The clipped, impersonal courtesy of his words, he hopes, is enough that Yuusaku won’t detain him any longer, and he doesn’t. “Of course,” Yuusaku says, voice soft, eyes downturned. “I understand. Please, give First Lieutenant Tsurumi my regards. And Sergeant Tsukishima and Superior Private Usami too, of course.”
Ogata can almost hear the way Usami would hoot if he actually did bother to pass on Yuusaku’s regards – Oh, his regards! Well, tell him I thank him very much for those. As he makes his way through the streets of Tokyo back towards Central Command, he tries to plan out what he’ll say to Tsurumi, how he’ll frame their conversation. He’d said nothing of the 7th, but Tsurumi need not know that. Ogata can simply be vague – tell him that Yuusaku had seemed to listen to what he had to say but hadn’t seemed ready to commit. And just like Usami, Ogata can already hear Tsurumi’s voice, already imagine what he’ll say: Ah, no matter, Hyakunosuke. I’m sure you’ll manage it! This will be your chance to make up for what happened in Asahikawa. We can simply turn your brother’s sense of justice to our advantage. And he does admire you so very much.
He makes an audible noise of disgust as he walks, knowing that when Tsurumi says admire he means love – though Tsurumi knows as well as Ogata does that the love Yuusaku imagines he feels is meaningless, just something else for Tsurumi to use. Ogata himself has no use for it – he spent his childhood watching what love does to a person. How it hollows them out, day by day, leaving nothing behind – it reminds him of the wasps his grandfather had once told him about, who lay their eggs in a living host, a spider or a caterpillar or a beetle, so the hatched larvae can feed upon it, killing it eventually but only slowly, and until then it’s alive, miserable, in pain, blindly trying to continue its existence, unaware that it’s being fed on. When I come across something like that, I just want to put it out of its misery, his grandfather had said, making a motion with his fingers to show how he’d crushed whatever it was he’d found. It’s quicker that way. Kinder.
Ogata can see the same process happening with Yuusaku – the same fruitless search for someone who won’t come, who’ll never love him in the way he wants them to, someone who never, in truth, even existed in the first place.
Like father, like son, Ogata thinks, with a sickening turn of his stomach, a smile twisting over his lips. His father’s blood runs in his veins, after all.
*
They haven’t set foot on dry land for long before they’re ordered to march, and they haven’t stopped marching for long before they’re ordered to march again.
Ogata isn’t privy to the names of the small towns they pass through, but he can’t say he’s especially interested in any case. Everywhere is more or less the same, anyway – the same desolate feeling of any place that soldiers march through, filled with the same wary, hollow-eyed civilians watching them as they pass, the same starving dogs cowering by doorways, the same enormous rats scuttling into the gutters to get out of their way. The same dust kicked up from beneath their feet, getting into their clothes, their eyes, their ears, their lungs.
The haze in the air isn’t just the dust, Ogata realises when they stop to rest at some small town or other – when he wanders away from the main body of men as far as he dares, off towards the tents of the field hospitals that have been put up a short distance from the outermost buildings of the town, he finds a fire burning, dark, greasy coils of smoke rising from the flames. Ogata watches for a while, the view mostly obscured by the tents, until he realises with a mild jolt that it’s dead bodies that are being burned, a stack of them being cremated together, blackening limbs tangled, the cloth of their uniforms eaten up by the flames.
“It’s sobering, isn’t it, Ani-sama?”
Ogata’s spine stiffens at the sound of Yuusaku’s voice behind him – how had he found him? But then, it seems Yuusaku can always find him, no matter where he goes.
“I suppose so, Sir. But people do die in wars.”
The wind picks up, sending the column of smoke tearing towards them, the rank smell of burning flesh filling the air. Ogata watches Yuusaku’s face, wondering if he’ll blanch, but Yuusaku just looks grave, his eyes sad. He seems sensitive to the deaths, but not, as Ogata might have expected, frightened or disgusted.
They stand together watching the licking flames until they begin to die down – the soldiers and medics tending the fire walk towards it, stoking it up again to burn what remains, and at last Ogata turns away. “Was there something you wanted, Sir?”
“Not in particular,” Yuusaku says, shaking his head. “I just wanted to find out where you had decided to bed down for the evening.”
Ogata tries to keep his face neutral. “Why is that, Sir?”
“I just thought I might find somewhere nearby, if it was all right with you.” Yuusaku’s face is open, guileless. “I’ve heard the men say you always seem to find someplace snug and cosy, like you have an instinct for it.”
“Is that so, Sir?” Only Yuusaku, on hearing the men speaking like that, would think they were being complimentary. “Why aren’t you staying with the other officers?”
Captain Wada and his staff had almost immediately disappeared into the farmhouse the officers who were responsible for occupying this area had requisitioned. All the other officers were entitled to the same privileges. Was Yuusaku really going to sleep in whatever space he could find, like a common soldier?
Yuusaku tilts his head. His eyes are strangely light-coloured where they catch the last of the waning sunlight. “It’s not such a terrible hardship, is it, Ani-sama?” he asks. “To simply do what the rest of you do?”
Yuusaku seems to be waiting for some kind of agreement from Ogata, but he only grunts – to him, this simply sounds like stupidity. He walks slightly behind Yuusaku as they make their way back towards where the men are billeting, laying down on straw mats under whatever shelter they can find – the Nikaidous off by themselves as per usual, that lumbering ox of a Matagi sitting upright against a wall, his eyes bright in the half-light, staring at everyone as they pass as if waiting for someone to attack him. When night falls, Ogata finds himself looking at the outline of Yuusaku’s shoulder where he lies with his officer’s greatcoat draped over him – not so humble, apparently, that he can give that up – the whiteness of his breath streaming into the freezing cold air of the night.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows he must, because when he wakes the next morning before dawn, he can feel the cold chill of a fever settling in his bones. He’s been prone to them since he was a child, and he knows what the onset feels like by now – the bone-deep shivering, the flushed feeling in his cheeks, the disgusting, sour sweat that coats his body. But he doesn’t realise how bad it is until he tries to stand up and finds his legs are too weak to hold him, collapsing beneath him so that he jars his hip painfully on the hard earth beneath his sleeping mat.
I’m fine, he tries to say when he feels a hand tugging at his arm and then pressing itself against his forehead – it’s shockingly cold against his skin, and he flinches, trying to pull away, though he’s being held fast. Someone speaks to him, but Ogata feels almost as if he’s hearing them from far away, or he’s submerged in murky water, unable to make out anything but his own heartbeat pulsing loudly in his ears. Leave me be, it’ll pass, he wants to say, irritation rising within him, but he can’t get the words out between the chattering of his teeth. Through the rising haze of the fever, he’s vaguely aware of being lifted – he wants to resist, but his limbs won’t obey him, and Ogata has no choice but to accept it, letting himself be carried like a ragdoll.
In the throes of the illness, Ogata is barely aware of the passing of time – he dreams of being back home in Ibaraki, and he knows the fever must still have him in its teeth because he dreams he can hear his mother’s voice, feel her hand in his hair as he lies shivering beneath the blanket, and then every once in a while someone forces open his jaw, pouring foul-tasting medicine down his throat.
There’s a song his mother used to sing to him, but Ogata can barely remember the words anymore – and certainly, they elude him at this moment too, though somehow he thinks he can still hear them being sung somewhere on the very edge of his perception, somehow both terrifyingly close and very far away.
When his fever breaks, Ogata finds himself staring up at the white canvas roof of one of the field hospital tents as it shifts gently in the wind. His mouth tastes sour, his throat parched. His skin feels damp and filthy. When he shifts his eyes to the right, he sees first the bodies of wounded men, stretched out on their cots, wrapped in blood-stained bandages. When he shifts them to the left, however, he sees Yuusaku, his coat and collar open, his chin resting on his shoulder as he sleeps propped up in a chair by Ogata’s bedside.
As Ogata stares at him, he blinks awake, turning to look at Ogata’s face, and then he sits up straight, reaching out to take Ogata’s hand where it rests on the stiff blanket and hold it between his own.
“Ani-sama! You’re awake! Are you feeling any better?” In the soft, silty light that filters in through the canvas roof of the tent, Yuusaku looks tired, and Ogata wonders how long he’s been sitting there, keeping vigil. Something stirs deep within him, like a memory trying to rise to the surface of his mind, and Ogata closes his eyes, ruthlessly pushing it away.
The sides of his throat scrape together as he swallows, and he pulls his hand out from between Yuusaku’s, skin prickling as it’s exposed once again to the coldness of the air.
“Yes, Sir. I’m completely fine.”
*
“First Lieutenant Hanazawa first wrote and then spoke most persuasively in favour of the 7th retaining their just rewards for their efforts – it must be difficult for him, knowing that they are being scapegoated for his father’s disgrace.” Tsurumi tsks regretfully. “I know he must be terribly moved by their plight.”
“Yes, Sir.” Ogata stares straight ahead, at the knothole on the wall behind Tsurumi’s head.
“I can’t say for certain it wasn’t Yuusaku’s little letter that led to this most recent delay.” Tsurumi gestures dismissively down at the letter in front of him, as if it’s something of no great importance, rather than a notification that Central Command will need more time to consider the 7th Division’s case. “I suppose I appreciate that they want to carefully consider what they are about to do – or at least give the appearance of it. Perhaps they’re impressed by the show of filial piety, even in the face of such scandal. It’s a very fine line we must walk, from here on out.”
Despite the smoothness with which he’s speaking, Ogata can tell Tsurumi is not pleased. Perhaps he hadn’t expected Yuusaku’s letter to have any effect on the generals of Central. Ogata knows he needs them to decide against the 7th for his plans to proceed: he needs angry, aggrieved men, men to whom he alone can make any promise of satisfaction. If the men get their medals and their money after all, some – maybe even many of them – are likely to slink away, saying they’ve got what they’re owed and it’s not worth the trouble it’d cause now to keep fighting, no matter how much they personally adore Tsurumi himself.
“But at least it’s clear that Yuusaku can see that Central are behaving in ways that can’t possibly be supported,” Tsurumi says, leaning back in his chair, steepling his fingers, his eyes glinting darkly beneath his headplate. “Has he given any further indications as to his thoughts?”
Ogata remains staring at the knothole. “Not yet, Sir. Aside from agreeing with you that it would be unjust to punish the 7th Division.”
It’s not a lie – Ogata doesn’t have to lie. He’s missed both chances so far to bring Yuusaku into First Lieutenant Tsurumi’s fold; Yuusaku hasn’t given him any indication of what he thinks of Tsurumi’s plans because Ogata has never asked him. But then, he’d been sceptical about the sincerity of Tsurumi’s idea to keep Yuusaku alive in the first place, from the first moment Tsurumi had told him not to shoot his brother after all. Yuusaku just isn’t that sort of person – he might be discouraged, dispirited, even angry if the 7th are stripped of their rewards for the sake of Lieutenant General Hanazawa, but Ogata can’t imagine him entering into any kind of plot about it. But he also has his doubts about how genuine Tsurumi’s own belief is.
“Press him on it, Hyakunosuke.” Tsurumi unsteeples his fingers and leans forward, hands palm-down against his desk. When Ogata finally shifts his eyes away from the knothole, he finds Tsurumi’s unwavering gaze on his face. “This delay, while inconvenient, gives you more time to work on him. Find out if he really can be swayed to our cause.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I hear he’s being considered for a role as an instructor at the Army Academy – quite the plum, it seems, for a man whose family name has been so tarnished.”
“I see, Sir.”
Tsurumi looks away from him at last, gazing out of the window and seeming to lapse into thoughtfulness. “It would be a shame to think a man like Yuusaku could be bought, wouldn’t it, Hyakunosuke?” he says eventually, eyes still turned towards the window, the last of the pale afternoon sunlight illuminating the planes of his face. He still looks somewhat gaunt, but Ogata supposes that’s to be expected given how recently recovered he is. Tsurumi sighs, a gentle, subtle motion, before he turns to look at Ogata once more. “I’m sure that that’s not the case. But if it is, then I’m sure you can see how it might be an issue for us.”
Ogata says nothing. He wants to drag his eyes away from Tsurumi’s, but he finds he can’t – Tsurumi has always had the black-eyed gaze of a snake stalking its prey, and Ogata had thought he was immune to it by now, that he saw through all of Tsurumi’s little tricks and traps. But detecting them and evading them are two different things, and the warning sense of unease deep in Ogata’s gut isn’t of much use to him when he’s not exactly sure where the edge of the pit he’s circling is located.
“I understand, Sir.”
“I knew you would, Hyakunosuke. So please, do your best. You may go – since it seems we’re here for rather longer than we thought, please feel free to take the afternoon to do as you please. Within reason, of course.” Tsurumi’s voice is tinged with humour.
The first lieutenant doesn’t require him to salute when it’s just them in the room, and so Ogata turns away, heading for the door, and his hand is already on the handle when Tsurumi says, “But do remember what I said about doing your best, Hyakunosuke. It would be such a shame if you had to finish what you started on 203 Hill – albeit it would be with my blessing this time.”
Ogata clenches his fist, his knuckles white, his short nails digging into his palm. Here is the pit – and he had tumbled right into it, swallowed whole.
“Yes, Sir,” he says, before he forces his fingers to uncurl, opens the door, and exits Tsurumi’s office.
*
Tsurumi’s words about Yuusaku being a more gallant soldier than they had imagined are still circling in Ogata’s head when he finds the flag, fluttering against the bone-white of the sky. He’s watched Yuusaku do this countless times now since they arrived outside Port Arthur: lead the men over the undulating hills and into a hail of Russian bullets, the flag held high, rippling in the wind, above the writhing clash of bodies.
Ogata – and maybe Tsurumi, too – had been waiting for the report that this time Yuusaku-dono hadn’t returned with whatever remained of his men, that he’d at last been cut down in the midst of leading the charge. Flagbearers almost never lasted all that long. That was simply accepted; it was what everyone always accepted. At least other flagbearers tried to protect themselves – Yuusaku never even drew his sword.
But then, given what Yuusaku had told him as they’d stood together over the struggling form of the Russian POW, Ogata at least now knows the reason why.
It changed nothing, he’d decided. Just as Tsurumi changing his mind about killing Yuusaku changed nothing. Nothing important, anyway – it confirmed to him what he’d started to suspect about Tsurumi, though Ogata does wonder if the first lieutenant’s directive not to kill Yuusaku after all is simply a test, just to see what Ogata will do. Tsurumi had told Ogata that, deprived of his legal son, Hanazawa would likely turn to his bastard – but now apparently he’d decided that Yuusaku alive would be more useful to him instead. That’s neither here nor there, Ogata thinks, watching the flag dip as Yuusaku clambers up the hillside, feet slipping in the muddy snow. Ogata can’t hear what he’s yelling at this distance – not above the sound of rifle fire and the boom of artillery – but he can see his mouth moving and see the men around him rallying in response. It’s not the reason he’s decided Yuusaku needs to die.
Ogata’s skin crawls as he recalls the warm puff of Yuusaku’s breath over the side of his throat, the wetness of his tears against his cheek. The idiotic words he’d sobbed into his ear: You’re not like that, Ani-sama. I know you’re not! One day, I’m sure you’ll understand.
Ogata draws in a breath, exhales, and pulls the trigger.
His bullet finds Yuusaku, since of course it does – but it’s wrong. It doesn't go the way it usually does. The bullet doesn’t go through his head, the way Ogata had planned. It’s the best way to make sure to kill a man, since at this distance, he can’t be certain a bullet from the Type-30 will have enough power to take a man down and keep him down. Ogata’s not sure where the bullet does hit him, since Yuusaku had stumbled, slipping on the slick, muddy ground of 203 Hill at almost the same moment that Ogata had pulled the trigger, lurching to the side. Ogata blinks, an unnameable feeling unfurling through his chest as he watches Yuusaku’s knees fold beneath him, the flag sagging. Ogata can see the barrel of his rifle shaking as he cycles the bolt, because he knows he has to take another shot in order to be sure. There’s a vast emptiness inside him, a rushing sound in his ears as he tries to steady his breath, tries to blink away the black dots that are crowding his vision. He can’t shoot again until he’s sure he can make the killing shot.
But his heart is still pounding as the men who’re standing closest to Yuusaku notice what’s happened and begin crowding around him, blocking Ogata’s line of sight with their bodies. He squints as the men mill, his hands still shaking, but there’s no gap between them through which he can see what’s going on. In the back of his mind, he can hear Yuusaku saying, You’re not like that, Ani-sama. I know you’re not.
A shell lands between his position and where Yuusaku has fallen, and then Ogata can’t see anything at all but swirling dust and smoke. He blinks, wiping a hand across his face, and his palm comes away damp with sweat, as if he has a fever coming on. All at once, he recalls the last fever he had – the memory of his mother’s voice, the soft, cloying warmth of her palm against his cheek, the song she’d used to sing him as a child. He shakes his head. His mother hadn’t been there last time he had a fever, during the march through Manchuria; his mother had been long dead by then.
Ogata licks his lips, tasting smoke and feeling grit on his tongue. The visibility is terrible, but every now and then the wind clears a path for him, and he fires, and all his shots are accurate, a spray of blood blooming in the air around each of his targets’ heads. It’s only Yuusaku he missed, only Yuusaku who failed to die.
Or at least, he doesn’t die instantly. When night falls and Ogata finds his way to the group of stragglers who’d made it back from the day’s charge, he can hear them conversing in small, shocked whispers, before they abruptly cut off at his approach. He can see their eyes shining in the darkness as they watch him, but then, none of them have ever understood why their beloved second lieutenant spends so much time with his wildcat half-brother when there’d been no need for Yuusaku to acknowledge him at all. There’s no pity or concern in their eyes as they watch him. For a passing moment Ogata wonders if, somehow, they know; his shoulders stiffen, a chill flooding his body – but he tells himself there’s no possible way they could. There had been bullets flying in every direction. No one could possibly have seen where the one that hit Yuusaku had come from. And in any case, stray shots are hardly uncommon.
Ogata moves past them, towards the makeshift command centre behind the trenches. A door is cracked open, light seeping out of it, and in the light stands First Lieutenant Tsurumi, his hand resting on the shoulder of a man Ogata recognises as one of their privates first class, a broad Ainu who towers over Tsurumi as he stands to attention. As Ogata halts, watching them both, Tsurumi turns to look at him and the corners of his eyes crinkle, though his expression otherwise doesn’t change. Ogata stays where he is until Tsurumi beckons to him, and then he makes his way over to join them. The air around them seems unnaturally still as he approaches – the crows that circle during the day are sleeping, and the wind has dropped. The bombardments are over.
“Ah. Superior Private,” Tsurumi says when Ogata reaches his side and salutes. “I take it by now you’ve heard the tragic news?”
For a moment Ogata considers playing dumb, asking Tsurumi, What news do you mean, Sir? But Tsurumi would see through it right away – and Ogata has learned never to lie to his face. It’s better to say nothing at all. He nods.
“Perhaps you even saw it happen,” Tsurumi says lightly, sympathetically. “From your vantage point. A shot through the shoulder – very messy, but not immediately fatal. Provided he doesn’t contract a fever or an infection, he has a good chance of pulling through. But it seems you have Private First Class Ariko here to thank for bringing Second Lieutenant Hanazawa back from the front lines and taking him to the field hospital. I’m sure he has your gratitude for that – he has the gratitude of us all for that. The second lieutenant is most beloved, after all.”
Ogata blinks, turning his eyes to look up at Private First Class Ariko’s face, but the man is impassive. Ogata can’t remember ever having spoken to him before.
“Wouldn’t you like to thank him, Superior Private Ogata?” Tsurumi says, his voice low and soft. He’s smiling, and it seems to Ogata that he can see every tooth in his head. “Without him, your younger brother might have died out there on that muddy battlefield.”
“Thank you, Private First Class,” Ogata says, the words falling from his lips with as much conviction as he can give them.
Later, after the men have been given their meal rations for the day, Ogata sits alone as he usually does, on a wooden board he’s set up for himself, his bowl of rice cupped in his hand. He’s so focused on eating that he doesn’t notice anyone approaching him until Usami’s warm, broad body shoves itself in next to him on his plank, nudging him aside and into the muddy wall of the trench.
“Ahh, and after First Lieutenant Tsurumi specifically told you not to,” Usami says as he pushes his shoulder into Ogata’s, hard enough to hurt and make Ogata almost spill his rice. “Tsk, tsk, Hyakunosuke.”
“What are you talking about?” Ogata mutters, irritated – though of course he knows. He doesn’t look at Usami, but he can feel Usami’s gaze crawling over his face like a centipede, his eyes hooded. He seems faintly amused by Ogata’s denial; though, Ogata reminds himself, it actually doesn’t matter what Usami thinks.
“You know what I’m talking about, Hyakunosuke. Or are you going to deny it?”
“Don’t be so stupid.” Ogata lifts his rice bowl to his mouth, muttering into it. “If it had been me, do you think I would have missed?”
The stars are strangely bright in the sky, the snow luminous in the moonlight as Ogata makes his way along the trenches. Private First Class Ariko at least is easy to spot – even hunched over, he stands out amongst the other men. He glances up when Ogata stops in front of him, looking slightly wary.
“Is there something I can help you with, Superior Private?”
Ogata considers a moment, looking down at him. “Yes. Come with me.”
He doesn’t lead him too far off. He supposes, in the end, it doesn’t really matter who overhears – the furthest up the chain of command this is likely to go is Tsurumi, and Ogata has a feeling Tsurumi will indulge him.
“You were the one who pulled Yuusaku-dono off the battlefield,” Ogata says once they’re in an empty section of trench. It’s not a question, and Ogata does his best not to make it sound like an accusation.
“Yes, Superior Private.”
“Did you take him to the field hospital yourself?”
Ariko pauses, as if trying to figure out what Ogata might want from him, but then, apparently, he believes he works it out, and his face softens. “Yes, I did – it’s the number seven tent. I’m sure the doctors are taking very good care of him, Superior Private.”
For a moment, Ogata stares at him, struggling to keep his face neutral. He wants to laugh – or at least, some kind of sound is forcing its way up from his chest, trying to break out from between his teeth. Ogata clenches his jaw to keep it in check, exhaling slowly through his nose before he can bring himself to say, “Thank you, Private First Class. You can go now.”
Ariko has begun to turn away, before another thought strikes Ogata, and he says, “One other thing – did Yuusaku-dono lose the flag?”
“No, Superior Private.” Ariko shakes his head. “He never let it go, even when I was carrying him. It returned to the regiment.”
As Ogata slips away through the moonlit night, he realises he’s not even surprised at what Ariko had told him – of course Yuusaku would hold on to the flag, no matter what. Ariko will probably get some kind of commendation or even a promotion for dragging both it and Yuusaku back together. Ogata wonders if Yuusaku considered simply letting it drop to the ground, even for a moment.
None of the men who pass him as he walks through the tents of the field hospital pay him any mind – Ogata has learned from Tsurumi that simply acting as if you belong somewhere is usually enough to convince people that you do. He finds his way to tent number seven easily enough and, pulling back the canvas flap of the door, ducks his head and enters.
Inside it’s warm and dark – the lanterns are burning low, casting flickering pools of golden light, the shadows dark and deep. After his eyes adjust, Ogata can make out the rows of wounded men, lying on their cots; over in the corner, two doctors are tending to a patient, winding gauze around what looks like the stump of an arm. They pay him no mind.
Walking between the rows of men, Ogata looks down at each sleeping face in turn. None of them are Yuusaku, and as he approaches the end of the tent, Ogata wonders if Ariko was mistaken – or, perhaps, that Tsurumi had been, when he’d said that Yuusaku seemed likely to live. Perhaps he’d died after all – perhaps he’d been added to the pile of bodies to be burned with the breaking of the dawn, like the ones he and Yuusaku had stood and watched incinerate, their souls flying up to heaven in a column of smoke, during their march.
The thought is immediately crushed when at last Ogata reaches the final cot in the row – because there, sleeping, lying on his back, is Yuusaku. Ogata stops mid-stride, staring down at his face, pale in the half-light, a bandage wrapped around his temples – perhaps he’d struck his head when he fell. His breath is slow and even, his eyes closed. As Ogata stares down at him, he wonders what he’d see in them if they weren’t. But it’s a stupid thing to consider – Yuusaku can’t possibly know that Ogata had shot the bullet that had hit him, any more than the men standing around after the day’s advance did. He has no reason to suspect that Ogata had done it; he has no notion of why he would.
Ogata finds his hand has risen from his side, his fingers reaching for Yuusaku’s face, and he snatches it back – though not before he feels the warmth of Yuusaku’s skin, the slight puff of his breath as he sleeps. Yuusaku’s eyelashes flutter as if he’s dreaming, and Ogata bites the inside of his cheek with the effort it takes him not to draw back, not to give in to the horrific churn of his stomach, and turn and run.
He should he dead, Ogata thinks viciously, staring down at Yuusaku’s face, soft and peaceful, almost as if nothing has happened to him – almost as if there isn’t a bandage wrapped around his shoulder and chest, as if he’s not lying here in a tent that reeks of blood and smoke and unwashed bodies. Almost as if he’s in his bed in Tokyo, safe, happy and beloved. Why isn’t he dead?
Ogata swallows, feeling acid rise in his throat. His body is surging with something he can’t identify and yet which terrifies him. It’s an eyeless, senseless, animal panic, skittering its way desperately through every part of him, pushing up against the walls of his body as if seeking an escape, wanting to burst out through the barrier of his skin and into the open air –
Hauling in a breath, Ogata closes his eyes. He realises now that he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to believe that Yuusaku was still alive until he’d seen it with his own eyes – seen the gentle cloud of his breath rising in the air above his lips, the flicker of his eyes moving behind the thin skin of their lids as he dreamed. Ogata knows he should be angry; he has never missed his target like this. Never when he’s needed to, never when the stakes have been so high. His throat feels raw, and distantly, he’s aware his hands are still shaking. He could do it now, he thinks – push a pillow down on Yuusaku’s face and smother him to death before he wakes up from his medicated sleep, or slit his throat with his bayonet – though it would be incredibly foolish. Ariko knows he was coming here. No matter how quick or careful he is, Yuusaku would almost certainly wake up despite the drugging they’ve no doubt given him, and his thrashing around would alert the doctors still tending the wounded on the other side of the tent. Ogata knows he would be caught almost immediately, and Yuusaku probably wouldn’t even die, like he’d been supposed to. But still –
In any case, in the next moment the decision is taken out of his hands, because Yuusaku’s eyelids flicker and then open. Ogata freezes as Yuusaku blinks, his eyes glazed, seeming to focus only with difficulty on Ogata’s face. In the utter stillness that seems to engulf him, Ogata imagines he can hear the soft sound of it as the corners of Yuusaku’s lips cling briefly together, and then part.
“Ani-sama?” The words are barely more than the exhalation of air that carries them, but still, Ogata hears it, and he feels something twist inside him, like a wire snapping open, releasing a painful, hideous flare of heat.
“Go back to sleep, Yuusaku-dono,” Ogata says. His hand twitches by his side. “You’re only dreaming.”
*
Yuusaku has changed since Port Arthur. Ogata watches him, his eyes half-closed, as they sit across from each other on the wooden bench of the restaurant. It’s not that Yuusaku’s face has gotten any thinner – the opposite, in fact, which Ogata supposes makes sense, since he’s spent the past several months being cossetted in Hagi while he recovers, having been sent home from Port Arthur with a promotion to first lieutenant – but it is, somehow, sharper, more brittle. The readiness of the smile that Ogata recalls from the Asahikawa barracks – the smile that had told him that Yuusaku was a boy who had grown up loved by his parents – is gone, replaced by something with a shadow at its edges. But then, Ogata thinks, that’s probably to be expected after Yuusaku’s injury and the sudden loss of his father. After having the things the world gifted him as if they were his right suddenly torn away. Or maybe it’s just what happens when icons outlive their usefulness.
Yuusaku had asked him where he wanted to eat, and Ogata had brought him here almost out of spite – it can’t possibly be the kind of place where Yuusaku is used to eating, with its long wooden benches and sticky tables, its crowds of workmen still dusty from building sites emptying and then stacking up their rice bowls by the dozen. But Ogata will be damned before he lets Yuusaku drag him to somewhere like the Imperial Hotel, like he’s some sort of pet – ordering him Western-style food and kindly explaining to him, Now, Ani-sama, this is how you hold a knife and fork.
It’s the kind of place that Yuusaku, with his pretty manners and his pretty face, conspicuously doesn’t belong – Ogata notices one of the serving girls giving him a sidelong look from beneath her eyelashes as she fills his teacup, and Ogata finds himself suddenly recalling the night in the brothel in Asahikawa and how easily Yuusaku had resisted temptation there. He wonders if Yuusaku is just as incorruptible now as he was then – whether if, after they finish this meal here, he were to say, Yuusaku-dono, there’s one more place I’d like to visit, if you’d be willing to join me, he’d see that same pleased blush high on his brother’s cheeks, the same eager smile; hear the same desperate happiness in his voice as he said, Of course, I’d be delighted!
“I received a letter from a friend of mine from childhood,” Yuusaku says, as the serving girl places their trays of food in front of them. “He’s been appointed as a new second lieutenant in the 27th regiment – he’s very excited about it.”
“Oh?” Ogata asks, lifting his rice bowl – he’s supposed to have never met Koito Otonoshin. At one point, just for a second, he’d thought they might understand each other - but then, as it had turned out, Koito was just as spoiled by his parents as Yuusaku was. His father had almost ruined all of Tsurumi’s finely calibrated plans by coming to rescue the little brat himself. And Ogata had known Koito Heiji and his father were close friends, so he’s hardly surprised Yuusaku and Koito Otonoshin know each other.
“Yes. His name is Koito Otonoshin – I think he admires First Lieutenant Tsurumi very much,” Yuusaku says, a smile ghosting over his lips. “Back when I found out which regiment I would be assigned to, he wrote that he was very envious I was getting to serve with him. He started writing to me much more frequently after that.” Yuusaku pauses. “We weren’t very close when we were younger – I was better friends with his older brother.”
Ogata glances up. Of course he’d known Koito Otonoshin had had an older brother, but he’d never known Yuusaku had considered him to be his friend. “His older brother, Sir?”
“Perhaps he thought I was too young to be a real friend,” Yuusaku says, looking down. “But still, I’d like to think he…” He cuts himself off, swallowing. “Unfortunately, he died during a naval battle when he was still quite young. I think Otonoshin-kun took the loss very hard. My father told me it was the reason he went to the Army Academy instead of the Naval – he couldn’t stand being on a ship, knowing how Heinojou-san had died.” Yuusaku pauses again. Ogata watches as he licks his lips, blinking. “Heinojou-san was… he was a very kind brother to him.”
Ogata barely manages to keep the sneer off his lips, as something curdles in his stomach. He’d been hungry before he came here, but now he doesn’t feel much like eating. “I see, Sir. What a shame.”
“Yes. A terrible shame,” Yuusaku says softly.
Turning away, Ogata forces himself to lift, chew and swallow some of the food in front of him – he doesn’t taste it, and he doesn’t care to. He can feel something vicious squirming in his gut, something like anger, hot and burning like a glowing coal in a brazier. He accidentally bites his tongue as he chews, hard enough that blood floods through his mouth, coating his tongue – but it’s almost a relief, since at least it tastes like something, rather than the sticky bland nothingness of the food that’s clotting up in his throat.
“I’m so glad you brought me here, Ani-sama,” Yuusaku says, glancing around. “I lived in Tokyo when I was a child, and of course while I was at the Academy, but I didn’t get much chance to explore. It’s interesting to see the places you like.”
Ogata hunches down over his food. “Doesn’t your mother want you back in Hagi? She must have had a shock after what happened.”
He can’t say he considered even for a moment what effect his father’s death might have on his legal wife, but Ogata finds himself suddenly curious – surely she must mourn him deeply, the way any loyal, loving wife would. Yuusaku’s parents must have loved each other – how else could they have produced a son like him?
A brief flicker passes across Yuusaku’s face, like the shadow of a cloud passing over a pale patch of sunlight. “No, not yet,” he answers after a moment. “There’s things that still need attending to here – meetings I have to go to, to settle the last of Father’s affairs. There’s some property that passed to my mother, but she says she has no intention of returning to Tokyo, so she’d rather it was sold. And besides which…” Yuusaku trails off, looking away, eyes distant. “Besides which, it’s… it’s quieter here. There are so many people in Mother’s family home. They’re all very kind, and they all mean well. I’m very grateful to all of them.”
Ogata wonders what kind of ungracious thoughts are guiltily running through Yuusaku’s head that he has to stress how very grateful he is to his mother’s family.
“But Ani-sama, do you ever feel sometimes it’s difficult to be amongst those people again? The people you knew before, I mean,” Yuusaku asks suddenly, his eyes clear and direct as he looks at Ogata’s face. Ogata has always hated meeting his eyes, but he feels powerless not to now.
“I don’t know what you mean, Sir,” he says, though his tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth. Who does Yuusaku even imagine he might return to? “I haven’t seen my grandparents since I was small, and my mother is dead.”
Ogata had only said it to show Yuusaku that not everyone has been blessed with such a kind family as his own, who’ll tuck him safely away in their house and tend to his every need, fuss over him, feed him, fetch him a doctor if he feels sick. But the words come out wrong somehow, too quiet, too soft, like it’s an admission, rather than a simple statement of fact.
“I’m sorry,” Yuusaku says quietly, and Ogata doesn’t doubt for a moment that he sincerely means it.
“Don’t be,” he says, hearing his own voice as if it’s coming from someone sitting beside him rather than from his own mouth. “She was mad. It was kinder that she died.”
In the moment after he says it, Ogata breathes, feeling his lungs expanding as he inhales, the same way he does when he’s waiting for the right moment to press his finger down on the trigger of his rifle. He swallows, looking at the thin grey light that falls through the window behind Yuusaku’s head rather than at Yuusaku himself, so he can’t tell what his expression might be. He can probably guess, anyway.
“I’m sorry, Ani-sama,” Yuusaku repeats, as if saying it again changes anything.
The softness in his voice infuriates Ogata – though in a way that feels distant, as if he’s watching the anger cross someone else’s face. An ache that feels like ice-cold water lapping around his heart rises within him, and he pushes his tray of food away; the miso soup spills over the lip of the bowl.
“I’m not as hungry as I thought, Yuusaku-dono,” he says, beginning to stand. Without especially meaning to, he glances across at Yuusaku and finds him looking up at him, face as open and guileless as ever.
On the table in front of him, his hands have curled into fists, seemingly of their own volition. He forces them to relax, spreading his fingers out again over the sticky wood. He casts about, trying to find something to say – as stupid as Yuusaku is, he can hardly fail to notice that Ogata’s abrupt loss of appetite occurred after he’d idiotically let slip what he’d said about his mother.
“Ani-sama, you don’t have to go.” Yuusaku’s arm stretches out across the space between them, his hand coming to rest over the fingers Ogata has carefully splayed out over the table. Ogata stares down at it for a moment, before slowly, silently, withdrawing his hand. When he curls his fingers over, his palm is damp with sweat.
“Is there something else you’d rather eat?” Yuusaku asks, leaning forward, eyes confused. “Is there something I can –”
“Ankou nabe,” Ogata mutters, the words slipping out over his tongue – he immediately wishes he could bite them back out of the air and swallow them, pushing them as far down in his gut as he can, until he can forget them again. Why had he even said it? There was no reason for it, none at all. He’d already eaten more ankou nabe than he ever cared to, and he swore the day he left Ibaraki he’d never eat it again. Just the thought of it makes him nauseated.
“I’m not sure they have it here,” Yuusaku says, glancing uncertainly at the serving girl, who begins making her way over immediately. He looks back at Ogata, blinking. “It’s more common in Ibaraki, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter. Forget it.” He waves his hand at the serving girl, and she sends him a reproachful look before scuttling off again – he gives her back a hard stare as she goes. Ogata sits down again, pulling his tray back towards himself; he picks up his chopsticks and his bowl of rice and eats. It’d be better just to sit and eat than to have Yuusaku causing a fuss. The rice feels like a claggy lump in his throat when he swallows it, and he tries to wash it down with some miso, only for that to get caught in his throat as well. He could be drinking the ice-cold mud from the gutter outside. But Ogata doesn’t look up. He simply focuses on bolting down his food as quickly as he can – anything to avoid looking up at the soft, hesitant expression he knows he’ll see on Yuusaku’s face.
*
It’s early enough that the frost is still settled heavily over the ground, glistening in the thin, pale light of the dawn. The lanterns that stand outside the field hospitals are haloed in the frigid air.
Ogata walks across the frozen mud, his boots crunching with every step. He shouldn’t be here, of course, but equally he won’t be missed. He could have come last night, when a group of soldiers from the 27th Regiment had begged for permission to come and say goodbye to Second Lieutenant Hanazawa before he was sent home to complete his recovery – but Ogata hadn’t wanted that. He hadn’t wanted to see the glowing faces, the desperate squeezing hands, and, no doubt, the tears of the men who adored Yuusaku as they said their farewells. The whole idea of it put a sour taste on his tongue. He wouldn’t have been able to do it without laughing, anyway.
When he reaches the outermost building, he stops, looking across the clearing to where a black carriage waits, the harnessed horses’ breath streaming in the cold air. Ogata stands still, waiting, but he doesn’t have to wait long – the flap of the nearest tent opens, and Yuusaku, dressed in his dark blue dress uniform, greatcoat resting on his shoulders, his arm bound up in a white cloth sling, appears from within. Even at this distance, his face looks pale and drawn.
Ogata stands and watches as Yuusaku walks across the frosty ground to where the carriage is waiting for him. He almost steps further back behind the building he’s standing half-concealed by as Yuusaku pauses at the open door, his foot resting on the step, and looks back over his shoulder, his eyes moving as if he’s searching for something. But in the end, Ogata stays where he is, and evidently Yuusaku doesn’t find what he’s looking for, because a moment later he ducks his head and enters the carriage, the driver closing the door firmly behind him. The driver climbs up onto his seat, and the carriage rattles away, bearing Yuusaku off to the harbour, to the waiting ship that will take him away from here, back to Japan, back to the waiting arms of his family.
Ogata hopes he never sees him again.