Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ACT ONE

The man at his feet gurgles on his own blood. Ogata has never liked to kill people up close, but certain people deserve special treatment.

His father, for one. This man too.

He crouches down. "Come on," he taunts, "you know the rules. I give you the names of the people I want to kill, and you give me their locationYou know why I've come - I won't stop until all of you are dead. Either you tell me, or I can flay your skin layer-by-layer until you die from shock."

"I, I don't know where any of them are!" the man blubbers, tears leaking out of his ugly, swollen eyes. "But I know some of them ran off to Otaru."

Thinking about Otaru makes him nostalgic in ways he hasn't expect. "What else?"

"I know this, this old beggar who sells information. He's at the crossroad near the Crystal Hotel every day from dawn to dusk."

"Wonderful." Ogata presses his handgun against the man's temple, only for the man to flail as he tries to crawl away.

"You said you won't kill me if I give you information about my accomplices!"

"I never said that I won't kill you," Ogata informs slowly, "I only said that I won't kill you slowly. " He pulls the trigger before the man can respond. The blood splatters across the concrete, the body flopping with a heavy thud. Ogata grimaces as he stands up - his body is no longer as hardy as it used to be - and heads out of the warehouse.

He climbs onto his horse. "Back to town," he mumbles to himself, and rides off.

-

Here is what's happened:

At the end of it all, Ogata has looked Sugimoto in the eye and spat on his face.

Behind all that fury, there is a tinge of something in Sugimoto's face that Ogata dare not name. Sugimoto doesn't wipe off the spit, instead lunging forward in a move so clumsy that Ogata manages to escape with a gut wound.

For some reason, Ogata lives.

-

The ride over has been long and tedious, and the ride back isn't much better. As the sky darkens, Ogata is lucky enough to pass by a way-station. Luckier still to have enough money to pay for it.

He eats his dinner before retiring to his room for an early night.

"Think I'll kill all of them by winter?" he wonders aloud in the dark.

"Some of them may have left the main islands," Sugimoto points out as he sits on the bed. He pulls his foot in, hooking it under his knee.

Ogata tsks. "Well, I'm not resting until I kill all of them."

"They may kill you first."

"If they do kill me, then it's your fault," Ogata accuses. He sits on the opposite edge of the same bed, slowly stripping off the bulkiest of his weapons. It's frustratingly difficult to conceal a rifle these days. "Where were you just now?"

"Watching your six."

"Bullshit. I know you weren't there." Ogata loathes how Sugimoto just shrugs. Revenge should be hard and personal, not flippant. "You'll be useless from a distance anyway, so how's that going to help me?"

Sugimoto is giving him that strange smile again. The one that he can never parse, with the slight crookedness at the ends of his lips and the unflinching gaze that has always made Ogata feel exposed. “I won’t let you die, remember? I won’t let anyone kill you first.”

Ogata snorts. “You,” he scoffs, “are an asshole and a hypocrite,” and rolls over to go to sleep.

-

When Ogata finally meets the beggar, Sugimoto hovers two steps behind.

He will never admit it, but he likes Sugimoto’s presence; it makes him feel like a kid dragging around a huge security blanket over their shoulders - embarrassing, but comforting.

“Mister,” the beggar is saying as he pockets the money, “revenge is never a long-term solution for grief. It always ends in tragedy.”

Except Ogata isn’t grieving. Ogata is furious. “That is my business.”

“You don’t know what they are capable of,” the beggar warns, “this gang is notorious. Haven’t you heard? To be able to kill a man like him -”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Ogata interrupts.

“Ah,” says the beggar, “I see that you are a frightening man yourself.” Ogata smiles wider at that, to make a point. “Go on, then. Try your luck.”

Ogata receives his information and leaves after tipping the beggar with the rest of his change. Sugimoto treads steadily behind him. “We are very far south,” Sugimoto suggests. “It’s easier to try finding more leads on the ones still on Honshu, rather than return to Hokkaido.”

“The Hokkaido lead is more concrete than everything else we’ve got,” Ogata counters.

“But to traipse across Honshu when we may have to come back sounds like a waste of time.”

“Fortunately for me, I have the rest of my life to hunt them down,” Ogata snaps. He pulls his hood further down. “Now stop talking to me.”

Sugimoto frowns. “Where are we going?”

“To see Asirpa.”

“Oh.”

Ogata eyes him. “You can’t avoid her forever.”

“When I… left her, it hasn’t been pretty.” Sugimoto winces. “I don’t think she has forgiven me for that.”

“Then that’s her problem.” He takes a turn down an alley, a shortcut he’s discovered by accident while chasing down his previous mark. “You still haven’t met her?” Sugimoto looks away. “Heck, Sugimoto - I’ve met with her five times already.”

“I know - I was there each time.”

“No, you’re moping in another room.”

Sugimoto opens his mouth, thinks about it, and closes his mouth. Ogata raises an eyebrow. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Sugimoto admits, “but you’re right.”

“Of course I am.” He rejoins the main street, dodging the bustle of carts and wheels rushing past as he dashes across the road. “Hang around today. You won’t know how she’ll react unless she actually sees you.”

“If she sees me,” Sugimoto mutters, resigned.

For once, Ogata doesn’t know how to reply. He slips into the restaurant instead and there is Asirpa, sitting by the window, a hat fashioned with embroidery of Ainu patterns resting between her hands.

“Hello,” Ogata greets, feeling Sugimoto’s steady presence beside him.

“Hello, Ogata,” she says, unblinking.

A sharp inhale, and Sugimoto leaves, the curtains above the entrance fluttering in the breeze.

-

Here is another thing that’s happened:

After a decade since the Ainu gold, he meets Asirpa again by accident in Kyoto.

The war has gone well, even if the rest isn't so clear-cut: their emperor is sickly and the masses are getting more agitated, a foolish post-war enthusiasm as though people have forgotten how hard it is to reintegrate veterans after the previous wars.

(It's also ages since he's met an Ainu person. The most recent one is a young recruit whose grandmother is Ainu, except he's always mispronounced her name.

Kiroranke must be smug in hell, Ogata thinks, because all his stupid cause and predictions are coming true after all.)

In Kyoto, Ogata ducks into an inn for a meal, and finds Asirpa sliding into the seat opposite him.

It takes him too long to recognise her. "I never thought I'll see you in Western dress."

"I like to keep up with the trends." Asirpa sweeps her hair over a shoulder. She's changed so much in the past decade: strong shoulders and towering height, her features as delicate as they have been in her childhood, her beauty striking. She wears the huge spirals on her ears that Ogata has come to associate with the Ainu. "Kyoto is ridiculously hot."

Ogata has never expected Asirpa to ever come this far south in the first place. "It'll get worse in the next few weeks."

"Horrible." She snatches Ogata's cup and downs the tea. To his own surprise, Ogata doesn't feel annoyed. "How do you stand it?" she continues.

"You'll get used to it." He weighs the questions lodged in his throat and goes for the easiest one. "What are you doing here?"

"Travelling. Thought it's time I explore the rest of Japan." She rests her cheek on her knuckles. "But Japan is getting bigger these days. I may need to re-organise my itinerary."

"Like what you see so far?"

"I think I picked the wrong season," she admits. It feels so surreal, talking to Asirpa again. He hasn't expected to live long enough to see her again, much less for Asirpa to forgive him enough to sit at the same table. "You know, you haven't changed."

"Surprise: I defied ageing."

Asirpa laughs, deep and sincere. "I'm glad this part of you hasn't changed too." Quietly, as though guilty, she adds, "Sorry about your eye. I don't think I've ever apologised for it."

"Well, I shot your father and Sugimoto, so I supposed that makes us even." He waves over a waitress to refill his cup. "So, is the Immortal still terrorising your enemies, or has he finally decided to do anything apart from being your personal guard dog?"

If Ogata hasn't been a sniper for so long - has he not been sensitive towards any shift in the body language of his opponents - he won't have noticed the way that Asirpa stiffens. It is so subtle, the way the slump of her body becomes charged with tension, even as she continues to sneak another piece of Ogata's food.

(She's really grown up.)

"Didn't you know?" she says with feigned indifference, "Sugimoto is dead."

-

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Ogata is asking now, after giving her an update on his latest hit.

“Of course not. He wouldn’t have wanted me to do that.”

Ogata knows that. Sugimoto’s dug out Ogata’s eye to absolve Asirpa from the guilt of murder. “Even for self-defence?”

“I haven’t had to kill anyone for self-defence yet.” Asirpa eyes Ogata’s bowl. “Are you eating that, or can I have it?”

Ogata pushes his food over, rolling his eyes at Asirpa’s beam. “Then I supposed you’ve gotten lucky.”

“Inkarmat gave me some tips back in the days on how to make my way through cities.” She wolves down the food. Chews; swallows hard. “I can also fight well enough that I don’t have to kill anyone to incapacitate them.”

“Good for you.” Ogata does not see the point, but at least Asirpa is willing to fight. It would have irked him if she manages to survive so far through sheer luck, the way Yuusaku had. “So what’s your plan now? Travel the world alone and occasionally send me scraps of information on Sugimoto’s murderers?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re in your mid-twenties already.” The same age as Ogata has been when they first met. “Aren’t you worried about becoming a spinster?”

“Are you worried about me?” Asirpa finally puts her chopsticks down. “Come on, Ogata. You know I don’t care for sisam customs.”

“So long as you’re aware that there are customs.” Ogata itches for a cigarette; he’s picked up smoking again during the recent war, although he’s trying to curb that vice too. Can’t afford to have shortness of breath if he is to snipe independently. “The next lead I have is at Otaru.”

Asirpa snickers. “Back to Otaru again.” She puts on her hat. “Well, you’ll have to detour, because I have another lead. There’s a duo who’s been making their way up the eastern coast. Apparently, they’ve buried some gold in Ibaraki, and are going back for it.”

“Ibaraki,” Ogata repeats stiffly.

“Yeah. Is there going to be a problem?” She squints at him. “Is your sworn nemesis lying in ambush, waiting to tear you apart the moment you step foot in town?”

“Wha - no.” His sworn enemy is dead and a ghost haunting his every step. “I’ll get to it. Where do I meet you next?”

“How about in two months? In Hakodate, how’s that?” She stands up. “See you around, Ogata.”

Ogata watches her leave. He doesn’t know how long he’s waited, but eventually, Sugimoto rejoins him: a light breeze, and he’s there like a shadow.

“She’s come a long way,” Sugimoto mutters quietly, his voice soft with fondness. “I am so proud of her.”

There’s nothing to say to that, so Ogata waves over the waitress and, upon understanding that Asirpa has paid for the meal already, decides to search for an inn.

“Do we have the money for that?” Sugimoto presses, trailing after.

“I still have some left over from the deer pelts,” Ogata informs. “Asirpa told me that she has a lead in Ibaraki. Two men and a chest of gold.”

Sugimoto whistles. “And the catch?”

“Ibaraki is my hometown.”

“Ah,” says Sugimoto, “bad memories?”

“Of sorts.”

Sugimoto shrugs. If he is trying to be encouraging, he is failing miserably. “Let’s hope it’s a short trip then.”

-

It is not a short trip.

Ogata spends days trying to get used to all the changes in town, and then even more time deliberating whether he should visit his grandmother’s house. He finally gives in after Sugimoto can’t stop whining about seeing Ogata’s childhood home (being dead has stripped Sugimoto of any fear of consequences), only to find that his grandparents are dead and a writer’s family has moved in.

(“Your grandparents' tombs are by that old cherry blossom tree, where they have requested to be buried,” the writer explains. Then, his voice dripping with sympathy, he adds, “You can stay for a night, if you would like. Visit the old rooms. I understand what it must feel like to be caught up in sentimental memories.”

“It’s fine,” Ogata has answered tightly. “Thank you for the offer.”)

So it’s back to the hunt.

It is only two weeks away from his self-imposed two months deadline when he finally snipes the sharper one of the duo. The other then leads him on a wild goose chase for three days until Sugimoto does his ghostly thing (which doesn’t even work consistently. He’s like a faulty grenade, or - or an old gun that jams . Sugimoto is a useless ghost) and leads Ogata to his mark.

“ You, ” Ogata hisses after he finally pins the man down. He has a face that looks like a snivelling rat - an unfortunate curse of genetics that does not endear him anymore to Ogata. “Do you know why you’re going to die?”

“The gold? Is it the gold?” The rat man tries to wriggle away; Ogata slams the butt of his rifle into the back of the head. It’s less satisfying than whipping the man with his handgun, but it’s lost somewhere in the sewers during the altercation. “We can split fifty-fifty! No, thirty-seventy: you can have the seventy.”

“Sure.” Ogata can play along. “Show me the gold and maybe I will let you get away with only a limp.”

The man gulps. “It’s sunk in the Fukuroda Falls! All of it - we have to leave them behind because the Kempeitai was chasing us. I’m risking my life coming back here!”

“The Kempeitai?” Sugimoto echoes. “Then he’s a dead man already. Can’t believe he didn’t immediately leave Honshu. I’m sure Fukuoka has many syndicates willing to offer him protection in return for his information about the gold.”

Ogata ignores him. “And if it’s not there? How do I know you won’t run?”

“You shot out my kneecap! I can’t run even if I want to. L-look, I’ll lead you there,” the rat man bargains, “and you can see for yourself. I swear, I’m not lying - it’s a lot of gold, mister, please -”

“Ooh,” Sugimoto adds, “he is definitely going to try and kill you there.”

Frankly, Ogata doesn’t care for the gold. He has no use for it. But this man has given him so much trouble that Ogata wants to draw out his death. “Sure,” Ogata drawls, “but try anything, and I will make you sorry.”

Sugimoto snorts. “You need to turn down the melodrama.”

“I promise!” Oh gross, the rat man has wet his pants. Ogata steps back, not lowering his rifle. “When do you, uh - oh. You mean to head over now?”

“Of course it’s now, what are you waiting for? A new era?” Ogata kicks him in the face. “Because the emperor may be dying but he’s far from dead yet. So get up.”

He tosses the man a broom propped on the backdoor of some family restaurant. The rat man squeals as he forces himself up, favouring his broken leg - Ogata has seen men bear through worse without a sound during the wars. “Hurry before I change my mind,” he barks.

“Maybe you should get him a horse,” Sugimoto remarks, “I don’t think he can walk that far in this state. You will draw attention. Don’t worry: I’ll watch him. If what he said is true, he’s not going to try to run until you have escorted him out of town.”

When the staggering becomes too painful to watch, Ogata gives up and takes Sugimoto’s advice, returning with the horse. He tosses the rat man onto it after cocooning him with a filthy rag that Ogata has stolen from a careless vagrant. It’s enough to earn them a few weird looks, but the rat man’s identity is hidden along with his injuries, and mockery is always easier to bear than suspicion.

Fukuroda Falls is a day’s walk away; Ogata would like to continue walking after nightfall, but Sugimoto insists that they stop before the rat man gets an infection or, worse, they run into bandits in the dark.

So they stop. Ogata rewraps the makeshift bandage around the rat man’s knee and reluctantly shares part of his provisions.

Then they go to sleep.

Ogata wakes before dawn to Sugimoto poking his cheeks.

"Morning," Sugimoto greets, "your prisoner is running away."

Ogata immediately scrambles to his feet.

"Don't worry, the horse threw him off," Sugimoto explains as he trudges ahead, blanching every time foliage passes through him.

(Ogata remembers Sugimoto describing the visceral sensation of passing through solid: it is nauseating, cold, like being frozen from the inside out while soaked in tar.

"You'll get used to it," Ogata has dismissed.

"You really don't."

Ogata has wanted to mock Sugimoto for being queasy, but then Sugimoto's eyes seem to fog over with a glassiness that makes him look even more corpse-like than his usual gauntness. When Ogata tries to slap him, Sugimoto vanishes, and appears three days later with no recollection of the conversation.

He starts leaving doors open for Sugimoto, after that.)

They find the rat man moaning on the ground, clutching his injured knee, while the horse grazes two feet away.

Ogata shoves the man back onto the horse and returns to camp to pack up.

"That could have gone better," Sugimoto comments, sitting on the horse this time. "Foolish and desperate, but better."

"Are you going to kill me?" the man squeaks, cowering in his seat. "I promise I'll cooperate from now on, please don't hurt me!"

"Shut up," Ogata commands, and ignores both of them. This, apparently, makes Sugimoto more amused and the man more terrified, and the next two hours are spent listening to the rat man weeping.

"You can kill him now," Sugimoto finally speaks, "and then we can move on."

Ogata shakes his head. "Asirpa's kotan can use the gold."

The rat man stops his blubbering long enough to ask, "Who are you talking to?"

"Me," Sugimoto answers pointlessly.

"Not to you," Ogata sneers, "now shut up before I tear your tongue out."

-

Fukuroda Falls is as beautiful and as majestic as Ogata remembers. It's still too early for the trees to change into its autumnal coats, but hints of pink are already starting to darken the tips of leaves.

The water roars in the background, the air damp and earthy.

"Are you diving in?" Sugimoto asks.

Ogata makes a face. "I'm not a strong swimmer."

"O-oh?" the rat man stammers, "what if I go get it instead?"

"Don't do it," Sugimoto cautions, "he's going to let the currents sweep him downstream to escape you."

That is an escape plan so obvious that it is embarrassing; for a split second, Ogata misses Shiraishi’s ingenuity. Ogata heaves the rat man off the horse. "Sure," he lies, "but if you drown, I will not be fishing you out."

"Ogata, what are you -"

"Thank you." The rat man pulls off the old rag from his shoulders, then his top, revealing tattoos on his back; no surprise, there. Then the trousers are off too. He staggers to the edge and, rolling his shoulders, wades into the water.

Ogata cocks his rifle and shoots the rat man in his better knee.

The man howls as he goes down, flailing in the water as he struggles to pull himself forward. Ogata marches forward and drags him back by his hair.

"Why?" the man wails. "You said you'll let me live."

"I said I may let you live," Ogata corrects. "But then I decide that you don't deserve a second chance."

The man is bawling now. Ugly, sniffling cries that invokes only disgust. "But I have children! My mistress's son - he's only four years old. Please, mister, you can have all the gold you want, just let me live."

Ogata really wishes more people know that he's killed his own father; maybe then they’ll come up with a more enticing plea . "Nah." He flips the man over and steps on his chest to pin him down. "Any last words?"

"Mister," the rat man sobs, "if I am going to die, can I at least know the name of the man who wants to kill me?"

"It's Sugimoto," answers Ogata, and shoots him between his wide, horrified eyes as realisation dawns.

-

"You could have waited a bit to see how he justifies my death."

People have always described waterfalls as tranquil, but Ogata has thought it more like violence, the thunderous clamour of nature forcing her way to the ocean.

It is calming, however, to watch Sugimoto coax the horse towards the water, the horse confused but obliging at an invisible presence cooing at it.

(Animals are really much more attuned to the otherworldly than humans, it seems.)

Ogata rolls the corpse into the water. There is a chest in there, but Ogata isn't good enough of a swimmer to try and pry it open, or even lift it back to shore: he'll have to return another day. When he looks up, Sugimoto is still staring expectantly at him. "It's always the same answer."

Sugimoto rubs at the back of his neck tiredly. "Because they can?"

"Because they can." Ogata stretches his waist. "Why else?"

"I won't know." Sugimoto sloshes over, his burial kimono floating in the water. The horse trots nervously behind him. "Hey, what you said at the end. I never told you to kill anyone."

Ogata snorts. He grabs the horse by its reins and leads it towards dry land. "Don't pretend you don't know I'm killing all these men for you."

"I know, but - why?"

"The same reason as why you didn't kill me back then." Ogata pats the horse on its neck before climbing onto it. "You were supposed to be mine to kill. I should be the one to decide when your life will end."

"Sorry I died."

Ogata can't tell if Sugimoto means it. "Don't you want to take revenge?"

"Well, I killed many people. In fact, many people killed a lot of other people in the past two wars. If everyone wants to take revenge, then the world will be wiped out."

"But that is war. Soldiers against soldiers." Ogata checks his rifle before slinging it across his back. "If someone hurt Asirpa, won't you raze half the country to find the culprits?"

"But that's Asirpa - she's innocent."

"And you're not killed because you're a soldier, but because you are Sugimoto the Immortal," Ogata reasons, "so they killed you for sports. See who can complete the challenge. Kill a man who is seemingly unkillable."

Sugimoto hums. "You say it like you won't be interested if you're one of them."

"But if I were them, I won't beg for my life when someone comes to kill me," Ogata argues. “If you’re going to get your hands dirty, then you shouldn’t be scared that someone will hold you responsible.”

“Not everyone has guts like you.”                   

“This is not about having guts,” Ogata insists. “This is about what I deserve . They take a life that is supposed to be mine, then it's only right that I take their lives as a replacement. Maybe that’s why I can see you: you owe me your life." The horse shifts nervously. Ogata tightens the reins. "Now get up the horse before I ride off without you."

For the longest while, Sugimoto stands there with the water up to his knees, watching Ogata silently for so long that Ogata wonders if this is another of those episodes where Sugimoto blinks out of existence. Then, wordlessly, Sugimoto comes closer and climbs up behind Ogata.

“I wish I could have seen how angry you are when you killed for me for the first time,” Sugimoto mutters. “It was, what, only a week since you met Asirpa again in ten years? And you killed three men in that time.”

Ogata urges the horse to head north. “Is that the moment you decide to haunt me instead?”

“Something like that.” Sugimoto is a bitter chill at his back. Ogata suddenly wonders who it is that found Sugimoto’s body. Realises that he’s died.

Then he figures that there is only one person who could possibly fit the bill. “Asirpa found you, didn’t she? That’s why she can’t see you now, even though she’s gotten over the worse of her grieving.”

Sugimoto doesn’t speak, only tightens his grip around Ogata’s waist.

-

The first time Ogata sees Sugimoto again, it is maybe six months since he first met Asirpa again, and Ogata’s killing spree is starting to make his remaining marks cagey.

This one infront of him, he catches leaving his mistress’s home for his other mistress. He’s also a fighter, so Ogata has to load him with bullets before the man finally goes down.

This man is dying already, wheezing for his final gasp of air as Ogata leans down and demands for answers.

“You’re here for Sugimoto?” he guffaws: a thin, choking noise that sounds more machine than human. “Oh, boy… You should have seen him: the great legend on the battlefield, shot like some worthless street dog."

“Is that so.” He glances around the room. There, at the corner, is a piano, the metronome on it still swinging. Ogata has interrupted while the man’s little son has been practising for his father. He walks over and picks it up, weighing it in his hand. “I guess then you ought to have a death that fits you better.”

“Wh -”

Ogata smashes the metronome over and over the man’s skull until the metronome breaks apart.

He sits back. Leans against the wall. Tosses the metronome across the room. This is why he hates kills that are close-up: too bloody, too emotional, and more importantly, he’s not very good at them - this is a mess . He wipes his palm on the nearby table cloth.

“Well then,” he mutters, “time to clean this up.”

“It’s easier if you just burn down the whole house.”

Ogata sucks in a sharp breath. His heart is beating so loud that he must be going deaf. "Sugimoto."

"Hey," says Sugimoto, "didn't know you miss me that much."

"If you turn out to be a hallucination right now, I would be extremely upset."

Sugimoto chuckles humourlessly. "Nah." He spreads his arms out, palms up. "Unfortunately, I am right here."

Ogata runs a hand through his hair. Tongues his inner cheek. "A ghost."

"A ghost," Sugimoto agrees.

"How long?"

"From the very start," he admits, "but no one noticed that I'm right here."

“Because no one should be able to see you,” Ogata stresses, “you died. ”

“I guess none of us ever understood how the afterlife really worked,” Sugimoto admits. He doesn’t have his cap, or his scarf, or any of the outfit that Ogata has come to associate with Sugimoto. He still has the same scars on his face, but there is a hardness to his features that marks the past ten years. Ogata wonders how he must look like to the rest of them too. “How are you going to clean this up?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Ogata forces himself to get up. “I think I’ll roll him up in a blanket and set him on fire outside.”

“No burial?”

“Does it matter? Most people don’t have a grave during the wars.” He pushes open a door. The son is trembling in his mother’s arms. “Give me a blanket.” The mistress turns to a cupboard and fishes one out, her hand shaking as she passes it over. Ogata snatches it and slides the door shut. “Think he’ll become a ghost too?”

Sugimoto toes the corpse. “Nah,” he answers, “he doesn’t have anything left on earth that he needs to finish.”

“Good,” says Ogata, and gets to work.

Chapter Text

ACT TWO 

The mark is almost in place, a jittery figure in the distance as he turns into a side-street. Ogata braces himself, his breaths controlled and systematic, before absently rubbing at the itch on his nose. Then he pinches it. And he rubs it again.

His head hurts. He also really, really wants to sneeze.

"I told you that you shouldn't be working while sick," Sugimoto mutters, sprawling lazily by the window sill. "You aren't concentrating."

Just to be spiteful, Ogata pulls the trigger and there - right through the temple. That's a good one. Rounds are a lot more powerful these days. "Hunting down your killers doesn't pay," he counters, "and l need to buy train tickets. We are already late to meet Asirpa.”

"And mercenary work is easy, quick, and pays well," Sugimoto finishes, "yeah, I get that, but that doesn't matter if you miss your shot."

"Then isn't it lucky that I don't miss my shot?"

"It's only a matter of time." Sugimoto is so close that Ogata can feel the icy breath against his ear. "You missed me."

Ogata suppresses a shiver. "Fuck off," he snaps, shoving his rifle through Sugimoto and grinning when that garners him a wince. "I didn't miss - you got lucky."

"Thought you didn't believe in luck?"

Ogata doesn't, but Sugimoto has always been the exception. The universe - or fate, or heavens, or whatever you'd call it - has always had different plans for him. "I'll be a shit sniper if I can't recognise that sometimes a hit or miss is pure coincidence," Ogata admits, slinging his rifle across his back as he clears out his spot. "If I had a second chance, you would have died by my hands."

If that happens - if that happens then Asirpa would never forgive him. But what does she know anyway. This is a promise between them, an oath of blood spilt and lives slipping through fingers, years of warfare that snap at the ankles of their feet until they are weary of running and mercy is the absolution of guilt at the hands of each other.

Sugimoto laughs now, a carefree thing like the flutter of a moth in the moonlight. "I never doubted that," he says.

-

Ogata isn't paid as much as he'd like, but the war has just ended and the state of the economy is as questionable as Sugimoto's continued existence, so Ogata lets it drop and barters his way to a free night at an inn.

"What happened to not needing a break?" Sugimoto mocks. Ogata makes the executive decision to ignore him.

He spends a few minutes just stretching his muscles - ageing - before stripping off his weapons. Then he collapses face-first onto the bed.

"Graceful," Sugimoto adds.

"Talk to me again when you hit forty," Ogata mumbles into the pillow. 

"You're not forty yet."

"Close enough. I'm old." He rolls over. "I should clean my guns." Ogata makes to get up, but after a few false starts, flops backwards again. "Never mind."

The following minutes are spent in companionable silence before Sugimoto speaks, "Hey, you remember Hijikata?"

Of course Ogata does. It's hard to forget a man with a presence like that, especially in the highly politicised atmosphere of this era. "I hadn't thought about it, but I should have been more impressed with his physique."

"I wonder what is his secret," Sugimoto continues, "maybe it's prison. Keeps you on your toes."

"I don't want to go to prison."

"You would deserve it."

He would. "I'd be great in prison."

"Drive the guards crazy," Sugimoto agrees. "Remember the stories Shiraishi used to tell? They're so wild that you just have to believe it." Before Ogata has realised it, Sugimoto is sitting by Ogata's head, the tip of his fingers brushing against the tip of Ogata's bangs. "I wonder what's up with him now."

Ogata turns his face away. "He still stuck around with you two, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but after I -" Sugimoto cuts himself off. "After that, I hadn't seen Shiraishi around Asirpa anymore. Have you?"

"You're always with me. If you hadn't seen it, then I wouldn't have." It's unlike Ogata to be this groggy, but his nose is clogged and there is a strange fog clouding his thoughts. "No one expected him to stick around this long, did they?"

"I am," Sugimoto begins, and then clears his throat, "I am grateful that he did."

"Do you?"  

"Yeah. Even with all that gold… in the end, we're all in it because of personal stakes. Shiraishi is the only one who hasn't had something to prove."

Ogata pushes himself up to his elbows. "And did you prove it to yourself? Whatever it is you need proving?"

"I wonder."

"Huh," Ogata comments, "I always thought Shiraishi stuck around because he wants you to fuck him."

Sugimoto opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "That's -"

"True?"

"I don't like where this conversation is going," says Sugimoto.

"We're having it anyway," Ogata informs triumphantly. "So? Did he have a chance?" His grin widens when Sugimoto can't meet his eyes. "You two did fuck around, didn't you?"

"I mean -" Sugimoto scratches the back of his head in frustration. "Not like that."

"But?"

"No buts," Sugimoto insists. "You know, Ogata, you're obnoxious when you're sick."

Talking to this one ghost keeps the other ghosts at bay, but Sugimoto doesn't have to know that. "But you're stuck with me," he tells instead. "Let me think. Who else - Tanigaki?"

"No."

"But would you?" Ogata presses. "Let him fuck you?" Ogata remembers the way Sugimoto's eyes linger on Tanigaki's chest, among other things. It is, frankly, hilarious.

Sugimoto ducks his head. "Well, then what about you?" he shoots back. "Will you sleep with him?"

"Why not?"

Sugimoto blinks. "I wasn't expecting you to admit it this readily," he confesses.

"There is no shame in finding other men attractive." Ogata lets himself flop back onto his pillow. The room spins for a painful moment before coming to a still. Sugimoto's face hovers above his, lips twitching. Asshole. "Many men fool around in their youth, and many more in the army."

"But most men would rather have women."

"Most men," Ogata agrees. There is something lonely, this little reminder. "Doesn't mean they don't wonder about other men at all."

"Huh. So you wondered about the men in our group?"

"Somewhat." Mostly in a detached, curious sort of way. They have been much more moralistic than Tsurumi's men. "Want to know who I'll sleep with? I'll start: Ushiyama."

"That's terrifying."

"I know," Ogata allows, "but he's incredibly strong. Adds to the thrill of it."

"He'll crush your bones as he fucks you."

"Exactly. The thrill of it."

Sugimoto snorts. "You're insane." He lies down too, flat on his stomach, elbows by Ogata's waist. "Let's see… Will you fuck Kiroranke?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, me too." Sugimoto pauses. "I don't know why I bothered asking that. Why did I ask that?"

"Because you're an idiot." Sugimoto kicks Ogata. It isn't very effective, because his foot simply passes through Ogata's knee. This is what happens when your corporeal existence depends on wonky ghost physics.

"Give me another try," Sugimoto tries, "what about, uh, Tsukishima? You two were colleagues, weren't you?"

Colleague is an understatement. "I don't think he'll take me up on it."

"That's not a no."

"It is not a no." Ogata has simply never tried. Out of respect, perhaps, for Tsukishima's quiet loyalty. "Now, for you: Ienaga."

"I am not letting her near any of my body parts," Sugimoto replies gravely, "she'll bite them straight off." He makes a low hum at the back of his throat. "How about Koito? He's good-looking."

"No."

"Too bratty?"

"That," Ogata agrees, "and that he'll probably say that oral sex isn't real sex." Sugimoto makes a face at that too; Ogata quashes the smugness bubbling in his chest and tries to recall their shared acquaintances.

"As -" The word feels wrong even before it leaves his mouth. She may have had a crush on Sugimoto, and she has grown up to be startlingly pretty, but - "Inkarmat," he amends.

"Probably. She's a pretty amazing woman." Sugimoto wriggles up until his shoulders are level with Ogata's. "What about you? Have you thought about the women travelling with us too?"

"Not really."

"Hmm." Sugimoto holds his gaze. "So it's no women at all with you?"

"No. Is that a problem?"

"Just uncommon, that's all." Sugimoto rests his jaw on a palm. "Who else… Hijikata again."

Ogata doesn't even need to think about this one. "He is a strong old man," he begins slowly.

"Seriously? He's so old. "

"But you can see the appeal, can't you?" Ogata points out. Sugimoto grunts reluctantly; Ogata ignores him. "Next: Vasily."

"The disfigured jaw thing may be a little weird, but yeah." This answer is so predictable that Ogata might as well not ask. "Your turn now. I'll answer one last one, and then I'm going to sleep." His vision is already starting to blur, drooping eyelids slipping him in and out of dreams.

"Last one then," Sugimoto announces. He wets his lips, deliberating as he leans back on his palms. His eyes never leave Ogata's face.

"Me."

-

Do you know that feeling when you are caught afoot, when you are not sure whether it is shock or surprise that overwhelms you?

(Your breath stuttering where it hitches deep down in your throat at the heart of your chest, and suddenly you need to learn to breathe again.)

It's a little like choking, Ogata thinks. He would know - Ogata has always been choked breathless by Sugimoto, both literally and metaphorically. Anger and rage, wrath and vengeance; all swirling, mixing, a jumble in Sugimoto's eyes dark with fury and unseeing. 

(Or seeing too much? Seeing only Ogata with tears in his eyes and drool down his cheeks because he is dying, he is - dying, in Sugimoto's hands, every inch of existence being squeezed slowly out between his lips, blood rushing to his head until his brain pops right off, and -)

Distantly, Ogata figures that he is panicking. He's got one of Sugimoto's hand on his neck and the other shoving the barrel of a pistol into his mouth, and he's gagging on it, a mouthful of metal that makes him want to puke.

"You want me to kill you?" Sugimoto hisses. Ogata claws involuntarily at Sugimoto's face. His body needs air. "Don't bait me like that. Don't."

His vision is flaking out. His legs are losing the strength to thrash out at Sugimoto. Ogata is choking on his own drool that tastes more like blood at the back of his throat.

"Do you want me to tear you apart?" Sugimoto whispers. "You would love that, wouldn't you?"

Then Sugimoto pulls the gun away and kisses h -

(And Ogata is dying.)

- d kisses him, like the ferocious hunger of an old god, a large predator, king of the woods thirsting for a sacrifice. His soul is claimed from between his lips, slithers out in a gasp and a whimper.

Ogata can't manage more than a desperate clutch at Sugimoto's scarf, a weak mimicry of the suffocating pressure around his neck. There is a fire in his lungs - ironic, because the kiss is anything but: wet and messy, drool smeared across his lips, Sugimoto's damp breath burning his skin.

It stops as suddenly as it begins. Sugimoto drops him and stands, staring down at him, pupils dilated and nose flaring; face cast in shadow, fury trembling in his muscles, and watches like Lady Justice. Do I scare you, he mouths, and as Ogata blinks he's already marching away.

(Ogata wheezes huge gulping breaths into his lungs. His hand trembles when he reaches down to palm himself. For a second, he wonders what that makes him, to get hot on something like that.)

Sugimoto doesn't remember any of it come morning.

-

"I'm not playing this game," Ogata tells him, and turns away.

-

Ogata debilitates between the eye patch and his glass eye, and eventually puts the eye back in the box.

"Feeling like frightening someone today?" Sugimoto teases, an easiness about his limbs that unnerves Ogata.

Ogata reminds himself to look Sugimoto in the eye. "It's Asirpa," he answers instead, "with her, there is no point in pretence." 

To a certain degree. There are some things Asirpa should never know, and Ogata prefers to keep it that way. 

He buys himself a ticket at the station, and makes sure to be as obnoxious as possible until his fellow commuters leave a wide enough berth around him that not only did he score a booth for himself, the adjacent ones are also vacant.

"You invoke violence," Sugimoto tells him, "with your mere presence." 

"It seems," Ogata replies.

"Stop saying that like it's a good thing," says Sugimoto.

The train to Hakodate is a day’s ride away; Ogata passes the time - first by napping, then by sightseeing, until finally he's pushed to cleaning his guns. 

("You like watching me clean my guns," Ogata mutters distractedly.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"It's the only time you're not full of shit," Sugimoto answers, so smoothly that it sounds rehearsed. Ogata thinks of pressing him further, and then lets it go.)

He wipes an old cloth down the barrel and startles at the sight of his own reflection.

"Ogata," Sugimoto repeats.

"What," Ogata snaps, rubbing the barrel more viciously than before, "can't you tell from the first two times that I'm ignoring you?"

"I know," answers Sugimoto, "but I don't care." Ogata contemplates homicide for an already dead man. What would that be, an exorcism? "So what are you going to do after this?"

"After what?"

"After you killed all my killers," Sugimoto answers. "What will you do, then?"

"Same as I always did before I started killing them all."

Sugimoto climbs onto the table and sits cross-legged by Ogata's elbow. "That's not living."

For some reason, this annoys Ogata much more than the sentence should. "What's it to you?"

"I'm just curious, that's all." Sugimoto strokes a finger down the barrel. "Will you continue working with Asirpa?"

"Maybe. She fights a good cause in a manner I never thought possible." Ogata wants to watch her win. If she wants to change the world single-handedly, would it be possible? “Don’t like that?”

"Of course not. Why would I?"

Ogata slides the parts into place. "You know one thing I always wanted to know about you, Sugimoto?" He places the gun down. "The one thing is: do you ever stop lying?"

"I'm not -"

"I don't think you even realise, sometimes," Ogata continues. "It's amazing, really, how much Asirpa trusts you."

The temperature in the room plunges so suddenly that Ogata has to clench onto his cloak. "Why shouldn't she?" Sugimoto asks lowly.

Because you're full of so much baggage that you'll drag us all down with you, down to the bottom of the lake. "Because I've never heard a single word of truth from you where it matters."

“You’re one to talk -”

“I always speak the truth,” Ogata snaps. “Everything that no one dares to say, I say. But you didn’t want to believe me, because then you’ll be staring at that ugly, naked truth in its face, and no one likes that.”

In death, fury twists his face much more in life. It reveals the pull of the skin, stretched tight over bones that sharpen with every passing word, startling if only for how Sugimoto has managed to conceal this anger behind an emotionless mask while alive. “I’m not in denial.”

“Joke’s on you,” Ogata mocks, “you are. ”

There is blood beading where Sugimoto’s bones pierce his skin, sharp and white where it peeks through.

Metamorphosis, Ogata thinks, his pulse racing when blood begins trickling out of Sugimoto's eyes, dark and steaming as it sears the skin open. The wound gapes like a mouth.

(And the body but is a vessel of flesh , a passing monk once told him, even as Ogata flinches away, and in it holds everything that makes up a human being: our soul, our memories. Our emotions. Without a body, everything is laid bare .)

It is with a chill that Ogata realises he is staring at the bare face of the manifestation of wrath, gruesome without the guise of humanity. “Sacrifices have to be made for survival.”

Ogata’s throat is suddenly dry. “But did anyone ask you to sacrifice for them?”

“I will not make them beg -”

“They don’t need you.” His breath quickens. The sound of bones cracking, the stench of old blood. The cold seeps in so quickly that Ogata has to clench his fingers to stop their shivering. “They won’t beg, because they don’t need you to intervene. People adapt to reality; they aren’t like you, twisting everything to justify -”

“Enough.”

(Monsters and old gods, the creatures carved into stone standing guard at the base of temples, night predators prowling the pages of old illustrations. His teeth pierce through his jaws, growling, a drip of red dotting the centre of each eye.)

He can’t look away. “- pretending that killing is noble when the truth is you like it. You’re just like me -”

"I said enough. " The gun on the table discharges so suddenly that Ogata recoils. Anger, the cold, and then the sound of a gunshot that penetrates through glass, the echoes of screams from other cabins accompanying the acrid waft of a cartridge.

It has been startlingly loud, crackling like lightning, the judgement of the gods striking the sky.

Ogata stares at the fractures on the glass. When he glances at Sugimoto, his fury has receded, tucked back under human skin. "Did you -" He wets his lips. "Did you do that?"

Sugimoto looks lost. "I shouldn't be able to."

"Huh." Ogata hurriedly holsters his weapons. The shouts from the other cabins are getting louder. It would be their luck if there are any armed authorities on this train. Ogata lifts up his old rifle, positioning the butt of it against the window. "Guess we'll figure it out after we get away from here."

He swings; the last of the glass shatters. Ogata braces himself (not so young anymore, but he's survived two wars. He’s survived a fall off a cliff, a poison arrow to the eye; tens of thousands of things that have tried to kill him and failed because he is a wildcat, he has nine lives, and -) and jumps off the moving train.

-

“Now I am sick and injured,” Ogata accuses as he trudges through the wheat. The bandages repeatedly come loose from his elbows, and the ones on his knees simply slip off. It’s annoying. Ogata wishes he can kill Sugimoto a second time. “This is your fault.”

“I’m not sorry.” Sugimoto trails closely behind me, wincing each time a stalk snaps back and hits him. It is a small thing, but sometimes, some of the stalks are pushed aside instead of passing through Sugimoto. Ogata wonders if it means anything. “You deserve it.”

“For provoking you?” Ogata scoffs. “If that’s provocation, then I’ll take all the blame, because someone ought to tell you the truth after so many years.”

“There you go again: truth. What does it matter, in the end? It’s all lost to time anyway.”

Ogata slows. “Sugimoto,” he calls over his shoulders, “what did you do?”

“Become disillusioned.”

“Very funny.”

“I'm not joking. I supposed, ever since the first war...” Sugimoto bows his head.“Or even before that. I don’t know. I, I stopped caring about the rest of the world."

"Fuck everyone else, honestly." Ogata pushes his hair back. "It's all romantic idealism. We're all just trying to make a living."

"Yeah, but -" Sugimoto wets his lips. "It's not just about survival either. I want everyone around me to be happy, that’s all. I want to make them happy at all costs. Everything else don’t matter.”

“That’s naïve.”

“Gives me a purpose to continue striving, though,” Sugimoto points out, “what else am I going to do otherwise? Find a job? Can you imagine me working as anything else?”

That is - “You know what's the funniest part about this? It's that even I’ve tried.” Ogata picks up his pace again. “I stepped away and tried to assimilate with - with ordinary people. What I end up with isn’t conventional, but I tried. But you? It seems like you never did."

"I can't."

"Bullshit."

"It's not. You called your own life unconventional; were you actually happy during those years? No, not happy - satisfied. Was a life like that enough -"

"Yes!" Ogata bursts. It doesn't make him feel better even when Sugimoto steps back, eyes wide with shock and, underneath it all, regret. "I was living just fine until you died,” Ogata continues quietly. “It wasn’t the best life, but it was a life.”

Sugimoto clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“For what it’s worth: yes.”

And there it is, the end of the meadow. Ogata steps out onto the road, the dusty path stretching out on both sides further than the eye can see.

They are a long walk away from the next train station. Maybe Ogata can play highway robber and steal a horse.

“I think,” Sugimoto begins, and halts. Ogata raises an eyebrow at him. Sugimoto ducks his head; fiddles with his obi. "I think that as much as I want to live, something inside me has always felt guilty for surviving when others didn't."

Ogata turns around. Sugimoto looks washed out among the wheat, pale among the vibrancy of gold. For the first time, it sinks in that he's -

“A ghost,” Ogata mutters. When Sugimoto looks up, the hollow in him so blatant that he looks translucent. “You and I, we’ve always been more ghosts than people, haven’t we?”

Sugimoto’s smile is small and wry. “What a pair we make,” he says, so softly that it’s almost tender, “we would have razed the world together.”

-

The ghost of Yuusaku has hung over him for so long, heavy and vibrating with anticipation, an executioner’s knife swinging over his neck. 

And then Ogata holds his breath, inhales, and learns to let go of the guilt.

(I'll still make the same choice, Ogata tells Yuusaku spitefully, and the ghost of him smiles, blood trailing down his face. I'm not playing house with you.

Ogata forces himself to walk away. When he reaches the junction, he can’t help it - he looks over his shoulder. Yuusaku stands where Ogata left him, still smiling as he raises his hand in a little wave.

Fuck off, Ogata mouths. It doesn’t make him feel better, nor does it make Yuusaku go away, so Ogata raises his gun and shoots Yuusaku in the face again.)

Yuusaku stays away, a hovering fixture on the horizon.

-

In the end, upon understanding that Ogata fought in not one, but two wars, an old farmer gave him a free ride over to the next town over on his cart.

Sugimoto perches on a crate and whistles an old folk tune throughout the journey. The tune has been frustratingly familiar; it grates on his nerves until he gives in and hums along, low and hoarse, until the farmer hacks out his spit and comments, “Hey, isn’t this a lullaby?”

Ogata startles. “What?”

“Yeah, but I only remember a few phrases." The old farmer sings a short verse. "For the rest of the song, we subbed in whatever we want. The children don’t really care as long as you get the tune right.”

"I see."

The quiet settles again, a hen shuffling back onto her nest. The only sounds on these roads are the steady patter of the wheels, the wheeze of the donkey as it trots along, steady steps. And his own breathing, tired and tinny to his ears.

“Those words,” Sugimoto speaks suddenly. “Don’t you recognise it? Sleep, gods, hungry. ” He crosses his legs. “It's the Ainu language. Maybe it's Asirpa. Ask him.”

Ogata grudgingly straightens up again. "So," he begins, "that lullaby isn't in Japanese. It sounds more like Ainu. Is there anyone in your village…" He allows himself to trail off. "After all, we are pretty far north on Honshu."

The old farmer laughs. "So that's what it was." He shakes his head. "Yeah, I was wondering what language it was too. I heard it from this young lady who came to our village two months ago and asked for a night’s stay. We were cautious at first, but then she helped our neighbour coax her children to sleep, so we figure she must be alright.”

“Is that so?"

"Yeah. How did you recognise that it's Ainu anyway?"

"There are some in my regiment," Ogata answers shortly. The farmer launches into a long monologue about how proud he is of their army, and Ogata lies back down on the hay, listening to Sugimoto sing Asirpa's lullaby until he finally falls asleep.

-

When they finally reached Hakodate, Shiraishi is there waiting for them instead.

Ogata scowls.

"Hello to you too," Shiraishi says. He has finally let his hair grow out, and it hangs wispy over him like a cloud. "You're a month and a half late. Asirpa left after two weeks."

"Unfortunate." They are at another restaurant, but unlike Asirpa, Shiraishi has preferred one that is much more rowdy and much less reputable. Ogata assumes that makes the waiting much less dull too. "Where to, next?"

"Seriously? You're not even going to ask after her?"

"Asirpa can look after herself, can't she?" She's probably smarter than everyone at this table. For one, Ogata can't imagine her messing up enough to have to jump out of a train and then trekking kilometres through grasslands without proper first aid. 

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point?” Ogata waves down a waiter and orders a plate of appetisers. The room smells of smoke and incense: bitter and sweet, suffocating but soothing - a peculiar mix that he refuses to think too deeply about. “No news is good news.”

Shiraishi takes a violent gulp of his beer. “Say whatever you want. I’m saying that it doesn’t hurt to show some concern.” He fishes out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Asirpa says to pass this to you. She’ll meet you here again in a year, which should give you enough time for both your Otaru lead and this one. This man is difficult to find. It took me weeks to figure out where he’s hiding.”

“Oh? You’re involved too?”

“Of course I am,” Shiraishi exclaims, “I’m not letting Asirpa deal with this alone. She’s strong, but no one is that strong.”

Sugimoto rests his cheek on his palm. “Thank you, Shiraishi.”

Ogata ignores him. “Stronger than you, at least. Can you even fire a gun?”

“Wow,” says Shiraishi. “Wow, are we doing personal attacks now?”

“It’s not an attack if it’s true.”

Shiraishi covers his face with a hand. “You,” he announces, “should have your tongue cut out instead, not your eye.”

Sugimoto snorts. Ogata wishes he can punch Sugimoto. “And you,” Ogata retorts, “have finally grown a backbone, at least. Does it make crawling out of the sewers much harder?”

“Yeah, whatever. I’ve heard that one before.”

“That means someone else agrees with me then.”

“Or that you’re losing your touch.”

“Ogata, let it be.” Sugimoto is snickering, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. Ogata thinks about rubbing at it until he catches himself. “You can’t win this.”

Ogata can, yet - “I can still shoot you in the face,” Ogata threatens, but the viciousness is all gone now, “even with one eye.”

“You won’t - Asirpa would hate you.” Shiraishi takes another swig. “You know, even though I didn’t expect you to be the one hunting down his murderers, when Asirpa told me about it, somehow it almost feels…” He struggles, his fingers tapping fervently on the glass. “It feels like resolution. Like it’s a long time coming.”

Sugimoto is no longer laughing anymore. Ogata fakes nonchalance. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying that at the end of the day, we may all have went our separate ways, but those times when we briefly crossed into each other’s paths - they matter.” Shiraishi meets his gaze, chin tipped up, and it suddenly strikes Ogata just how tired Shiraishi looks. “Did you know? Asirpa took a long time to deal with your betrayal.”

“It’s not betrayal. We joined forces because we want the gold. Our alliance has always been temporary.”

“Not that,” Shiraishi urges quietly, “that’s the least of it. It’s everything else. You know what you did - don’t play dumb with me.”

“She’s in the centre of it. It’s inevitable -”

“Not like that!” Shiraishi shouts. “First you, then - why are both of you always -” He cuts himself off. “You are so bad at human interaction.”

That’s fair; Ogata can’t refute that. He finishes the last of his food and pushes the plate away. “You’ve changed, Shiraishi.”

“Obviously. Did you see these wrinkles?”

“Still an idiot,” Ogata continues, ignoring Shiraishi’s dirty look, “but it’s… good, that Asirpa has you around.”

A blink, and then Ogata’s words sink in.

“Oh?” Sugimoto interjects. “Is that a compliment? From you ?”

Shiraishi simply gawks.

“I don’t know why I bother - shut your mouth, you clown, you look disgusting,” Ogata informs. Shiraishi’s jaws snap shut. “If you need me, I'll be staying at the inn beside the bridge for the next week, the one next to an izakaya." He pushes himself up to his feet.

The flush of the fresh air against his cheeks felt like a cool balm after the stuffiness of the restaurant. Ogata rotates his shoulders; it cracks loudly.

"Old man," Sugimoto mocks. "Getting sentimental, aren't we?"

"Seems like there isn't much to be sentimental over, after all." Ogata hurries down the street. The note weighs heavy in his pocket. "Asirpa didn't forgive me, did she? No matter what she said."

"Trauma's trauma.” He shrugs. “It takes time. She's dealing with it."

Ogata spares Sugimoto a glance. "Unlike you?"

"Don't be smug."

"It really makes you wonder," Ogata presses, "what happened between you and her after I left."

"Yeah, like I'm telling you shit." Sugimoto grins, all teeth. "Nothing happened, you nosy bastard."

“Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Really.”

A turn here, down the sidestreet. “Just drop it,” Sugimoto orders, “don’t push your luck.”

“Or what? You’re going to make my gun go off again? Explode more windows?”

Sugimoto scowls. “You are insufferable, you know that?” He drifts ahead. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I accompanied Asirpa. And then the war happened.”

If Sugimoto is going to lie straight to his face, then fine, two can play at this game. “Loyal, aren’t you. What is Asirpa to you?” Ogata picks up his pace. “Why did you stay by her side for so long?” He pauses deliberately. “Do you even know why you followed her?”

Sugimoto stops moving. Ogata slows down too, ready to dodge in case Sugimoto pulls his new stunt again when Sugimoto - Sugimoto’s shoulders are shaking. When he turns, there’s a soft smile on his face, the curve of it looking almost like melancholy when he speaks, “You know, Asirpa asked me the same thing.” He takes a step closer. “Not in those exact words, but the meaning’s there. She says that I’m...” Sugimoto shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“No, tell me. What did she say?” Ogata can’t catch Sugimoto’s eye; he tries again. “Then how did you respond?”

“Wrongly,” Sugimoto admits. “But I stayed by her, in the end. So it doesn’t matter.”

“To you, maybe. But Asirpa -”

“Hey, you! Mad man! Who are you talking to?” someone yells. Ogata swears, pulling up his cloak as he hastens away. “I am speaking to you - wait, aren’t you that Ogata guy?”

Ogata breaks into a sprint.

He rounds a corner and, cursing every single event that has led him to this very moment, pushes over a trinkets stall before dashing into an alley. Hops through the backdoor of a sundry store into another street and into a two-storey restaurant, hurtling through the crowd until he’s on the balcony.

It is just his luck that the man manages to keep up pace with Ogata. “You,” the man snarls, closing in as Ogata climbs onto the roof. He grabs a broom and tosses it at Ogata, narrowly missing Ogata’s ear. “You aren’t getting anywhere, you coward. We trusted you to watch our backs, how dare you desert your compatriots and leave us for death -”

“Actually,” Sugimoto mumbles, “let me try something.”

“Not now.”

“Not with you,” Sugimoto amends, “with him. You hang on.” He slides down the roof, landing light as a paper plane on the basement. “What if I just...” Sugimoto stands behind the man and reaches out, his fingers going through the man’s arm until it slots into place. “Oh.”

Sugimoto pushes through and he’s gone, he’s, he’s the man and the man is him, stiff and unseeing even as his face turns towards Ogata. “Huh,” the man says, and it sounds so wrong , so unnatural that Ogata can feel goosebumps down his arms. “I think I like this.”

Then the man doubles over, his body trembling so violently that Ogata absently registers that it’s a seizure.

Someone is screaming. Another is shouting. The man starts frothing at the mouth, and suddenly Sugimoto is there again, forcefully ejected and clutching his abdomen.

“Sugi -”

He looks up, green around the edges. “Maybe,” Sugimoto croaks, “I shouldn’t try that again anytime soon.”

Before Ogata can respond, Sugimoto vanishes into the ether. Ogata swears again, smooths back his hair, and climbs across the roof before anyone else can stop him.

-

It has been two days before Sugimoto returns.

“So,” Sugimoto speaks from behind Ogata’s left shoulder. Nothing, and then he’s there. “You deserted the army?”

“I didn’t like my regiment.” The first one has been systematic, being on the frontlines. The second one has been too soft, making friends with the locals and attempting to share ghost stories, as though they hadn’t just invaded their homes. But the third one? Ogata hadn’t been able to stand their nationalist diatribes. No one is there for their country, only their egos. 

“Never expected that coming from you.”

Ogata spreads out both arms. “Surprise. Am I exciting enough yet?”

“You were never boring.” Sugimoto perches on the edge of the desk. “What are you reading?”

“Some documents.” Ogata pushes some towards him. “We may have gotten lucky: I suspect our mark is at Niseko.”

“Pretty rural.”

“Makes for a nice change of scenery.”

“But he’ll be harder to catch.” A flick of the finger, and Sugimoto sends the paper fluttering into the air. Ogata seizes it before it can touch the ground. “It’s too easy to get lost in the woods, even for ghosts.”

“You’ve spent ages hiking through the woods with Asirpa,” Ogata reminds, leaning back in his chair. “What have you got to be worried about?”

“The world looks different now that I’m dead.”

“For one -” Sugimoto rests his hand over Ogata’s. It doesn’t pass through. “This means something different to me than to a person who’s alive.”

Ogata wets his lips. “You’re corporeal now?”

“No.” Sugimoto doesn’t elaborate. “You’ll understand in due time.” He pulls away, leaning back on his elbows. “I think I know how I’m going to kill you.”

He blinks. “Yeah?” 

“It’s not going to be pretty.” Sugimoto tilts his head back. “I may be a little cruel, but you already know that. Take it as a gift: you’ll rot with me.”

"Not literally, I hope. I don't want to exhume your grave." Ogata folds his arms. “Actually, I wonder where Asirpa buried you.”

“Somewhere lovely,” Sugimoto answers, “as much as is possible. Want to visit it?”

“Is there a point? A corpse is a corpse.” Sugimoto is lucky enough to have a grave at all; they throw men overboard when they die at sea. It’s a matter of practicality: nothing personal, and all. “Do you want to visit it?”

“Nah, there’s no point.” He is so still that it is unnerving. “I’m not going to be around for much longer, so I would rather not waste my time.”

“Think you’ll go to hell?”

“I know I’m going to hell.” Sugimoto grins. “And so will you.”

“We’d better not be neighbours,” Ogata informs. “I’ve had enough of your company while alive.”

"I'd think hell is big enough for the both of us."

"It has to be - it's been taking people in since the start of time." Ogata folds up the papers. "I'll do some background checks before we set off. One week, as I told Shiraishi."

Even as Ogata pulls up the blanket over his knees, Sugimoto hovers at the foot of the bed, his head cocked to one side as he watches. "What are you doing?"

Sugimoto smiles. "Watching your six."

The deja vu tickles like an old joke. "Shut up and go somewhere else and do your ghost things, idiot."

A whisper on the breeze, sibilants that make up a song that arrives with the draft that sneaks into the room. Sugimoto shakes his head and tells him, "There is never anywhere to go," before stepping out of time once more.

Chapter Text

Sugimoto gestures around them.

“Pick a door,” he says, and when he smiles, the curve of his lips tastes like something bitter.

-

FLOTSAM.

When Sugimoto disappears for a few days, it's easy to fall back into his usual state, tucking the flurry of agitation back into himself.

He hasn’t realised how worn out he is until he wakes up from his nap and upon stumbling into the innkeeper, realises that he’s slept through an entire day. No matter; he’s just recovered from his cold anyway, this is to be expected. 

The day is pleasant enough that he decides to head out. When a storekeeper pushes too hard in an attempt to sell his wares, Ogata haggles and needles and takes the storekeeper for a spin until the storekeeper is close to tears. Then some beady-eyed kid starts lingering, clothes too dirty to be anything but a street rascal, so Ogata tosses the kid the comb that he’s gotten pretty much for free, and then continues his walk down the street.

It strikes him while he’s in the middle of buying some street food that he has missed being alone much more than he thought.

To miss something is a puzzling feeling - much less to miss a lifestyle that Ogata has never quite lost in the first place, what with Sugimoto being a ghost that phases in and out of existence.

The sun shines bright, but the air around him is chilled. Bitter, on his tongue. He pulls his coat tighter around him as he turns the corner, and -

Oh.

“Hello,” Kikuta says, all angular and gaunt, “never thought I’ll see you again.”

-

Once upon a time, Sugimoto tells him that the first time he killed someone, he almost threw up.

Almost, because Toraji is vomiting his guts out beside him, and Sugimoto - well, someone has to drag Toraji up and out of the line of fire, right?

Ogata doesn’t know who Toraji is. It doesn’t matter - he’s dead now, Sugimoto says. Sugimoto says many things these days that Ogata doesn’t understand, but that doesn’t matter as well, because Sugimoto is dead too.

So is Tsurumi. So is Kiroranke, is Hijikata, and soon will Kikuta, soon will Ogata. It’s a matter of time. 

(To die by Sugimoto’s hands, in the end. This is what he’s owed.)

And at the end of the day, Ogata finds himself a small room in a small inn, glances out of the window, and fishes out Asirpa’s note. 

“If this man,” Sugimoto asks, “has mellowed out and is now living in the woods peacefully with a wife and two children, and maybe even occasionally deliver firewood to the old couple who lived twenty minutes away from him, would you consider letting him go?”

“No,” Ogata answers.

“Yeah,” Sugimoto replies, “I thought not.”

-

“Walk with me,” Kikuta implores, and Ogata is careful to keep pace beside him. “How have the years been treating you?”

“Well enough.”

“That’s good.” Kikuta coughs to clear his throat. “As you can see, I have not been as lucky, but what is a man to do?”

Everything about Kikuta seems out of turn. He has been breezy, but it has always been underpinned with a sort of ambition, an underlying awareness of rank and power. But now, it is as though Kikuta has found peace. It's so weird.

"Roll over and die, then," Ogata derides. "If you pawn some of your guns, you can make your final moments quite comfortable."

Kikuta's feet drag along the ground as he walks. "I've always known," he remarks, and the dullness of his face makes him look even more skeletal, "that death is coming for me. Especially after Mukden, I… But I never thought that it would come so insidiously."

"Yes," Ogata retorts scathingly, "I've heard of your little story thousands of times. You and Ariko, alone under the moon, hanging on to each other's voices. How romantic. If only both of you died together then."

(To be joined only in death; there's something beautiful about that, isn't there? He has hoped it for his mother when he killed her. Maybe as her soul lingers in that first week after she passed, she'll find solace at Hanazawa's belated appearance. 

Except Hanazawa never came, and Ogata has to go and personally kill him. May his mother rest in peace.)

"Suppose," Kikuta continues, but breaks into wet coughs that force him to double over. "Sorry," he rasps when the tremors ease, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Oi, say something, will you? Make fun of me or something. It's weird to have you all empathetic when you can lord my misery over my head."

"I -" It hits Ogata that he has not said any of his replies out loud. "It's no fun if you've already accepted how pathetic you are," he defers. Kikuta doesn't look convinced, so Ogata adds, "Are you that starved for attention that you want me to insult you?"

"Ten years later, and still a massive bastard," Kikuta returns, and oh horror, is that mirth that is buried in his voice? "Hey, Ogata? There is one thing I've always wanted to ask you."

"What."

Kikuta straightens his back, wheezing painfully for a long while before he finds his voice again. "Why did you betray the First Lieutenant?"

The sunbeam flashes in his eyes; Ogata has to look away. "Won't you like to know."

"Fine, then tell me this: do you regret leaving?"

The answer to this is quick. "No."

"Not at all?" Kikuta sounds taken aback. When Ogata eyes him, Kikuta's eyebrows are raised so high that the wrinkles on his forehead seem to have spawned offspring. "You know that we would have won? We were so close."

“ He would have won," Ogata bites out icily. "Not me. It won't matter to me."

"But you are in his division. The glory trickles down."

"I don't care for glory.” He straightens his sleeves distractedly. “A war up north, a war on the streets - it’s all the same. I’ll shoot people who need to be shot and keep going until I die, but I will not be acting under his orders." 

Kikuta rolls the answer over in his head. "Freedom to choose, huh?" He starts strolling again. "Never thought you’re the optimistic kind."

"I'm not."

"Idealistic, then." Ogata graces that with a scoff. "Or at least anarchic," Kikuta amends. "After all, these days, freedom is merely a longer leash."

A horrible metaphor, but what can he expect from Kikuta of all people. "At least I am the one to decide who holds the leash."

The words do not sit easy; Kikuta makes a strange face that makes Ogata chafe under the scrutiny. "You’ve changed."

"Obviously.” The decade has been long. 

It is feeble, the way that Kikuta snorts. Like the quivering of an automobile’s engine that struggles to start. “After all these years, and I still can never understand what it is you want.”

That doesn’t matter, Ogata thinks, not anymore. “I want to destroy anyone who has ever wronged me.”

“Ah, that part hadn’t changed,” Kikuta quips. “Ogata Hyakunosuke, that horrible little man who can store so much spite in such a small body.”

“Fuck off.”

“I will soon enough.” Kikuta clasps his hands behind his back. “It’s always the result with you, isn’t it? That’s fair - only the consequences endure, in the end. That’s life for you.”

"Life, for me, is one that belongs to me and only me,” Ogata jeers, “unlike whatever the fuck has happened with you."

Kikuta halts again. When he turns around, there is an expression that looks like a scream caught halfway between a sob and a guffaw. "To you," Kikuta utters, "has my career appeared that pathetic to you? My life, even - do you scoff at it all?"

Ogata has no answers for him. "Name me one good thing that came out of it."

"Well, I met Ariko." The lopsided grin slips onto Kikuta's face so easily that it stuns Ogata. "Speaking of which, I should head home soon. He'll be pissed that I sneaked out again. Ariko thinks the city air is bad for my lungs."

-

This is something that Ogata has never told anyone:

For the years after the gold hunt, Ogata has decided, oh what the hell, he might as well make the best out of it. 

After all, living has always been deliberate for Ogata. It's a choice. He chooses to live. He decides to spend his days following orders. He wants to desert because he's sick of feeling trapped.

So he tries to find something to do. 

He idles. Takes up jobs. Wanders from place to place, trying to figure out something that can make him stay, a goal that he can keep to for the long term, before it all gets too much and he needs to run again, before the frustration makes him so stupid he's ready to claw out of his own skin.

Because see, the thing about life is this: you have to have a purpose, or you will drift, flotsam on the waves.

Ogata doesn't mind drifting, so long as he's still afloat. The world is big and life is long and he always has something he needs to do, for better or worse.

But then Sugimoto crashes back into his life, splintering wood and snapping the ropes holding Ogata's world together, selfishness and sacrifice, paradoxes all rolling into one man who cannot grow anymore. A flame, Ogata thinks, waiting to burn out. Both creation and destruction, the beginning and the end.

(Ogata's liberation, that moment after Ogata falls off the cliff and hangs on the precipice of death, that final exhale as Ogata sees Sugimoto alive that final time, that time when Sugimoto stares down at him his mouth bloodied his face flushed and he’s survived he’s survived! - Ogata’s heart pulsing so hard that it's exhilarating, because Sugimoto wears and tears but he'll never break, on and on and on -)

But then Sugimoto dies, so now what then? Now what? 

-

Ogata wipes off the water from his face, and shakes the droplets off his hair. The movement makes him feel somewhat like a dog, or at least, a very fluffy and very big cat; he hangs the towel around his neck and sits by the table.

Then he reaches for his rifle.

Ogata doesn’t know when it happens, but Sugimoto returns: silently as a changeling in the woods, his presence quiet and unsupposing. 

"Did you know," Ogata asks suddenly, "that love is real?"

"What," says Sugimoto.

"It makes me sneeze," Ogata continues. He wipes down the rifle. "Maybe I'm allergic to it."

The moon is awfully bright that night. Ogata wishes it will rain, just so that Kikuta will choke on his own phlegm, wherever the fuck he is. 

"This is probably because you refuse to eat shiitake mushrooms," Sugimoto suggests.

"What has that got to do with anything?"

"It's a medicinal herb," Sugimoto informs. "There is a reason why it's always used in traditional soups."

If this is a conspiracy to get Ogata to eat shiitake mushrooms, Ogata is not buying it. "Well," he demurs, "I'm not going to eat it, so I guess I'll just die."

His answer seems to annoy Sugimoto, which makes it even better, and Ogata’s mood lightens for the rest of the night.

In the end, Shiraishi never did turn up, so Ogata packs up his bag, ignores Sugimoto's whining about trying out (or in his case, sniffing ) more of the local dishes, mounts his horse, and sets off for Niseko.

"Let's wait awhile before we take the train again," Ogata informs absently.

Sugimoto stays close behind Ogata, an unexpected lightness throughout his body that has appeared ever since Sugimoto has announced Ogata's death.

(A duty solidifying, Ogata knows, a goal waiting to be accomplished.)

Nevertheless, he hasn't been able to touch Ogata again except for the occasional poke. Back to normalcy, and so it goes.

They set off the next morning, wading off the beaten path into the woods as the sun ascends to its throne. 

“The terrain ahead looks rough,” Sugimoto comments lightly, “it’s not too late to head back into town.”

Ogata shakes his head. “Suck it up - we’ll walk.”

Sugimoto is silent again. “Do you,” he begins, “do you want to take a break?”

What? “What for?” Sugimoto doesn’t answer. Ogata frowns. “I just had a break.”

“Yes.” A breeze; Sugimoto’s kimono does not sway. “We should slow down,” he suggests, annoyingly opaque. “You’re tired.”

“I'm not.”

“Is it my fault?” Sugimoto continues. When Ogata ignores him, Sugimoto kicks at his foot; it connects this time, and Ogata stumbles before he rights himself.

“Not everything is about you,” Ogata snaps, bending down to tighten the laces of his boots.

“But I - do you know what people used to say? That the more time you spend with the dead, the closer you move away from life?”

“Superstitions."

“Really?” Sugimoto challenges, “because you’re different when with me. Different from the way you were when I was alive.”

He hasn’t realised that. “How so?” Sugimoto hesitates; Ogata repeats impatiently, “how?”

“You lose control,” Sugimoto blurts. Ogata freezes, feeling a little stunned. “You must have noticed it.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with becoming closer to dying.”

Under the radiant light, Sugimoto seems to fade, transparent where the sunbeams piercing through him. “Oh,” he mutters, “then it is all me?”

"Don't let it get to your head."

"Of course not." Sugimoto purses his lips, looking thoughtful. "All those years ago, did you always have a grand masterplan?"

Back to the bullshit, then. Ogata turns back front. "I do, actually."

"You do?"

Don't you dare sound so surprised. "Yeah," he gibes, "to have the time of my life fucking everyone over."

Sugimoto snorts. "Oh fuck off."

By all accounts, he can do that. But if he does, then where would Sugimoto go? 

(Cease to exist, perhaps, like all things left untold after death. It’s hollow.)

"You're the one haunting me," Ogata retorts instead, and continues.

-

INTO THE WARDROBE.

It feels like a dream.

(What?)

-

Sugimoto, looking at him, and he’s smiling - a full, early morning smile. Ogata’s heart stutters, pitter-patter, and there is a moment of weakness where he thinks he will shatter when Sugimoto kisses him on the nose.

“Wake up,” he mutters, that wonderful smile curling further until the corners of his eyes wrinkle.

And Ogata opens his eyes to see Sugimoto staring down at him, the flare of the sun merging into his head.

“What,” he leers, sitting up.

Sugimoto barely blinks as he glides away.

(This, this isn't fair - Ogata is displaced and yet Sugimoto is fine. He shouldn't be, not when Ogata feels like he's losing his mind with every passing second.)

The old itch under his skin, the desire to prove Sugimoto wrong - rile him up, just to see him lose control because of Ogata.)

"Sugimoto," Ogata snaps, and he - he doesn't remember what he says, but he must have said something, because Sugimoto whips around, fury colouring his cheeks before he startles at whatever he finds on Ogata's face.

Then his face softens, and Ogata hates this part, he always -

“Life would be a lot easier if you learnt how to lie properly to yourself,” Sugimoto advises, a hint of pity colouring his voice, and Ogata whips out his pistol and shoots at him before he remembers all the reasons why not.

Impulses and whims; at least the consequences are less significant, now. The air ripples, and Sugimoto blinks. “Aim right next time,” he says.

-

A million centuries and ten years ago, before Ogata spat in Sugimoto’s face, he points his rifle at Sugimoto, arms wobbling from fatigue, and Sugimoto grabs it and pulls it over his heart.

“Go on,” Sugimoto taunts tiredly, “shoot me.”

And Ogata can - he has, he will, and yet -

“Fuck you,” Ogata snarls, muscles coiling like the twist of a python before Sugimoto suddenly swings the rifle to the side to lunge for Ogata’s throat.

They scramble, and there is a moment of deja vu before Ogata manages to slip off.

But Sugimoto doesn’t throw the rifle this time. Sugimoto lurches forward and drags Ogata down with him: a tussle, then a tumble; falling, decrescendo denouement a fucking descend as they skid down the slope.

A stone rolls off the cliff. Ogata’s foot dangles. Sugimoto holds firm, an arm around Ogata and another clinging onto a jutting rock, his palms so scraped up that it is raw and bloody.

(An ultimatum, suspended.)

“Ogata,” Sugimoto hisses. His voice is thick with exhaustion, more like a wheeze than a threat, and Ogata has barely the chance to wonder how many wounds bleed open when Sugimoto adds, “I’m going to fucking kill you. But not yet.”

He feels a laugh bubbling up his throat, irrational and feverish. “Oh, and I will drag you to my grave with me.”

“Really.” Sugimoto’s grip slip, and for a moment Ogata thinks he’s going to fall again, before Sugimoto heaves him against his chest. “Should I let go right now?”

“Why not? Maybe First Lieutenant Tsurumi will fish me up again.” And he’ll escape again and chase Sugimoto to the ends of the universe, on and on and on.

“No, I mean -” Sugimoto wets his lips. His eyes are blown wide open. “If I let us both fall."

(A reckoning.)

-

And another million years before, or perhaps it is the span of a heartbeat, Ogata asks, “Grandma, what is sin?”

And, and all religions have different ideas on what is sin, don’t they? Ogata can map them all together: a codification of behaviours and taboos, rules on how to be human. Some say lust is a sin; others say that want is only human, but failure to overcome desire is a moral failure. Another says to eat too much is wrong. 

Many of them say that patricide is damning.

But a long, long time ago, Ogata stares down at his hands, knuckles rubbed raw, and he says, “Grandma,” and he asks, “what is sin?”

His grandmother startles. She removes the backstrap on her waist and moves away from the loom. “They are bad things that you wash away when you purify yourself at the temple. Why do you ask?”

“Some of the kids in the village called Mother a sinful woman.”

His grandmother’s face twists, and Ogata thinks of wrinkled rags and his mother’s old kimono, faded and dusty at the bottom of the wardrobe. “Oh, my dear child.” His grandmother hugs him to her chest. “Your mother did what she had to survive, little Hyaku. She did what she must. There is no sin in that.”

But there is sin in Ogata, because murder - murder is always a choice, and it is one that is always made by the aftermath of a rotten soul. Commandments, major sins, rule and order: thou shall not kill, because murder is always wrong, no matter the religion. 

Murder is the greatest crime, Asirpa has said, as the Ainu has said, they who deplore murder most of all.

Then what about me, Ogata thinks. 

-

A VESTIBULE,

To his commanding officer, Ogata says, "Thank you, sir, but I would like to reject the promotion."

-

Or rather, Ogata says, "Thank you, sir," and doesn't feel shit.

He herds all his men like herding sheep, until one day he stops, clutches his face, and wonders what the fuck he is doing. He's there to serve his time and leave, and all these foolishness can be carried out by sillier men eager for praise and power.

And so Ogata leaves. 

-

He herds all his men like herding sheep. Keeps them in line - that's good enough - and peers out at the dock, gazing out at the frontlines every time there is a battle.

Ogata doesn't know what he's searching for, but whatever it is, he doesn't see it.

And so at the first opportunity, he fakes an injury and gets himself honourably discharged.

-

"I mean -” Sugimoto wets his lips. “If I let us both fall. We'll die together. Disillusioning, isn't it? Sugimoto the fucking Immortal isn't so immortal after all.”

(A reckoning. First and last. For chrissake, what even is this mess -)

"Damn you, Sugimoto," Ogata sneers, "what the hell do you want from me?"

"Then what do you want me to do?" Sugimoto snarls. "You drive me fucking insane, you know that? Every single time, I -"

Like Sugimoto doesn't make Ogata want to tear out his throat, wants to claw off his own skin just to hurt -

"There is nothing you can do," Ogata tells him, and Sugimoto's face stretches into a facsimile of a grin (or is it the other way round?) before he shoves Ogata up to steady ground.

-

What? Ogata thinks, because it feels like a dream. And it’s not, it’s not - all these years aren’t a dream, but he is confused and upset and there is no reason to, none at all.

“Hey,” Sugimoto says, and Ogata’s head snaps up. “Didn’t know you miss me that much.”

-

OLD DOG.

Niseko is a quiet town with too many trees and not enough people, and the trek up the mountain makes Ogata believe that he should step up the intensity of his jogs. That, or he’s getting old.

“Do you know?" Sugimoto remarks, "the name Niseko is derived from the Ainu language.” 

"S'that so."

"Yups. It means the cliff over the river." Sugimoto reaches out at a tree branch, and surreally, frost spreads over his fingers. “This place will be gorgeous in winter.”

Ogata doesn’t like that. “What are you doing?”

“Ghostly things,” Sugimoto answers vaguely, and at Ogata’s unimpressed stare, adds, “these are the ghosts of plants.”

“There are plant ghosts?”

Sugimoto makes a face. “Not exactly,” he admits, “but there really isn’t a better word for it. You’ll understand when you’re dead.”

“Oh, joy,” Ogata replies flatly. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“You won’t.”

“Huh.” He rubs at his knees. Aches. “You’ll make my death miserable, then?”

“The most miserable.” Sugimoto quirks the edge of his mouth. “Or maybe I won’t kill you at all, and you’ll be stuck with my company until something else eventually claims you.”

“That’ll be torture.”

Sugimoto smiles, and the sunlight on his hair glows like brass, distracting if only for how it draws attention to the absence of his cap. “Won’t it,” he says.

-

It takes them awhile, but they kill a man.

-

The daughter watches while Ogata buries her father. The mother has long passed, years ago in an avalanche, and the daughter grows up running around town and helping sweep the floors of the nearby temples.

“My name is Tome,” she says, and Ogata feels off-kilter for a second before he catches himself. “One day, I will kill you.”

Ogata ignores her. Sugimoto stands beside the door, flicking at the sunshine doll hanging above. 

“Do you even know his name?” the daughter continues, her tiny frame shaking. Tedious - Ogata has watched them for some days before taking action. Her father has barely interacted with her, and every word they exchange is curt and acerbic.

“I do, actually,” Ogata tells her, “although it won’t be the same name that you know.”

“What?”

He shovels more soil on the plot dutifully. “Once,” he informs, “I met a girl, whose father was killed by a traitor on their team. Except it turns out that her father is alive, and he is the traitor. Although, to be fair, he has noble intentions, but I would say the execution could use some work.”

“Ogata,” Sugimoto warns, “don’t cause trouble.”

Ogata lowers his gaze to his feet, allowing himself the barest opportunity to falter before he resumes his work. “She also found out that he has a whole other life that she has never heard of, and is insane enough to throw his child in the midst of revolution without warning. I killed him.”

“Oh,” the daughter says. 

The pile is getting higher; maybe Ogata will even find some rocks to place around the plot. A proper grave, for once, since he’s in a good mood. “Not because I felt bad for the girl, because I don’t. But let’s just say patricide is something of a habit of mine.”

The daughter's voice is wobbling. “You’re mad.”

Ogata snorts. “Sure," he taunts, and sticks the spade atop the pile. "Say, I'm stark raving mad. What are you going to do about it?"

The daughter does not reply. When Ogata turns around, she is nowhere in sight. Sugimoto stares into the house. "You made her cry," he remarks.

"And so?" He pats the soil off his hands, and then his trousers. "She'll get over it."

"Maybe." Sugimoto turns towards Ogata. “You don’t have to be so cruel.”

“Cruel?” He shouldn’t be feeling amused, but he is. “What next? Are you going to call me a horrible person too?”

“Ogata.”

“Because I know that,” he continues, “but you aren't any better.”

He slings the fieldpack across his back before heading back down the road. Sugimoto trails along, a few false starts escaping his throat before he finally accuses, “Maybe the problem is with you. Ever thought about that? Just because everyone is horrible deep down doesn't mean you can't still try to be better than who they are.”

“I tried. Look where it got me?” He stretches out his arms. “Right here.”

“But if you don’t stray away from a path that is already wrong, then you can’t ever get anywhere,” Sugimoto insists. “Don’t ignore me - you can always just walk away. You turned your nose at me for not trying to live a life after the war, but for me to have any semblance of life, I need to change myself.”

“I don’t.”

“Ogata!” Sugimoto shouts when Ogata quickens his pace. “You fucking bastard, listen to me - the entire time I travelled with Asirpa, I told myself - look, even if things can’t go back to the way it used to be, I can at least leave the bloodthirst behind. I tried so many times, again and again, to be more than who I am. Why not put away your gun?”

“Are you trying to save my soul or something?” Ogata snaps. “A little too late for that.”

“I’m -”

“And that's your downfall, by the way,” Ogata interrupts. “You can't run away from who you are. You're a monster - the biggest one of them all. You should have gobbled everyone right up.”

He doesn’t stop until Sugimoto grips onto his elbow, and it fucking burns for a second, a million needles stabbing onto his skin, before Sugimoto recoils.

“Should I have?” he implores, eyes wide and searching. “Have I not killed enough?”

They all have, but there are always more wars to fight. So Ogata rubs at the pain and tells him, “You would have been glorious,” and is surprised to feel the old melancholy curl in his lungs.

-

Another something, unspoken:

The man slams the chair against Ogata before making a run for it, and - and heck, Ogata loves the chase but this is taking too long.

He seizes his rifle, squinting through the blood dripping from his forehead as he shoots and - and it is a horrible shot by all measures, but the man drops.

Ogata pulls himself up and trudges over. “You,” he grits out, slamming the butt of his rifle on the back of the man’s head. His vision is spinning. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Fuck you,” says the man, and pulls the rifle away before Ogata can react. Ogata stumbles - this man doesn’t go down, fuck - and he’s grappling the man, cursing age for slowing down his movements as the man dodges a strike.

“You’re not killing me today,” the man snarls, before lunging for Ogata. He forces an arm down on the throat, pressing hard as Ogata's breathing is cut off. The light catches on a blade - now where has he gotten that? - and Ogata -

(A breath at his ear, cold as a winter breeze, a whistle of seaside storms.

Let me, Sugimoto whispers.)

The light catches on the blade, catches on the glow of Sugimoto’s eyes, cold and stark as winter’s sun. 

(And oh.)

The man’s pupils staring down at Ogata, dilated with shock and confusion.

(Sugimoto’s face, so still, so tranquil. The calm of the sea, the quiet moments of sunrise before the world rises.)

The dullness that rises up the man’s face, and then life has evaporated.

(Peaceful.)

Ogata pushes the man off and stands up. Brushes the crease in his clothes.

“What?” He meets Sugimoto’s stare. “Do you want me to thank you?”

-

A PAINTING ON THE WALL,

To be a ghost is something of a half-life. Dead, and yet not. Able to be perceived, and yet, a non-existence. 

Like light - but you can feel the heat on your skin, soak through your lungs and call forth life from the greenest plants. 

Like a shadow then, existence in the absence of - like cold, like silence, like indifference.

An absence of life, an absence of feelings, an absence of care. Little things, snowballing.

And then there’s Ogata: an absence of guilt where there should be guilt, an absence of love where there should be love. A non-existence of personhood. 

So what does that make him?

Tell him: what? 

-

OLD TRICKS.

The singing is melding with the rustling of his footsteps. 

It's the village madman, they've told Ogata. He sings pithy marching songs and silly limericks, and wanders the borders of the woods for hours until he eventually stumbles home.

I met a young lass by the lake, while I'm on my way to a wake.

"Which one do you think she'll flash," Sugimoto mutters, bored, "the boobs or the ass?"

"Maybe she'll flash them both."

"Oh no," Sugimoto intones flatly, "not both parts. How scandalous."

The lyrics loop in circles, twist and turn, a never-ending tale forever and evermore. It bothers until it doesn’t, fading into white noise in the background, nestled in the back of his mind as with all things. 

Then Sugimoto says, “Ogata.”

"Why are you -" Ogata pushes aside the branch. "Oh."

"Wild horses," Sugimoto observes, his voice taking on a curious lilt. "Huh. Surreal. I thought scenes like this are only found in stories."

The herd grazes on the meadow, curiously majestic until a few trot menacingly close when Sugimoto’s invisible presence confuses them. 

Suppose a man and a ghost isn’t much threatening to them. And Ogata has thought the wild easily spooked. 

The tune has faded into a whisper in the wind: At the wake I caught the eye, of a young man with skin like -

“Ogata,” Sugimoto says, barely dodging a curious bite at his sleeves, “a little help here?”

“Bold of you to assume I won’t feed you to the horses myself if they hadn’t started munching.” The one most persistent is a grey horse that towers over the others. “Weren’t you so smug about being more corporeal?” Or as corporeal as Sugimoto can be, anyway, when you are an unreal being.

“I told you, I didn’t mean to grab you,” Sugimoto insists. “Get it away -” He retches when the horse’s head phases through his shoulder instead. “Damn it.”

Ogata takes a step closer, and the herd inches a respectable distance away, freeing Sugimoto until the grey one circles back. “Huh,” Ogata comments. He takes two steps away, and the horse tracks his movements, wary and beady. 

Sugimoto hugs his arms to his chest. “It is following us.”

“More like guarding against us.” When Ogata unslings his rifle, Sugimoto suddenly lunges forward to grab at the tip.

“What are you doing?”

“Shooting it,” Ogata replies placidly, “what else?”

“Leave it alone to graze, maybe?” Sugimoto drops his hand. “Or maybe…” He quirks his lips. “You know, your trek will be a lot shorter if you manage to tame yourself a ride.”

This is a horrible idea. "I'm going to break my bones."

"Maybe," Sugimoto allows, "but -"

"I'll use you as feed.”

Sugimoto purses his lips and tries again, "I've heard -"

He is older now, measures risk differently: even his favourite concoction of stubbornness and sheer spite cannot overcome the limits of the body. "You've heard many things. They are all true. So what?"

Sugimoto shrugs. "Not all, probably. I just thought -" A sudden flutter of the lashes, the stiffening of shoulders as memories twist its way into the slopes of his lips. “Huh. Have I ever told you about that time Kiroranke won a horse-riding competition?”

“The story about the rigged race?” He vaguely recalls details; must have been one of the stories shared during the treks. “You think he’ll be able to tame a wild horse?”

“I won’t be surprised.”

And Kiroranke will look fucking suave doing it too. The show-off. Ogata lowers his rifle begrudgingly. “Too bad he didn’t teach me shit about that then.”

“It never came up in conversation?”

There is a hint of something sharp in Sugimoto’s tone that Ogata doesn’t like. He slings up his rifle and heads away from the herd, the grass wet and muddy under his feet. Disgusting. “Are you trying to say something?”

“Will you tell me even if I ask?”

“I,” says Ogata, when he hears it. “The singing has stopped.”

Not even the whistle of the winds, nor the rustle of grass. The horses are stiff as toy soldiers, frozen in position.

Ogata stares up at the skies. Even the clouds are still.

“Strange,” Sugimoto mutters, glancing over his shoulder. "Think we should go check it out?"

“Whatever for?”

“Aren’t you curious?”

Ogata makes a face. “I don’t care for some mad stranger.”

“Nonetheless. It feels ominous.” Sugimoto holds his palm above his eyes as he squints. “Hey, I think I saw someone near the copse over there.”

“That’s…” He holds up his binoculars. The branches are still stirring. “It can be an animal.”

“Could be.”

“Can’t you tell? What happened to your ghostly intuition?” Ogata ignores the scowl tossed his way. A copse is only barely better than a clearing when it comes to hiding spots. If something chooses to hide there, it probably isn’t anything threatening.

He voices as much, only for Sugimoto to rub at his nose and frown. “Then why not verify? It is along the way.”

Ogata really does not have the patience for this, but if Sugimoto is going to be difficult - “Fine,” he snaps, marching towards the copse. “We’ll take a quick look.”

It is only when he comes close that Ogata realises that the copse may be bigger than his initial estimation, and the undergrowth taller than is typical. “So,” Ogata begins slowly, “not does your presence fuck up seasons, it also screws with relative scale now?”

“Oh give me a break, this is new to me too.” Sugimoto takes a big step over a shrub. “Does it help if my ghostly intuition doesn’t detect any bears?”

“I think that is less intuition and more common sense,” Ogata informs grimly. “Anyone with some intelligence can figure out that this grove is still too small for a bear to roam.”

“Maybe it is a very small bear.”

“Yes, just a single small bear,” he replies drily, even as he follows along. 

Rustling, and a branch falls right where he was standing. Better timing next time, tree, Ogata thinks, and awards himself a point on his mental scoreboard. 

Then he decides that it’s ridiculous, and discards the whole fiasco to the back of his mind.

The undergrowth mellows out the deeper in he wanders, and soon it has calmed into an easy spread of wild grass. He pauses beside an old tree, a hollow gaping wide like a mouth at its base, and calls out, “Sugimoto?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like butterflies?”

“Well enough.” Sugimoto trots over. “What did you find?”

Ogata points at the pupa. “It’s emerging.”

“Woah, that’s -” Sugimoto’s excitement melts into dismay. “It has no heartbeat.”

“Oh.” Ogata pulls out his dagger and, with the back of the blade, gingerly pushes the opening wider. The butterfly is already dried up. “I’m surprised that some insect hasn’t come along and eaten it up yet.”

“As far as groves go, this one is too stagnant. There are barely any - don’t poke it, Ogata. Leave it alone.”

Ogata raises an eyebrow. “Why should I? It’s already dead. Also,” he adds before Sugimoto can protest, “it’s only a bug.”

“Then let the bug die in peace before I slap you on the wrist.” Sugimoto shakes his head. “You are like a kid sometimes, you know that? Or a petulant cat - my family used to have one as a pet. She always tries to steal my desserts.”

Ogata straightens up. “Then there’s the issue.”

“What?”

“If I am the one stealing,” Ogata reasons, “you wouldn’t be saying try.”

“And if you are the one stealing,” Sugimoto retorts, “I will grab you by the nape and toss you into the well.”

“Ooh, are you considering drowning me?” Ogata doesn’t bother waiting for a reply. He leans back against the trunk. Thinks about climbing it, just to feel superior when he looks down at Sugimoto. “Do you know what this place reminds me of?”

“A cemetery? This place is certainly dead enough."

Ogata blinks. "Really?"

Sugimoto considers this. "I wouldn't know," he decides. "Being at a cemetery should feel different now that I'm a dead man, but I haven't had the chance to visit one - it took some time for Asirpa to recover my body. She buried me near her village, and planted a persimmon tree atop my grave."

That gives Ogata pause. Asirpa truly did bury Sugimoto somewhere lovely, after all - if not the location, then she will have the place made lovely through human intervention. "We didn't plant anything for Tsukishima, but he was buried somewhere that looks like this."

"Tsuki -" Sugimoto startles. "You were there for his funeral?"

Ogata winces. "Not the funeral," he clarifies, "the burial is temporary. The brat told me -”

“Koito?”

“Who else,” Ogata remarks snidely, and savours the huff of surprise from Sugimoto. “He said he’ll give Tsukishima a proper funeral by the ocean after everything is over."

"Cremation?"

"Ashes on the sea breeze," Ogata confirms. He glances up at the branches. They stretch out into the bright sky, vanishing past the clouds and into the heavens. Majestic, he thinks, and wonders if the tree fruits.

Then the thought strikes him. "Wait, if Asirpa - is she planning to eat the persimmons?"

Sugimoto’s eyes widen with dawning horror. "She'll have to wait for at least a few years, when my body is mostly decomposed, right?" Ogata shrugs and starts walking away. "Hey,  that's not an answer - there's really too much of me left! Is this Ienaga's influence, because -"

"I won't know. You know her better than me and -" Ogata stumbles to a stop. By his feet is a sleeping dog, leaping to its feet and yapping after Ogata trips over it. "A feral dog."

Sugimoto shakes his head. "Feral dogs live in packs in nature," he reasons. "This one is probably abandoned."

"Or it lost its owner." 

"Likely." Beside him, Sugimoto crouches down. "Hey old girl," he coaxes, and there must be something about ghosts, because the dog inches closer. "Hello. You look like Ryuu. You are probably as smart as him too, aren’t you?"

Ogata shifts his weight. “You think the dog can see you, or it’s merely… intuiting?”

“Intuiting,” Sugimoto repeats, “what a word.” He curls up his fingers. “Fitting, I suppose. That's probably what’s happening now - you are really the only one who can see me. Fancy that.”

It is an idea - that their antagonism runs deep enough to transcend death. That there is some duty they owed each other that surpass logic. Makes all these tomfoolery seem like they are actually worth something meaningful. 

Ogata combs his hair back. “And yet you are still talking to the dog?”

“Why not?” Sugimoto turns to him. He is smiling, small and sincere, and suddenly Ogata doesn’t  know how to react. “Maybe that’s how she - intuits, right? She is following my voice and -”

The ring of a gunshot. Blood splatters on Sugimoto’s cheek, but that can’t be real, the blood will phase through him so what’s this, what -

“Ogata get down,” Sugimoto snaps, pulling on Ogata’s sleeve as he drags them both behind a tree. “The shot came from behind you. I didn’t manage to catch who fired it, but they were aiming for the dog, so that may have been a warning.”

Ogata reaches for his rifle, but - “Something is wrong.” 

“We can handle that later. We need to neutralise our attacker first.”

That is how Ogata would usually approach the situation too. Yet the uneasiness creeps up his spine and coils around his neck. “This doesn’t make sense.” He stares at the dog. Its chest is still heaving. “We need to put it down.”

Sugimoto clicks his tongue. “Of course we have to, but can you get a good shot when your movements are restricted by the span of this tree trunk?”

“You said they’re shooting as a warning; they won’t shoot at me recklessly.”

“I said it may be a warning,” Sugimoto hisses, “or they might simply be a very bad shot. I can’t tell, and that is dangerous.”

And isn’t it funny, that it is this awful, wonderful, unfamiliar concern that finally snaps Ogata out of it. “Why can’t you tell?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Aren’t you dead?” Ogata reminds. “What’s making you hesitate?” He tips his chin at the blood specks. “Where did that come from?”

“Where did -” Sugimoto touches his face. The blood smears across his cheek and onto his fingers. Sugimoto stares down at it in awe.

“See?” Ogata mumbles. He readies his rifle, takes aim, and finally lays the poor dog to rest.

-

And Ogata opens his eyes again to the sun on his face, Sugimoto sitting at the foot of his bed.

The window opens up to the streets below, the stench of Otaru's canal wafting in. When Ogata turns his head, the snivelling voice suddenly becomes very clear.

I asked for a kiss, she gave me a hiss, and -

"The limerick," Ogata mutters, sitting up. "What time is it?"

"Almost noon," Sugimoto informs. "You're supposed to be meeting Asirpa."

"I know that." He's starting to recall, even if reality still hasn't settled quite right yet. Ogata turns to get dressed. "What, no wake-up pokes on the cheeks this time?"

Sugimoto doesn't answer. He waits until Ogata has finished fastening his buttons, finished pulling on his coat and his backpack and that old rifle across his back, and only then does he raise a finger to his left temple, where the scar is. 

Sugimoto looks Ogata in the eye and informs, a little fond and a little sad-eyed, “You shot her here too."

-

The young man's face is flushed as he shouts, "Goodbye, Asuko!" and Ogata barely manages to tuck his derision at the silliness of the situation before Asirpa spots him.

"Should I prepare the wedding gift?" he mocks as Asirpa approaches.

"Don't be an ass," she snipes, waving over a nearby waiter before muttering her order. "Anyway, he can't even pronounce my name right. I am only going by Asuko because he keeps on butchering Asirpa."

Without waiting for a reply, Asirpa fishes out a wooden box and slams it down. "Have you killed the Otaru mark?"

"Not yet."

"Good, because forget about it. It's a trap." She flips the lid open. "I managed to get my hand on this a few weeks back. Got it checked by a professional."

Ogata slams the lid back down. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Letting you know how fucked we are." Asirpa taps her fingers on the box. "These gold grains, they are the same ones from ten years ago. The ones we didn't manage to recover."

"You know this isn't why they kill him."

“Really? You think it’s really that simple?” She shoves the box forward. “You think people would just kill him for the sake of killing him? Who has the time for that?”

(Ogata would. Sugimoto infuriates him. He would tear Sugimoto apart and put him together again, just to cut into him, piece by piece. He would, always, no matter how long it takes, forevermore. 

But Ogata isn’t fucking special. Even if he’s greedy, Sugimoto doesn’t belong to him - Sugimoto has too much blood on his hands, too many enemies trailing in his wake.

Only Sugimoto’s death - that’s all Ogata’s, a hole carved out in the mess that is Sugimoto for Ogata to curl into, a space only for him.)

“Ten years,” Asirpa hisses. “Ten years, and we’re still haunted by the gold.”

She slumps: sudden, as though the folding of a great bird’s wings, her shoulders (so strong, and yet) curved inwards. 

A defeat, Ogata thinks, and wishes Sugimoto is here to see this.

“Do you,” Ogata tries. He wets his lips. “Do you hate him for it?”

“Who? Sugimoto, for dying?” Asirpa snorts. “You, for being such a huge fucking dirtbag? Tsurumi and his whole agenda? Or, or I don’t know - maybe Tanigaki, for breaking Inkarmat’s heart.” She throws her head back and inhales deeply. “Or my father. Of course you’re talking about my father.”

They are interrupted again by the waiter, who sets Asirpa’s cup down before refilling Ogata’s tea. 

Asirpa has gotten coffee. It is so much like her to chase after food trends that Ogata wants to laugh until he cries.

“Ever tried it before?” she asks, gesturing at her cup.

“Yes.

“Like it?”

Ogata shrugs, and that’s answer enough. Asirpa snickers and swipes her cup with Ogata’s tea. “A little treat,” she says between sips, “I have been drinking too much coffee anyway. It’s keeping me up too many nights.”

The clink of the porcelain, the thud on the wood as the cup is lowered. Asirpa stares down at the tea. What is she looking at, or is she looking at anything at all; her reflection wobbly and uncertain, echoing the crease between her brows. 

“I wonder,” Asirpa finally answers, “if it is possible not to hate at all. To not have any hate in your heart. I think I used to be somebody like that, but then it got too hard.”

Ogata sips his coffee. It is strong and - and not bitter per se, but the very coffee-like intensity of the flavour itself. It is not quite the same. “If the whole world is stacked against you, then there is nothing wrong with hating it.”

“Maybe.” Asirpa closes her eyes. “Maybe not. I'm trying.” Her fingers are white against the cup. “I know that this cause is mine to fight for, even without my father. But sometimes - sometimes I’m so tired. Do you understand? I'm tired.”

Outside, a magpie flies onto the window sill. It stares at the crowd, hops its chubby little body along, before a waiter chases it away. “Then what will you do now?”

“I really don’t know.” Asirpa finally looks up. Her eyes are deep, the light fracturing in those blue, and Ogata thinks of sunlight shining through painted glass windows, its shadows so bright and colourful. “Finish up what I have to do first, I guess.”

“I’m not going to stop killing.”

“No,” Asirpa agrees quietly, “that won’t be fair.”

-

Sugimoto stands with his hands cupping his elbows, shivering even though the windows are shut.

“Want a hug?” Ogata mocks. He stares down at the bayonet in his hand. A gift from Asirpa. Retrieved from his corpse, she has said. That was the first time that any mention of Sugimoto has been said so flippantly. 

“No,” Sugimoto says. Then: “Stop looking at it.”

Ogata ignores him.

A thud. Sugimoto sits on the table. Sometimes, Ogata still expect to see him in that deep blue coat instead of this - this stupid white kimono. It doesn’t suit him at all. It makes Sugimoto look washed-out and dead, and isn’t this funny, because Sugimoto is dead and gone for good this time.

“It’s weird.” When Sugimoto speaks, Ogata can see his breath condensing. “I can’t figure out what I want to happen next. It feels like… it feels like I’m just waiting for it to end.”

But there is no end. Not even with death - everything just goes on. Funny how the universe works.

“Do you,” Sugimoto murmurs. He trembles a little, hugging his knees to his face. “Do you remember when we first met? The first time? I almost stabbed you with that bayonet.”

Yes.

“Then the next time we met, I called you a two-timing bastard,” Sugimoto continues. “Do you remember?”

Ogata doesn’t like where the conversation is going. He fumbles in his pocket. A cigarette case, black and leather and nicked from a passing businessman. Lights one up from the candle flame. “Asirpa has a boyfriend.”

Sugimoto blanches. “What?”

“Yes,” Ogata drawls. The smoke unfurls from his mouth. “A slimy man. Eyes too wide apart, mouth too thin.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, and he lives by the soba shop. You know, the famous one beside the bridge?”

“That soba shop…” Sugimoto scrunches his eyebrows. “Isn’t there a ditch there - wait.” He makes a face. “You’re making fun of me.”

The corner of his lips twitch. “He has grey or brown skin,” Ogata adds.

“Fuck you Ogata."

"Her little toad prince,” Ogata mocks, “if she doesn’t cook him on a stick first.”

Sugimoto makes to throttle Ogata, only to woefully lower his arms; that makes Ogata snickers. He rests his cigarette on the tray, already rusting at the edges. Stares at the bayonet again. “Asirpa is making friends with some revolutionaries,” Ogata reveals.

“Ainu?”

“No. Some nationalists from our neighbours. Here to learn about our modernisation programme.” He takes a drag. “Anti-colonists.”

(The war stuck, Asirpa has said, that war against the Russians - the first time a European nation lost. That one long, cruel war that, at least, hadn't been for nothing.)

“There are a lot of them these days.”

“Are there?” 

The candle flickers out. Ogata’s cigarette is a pale glow.

Beside him, Sugimoto’s breath quickens. Every inhale is shallower than before. “What’s with you?” Ogata asks tiredly.

It takes a while for Sugimoto to reply. “I think,” Sugimoto tells him, “I’m leaving you soon.”

“Oh.”

“It’s your fault,” Sugimoto accuses. He shudders again. “I wanted to see this through.”

Ogata rolls his shoulders as he leans back. “You want to watch me die?”

“I want to watch you wither,” Sugimoto says, “until you are barely more than a wraith. And then I want to watch the moment you finally fucking die.”

“Too bad then.”

The only reply is the chattering of Sugimoto’s teeth, too loud in the night. Another drag that is too long. May the smoke choke out all the air in his lungs, suspend him in the gaps between a second and the next. 

Caterwauling from outside the window, muffled conversation from the streets - the way it always goes, in these empty moments. Ogata stubs out his cigarette and lights another one. 

“Ogata.” Sugimoto’s voice is barely a whimper now. “Honestly, I am a little scared. I’ve always felt guilty for surviving, but I didn't want to die either.”

“A little too late now, isn’t it?”

Sugimoto’s laugh breaks into a coughing fit. When he recovers, the only thing that Ogata can hear is Sugimoto’s breathing, thin and loud in the dark. “Do you believe in fate?”

Ogata does, but he also believes that fate is out to make him miserable, although he doesn’t voice it out. It makes him feel out of character. Ogata turns his face away.

“What do you think,” Sugimoto asks, undiscouraged, “fate has in store for us?”

“Us?”

“We are stuck together until the end,” he reasons, “aren’t we?”

“Making each other’s lives an absolute nightmare,” Ogata agrees. “Each other’s torment in hell.” A sort of reverse soulmate, he supposes. “So I don't have much longer left?”

Sugimoto smiles. “Wait and see,” he says, and crumbles into dust.

-

SILENCIO.

From his pocket, Ogata pulls out a letter.

A summon for the draft. And so it goes.

-

A summon for the draft. Except, scrawled in poor penmanship, the meeting point is set to be a theatre. 

(And, at the back, the same handwriting: you owe me.)

Ogata stubs his cigarette on it, and watches the paper darken before it curls. Then he tosses them all away.

-

“You made it,” says Sugimoto. He is still wearing his white kimono, but the scarf - that old scarf in that ugly yellow and the clumsy stitches - it’s draped around his neck. Ogata can’t stop staring. “Let’s head in.”

“I don’t have a ticket,” Ogata reminds.

“We don’t need one.” Sugimoto starts down the sidealley. “Not for the film we are watching anyway.”

“And what film is that?”

Sugimoto pauses. He stares over his shoulder, seemingly lost for words. “You’ll see,” is what he finally settles on, before continuing on his way.

He leads Ogata to a small door hidden behind some corrugated zinc sheets. The ladder stretches down into the underground shadows.

“Look like a gateway to hell,” Ogata comments acerbically. It draws out a laugh from Sugimoto.

“Maybe it is,” Sugimoto allows, something strangely like tenderness colouring his tone, “let’s head in. You ready?”

“Why won’t I be?”

Another huff. “Yeah, you’re always prepared.” He steps in first, and then reaches a hand out to beckon Ogata. “Close the door behind you.”

The door shuts, plunging the stairway into darkness. Ogata flattens his palm against the wall. 

“A little nostalgic, isn’t it?” Sugimoto’s voice is so loud in the dark. “Grab onto my elbow. Here.” Ogata complies carefully. “Try not to trip.”

Sugimoto conducts him downstairs to a small round room that is lit with a single candle in the middle of the room, and then into the door at the opposite of them that opens up into an empty Western theatre hall.

There is no one in the hall except for them and rows upon rows of empty chairs.

“Sit anywhere you like. Or -” Sugimoto gestures at the loge. “That’s technically reserved for special guests, but I don’t think they’ll be here today.”

“It’s ours then,” Ogata decides. They climb up the spiral staircase, round and round until they reach their seats.

A waiter holds out a plate with a lit cigar propped against an ashtray. 

Ogata picks it up, but when he turns, the waiter has vanished into the folds of the curtains.

"Look to the front," Sugimoto calls, distracting him, "the film is starting."

The hall dims; a flicker, a buzz, before the projector lights up the screen. There is a shadow-blob, bouncing around before elongating into a cat.

Ogata turns to the side. "This -"

"Shh." Sugimoto inches forward in his seat. "Watch."

The cat climbs atop a tree. Then it jumps - the world tilts sideways and suddenly the cat is a bullet, soaring through the air until it strikes home and shatters into nine sharp triangles.

The triangles tremble. Dance around curiously. Engage in a parody of a swordfight, until one of these triangles go berserk and chase all other triangles off-screen.

Another click, and the light shuts off. The film is over.

"That's it?" Ogata remarks. "I thought they only air clips like this at film festivals - Sugimoto?"

The seat beside him is empty.

He stands and glances around - no one except for the seats lay out to his sides. 

Then he hears it: the patter of footsteps, before the voice of a little boy rings out. "Ogata!"

Ogata stares over the railings. It takes too long for him to pick apart the cherubic features that would eventually harden into Sugimoto.

"Come down," says child-Sugimoto. "We're already late. Our train is leaving fast!"

"Leaving? For where?"

"My hometown," Sugimoto answers. "We went to yours - why not mine?" He bounces on his feet as Ogata descends. “Hurry up! We still have to walk to the train station too.”

Ogata lets Sugimoto curve his hand around Ogata's last two fingers. His hands are so - small, so small and so soft, and not at all like the callused grip that Ogata remembers. "Is this a dream again?"

Sugimoto shakes his head. "It is a very thin line," he assures. "I don't understand it very well either."

"Of course you don't."

"Hey!" The hand tightens. "Why are you always so mean to me? It's upsetting." He pulls Ogata towards the door that they entered from, but instead of the small round room, it opens up to an empty street that leads to a crossroad.

"Because I can," Ogata answers indulgently. "And because it's funny when you're angry."

"You like me angry?"

"I like," Ogata begins, and then stops. Sugimoto is staring at him, his eyes glossy the way that children's always are, the way that Ogata's eyes never were. "Messing with people," he finishes.

Sugimoto slows to a halt as they reach the crossroad. "Why?" He drops his hand. "Because you want my attention?"

Admittedly, some parts of him want to grab Sugimoto by the collar and spit in his face merely because Sugimoto makes Ogata feel fucking insane, but Ogata has adored mischief long before Sugimoto came along. "Or because it's fun," Ogata counters.

"Smug bastard."

"Didn't say I'm not one." He stares at the signpost. All the boards are blank; not very helpful at all. "Are we waiting for something now?"

Sugimoto nods. "She should be here soon." He cranes his neck. "Where is she… oh, there!"

Hobbling in the distance, is a young woman in a neatly-pressed kimono, approaching the both of them so carefully that it veers into the side of fear. 

She is a beautiful woman - too beautiful to be a work of the imagination. Yet where her eyes should be are two pits instead, and blood trickles from them and down her cheeks as she weeps.

"Umeko," Sugimoto greets, his voice suddenly deep, and Ogata is startled to see that Sugimoto has grew up again. Yet he's younger than Ogata remembers - without the crease lines left by age, and without even his scars. "Will you point us in the right way?" She raises an arm. "Thank you. We'll be on our way now. You take care."

"You never told me that your woman is dead," Ogata says, after they are some distance away from her.

Sugimoto hums. "She isn't," he answers simply. "That's just what I subconsciously equate her with. What I reduced her to, in my head. I know, it's horrible, but I can't do anything to change it no matter how hard I try."

"Why not?"

He laughs awkwardly. "I thought about it for a long time, actually," Sugimoto reveals, "and then I figured, maybe it is my guilt corrupting her memory."

"Guilt." The word tastes weird in his mouth.

"Yeah." Sugimoto wets his lips. "I killed her husband. He was dying, and he probably couldn't make it, so i decided to give up his spot for another soldier. But the thing is," he continues hesitantly. Swallows. "Should I have made that decision for him? Shouldn't I at least let Toraji try to live?"

Ogata doesn't understand. "You said it yourself - he isn't going to survive. No point wasting your effort." 

"But I was the one who made the decision to give up hope on him. How was I to know for sure that he wouldn't pull through?" Then, more quietly, Sugimoto confesses, “At the end of the day, did I actually manage to protect anyone?”

(Asirpa and her rage, so furious that it rattles her shoulders, that it makes her hands tremble, and Ogata don’t know what to say.)

Yet Sugimoto doesn’t give Ogata a chance to respond. He clears his throat. "Well, these thoughts - you know how it is. Guilt muddles everything it touches."

Does Ogata? He has not felt guilt over the people he's killed in war, and neither has he felt guilt over his fallen comrades. The deaths are a waste, sure, but it's not anything personal, unlike -

"Brother!"

Ogata freezes.

Yuusaku waves at them as he strides over. “It's been too long since we've last met, Brother! And who is this?” He smiles broadly. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Ogata can feel the dread creep across his skin. He shifts his weight. Thins his lips. “He’s Sugimoto.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him! The Immortal, right? From the first division?” Yuusaku appears poised to pat Sugimoto on the back. “Good for you, Ogata, to have a man like that watching your back!” Among other things. “Maybe you can invite him over for dinner sometimes. I am sure Father will be glad to see him.”

If Yuusaku does not shut up right now, Ogata will do much more than inviting someone to dinner. “Maybe.”

“Maybe is good,” Yuusaku says, “when are you free?” Then, before Ogata can reply, adds, “You know what, I shouldn’t put you in a spot. Just let me know when you’re free - you know where to find me.”

Yuusaku leaves as abruptly as he had arrived, fading around the corner and tucked away into the dreamscape.

A tremor in space-time. Then Ogata blinks. “I didn’t know he’s capable of boundaries.”

Sugimoto chuckles. "And I didn't know you have a brother." 

"Half brother."

"An important detail," he agrees indulgently. "Anyway, you need to be more careful about bringing in your own memories and impressions. They can get quite unpredictable. Like with your brother." 

Ogata opens his mouth. 

"Half brother," Sugimoto corrects. "Anyway, do you want to take him up on it? We can make it happen.”

“You said this isn’t a dream.”

“It isn’t,” he confirms, “but what must happen will happen here, even if it can’t occur anywhere else.”

Sugimoto leads him down the path, winding and twisting like a great serpent nailed to the ground. When Ogata glances back, the road drops off into nothingness, and he barely suppresses a shiver when he realises, “I joked about it, but this is hell, isn’t it? Or something like it.”

“This is,” Sugimoto tries, and then pauses. “This is somewhere close, I suppose.”

There is nothing to say to that, so Ogata doesn’t. It is - nice, actually. To be led. He has been chasing after Sugimoto’s shadow for so long, that for once having Sugimoto point the way with no goal in mind, it’s - a relief. 

… God, Ogata is truly getting old.

“To the top of that hill,” Sugimoto suddenly speaks. He looks at Ogata. “Let’s race to that tree up there. Think you can outrun me?”

“Your legs are longer.”

“So?” Sugimoto raises a leg and draws a circle with his ankle. “It’s been a long time since I last walked, let alone ran. Never thought about how weird walking is.”

Ogata considers this. “I get a headstart, then.”

“Eh, that’s not -”

“See you at the top,” Ogata says, and begins to sprint.

He hears Sugimoto swear behind him. It makes him grin, and he speeds up, the wind in his hair and catching on his coat, the quickening of his heart when he realises that Sugimoto is drawing close.

(The wind screams -)

The burn of his lungs, sharp and so fucking alive, and Ogata powers through the ache in his knees to reach the top. 

“You,” Ogata manages between pants, “really need to exercise.”

“Can it,” Sugimoto wheezes. Then, with great frustration, he complains, “How is it that we are still out of breath in this place?”

“How would I know?”

“There should be a water pump -” Sugimoto wanders around the gigantic cedar tree infront of them. “Here. Ogata, come over.”

Sugimoto scoops the water in his palm and slurps it up, before splashing the next scoop over his face. He moves aside to let Ogata drink, and laughs when Ogata almost chokes on the swallow. “Slowly.”

Ogata glares at him. He clears his throat and cups another handful of water in his palms. The water is so cold, and it reminds him of the stream water back in the Hokkaido wilderness, all those years ago.

“Ogata,” Sugimoto calls again, this time more softly. He points down the hill. “Look there.”

A bustling town unfolds across the valley, small but crowded, the streets spreading in spirals alongside a patchwork of mismatched roofs. 

There is an implication that Ogata does not want to understand. “Is this where you grew up?”

“Close, but nope.” Sugimoto bounces on the balls of his feet. “And we won’t be heading to my childhood home. At this point, there’s nothing left.” He catches Ogata’s eyes. “I burnt it down.”

“Very dramatic.”

Sugimoto huffs. “In hindsight, it really is.” He turns away. “Come on, let’s go. Do you want to walk through town? It’s faster, but if you prefer, we can bypass it.”

Ogata watches the lines of Sugimoto’s back. Straight and strong too, the way that Kiroranke used to describe Wilk. Then again, Sugimoto has never been the type to lead, yet he fascinates all the same. “We have time.”

“Sure.” Sugimoto glances over his shoulders. The sun halos his head, and it makes him look divine even though Ogata knows that Sugimoto is closer to being cursed. “Whatever you like.”

Sugimoto holds out a hand, and Ogata does not know what possessed him, but he reaches for it without a second thought. The moment it makes contact, he panics, attempting to seize his hand back when Sugimoto tightens his grip.

“Not now,” he says, eyes wide and desperate. "A little exception for a dead man?"

Don't look at me like that. “You -” Ogata wets his lips. Forces himself to relax. “I really hate you, you know that?”

“I do.”

All the resentment in the past few months tumbles out of his mouth before he can stop them. “You were supposed to die under my hands,” Ogata spits out, “or at least, within my sight. Not like this.”

“I know.”

“You proved to me that you're truly the only man who is immortal in this world, and then you have the nerve to fucking die.”

Sugimoto squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“Well,” he says, stepping in close. “I’m dead now, so feeling sorry is pretty much the only thing I can do.”

“A little empty, isn’t it?”

“For what it’s worth,” Sugimoto informs, “I mean this sorry much more than the other few times.”

Ogata stares at their joined hands. “After so long, and still, the words that come out of your mouth have never had much worth.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop lying.” He looks up. “Let’s go. We were heading somewhere?”

Sugimoto blinks slowly. “You’re ready?” he asks, and the smile flees away like the shadows from his face. Far off in the distance, Ogata thinks he can hear the voice of a madman’s song again. 

Ogata nods. There is nothing left to do.

“Then let’s go.” Sugimoto conducts them down the hill and around the town, keeping to the edge of the woods for as long as he can. The town is so big that for the longest time, it feels like they are heading in a straight line; then they come across a river, and Ogata almost breathes a sigh of relief when Sugimoto informs that they are already halfway there.

“Who was the one who chose to walk?” Sugimoto teases, hopping across the stepping stones.

“And who decided to let the scenery be this boring?”

“Not my fault that I can’t remember how the city outskirts look like,” Sugimoto defends, “it has been years.”

The scenery does change after that, the woods thinning out until they are flanked by orderly rows of birch trees, and among the tall branches they spot a pair of owls huddling together, their feathers shivering to the beating of their hearts.

“We’re very close now,” Sugimoto promises, picking up his pace. “It’s right outside of town, at the edge of it. There! Do you see it?” He points out at the distance, where Ogata can spot the hints of a village house. “And that’s our home.”

“Our home?”

“Temporarily,” Sugimoto amends, “for as long as we are in this world. Let me show you around.”

He releases Ogata’s hand as they cross the threshold. “The left leads to the kitchen, the right to the reception room. Storeroom, study, bedroom,” Sugimoto points out as they pass. “That’s facing out to the meadows. I like to call it the garden, even though we aren’t rich enough to own one.” He laughs awkwardly. “But there’s a pond, and I planted some fruit trees and flower bushes about the place, and that counts too, right?”

Ogata seats himself on the steps of the verandah. “Maybe if we set up a stone path too.”

“Sounds lovely.” Sugimoto crosses his legs as he sits. “So. Do you like it?”

“This house?” Ogata scans his environment. This is so… normal, that it is disconcerting. “It’s fine.”

“That’s not an answer. Oh, wait - let me go get something.” Sugimoto scrambles off, and returns with a pot atop a clay stove and a kettle of tea. “There’s more.” Runs off again, and this time, brings back a plate of dried persimmons and a bowl of rice each. 

A quiet meal, a small feast. When Sugimoto opens the lid of the pot, the smell of anglerfish hotpot wafts out. Ogata peers into the soup: no shiitake mushroom.

Sugimoto clasps his hands together. “Let’s eat!”

He doesn’t understand. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing to stuff myself.”

“Sugimoto.”

Sugimoto doesn’t meet his gaze. “Just eat.”

Wearily, Ogata picks up his chopsticks. They eat in silence for a while, listening to the crackle of the firewood and the wind rustling the branches. The food tastes exactly as Ogata remembers it: hot, hearty, comfortable. Familiar. It’s… nice.

Ogata can’t take this. “You know this isn't what I want.”

“I know. You don't play house.” Sugimoto scoops up another mouthful of rice. “But it's nice to pretend for a little while. Indulge me."

The sound of the soup sizzling, the clacking of cutlery. Munching. Sugimoto swallows and drinks a sip of tea. “It feels good, doesn't it? To be away from it all.” Silence; Sugimoto takes another sip. “All these years - you weren’t happy, were you?” He refills his cup. “Too normal?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe is not enough,” Sugimoto reminds, “but perhaps maybe is the only answer. I have tried my whole life too, to find my place. After the war. But I couldn’t do it. I don’t fit, and yet I can't be freed. Even after all that I've tried, it’s not enough.”

“Out of time.” The realisation jolts him, brutal as a bullet. “This is where we are. We’re standing right outside of it.”

“Out of time,” Sugimoto agrees. "Alright, I need to show you something." He stands up, before pulling Ogata to his feet. "This is the final time I'm asking you: you're sure about this?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Honestly?" Sugimoto shakes his head, and for the first time, he looks as worn out as Ogata feels. "This part of the story is always inevitable." Gingerly, he reaches out to cup Ogata's jaw. "Close your eyes."

Against his better judgement, Ogata leans into it. "And if I refuse?"

Sugimoto's thumb rubs along his scar, too gentle in their strokes. "I'm not going to kiss you, Ogata. Or stab you. Close your eyes."

Ogata doesn't have reason to argue further, and so he complies. A beat, before Sugimoto inhales, sharp and sad as his thumb stills.

"A long, long time ago," he whispers, "when your right eye caused you to sin, you plucked it out and cast it from you. But now, I am returning it to you."

Without warning, he kisses Ogata on his right lid. Ogata trembles, eyes darting open before Sugimoto places his left palm over them.

"It may hurt a little," he warns quietly. "Or a lot," he amends, as Ogata starts scratching at Sugimoto's hand. There is something wet leaking from his right eye and seeping through Sugimoto's fingers, and when it drips over Ogata's lips, he licks it. Metallic - he's crying blood. "It'll be over soon."

There is something gnawing its way through under his eyelid. "Hurts."

"I know, I know." Sugimoto tries to pull Ogata's hands away. "Bear with it."

He needs to seize something - needs something to distract him from the pain. Ogata scrabbles at Sugimoto's clothes. "Could've warned me."

"It won't have helped." Sugimoto draws him close when Ogata's knees buckle. "Would it help if I keep talking? There was this one time I caught a bad infection during the war, and a nurse tried to comfort me by talking through the operation."

The pain is spreading, encroaching to the back of his head and searing down his throat. His concentration is fading. "Did it help?"

"Not for me," Sugimoto admits, and his voice is suddenly too loud, "although I've seen it work for others. I prefer to just shut everything out and focus on breathing."

Ogata grapples for something to ground him, and makes do with the tangle of Sugimoto's hair between his fingers. "Really."

"Yup. It's weird." Sugimoto hisses when Ogata wrenches harder. "Right about now should be the worst of it."

"I-"

"You'll be fine -"

Ogata is not fine, he's burning and he can feel something squelching into shape. And he wants to throw up, he wants to faint, he wishes Sugimoto will just shut up because that fucking liar told him -

"- gata. Ogata?" Sugimoto calls, and Ogata snarls as he tightens his fists and pulls Sugimoto in.

 -

It feels like a long time coming.

But it is. It is, this kiss - it's a long time coming. Call it inevitable. Call it fate, cast in stone. But this - this vicious ugly love: desperate and greedy and it is violence in its gentlest form, cutting painfully into his soul with no finesse at all.

Except all these are too late now. It has been too late for a long time. All have come to pass, and Ogata is kissing a ghost of a man, so hollow is the taste of victory.

-

Sugimoto kisses back, so tenderly, that Ogata feels like breaking.

The palm lifts the moment that Sugimoto pulls away, but Ogata keeps his eyes shut. He, he doesn't know why he does it, but he holds on to Sugimoto until Sugimoto sucks in a deep breath and rests their foreheads together. 

"You look like a mess," Sugimoto remarks, and Ogata finally looks at him. 

Sugimoto wears humour in his eyes, both wry and fond. His smile is lopsided as he carelessly wipes the blood away on his sleeves. "There. Much better."

The gentleness of the action guts more than if Sugimoto has been rough. And it is very much like Sugimoto, to be drawing blood with every action he takes, even if he claims to be otherwise.

Ogata hates him. Ogata hates him so much that his heart is breaking.

"Now what," Ogata says instead.

"Now?" Sugimoto gestures around them. “Pick a door,” he answers, and the curve of his lips tastes like something bitter.

In the space of a heartbeat, the idyllic house has transformed into the small round room of the theatre with the single candle, their shadows casting long and dark against the magenta walls. 

Yet where there has been a single door leading to the hall, now there are a dozen more, each labelled with something different.

"You wouldn't have time for them all," Sugimoto warns. "You'll know when there is only one door left."

Ogata approaches the closest door. Flotsam, it is inscribed on a tin placard. "What lies beyond?"

"I won't know," Sugimoto admits. "That's for you only."

He rests his hand on the doorknob. It is cool under his touch. When he twists it and pushes, the door gives easily, swinging open with barely a creak.

"Wait," Sugimoto interrupts. He hurries forward and, without losing a beat, wraps that old yellow chequered scarf around Ogata's neck. "There. Now you can go."

Ogata rubs the scarf between his fingers. "Why?"

Sugimoto grins. "Maybe I like how it looks on you," he jokes. "Or maybe it's just cosy and I won't need it as much as you do."

"I don't need it at all."

"No, you don't," he says, "but it's nice to have it anyway. Now go - I'll see you soon."

-

ACT THREE

The final door is a violently blue thing that does not even have the decency to be labelled.

Ogata hates it. It doesn't even have any discernible features - no doorknobs, no keyholes, no grains and bumps. Just an angry blue slab in the middle of a wall, waiting to be pushed open.

When Ogata finally opens it, he finds himself walking into his room in Otaru.

Sugimoto is perched on the windowsill in his old blue coat and staring at the crowd below. The skies are a deep pink outside, and it paints the world in shades more mystical than it deserves.

Rose-tinted lenses, or blood-soaked rain, the red faint and diluted.

Ogata shuts the door. At the sound, Sugimoto looks up. Doesn't smile. "You're back."

"Yes."

"Welcome," Sugimoto greets simply.

Ogata hangs up his cloak and props the rifle beside his bed. His hand hovers over the scarf, and at Sugimoto's nod, pulls it off and hangs it up too.

"I'm going to take a bath," Ogata decides. He doesn't move.

"If you want to." Slowly, Sugimoto slides off and comes near. The blue coat melts off him until he's back in only his kimono. 

It's olive green. 

Ogata can't stop staring.

 "I really," Sugimoto says, "don't have much time left."

Already? "I see."

"Yes." Sugimoto avoids his gaze. "Guess this is goodbye. I'll be -"

Without thinking, Ogata grabs him by the collar and topples them both onto the bed.

This time, the kiss goes much more roughly; their teeth clack together and Ogata rears back, grimacing before Sugimoto grabs him by the neck and pulls him down.

And then it gets better. And deeper and wetter.

Sugimoto is so cold that it reminds Ogata of a lifetime ago, when he kissed a boy while eating shaved ice. That boy hadn't reacted favourably, but Sugimoto - Sugimoto has a hand threading through his hair and the other on Ogata's lower back, and is kissing back so sweetly that Ogata feels undone.

"If we're doing this," Sugimoto mutters, turning his face away, "we should have done this in that realm just now."

Ogata clicks his tongue. "I can bear a bit of cold."

"No, I mean -" Sugimoto yelps when Ogata pulls on his belt. "This isn't a good idea."

"What?"

"I am dead, Ogata." Sugimoto shushes him before he can argue. "I mean that in the most physical way possible."

Oh.

Oh.

"Like a leech." An absence of life, and an absence of heat. "We can -" Ogata struggles. "Are you freezing cold all over?"

"It will feel like falling into a lake during winter," Sugimoto confirms. "You don't want me anywhere near your dick. Or ass. Whichever you prefer."

Ogata rolls off. He leans back against the headboard, and studies Sugimoto as he sits up. "You can watch then," he suggests, loosening the buttons of his trousers. 

He isn't exactly aroused, and having to stroke himself off doesn't help all that much. It's too - too rote, and he eyes Sugimoto challengingly as he pushes at his foreskin. 

Perhaps Ogata can put on a show. Arc his back. Rub at the tip and ignore how forced this feels. Gasps audibly while Sugimoto holds his glare, and Sugimoto -

"Fuck," Sugimoto mumbles, wetting his lips. "You - come over here."

Finally, but - "Please don't touch my dick with your icicle hands."

Sugimoto flushes. "I'm not! I, I'm. Never mind." He pulls his belt loose too, his face wry as he lets his kimono slip off his shoulders. The scars are stark against his skin, raw and angry. "This is weird."

Ogata pushes himself onto his knees and scoots closer. "Can you still get off?"

"I'm not sure. I hardly feel the urge to, but -" He swallows as Ogata runs a hand down his front. It's predictably cold, but that matters a lot less when Sugimoto is twitching under his touch. Cute. "Hey, don't make that face."

Ogata rubs at Sugimoto's nipple. "What face?"

"Like you've already won and you're smug about it."

Ogata grins wider anyway, because it is triumph that he's feeling, and he's going to savour every moment of it. "That's because I have won."

"Are you sure about that?" Cautiously, Sugimoto reaches out to cover his hand above Ogata's right. He guides it over Ogata's dick, and curls the fingers around. "I can still leave."

"You wouldn't," Ogata replies confidently. Then, enunciating as pointedly as he can, he echoes, "Not now."

"That's -" Sugimoto laughs. "You little rascal," he accuses exasperatedly, and leans forward again.

Kisses: peppered on Ogata's jaw, up to his cheeks, at the edges of his eye, his temple, so lovingly that Ogata can’t quiet the tremours in his lungs. Kisses gentle as the most delicate butterfly made of snow, a cold that dissolves the moment he moves away, and there is something very lonely, very wanting about this. 

There is no way they can have this while Sugimoto is still alive, Ogata thinks. His breath quickens, and Sugimoto tightens his grip to urge him on. There is no way they can have this until the hunt is over, ten years later, until they're wrung dry and all the hurt has faded into scars.

"Ogata," Sugimoto whispers, and Ogata squirms, turning his face away as the heat builds. "Look at you."

"Shut up." Ogata slides his free hand over Sugimoto's mouth, rubbing until Sugimoto takes the hint and parts his lips. He dips his fingers in, and Sugimoto sucks on them: a slow firm pressure, the wet tease of the tongue, and Ogata allows himself to feel a little insane. 

(At the end of the day there is a boy who nobody ever knew and when he died (and he did die) you kissed his coffin and be at rest.)

A push and a pull, an inhale and an exhale, and Ogata is drowning in the rush of blood in his ears. He is back in the stream again, when he first fell, air slipping from his lungs as the cold envelopes him.

But he, but he's -

The dim light of the room dances across Sugimoto's face, trembles on the edges of his body, and his eyes are gold ingots, so golden too - and this is what Ogata focuses on when he finally, finally comes apart.

(And at the end of the day you killed the boy who is killing you and now you are all alone and so is he and so you lay your head atop his sternum and listen for heartbeats and this is it, this is all there is, a landscape of a shipwreck by an artist called Fate.)

Ogata closes his eyes and lets Sugimoto hold him, rocking him back and forth and back and forth, soothing as a cradle on the ocean. 

(And then he hears it.)

And then there it is. His wonderful, ugly, miserable death.

Unbidden, an itch that writhes in his lungs and scratches up his throat; Ogata coughs. It isn't something that bears noticing - the weather is vicious these days, after all - but Sugimoto comes to a still so absolute that Ogata knows. 

He glances up. Staring down, Sugimoto's face is split with a grin, all teeth, eyes wide and wild like a rabid mutt. 

"Six months," he says, and smooths a stray strand behind Ogata's ear.

Chapter Text

EPILOGUE

The bandages are brown and pilling, and when he soaks them into the hot water, a cloud of grey disperses instead.

Gross, he thinks dully, pouring the bleach into its bottle cap before emptying it into the pail. Churn it around, and ignore how his skin turns red and splotchy and the way the skin around his nails start to crack.

“I didn’t know bandages come in any design other than plain and white,” a voice leers, and Sugimoto slogs the bunch back into the water. 

He glares over his shoulders. The intruder raises his cigarette in greeting. It has already burnt halfway down. “No one except the staff is allowed out back.”

“Nowhere else to smoke.”

“Smoke at the stairway, you bastard.” Sugimoto returns his attention to the bandages. There are some unidentifiable chunks floating around now. Sugimoto scoops it up and tosses them into the drain. “Which division?”

There is a heavy pause where the man visibly weighs his responses. “Why?”

“So I know whether I should politely usher you out,” Sugimoto barks, “or I get to pour this bucket of filth all over you.”

A snicker. “Well, I am an officer now,” the man answers, “but no, I am not any rich man’s son.” This break sounds more like a hesitation; Sugimoto waits. “Although, that is not to say I can’t have their ears anytime I want.”

Not the most honourable way of rising up the ranks, but certainly one that needs a man to beg, cheat, and work his way through. Sugimoto can respect the hustle. He glances back again. “Navy?”

“Air.”

“Huh.” That’s new. “Kamikaze?"

"If I was, then I won't be standing here, will I?"

He has a point; Sugimoto has to accept that grudgingly. "Sugimoto.”

“Ogata.”

“Find another place to smoke next time, Officer Ogata.” He turns back around. “Unlike your rich men, I don’t get to make the rules here.”

Ogata doesn’t say anything for awhile. Likely finishing up his smoke; Sugimoto doesn’t pay him any mind until he hears a quiet groan and a footstep too heavy, and suddenly Ogata has rested an elbow on Sugimoto’s right shoulder, and Sugimoto resists the knee-jerk response to shove him right off, injury be damned.

“What are you -”

“Shush.” Ogata plucks off the cigarette in his mouth - a new one, he notes absently - and sticks it between Sugimoto’s lips. “Smoke it.”

Sugimoto narrows his eyes and breathes in the smoke.

Ogata’s smile curls deeper at the edges. “Pity we haven’t met before,” he sneers, straightening up. He fishes out another cigarette and lights it up too. “You seem like a fun guy."

"Fun for you, perhaps."

"Of course. You know me."

Sugimoto pauses. "Do I?"

"You looked like you do," Ogata says. "I've seen you around before. Around this facility. You hate me on sight - why?"

Sugimoto lifts the bandages from the pail and squeezes. Flops the bandages over his knees and pours the water away. "I don't hate you."

"Oh, that lie would have worked on anyone but me. I know that kind of glare." Ogata flicks at the tip of Sugimoto's ears. "Either you find me repulsive, or you really, really, want," he informs, leaning in close to whisper, "to fuck me."

Sugimoto shoves Ogata's face to the side. "Get away from me, you crazy little man." He picks up the kettle and pours out the hot water again, and this time when he tosses the bandages in, he's leaving them to soak. Plucks the cigarette and rolls it between his fingers. "I need to head off for my duties now. Let's never meet again."

"At least finish your smoke," Ogata counters. "Don't waste it. We're at war now."

That is true - munitions and resources are more scarce now. "Are the wars you fight very different?"

"What?"

"I've been shipped out before." He slumps beside Ogata, letting his back curl against the wall. "As a frontline medic. Missed the major victories, and shipped back before the battles got uglier."

"I didn't touch down," Ogata reveals. He catches Sugimoto’s eyes. "Dogfights in the air, mostly. Helped sink a ship, but I was mostly distracting their gunfire while they dropped the bombs." 

"And your injury?"

"Crashed landing." He rubs at his hurt knee. "Barely made it in time. The enemy went down though."

"I treated some enemies on the battlefield, when I realised they were not national armies but grassroots guerillas."

Ogata's expression barely wavers. "Should you be telling me this?"

"I don't know, Officer." Sugimoto taps on his cigarette, and watches the ashes crumble. "Are you going to tell?"

"If you let me suck you off, I'll let it go."

"Wha -" The abruptness of the demand tickles something absurd in him; Sugimoto laughs. "Or I can tell you a story."

Ogata scrunches his forehead. "What story?"

"About another man," Sugimoto reveals, "who looks just like you, but older and one-eyed and dying. I never knew his name, but there is this beautiful girl who would visit him every few weeks, and she told me that his name is Ogata."

Ogata rolls the thought in his head. "It is a common surname."

"Not when he looks just like you." He takes another drag. "Your older doppelganger. Could he be a distant relative?"

"Maybe." Ogata looks like he's already losing interest. It's the cue for him to leave, then. Sugimoto pushes himself up and drops the cigarette onto the ground. "Wait," Ogata interrupts. Surprise surprise. "How did you come to know him?"

"I was working as something of a nurse and a personal assistant, I suppose." The master doctor has picked him out of all the apprentices, if only because Sugimoto has survived consumption when the very illness has wiped out half of his hometown. "I accompanied him for four months until he passed."

"Is he rich?" Ogata holds out his cigarette box. It feels like a trick, but Sugimoto takes one anyway. Ogata leans in, touching the tip of their cigarettes together until Sugimoto's glow red, and his lashes flutter before Ogata pulls away. "And finish it this time."

"No, but the girl is paying for him. She pays me in tiny packets of gold grains." 

"Weird," Ogata comments.

"In hindsight, yeah," Sugimoto agrees, "but the whole experience is weird. Do you know, when I first met Master Ogata and introduced myself, he simply threw back his head and laughed so hard that he sent himself into a coughing fit, and even then he didn't stop laughing. Then when he finally calmed down, he shook his head and insisted that my name was Sugimoto." He chews on his bottom lip. "Sugimoto was my mother's surname. I hadn't gone by it at all before him."

"Maybe he has done a background check before hiring you," Ogata reasons. He thins his lips. "Or maybe you looked like someone he used to know too."

"So I am his friend's doppelganger in the same way that you are his?" He nods. "Sounds interesting."

"Mmhmm."

"Too bad he doesn't have a picture."

"Maybe the girl has."

"Huh. Maybe if I see her again." Sugimoto eyes Ogata. He has dropped his cigarette already, and is now leaning back against the wall, face to the ceiling even though his eyes are shut. "You -"

"Did you fuck him?"

Sugimoto blanks out. "What?" he blurts.

"Did you fuck him," Ogata repeats, slow and condescending as he deliberates over every word. "Did you fuck your not-rich but still financially secure older man?"

Sugimoto turns his face away. "Nope."

"Really?" Ogata opens his eyes, but doesn't look over. "And here I thought that you should at least let him feel you up."

"I'm not a whore."

"I'm not saying you are," Ogata refutes, "I'm saying that you sound taken with him."

There are so many lies that Sugimoto can roll off his tongue, so many lies tried and tested that Sugimoto can use. But there really isn't a point lying to a stranger about a dead man. "It didn't feel right."

"The sex?"

"The sex," Sugimoto confirms. "He's thinking of someone else the whole time."

"S'that so." He rolls his head to a side as Ogata grabs his chin and examines his scars. "I'd give you all the attention you want."

Sugimoto pulls away with a snort. He returns to his pail - that's long enough. "Stop trying. I'm not fucking you."

"You say that," Ogata taunts at his back, "but you know we'll meet again, Sugimoto."

"You wish."

"I await with bated breath," Ogata mocks. There is the sharp click of his shoes on the floor fading around the corner, and then Sugimoto is alone again.

-

The next time they meet, Sugimoto stares at the bandage over Ogata's eyes and says, "I'm genuinely reconsidering."

"I can no longer fly," Ogata snaps, "I don't have time for you."

"But you can be an instructor," Sugimoto suggests, "or study a little more to become a mechanic. Or perhaps work as an orderly with me."

Ogata inhales a sharp breath and cups Sugimoto's face with both hands. "You," he says.

"What?"

"Just fuck me so I can feel better about myself," Ogata decides, and Sugimoto wheels him into a backroom where they fuck without baggage for once and Ogata has an epiphany of a mid-career change into the emerging field of dentistry.

End.