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Chiru sat back on his heels and regarded his work, head tilted, the back end of his brush in his teeth. The wall before him was decorated with a splash of wisteria to which clung a crimson-eyed cicada. Leaning forward, he added a final flourish of stem & leaves before carefully penning an ancient haiku beneath the purple flowers: Yagate shinu – kashiki wa miezu – semi no koe: No sign in the cicada’s song that it will soon be gone. He scrawled the poet’s name beneath the haiku: Aki-no-bo, before signing the picture with his chop.
Just then, the temple bells on the door started their sacrilegious clatter to announce someone’s entry, and the barman, busy cleaning, shouted to his cook, “Customers.”
Chiru couldn’t stifle the sigh. Just because he didn’t talk, people yelled at him like he was deaf. It was irritating beyond belief. Not that yelling at deaf people made any more sense. He ignored the bartender and the customers as he cleaned up his inks and brushes. Finally, drying his hands on his apron, he stepped behind the bar where everyone was chatting amiably enough. Looking up, he saw the man’s face and was hurtled into memory.
He helped to carry the stretchers onto the boat, ignoring the fire in his hand every time he lifted another, and ignoring the red that seeped through the bandages on his wrist. The wound hadn’t killed him, and the pain would do him no real harm. He eventually glared at the traitorous blood, thinking, 'Sure, now you bleed.' Then he went on about the mindless task of loading up his fellow casualties. His mind wouldn’t stop berating him for the failed suicide. How could he not have cut deep enough? He had considered seppuku as he sat vigil with his sister through the night, but he wasn’t brave enough to face dying alone of stomach wounds. He’d heard gut-wounded men scream for hours, just beyond reach of mercy, begging to be killed. He’d obliged more than a few, when he could.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he headed back to the infirmary to find that the task was done. Dropping onto a bench, he sat there, leaning on his knees and staring at the ground until one of the medics walked up, guiding him to his feet by the elbow. “Come on, Corporal Ha. You’re going, too.”
’Going, too?’ Going where? He wondered, letting the medic lead him away. He ignored the ‘Corporal Ha’ though he never could understand people getting his name backwards in this day and age. The man led him back towards the ship that was taking casualties to a nearby cruiser which was transferring them back to the core.
“Last one, sir,” He looked up at the man the medic was addressing, “Corporal Chiru Ha. A head case, but harmless enough. He’ll help you out with the others if you tell him what to do and don’t expect an answer.” He wanted to be indignant at being called a head case and harmless. Harmless?! He had 1213 confirmed kills. One hand lifted slowly to curl in a fist around his dog tags and his sister’s. 1214. He jerked his arm away from the medic and staggered away to vomit. The men watched him with eyes full of pity, and the medic shook his head. “No one knows what happened to him. He was our best sniper in this theater.”
Ha walked back over, eyes down, wiping his mouth with the back of his uninjured hand, ashamed of his continuing weakness.
“Corporal Chiru?” It brought his head up, hearing his name spoken correctly, and he met the officer’s warm eyes with a question on his face. “I’m Lieutenant Pratt. Second in command of the Ranjit here.” Ha heard the pride in his voice when he spoke, not pride in his rank, but in his ship. He warmed to the man immediately. “Why don’t we get you to your quarters, to clean up? Then, when you’re ready, you can check on your men, see that everyone’s settled.” The officer gestured into the ship behind them, and Ha nodded slowly before starting up the gangplank.
Slowly, Chiru came back into the present, his eyes coming to focus on Pratt’s face. It occurred to him that he’d been staring, and he dropped his gaze to his hands, still curled in his apron. After another awkward beat, he looked back up. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. I didn’t expect to see you again.” He held out his hand. Hearing more than two adjacent words out of his cook's mouth for the first time ever, the barman stood and stared. Chiru continued, “You may not remember me… It was a short trip, and I wasn’t much of a conversationalist…”