Work Text:
There's this dream Tsukishima’s consciousness keeps churning out night after night. Vivid, because it could easily become true. Ever repeating, because he is terrified of it.
Tsurumi calls his second lieutenant to his office — Tsukishima is there, watching — and tells him all about picking sides, and doubts, and knowing what Koito should not know. Tsukishima is there but it doesn’t matter; Tsurumi is performing for an audience of one. He talks of being so close to their goal, and the importance of having the unit act as one, and how there must be consequences for allowing one's convictions to waver.
Tsukishima is there for when Tsurumi needs him to drive the point home.
The order is never given aloud. Over the years, Tsukishima has become finely tuned to knowing what exactly it is that he is expected to do.
There’s a gun, loaded and ready.
Koito’s different in each of these dreams. Sometimes, he’s holding out with pride, back straight and jaw set. Other times, his eyes meet Tsukishima’s, and they’re wet and pleading and wide with fright; he seems so woefully, truthfully young then. Tsurumi, too, is different; sometimes amused and soft with feigned good-naturedness, as if the whole display is merely a joke among friends that will stop at just the right moment, no harm done; sometimes cold with tangible disappointment. They have entire conversations before the push inevitably comes to shove. It’s a theatrical, intricately set scene. Tsukishima is hardly even there; more of a prop than an actor.
Doing nothing, saying nothing until it’s time to decide.
His decision is, as are all fruits of subconscious imagination, fickle. Made anew every time, each choice equally agonising. He dreams of shooting Koito, of watching his final expression of betrayed horror to the end so the new memory firmly sets to be filed away as another regret, another damnation. Of turning his pistol against Tsurumi — his face is never quite right in these ones because Tsukishima cannot, even while dreaming, imagine what his expression would be like, should he ever disobey.
Sometimes, he dreams of twirling the gun around and putting his mouth on the barrel and squeezing the trigger, and only then the nightmare is over, and he is free.
A bone-crushing screech pierces the air as the train car drags to a halt.
Swaying on unsteady feet, Tsukishima struggles through his way to the exit. Jerks into a run, but his broken body is uncompliant; it quivers with the effort of holding itself upright, always on the brink of folding back to the ground on its own accord like a de-stringed puppet. It’s nothing. Tsukishima is nothing if not stubborn — that, and sturdily made. If he cannot run, then stumbling along, clutching the remains of the seats for support, will have to do the job.
Forward. Forward. Blood pulses in his head like artillery explosions with the desperation of his rush.
As he throws his body off the step of the train car, something catches beneath his feet, and it’s more of a pitiful fall than a jump. No matter. His ruined arm has gone numb, and so has everything else. The only source of remaining searing pain burns bright and true within his chest, where the heart resides.
“Tsukishima!”
Instinctively, he turns around. Koito, battered and bruised and very much awake, stares at him with an unreadable expression from the gaping exit door, leaning against the frame for support.
He was still out cold on the floor when Tsukishima left. When did he wake up? How did they get so unlucky? Tsukishima hoped he’d sleep through the rest of the showdown — less to have to explain to central later.
Less to have to remember.
No time for this. The train is dangerously close to the station now; Tsukishima doubts (hopes, how he hopes it’s not) the goal is to crash, the impact and the water that await ahead are not survivable, and Tsurumi wouldn’t have miscalculated so badly to turn the encounter into a drawn-out suicide. Still, Tsurumi is, above all else, a spy. Peerless at subterfuge and dangerous in a fight in a way only an insane man can be, but he is no match for Sugimoto the Immortal at hand to hand.
No time. No time. There’s no telling how the fight might go, where the train might come to a stop, but planning is Tsurumi’s part. Tsukishima only needs to move forward and be there when his lieutenant needs him because he cannot have possibly planned to win this fight on his own. Tsukishima’s presence is already factored in, all he needs to do is deliver.
His head is swimming. He turns his back to Koito, praying that he is smart enough, tired and hurt enough, to stay behind, in the safety of the fizzled-out battle.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?!”
There’s the rustling of soles hitting the ground as Koito rushes to catch up, and then a hand grabs him from behind, as if catching a dog by the collar. Blindly, mindlessly, Tsukishima struggles to break free. He has no time for this, not when he needs to be far ahead.
Momentarily forced into stillness, he tries:
“Se…cond lieutenant…” It comes out slurred, he thinks. He’s not well, but he can still be of use. Koito doesn’t need to be, and Tsukishima wishes he could just tell him, explain in a way that’d make him understand, but there is no time.
They struggle, awkwardly and pointlessly, both long drained of coordination and strength and unwilling to hurt each other. Tsukishima is overtaken by the single-minded urge to move; he barely knows what’s in his way anymore. When one of the shoves makes him groan out as the open break in his arm grinds, Koito gives him a shake that hurts his throbbing head — something scaldingly warm drips down to his collar — and abruptly shouts:
“I order you to stand down right now!”
Both freeze. Koito yanks Tsukishima closer, putting them face to face; Tsukishima watches his eyes dilate as the gravity of his words dawns on them both. As the second lieutenant, Koito has given Tsukishima countless orders, some frivolous and unreasonable, some startlingly insightful. It was never in this tone. Never in direct contradiction to the standing order of another — except for that one time, that hopeless tangle of mistakes, although he cannot say whose, that were Tanigaki and Inkarmat and their child.
Anger sweeps through Tsukishima’s entire body like a shockwave, grenade-explosive and equally damaging; just like that time, just like all the times before that Tsukishima didn’t know what to do with himself. He’s always been that way, exploding when cornered. Perhaps this is the way he and his hateful wretch of a father are similar. Perhaps this anger, this violence, can be contained but can never, never go away, and he’s bound to be only good for this one thing forever.
But they still have a senior officer Koito cannot dare contradict, not in this, and they’re losing time, and whatever Koito wants for him to hear, Tsukishima doesn’t want to listen. He’s only good for one thing, and Koito won’t let him do it.
Energised by rage, he swings with his intact hand, trying to shove Koito off. The blow must connect somehow — Koito makes a pained noise, and his grip slips, — except it’s a pyrrhic victory. Darkness floods Tsukishima’s sight from exertion, and he stumbles backwards.
Koito’s hands catch and steady him before he sends himself tumbling, boot catching on one of the sleepers.
“Can't you see you’ve had enough?!” Koito wails. “Just look at you!”
“Let go!” he is so, so angry, barely held together by the sense of urgency and duty, and, instantaneously and acutely and all over again, in so much pain. “I need to…”
“Don't! Stay here, with me." There’s no order in Koito’s tone now, no request, only the heartbroken, harrowed plea. Tsukishima had heard anything like it from him just once, in the shrill, sobbing voice of a child convinced he was going to die there, alone with his captors. “He said he’d set you free!”
…Free?
A terrible thundering noise rolls away from the station. Somewhere ahead, the locomotive comes crashing through the wooden wall.
The train! Oh, the train, oh…
The roar of water engulfing the train seems distant, as if coming through a layer of gauze. Asirpa’s scream, sharp as a needle, pierces right through. Tsukishima gives a whole-body jerk with all his remaining might, trying to turn his face, to see, even though they’re still too far away, and Koito holds him in place in a silent imploration: don’t look.
They’re still wasting precious time. If they hurry, if only there’s enough luck, there may yet be a chance—
…hours after hours in a tiny boat helpless before the waves, at the rocky brinks of the shore, in the ice-cold water, as if it could yet be not too late. As if a familiar face could still flicker in the black waters, as if the nets could catch the beloved unruly hair.
He only knows he’s losing balance again when Koito tightens his grip to hold him upright. His whole self is wracked with tremors of the effort of staying on his feet or… or some other thing.
…he could have jumped off. There could be a body on the tracks somewhere right now, still fighting or mangled and bleeding, the train might have been empty, the station wall might have shattered so hard the shards knocked him off, and he might still be inside—
Somehow, deep down, Tsukishima knows it’s a false, empty hope.
Was any of it, Igogusa’s demise, her last home under the sea, ever moving and indifferent, real? He still does not know.
His grief, crushing and relentless and impossible, felt real then, and it feels real now.
“It's over.” Koito clings to his shoulders, holds him close with the bruising, uncontrollable force of raw emotions. His face is wet, tears mixing with blood from the reopened slash at the cheek and rolling down his chin as more well up in his bright, dismayed eyes. Shushing noises intersperse his words, as if he's trying to comfort — whichever one of them he means it for. “It's over, it's all over.”
It’s all over.
Later, they’re at the hospital Tsukishima has no memories of getting to. He can only assume Koito’s taking responsibility in the ways he’s never quite done before; Koito is capable but not exactly dependable — although perhaps that’s precisely because he has never needed to be, to this day.
The ever-present sense of duty fades into obscurity all at once. Tsukishima finds that he cannot care about much of anything. It’s not as if he’s run out of things to care about: for a sergeant, there are always tasks at hand. Someone has to take stock of the remains of the division and account for the dead and injured and see the survivors settled and cared for. It’s just that these things get done without him, somehow. He has to trust that they do because there’s no way of knowing for sure and nobody tells him anything, but nobody asks for his input either.
There are no tasks of a more delicate nature (although there was nothing delicate in the sort of chores Tsukishima was ever wanted for, in the first place) that could only be done by a trusted subordinate, by him specifically, either. No business to take care of, and no Tsurumi to scheme another need of him into existence.
Nobody needs Tsukishima for anything, and he would surely feel some way about it, were he to feel anything at all. At the end of the day, he is too injured with little reason to resist the overwhelming urge to just not be for a while. Dazed with exhaustion and relieved of all responsibilities, Tsukishima allows himself to sleep.
He sleeps through the pain, through the surgery to set the mess that is his arm straight, through most of the initial recovery. There must be some merit to the concept of healing sleep — and it is the longest undisturbed rest he’s been allowed in so long it might as well be ever. In the fleeting moments when he is awake and lucid, some things become increasingly, solidly clear with each stretch of time.
His arm won’t ever work quite right, and that grenade has left him with the meanest concussion out of a streak of quite a few. Nonetheless, he lives. Miraculously, impossibly, time after time Tsukishima opens his eyes to the white ceiling of the ward and remembers that he lives.
Time after time, this realisation doesn’t get any easier.
He wakes up and thinks he’s in Mukden; his hand shoots to his lower stomach to check the bandages for seeping wetness, but the terrible wound there is long healed. The roughness of the scar tissue leaves him confused. Staring at the indistinct shapes in the dark, thumbing the ridges of the scar, he is not all there.
Something is not quite right, and this is not where he should be. Tsukishima stood guard over his wounded lieutenant even when his own injury was yet raw; the battle was gruelling, the medics stretched as thin as the fighting forces, and there was no one to scold him for pushing himself too hard, too fast. If anything, they had been grateful for the assistance. Needles, gauze, morphine; a dangerous thing, if necessary — only that much no matter how he begs, or he stops breathing altogether, do you understand, sergeant?
Tsukishima is a quick learner, and Tsurumi has never, not once, lowered himself to begging. Like most spies, he could forsake dignity for the mission at the first cue, could act out pain and mortification and even tears as convincingly as confidence and control; all of it was just that — acting.
But the pain must have been excruciating for him to even allow this.
A dark figure shifts on the bed next to Tsukishima’s, and he’s suddenly relieved. His last memory is of guarding a tent, not lying in bed, but as long as he’s carrying out his duty, the rest is allowed to only make a vague sort of sense.
The voice that calls for him sounds wrong, but a lot of things are wrong in pain, in the dark. He anticipates the needs of his lieutenant either way.
“Sir… should I get you more morphine?” He offers, in a half-whisper; loud noises don’t coexist easily with a head injury, he’s learned. When there’s no answer, he painstakingly moves to sit up, working around the bandaged arm he does not remember hurting. Hopeful and anxious at the same time, he prompts again: “Sir?”
“Tsukishima… it’s me,” Koito says in a tiny, choked-up voice, and the dream is over.
Koito’s getting off easy. The only permanent consequence he’ll sustain is, by the looks of it, some scarring; Tsukishima idly wonders whether he’s upset about that or proud of his new skin-etched proof of having seen real battle. He hopes it’s the latter. Hijikata Toshizou is a formidable foe, and if there’s any pride to be found in war, it would be in going toe to toe against an enemy that renowned and strong, that honourable.
It’s hard to tell what the scar will look like just yet; Tsukishima gets a glance of the stitches and the swollen flesh under the bandage a few times. Koito’s youthful charm just might turn into something different, and yet no less eye-catching, when his face heals.
Looks aside, he’s well on the way to regaining his usual vigour, leaving Tsukishima to silently puzzle about what he’s doing at the hospital still, why he stays when he clearly doesn’t need to. It’s a wonder Koito’s even allowed to stay when the place is so busy, brimming with the train survivors. Koito chalks the crowded wards and halls up as an excuse to spend most of his time next to Tsukishima in the cramped but relatively, blissfully, private room they share. It’s almost like Koito’s afraid that he’d dissolve into thin air if left alone for too long.
Tsukishima wants to ask him about the home he’s got to return to — because there is a home, and for some unfathomable reason Koito’s choosing to waste time at Tsukishima’s bedside instead, and Tsukishima is unwilling to confront him, for some equally mystifying reason, but it’s his moral obligation to at least remind him of this greater, happier responsibility that has actual meaning. For days, there’s never a fitting moment, and then the definitive news on what became of Rear Admiral finally reaches them, and there remains no point or reason in mentioning home at all.
For a man that knows grief so intimately, Tsukishima has appallingly little to offer in terms of words of comfort.
They had been lovers, back across Karafuto. Even then, it felt like a bad decision. Even then, Tsukishima could not tell where exactly they stood. Koito the lover was just as he was in all other things: persistent, rash and boisterous, every advancing move tinted with the slight tell-tale awkwardness of the youthful lack of experience. His infatuation with Tsurumi was unwavering then, perhaps more than ever, so that fling that developed between them could very well have been just a fantasy realisation by proxy.
A dangerous, stupid thing to do, and Tsukishima played along.
It was not the act itself that made their… affair so ill-advised. In the trenches, connections flashed and went like explosions; a frenzied, viscerally compelled mutual release of terrible pressure. It was not unheard of. Less reasonable, and yet still true, was the knowledge that their unit has always been particularly close-knit. Tsukishima had no interest and mostly kept to himself, but as their sergeant, he was not exactly unaware of the kinds of things the privates got up to. Taking a man you fought alongside to bed was not encouraged, but neither was it, in the strange set of rules they abided by, a crime.
And then years of sweet lies, of carefully keeping an unsightly secret, came to an inevitable end, and Koito knew. He knew everything, and Tsukishima had to tell him to watch himself, or else Tsurumi might choose to deal with his disobedience once and for all, and the burden of dealing would fall to Tsukishima who would have no choice but to obey.
He said all this and meant it, and they have not touched each other since, be it for his ruthless promise or the mere common sense — if Koito even possessed any — of not giving Tsurumi any more reason to doubt him. It was the indisputably right choice to make at the time.
And then, Koito went on and chose to knock a live grenade from Tsukishima’s hands.
That grenade could have killed or, worse, maimed Koito for life. All this, for a man who could not find it in himself to even be grateful.
In the safety of the hospital, the looming threat of revelation is gone. They never acknowledge that fleeting piece of shared history; Koito keeps coming close to taking the leap — almost touches Tsukishima in a way that’s too deliberate to show only camaraderie, almost says something that his eyes give away as scaldingly earnest and intimate. Something he might regret later.
Once or twice, Tsukishima catches a glimpse of him looking ready to climb into Tsukishima’s bed in the same brazen way he became accustomed to during their stay with the Nivkhs. For comfort this time, nothing more, Tsukishima is sure of it. Koito never goes through with it.
Tsukishima is too weary to either dissuade or encourage him.
The days pass by, empty and hazy. There’s nothing for him to do still, and the pain is no longer agonising enough to fill up all this free time. Tsukishima never had that much free time in his life; he was always hard at work in one way or another, fighting, training, wrangling the unit into a semblance of order… attending to his officers. Even at the hospital, the last time he was there, he’d been plenty busy looking after Koito.
This time, Koito does not seem to want or need his assistance. He’s uncharacteristically patient with the rigours of life in the overfull hospital, not a single complaint in sight. It’s unnerving. Tsukishima tries to act out their usual dynamic once or twice out of sheer habit, and Koito gives him the strangest look and asks him to go lie down.
All of this strangeness only makes it so he cannot avoid the dreadful question much longer.
What next?
Sooner or later, and lately it feels like sooner, the wounds will heal to an extent that he won’t need the hospital anymore. After that, the future looks dauntingly undefined. Best case scenario, there will be a trial of some sort. Tsukishima is faintly aware of some visiting commissioners that Koito talked to outside the ward, but that’s been early into his recovery, and his memories are scrambled and full of blanks. He would have remembered an interrogation, he thinks. Koito must’ve stopped the officials from pestering the injured. Must have been quite the scene.
(On the drift ice facing off against Kiroranke, on the train braving Ushiyama the Undefeated and the grenade at the same time… Koito has developed a protective streak over his short time in service, so perhaps it’s not that surprising.)
It’s sensible to expect an investigation, but the outcome is yet uncertain. Worst case scenario, Tsukishima will remain unwanted and untethered. Free.
Some evening, as nondescript as any other, Koito breaks the ritual they’ve settled in. He’s taken to just watching Tsukishima; not too subtly, seeing how their beds are next to each other, but it is Koito. He’s not exactly known for caring for trivial things like subtlety. Tsukishima doesn’t mind either way; he’s used to being observed, although Tsurumi was never that obvious, and has nothing of interest to hide. What Koito’s thinking, he cannot decipher, but that’s alright too. Tsukishima does not need to know. They talk very little these days; sometimes it feels like Koito wants to, but whatever is stopping him is ice not ready to break just yet. For his part, Tsukishima has never been that liberal with words, and they seem more elusive than ever now.
This time, Koito does talk.
“Do you ever…” he starts, trailing off in odd hesitation.
Habitually attentive, Tsukishima turns his head from where he’s been mindlessly contemplating the wall. They’re alone; the light is dim, and the noises from the corridor leading to the other wards are dulled. An atmosphere fit for sharing secrets, if Tsukishima were to possess any.
Emboldened by his prompting nod, Koito clears his throat and tries again:
“Do you miss him at all?”
Ah. So it’s that kind of conversation. No need for names; the train crash is still fresh in the mind, even if the worst of the injuries have long scabbed over.
Tsukishima shrugs, not meeting his eyes. Does he? He misses the certainty; he misses his purpose. There was a place for him always, and now it is gone.
“Back on that train, you…” In the way words seem to evade him, the way Koito’s not meeting his eyes either, lies inexplicable consolation. Having this conversation face to face would have been excruciating, unbearable. They should not be having this conversation at all.
What he did on that train…
The unfortunate truth is that Tsukishima had done nothing worth mentioning, save for being prepared to die.
Koito’s making it sound loaded even as a hint, like it's a grave and heavy matter, but it's not. It’s not unusual in their line of work, to be prepared to die for a cause, and if the whole of that cause happened to be embodied by a single man… so be it. Tsurumi was a senior officer whom Tsukishima followed; the mastermind of all plans, the leading tune in the melody of their mutiny. It all made sense.
For a superior officer to put his life on the line for an expendable tool… now, that is different. That warrants questioning of motives, of the soundness of judgement. Tsukishima doesn’t have the heart to subject Koito to asking what he did it for.
“If that’s to do with how you felt about him…” Koito’s voice hitches. “I understand. I swear, I do. I know what it’s like.”
And in some way, he does. Their love was nothing alike; Tsukushima’s resigned, marrow-deep loyalty had nothing in common with Koito’s sweet infatuation. And yet, there's nobody else to understand them as they understand each other. No one else to share that shameful grief.
Tsukishima wonders if Koito misses Tsurumi, even a little. Whether he is asking to know that he isn’t insane for this, or at least isn’t alone in this insanity.
It's hard to explain to an outsider, missing a man that took so much from them. Tsukishima was at his side the longest; there was anger and betrayal and never-ending lies, but there was also a sense of direction, and Tsukishima is adrift without it.
There were the unwanted, perhaps involuntary flickers of habitual trust that ever so rarely went both ways. In some twisted way, Tsukishima knowing of all the lies made Tsurumi more secure in trusting his loyalty. For all his scheming, he had relied on Tsukishima; on his presence and his competence and his unwavering devotion.
Tsukishima loved that man enough to shield him from an artillery blast, realise it was all for nothing as Tsurumi kept getting more insane by the day, and nonetheless stay.
But this is not about loyalty, and it’s not about love. Hasn’t been in the longest time.
And even if it was…
Tsukishima is not a cowardly man, but some things are best left unsaid. For Koito’s benefit, if not his own. Here, they are alone; no spies of central to appraise their integrity, no outsiders to cast judgement. Nevertheless, all this talk… is unbecoming. Tsukishima is, by virtue of his wasted life and lost purpose, free to feel and think what he likes, mourn who he wishes, however wrong it is. Koito, who still has a future worth living, is allowed no such luxury.
“Doesn't matter now.” Tsukishima hopes it sounds placating; that none of the resentment and anger that flash hot and heavy within him for the first time since the train seeps into his blank tone. “And you shouldn't be thinking about it, either.”
The least they can do for each other is keep such thoughts securely confined to their minds.
“Why not? So you can think about it, but I can’t?”
Koito pouts, he truly does. All of these days, he’s been so good about the hospital stay, so diligent and patient, nothing like the spoilt child of an officer he had been, and now one single expression makes him look and sound so much like before that Tsukishima snaps without meaning to:
“Yes! You have better things to worry about.”
Can’t he see where chasing ghosts gets you? The whole point of Tsukishima aiding Koito was letting his level-headed experience guard against whatever perils Koito’s whimsical pursuits could lead him to. That, at least, hasn’t changed. His first lieutenant might be gone; his second still lacks the prudence to know what’s best for him and needs Tsukishima to provide some of his own.
Still, that was awfully vehement for him. Tsukishima knows he isn’t helping his own case; it matters little if the point gets across.
The silence stretches.
“…this isn't even about me,” Koito says, at last. He sounds a little offended, perhaps at having his best intentions scorned, but not enough to get him off the track. He really has changed — it’s so very level-headed, coming from him. “And you’re being so weird about this.”
It’s a little funny, even, because everything used to be about the old Koito. Entirely uncalled for, a chuckle tugs at the corners of Tsukishima’s lips; his inner workings are in such disarray, all this turmoil might be to blame. Koito’s finally looking at him, just enough to notice this nonsensical reaction. He simply stares for a few seconds, then grins back.
Tension bleeds out of the ward in an instant. Schooling his face into seriousness — eyes no longer turned away, — Koito murmurs:
“It’s just… so many things have happened, and you’ve been so…” He shrugs, frustrated. “I told you that you could rely on me, haven’t I? I want to know what's wrong!”
And it's sweet, in a naive way. Sweet that Koito would ask; sweet that he doesn't know why he shouldn’t, sweet that he would need asking at all. Tsurumi never asked. A gifted spy with years of experience, he’d had his ways of subtly coaxing subjects of his curiosity into confiding in him until they were happy to turn themselves inside out in a feast of honesty. Tsukishima stayed at his side so long Tsurumi did not even need to do that much, simply puzzling out anything he wanted to know. It got tiring, being seen everywhere, known all the time. An attack dog in a transparent crate to be observed. A gun, disassembled, every innermost part of him barred for an inquiring gaze.
Koito will, no doubt, learn and grow with experience. Has already, so much; despite that, he would never share the same talents, never be anything like their first lieutenant, and Tsukishima longs that it stays that way no matter how hard Koito tries. He’s best like this. His own thing, instead of a cheap replica of anyone. His brother, however beloved; his father, however respected; his officer, however ingenious.
And Tsukishima is…
Tsukishima doesn’t know how to explain to the exuberant, righteous, brilliant Koito who’s got a whole life ahead of him that he never intended to live this long.
From the very beginning, his role was scripted; he was bound to follow every letter of that script and die in the final act, protecting his lead. Instead, the train sank to the bottom of the sea and took Tsurumi with it, everything was over and done — and Tsukishima kept on existing. He’s never meant for it to be like that.
What is there for him now? What is ever there for a gun that failed to go off when the most hinged on it, and now the hands that pulled the trigger have grown cold and distant with death?
He can’t say any of it.
He says:
“I can’t go back to the army.”
And he can’t. His arm is ruined, his body would not handle the strain of another war. He’s only good for paperwork and training others now, but he is also untrustworthy in the eyes of the high command, and no division would want a former mutineer. Tsukishima still cannot settle whether he is untrustworthy in his own eyes. He’d been dead set on loyalty to the end, and once that end came to be… dare he say that he’d delivered it? He did intend to give his life away, which is one fundamental truth; that intentions are empty and weightless in the face of deeds is another.
(What about Koito? What about splitting that loyalty, that precious last thing he had to give, between the two conflicting sides? Was that intention traitorous enough?
He hasn’t seen that nightmare ever since they got to the hospital. The nightmares of war and explosions and black waters were aplenty, but never that one.)
Anyhow. No more fighting for him, and that, too, must warrant some way of feeling about it.
Whatever Koito expected, this isn’t it. Thrown off, he flails:
“I—You shouldn’t. Tsukishima! No one’s making you. You’ll be free, you can do whatever you want.”
To him, it's about being forced. A choice is a blessing he’s been deprived of before, and the prospect of losing it again inspires nothing but anxiety. Knowing it would not be taken away is reassurance he’s eager to share.
But this isn’t what Tsukishima meant.
On a sunny pier, everything smells like the sea but not the way it smelled back home; the metal tang of ships mixes in with the salt, drowning out any hints of seaweed.
Koito is setting off to return home, and Tsukishima is there to say goodbyes.
It’s a perfect, bright day, and the water is calm and golden with sunlight. The way back will be easy, even if Koito’s seasickness hasn’t lessened. Tsukishima has a distant feeling that it has, somehow.
No longer the second lieutenant, and not the first, either. It’s hard to get used to, and yet Tsukishima finds he’s starting to like it better.
They talk about meaningless, silly things — or, rather, Koito talks and Tsukishima listens, mood strangely serene. The sense of alienation that plagued them both throughout their stay at the hospital is gone as seamlessly as it came, melted in the yellow glow, dissolved in the gentle rocking of the waves. Tsukishima feels inexplicably light, like a weight has lifted from his chest, and inexplicably wistful at the very same time. The pangs of something almost nostalgic tingle within his lungs with each soft inhale.
Listening (talking) to Koito is suddenly so natural, so very easy. He tells Tsukishima all about the wonderful life that is sure to lie ahead; about his plans to settle in the civilian career which would, of course, break the military dynasty and his father might not have wanted it for him but he’d like to decide for himself this time, and maybe his father and brother would understand from wherever they are — they’d want him to be happy, wouldn’t they?
He talks about the way his mother misses him, how they’d talked over the phone but she hasn’t seen his scar yet and she’s going to be so worried although it’s too late for that; about the first thing he would eat when he gets home (anything but sweets), and the first place he’d go (his brother’s gravestone, to tell him everything that happened) and about wanting to help the survivors from the seventh lest they get their second chances for life ruined by punishment for decisions that weren’t even theirs.
Everything and anything, Koito shares, unashamed and excited and aware that their time together is almost up. For the first time since the drift ice, he looks vibrant and delicately close to happiness, and Tsukishima quietly admires him.
There will be hardship, and there will be grief. He will go home to face yet another empty space where a part of a family so dear to him once was, there will be repercussions for an officer that followed Tsurumi’s command. Not all days would be this sunny and pristine.
None of it matters in the face of getting to go home.
Tsukishima, too, is happy for him, although he is without that luxury himself.
Koito promises to write, although he doesn’t yet know where these letters would be going to; makes Tsukishima promise in return, over and over, to let Koito know as soon as he settles anywhere. For all his rediscovered energy, he’s not quite his usual self — but he will be, given time. Time does heal some things, and it’s not too late for Koito.
Tsukishima tries to imagine settling down somewhere, if only for the sole purpose of giving Koito somewhere to send his letters to. Truly, he tries, but his mind keeps coming up empty. Where would he go? What would he do?
Perhaps he could stay here for a while, with nothing better to apply himself to. Being tried for their misdeeds is always a possibility; until then, he could pass the time searching for the bones. Deep down, he already knows there’s nothing to be found. The sea is an unforgiving mistress that rarely gives offerings and sacrifices back.
The ship is nearly ready to get off the anchor.
Lost in thought, Tsukishima must’ve missed some of Koito’s ramblings; belatedly, he realises that the words stopped, and they’re no longer strolling along the pier, instead standing in a remote corner of the harbour, facing each other. He opens his mouth to apologise and thinks better of it midway. Something in the way Koito’s eyes suddenly go soft tells Tsukishima he doesn’t want that apology.
There’s a vast wilderness of things left unsaid between them; unacknowledged but not forgotten. Every opportunity to work up the courage and breach that vastness, they’ve wasted, and now they’re almost ready to bid farewell, and it’s still there, and they both feel it. Tsukishima tilts his head up to study Koito’s face. For a split second, it looks like Koito just might kiss him, right out in the open.
His hand comes up — slowly, as if not to startle — and brushes Tsukishima’s cheek.
“Your hair…”
Something sweet and tremulous blooms in Tsukishima’s chest when Koito smiles at him.
“What?” Tsukishima says stupidly.
He doesn’t pull back.
“It's grown out a bit,” Koito states, in quiet wonder. As if there’s some great meaning behind this minuscule change; as if it’s important and good. “I’ve never seen you look so… civilian.”
And it did, and it has; his army buzz cut has softened. Tsukishima does not remember when he last looked like a civilian either. The burn on the back of his head from the explosion that nearly took his life would never fade; his body is covered in marks he would bear forever, a walking war memorabilium. And yet, in some ways, it is already changing to let go of that burden. A little softer — not only his hair; the whole of him, flesh and mind.
Koito’s fingers brush across the grown-out hair on the upstroke, ruffling what little there is to mess up. It is entirely inappropriate, not much better than a kiss, after all. The intimacy of it is somehow even more, so unmistakable and honest that something relentless wells up behind Tsukishima’s eyes.
They stay like that, transfixed.
The ship’s horn startles Koito into yanking his hand away, and Tsukishima misses it sorely as soon as it’s gone. There’s no time for any of this now, and the moment is gone, fleeting as it was. Koito looks away, business-like in a poor attempt to conceal fluster.
“Ah. Time to board, it seems.”
Wordlessly, Tsukishima nods his confirmation. The ramp is already out, and the passengers are waiting in a messy line. Koito, who’s been chatting non-stop since they set foot out of the carriage that brought them to the harbour, appears to be struggling for words.
“I guess… this is it, then?”
This is it. Oh, how burns the irony of having his loyalty split between two lieutenants, only to lose both of them in the end; one to a bitter end and another, to a happy one. (Koito, he has to remind himself over and over again, is not a lieutenant anymore.)
Tsukishima wants to give him something meaningful and true before they part. Wants to say, I hope you’re happy in the new life you’ve chosen for yourself. Wants to tell him, it was never just out of convenience, and I had — have! — feelings for you, and I’m sorry.
Like so many times before that, words stay buried deep in the cowardly safety of his throat.
Koito says something else to him, some words of parting of no importance at all. He’s gone before Tsukishima can at least tell him to be careful, which he never is. Then again, Koito never listens, so what does one last cautionary platitude matter? Tsukishima watches him walk up the ramp — the queue has mostly dispersed by now; they have truly pushed their remaining time to the limits — and turns to walk away.
Where to, now?
Indeed, he's spent too long taking orders. Without a duty to fulfil and an officer to follow, he is an instrument operated by no one. Perhaps starting with the bones is not the worst thought. With all the time that has passed, he cannot reasonably hope to find anything, but the investigators who’d, no doubt, raked through the whole harbour in the wake of the incident may have had better luck. He wishes he could ask someone what became of any remains that were found; whether any were recovered at all.
There’s the question of surviving in this new civilian life, too, although Tsukishima finds himself strangely unbothered. His arm is still too fragile where it fractured above the elbow for manual labour, but perhaps…
“Tsukishima!!!”
Long trained into a habit, he turns swiftly at the first sounds of the call — just in time to see Koito run back down to the pier, nearly pushing some poor rightfully annoyed bystander into the water. In mere seconds, he is upon Tsukishima, dishevelled and frantic, polished boots skidding to a stop next to him. For all his histrionics, Koito has the grace of a gymnast, a sword wielder; perfectly controlled and fleet-footed. In their past life that came to ruin with the Hakodate train, he’d ever been this off balance for one man and one man only.
Tsukishima extends a hand and steadies him. The words that have been on his tongue throughout their clumsy farewell now come unprompted.
“Be careful, sir.”
“Didn't I tell you to drop the sir?” Koito complains, panting. His hand shoots up to grab the front of Tsukishima’s shirt; whether to hold on or to stop him from walking away, it’s impossible to say. Tsukishima waits patiently. This part has become familiar over their shared time in the army. This, he knows. Koito is impulsive and at times hard to comprehend. It’s best to give him a moment to explain what it is that came over him this time.
Although now the usual course of action might not be the wisest. Isn’t the ship…
“Tsukishima!” Koito stands straighter now, but his breaths still come out uneven, hand clutching the fabric, and he sounds — bewilderingly — utterly distraught. “I can't. Can’t go. If I leave you here, I’ll never see you again!”
Tsukishima freezes in place. He wants to tell Koito to quit being ridiculous, that he’s not going anywhere, but he is a bad liar.
He’s not looking for a way out; not actively, not in that determined conscious way some of the former soldiers seek their ultimate peace. Tsukishima is merely lacking direction. Be it searching for the final respite or some new hope, he has no inclination towards either. If he were to waste away in some quietly non-dramatic way in the next weeks or months or years, that would not be much of a tragedy.
But he has an inkling Koito would not see it that way.
“Second lieutenant…” he calls out, forgetting himself.
“Come back home with me,” Koito blurts, eyes wild. His free hand finds Tsukishima’s palm and squeezes. He’d last looked this wild pushing a grenade out of his hands. “There’ll be a place for you. I’ll take care of you. I need you. Please, I want… I'm…”
What stupid, impossible things to say.
And what if he did agree? It's not like there's anything else for him, and Koito has needed him before, so he might be telling the truth now. Might have a use for him after all. It is a revelation, that Tsukishima is not, after everything, particularly desperate to cease existing. He’s given something important up once before, and nothing but pain came out of it; even the memories were tainted by the venom of his denial until he could no longer find comfort in them. Was that the right thing to do by Igogusa? Was that what he himself deserved? He cannot tell. But now, faced with the same choice, he knows what Koito wants because Koito is there to say it. And if agreeing makes them both a little happier…
Would that be so terrible?
He can't try for himself — not yet, maybe not ever; but he’s used to giving his all for someone else. Wrong or not, he will be content for it. To have it be Koito, with his silly little whims that won't hurt anyone and won't create guilt upon layers of guilt when indulged; with his straightforward, blunt honesty; with his ardent adoration… Would that be so wrong?
Koito, the sentimental fool, pulls him closer, and Tsukishima goes willingly; that much choice, that much freedom, doesn't hurt at all.
It's a beautiful, perfect day, entirely unfit for goodbyes.