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To sleep.
The tranquility of the kotan did not carry over to everyone.
In between moments of newfound freedom and peaceful bliss, an anchor of gloom dragged Sugimoto and Asirpa down like a chain clasped around their ankles. Three years ago, the limp body had been pried from the tracks after Asirpa had detected the faintest trace of a pulse beneath the wildcat’s skin. Sugimoto tried to unearth the meaning behind the pleading in her eyes – they implied that leaving Ogata behind was not an option. It would be leaving him behind to die and she was against it, although the true reasoning behind the young woman’s mercy did not become apparent to him until much, much later.
As it was, Ogata remained the final tether of darkness, obstinately binding them to the mess left behind on that railroad all that time ago.
The irony that the lethal marksman’s final shot had missed its mark – failing to kill – was not lost on Sugimoto. In a different way, Ogata had lost a great deal more than if he’d succeeded in what he set out to accomplish. Now, he was blind and broken seemingly beyond repair, leaving Sugimoto to wonder if Asirpa’s decision to pick him off the tracks hadn’t been the crueler of the two options.
At times, Sugimoto’s hands itched for the rifle, which these days he only ever carried out on hunts; he itched to pull the trigger, to break the chain, and to finish the job once and for all.
But for all the times he’d shouted Ogata’s name with poisonous vitriol on his tongue threatening to kill him, he knew that he would have to refrain – at least for Asirpa’s sake.
It didn’t ebb the feelings of discontent that churned his stomach whenever he fixed eyes on the husk that perched at the edges of community events only because Asirpa had pulled him out in an attempt to engage him. The same haunting shadow that had turned into a new scary story amongst the children as they dared each other to try and get as close to the broken sisam as possible without chickening out. Ogata never acknowledged them; he just sat there as if unaware of all the ordeals that surrounded him.
Somehow, Ogata’s skin had taken on a pallor that was even whiter than it had been before. There was gauze wrapped around the unsightly gouges where his lightless eyes used to be. The remaining slits gave a new meaning to his empty stare if left uncovered. They chose to wrap him up, even if it was only slightly less eerie this way whenever he fixed his attention upon someone in this new state.
For an entire month after they moved back to Otaru, Ogata did not utter a single word.
He moved when pushed and sat when directed, but that was about it. Asirpa dedicated the most time with him, leading him through one sided conversations and offering jokes in any attempt to engage the old snark they’d gotten used to once upon a time. Sometimes Sugimoto grumbled curses at him when he offered a turn with babysitting the new catatonic version of Ogata. He only did it because he felt sorry that Asirpa was burdened with this new cause after everything she’d already gone through.
However, being left alone with Ogata swarmed an old anger inside Sugimoto, something he’d tried to leave behind. It was difficult to grapple with the notion that this was the same man he’d battled time and time again with a thirsty drive to bring the conflict to a conclusion. It was undeniable that this man left behind in the wake of the war was not the same one he’d known before. Sometimes, he would unleash a one-sided tirade upon Ogata’s blank silence; it was a word salad of all the hate he'd accumulated for the other man over the duration of their acquaintance. Yet, every time Ogata's non-reaction only set him further on edge, making his teeth feel like cardboard against the tip of his tongue as he caught his breath.
No matter what it was, gentle small talk or hateful insults – it fell on deaf ears. A theory that perhaps Ogata had blown his ears out as well as his eyes had been proven wrong after a healer conducted examinations to make sure there wasn’t anything else wrong with the once proud sniper. None of his injuries had been overlooked. Beyond his missing eyes, the man had made a full physical recovery.
Metaphysically, on the other hand, it appeared they’d reached an impasse.
Out of some kind of courtesy, they’d kept up his preferred style, maintaining his scrappy goatee even when the man himself refused to pass comment on Asirpa’s first suggestions that they give him a shave. They kept his hair as it had been when they’d come to know him, buzzed around the sides and longer at the top, brushed back and tucked behind the bandages; although, now when a strand happened to shy out of its hold, the compulsive gesture to brush it back in place was out of sight. Ogata’s wispy bangs curled over his forehead and into his face, messy until Asirpa came by to swipe a hand over his forehead and fix him up again.
Ogata did not utter a single word for over a month after their return to the kotan… not consciously, anyway.
Sugimoto slept better than he had in decades next to Asirpa and the rest of her family, surrounded by soft deep snuffling, but sometimes old visions of violence kept him awake. In those moments, as the ominous dark of night suffocated the sky, he would hear Ogata’s raspy voice break its silence. Eerie pleas of lost names slurred into the night like a confession as he flinched his way through nightmares.
To eat.
Just like the rest of the maintenance fell upon Asirpa’s shoulders, so did the challenge of getting Ogata to eat.
It was the very next hurdle after getting him to sit up on his own following the life-altering head injury. A blind and weak man could not kill himself by force only because he no longer had enough of it to be successful. No matter how much he willed for the spark to be trampled, it wouldn’t be granted so easily now that the shock of his spectators had worn off. As such, the efforts came in the form of sealing his chapped lips in silent protest of the most basic need – food, which the community had worked hard to retrieve and prepare; it was rejected by the light turn of his head away from the hands that offered it.
Sugimoto deciphered it rather simply as a new attempt at offing himself.
He observed Asirpa’s furrowed brow as she stared at the man where he disassociated several paces over. She’d been bargaining with him for thirty minutes, leveling utensils and fingers in front of his mouth and egging him on by any means possible to try and accept even the smallest amount of food.
“You should just give up, Asirpa-san,” Sugimoto muttered, “If he doesn’t want to eat, then you won’t be able to make him.”
By the set of her brows, it was obvious that she had not accepted Sugimoto’s diagnosis. They sat in silence for a moment, Asirpa contemplating as Sugimoto glared, eyes ticking over that pale shadow that remained of his nemesis.
“Will you help me make something, Sugimoto?” she has asked him in a somber tone.
At first, he was surprised that Asirpa had even heard of the dish given her general distance from Japanese cuisine before their introduction. It occurred to him that they had spent quite a bit of time apart for a period, and there were plenty of things that she had learned in that stint that he would never know about.
It wasn’t exactly a difficult dish to replicate with the ingredients in season – a quick trip to the city to collect what they needed, and it would all be ready before sunset.
He hadn’t asked the meaning behind the dish as they minced the vegetables. Asirpa carefully arranged the shiitake tops within the stew, completing the saliva-inspiring meal with an aesthetically pleasing presentation. She was really trying, and Sugimoto found that if Ogata ended up rejecting this attempt, he’d have to crack the blind man across the face – pitiful or otherwise.
The young woman was careful as she approached where Ogata had been left under the reluctant observation of her uncle and Osoma. The pair left them in privacy upon her return and Asirpa carried a small bowl between her hands; it was filled to the brim with a spoon slipped into the depths of the broth, stirring slightly as she walked.
As soon as they entered and the aroma of the food wafted through the air, the shift in the blind man’s demeanor was palpable. His lips cracked as if drinking in the smell, the visible reaction breaking through whatever catatonic hold had overwhelmed him before. He turned in their direction with a barely perceivable tremble in his bottom lip.
Sugimoto’s eyes narrowed in confusion.
Whatever Asirpa’s hunch had been based on, it was obvious some sort of breakthrough was imminent.
“ Anglerfish nabe ,” Asirpa announced as she kneeled next to Ogata while Sugimoto lingered suspiciously at the edge of the space with his arms crossed over his chest, attention wary of the unexpected change within Ogata. In his experience, it was never a good sign.
Asirpa brought a spoon to his lips with a steady hand… and Ogata accepted. The soft slurp accompanying his parting lips startled Sugimoto as he and Asirpa made eye contact across the room, neither of them saying anything for fear of shattering whatever spell compelled Ogata to accept sustenance this time.
Asirpa dipped to refill the spoon once it had been emptied, returning it to Ogata’s lips; again, it was admitted without resistance and he drained it to the last drop. The third spoonful contained a hearty chunk of fish meal and Ogata opened his mouth wider to accommodate the larger morsel. When a sliver of broth trailed down his chin, a result of the awkward bite size, Asirpa’s hand darted in an instinctive movement to wipe the trace away.
The innocent gesture solicited an instantaneous and unanticipated reaction.
A full bodied shiver wracked Ogata’s frame and Sugimoto tensed on the chance that it might turn into an attack – it was not unlike the wildcat to bite the hand which fed him.
Nothing came of it, nothing violent anyway. Asirpa’s unwavering attention had returned to Ogata’s face, that stern knit of her brow watching his jaw move with closed mouth chewing. As the shiver persisted, Ogata’s hand squeezed tightly against his own knee. Asirpa set the bowl aside for a moment and reached to cover his hand with her own; he allowed her this contact before another shiver carried into his shoulders, forcing them to shake.
Sugimoto watched with uncertainty and growing discomfort, feeling too much like a voyeur as Ogata’s lips pressed into a thin line and he swallowed the bite of nabe in his mouth.
“Ogata,” Asirpa broke the silence boldly, unafraid of the reaction simmering between them. “Tome, whoever they were… you loved them, didn’t you?”
Yet again, Sugimoto felt well out of his element as Ogata shook his head in the first explicit reaction to anyone’s presence since they’d pulled him from the tracks and dragged him back to consciousness.
“It’s okay,” Asirpa assured him with her familiar understated confidence, “It’s not a weakness to admit it.”
The tremble in Ogata’s frail shape persisted for a while, and the three of them sat there while he struggled against it. Asirpa’s hand remained where she’d dropped it over his. Sugimoto continued to hover on the outskirts, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He felt disconcerted as the gauze over Ogata’s empty eye sockets darkened and he sniffed wetly once; otherwise no other noises escaped him.
“Do you want more?” Asirpa asked after a series of those overbearing minutes ticked on.
“Yes,” Ogata’s raspy answer cracked the air. Asirpa noded decisively, resuming her clutch around the bowl and bringing another ripe spoonful to his lips.
To fight.
The incident with the nabe wasn’t exactly the quick fix it had promised to be, but it was notable that Ogata had changed yet again. It wasn’t that he was suddenly the life of the party, but his stubborn fast had broken, not just for sentimental dishes but for all the meals offered to him going forward. His muted boycott had ended as well – at least if Asirpa was the one addressing him.
It didn't make Sugimoto any less sick of his foreboding silence in the moments in between. Now that he’d proven that he could still talk, that it had been a choice and not the consequence of any shock he’d experienced in their final battle, Sugimoto felt rising aggravation whenever he was left alone with the other man; it wasn’t often, but it did happen.
Unfortunately washing up was one of those times as Sugimoto had elected to spare Asirpa the indignity of having to wash the grown man who’d stopped caring so much about his existence that he didn’t bother to make the effort independently. Sugimoto glared quietly as he led Ogata into the riverbed, one hand tight around his bicep, pinching the flesh there with his iron grip as he tugged him along rather carelessly away from the rocky shore.
The water was cold, making all parts of the men wading through it shrivel; a part of him took pleasure in catching the flinch in Ogata’s body as they breached the water to thigh height before stopping to go about getting the task done.
"Hurry and clean up," Sugimoto instructed harshly.
Ogata just stood there, the only reaction to the situation being the gooseflesh which pebbled his bare skin as they lingered in the frigid river water.
"I know you can hear me, bastard," Sugimoto scoffed. "In case you're confused, the rest of the world hasn't gone blind just because you have. I can see you talking with Asirpa-san."
Ogata’s face remained impassive, causing a fresh flare of anger to stir in Sugimoto’s chest. It was hardly his finest moment, but something in that slack expression on the other man’s face as they froze their balls off in the mountain water untethered him from his reason. Sugimoto dipped a hand into the water and sent a large glacial splash of it directly in Ogata’s direction.
Immature or rash as it was, Sugimoto found himself basking in a cruel pleasure as the cold finally yanked a more explicit reaction out of Ogata. His body turned rigid in an involuntary flex, arms tensing out on either side of him and mouth cracking open in a silent gasp as his chest pushed with a sharp inhale of breath.The crystalline water of the stream rolled like oil in his black hair, slipping down his forehead to sink into the gauze that wrapped his eyes. It was the one strap of cloth Sugimoto hadn’t forced him to remove before stepping into the water, because he couldn’t stand to look into the black tar pits of Ogata’s exposed eye sockets.
“Say something or I’ll do it again,” Sugimoto threatened, following the clear beads of water down Ogata’s pale chest with his narrowed eyes.
There was a moment of pause as Sugimoto pretended to give Ogata a chance to reply before sending another cascade in his direction, larger this time as he used both his hands to slam against the winding surface. In response to the noisy splash, Ogata leaned ever so slightly away from where Sugimoto had situated himself, but it did nothing to protect him from the frigid water as it slammed against his body.
Ogata panted, catching his breath against the sudden onslaughts of cold against him.
“Well?” Sugimoto barked.
He held his arm over the water in a silent threat despite Ogata’s inability to see it.
A small noise escaped Ogata as he cleared his throat and shook his head slightly, shaking some of the trailing droplets off of his face.
“Maybe, Sugimoto–” Ogata’s voice was like gravel, and Sugimoto felt his breath catch at the sound of it saying his name for the first time since they’d bellowed at each other over the wind of the racing train, “--If you ever said anything worth responding to, I’d feel more like talking. But it’s all been bullshit as far as I can tell.”
It was the final straw and a growl ripped out of him. Ogata was blind and his muscle mass had lessened significantly since his injury, but even before Hakodate he’d never really stood a chance against Sugimoto’s feral force of will. The distance between them was short and he closed it effortlessly with a sharp grab.
They began to thrash against each other awkwardly, struggling with the wet slip of their bodies. Ogata’s skin was like frost on Sugimoto’s from all the splashing, making him hiss. It wasn’t much of a fight as Sugimoto overpowered the blind man, wedging his head against his trunk in a headlock, while Ogata scratched at his skin with blunt nails, uttering a breathless grunt. Sugimoto forced him to bend, before landing a hearty smack between Ogata’s protruding shoulder blades – not at his full strength, but strong enough to leave a satisfying red hand print behind.
Of course, Sugimoto should have anticipated that Ogata would use the opportunity to dig sharp incisors into the soft flesh of his midsection; however, given the general docility of the wildcat lately, he was stupid enough to be surprised.
“Piece of shit!” Sugimoto exclaimed, reacting instinctually and launching Ogata out and away from him with a spin.
The slippery rocks under their feet weren’t exactly easy to contend with and the force sent Ogata flailing into the river’s depths. However, the smug ‘ serves him right’ moment was short-lived as the seconds dragged on and the blind man did not breach the water’s surface.
Sugimoto’s eyes widened as he realized that Ogata was not going to come back up by himself. With another hissed curse, he dove head first into the river’s depths, bracing himself against the plunge of its frigidness. If he lost Ogata now, after everything Asirpa had managed – well…
It wasn't over yet.
Sugimoto stroked through the water, darting around as he scanned the crystalline depths that submerged him until finally he saw a ghostly white shape bobbing about at the mercy of the current like some kind of aquatic weed. Sugimoto picked up the pace, kicking against the drag of water surrounding him before curling an arm around Ogata and dragging them both back upward.
They gasped in synchrony against the surface, Ogata’s struggling breath quickly transferred into choppy coughs as he hacked water out of his lungs.
“ You idiot ,” Sugimoto spat with vitriol as he hauled Ogata onto land to drop him unceremoniously against the shore. The anger had not yet released him as he straddled the other man where he was sprawled on the shore.
A hand reared back, clenched with a tight fist and a spit of effort, but he stopped himself just before ramming it down to impact.
Sugimoto found himself dumbstruck as he fixed his eyes upon Ogata beneath him.
Ogata turned his head to the side against the dirt as if anticipating the blow. His eyes were squeezed shut, the bandage which had been wrapped around his face lost to the depths of the water, and his hair was plastered against his forehead. The pitiful body curling beneath Sugimoto trembled against the air, pebbles and sand clinging to his damp skin while harsh breaths struggled through his lungs.
With an exhale, Sugimoto lowered his fist. After another beat, he slipped off of Ogata, squatting by his side before heaving him to his feet. With the debris of the riverbed marring their bodies, they were both dirtier than when they’d started.
“Come on,” Sugimoto gave him a little nudge back in the direction of the water. “You need to get cleaned up.”
To kiss.
Sugimoto confessed to Asirpa about the incident by the river a couple of days following, guiltily looking down at his feet. She did not chastise him too critically for losing his temper, but the look on her youthful face remained tersely concerned.
“He’s doing better, but there is still a long journey ahead,” she noted with a breath.
Sugimoto rubbed at the back of his head just under his cap, uncertain what to do with those restless feelings of discontent.
“It’s disgraceful,” he scoffed under his breath, and Asirpa raised her eyebrows at him curiously. “Just giving up like that and making it your problem. You have more than enough to worry about without his burdens, Asirpa-san. Is it… Is it because you shot your arrow at him?”
They hadn’t talked about what happened to Ogata on the train. Sugimoto had bitten his tongue out of respect to her resolve to take fate into her own hands, but the set in the young woman’s face had changed the moment she let the arrow sear through the air, even if fate interfered for a second time in a row.
“No,” Asirpa gnawed on the inside of her cheek as her face furrowed with a gravity that exceeded her age, “I told you that for the right reason, I will go to hell with you. I don’t regret shooting at Ogata.”
He didn’t expect the answer, as all this time it had been the only plausible reason to explain her choice for pulling the miserable wretch away from the narrow grip of death before the wildcat’s ninth life could be snuffed for good.
“So then why?”
Asirpa’s blue eyes were fierce with a deep glow in the twilight ambiance.
“It’s because of something you told me long ago.”
She stood abruptly and returned, handing him a cup full of a sharp smelling liquid, distracting his confusion with the contents.
“Relax, Sugimoto,” she said. “You pulled him out, it was the right thing to do.”
But the thoughts were not alleviated so simply even as he attempted to take his partner’s advice and drink swig after swig of the alcohol that had been offered to him. It was fully dark by the time Sugimoto lumbered over to where Ogata had been deposited a while ago. For some time, Sugimoto had just drank and glared as the other man stewed there, unmoving as usual, dissociating in a quiet corner away from the rest of the group’s engagements.
“You’re a sorry piece of work,” Sugimoto spat without preamble as he situated himself beside the blind man.
Sugimoto’s brows knit together – his cheeks flushed with drink – and he glowered as Ogata hummed in soft acknowledgement of the diagnosis.
“What’s the matter? No snark tonight?”
“Maybe I dropped it in the river,” Ogata replied.
Exasperation curled through him, and he found himself immensely irritated within seconds, “What the fuck do you want anyway?”
“ No ,” the sudden venom in the tone as it growled caught Sugimoto off guard, “What the fuck do you want? I didn’t ask for this. It’s you and your little friend who insist on dragging this out instead of letting it be.”
Sugimoto swallowed thickly around a tenseness in his throat. Despite his surprise at the unexpected passion from the otherwise flat-faced Ogata, his anger had not been alleviated.
“Because she took pity on your sorry ass,” Sugimoto growled, “You’ve survived two wars, and now you get to live out the rest of your life in peace – all because she decided to forgive you. It’s better than what you deserve after everything you put her through.”
Ogata shifted ever so slightly, tipping his face down in the direction of the ground as if to stare at his feet. “For once, you and I agree, Sugimoto Saichi.”
A development which further set him on edge.
“I will never understand you,” Sugimoto admitted, a touch cooler than before. “I fought tooth and nail to stay alive, so what have you been fighting for all this time if you're so willing to just give it all up so easily now? You’re gonna throw away all these second chances without a thought, and it’s sickening. Don’t you get that when it’s over, it’s really over?”
“That’s the idea, yeah,” Ogata pressed on as if unbothered.
“It’s wasteful. There’s got to be things you wish you’d tried, but never got the chance to before. And if it ends you’ll really never get to–”
There was a soft rustle and Sugimoto blinked at the unexpected dodge of movement from the side of him where Ogata had previously been motionlessly ruminating. He darted towards Sugimoto, leaning into him as a hand groped in his direction before landing on Sugimoto’s knee for orientation. Sugimoto was too stunned to try and get away when Ogata did his best to press his lips against Sugimoto’s. He missed at first, catching him on the cheek first until he shifted to correct his aim. The second landing brushed the corner of Sugimoto’s mouth, and the third landed squarely upon its intended target in direct lip to lip contact.
They sat like that for a moment, with Sugimoto’s eyes so wide they just about popped out of his head, and Ogata’s too dry lips slotted against his own.
After another beat, Ogata pulled away, shifting back into his own seat.
He cleared his throat, “I think. I could have died without trying that, Sugimoto.”
More anger erupted to break Sugimoto out of his shock. He shot to his feet and fisted Ogata’s shirt for a second, chest heaving with labored breath and lips still tingling from the trace of a kiss.
“You–” he gritted out, and the corners of Ogata’s lips twitched in a trace of an old familiar smugness he’d nearly forgotten how it looked. Another irritated exclamation ground out of him and Sugimoto released Ogata’s shirt, letting him fall back upon his perch.
“Bastard,” Sugimoto hissed, he almost thought he caught the sound of a dry laugh following the rigid set of his shoulders as he stormed away.
To understand.
It had taken him too long to comprehend what Asirpa had meant. The true motivation of why she had insisted on saving Ogata despite his own better judgment, and Ogata’s obvious resistance to the initiative.
He realized it in the middle of a snappy back and forth with the girl herself, catching himself in a laugh that was so free it was as if his soul was a weightless cloud. It was a feeling he didn’t believe he would ever achieve again, not even a year ago. Returning from the war with the bones of his best friend in his pocket and a coldness inside of him that not even the hottest brazier could ever thaw, Sugimoto had believed himself to be hollow.
Irredeemable.
Asirpa had not tried to save Ogata because of any misplaced feelings of responsibility. It was because she’d noticed something familiar in the man as he leveled the muzzle of his beloved rifle with his own head. It was something that Sugimoto was also beginning to recognize.
Later, he would linger to watch Ogata from a distance as he held one of the village children in his lap, deposited there by Asirpa herself. The kid had skinned her knee while roughhousing and was in the middle of a fit of bursting tears before Ogata’s eerie presence scared her into silence. It was unclear which of the pair looked more uncomfortable as Asirpa abandoned them, running to fetch an ointment in order to clean the child’s scrape.
Asirpa insisted that Ogata continue to hold the child, as she wiped the dirt away from the wound, and once it was settled the child instantly darted away to get as far from the ominous blind man as she could. Asirpa, however, laughed and patted Ogata’s now vacant knees.
“Well done, Ogata, you did well.”
The blind man responded with a grunt, though as he shifted in his seat, he appeared to be grappling with the things that had been left unsaid.
Despite the reluctance of the moment and despite those bandages wrapped around his eyes, Ogata was no longer empty.