heke?

There is a boy in the kotan who wants to learn to shoot.

Sugimoto brushes it off at first, makes some excuse about how a bow and arrow is better suited to a kid his age. Then, about rationing their bullets. It’s too inconvenient to go to town and restock just so they can practice.

Of course the next day Asirpa delivers him a fresh box of ammo. It’s intended to be thoughtful, he knows—she’s caught on to his aversion, and part of her kindness is in letting the reason remain unsaid.

It’s winter again, and the hunting huts are all set up. The war, the gold hunt, everything before that begins to freeze underneath his skin.

It would have been a distraction, if only the subject matter wasn’t so… close. Try as he might, Sugimoto still struggles to recall the years-lost instruction, the proper order of things that had once been drilled into his muscles on the field of war but had never felt quite natural.

“Ah, missed again, huh?”

He catches himself sanding the teasing edges off of someone else’s words, and Sugimoto feels his chest begin to ache. A slow, awful seep of memory.

“If you can’t even manage to hit a wounded target, just give up and leave the shooting to me.”

Sugimoto recoils, flinging back the bolt of his rifle on instinct. He swears he hears a twig snap somewhere deep in the woods.

Winter always makes it worse. It makes Sugimoto remember being huddled around the pot, waiting for dinner. Or nights kicking at each other through their blankets until one of them dared to slip away first. Like he does now, ducking beneath branches as he wanders towards…

An old, dead tree trunk at the edge of a clearing. Sugimoto recognizes it despite the snow and passage of time. They’d strung up the first prisoner here, before he’d been shot. Long range, straight through the temple.

Nothing special about Sugimoto’s own wound, really, besides the fact that he had lived.

He passes through a veil of usnea, into the brisk midnight air, and his footsteps crunch the snow down to hard pack. One after another, in a steady march towards Hell.

The second set of footfalls slip behind his easily.

“This is an awfully long way to go just to take a piss.”

Ogata’s voice is rough from disuse, and Sugimoto doesn’t quite believe it. He freezes where he stands.

It couldn’t be real. He’d… watched it happen, back on the train. And Ogata couldn’t have survived a point blank shot.

But, he hadn’t really seen it, had he? Ogata’s back had been turned to him, his attention somewhere else. And he’d fallen from the train before anyone could truly check. Maybe they had always been alike like that, immortal—

A pang of something dangerous strikes Sugimoto through the heart.

He (Worries? Hopes?) that if he looks back now, it won’t be the same Ogata that he knew. That somehow he’d have gone back to the first time they’d met here in the clearing; eye to eye, and with a few less scars between them both. They would have to do it all over again, and maybe Sugimoto could… try something different.

“What’s the matter, Sugimoto? Cat got your tongue?”

Or worse, maybe Ogata wouldn’t be there at all.

“…It’s more like I’ve seen a ghost.”

“Haha, very funny.” But he doesn’t laugh, of course. “Are you scared, then?”

“Hell no, you bastard.” Sugimoto snaps and ugh, it’s been so long since he’s felt this anger blooming in his chest. It’s frightening how much he missed it. “I’m just… hallucinating, or something. Probably ate some bad meat, and I’ll shit this little reunion right out.”

“Or maybe you didn’t, and I’ve got a gun to the back of your skull.”

Hah, wouldn’t that be something?

“What other reason would there be for me to find you again, Immortal Sugimoto?” Ogata’s voice coils around the wind, thin and smug. He can picture it so clearly that he doesn’t need to look.

Sugimoto’s nails bite into his palm.

“Why did you—” do it, he wants to ask, but doesn’t. Because the real Ogata would never answer that, and maybe he wants to let himself believe a little longer. “…Why do I feel so damn bad? About you.”

There’s a click of tongue. “You didn’t even come looking.”

Sugimoto didn’t. Back then, or now. Heat creeps up the column of his throat and settles atop his ears.

“Come on, Sugimoto.” The words prickle and pull. A sneer of a memory, of disappointment and annoyance and urging. Teeth knocking together as they sunk nails into each other’s few soft edges and tried to leave new marks.

It’s cruel, then, when he gets an answer to the question he hadn’t dared to ask.

“You know it had nothing to do with you.”

Sugimoto swallows. If it’s meant to be absolution, it has the opposite effect. If anything, it proves that this isn’t real. That the spirit is mocking him, twisting up this stupid feeling to make him sick with not-quite-grief.

“I don’t feel guilty.” He’d said, before turning the barrel.

“You weren’t a factor at all.”

Even still, his words sound… too careful. Like a warning shot, or provocation. It was always impossible to tell which, and of course Ogata expected absolute understanding.

Was it better if it was true? If Sugimoto couldn’t have done anything to help, or change the outcome? If he was truly blameless—well, then wouldn’t Ogata have wanted him to agonize over it, over him? The same way that Ogata did over…a something-someone that Sugimoto would never know.

A not-guilt so overwhelming that he’d chosen to follow Sugimoto’s example, to spare an innocence that neither of them had left, even that first time that they’d met.

But now that the gun smoke had faded, Sugimoto was left, selfishly, wishing that he had gotten to him first. That maybe he’d been the reason for Ogata’s second thoughts.

The Ogata that he knew wouldn’t have killed himself without taking Sugimoto with him. And Sugimoto shouldn’t have let him. So if they both had failed, then maybe they had never understood each other at all.

Maybe it was better that the Ogata that left him on the train had been a stranger. Maybe the one here and now was the one that he could still figure out.

“…I shouldn’t have expected you to follow through, anyway.” He finally manages, the corners of his lips curling. “That’s why you were always so bad at killing me, huh? You wanted an excuse to keep coming back.”

It’s quiet suddenly. And it lingers long enough for Sugimoto’s heartbeat to kick up and make him doubt.

“I mean, that’s really why you’re here now, right?”

There’s something like amusement, low and rumbling. “For you?”

“Yeah.”

The kind of wishful thinking only allowed in the dark, with an itchy trigger finger. Sugimoto braces himself against the wind. He doesn’t turn to look.

“…Would that make you feel better, Saichi?”

It is wrong already, syruped and sickly. He doesn’t even think Ogata ever knew his first name. He should turn around right now and end this farce, but some shred of hope still festers.

“If I follow you back, like some wounded animal you found in the woods. Then you can pity me for a decision you don’t understand.” He remembers this Ogata, the way his smile would pull too-taut in mockery. Anger prickles up Sugimoto’s spine. “And you can pretend to forgive me for everything I did, because that's another way for you to win.”

If Ogata could have been made to surrender, if Sugimoto could have cut his way into Ogata’s heart and proven he was human, past be damned—then maybe things could have been different. Better. Right?

“Do you really think that I’d be happy with that?”

Sugimoto’s breath catches around nothing but the cold. Did he still care about Ogata’s happiness? Even after everything?

“…Probably not.”

There’s no forgiveness to be found between them anymore. Whatever they had mattered to each other back then was already knit between scarred flesh. But maybe if Sugimoto stayed like this, aching and confused, something would still be alive behind him. Taunting, forever. Unspooling his scarf from his shoulders and letting cool breath ghost across his nape.

Sugimoto’s cheeks are so warm he wants to throw a punch.

“No one will understand it. Missing me.”

Asirpa would, if he told her. He was sure of it. But it also felt important that he keep it to himself. A secret wound, meant to bleed him slowly. And he’d survived worse, anyway.

“Well, I don’t understand it either, asshole.” Though Sugimoto does, he thinks. His chest feels close to bursting. It was bad enough to realize the potential for love when it was already lost. “But I guess a vengeful spirit suits you better than being an ally ever did.”

It’s as close as he’ll ever get to landing the killing blow, even if the acknowledgement of Ogata’s death seems to hurt him more than the phantom. Finally, there’s a laugh.

Sugimoto offers himself one last lie, but this one is at least believable.

“…I really wanted to kill you.” Ogata says, almost reassuringly. Sugimoto can hear the smirk in it, right up against his ear. “So come back someday, and we can pull the trigger together.”

By morning, Sugimoto finds his way back to the old tree. Cold, quiet, and alone.