Chapter Text
pick at the wound while it's still fresh, draw blood in all its warmth. paint your lips the color of a living heart.
His consciousness flickers in and out. In all the years he’s been alive, Ogata has never wavered the way he did now: it’s during nightmares that he misses the plain, solid surface of buildings, the coldness of snow threatening to split tissue and turn everything dry; it’s during the moments where shadows loom at the corner that Ogata thinks ah, you couldn’t do a thing in life, so you’re getting back at me in death .
Or maybe he doesn’t think it but says it aloud, and it’s these whispers directed at the wind that gains him concerned glances from mothers. They clutch at their sons and daughters closer to their bosom, as if Ogata were anything close to a child-eating monster in a white cloth.
He walks and walks, for hours and days and maybe months, he can’t be sure. But when his mind wavers, his gait never does. Following a scent is easier than tracking a ghost. It’s familiar work, moreso when the man he wants to see oh-so-badly reeks of blood.
*
He started sending letters by the time he was eight.
Old enough to understand what it meant to not get any one back, young and naive to continue.
Ogata wonders - he wonders a lot these days - what would have happened if a letter did come around? Would his mother have pried it open? Or would her maddened state make her throw the envelope to the low fire? Is that why he perseveres?
There’s an arrangement of leaves on the floor, worn out tatami and humid blankets. Weather and time took their comfort away, but he welcomes the warmth during the darkest winters. His small hands toy with what he’s gathered: there’s a dry weed he picked from the ground, and a bigger, greener leaf that he climbed for; there’s one the color of moss, another, lesser piece that’s been torn on the way back. Ogata chooses the one that’s still alive, because he doesn’t know how long it takes for the letters to reach their destination.
He doesn’t write much.
A line about the birds he’s been collecting for his mother, another about how he misses eating anglerfish nabe because it’s only available in the winter, and how delicious it was that his father promised to come back to eat some more. Promises weren’t made to be broken, were they? He asks the stranger out of genuine curiosity. And maybe a bit of uncertainty, for his father hadn’t come and his mother spent longer days sitting at the door. He saw her back more often these days than he did her face.
Do all mothers look so fragile, so weak beneath the sunlight? Do they all sob at night?
He seals the letter, steps into his shoes and runs to the road. He waits for the postman to arrive.
*
There’s a bird he doesn’t kill.
It’s a small one. Round, soft, made of feathers more than it carries flesh. It’s all bony structure and lighter than a fruit. It fits Ogata’s palm like an apple and Ogata finds it pointless to show it to his mother. So he keeps it instead.
A sparrow? No, it doesn’t sing. But not all birds sing, do they? He’s never heard a duck’s voice, and the chickens his grandmother feeds in the yard cackle and make repetitive sounds. If the bird doesn’t have a name, then Ogata ought to give it one.
He mulls about it for days as he watches it grow weaker.
The bird needs water, so Ogata gathers some in the empty shell of a dry nut. He feeds her the seeds he can find, keeps it warm with cloth and shares his pillow every night. But the bird doesn’t get better.
It dies before he can think of a fitting name.
“That’s the way things are,” his grandmother explains, “Birds don’t belong in houses. They should be able to fly or stay in trees.”
“What was it doing on the ground then?”
She makes a show of thinking for a moment, then adds: “Maybe it was born flawed.”
“Flawed things deserve to die?”
“No, Hyakunosuke, they don’t deserve it. But they don’t have the strength to fight it. If they want to survive, they need to be strong enough to hide their flaws.”
*
His mother doesn’t look at him anymore.
She barely speaks to anyone, not even to herself like she used to.
Oh, but she sings. Her voice sounds like a spell in the silent vacancy of the rooms. His grandparents work during the day, arriving so late in the afternoon that they miss her bittersweet songs. Ogata likes to hear it as he writes.
He tries to catch the mumbled words:
when the flower withers
does the sky miss it?
where does the sun lay its lips
oh, where did its lover go?
river, carry me away,
only you and the moon
know where my heart belongs.
It’s not always the same song. There are different words, sometimes a different tune, but she sings to the emptiness and the dust gathered in the corners. She does not once direct her voice at Ogata and it makes him miss her lullabies a bit, the kindness veiling her thin fingers as she strokes Ogata’s head.
Sadness becomes her, in a way.
Her clothes are vibrant with colors, in contrast with the decaying paper of the doors and the worn out walls. Like a butterfly that’s no longer able to fly, she lifts her head and waits for the moment she can pick up flight again but the time never comes. His father doesn’t come for her.
So Ogata lets her eat the poison, watches as she downs the broth that’s surely too bitter and she seems to recognize something is amiss. The haze in her eyes falls down for a second and pain engulfs her: she presses her stomach and falls back to the floor in a fit of coughing and whimpering and Ogata doesn’t know what he should do with his hands so he sits on his legs and presses tiny fists on his lap. He doesn’t look at her.
If father still loves her , he thinks, he will surely come to see her off .
Funerals always reunited the most distant families. Relatives cried at the door, sniffed in the halls where no one else could see. He’d heard his classmates talk about the estranged uncles and aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, all of whom returned and shed tears for their elderly parents. His father promised to come. He promised, so Ogata waits next to his mother’s withering body.
He doesn’t move. The day passes and dawn bleeds into night.
His father doesn’t come.
oh, where did its lover go?
*
Enlisting isn’t quite as hard as he imagines.
There’s little selection and more urgency in recruiting farmers from all over the country that makes Ogata certain quality isn’t much needed. They’re raising an army of ants. But it works out just right for him: he has food, shelter and he can shoot at still targets on the training grounds without having to worry about coming back from the woods to a worried grandmother and a sick grandfather.
It’s all for the best.
He doesn’t have to wait for any letters either. Not that he cared about it. He stopped writing and hoping for something that wouldn’t come, but unlike his mother he knew when to quit and focus on a different obsession: he knew how to shoot and how to bring down a living body.
He loads his gun and breathes in, holds his breath for a beat, and releases. Little by little his chest deflates, and in the moment where his lungs become empty and his heartbeats lower to that of a dying moth, he shoots. It’s the steadiest a finger will be over the trigger. How funny, that the best shots come the closer a sniper is to death.
*
He finds Tanigaki tearing an envelope in half.
“Oi Genjiro, that’s a waste.” a soldier calls from the top bunk.
When he’s not brooding and growing roots away from the others, Tanigaki is sitting silently and staring at nothing on his bedside. Ogata has no interest - he doesn’t find anything interesting in him, but the remark draws everyone’s attention, as if wanting to see how far Tanigaki’s punch can throw a man away from where they sit.
“I have no need for these,” he grimaces at the torn pieces in his palm, “A waste or not, that’s for me to decide.”
“How cold!”
The other soldiers laugh and press no more. Tanigaki leaves the room, probably to get rid of the paper. Ogata returns his attention to the ceiling. With closed eyes, he can picture what was written on his own letters years ago: small talk and stories about his day, recollections of legends he’s heard from other kids when he was hidden between branches in the tallest trees. Whoever received his letters must have done the same. Did the leaves he sent get torn away along with the paper? It’s likely that they remained unread.
I have no need for these.
Ogata snorts, humorlessly. Well, for all he knows, love and soulmates are all fantasy. Proof of it were the men who read theirs before hiding them in their backpacks or drawers before making for the red district.
No one questions Tanigaki when he comes back. They all know: an oath for revenge, a dead sister left to rot, and a man he hasn’t seen in a while. What a boring tale for a boring man. Though Ogata can recognize the commitment to the chase. It’s always the raging beasts who don’t stop, so wherever the man he’s looking for is, he can’t be hiding for too long. The scent of fear is discernible for those who hunger.
Lieutenant Tsurumi has always had a talent for that. He knows where to find the best men, how to use them and how much of them he can take that they’re willing to offer. Ogata can see through the smiles, the fatherly touches on his shoulder like bait dangling in front of his face for a short moment before it’s gone and leaves you wanting for more of it. He’s learned to see the tricks, but no one’s ever said that he has to say no when he likes the same game.
*
Here’s what he knew about the letters :
Before you’re born - before you’re even conceived , there’s another soul that matches yours. Who decides it or when it started, there’s not much the elders can tell. It’s a ritual from centuries ago. You’re born to write to your twin soul, your soulmate, the one who is supposed to be the other half you’re missing. And these letters will find them. These are words only meant for your soulmate to read.
Oh, but there’s a trick.
A soulmate doesn’t mean a lover . Having someone who’s branded with your name doesn’t guarantee that fate and the Gods will be heard. There’s a little too many people who have ignored their letters, decided to recite poetry to different ears and seek a different warmth. His mother was one the abandoned, and his grandparents, he knew without them having to say so, didn’t have each other’s name engraved in their souls.
Hokkaido is the perfect place to be forgotten.
Snow that piles up at the feet of buildings, on the roofs, mountains and covers everything in a blanket of pure-white coldness. There’s little sunlight during the day, around spring time. Days grow colder the longer he stays, the air grows humid and the rows and rows of young men in their ill-fitting uniforms grow more uneasy. War is on the horizon. Ogata doesn’t flinch when the notice comes, or when they’re loaded in trunks and battleships, or when he’s greeted with a greyer sky and colder days as they advance to the belly of things.
It’s a barren land, the only thing sprouting from the grounds is the pools of blood, or the putrid smell of corpses. A foul sensation settles in his mouth in no time. The rations were never anything extraordinary or to write home about - for those who had one anyway - but eating while surrounded by death made one lose his appetite. Ogata doesn’t feel like eating much, but he does. He needs strength, because weak things die.
“Can I sit here?”
Ah , he knows that voice.
“Yuusaku, sir.” Ogata says without enthusiasm, only keeping the bare minimum of courtesy that is expected from a foot soldier towards a superior.
“I’ve seen you help that soldier. I must commend you for your honorable actions, brother.”
Ogata’s feigned smile falls down a little - a minuscule drop that can be mistaken with a play of light. “Help?”
“Yes, I saw you carrying him to safety.”
He must mean Usami. There’s humor in that. Well, no use explaining the details - much less that it wasn’t quite carrying him to safety than it was an excuse to exchange information in the easiest way they found. And besides, Ogata doubts a man like Usami would ever need his help, assuming he can even die or bleed . But Yuusaku doesn’t need to know this. Instead, Ogata lets the silence drag on, seeing the obvious signs of discomfort as Yuusaku shifts in his seat. Unknowing of what else to say, Yuusaku clears his throat. Ogata watches.
“The reason I came here is because of this.”
Ogata furrows his brows, “A letter?”
“Yes, but I must apologize. It seems there was a delay -”
“I don’t want it.”
Yuusaku opened his mouth, closed it again. There’s confusion written all over his face, but he knows better than to pry. Well, at least he knows when to hold back, though that never stopped him from trying to force the family act onto him.
Ogata gives a second glance to the letter, then back to anywhere but where Yuusaku is.
“I can’t return the letter, so you’ll have to keep it, even if you don’t want it.”
“Very well.”
Yuusaku stands up and leaves the letter behind. Ogata bows to his superior and waits until Yuusaku is out of sight to take the letter between two fingers. He raises his hand just enough to try and see through the envelope, holding it near the light that came from the fire a few meters away. He can barely make out its contents, but he’s able to discern sloppy writing and something else hidden inside. It’s slightly heavy, leaving no dents on the paper. Cropped magazines? That could be.
Ogata makes for the group of soldiers, and hears them begin to whisper as they see him come.
He doesn’t look their way when he drops the letter to the fire and bolts. And as he walks towards the trenches, rifle slung lazily over his shoulder, he thinks about Ibaraki, about the old house where an old couple lived, their one and only daughter and birds, lots of them buried beneath the house.
*
Time passes. Light splits through a film of thick clouds. It doesn’t rain, even if the sky threatens every few hours. There’s no real day, no way of telling when hours pass and he’s long since lost interest in keeping track. The roar of cannons and bullets cutting through the air, it’s distant and wild; it reminds him of the ticking of a clock. Ogata counts the echo, one, two and three and four, and he doesn’t bother to follow but he knows they’ve passed twenties, and hundreds, too.
There’s a shadow - a man . He doesn’t quite look like one, limbs pressed taut around a russian soldier’s neck. Did nobody teach him to use his gun? He notices a bayonet piercing through the russian’s body, but he shakes and grasps at invisible strings to free himself from the beast’s grip without much success.
Ogata laughs. Like it was surprised out of him.
His finger curls around the trigger, soft and uncaring. He could aim for the russian, take his life while he’s still fighting and whole. Call that mercy. Instead, he remains still and watches as the other man snaps his neck like it wasn’t made of bone or cartilage or human at all. Ogata sees it, hears it like it happened right beside him and the smile is back on his face in no time.
The cold doesn’t matter for a while.
*
“I don’t think even you realize what a dangerous gamble it is to get yourself involved in this.”
“It’s not for the money,” the man says, so proud, so idealistic it almost makes him sick, “it’s for the woman I love.”
*
Ogata doesn’t consider himself strong. Not in the same way as Tsukishima is. He’s a wall made of stone that not even a hurricane could bring him down. And Usami - for all the smiles and devotion adorning his face, there’s a raging force hidden in the taut line of his shoulders.
Sugimoto The Immortal... Well, he’s an anomaly.
His consciousness flickers in and out. In the times he manages to open his eyes just enough, only the smell of antiseptic and the moving shadows of nurses and infirmary staff tell him that the world is spinning and moving and he’s still bedridden and sick; the fall, surprisingly, doesn’t leave any more scars than the surgical, thin lines diving his jaw in four sections.
The nurse has cleared the room from visitors, so silence is all Ogata is left with for the next hours.
Something burns - little embers coiling like threads in his gut. He doesn’t want revenge, no. He doesn’t hold grudges like that, because life is about the weak and the strong, he was simply too weak in the face of a beast. It doesn’t mean that he can’t play the trickster, or to decide for himself that he’ll follow his trail until one of them is dead.
He writes his desire on Tsukishima’s palm. Immortal .
A thunder. It’s the beginning of the storm.
*
Asirpa places a stack of letters on the stool.
Her makiri follows, and other items, too. But the worn out envelopes catch Ogata’s attention, and before he can disguise his curiosity in colors of apathy, she notices something in his expression that makes her smile. Always so eager to talk, to tell stories.
“These belonged to my parents,” she comments, eyeing the envelopes, “my father used to write them during his journeys when he was younger. Mother received all of them and wrote back - their languages weren’t the same, but they soon learned the gist of it and replied what they could.”
I didn’t ask , Ogata wanted to say. Instead he watches with a blank expression.
“Oh my! A love story!” Sugimoto claps his hands together like a goddamned child.
“Something like that,” Asirpa’s face is tinted with sadness, as if the sorrow that accompanied the story belonged to her. As if her father, being who he was, having done what he did, could have ever hoped for anything different, “My mother passed away when I was still a baby. So my father... he tried to translate her letters in his free time. He replied to some of them again, too!”
Sugimoto sat down and adjusted his cap, wiping the sweat sticking to the brim, “Is that so?”
What was that? He rarely saw Sugimoto dismiss anything Asirpa said, however feeble the story. It’s the first time Ogata hears that hollowness in his voice. His tone, ironically, sounds like a shrill of melancholy. That pisses him off. “What’s the point of writing anything if there’s no one who will read it? It’s pointless work.”
“You might be right,” Asirpa frowns slightly, “but it doesn’t mean everyone thinks the same. For some people, just writing down what they feel is enough, whether they’re read or not.”
Ogata huffs, “If that’s enough why not write a diary or something?”
“Well, what would you do, then?” Is Sugimoto pouting?
“You’re lumping me with the rest of you, Sugimoto. But let’s say that I never got a letter back: I wouldn’t bother sending anything if there’s no recipient on the other side.”
“What if they simply couldn’t reply? What if they change their mind and try to get back at you?”
“Oh, they can do that. As many times as they want. Doesn’t mean I have to read them.”
Asirpa seems to have lost interest in their snark, so she takes her letters and disappointment in them further from them, closer to the fire.
“See? You drove Asirpa away.”
Ogata merely throws him a side glance, then back to his fingers which drum softly against his rifle. Sugimoto doesn’t leave.
Ogata senses it before it comes:
“So you didn’t get a letter back, huh,” Sugimoto says.
“And you? Changed your mind after that woman married someone else?”
Sugimoto’s fingers curl into fists. His eyes were usually amber-brown, calid - right now, they’re poisonous and submerged in a dark lake. Watch your mouth is written all over his expression, but the words never come. How could they when he started all this?
“That’s...” Sugimoto wets his lower lip, and Ogata follows the movement of his tongue, “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“Sure.”
“I’m telling you the truth! It doesn’t matter, not anymore. I’ll do what it takes to get the money and then I’m out.”
“Heh, someone will be disappointed to hear that.”
“Don’t bring Asirpa into this. Obviously I’m not leaving before she’s safe and away from bastards like you who only care about the key to the gold.”
Ogata smirks unpleasantly, “And then continue to write letters until your second option says something back? That’s plenty of work to have for a drop out.”
More silence.
“What about you?”
“Well, I did say that I wouldn’t write one.”
“Yeah, figures.” Sugimoto procures something from his breast pocket. First, Ogata assumes it’s a cigarette - he’s never seen Sugimoto smoke before, so he discards the option as soon as it comes. When his hand comes into full view, Ogata sees it: crumpled paper, string so old it’s splitting in thin, dark hairs.
“This is the last one I got before they stopped coming.”
He remembers stealing bits of thread from his grandmother’s drawer. They couldn’t afford the best types, so their clothes were always falling apart during the most humid days in the year.
“I thought of searching for them but...” he spreads the sheet of paper: childish scribbling, only three lines in the middle and smudged ink eating at the corners. It’s like seeing spiders lined up one after the other, waiting.
Ogata recognizes...
“Burn it.” he says through a dry throat. “Throw it away.”
*
Sugimoto watches him with suspicion after that day.
*
People mill about the kotan and Sugimoto storms through the ranks. Flesh is tender and bones snap with a nice, muted sound once Sugimoto’s unforgiving hands meet them halfway. He’s fearsome in all degrees and men begin to run away more than they charge against him.
Sugimoto aims with deadly precision and his bayonet slices through bodies like they weren’t made of the same components. Ogata saves him not because he’s developed any fondness and the letter has nothing to do with it, either. He shoots because that’s what he does best. He shoots to remind Sugimoto that he could be next anytime, fate be damned, and there wouldn’t be any other soul to see it. Just you and me .
*
It doesn’t flatter him when the attention increases. Snipers move in the shadows, distanced from scrutiny. So when Sugimoto begins to observe him more carefully than he did since Yubari, Ogata’s mind grows conspicuously alert. Sugimoto irks him the way no one else does, and the feeling must be mutual, because despite how long he spends acting as a shadow to Ogata, he never tries to strike up conversation or play the friendly game. For Asirpa’s sake he might, though the effort requires her presence and tonight, it’s only the two of them and the moon overhead.
Shiraishi sleeps. Asirpa does too.
Ogata wades into the bushes, far out of sight until he’s a white drop in the sea of tall trees.
“Itching for small chat? Go wake up Shiraishi.”
“Unfortunately, he’s not the one I’ve got questions for.” Sugimoto sounds serious, nearly dangerous. The baritone of his voice, a low howl among the hissing of leaves.
In the pause, there’s an affirmation, one that Ogata can’t ignore: Sugimoto has come to a conclusion, and if this is for Ogata’s benefit, it’s out of the question. Anything that remotely touches the gears in Sugimoto’s mind is pure indulgence. Selfishness suits the deer in wolf’s clothing best. It isn’t until Sugimoto voices his thoughts that Ogata allows lips to twitch lightly as if he wanted to smile.
“Have you seen this before?” Sugimoto shows him that envelope again. Nothing’s changed, he notices. As though Sugimoto had been careful to preserve it since dancing around the truth and the slip should probably be something to regret but Ogata doesn’t feel anywhere near nervous. He’s... excited. Wanting to be seen.
He returns Sugimoto’s heavy stare in equal intensity.
“Until every family in Hokkaido manages to install a telephone in their houses, I’m guessing we’ll see more of those in the next few years.”
“Cut the bullshit, I’m asking if you’ve seen this one before.”
“Why? You think I wrote that? I didn’t imagine you saw me as the type who believed in those fairy tales.”
“Tales or reality, I don’t give a shit. You’ve seen this before yes or not? Simple as that, Ogata. It’s one damned word.”
“And you can’t figure it out for yourself?”
Sugimoto moves before Ogata can register what was happening. His knuckles land on the dip of Ogata’s cheekbone, propelling him back like invisible hands pulling at his white coat and it hasn't been a second until he feels the solidness of Sugimoto's body pushing him down, down, down.
"Tell me, Ogata. If I register your pockets what am I going to find? Letters, bullets, more lies?"
Sugimoto sinks the heel of his palms into the hollow of Ogata's shoulders, "Look at me and for once since we started this journey tell me something that won't make me want to punch you in the face."
Ogata presses forward and is immediately met with Sugimoto's grip tightening against his uniform. It'll take all of Ogata's strength to switch their positions if he's lucky. He doubts wasting his breath will gain him much of anything and he shows as much when he spreads his arms in surrender. "See for yourself."
Distrust makes Sugimoto narrow his eyes. The next thing Ogata knows is the feeling of hands tantalizing his sides, his breast pockets, and they stop, for what's too short to call a moment, around his waist and continue south. Ogata sees the bob of his Adam's apple as Sugimoto swallows.
"Satisfied?"
"You seriously carry nothing else with you? It's all for your stupid gun?"
Ogata blinks slowly, his eyes nearly rolling back into his skull, "I know how to use it. Or what? Forget you can shoot people instead of butchering your way through fights?"
He released Ogata from his grip, lowering his eyes as if deciding what to do with him. Coming up with an answer - or tired of considering the options in his head, Sugimoto edges away and stands up in a firm stance as he straightens his cap, not flinching in the face of Ogata's watchfulness, "No, I haven't. I'm humoring you with an answer because I don't want that shit-eating grin to be the last thing I see before going to sleep tonight."
"Get up, Ogata. We both need rest."
*
No one releases them from this entanglement. No one is aware of the secret glances, the converging paths and contact that's happened one too many times to be called a coincidence. None of the two acknowledge the charge in the air, the quiet before bullets pierce and tear and reduce everything to debris and dust.
Ogata... Ogata wants him with the same violence. He wants to sink his teeth into the tender of his flesh, or poke holes in a jar and cage him and be the only one to decide whether he lets the glass roll and break or remain by his bedside to watch.
Who gave in first? It's a meaningless detail.
*
He's swept by the current. Or more precisely, he walks over to the edge, finds that he likes the yawning abyss of uncertainty and dives in less like a moth chasing a flame and more like a shark desperately following the single drop of blood in a world of night-black waters.
Sugimoto feels intensely - he bites and leaves marks unworried that they'll be seen and Ogata is one to always pay his debts, to keep tabs on what Sugimoto takes and he gives him much of the same. Ogata renders his skin with marks of his own, licks a stripe up the enticing line of Sugimoto's collarbones and breathes in the warmth of his body, commits everything to memory wishing it won't fade for the next days until they get another chance to jump at each other.
His back hits the trunk and makes the branches hiss overhead. Sugimoto is quick to get his hands where he wants them most, a shiver bringing him closer still until they're seamless and one of a whole. "Come on, Ogata, spread your legs a bit more. I can't get you out of your pants if you're pressed like a prude."
"Not my fault you suck at doing anything with your hands that isn't wringing someone's neck the wrong side."
"Fuck's sake, just let me do something for you."
Ogata bares his teeth in a crooked smile, distracting enough to anchor Sugimoto's attention on him rather than the hand snaking its way into his trousers and palming about his shaft.
Sugimoto's mouth opens ajar, like he was submerged and drowning but there's no water to enter through his lungs.
"Sshhh, you'll get the rest coming here before we can even start ."
They're greedy, so they take to it at the same time. Sugimoto wedges his legs apart with sheer force and weight pressed flush against Ogata's, making him sigh and cling to his tense arms. It feels more present than Ogata imagined, more overbearing and the next sound clawing up his ribs is a moan, no way around that. Sugimoto takes the chance to map Ogata's mouth with his tongue; it makes him want to run, to bite. He's never longed to hurt Sugimoto so bad before now.
*
Sugimoto kisses him, because he's an idiot who thinks there's more to it than hunger. It's instinct, it's the same as feeling your insides shrink around an empty stomach. He should accept what Ogata pots to give and ask for no more, but he's grown in a silly little world with his silly little friends and it confuses him in ways that make Ogata sick.
It's an illness, the kind that's easier to get rid of with the proper medicine. But he's always been the type to kill it from the roots.
*
Eyes on the sight, he breathes in. Holds. Time stills, they're alone, trapped in amber. Ogata pulls the trigger. He doesn't miss.
He gets on the boat while Abashiri burns. Flames reach up to the heavens in a plea. There's no one coming after them, no one hidden in the shadows. Death is certainty.
But as the shore dissipates in the dark, he hopes.
And hopes.
And hopes.