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Yuusaku doesn't flinch, when he stabs their father.
It's a perfunctory motion, cruel only in its absolute and unsentimental precision. He executes it perfectly, the way he would any task assigned to him. There is the inward plunge of the shortsword three fingers from the hipbone and the quick pull upwards, the deft turn of his fingers before he draws the sword across the belly, palm flattened against the pommel for support. A measured breath, another turn, and he presses down on the exhale, leans his weight into it. He draws the point of the sword out exactly three fingers from the opposite hip, like he's practiced it. Their father's guts must be spilling out, or trying to, but he's bound up in his bedsheets, and all Ogata sees is the blooming of blood, bright and red against the stark white of the fabric.
Three cuts is the correct way for a gentleman to make his exit. Three cuts, at their picturesque right angles, is far cleaner than the way real people die—splattered apart by artillery or choking on arsenic or shaking with fever or shitting themselves face down in the mud as their friends march over their bodies. It's likely a neater job than anything he could manage on his own, but Ogata supposes it won't raise any eyebrows that Hanazawa Koujirou managed to die so perfectly. Even defying his god-given orders, even eschewing his responsibilities—no matter how wretched an end it is, to die without permission, no matter how shameful, there are still certain standards to be met, for a man like him.
Dying well is a privilege to everyone else, but it is marked out as a solemn duty for men of status. Ogata had seen it with Yuusaku, too, and he had laughed once at how surreal it was. How quaint, he'd sneered to himself, for suffering to be an obligation rather than a simple fact of life. To be so removed from such trivial and earthly concerns that they had to deign to perform their mortality, to make an art of it, to make even their deaths a demonstration of their loftiness.
But this is where he'd first realized, too, that Yuusaku was different, because Yuusaku's goodly death was never once intended to be a performance of his own. It was all still a kind of theatre, certainly, and concerned a princely sum of social currency—but none of it particularly to his own benefit. And Ogata knows, now, that Yuusaku is no more a man than the sword in his hand, a well-hewn instrument of someone else's design. The only difference between them is that a sword does not know how to want for anything else.
Ogata is reminded, suddenly, of how it felt to watch him run unflinching into enemy fire. How it feels even now, to look at him and know that Yuusaku was born to go to slaughter, and no one else but him has ever had the stomach to witness it. He remembers everyone looking away from the indignity of it, like they thought they could be divorced from their complicity if they could pretend that they did not see him going nobly to die, as though he was not going precisely where they themselves had sent him. He can feel the echo of it even now, that collective anticipation, everyone waiting with bated breath to blink at the exact right moment so they would not quite have to watch him fall—so they could swoop in afterwards like carrion birds and swarm around his bloated corpse and crow in happy unison:
Oh, how very brave he was!
It is different from his own condemnation to obscurity, and Ogata does not know which doom is kinder—but he knows that Yuusaku was forsaken, the same as him. They are only so different.
Their father ought to be grateful, Ogata thinks, to go in Yuusaku's stead, to be made an icon himself by the unsullied hand of his own perfect instrument. Men will rally around this, the same way the would've rallied around Yuusaku's burnt bones. He ought to be honored, to be allowed such an exit as the one he'd dreamed up for his own beloved heir. It will be a great scandal, of course, that the Lieutenant General went and offed himself against all polite sensibility; it will draw a dreadful pall over his good name. But even so, after they've made their properly restrained and disapproving noises in public, his peers will go home thinking privately to themselves, here was a man of principle. Here was a good and decisive death, for a good and decisive man.
It reeks like shit, Ogata thinks, the idea that there is such a thing as a good death. Killing can be clean, but dying never is. This, he knows intimately.
Yuusaku wipes the blade of the shortsword and sets it neatly aside, gravely assessing the cut he's made. Always the perfectionist, and Ogata had derided him for it, once. Now, he chills to see Yuusaku, of all people, frowning as he appraises his work. Yuusaku doesn't relish violence, but he isn't squeamish, either. He knows the utility of killing, even if he's never stooped to it himself before. He's kind, but he isn't soft; he has long since learned that he is only able to refrain from the gruesome act because there will always be others to do it for him. It is his role—or, at least, to this point it has been—to keep his hands clean, on principle, for whatever that's worth.
It's as much of a farce as the rest of it, but Ogata knows how to appreciate that sort of cleverness. Ogata can appreciate the usefulness of an empty gesture. And it's undeniable, the devotion it inspires, the power it gives him. How the simple act of restraint makes him seem larger than life, makes him utterly unreal. How simply refusing to raise his hand makes men eager to kill for him, makes them happy for it.
Yuusaku's place is to direct, to impel others to do what he will not, and by doing so absolve them for it. It is easier, maybe, when they think they are doing it to protect him—when they are doing it out of love. But today, this night, it is Ogata's turn to direct, and it is Yuusaku's turn to act and to be saved. To debase himself with the pollution of killing. To dirty his own hands, for the very first time.
And yet this, too, is to him an act of devotion, of service. Yuusaku is not a man who bends to anything other than his own sense of duty, and that makes it all the more pleasing to know that he has weighed his own pious heart and found it wanting.
"Yuusaku—" their father chokes out, accusatory, his voice sharp with betrayal and raw. He does not continue, as though this alone should be enough to put Yuusaku back in line. As though he need say nothing more to make himself known, as though he expects that simply raising his voice will drive Yuusaku to recant what he's done. As though the conviction it takes, for a man like Yuusaku to do a thing like this, should be expected to break upon the Lord Hanazawa's barest reproach.
"Sir?" Yuusaku prompts, mildly. It comes out in a practiced tone, as if there is no real difference between this and every other time they have stood face to face. There has always been blood spilled between them, Ogata supposes, although this is perhaps the first time that they've both known it.
Their father heaves in a breath. "Whatever you've gotten yourself so worked up about," he manages, "this isn't going to fix it."
Yuusaku frowns politely. "I'm not upset with you, sir."
Only Yuusaku, Ogata thinks, could disembowel a man in his own home and be confused as to why anyone should think he's upset.
"Whatever he told you," their father presses, as though Yuusaku hasn't spoken, eyes flicking sharply past Yuusaku to him. Their father isn't, Ogata gathers, the sort of man who allows himself to be corrected. "Whatever he said—"
Ogata can't stop the grin that stretches his mouth at that, monstrous and unfamiliar. "What do you think I told him, sir?" He lets their father rasp wordlessly at him, watches with fascination how the lines grow stark on his face as the color drains from it. "The same wonderful lies you told my mother?"
"I never—"
"I didn't lie to him." Ogata cuts him off, bored pre-emptively with whatever protest he has prepared. He doesn't want to hear his father regurgitate whatever story he told himself, those many long years ago, to ward off his regret. He's known since he was a boy that he was not going to come to his father groveling for answers. "I didn't need to."
It had been enough, for Yuusaku to know what he had—what he'd been robbed of, and what could be his again, if only he were willing to correct the injustice of his birth. His death would have served Ogata, too, but Ogata hadn't permitted any Russians to bring him down. It would've been theft, he knows now; it would've been seizure, for another man to kill Yuusaku. So he had kept Yuusaku in his sights, and he'd waited, and he'd watched.
It had come to a head, once, at 203 Meter Hill. He'd gotten hasty, desperate, and he had asked Yuusaku to kill a man for him—face to face, breath fogging in the cold, his fingers numb under his gloves. Yuusaku had refused, then, and Ogata had tasted bile. Here was the one person who proclaimed to love him unconditionally, the one person who called them blood and bone, subordinated even here, even so far away, at the end of the world where nothing mattered anymore, to the whims of his absent father. Unwilling to give up the mere idea of him, just as his mother had been. Unable, even with all the love in his heart, to turn his back on the man who'd robbed Ogata of everything.
Nothing had ever convinced Ogata, so much as that, that no one would ever put him before his father. He'd been sure of it when Yuusaku had embraced him and wept, and the heat of his tender flesh had warmed Ogata down to his ungrateful bones, and Ogata had stared dully over his shoulder and resolved to kill him before the war was over. But he'd hesitated, the next morning, and then they'd taken the hill.
Yuusaku had come back with a bullet through his thigh—one that Ogata had not shot, and he had bristled at it—and been prescribed a week of bed rest in the infirmary tents. An infantryman would've been slapped with bandages and ordered right back to the front, and Ogata had wanted to sneer at the favoritism. Instead, he'd squinted into the low morning sun as he came back to the camp after his watch, and he'd tangled his fingers together as he contemplated the possibility of strangling Yuusaku in his cot.
If he'd killed Yuusaku at Port Arthur, Ogata thinks, their father would have finally acknowledged him. A man as proud and as calculating as Hanazawa Koujirou would never have let his family line wither away so easily, not when he had another potential heir in his back pocket. Ogata would have been adopted as soon as he set foot back on Japanese soil—taught manners and dressed up in a stuffy braided uniform, pinned with all manner of medals and squirreled into a commission that he wasn't even remotely trained for. He's sure of it.
It's right there in his ill-fitting name, Hyakunosuke, clumsy and overwrought for a farm boy, but perfectly appropriate for a back-up son of the Hanazawa family. A second son's name, no less, because Yuusaku has always come first; even before he was ever conceived, the mere possibility that he might one day exist had been enough to keep Ogata shunted behind the spot reserved for him. It had stung, once, to know that his mother had only been allowed to bear him to serve as a card up his father's sleeve. A spare.
But Ogata finds that he doesn't mind it so much, anymore. He's earned his place in the family, as it were. Yuusaku will be the head of house before the night is through, and Yuusaku, he is learning, will not deny him anything. It's a heady truth, and one that will see its consummation tonight. If Yuusaku can do this, for him, Ogata will believe it.
The thought of it twists strangely between his ribs. There is a part of him that doubts, even now, with the deed half done. There is a part of him that subsists on his spite, and he does not know how it will feel to be relieved of it. He does not know what he will do, or what he will want to do, when he's finished his work.
Yuusaku is steady when he takes the shortsword back in his hands, and Ogata wants to kiss him, suddenly. He's drunk on the moment, he knows, the pre-emptive thrill of victory. He knows better than to do it, but—he'll show his appreciation later, he decides, warm under his skin and almost giddy with it. He'll reward Yuusaku for how good he's being, when they've done what they're here to do. When Yuusaku has proven, finally, unequivocally, that Ogata is more important than the squirming maggot at his feet.
"I'm sorry it's come to this, sir," Yuusaku says, mildly, kneeling before their father's curled-up form.
Their father's face pinches with exertion, cold sweat pearling on his brow as he shakes with the effort of steadying his breath. "Yuusaku," he says, and it comes out like judgment. He will not beg, even in his dying moments.
Men like him have had it beaten out of them, Ogata supposes. Yuusaku had taken a terribly long time to learn how to beg, too.
"You taught me to always do the right thing, sir," Yuusaku says, and Ogata is captivated by the prim little set of his frown as he adjusts the blood-damp cotton over the hilt of the blade, the flat black of his eyes in the lamplight. "To do right by the people around me. I'm sure you understand, sir."
What is virtue, if not this?
Ogata settles behind him, pulling their bodies flush. He curls his arms around Yuusaku's narrow waist, chest against his broad back, chin tucked over his shoulder so he can see. He relishes the heavy warmth of him, the slow and steady beat of his heart. They are alive, he thinks, as they breathe together. They are alive. Yuusaku makes a questioning little noise at the suddenness of it, and Ogata puts his lips at his ear.
"I want to watch," he murmurs.
"Ani-sama," Yuusaku chides, softly, but he doesn't push him away.
Their father's eyes dart between them. He's going hazy, pale and sweaty and struggling, but he still has time to contort his face in disgust. "Yuusaku," he says. "Listen to me. That man is not your brother." He breathes harsh and shallow, shaking with the effort of it. "That man is nothing to you."
Yuusaku angles the blade over their father's throat, and his voice is quiet but almost shockingly steady. "What a terrible thing to say, sir."
The finality of it tolls like a bell in the dark.
"Any last words, sir?" Ogata asks, mimicking Yuusaku's blandly deferential tone, and he knows he's grinning ear to ear. He can feel it on himself, that disarming warmth of victory stretching itself across his face.
"Be cursed," their father snarls, and something in him thrills to know that this venom is for him and him alone. Yuusaku might think he's cursing both of them, but he isn't; he isn't thinking of Yuusaku at all. For once, his father's attention is on him, as if Yuusaku is the one who does not exist. He is looking only at Ogata, now, cursing him for his unthinkable treachery, and Ogata wants to laugh.
Did he really think himself free of his youthful indiscretions? Did he really think any first-born son of this wretched house could be cast out like a devil at the new year and not return for what is rightfully his? Did he really ever think that the child he abandoned would fade politely into obscurity, that Ogata would ever be put in his place?
Ogata quiets that long-festering disdain, because whatever else has happened, his father is the one bleeding out, and Ogata is the one looming over him. Whatever else has happened, Yuusaku is the one with the sword in his hand, ready to commit the greatest sin available to man, for him.
Ogata watches his father over Yuusaku's shoulder and bears witness to his despair. There is the bitter indignity of seeing his house laid low by his own bastard's hand, of knowing it has been utterly defiled by a usurper. Of knowing that his son has been poisoned, his own sword turned against him. Ogata almost wants to show him the true depth of the debauchery Yuusaku is capable of, just to see what kind of face their father would make at seeing his beloved, perfect heir—his real son—squirming on his bastard's cock.
What would their father think, to see how Yuusaku opens his legs like a whore and begs to be fucked? What would he think, to see how prettily Yuusaku whimpers when Ogata gives him exactly what he needs?
But that sight is for him alone, and Ogata keeps it too jealously to share it even for this victory, even this tremendous gloating. It is not a thing to be trotted out for anybody else, no matter how pleasing the thought of it might be. It is enough to know in the depths of his heart what he now possesses. Whatever suspicions their father may have, he will have to stew in them for what little remains of his life.
Ogata can feel the moment Yuusaku steels himself—the shift of muscle as he adjusts his grip, the way he exhales, settles. Men like him are supposed to tremble, at decisive moments like this. It makes for a better story if they do. But Yuusaku is still, and he is quiet. He fits under Ogata's hands like a well-made rifle, has the same correct heft. They were both made for killing, in their own, separate ways.
Yuusaku lets their father have the last word. He's better than Ogata, that way. He presses the point of the sword in, clean and merciful. Their father ought to feel honored, Ogata thinks, and watches him bleed out. The house creaks around them, like it knows what's happening. This is not the first time it has presided over the changing of hands, from father to son, but Ogata is sure it will be the last. There will be no more fathers in this house. Yuusaku isn't cut out for it.
It's quiet for a long moment. Ogata thumbs idly over Yuusaku's side, nuzzling at his sweat-damp nape. Yuusaku's breathing is slow, steady, like it should be. None of his pattering anxiety, now.
"I thought it would be..." he says, quietly, and he doesn't finish the thought.
Ogata tucks his smile against the collar of Yuusaku's uniform. "Worse?" he prompts.
But Yuusaku just shakes his head, reaching down to set his hand over Ogata's, heavy and warm and sure. There is no uncertainty, not in this. "I thought I would feel more," he says.
And oh, Ogata should have known. Ogata should have known that his little brother would be the same as him, not-quite-right down to their marrow, just off-center from humanity in this one crucial little way.
"I told you," he says, but it isn't quite an accusation. How could it be, after this?
"Excuse me," Yuusaku says politely, as he gets to his feet. "I should clean up."
He sheds Ogata like a too-warm coat as he stands, and that, Ogata can't abide. He lets his displeasure sour in him for a moment before he's spurred into motion and follows Yuusaku out of the room, catching him in the dim hallway by the wrist and pulling him around.
Yuusaku is far larger than him, far stronger, but he lets himself be caught, lets himself be turned about and walked back against the wall. It's never been in him to deny Ogata, not really, and Ogata knows that, now.
"Ani-sama," Yuusaku says, less like reprimand and more like surrender. He makes no effort to extricate himself from Ogata's grasp, easy as it would be for him; he makes no effort to push Ogata away. He lets himself be bulled up against the wall, lets Ogata crowd in close and peer into his face, their bodies pressed close.
Don't run away from me, he thinks, and he swallows the words down, sticky in his throat. Not now.
Yuusaku's eyes flutter shut for a long moment, like he's composing himself, dark lashes fanned against his fair skin. His chest rises and falls, still steadier than Ogata would have expected of him. Patricide, he wants to spit in his face, just to see if he'll recoil from it. You should be terrified of what you are.
But he's seen Yuusaku like this before. This is how Yuusaku looked when he leapt from the trenches, pared down so cleanly to the simple act of moving forward that there was no room for him to be afraid—this is the mirror image of that same unthinking courage, that same utter selflessness. He'd been splashed with blood then, too.
"You did so well," Ogata tells him instead, indulgent, a paltry little treat in exchange for what Yuusaku has given him tonight. It's so small a thing, but Yuusaku shivers against him in response, and Ogata knows it was the right thing to say.
Yuusaku's hands twist in his jacket, tight. His breath shakes out of him, and he butts their faces together like an affectionate animal.
"I need you," Yuusaku mumbles against his cheek, pawing at his uniform, clumsy in a way he hasn't been for years. "Right now, please—"
Satisfaction blooms hot under his skin in response to how easily Yuusaku asks for it, and Ogata gentles his thumbs against the corners of Yuusaku's jaw. "Anything you want," he says, and he's staggered by the realization that he means it.
Yuusaku goes to his knees, and Ogata lets him, pets idly at his hair as Yuusaku undoes his trousers button by button. Yuusaku pulls his soft cock from his fundoshi and fits his mouth over it, sucking at him gently but purposefully.
There's something striking in how big Yuusaku's hands are against his hips, the weight of his grasp. There's something in knowing that a man so much bigger and stronger and better than him is on his knees, submitting so willingly to him, singularly focused on nothing except serving him. His cock swells easily in Yuusaku's mouth, and Yuusaku moans appreciatively in response, as if in encouragement.
Yuusaku is always a sight on his knees, but there's something special about the urgency of it now. Unlike his usual, luxurious focus on pleasuring Ogata, now he is almost perfunctory, aiming clearly and unabashedly to get Ogata hard as quickly as possible. He works his tongue deftly, leveraging every bit of what Ogata has taught him about sucking cock. It's rare for him to be so bold and so shameless, nakedly displaying his skill—and more incriminating still, his familiarity, both with the act itself and with performing it for Ogata specifically.
He almost wants to pull Yuusaku down and come down his throat, but that isn't the purpose of any of this. Yuusaku wants to be closer, wants to be held and to feel surer for it, and Ogata…won't deny him that, not tonight. Not when Yuusaku has been so good for him, so obedient. "That's enough," he manages, pushing Yuusaku away, even as his cock leaks against Yuusaku's curled tongue.
Yuusaku looks up at him as he draws back, blinks slow and hazy. When he licks his mouth absently, the tip of his tongue flicks against Ogata's cock, still propped against his lips. "Hm?"
"Get up," Ogata orders. "Turn around."
Yuusaku has the audacity to look shy at that, blushing suddenly and furiously, his eyes wide and innocent and blinking, like it still surprises him after all this time that Ogata wants him. Like he wasn't just drooling all over Ogata's cock angling for precisely this, like he isn't desperate to get fucked. He stands and fumbles his trousers open as he turns to face the wall, pulling them down enough to expose the curve of his ass. Ogata is already pulling salve from the kit at his belt, greasing his fingers up as Yuusaku braces himself against the wall. He doesn't bother unwinding Yuusaku's fundoshi, just pushes it roughly out of the way and presses two fingers unceremoniously inside of him.
Yuusaku gasps at the feeling, clenching around Ogata's fingers reflexively. He's a sight like this, too: legs kicked apart, trousers shoved around his thighs, thick arms braced against the wall and his head bowed between them, his asshole gripping obscenely around Ogata's fingers. His breath quickens as Ogata stretches him open, faster and rougher than usual. Yuusaku doesn't ever complain—Ogata isn't sure if he knows how—but he responds better, normally, when he's handled gently. Not so tonight.
Ogata doesn't ask if he's ready, doesn't need to. He smears salve over his cock and pushes inside of Yuusaku, too much and too soon and exactly right. Yuusaku makes an uncontrolled noise, pained or satisfied, and Ogata doesn't give him even a moment to adjust, just rams all the way inside of him, and starts fucking him in deep, quick thrusts.
Yuusaku's entire body is tense even as he visibly tries to relax, to force himself to take it. He chokes like he's struggling to breathe, fingers scrabbling at the wall and clenching into fists, his knuckles pressing out stark and pale against his flushed skin. There's sweat shining on the back of his neck, and Ogata wishes he wasn't all buttoned up so he could bite at the tender flesh there and feel Yuusaku flinching around his cock in response.
"Ani-sama," Yuusaku gasps, and it sounds more like a plea than anything, a frantic little bid for mercy or for more or whatever Ogata will give him. Sharp moans escape him as he's fucked, but he holds his stance perfectly, arching his back and offering himself up. He has no instinct to escape, no desire to squirm out from underneath Ogata.
"Greedy," Ogata remarks, as Yuusaku opens for him, takes him in. No one has ever needed someone, Ogata thinks, the way that Yuusaku needs him now—whining through his teeth, his thick muscles taut under Ogata's hands, his entire body trembling. He's close just from this, Ogata can tell. His breath is hitching and he's gripping desperately on Ogata's cock, making strangled little noises as he struggles to breathe. He whines, sharp and sweet as Ogata picks up his pace, driving him mercilessly over the edge, and he comes with a dying gasp.
"Ani-sama," he chokes out as Ogata fucks him through it. "Ani-sama—"
He seems as overwhelmed by it as he did the very first time he learned he could come like this, just from being fucked. Ogata remembers it well: kneeling between Yuusaku's open thighs and feeling the tension building inside of him, unfamiliar then to both of them. He remembers the sight of Yuusaku flushed all the way down his chest, mouth slack and wet, his cock leaking helplessly against his belly. He remembers Yuusaku's eyes going wide with something like terror before he scrunched them shut, and the startled, broken noise he made even as he covered his mouth with his fist.
It's arresting as it was then, seeing him like this—watching him lose control and knowing that Yuusaku has been utterly undone, by him, by what Ogata is doing to him. Ogata doesn't relent, fucking him as he shivers and groans and then goes quiet, his breathing quick and sharp and wet and uneven. He keeps going until Yuusaku's thighs are shaking uncontrollably, until his knees buckle. He lets Yuusaku sink piteously to his knees, gasping for breath and fumbling for purchase as he settles against the floor.
"I'm sorry—" Yuusaku manages, sounding dazed. He's tangled in his sweaty uniform, the front of his fundoshi stretched out obscenely around his erection and soaked through, his trousers pushed down and his jacket wrinkled, his face bright red. Ogata crawls over him, hands working at the clasps of his uniform, putting his teeth at the sensitive flesh beneath Yuusaku's jaw.
"I'm sorry," Yuusaku mumbles again, watery and faint.
Ogata leans up and kisses him, and Yuusaku melts into it with a quiet and appreciative moan. Yuusaku reaches for him, his kisses clumsy as he tugs insistently at Ogata's clothes—not exactly helping, but emphatic that he wants them off. They undress together, unbuttoning their uniforms and setting them aside until they are skin to skin at last, no pretense between them. When they're both naked—after some fumbling and grousing and quiet huffs of laughter—Yuusaku sits back and lifts his knees shyly, blushing and biting his lip as he does. Even at his most shameless, he manages to look demure.
Ogata reaches down to touch him, fingertips testing the soft and slick rim of his hole. Not quite inflamed, but tender from how roughly he's been handled. He's impossibly warm, here, flushed and hot with the strain of being used so carelessly. But he doesn't mind it, Ogata knows—he likes it, knowing that his body can accommodate Ogata in this way, knowing how readily it allows them to be so close to each other.
"Ani-sama," he pleads, panting, tugging at Ogata. "Please, I want it, please—"
Not especially coherent, but he's being so polite. Ogata crawls up over him, and Yuusaku pulls him in, his thighs falling open obscenely, his big hands clutching at Ogata's back.
Yuusaku moans for him, sweet and breathless, as Ogata sinks back inside. He ought to feel vindicated, Ogata supposes, smug in his own betterness. But somehow it does not feel like something so simple as victory, to know how utterly mindless a thing he's made of his brother—what a wreck he's made of him just by putting their bodies together like this. Yuusaku stares up at him, his mouth bitten and red, lips parted, flushed and hazy-eyed. The picture he makes, in that moment, the look on his face—
Ogata's never quite been able to meet his gaze, when he's like this—eyes wet and staring, the incriminating way his expression softens as he sighs with each press of Ogata's cock inside of him. But he steels himself and he manages it now, looks into his face and sees the thing laid bare there. Yuusaku curves a hand up around the back of his neck and holds him in place as their bodies move together, slower now, deliberate. There's something unbearable in his gaze, tender and aching and unthinkable, but Ogata doesn't look away from it. He'd asked to see the ugly, honest part of Yuusaku, and here it is, dredged up just for him.
They lean together and their staggered breaths fill the narrow space between them, and Yuusaku is watching him with the utter certainty that he's allowed, that there's nothing they have left to hide from each other. Ogata studiously ignores the thing that grips in his belly at the sight of it, decisive and fathomless. He should kill him here, Ogata thinks, so he can never leave. So he can preserve this moment forever. He'll never let Yuusaku escape him. He'll never let him go.
"Ani-sama," Yuusaku sighs, his eyes flicking down to Ogata's mouth like he wants to kiss but he can't quite bring himself to look away for long enough to do it. Yuusaku's thighs tuck around his hips, heavy and firm and soft and tight, holding him there, needing him. His gaze is desperate and open, and he's so warm inside, so welcoming.
"Ani-sama," he repeats, heavy with pleasure, over and over. There's an urgency tipping up into his throat, drawing tight like he knows he can't hold out much longer, but he doesn't want it to be over—because he needs it, this closeness, this connection, this intimacy.
"Yuusaku," Ogata returns, without thinking, giving his name back reflexively. He slides a hand up the tender underside of Yuusaku's trembling thigh as he fucks him, watching the frantic pleasure spark through him. He means to offer something rote—means to dig up some approximation of what people are meant to say, at moments like this—but he's struck dumb by the gravity of what Yuusaku has given him. He presses his hands covetously over Yuusaku's skin and feels him shake, and it is as much a declaration as anything else Yuusaku has done for him tonight.
"Yuusaku," he breathes, instead of any sweet platitude, and it is far more honest that he intends to be.
Yuusaku gasps wordlessly in response, clutching at him, showing his throat at last in surrender. He doesn't even have the presence of mind to beg, to cry, to moan for ani-sama, he just whines and turns his face away. He gasps, shocked and sweet, when Ogata sinks his teeth against the meat of his shoulder, squeezing around Ogata's cock as his breath snags in his throat.
Ogata shifts the angle of his hips, just a little, but it's enough to make Yuusaku jerk underneath him, to push a sharp moan out of him.
"Oh—"
Ogata presses deep inside of him and rolls his hips in quick, tight circles, and Yuusaku's voice edges louder, sharper.
"Ani-sama," he whines, helplessly, overcome with it. "I'm—Ani-sama…!"
Yuusaku makes a frantic noise beneath him, and he's beautiful like this, he's perfect. He is holier in this debauchery than he ever was in his chastity; a thousand virgins aren't as pure as he is now, crying out softly as he comes on his brother's cock. There are countless men who imagine themselves conquerors, who think they've tasted victory, but none of them, Ogata is sure, have ever felt like this. No one has ever touched something so untouchable. He slows his pace, easing Yuusaku through his trembling orgasm, kissing the tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
"Good boy," Ogata says, and Yuusaku shivers around him, still gripping around him in weakening, rhythmic pulses.
Yuusaku grabs for him blindly, his hands huge and hot against Ogata's skin, touching him everywhere, urging him closer, urging for more. Ogata feels suddenly small as he's pulled against Yuusaku's chest, broad and strong and shockingly vital. There's so much of him, offered up for the taking, and all of it is for him. It feels staggering, being wrapped up like this and being inside of him too, all soft sweat-slick skin and firm muscle and the heat of his blood. The way Yuusaku's insides grip tight around his cock and send shocks of pleasure curling down to his toes. The way Yuusaku molds around him like he was made for this, like he was always meant for Ogata and no one else.
Their bodies are pressed tight and moving together thoughtlessly, instinctively. Ogata is so hard that his cock feels heavy, obscene; his balls feel achingly full, sending sweet little shivers down his thighs when they press against Yuusaku's warm skin. And underneath him, Yuusaku looks utterly fucked out, his pulse animal-quick between them, his breath heaving desperately out of him.
Ogata remembers how Yuusaku looked leaping from a trench, his face dirty and his uniform starched with blood, his men roaring in the fog and cutting the enemy down around him. He'd looked like a demon, then, every inch the fearless god of war he was meant to be. To see the same man beneath him now, soft-mouthed and gasping sweetly, stripped utterly bare, shivering and undone, is—
Ogata winds their fingers together without thinking, and Yuusaku's hand closes vice-like around his own as if for purchase, palm hot against his own. "Ani-sama," he gasps, and he tightens suddenly around Ogata's cock, like he's shocked by the intimacy of it. He's lovely like this, flushed and breathing hard, sweaty with exertion. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, and his hair is damp and disheveled.
Ogata leans back up and pushes their mouths together, stroking into Yuusaku with his cock and his tongue, possessing him. Yuusaku trembles at this, pulling insistently at him, kissing back messily, uncoordinated. He murmurs against Ogata's mouth, soft and needy.
"...-sama, Ani-sama," Yuusaku is mumbling thoughtlessly, as Ogata moves inside of him, like it is the only thing he knows, like Ogata is the only real thing that there is. "Ani-sama—"
Ogata kisses the sharp cut of his jaw, the tender curve of his neck. "You're mine, aren't you?" he purrs, against Yuusaku's throat, and Yuusaku shivers underneath him.
"Yours," he chokes out instantly, reflexive, frantic to please him. "Yours, yours."
It would be ludicrous if it weren't true. He fucks Yuusaku harder as a reward for his honesty, pressing quick and deep; despite himself, he finds himself immensely gratified by the way Yuusaku gasps, his voice edging sharper and more ragged. Yuusaku's nails scratch down Ogata's back as he keens and rocks his hips desperately. He's so soft inside, tight and sweet, hugging Ogata's cock like he needs it.
"How does it feel?" Ogata asks, and Yuusaku makes a strained noise beneath him.
"It's—" Yuusaku's breath hitches piteously as Ogata moves between his open thighs, insinuating himself in the tender space they make, just for him. Only ever for him. "I feel so close to you—it feels so good—Ani-sama, I need—please, please—"
Yuusaku's voice wilts into soft, incoherent noises beneath him, his hips pressing back unthinkingly against Ogata's, and Ogata knows neither of them will last. He wedges a hand down between them to fumble at Yuusaku's cock, huge and hot and leaking desperately, and that's all it takes. Yuusaku makes a startled sound in his throat and his cock jerks in Ogata's hand, spilling between their bellies in heavy, jerking pulses. The feeling of Yuusaku clenching helplessly around his cock is enough to pull Ogata over the edge with him, and Ogata sinks his teeth against Yuusaku's shoulder and presses tight against him as he comes inside, staking his claim, marking him.
They slump together, sweaty and sticky and breathing hard.
"I should have killed you at Port Arthur," Ogata says, breathless, and Yuusaku laughs somewhere above his ear. His legs are hooked close around Ogata's hips, holding him, keeping their bodies joined. Keeping him close, holding him tucked inside. Even as he goes soft and useless, vulnerable, Yuusaku's body still hugs around him and tries to keep him there.
"Mm," Yuusaku says, maybe in agreement.
Yuusaku cards his fingers against Ogata's hair, no longer quite army-tidy, as Ogata mouths idly over his throat, over the strong beat of his pulse. He should kill them both here, so they can be born again, together this time. But, Ogata thinks, maybe he already has. How else could they be here like this, fitted together like twins in the womb of this house?
He can feel it now, in and around him, how the floors and the walls have conspired to bring them here—the direct line from their ancestors to them, like a string tied between them and the sun in the sky, and he knows in his heart the providence of this homecoming. They have displaced their father and stolen his place rightfully away, and that's the oldest ceremony that there is, the oldest law of men. It belongs to him, now, just as he has always belonged to it, the house that robbed him of everything and gave him this in return.
He nuzzles at Yuusaku's skin, settles against him, and they stay like that, holding each other in the house that is now theirs.