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Dense clouds of dust blanketed the battlefield in silence. The sergeant scrubbed the caked mud from his eyes with the back of his hand. Echoes of explosions and gunshots rang in his ears, only partially drowning out the groans of the damned. Seconds lasted hours as they passed. He leaned against the cold, unyielding earth. Pushed beyond physical limits and thoroughly drained of every last drop of vigor, rows of exhausted soldiers lay still in the trenches, most of them lacking the strength even to shake.
As his hearing gradually returned, the sergeant was met with more than the languishing he’d come to expect in the aftermath. Rather than haggard breaths, there came the rough grunts of a struggle, the scraping of boots digging into the ground, the dull thud of two bodies making impact. Following the sounds, he discovered the source.
Blood-dyed fists made contact with flesh as a Japanese soldier landed another wet punch on the side of a Russian’s face– what was left of it. The man’s body jolted as he was beaten again, but this was only in response to the force carried through the hits. He was already dead, and the soldier on top of him should have been too.
With a drenched, tattered uniform, and barely scabbed scars carved into his face, the Japanese soldier continued battering the corpse. Rust-colored runoff pooled beneath them, their blood coalescing into a foul sewage. Again and again, as if jerked by invisible threads, the soldier repeated the motions in vain. His eyes were vacant, his body now nothing but a vessel to his survival instinct, trapped in the fight.
The sergeant called out to the men who stood by slack-jawed to get off their asses and do something. Stumbling to get a foothold on the loose gravel, the men approached the thrashing soldier with arms outstretched. However, try as they might, the moment so much as a fingertip grazed his shoulder, he lashed out violently. Although he’d seen capable soldiers persevere through injuries on their battle highs alone, he’d never witnessed anything this extreme. Any attempt at pacification only led to more injured men, the rabid soldier’s freely flowing blood splattering their faces with red marks, spreading like a contagion. One after another, the already beaten men were flung to the ground.
Having seen more than enough of the miserable display, the sergeant sighed. Taking a step closer, he looked the soldier up and down. Relentless as he was, the tremble in the soldier's balled fists said he couldn’t possibly last much longer. The others had managed to pry him from the corpse, and he now staggered forward, identifying a new threat.
With a deep inhale, the sergeant dug his heels into the ground. He rushed forward without fear. Powerful arms locked around the soldier, pinning his own arms to his sides. As they sunk into his skin, the sergeant felt the wet warmth of reopened wounds against his palms. Despite everything, the soldier persisted to struggle tirelessly. The sergeant called out for backup. As he heard footsteps growing near, he opened his mouth, but was silenced by a set of teeth fiercely cutting into his shoulder. The pain only ended after a loud thunk, and the frenzied soldier collapsed into a heap, resting at last.
“Oho! Lively one, isn’t he?”
Behind the soldier’s crumpled body stood a pair of his superiors; one holding the butt of his rifle, the other wearing a first lieutenant’s uniform. The latter looked down at the unconscious man, his eyes alight with grim fascination. At the snap of the first lieutenant’s fingers, another one of his men came to carry the injured soldier to the medical tent.
“You’ll go and make sure they clear a bed for him, won’t you, Sergeant Kikuta?”
They waited at the entrance of the overcrowded field hospital, exchanging silent glances while the nurses determined who they could afford to move. Once they received permission, the two men carried the bloody soldier inside. Just as the curtains fell closed, they caught on the soldier’s cap, sending it rolling across the dirt path, travelling in a spiral before falling flat. Kikuta followed after it, quickly swiping it up before returning to the tent.
Finding the soldier, he dusted off the cap. Then, his eyes went wide. On the front, off-center above the star, was a mend no more than a knuckle’s width across. With the thick grime coating the soldier’s face, he could nearly convince himself he was mistaken, that this was merely coincidence. The hour was already late when they had arrived at the tent, the sky turning pitch dark since. The other infantrymen had left as soon as they'd handed off their casualty, but Kikuta was compelled to remain at his side. It wasn’t until every wound had been treated that he got a proper look at him.
The soldier lay bare-chested on the stained bedding. Every part not wrapped in bandages was layered with the filth of the battlefield. Beneath that, his skin was dotted and dashed with patterns etched by a thousand cuts, bullet holes, and stitches, a tapestry of scars woven in only a few months. He wondered what story they would tell if he read them with his palms. This couldn’t possibly be the same young man he’d given this hat to; or so he told himself, despite the heaviness in his chest that said otherwise. When the soldier shifted restlessly, Kikuta rescinded the hand he’d inadvertently outstretched.
What had he done? The stiff fabric of the hat crumpled in his grip. His thumb traced the raised threads. He had hoped after he’d given it away, he’d never have to see it again. Rotating it in his palms, Kikuta gazed down wordlessly at the soldier. White gauze bloomed with fresh patches of red. Strained, stuttering breaths seeped past cracked lips as beads of sweat formed at his temple. Even with the battlefield behind them, he wasn't finished fighting.
Memories of dirt roads bustling with pedestrians and horsedrawn carts rushed back to him, and with it the hollowness that nostalgia carved in the soul. Loose pebbles crunched under their feet as he walked down the main thoroughfare. Women in brightly patterned kimono buried their faces in their draping sleeves as they passed.
“I guess they're sick of all the soldiers,” said the vagrant boy who walked beside him. He looked down at the uniform he wore, the costume he’d been given.
“They wouldn't be sneering if they'd seen the mess that rolled into town last week.” Kikuta laughed at the young man’s expense, who muttered something along the lines of ‘shut up, old man’ under his breath. He allowed the insolence to slide. They’d spent the last few days rehearsing, role playing as members of a class they’d never belong to; they could afford to loosen a few buttons off-stage.
The break was all too short, though, and they soon arrived at a ramshackle inn. In their brief time together the two had already settled on a simple routine. After the vagrant boy’s evening etiquette lessons were finished, they’d wander through the city streets in the vague direction of the inn. With their backs to the wall, they’d linger near the entrance, just at the edge of the lamplight, where it diffused into the blue shadows of night. When the young man fell quiet– when he wasn’t barking taunts at authority figures or shoveling food into his face– Kikuta took a closer look at him. His cheeks had a soft hollow to them. Dark eyes stared into the ground with a quiet determination, but not without an underlying pain.
Kikuta fished a cigarette from one of his pockets. He struck a match, and as he raised it toward his face, he glimpsed the vagrant boy's face lit by the flame. After a long drag and an even longer exhale, he turned his attention to the young man.
“Give me a hit.”
“What?” Kikuta asked, incredulous. The boy-soldier only looked up at him sternly. “Listen, the food is one thing, but…”
He folded his arms. “Come on, I just… wanted to try it.”
“You’re saying you don’t even..?” Kikuta shook his head. “Give me a break, kid.”
“Fine, whatever. Jerk…” the young man said, heaving a sigh of frustration.
After a moment of internal deliberation, Kikuta shrugged. He acquiesced, carefully holding out the cigarette. “Okay, just… take it easy, alright?”
His fingers moved unsteadily as he accepted it, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. As he drew it to his lips, he glanced toward his ‘mentor’ for reassurance, though he had little to offer. Despite this, the young man carried on, finally taking the first inhale.
The instant the hot smoke singed his throat, he was sent into a coughing fit. Kikuta quickly took back the cigarette. After the worst of the young man’s hacking was over, he placed a few comforting pats on his back.
“Take that as a lesson not to pick up the habit,” Kikuta said, a smirk sneaking onto his face. “Women hate the stink of them.”
“Ugh… Fine, I get it already,” the vagrant boy said, eyes wet with tears.
His body was tense beneath the hand that Kikuta had left lingering there between his shoulder blades. Taking another drag, he let his fingertips dig gently into the flesh there. The sergeant watched the embers at the end of his smoke smolder a moment. Slowly, as the young man recovered, he relaxed into the touch. He looked away, but Kikuta thought he saw the tips of his ears grow dark.
Against his better judgement, he let his hand crawl upward, tugging on the fabric of the uniform. When he reached the collar, he wrapped his fingertips around the hem. Lightly, he grazed his exposed nape; calloused fingers scratching against unblemished skin. He touched the edges of his hairline where soft, freshly shorn fuzz gently sloped along the curve of his neck. Shuddering, the young man sighed, anticipation audible on his breath.
“Mr. Kikuta…?” His voice was hushed, nervous.
The sergeant exhaled out another cloud of swirling smoke. “What do you want now, Norabo?”
“Do I have to… spend the night here?”
A chunk of ash dropped to the ground from Kikuta’s burning cigarette. In a moment of clarity, he released his hold on the vagrant boy’s uniform. It was no use putting creases in something they were only borrowing. He took a step away from the young man and into the lamplight. The glow shone on the boy’s damp eyes, his eyebrows fiercely furrowed.
Kikuta took one last hit before discarding and stamping out his cigarette.
“...Yes, you do.” He hid his hands in the pockets of his coat and tugged down the brim of his hat. “And I’ll be back here at the ass-crack of dawn to drag you out for your next lesson, so you better get some shut-eye while you can.”
“But…!” Looking up at Kikuta with all the dignity of a kicked puppy, the vagrant boy frowned, but his lip remained stiff. ”...I understand. Good night, then, sir.”
As the uniformed boy stepped into the inn and shut the door behind him, so did that night dissipate into nothing but hazy recollections. Kikuta had no fondness for the past, only a profound grief for innocence. Hoping to capture such an ephemeral moment had been a foolish dream in the first place, one he never should have entertained, but couldn’t resist chasing anyway. How long had it been– months? A year? The Hokkaido frontier had made quick work of transforming country boys into killers.
How strange it was, that the vagrant boy looked livelier now than ever. The sergeant glanced around at the shadows cast on the tent walls by men's bodies. Most lay motionless– but not this one. Not him.
Amidst the murmurs of the infirmed, Kikuta suppressed a laugh. If there existed a higher power, it had one sick sense of humor, dropping the vagrant boy back on his doorstep like this. Was this a taste of what hell had to offer? Perhaps it was only fair he faced the consequences of leaving the passenger-car door open behind him. He feared the truth, that he wanted to be followed.
Carefully lifting the soldier’s arm, Kikuta tucked the cap securely beneath it. For a moment, his fingers wrapped around the soldier’s wrist, and he felt the pounding of hot blood pumping through his veins. There was hope yet– at least, for him. As Kikuta released him, he began to stir. It would appear it was time he took his leave.
Traversing the tent with wide steps, the sergeant made his way toward the exit. He looked back one final time. As a nurse approached the restless soldier, straining against a dry throat, his voice came crackling to life.
“Hey, miss… got anything to eat?”