The nurses followed his instructions; by the time Tsurumi swept into the makeshift infirmary, Ogata was still awake, not yet dragged under by morphine. His face was swollen, skin pale as the grave, jaw bent in ways that gave Tsurumi's a second-hand twinge. Regardless of the lack of drugs, Ogata should, by all rights, be unconscious from the pain, but his bottomless eyes honed in on Tsurumi as soon as he came into view.

“Superior Private Ogata!” The attending medic spluttered as Tsurumi took a seat on the scant free space on the cot next to Ogata. The surface of the cot shifted to accommodate his weight, gravity dragging them closer together. He crossed his legs at the knee and waved the man away. “You can make your rounds now, thank you.”

The man paused by the door, but after a moment nodded and left. Tsurumi swivelled his head back to Ogata and murmured in a lower, more familiar tone, “I've spoken with the doctors. They say you're very lucky. This is all operable; you'll be back to normal in no time.”

Ogata blinked by way of response. His eyes were bloodshot but lucid. The injury didn't make much of a difference; he was never much of a conversationalist. His talents lay in other areas. No matter; Tsurumi was more than capable of carrying the burden of dialogue on his own.

He leaned over Ogata. “They'll have to make a few surgical incisions, of course.” With a single finger of each hand, Tsurumi traced two lines, one across each side of Ogata's face, from the corner of his warped jaw to the centre of his cheek. “You'll still look fetching as ever, I'm sure. Let’s have a look at you.”

Tsurumi unspooled the bandages from around Ogata’s lower face and skull. They’d swaddled him up tight, so the anticipation mounted in his chest over the ten-odd seconds it took to free Ogata of his wrappings. Tsurumi had spent his time in recovery after Mukden itching to emerge from his own cocoon—physically itching, as his blistered skin struggled to protect itself from the chafing of cotton. He’d spent the first week nearly blind. The skin of his eyelids took some of the worst of the blast, and he’d gone days without blinking, relying on field nurses to wet his eyes with drops. In comparison, Ogata had it relatively easy. A liquid diet wasn’t the worst fate to be sentenced to for a few weeks, and Ogata was overdue for harm in the line of duty. He had a sniper’s medical history: exposure, not wounds, was the worst he’d faced thus far.

Ironic, in a way. Tsurumi knew the directions in which Ogata’s proclivities ran. Perhaps it explained some of the man’s fondness for pain on his off-hours, though Tsurumi had a strong suspicion that quality was as intrinsic to Ogata’s personality as his poorly hidden need for attention. Tsurumi may not have yet mapped out every corner of Ogata’s mind, but he was willing to bet he had a better handle on Ogata Hyakunosuke than anyone alive.

Tsurumi cupped one of Ogata’s warped cheeks in his palm. Only a flicker of an eyelid belied the pain the touch must have caused him, which Tsurumi took as encouragement. He raised two fingers of his other hand to Ogata’s mouth. “Don’t worry, I washed my hands before I came.”

It took only a moment for Ogata to part his lips, laboriously and hardly wide enough to let him in. Tsurumi pushed his mouth open a little further as he slid his fingers inside. They rested on Ogata’s tongue like a warning. Ogata’s tongue undulated under the shafts of his fingers in a familiar manner. Charmingly consistent. Perhaps it was flesh memory.

Tsurumi’s fingertips prodded at the holes where broken molars had been extracted. Ogata’s fingers curled in the bedsheets by his side, but his eyes on Tsurumi’s face didn’t waver. At this distance, Tsurumi could make the retina out from pupil, the dark brown only a shade off of the black. Not for the first time, Tsurumi observed that Ogata was one of the meanest, most dangerous soldiers he had ever commanded, and felt something perilously close to affection.

An absent sort of regret came over him as he pulled his fingers free and wiped the saliva off on the bedclothes across Ogata’s thighs. “Now, I don’t suppose you’d be able to tell me what you were doing in those woods alone?”