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"Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.
I couldn't get the [girl] to kill me, but I wore her jacket for the longest time..."
-Richard Siken
"I'm sorry,"
he doesn't think to say, when she hits the ground.
"I'm sorry," takes misshape on the tip of his tongue when she sits up, once he sees the puffy souring at her left eye, he blinks shock, drops his weapon. The evidence of his apathy is dripping from her nose and into the plush dip of plum lips. And she's so soft, she's so pretty when she's crying, her lips are so kissable, tainted and bruised, painted red with her own blood--- "I'm sorry," he doesn't get to say, because Sugimoto clocks him onto his back before Ogata can push out foreign words.
And he lets him. He lays there, trying to remember the last time he apologized to someone while Sugimoto wears out the butt-end of his rifle on Ogata's skull, but Asirpa's pained screams convince him to roll over, coerce Sugimoto into withholding his rage.
It was an accident, really, another argument turned fight-for-their-lives--- Asirpa wasn't supposed to be there.
"Look what you fucking did!" Sugimoto yells, needlessly. His arm is held out as though in great declaration, look!
But Ogata doesn't want to look. Can't look. Can't do anything, couldn’t do it anyway. Instead he lays there, back to the child, listening to the blood rush through his ears like beach shells.
"M'sorry," he whispers against blades of grass, but blood gurgles when he mouths the words, like he spoke too quickly, red regret bubbles up from the back of his throat. He grunts a harsh exhale and looks, looks, with all his might, all his pride.
He looks and looks at her ---
There's a distorted memory that ever paces in Hyakunosuke's belly-basement, weighing him down; a slideshow of images and a physical, facial sting that comes to life when he tastes blood. Trauma, happy memory.
His mother was pretty, once. Before her eyes turned black, before she would hit him, before he started to resemble his father, as though it made him deserving of it all. He thinks it does. He thinks if he could take all the parts of himself that made him so hateful — his memories, shames, rues, pains— if he could pretend they were across the room, in the shape of another person, a stranger,
he would kill them.
Too sinful to be real. It’s too ugly to be you, but look! his posture is just like yours. He wipes his crooked, bleeding nose just as you do.
Maybe, maybe he wouldn't kill them. If not, then maybe he would just make sure they hated him.
"I'm sorry."
It's so clear. He said it so clearly this time, so he says it again, still on the ground where he was knocked, staring at Asirpa's feet. He says it and it feels like release, so he repeats himself;
"I'm sorry." He likes the way his nostrils burn. The hot of his ears, he can't move or stand or look away, but he can speak, his mouth must be a stupid one to repeat apologies like revelations. "Sorry," he whispers hurriedly, "sorry..."
He didn't mean to be this way. His brother's eyes--the ones he can't remember flash before his sight and he jolts back with terror, calls out in fear.
"I'm sorry," he gasps. Blinks.
He looks at where Asirpa was just standing and sees no one there. Where his mother was just sitting over him, nothing there.
The sun has set. Her blood is dry in the grass. He's been curled up on the ground for who knows how long but that's the least of his concerns.
"Ogata."
He falls onto his back in the grass. Looks up, at the stars, the world is spinning, there she is.
Asirpa smiles sadly at him. Her hand is held out to help him up, as though it might help. He takes it. Avoids her eyes, avoids the bad one, ignores the bad taste in his mouth. This is remorse. It must be, rancid as it is.
"I'm sorry," he mutters. It's the quietest he's ever spoken. His pride itches when he figures there's no way she heard him, that he'll have to repeat himself, how many times, it won't be enough.
Would it be easier to make her hate him? If so, how many more mistakes? How many times could she forgive him before she could hate him? The gods forgive in sevens, 77s, how many gunshots before Asirpa calls him Kamuy? At least that way, she wouldn't have to forgive him anymore. He can't change his posture.
Asirpa gives a sudden, tight squeeze at the big hand encasing hers.
Ogata jolts.
She then removes her extra furs, stands on her tiptoes and throws it over his broad shoulders.
It manages to slip off one shoulder--- but he catches it, lets go of the rifle in one hand to keep the hand that holds Asirpa's, he catches it. The rifle clatters. He exhales clouds. He didn't know how cold or dark it was until now.
He looks and looks at her,
How morbid and lovely, her smile is, with the corners of her mouth stained with old blood.
"It was just an accident," she forgives.
How soft the flesh around her eyes must be to bruise in so many shades, painter's palette, painful. Ogata wants to put his mouth there.
"Let's go back to camp," she tells him, and he nods, dazed.
He takes more than a few steps forward with her before he remembers his rifle, but he doesn't let go of her hand when he retrieves it.