Work Text:
You stand on the edge of the camp, watching the snow blur the horizon. You think he’s behind you because you can hear the crunch of his boots, but when you turn, the space is empty. Ogata is already fifty yards away, pack shouldered, rifle slung.
He doesn’t look back.
You run to catch up, breathless, and grab his sleeve. "Where are you going? The trek to the coast starts tomorrow. We had a plan."
He stops, but he doesn’t look at you. He looks at your hand on his coat with a cold, clinical curiosity, as if you’re a strange insect that just landed there.
"There is no 'we,'" he says. His voice is flat, devoid of the gravelly warmth you thought you’d earned over the last few months. "There is a goal, and you aren't part of the path to it."
"I thought..." You swallow hard, the freezing air stinging your throat. "I thought we understood each other. Last night, you said—"
"I said what I needed to say to ensure I had a warm place to sleep," he interrupts. He finally meets your eyes, and the void there is terrifying. There’s no malice, no hidden regret, and no flickering spark of the man you thought you were "saving." There is only a terrifying, hollow stillness.
He gently unhooks your fingers from his sleeve, one by one.
"You’re waiting for a version of me that doesn't exist," he says, stepping back into the white haze of the storm. "Go find someone 'noble.' You'll find they're just as hollow as I am, they just have better manners about it."
By the time you find your voice to call his name, tears flowing down your face in the biting cold, the snow has swallowed his silhouette. He didn't leave because he was afraid of his feelings for you. He left because, to him, you were just another piece of scenery he’d finished looking at.