The Toyota HiAce engine started. Takina crawled back from under the dashboard, dropped her tools there, clicked her seat belt, and took the steering wheel.
“Get in, Chisato!”
“Aye!” Chisato shouted back from the roof, where she was shooting the incoming zombies.
She dropped her shotgun inside through the open sunroof, jumping down after it…
“Gwah! My boobs! Owww!”
The sunroof was by no means big, and on her way down, Chisato’s large breasts got caught on the edge, slamming into it with a thud, her whole body weight momentarily supported by them alone. She kicked with her feet in the air, slowly squeezing through. After finally dropping onto the rear seat, Chisato pressed her hands to her breasts, writhing from pain.
“Okay if I drive now?”
“Yeah, just go!”
Takina switched on the high beams. A mass of zombies crowded in front of the car. By then, the girls were getting used to it.
Takina disengaged the parking brake, simultaneously stepping on the accelerator. The car jerked into motion, shaking disturbingly as it collided with squishy bodies, gaining speed. Zombies in the way stood no chance against the accelerating, heavy vehicle, getting knocked out of the way or ridden over.
Chisato unsteadily clambered over to the passenger-side seat, hindered not so much by the shaking but by the lingering pain in her breasts. She put on her seat belt…and pressed her hands to her chest again, whimpering.
Takina shot a sideways glance at Chisato, noticing tears in her eyes. She really did seem to be in a lot of pain.
“I thought my boobs were going to get ripped off… I used to be able to easily fit through small windows like that.”
“I’m sure you did, but you’ve grown… Let’s get on the highway. There should be fewer zombies there.”
Takina headed to the interchange close to Kinshicho Station. A bar blocked the on-ramp, but she ignored it and drove right through it.
As expected, it was easier on the highway. There were some abandoned cars here and there, but no zombies. Takina thought she’d made the right call. The visibility was good there, too.
“It’s kind of eerily calm, isn’t it? You’d think there’d be fires breaking out, but the city’s just dark and quiet.”
“Isn’t that because the zombies took over so fast? The electricity went out soon after the outbreak, so that’s why there aren’t any fires.”
Takina’s thoughts went briefly to the situation at power plants, but she quickly resolved that worrying about something she had absolutely no control over was pointless.
They drove for some time. Chisato’s face finally relaxed, as if the pain in her breasts had subsided.
“Hmm. Not bad.”
“What is?”
“Driving on the dark highway, just me and my partner, like there’s no one else in the world… It’s kind of awesome, actually.”
“Are we going from zombies to a road movie theme? You like that genre, too, don’t you?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be nice to just keep driving like this forever?”
“You can’t drive forever. Sooner or later, we’ll run out of fuel and food… There’ll be nothing nice about that.”
“But being together, just me and you.”
Takina thought about it silently for a while, confused.
“Sorry, what do you mean?”
“I think that was pretty self-explanatory.”
“A group is preferable to a pair, and an organization can achieve even more… Am I wrong?”
“You’re not wrong, but…wouldn’t you like it?”
“Wouldn’t I like what?”
“Just the two of us, together forever.”
Takina turned onto a road going west and tried to imagine a future with just her and Chisato in Japan, overtaken by zombies…
If they put their minds to it, they could create a safe zone by exterminating all the zombies in a specific area. As for food, they could scavenge from people’s houses and stores for a long time. Drinking water could be sourced from springs, which were prolific in Japan, or even wells…
That couldn’t go on forever, though. With nobody to help, they’d be limited in what they could do. They didn’t have the specialist knowledge or facilities to live their whole lives in that world, and some things were impossible without more people.
Both Takina and Chisato possessed specialist skills that the average civilian didn’t, and it’d be a waste if they couldn’t put those skills to use.
On second thought, Takina realized that Chisato wasn’t asking her to envisage how they could survive by themselves. It took Takina a while to realize that.
No, Chisato didn’t want a detailed survival plan. She probably didn’t think too far into the future, basing her choices on whatever seemed the most fun at the moment rather than on efficiency. Chisato put having a good time before that. And she certainly didn’t care what happened to the country. What she was asking was…literally how Takina would feel about being alone with Chisato.
Takina thought about how she’d felt in the past and how she’d feel if that were to be her future. A lot had happened in her life since being kicked out of DA. She and Chisato would have participated in many more missions together if it hadn’t been for the sudden zombie outbreak. Takina didn’t work as a Lycoris for the sake of Japan. She did that for herself. Same with her work at the café… With Chisato as her partner in both of those lives. Not so long ago, Takina had seen that as a merely tolerable state of affairs. But now…
“I suppose…it wouldn’t be so bad,” she eventually muttered quietly, as if talking to herself.
The pause between Chisato’s question and Takina’s answer was several minutes long. Maybe it was even longer than ten minutes. It didn’t seem like part of the same conversation. Chisato would probably assume Takina was thinking out loud about something else, and that was fine. Takina didn’t feel a particular need to convey her thoughts to Chisato. She’d only done that bit of introspection because Chisato had asked.
“Shall we go, then?” asked Chisato.
Takina turned to look at her. Chisato was looking out the side window, but she slowly turned toward Takina. Their eyes met. A bashful smile appeared on Chisato’s face.
“Shall we go somewhere far away, just the two of us?”
Chisato had been waiting for that reply from Takina, despite the unreasonably long pause. She’d been patiently waiting to hear what Takina thought about them.
“Um…”
Takina wasn’t sure what that little noise she’d made meant. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel without meaning to, and she pulled her focus back to what she was holding, where she was, and what she was doing.
She was driving a car on the highway at close to a hundred kilometers per hour. She had to keep her eyes on the road.
With that excuse to convince herself, Takina took her eyes off Chisato and looked straight ahead. Looking at Chisato any longer would have been dangerous, or so she thought.
Would she have been able to break eye contact if she hadn’t been driving? She wasn’t sure, and this uncertainty puzzled her.
Takina told herself to get a grip. She must have subconsciously stepped harder on the accelerator because their speed increased slightly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…No. We’re going to DA HQ.”
“Whaaat? Oh, come on!”
Chisato whined like a kid having a tantrum.
“It’s for our survival. The alternative is a slow path to unavoidable death.”
“Hmm… Yeah, I guess… Hmm… Okay, I guess DA it is… I don’t like this, though…”
“DA? Because they kicked you out?”
“No, no, it’s not about that at all. You know how it is in postapocalyptic stories with zombies. It always ends with humans fighting humans, no? I honestly hate that. The fun, action-packed story where humans fight monsters suddenly turns into drama, bitterness, hurt feelings, loss, and love stealing the spotlight. I want zombies, not human drama! Kill the zombies, not each other!”
Chisato fell silent, and Takina also didn’t speak. She wondered if she’d misunderstood the intentions behind Chisato’s earlier question. Was Chisato asking her if she agreed it was better for them to be alone than with other people because conflict was guaranteed to arise in a larger group? Was that all there was to it instead of…what Takina imagined Chisato had been implying?
Takina broke out in a cold sweat as embarrassment washed over her. She thought she might even blush, or maybe she was blushing already. It was dark outside and in the car, so nobody could see whether she was blushing or not.
Why did she jump to conclusions to begin with? Takina clenched her jaw, internally battling embarrassment and regret.
“Is something wrong, Takina?”
“Nothing… Nothing’s wrong…”
“No, you’re being weird. What is it? Tell me.”
Chisato shuffled closer. Takina sensed Chisato’s proximity. She could pick out the gentle scent of Chisato in the air. Usually, neither of those things would affect her, but somehow, her pulse began to quicken.
Chisato touched Takina’s cheek.
“Chi-Chisato! What are you doing?!”
Chisato’s fingers were warm and so soft that it seemed inappropriate that they often held a pistol. Her fingertips first touched Takina’s cheek, then traced her jawline all the way to Takina’s left ear…
Takina squirmed in her seat, leaning away to escape Chisato’s touch.
“S-stop it!”
“Oh gosh! Takina, you feel so hot! Do you have a fever?!”
Looking suddenly worried, Chisato tried to move closer again to peer at Takina’s face.
“No! I don’t… What the…?!”
Light fell on the windscreen. A car coming from the other direction? No. It wasn’t coming from someone else’s headlights. It was the reflection of the van’s own full beam lights off a car lying on its side in their path. Driving at a hundred kilometers per hour, Takina had no time to swerve and avoid it. They crashed into it really badly.