“…I’ve tried not to show any weakness, but the fact is we have no means of procuring food. Even if we continue to keep ourselves locked up here, the only future we have to look forward to is starving to death… However, if you’re truly able to obtain food as you claim you are, we may yet be able to survive.” The girl looked straight at me, her eyes filled with hope. “My name is Mai Tsukishiro. I’m a third-year student here.”
“Uh, I’m Yuuma Kousaka. I’m in second year.”
We were introducing ourselves as if it were completely normal, when Haruka interrupted.
“I’m Haruka Hyuuga, a first-year student. Oh, and by the way, Yuuma’s crazy in love with me, so you don’t have to worry about him fooling around with other girls. Isn’t that right, Yuuma?” Haruka had asked the question in an innocent tone of voice, tilting her head slightly, but her eyes weren’t smiling.
“O-of course.”
“I’ll be responsible for keeping an eye on him twenty-four seven, from morning until night, so you won’t have to worry about a thing,” Haruka said, puffing out her ample chest.
Tsukishiro chuckled. “All right. Nice to meet you, Kousaka and Hyuuga. We’ll be counting on you both from here on out.”
With introductions over, Tsukishiro went inside the dorm building and returned once she’d told the other survivors what had happened.
“Thank you for waiting. I told the other two girls here about you, and they agreed to let you use the building.”
That meant we now had everyone’s permission to stay here. I felt a wave of relief, since there was all the possibility in the world they would simply have rejected me.
“Do all the survivors here go to this high school?”
“Yes. There’s Lisa Hoshimiya, a third-year student, and Ayumi Ichinose from second year. Hoshimiya doesn’t have the best attitude; she skipped school yesterday to play video games in her room, which saved her from running into zombies. Ichinose, on the other hand, is very studious. She was sick with a cold yesterday, which is how she avoided the zombies. She’s shy, though, so it may take a while for her to open up to you…”
“That’s okay. I’ll try to give her as much space as possible.”
“Thank you. One more thing… I’m sorry to ask this of you, but would you mind checking the dorm to see if there are any zombies inside? I should really be the one to do it, but I can’t leave the gate area.”
“No problem. In fact, I was going to ask if I could do that.”
And so Haruka and I went off to inspect all the rooms to see if any zombies were lurking there.
According to Tsukishiro, the dorm was five stories tall with a total of fifty rooms, each of which housed two students, with two desks and a bunk bed. We started at the end of the hall on the ground floor and checked each room, looking in the closets, under the beds, and any other places big enough for a person to hide.
Almost all the rooms were cluttered with girls’ belongings, since they’d still been using them right up until yesterday morning. Underwear was strewn about in some places, but I had to be the first to enter as long as there was a possibility of zombies lurking about. I checked each room mechanically, doing my best not to look any more than necessary.
“…Yuuma. Do you really think there’s a chance that zombies might be hiding in here somewhere?” Haruka asked after we’d inspected twenty rooms or so. It sounded like she’d already gotten bored. “Tsukishiro and the other girls slept here last night. Wouldn’t they have already run into zombies if they were still here?”
“Not necessarily. For example, there’s the possibility that someone might have gotten bit, come running in here, hidden under a bed, and only then turned into a zombie. Maybe they haven’t been able to crawl out.”
None of the zombies we’d run into so far had been very intelligent; it wouldn’t be surprising if one or two were still in here, unable to move.
“And that zombie might free itself at some point and attack a survivor. Hey, weren’t you the one who said zombies might be here in the first place?”
“That was just something I said on the spur of the moment to stop you from leaving me here.”
“Ah, I see. Still, even if there’s only a one percent chance this place isn’t totally safe, I won’t be able to relax unless I finish checking all the rooms.”
We continued sweeping the dorm until we finally arrived at Ayumi Ichinose’s room on the fourth floor. I didn’t see a need to check it for zombies, but I figured we should say hi to her anyway.
When I knocked, a faint reply came from inside, and the door opened a crack. The security chain was still attached as a short girl with dark hair peeked out with a fearful expression.
“Hi, I’m Yuuma Kousaka. This is Haruka Hyuuga. We’ll be staying here in the dorm with you starting today, so I thought we’d come by and say hello.”
“Oh… Yes… Tsukishiro told me about you…,” Ichinose replied in a whisper, her eyes focused somewhere off in the distance. She looked frightened, like a small animal that had stumbled across its natural predator.
“By the way, I heard you had a cold yesterday. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need any medicine or vitamin drinks.”
Ichinose’s expression seemed to soften a little. “Thank you, but I’ve already recovered…”
“You have? That’s good to hear… We better go, then. It was nice meeting you.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much…” Ichinose bowed so many times I thought she might break her neck, and Haruka and I went back to checking the area.
We finished inspecting the first four floors, then went up to Lisa Hoshimiya’s room on the fifth. The door opened as soon as I knocked, and a beautiful girl with blond hair appeared.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m—”
“Oh, Tsukishiro told me about you! Nice to meet you!” the girl said cheerfully, opening the door wide. I got a view of her incredible figure. She was dressed in a black camisole, which involuntarily drew my eyes to her chest.
…She might have even bigger boobs than Haruka…