“Nooo!”
Hearing Tetsuko ready her shotgun behind me, I quickly shouted, “She’s clean! Clean as a whistle! Not a hair on her head was sullied, I promise you!”
“Is that so?” Otoha tilted her head sideways, lowering the shovel.
“Yes. A-At least, I think so,” Shino said.
“Okay. Cool.”
“Really? That’s all?” I heaved a huge sigh.
Otoha’s unparalleled, quick decision-making skills were reassuring and sometimes utterly terrifying. Her calls tended to be right on the money—when it came to zombie-related matters, anyway—but everyone else wasn’t always on board. Especially not in the heat of the moment.
Had Otoha actually gone through and chopped off one of Shino’s limbs, she would’ve had a head full of lead not a second later, whether she’d been right or not.
My blood pressure’s through the roof right now.
I turned to the maid. “Uemura, I’m so, so sorry for what just happened. Take Kosahana back to the car. We’ll catch up.”
“If you insist.” Tetsuko nodded and went back down the hall with Shino.
“Listen,” I said to Otoha. “Would it hurt for you to, I dunno, think before you act?”
“Immediate threats call for immediate action.”
“I get that, I do, but you did just try ripping an innocent girl’s clothes off right in front of me.”
She gave me a look. “And...?”
I can almost see the question marks flying out of her head.
“It’s, you know, it’s embarrassing. For both parties.”
If Otoha had bothered to explain her reasoning beforehand and gotten Shino’s consent, things would’ve gone down much differently. Otoha’s actions made sense; assuming Shino had, in fact, been scratched, immediate action would’ve been very much necessary. Ripping off her clothes without her explicit consent, though, had been a step too far.
“We’ve done it countless times. Was it embarrassing for you?”
“Umm, yeah. Very, I might add.”
We checked each other’s bodies every single day without fail, but we did it my way. Having learned from my mistakes, I always made sure to get inspected first. That way, my little Johnny wouldn’t get riled up, and even if it did, I’d already have my pants back on by then.
Otoha never seemed to mind being seen half naked one bit, but she did find my little man a tad too intimidating, so the arrangement benefited both of us.
“You always look fine to me.”
“Look, Otoha, look. I’m a teenager surging with hormones, for crying out loud.”
“But—”
“Still, I push through. I’ll never have a repeat of that dreaded incident on day one. Never again, you hear?”
Otoha blinked once, twice, then said, “That’s nice.”
“What is?”
“Well, you know...” She struggled to give me a straight answer.
Her cheeks are turning a little pink, aren’t they? Could she be thinking about the day one incident? Anything but that, please. Just put me out of my misery.
“So, uh, zombies tend to mimic their old behavioral patterns, right?”
“Tend to. Exceptions exist.”
The overwhelming majority of zombies fell into this category. According to Otoha, that was the case in many zombie movies, too.
“Then tell me.” I crouched beside the corpse and picked up a bag. “What was it planning to do with all this sugar?”