“Wonder what they’re hiding,” I muttered to myself as I walked down the hall.
Cameras positioned specifically to minimize the number of blind spots, key card access floors, partitions that could wall off entire floors... The security measures were drastic to say the least.
“Err, guess I should say ‘what they were hiding.’” I made my way over to Shiiko’s room, clutching a box of chocolate cookies from some foreign brand.
Y’know, aren’t these the same cookies the zombie girl from earlier was hoarding? I guess you could say they’re to die for.
Sorry, I had to.
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t much of a fan. They were a little too sweet for my liking, both the piece of chocolate inside and the cookie itself.
I imagine it’s good for stocking up on carbs, though.
Otoha and I had finished the box without really thinking about it, and then the realization that these were Shiiko’s precious food supplies had hit.
I figured the right thing to do would be to give it back to her, profusely apologizing in the process.
Then again, Shiiko’ll probably reject it, seeing as she was hellbent on killing herself, but it’s still worth a shot.
I knocked on her door.
“Can I come in?”
“Knock yourself out.” I could almost see the sulky expression accompanying her tone.
Got permission. May as well make the best of it.
“I need to ask you something.” Shiiko was sitting in her wheelchair in the middle of the room with a gloomy look on her face, just as I had imagined. The room looked clean but was uncannily empty; there was nothing in it but a table and a PC.
Did she live here? Wait, there’s no bed. This must be her dedicated office or something along those lines.
“Oh, and here.” I held up the empty cookie box.
“You—”
“We ate a whole box by accident. Sorry ’bout that.” I set the box down on the desk.
“It’s fine,” Shiiko said. “Not like I’m going to need it.”
Told ya.
In any case, I knew proselytizing wasn’t going to do us any good, so I just thanked my lucky stars for sparing me the scolding and cut straight to the chase.
“There’s something we need to look into, but the PCs are all password-protected.”
“What did you expect? They’re the company’s computers.” Shiiko moved over to her desk. “You can use mine if you like.”
“That’s awfully kind of you.” I walked up behind her and gazed at the screen.
Wait a minute...
“I’ll give you the password, but only under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Promise me you’ll mind your own business from now on.”
In other words, “Let me kill myself in peace.”
“Promise me that, and you can take the cookies, the water dispensers, whatever. I’ll even give you this key card so you can search the building. The security room should have some leftover weapons.”
“That’s nice.”
Though turning a blind eye to a young girl jumping off a roof sounds kinda rough. What’s the plan here?
I mulled it over for a bit before I decided to simply change the subject. I figured that if I got to know her better, it might open up a new way forward.
“Are these chocolate cookies, like, real popular or what?”
“Huh?”
“This morning, we saw a zombie in a shopping mall who had a whole bunch of these, too. Zombies have this tendency to, y’know, repeat what they did when they were alive, so it’s kinda funny to think that one used to hoard sweets in its past life.”
A little too much sugar for my liking, but I could imagine someone loving it. Our tastes were colored by our cultural background and personal experiences, after all. The concept of food culture existed for a reason.
“A zombie?”
“Yup, it was absolutely obsessed.”
The moment Shino had reached out for one of the boxes, the zombie had immediately pounced on her. The most likely explanation was that Shino had simply gotten too close. At least, that was what I figured. Looking at it another way, however, the zombie could’ve been defending its precious chocolate cookies.
“Women sure love their sweets, don’t they? Can’t say I relate, personally spea—”
“What did she—” Shiiko blurted, practically shouting by this point. “Sorry. What did it look like?”
“Hm?”
“What kind of zombie was it? What was it wearing?” Shiiko, who hadn’t seemed all that interested in chatting with me, had suddenly grown awfully invested.
Her sudden change in attitude was a tad concerning, but I couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass me by, so I kept going.
“The kind that crawls across floors, I guess? I remember its clothes being dirty. Didn’t get to see much of its face, though, what with the hair draped over it. It wore glasses, too—silver-rimmed ones, if memory serves.”
Shiiko’s lips quivered uncontrollably for a while before she collapsed in her chair, completely dejected.
“What’re you doing, Noriko?”
“Noriko?” I echoed. Shiiko lifted her head up. “Isn’t she...?”
Isn’t Noriko one of the people Shiiko mentioned? The ones who abandoned her. Judging from her tone, they must’ve been close, unlike her and the other employees.
I continued, “Does that mean what I think it means?”
Although Shiiko just sat there in silence, chewing on her fingernails as though fighting to keep something suppressed, I had a pretty good idea of what was going on in her mind.
“Those chocolate cookies were your favorite, weren’t they?” Shiiko maintained her staunch silence. “It’s all coming together now.”
Hook, line, and sinker.
“Noriko wanted you to have those chocolate cookies so bad, even death itself couldn’t stop her from trying. That’s how much she cared.”
“Quit running your goddamn mouth!” Shiiko slammed her palm on the table. “You know nothing! They abandoned me, both of them! That zombie is just some nobody who liked these a little too much!” Shiiko grabbed the box and threw it at me.
“Watch it!”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Shiiko thrashed around in her wheelchair, screaming, “They tossed me aside just like those cookies! Everybody does! That’s all my life ever will be, abandonment after abandonment after abandonment.”
I remembered her telling me about how her mom had sold her. That must’ve scarred her deeply. It bled into her views, her thoughts, and everything else.
The thought lingered like a dark cloud, taunting her. No matter how close she got to someone, they’d abandon her eventually. After all, even her own mother had.
She couldn’t bear to get her hopes up or allow herself to be happy; she had to detach herself, or else the pain would consume her.
Shiiko had to convince herself that she had been abandoned, that it was par for the course and not worth grieving over, as it was her single emotional barrier.
“They abandoned me!” Shiiko cried shrilly. “So it’s fine!”
It’s “fine” for her to abandon her own worthless, meaningless life and finally have peace. That’s what she’s thinking.
I looked at her and said, “I can work with that.”
You’re really not making this easy on me, you little brat!
“Huh?”
“You said it yourself: you were abandoned. That’s exactly what happened. You said it, so it must be true.”
Shiiko must’ve been caught off guard by that one; she just gawked at me in silence.
You’re the smartest person I know, but you’re too stupid to realize just how ridiculous you sound right now. Anyway, now for the clincher.
I kneeled down to her level, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Shiiko Katsura, you were abandoned.”
She winced.
It’s fine when you say it, but not when other people say it. Pretty common. Self-deprecation is just a defense mechanism people use to protect themselves from the scorn and disdain of other, stronger individuals. I of all people would know.
“That’s why I’m here. I’ve come to pick you back up.”
“What?”
“You’ve been dropped, right? Well, first come, first served. You’re mine now. I own you.” I placed my right hand on the back of her chair and continued the onslaught. “Don’t you dare die or go off somewhere without my permission; I’m not having any of that. Remember, you’re mine now.”
“Y-You can’t do that!”
“You don’t belong to anyone. They all left you behind. Heck, you’ve even abandoned yourself. I don’t see the problem, so yeah, you’re mine, all mine. Don’t worry, I’m the kind of guy who never throws out anything. Never know when you might need it. My room feels awfully small because of it, though.”
Instead of throwing out or selling my old gun controllers, I had always stuffed them into boxes stacked on top of the bookshelf. That “junk” ended up having a purpose after all—namely, saving me from being eaten alive by my own mother.
“Actually, I think I need you right now. Collect data, now. Pronto! Hop to it!”
Shiiko stared at me in disbelief for a few moments, then averted her gaze.
“What a complete moron.”
You’re not wrong, but there are some things only a moron can do.
“Hey, Hiroaki.” Otoha popped out from out of nowhere. “What’s the... hold-up?”
If I had to guess, she probably got bored waiting and came to voice her complaints.
She looked at me, then at Shiiko, then blinked twice. “So, you’ve shown your true colors.”
“What are you talking about?! And can you please put that thing down?!” It was only then that I noticed what was wrong with this picture.
Guy bent over a girl’s wheelchair, hand on the back seat, his face centimeters away from hers. To a bystander, this would look awfully suspect, like I was trying to have my way with her or something.
“Using her disability to get what you want, despicable.”
“I would never, ever do such a—”
“He said he owns me now.”
Yeah, okay, I did! But I didn’t mean it in a sexual way! Otoha, you’re getting the wrong idea yet again!
“Hiroaki...”
“Cross my heart and hope to die!”
I desperately pleaded for my life as Otoha lifted her shovel overhead with the fury of a thousand suns.