Chapter Text
Rintarou wakes with a start as the boat bumps the jagged rocks of the shoreline. As soon as the danger had passed and the adrenaline left him, his body gave in and he slept the entire journey. Almost three hours later and the engine barely crawls the last kilometre on the final dribbles of gas in its tank. The fog thins, replaced by the afternoon sun over the shore.
”I could sleep for the rest of the day,” he says to Osamu as he stands on wobbly legs, stomach churning from the waves. He can’t shake the shiver, his arms and legs tremble as he walks.
“We won’t go far, I’ll find a place to make camp fer the evenin’”
”Do you think the town will be overrun?”
”Probably a few, stick to the outskirts like last time.” Killing the engine, Osamu leads the way out of the cabin and straps into his backpack, keeping his crossbow to hand. There are more missing arrows and Rintarou winces when he notices. If Osamu feels how light it is, he doesn’t comment. “We’re makin’ good time, we can afford the extra rest.”
Rintarou sneezes suddenly, grimacing. He can’t shake the chill even with the extra layers of clothing.
Jumping down first, Osamu lands quietly on the dried sea moss and rocks, quickly followed by Rintarou. His boots slip on wet stone but before he can tumble Osamu grabs his arm to steady him.
“I’m good, my sea legs are adjusting.”
His first impression of Honshu is that it’s…Desolate. It’s the only feeling carving in his chest as he looks out at the fog. The coast brings the wind up and Rintarou shudders again. There’s no immediate threat with how empty the port is, with the remnants of what looks like a bomb destroying all of the ships on Aomori port.
“Follow me.” Nudging him, Osamu leads the way, veering left towards an old, overgrown road that strays from the ruined port, and presumably the town. “There’s some caves up this way.”
“Ticking sleeping in a cave off my bucket list apparently,” Rintarou jokes, his teeth beginning to chatter. The sandy road leads them further down the port, towards a stony beach. It’s not quite Palawan, but Rintarou watches it, and if he squints, the orange glow of the sky makes the stones look almost like dark coloured sand.
The path winds by the shore and by the time they make it to a jagged cliffside twenty minutes later. Gulls roost on small jutting sections above and the sky is darkening. Osamu pauses to collect some old driftwood for a fire and Rintarou helps him carry it to the mouth of the cave.
“The tide shouldn’t stray far enough in to drown us but–” Osamu starts, though Rintarou doesn’t listen – his eyes widening when he spies a rock pool up ahead.
Running over to it, he dumps the wood by his feet to lean over the edge and stare into the water. Several deep green plants are submerged in the bright water, and he spies a flash of movement as some small brown fish dart between the plants. A hermit crab crawls along the bottom of the pool and without thinking, Rintarou scoops his hand inside and grabs it by the shell, lifting it up in the air and watching as it pokes its antenna out, its legs wiggling in the air.
“What should I name him?”
“Put it back,” Osamu tells him, though the man’s features are uncharacteristically soft. “Help with this fire, then ya can disturb the wildlife all ya like.”
Placing him back into the pool, Rintarou collects the wood up off the floor and joins Osamu in the cave. He’s almost embarrassed at how much the little things seem to amaze him, but screw everyone else, it’s his first time out in the world. At least it’s only Osamu who gets to see his usual nonchalance drop.
Osamu lights their fire a minute later, and Rintarou only briefly warms his hands on it before he’s exploring the back of the shallow cave. They’re positioned on a high rock for when the tide flows in, and he clambers over more rocks until he hits the back of the cave, wondering if there’s a secret tunnel or hidden bunker he can find.
“You’ll freeze if ya don’t come sit here,” Osamu tells him, while Rintarou is busy scratching his name into one of the rocks with a small knife.
He gets as far as the ‘N’ before a gust of wind sends a chill under his clothes and he reluctantly pauses, clambering back over the rocks and dead seaweed to the fire.
“I don’t wanna sleep,” Rintarou tells him with a yawn after munching on some dried leftover meat from Osamu’s bag.
Osamu doesn’t really say much to that, only makes a brief, noncommittal sound of acknowledgement. Rintarou watches him whilst he sits close to the fire and warms himself on it, noticing the dark circles under Osamu’s eyes and the way he’s somehow even paler than he was at Fukagawa. His stubble is long and prickly, a little like Hitoshi’s before he was killed, Rintarou thinks without meaning to. It’s the kind that’s scratchy and rough against the skin, leaving red marks against your cheeks and thighs. He’s startled by the sudden memory resurfacing, and his hands flex at his sides, itching for a distraction.
“I’m warm now,” Rintarou abruptly announces, forcibly halting the train of thought. “I’m going to look in the rockpool. I’ll stay within sight—” he tacks on when Osamu looks up and opens his mouth to argue.
The words stop trying to be my fucking dad, go unsaid as he leaves to walk along the rocky beach.
With a nod, Osamu watches him go, and Rintarou leaves his little box of things we don’t ever think about anymore deep inside the cave where it can’t reach him. At the rockpool, he tries to catch a fish and misses, and the hermit crab has scuttled into hiding. With the sky dark, and the water rippling, Rintarou catches sight of dozens of tiny flecks of bright blue on the bottom of the pool. He watches it, leaning so far over that his nose is almost touching the surface of the water, where any small creature could leap up and bite it.
It lasts only a second before going dark, but as soon as he disturbs the water, it lights up again with the same bright blue sheen, bioluminescent in the moonlight. The more he splashes in the water, the brighter it gets, until his hand is submerged fully as he runs his fingers through the sand, shimmering blue dancing from his fingertips before disappearing.
“Hey, Osamu!” He calls, turning back to squint towards the dark cave. The fire dances in the near distance, a trail of smoke filtering up towards the roof of the cave. Rintarou slinks back over the rocks towards it. “Don’t ignore me, there’s some— I don’t know. Something in the water. It’s kinda neat.”
When he approaches, entering the cave and hoisting himself up onto their rock, he finds Osamu slumped over as he dozes.
“Finally,” Rintarou says to the sleeping man, keeping his voice low. “I know you’ve been keeping watch and not letting me sleep, I’m observant.” Creeping around the fire, he quietly lowers himself down beside Osamu to watch him closely. “And I know you watch me. Whatever. You missed the light-up sand. It was cool.”
For the first time in days, he sits and stares up at the roof of the cave, listening to the steady crash of the waves against the rocks several feet away, stoking the fire and periodically peeking at Osamu as he sleeps heavily.
Sleep doesn’t come easy, and Rintarou is awake to watch the sun rise over the gentle sea several hours later, bundled up with his spare hoodie as a blanket. Osamu stirs behind him, and Rintarou mentally prepares himself for what is to come.
Aomori town was partially burned to the ground some time ago in an attempt to rid the infection, and many of the buildings are nothing but piles of rubble. They keep to the outskirts as much as they can, rusted and burnt-out cars sit upside-down piled up in the roads. When the sun rises in the sky, it warms a little with the beginning of spring, and there are a few budding trees with brightly coloured flowers peeking out towards the sky. There’s a strange pull of both calm and unease hanging in the air.
“You never told me what the big infected at the terminal was,” Rintarou says aloud, once they’re about halfway through the town. “It was huge, nothing like a person. Are there more?”
“Yeah,” Osamu says, no beating around the bush. “There’s plenty more south. They’re…mutated more than the ones we’ve mostly seen. Bigger and stronger, and there are some that are silent and real fast, they’re the worst ones.”
“You think we’ll have to fight some?”
“Most likely, why ya need to keep close ‘specially out here. We stay as a pair, no matter what.”
“Wanna hold hands while we walk?” Jokes Rintarou, nudging Osamu as they walk. The old man looks at him as if to say take this seriously — little does he know Rintarou is deadly serious. Osamu’s hands are probably warm inside his gloves. “You’re the one who keeps talking about how we need to glue ourselves together.”
“If one of the hunters grabs ya, even if I’m right here, there ain’t a scenario where I stop it in time,” Osamu tells him seriously.
“But nothing would happen to me,” Rintarou teases, “you wouldn’t let anything happen, admit it.”
“Just keep walkin’,” groans Osamu with a roll of his eyes, ignoring the smug little smirk Rintarou shoots at him.
They move cautiously past old cars and crumbled buildings, avoiding what remains of the main road through the town. A gust of wind rattles some window shutters of a standing building and Rintarou jumps, hands tightening around his axe. It’s quiet for a long time until they reach what looks like the fresh remnants of a crash, with a banged up car overturned and dented, out of place amongst the dusty, rusted long-abandoned other vehicles in the town. The asphalt is painted dark brown and Osamu pauses to examine the scene.
“That doesn’t look very old,” Rintarou comments, hand clenching his axe a little tighter. “Should we be worried?”
“Just stay close,” is all Osamu says, his next words cut off by a low, grumbling growl from several yards away. “We don’t wanna draw attention to ourselves.”
Grabbing Rintarou by the collar of his hoodie, he shoves him to a crouch with a strength that, despite the growing danger, sends Rintarou a little dizzy. A lone infected is ambling around, the smell of the blood on the ground masking Osamu and Rintarou’s scent.
The street feels impossibly long, each second feeling more like an entire minute. Rintarou’s senses are dragged in each direction, with the smell of death even stronger here than the calm Hokkaido countryside, and the wind carrying the faint sound of groans and scratches against old metal. Instincts tell him to run, slide over the nearest car and ram the sharp end of his axe into the skull of the nearest infected, but Osamu keeps a steadying hand on his collar. His thumb brushes Rintarou’s nape, accidentally, though if Osamu notices he doesn’t react or pull away.
They pass another corner, then another, keeping to the narrow, quiet roads of the town and quietly dodging any infected that comes their way. Tension coils tight in Rintarou’s chest and for a moment a tiny part of him wishes he were back in his container, or even in Hitoshi’s shed, with the fan whirring and his endless supply of DVD’s to work his way through on the old box tv. No less dangerous than here, but it was a predictable kind of danger, something familiar.
He almost wishes they could have prolonged their time in Hokkaido, trudging through the quiet, calm trees, where the main worry was how much water they could gather. The fragile illusion of calm was shattered when they reached the mainland.
Osamu halts them abruptly, finger raised to his lips. Swallowing, Rintarou scans the shadows, his imagination running wild with thoughts of the infected lurking behind every car or crumbling wall. One of Osamu’s hands steadies on his chest, palm planting firmly over Rintarou’s heart and it takes him a few moments to realise he’d been breathing far too heavily. Osamu is looking at him, as at least half a dozen infected pass by them on the other side of a turned-over truck. Rintarou immediately holds his breath, feeling the fingers on his chest twitch before Osamu withdraws his hand, blushing as though he hadn’t meant to touch him for so long.
“Down there,” he whispers, gesturing to an alley between two old buildings.
“Smart idea,” Rintarou murmurs breathlessly, still feeling the ghost of Osamu’s palm through the fabric of his hoodie.
They climb over concrete rubble, Rintarou scaling it faster than Osamu and smirking as he holds out a hand to hoist Osamu up. Osamu looks at him with a frown, before brushing past the arm and lifting himself up and over it. Rintarou turns first, foot connecting with something hard and almost tripping him over it. The sight causes him to gasp, and he holds a gloved hand over his mouth to stop himself.
The body is slumped against a wall, jaw hanging loose, and an eye hanging uselessly from thin pink tendrils out of the socket. It’s stiff from rigor mortis and before Rintarou can say anything, Osamu is grabbing his hood and pulling him along.
“That looks fresh,” Rintarou tells him, glancing back at the body in the alley. “What do we do?”
“Keep goin’,” is all Osamu says lowly in response. “Toldja we ain’t alone here.”
“If we’re being watched we should give them a show.”
Osamu looks at him tiredly, ultimately choosing to ignore Rintarou’s antics as they dip down another alley, avoiding the stragglers as they make their way through town. A nearby bang startles them, and an infected is pressed against a glass window, clawing at it with its long nails and spitting blood. The glass cracks from the force of its banging, but holds.
“...Should we?” He asks, axe raised.
“Don’t stop,” Osamu gruffly tells him, and they keep moving.
The sun climbs higher and Rintarou guesses it must be past noon by the time they stop for water, though it feels as though the rows and rows of buildings never end. Aomori isn’t that large according to Osamu and he has no idea how big Tokyo must be, it quickly makes Rintarou realise how large the world is, and how little of it he has seen. How different life may have been if he were born under better circumstances.
He finds an old bicycle, though the chain is too rusted to use and after wheeling it along for half a mile, Osamu eventually makes him leave it behind. The afternoon is oddly calm and they move a little slower, the tension in Rintarou’s muscles easing with each passing minute.
They stop on the veranda of an old shop to rest, the nearby sound of dripping water breaching the silence. It’s still and quiet, Rintarou dropping his backpack and sinking to the wooden steps, stretching his legs with a dramatic sigh. Osamu hovers nearby, crossbow slightly raised as he searches for danger.
“I think we’re good,” Rintarou tells him. “Your pacing makes me nervous.”
“One of us has to keep our guard up.”
“The infected aren’t exactly quiet, we’ll hear ‘em.” Osamu raises a brow and glances back around the area again, until Rintarou loudly slaps the wooden step he sits on. “Take five minutes. You can pace around looking broody after dinner.”
“I ain’t pacin’,” Osamu argues, finally dropping to sit beside Rintarou. “I’m keepin’ our asses safe.”
“You look like shit,” Rintarou bluntly tells him, passing his water bottle to Osamu, not at all watching the way his stubbled adams apple bobs with each swallow. “You know you can take a night off, right?”
“Hard habit to break,” shrugs Osamu, loosening the laces on his boots and leaning hack on the step. “Spent twenty years keepin’ people safe.”
Rintarou taps his fingers nervously on his knees, the denim so worn it's almost ripping a hole. He heard people in the normal world pay more for rips in their jeans, maybe he should tear them up with his knife later. “Didn’t your brother…?”
“Scrub did more to save my ass than I could his.”
“And he’s still alive…In all this.”
“Won’t be when I get my hands on his scrawny neck,” huffs Osamu, the closest thing Rintarou has heard to a laugh from the old man. “But if anyone could survive out here, it’s him. Fucker has probably rebuilt Tokyo in the Hyogo wilderness by now.”
It goes silent for a moment, as Rintarou contemplates his next word. He has never been great with them, and certainly has no comforting words – a shoulder bump that Osamu doesn’t lean away from being all he has to offer.
“If I pick up some of the slack during the day will you start waking me up so you can sleep?”
Osamu cocks his head and glances at him through thick, dark lashes. Up close, the slight wrinkles under his eyes, framed by the dark circles, are so vivid that it almost shocks Rintarou. “Pickin’ up the slack?”
“Being more useful, or whatever,” Rintarou grumbles, crossing his legs on the step, which is so small that his knee rests on Osamu’s thigh. Osamu looks down at where they touch, but doesn’t move as Rintarou expects him to. Maybe he really is that tired. “Teach me how to shoot that thing, and hunt, and whatever else.”
“Sure,” Osamu agrees faster than he had expected. “If I get some time and some wood, I’ll carve ya a bow in half a day.”
“And, I can keep watch just as good as you,” Rintarou reminds him. “If you want to die from sleep deprivation, I won’t stop you. But I won’t explain that to your brother.”
“Yer a menace,” Osamu laughs for real this time, scratching his overgrown undercut as he does when he’s embarrassed (so Rintarou is learning). “I said already, hard habit to break.”
“...You’ll see him soon,” Rintarou says so quietly, hoping Osamu might not hear him.
“I know, I hafta,” Osamu swallows.
“You both know what you’re doing…It’s badass.”
“Ya lived fer almost twenty years too, Suna.”
Rintarou has to bite his tongue to stop himself from divulging something he shouldn’t. His survival isn’t half as admirable. He could have survived the wilderness and spent years killing infected instead of the hand he was dealt.
“Show me the crossbow,” he says instead, ignoring the odd look from Osamu.
Silence blankets them again, and Osamu lifts his crossbow up from the ground and gently deposits it in Rintarou’s lap, their fingers brushing for a single second before they each quickly withdraw, Rintarou feeling his heart beginning to race.
“Ya shot it before, yeah? Hold it like this.” Taking Rintarou’s hands, Osamu guides them into position and adjusts Rintarou’s grip and position. “Loadin’s easy, like this.”
“I think I got it,” Rintarou tells him, clicking the arrow into place before holding the bow up and pointing it at the remnants of an old wooden fence.
“Try and hit the middle post,” Osamu says, voice close to his ear. “Exhale and release once ya got it.”
“Hardly the same as a moving target.”
“When we get back in the forest I’ll take ya huntin’”
“No infected?”
“Not if we can help it.”
Taking a few deep breaths, Rintarou aims the crossbow with one eye squeezed shut in concentration. He exhales, then when he’s about to fire, there’s a suddenly loud sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the fence that has him firing suddenly and missing.
“Get up, get up,” he hears Osamu say hurriedly, grabbing Rintarou by the hood and hoisting him to his feet with great strength. Moments later, when they’re still standing by the shop back entrance, Osamu hauling him away, the fence collapses and at least a dozen infected spill into the small yard. “Get the fuck inside.”
Not needing to be asked twice, Rintarou instinctively throws the crossbow back to Osamu and races to the shop, slamming his shoulder into the locked door in an attempt to open it. “It’s stuck!” Osamu fires an arrow at the closest infected, but they’re quickly being overrun.
“Kick it down!” He barks at Rintarou, using the bow as a melee weapon and shoving three infected back with it. Rintarou’s axe is on the floor and he grabs it, swinging wildly and taking out another infected as Rintarou kicks the door hard. Once, twice, three times, foot aiming for the old lock until it finally breaks and the door flies open.
“C’mon!” He yells to Osamu, witnessing the moment claws fly towards the older man as he grapples with an infected.
Rintarou barrels forward, slamming into the infected before it can slash Osamu across the face. Osamu fights off the one he’s locked in with, and they use the precious few seconds they have to turn and run inside the shop, slamming the door behind them and pressing all of their weight against it. The two of them together hold it, just, though with each slam against it from outside, they’re jolted forward and have to fight to keep it closed.
“What do we do?!” Rintarou shouts at Osamu, as Osamu frantically looks around the bare room for something to barricade the door with. “Ow, I can’t hold it.”
With a grunt, Osamu pushes back against the door with his full strength, his muscles straining, until the door is about to click shut. Before it can, something fast and heavy flies against the door and knocks it wide open, sending them both flying to the ground.
Rintarou lands with a painful thud, already scrambling to his feet the moment his knee connects with concrete. “Upstairs, get the fuck up now!” he hears Osamu yell at him, and then they’re bolting through the shop, up a rickety, winding staircase with at least four infected following behind them. One of the infected legs falls through a rotten floorboard and slows the rest down, Osamu using it to their advantage to gain the precious few seconds they need to lock themselves in an old bedroom.
There’s a thud, a deafening screech, and the scraping of sharp nails against wood when Rintarou tumbles into the room and falls face-first on the floor. Osamu is already pushing an old broken desk against the door and Rintarou leaps up to help, ignoring the twinge in his knee. They pile up whatever broken pieces of wood and furniture they have against the door – which rattles and shakes with the infected piling against it, but holds.
Suna, Suna, Suna?
“...You good?” It takes him a long moment to realise Osamu had been calling his name, the man now standing in front of him, one hand planted on his shoulder as he shook him lightly. “Sit down.”
Dropping like a sack of potatoes, Rintarou stares at the rattling door, jumping each time it vibrates. “I’m alive,” he breathes, heart hammering wildly.
“All I ask fer.” There’s a bang and another thud, and Rintarou feels like he’s in a nightmare.
Standing, he makes his way to the singular window and stares at the ground below. More infected mill about outside the shop, fighting over some old rotten remains and limping aimlessly in circles.
“We’ll stay up here until morning, get comfy.” There’s another bang and the door shudders as Osamu sinks to the dusty ground.
“Kinda hard with our friends still knocking,” Rintarou replies with a shaky laugh. He steps away from the window, plopping down near Osamu. “I dropped my axe.”
“Skull bashin’ will hafta wait until mornin’” Osamu jokes, rustling around inside his bag for something. “Let me check yer knee.”
“It’s fine,” Rintarou shrugs. “Barely hurts.”
Osamu sends him a dubious look. “I toldja I didn’t want ya to slow me down.”
“It’s no biggie.” Rintarou swallows nervously. “Maybe swollen.”
“Can I check?”
Rintarou nods, though he isn’t quite sure what he’s let himself in for when he stretches his leg with a wince and has one of Osamu’s large hands gently massage over his knee. The touch is warm, clinical, yet Rintarou leans into it instinctively. “I think I can walk on it, it’s fine.”
“I need ya to run on it,” Osamu says seriously, his thumb pressing gently into the swollen tissue. Rintarou hisses out a breath, partially from pain, partially from the feel of Osamu’s fingers on him.
“I think I could manage.”
“Rest on it until tomorrow.” The hand withdraws, producing a bottle of pain pills. “Take one, we’re rationin’ these. We haven’t got a choice but to keep movin’ tomorrow but it’s not bad, it’ll subside in days.”
“You patched a lot of people up?”
“Guess so, yeah. Took off someone’s arm to stop the infection spreadin’”
“Did it work?” Osamu’s lack of response gives him his answer. “Shit, okay. What will you do if one gets me?”
“They won’t.”
Rintarou hopes he’s right. Yawning, he takes the pain pills from Osamu and dry swallows one, getting comfortable on the floor as he waits for it to kick in.
“Get some sleep. We’re movin’ at first light.”
The air inside the shop is cold, and Rintarou sneezes from the gathered dust around them. Using his spare hoodie as a pillow, Rintarou curls up on the hard ground beside Osamu, taking small, secret glances at him as he pretends to try and sleep. Osamu’s features are sharp and handsome against the faint moonlight spilling in through the dirty window. It’s a nice view to fall asleep to, though Rintarou finds it difficult to relax even long after the thumps against the door lessen and cease.
When Rintarou wakes, it’s slow, the grating sound of scratching against metal tugging him from a dream he doesn’t quite remember. There’s a guttural, animallike hiss and when he blearily opens his eyes it’s even darker. The noise comes louder, the rattle of the door jolting him upright.
Breath catching, his eyes shoot to the door, then to Osamu – crouched near him with his crossbow loaded and raised. He gestures for Rintarou to stay quiet.
Something far stronger knocks against the door, jolting the desk. There’s a gargling, wet sound, the wood trembling and the door hinges bending, primed to snap.
Rintarou’s pulse drums in his ears. How many? He mouths to Osamu.
Osamu glances at the window, then back at the door, holding up one finger to Rintarou. “One strong fucker.”
Another slam rattles the door; shaking dust from the ceiling.
“Shit,” Rintarou hisses under his breath. His hand grips the strap of his backpack, quietly swinging it onto his shoulders. “What do we do? Can we fight it?”
“I could,” whispers Osamu, “but I don’t know how many others are still inside.” A nearby bang – coming from down the stairs, confirms his suspicions. “We’ll try the window.”
The bottom hinges of the door snap, the rusted hinge flying across the room. Rintarou’s eyes track it before nodding quickly. “How many are outside?”
“Five,” whispers Osamu, “get here and climb down. It’s not far.”
Rintarou darts across the room, slipping out from the small window as Osamu yanks it open with difficulty, a poof of dust flying up into the air. The door rattles harder, the desk scraping an inch forward.
“Hurry.”
“The axe?”
“Leave it, we have more weapons.” Before Rintarou can argue further, he’s practically pushed out of the window, and right as he jumps, he hears the desk fly across the room and shatter, and a bloodcurdling screech can be heard from behind Osamu.
As Rintarou lands with a thud, he quickly turns, expecting to see Osamu jump and land beside him on the ground, but the man is nowhere to be seen. There’s a faint, muffled sound of a struggle and Rintarou quickly scans the downstairs for a window he can jump back inside.
“Osamu!” He shouts, “get the fuck down here!” There’s no answer, and Rintarou starts to struggle with the first floor window in front of him, cursing when he realises it’s locked.
He’s about to slam his elbow into it when there are loud footsteps from behind him, and a loud, guttural groan. Rintarou is shoved against the window, the breath knocking out of him, and the disgusting snapping of teeth is so close to his ear he starts to panic. The infected goes to bite him, fangs bared and inches from ripping the flesh from his neck, when Rintarou drives his elbow, and then his foot, as hard as he can into it. He throws them both back, knocking them both to the ground. The infected’s grip on him loosens and he uses the split second he has to roll away from it, grabbing a brick on the ground before spinning around right as the creature snarls and spits at him. Before it can grab him again, he’s slamming the brick into its rotten features, the squishy nose caving in. It stumbles back on its knees, startled, and Rintarou throws himself at it with a yell, beating the infected’s slowly decomposing skull in with the brick. He doesn’t stop until it has stopped moving, the face an unrecognisable, bloody mess. He’s covered in blood, and he slips on it as he stands, gasping for breath.
When he lifts his bloodied hands up to the moonlight, they’re trembling. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he curses, “shit. Osamu?!” He nervously calls, suddenly feeling nauseous. “Please be fucking alive.” Rintarou starts to hyperventilate, the bile in his stomach threatening to travel up to his throat. His side hurts, and he won’t stop fucking shaking. “I’m not joking, asshole,” he calls towards the window. “Fuck, we’re dead.”
As though answering his prayers, Osamu appears from the top window a second later, lowering himself down and dropping with a wince of pain. His dark hair is sticky with blood and it’s streaked across his face. “You good?” He asks, concerned.
Rintarou doesn’t get the chance to answer before Osamu is lifting his crossbow and firing at two infected behind them. Two clean shots, the arrows whistling through the night air and burying into twin skulls with a wet crack. They crumple soundlessly to the gravel.
“Y-yeah, it’s not my blood,” Rintarou wheezes, “I don’t have a weapon.”
Grabbing his backpack straps, Osamu spins him around and unzips his bag, producing the crowbar and shoving it in Rintarou’s hands. “We ain’t out of this yet. Did that thing bite ya?”
“No,” Rintarou gulps. “No. I’m good...And you?"
"Ain't my blood either." Part of Osamu's hoodie is torn, but other than a few scrapes and bruises, he bounces back quickly.
The remaining infected start to approach, and Rintarou jumps when Osamu squeezes his shoulder. “Stay behind me. Ya did good.” Behind, the side door to the shop bursts open and Osamu hauls him forward. “Change of plan, fuckin’ run.”
They fly down the next street, Rintarou’s lungs burning as they dodge past the infected, Osamu whips around to fire his crossbow and take out the stragglers that get too close to them. Rintarou swings at one in their path, bludgeoning it with the crowbar. He trips it over, caving in its skull while Osamu covers for him. The pair work seamlessly, keeping the infected off each other's backs as they dash through the dark side streets of Aomori.
“Left!” Rintarou shouts, and Osamu whirls around to fire at the infected coming towards them.
“Down!” Osamu shouts back at him, and Rintarou drops to the ground right before an arrow sails through the air and pierces through the eye of an infected behind him.
Eventually, when Osamu is running low on arrows and Rintarou feels as though he might throw up from how out of breath he is, they scale a still-standing concrete wall into someone’s garden, where they collapse on the ground, out of breath.
“I mean it, ya did real good,” Osamu pants, quickly scanning the enclosed garden before unzipping his bag for the last of their water.
“I don’t feel fucking good.” Rintarou swallows hard, the adrenaline waning.
Pressing his back to the brick wall, he brings his tired legs up to his chest, his heart feeling as though it might punch its way out of his ribcage. There’s a scrape and a screech that makes them both freeze, but it’s distant enough that they don’t try to run again.
“Don’t make too much noise,” Osamu says quietly.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Water is tossed his way but Rintarou’s hands are still shaking and he drops it twice. “Fuck.” He can barely unscrew the lid, but ignores Osamu when he insists on doing it for him. “I thought we were both dead for a second, back there.”
“Well we ain’t,” Osamu offers, shuffling up beside him. “Yer covered in blood.”
“So are you.” An old cloth is passed his way, and Rintarou wets it with the water bottle and starts scrubbing his face and hands clean. “Do you still think I’m slowing you down?”
“Never,” Osamu responds immediately. They let a comfortable silence fall for several minutes as Osamu scrubs his face and hair, grimacing at a drying piece of entrail that falls from him. “Tomorrow we’ll be outta here. I need a damn bath.”
“Out of here and somewhere even more dangerous?”
“That’s the way it is down here.” Standing, Osamu wipes the dust from his pants, extending out a hand – which Rintarou takes embarrassingly quickly, to lift him to his feet. “Still a few hours before sunrise. Let’s see if we have any residents inside.”
Hours later, Rintarou blinks his eyes awake as morning light shines in through the window of the house, and they pack and eat a few mouthfuls of dried rations, before stepping outside to slip out of Aomori. The night has left him raw, his nerves frayed and his entire body aching. Yet despite everything, there has been a noticeable shift between them as of late. Osamu is still closed off and reluctant to talk half as much as Rintarou does, but there’s a protectiveness to him that the previous night seemed to strengthen. If the irrational part of Rintarou runs wild, it would say that Osamu is softening for him.
It leaves him wary, unsure where they stand and whether the man will in time want something from him. Despite this irrational, nagging feeling, he sleeps perhaps the soundest he has in a long time.
The spring air is crisp, though warmer than Hokkaido, and the morning mist acts as good cover from the occasional lone infected that cross their paths. They climb over long abandoned cars and the remains of houses and buildings, though soon, the streets widen and turn grassier, the groans of the infected now another memory.
Rintarou sneaks the occasional glance at Osamu as they walk side by side. His face is partially concealed by his hood, and the crossbow is tight in his hands, loaded and ready. He’s touchier now, Rintarou thinks to himself, the feel of Osamu’s hands on his collar and on his knee as prevalent as they were the previous day. The chill hides his blush, and Rintarou pulls up his own hood, tightening the strings.
“Glad we like, didn’t die or whatever,” he says into the silence, Osamu offering a hum of acknowledgement.
“Me too, Suna.”
Rintarou is desperate to say more — There was a moment I thought you might die. You didn’t see how shit-scared I was. I’m not ready for this.
Instead, he says: “We might a pretty decent team, don’t you think?”
For the first time in over an hour, Osamu twists his head to look at him. “Yeah…Yer alright Suna-kun.”
“You can call me Rintarou, old man, my friends do.”
“Didn’t seem like ya had that many friends back at camp. More enemies I reckon.”
“Ouch,” Rintarou laughs. “Didn’t realise you had jokes. I didn’t see you with many friends either, so that means we’re a good pair.”
Osamu makes a grunting sound, and Rintarou smirks.
“I didn’t hear you deny it.”
“Workin’ on my next joke.”
“I’ll be your age before that happens.” Osamu sends him a look, but doesn’t respond, speeding up slightly instead. “Don’t leave me to be zombie food, friend!”
“It’s a temptin’ idea sometimes, believe me.”
They finally meet the highway, though Osamu swerves off it to a narrower, quieter country road, ignoring the signs for Sendai and instead head towards the country. From the top of the hill they climb, thick forests of trees blanket their way forward, and the town of Aomori can be seen in the distance, swallowed in a thick fog.
Rintarou stops walking to take in the view, still awed about how vast the land is, and how the photos and few videos he’s seen over the years doesn’t do any of it justice. Up here, where there are no infected, and the sounds of birds and insects surround them, where nature has taken over and spilled onto disused human settlements, the land feels as though it is capable of peace. He glances at Osamu – who has stopped beside him, and something unfamiliar tightens in his chest. The puppy crush was never a fluke.
Osamu notices him looking though doesn’t comment, meeting Rintarou’s piercing gaze before switching his attention back to the forest before them. He does eventually speak, though it’s so quiet that Rintarou isn’t sure he was meant to hear it. “Yer not slowin’ me down.” It’s as close to saying I’m glad I’m not doin’ this alone that Osamu will say aloud.