[chaptered] Outside the Vault (2/?)
Title: Outside the Vault (2/?)
Author: junjun_pon
Pairing: Matsumiya
Genre: Horror, Angst, Adventure, Drama
Rating: R (language and violence (warning: character death))
Disclaimer: I do not own the boys!
Summary: Based off the popular game “The Last of Us.” After being left behind during a mass-evacuation, Nino struggles to survive against the infected and other humans.
a/n: A new chapter! This was heartbreaking to write T_T
=========
[Chapter 1]
=========
“A vault? What, are you a corpse?” Jun says, allowing Nino to lead him out into the hallway.
Nino has a delayed reaction as if he were thinking. “Practically…” he replies.
After a short time of walking to the basement, luckily avoiding any dead along the way, they reach the giant silvery door of the vault. Jun readies his knife just in case there is a surprise on the other side.
As the door opens, a rotten stench fills their general area and Jun’s face scrunches in disgust. He covers his nose and mouth with his left arm, “What the fuck is that smell?” Nino seems to not notice the smell and avoids a reply. He slips in through the narrow opening. The door was heavy enough to fear opening it too far in case of emergency. Jun follows in after Nino and feels nauseous as the dead stench intensifies.
“Satoshi-kun, I’m back!” Nino says cheerfully. He sets down his backpack and begins unloading some of the items in the corner with the empty cans. “I brought you kale. Do you know what that is?” he says examining the can.
Jun pushes the door shut and keeps his mouth and nose covered.
“Who’s Satoshi?” Jun asks. He lays eyes on the decayed body at the back of the rather small metal room. “Holy shit, there’s a dead person in here…what did you call him?”
Nino acts as if there isn’t anything wrong with the body, “Ah, this is Satoshi-kun. Satoshi-kun, this is Matsumoto-san.” Nino smiles cutely. As expected, the body lies there motionless.
“Ah…you do know he’s dead, right, kid?” Jun asks carefully, hoping he would not puke.
“Yeah…I know…but I should still take care of him…” Nino replies.
“You should toss the body. It reeks!” Jun says, not even bothering to move any closer than the door.
Nino looks at Jun with disbelief and a little anger, “I couldn’t just throw him out!”
“Well, it’s just a body…” Jun says. He grumbles, “This isn’t healthy, kid.”
“I couldn’t just throw him out!” Nino repeats, “I need to bury him…but-“
“You don’t need to bury this guy, just toss him out,” Jun says, getting irritated that Nino isn’t understanding him.
“You don’t understand…” Nino says a bit somber.
Jun is annoyed again, “No, you don’t understand. This is unhealthy. I’m surprised you’ve lived this long and that his maggots haven’t started eating you!”
“I wanted to bury him a long time ago, but I can’t do it alone,” Nino says, shaking because he’s upset. “Everyone’s gone, and there are infected outside, I just-“
“Who is this Satoshi-kun guy anyway?” Jun asks. He was slowly becoming accustomed to the smell in the room.
Nino calms himself and hesitates. “He was my boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” Jun says with disbelief. Nino nods and sits on the floor next to the body.
“I met him in a park right after I graduated from high school. He was painting a bird I think,” he says with a small smile, “He looked poor as dirt, but he was actually pretty wealthy.”
Jun holds in a chuckle and listens further, feeling he’d lend Nino his ear after insulting Nino’s decision about the dead man’s body.
“For almost six years he spoiled me rotten. I never had to work. I could just stay at home, do what I wanted to do while he worked and spoiled me some more,” Nino says softly, staring at the decaying body longingly.
“Spoiled? I could see that,” Jun mocks. Nino ignores Jun’s stab and continues.
“He never asked anything of me. So I felt that I should take care of him in return…” Jun opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off.
“When they evacuated this city, they made it clear that anyone left behind was left behind. The military would come back for no one,” Nino says, “Satoshi wanted to stay and ride out whatever was going on. This apocalypse or whatever he called it.”
Interested, Jun keeps quiet and sits on the floor, his back flush against the vault door.
“I wanted to believe we’d be safe, so I said nothing and let him protect me like he wanted.” Nino paused and took a deep breath. “But in time, we ran out of food and water, so we decided to leave our home and go into the city. The government said nothing about what was occurring, so naturally, we were shocked when we arrived and saw the infected. We ran for hours until we ended up right outside of this building. We stopped to take a breath and I got attacked. It was one of those fast ones. I almost didn’t see it in time, but I managed to run a little before it jumped me and grabbed my leg. Satoshi came after me. I tried to fight the infected person off, but I got bit on my leg instead. Satoshi grabbed the infected person off me and got bit on his wrist.”
Confused, Jun tries to interrupt, but Nino continues.
“From what I remember, he managed to disable the creature and picked me up. I fainted or something. Then I remember we ended were here, in this room, and Satoshi had already tried to bandage my leg and was struggling to cover his arm. In return I helped him, but he looked ill. He left to find food and told me to stay here, so I did. He had food and weapons when he got back, but he looked tired and just awful in general.” Nino looks down at the body beside him.
“We were only here for a couple days, and in that time, it happened…”
-----
“Satoshi-kun, are you sure you’re alright?” Nino asks softly, crawling over to Ohno who is looking at the unwrapped wound on his wrist.
“Don’t worry, Kazunari, it’s probably just infected. I’ll go looking for some medicine tomorrow, okay?” Nino nods and looks through the food and opens a bag of potato chips and eats some.
“How’s your leg?” Satoshi asks, giving Nino a warm smile. Nino smiles back, “It’s okay. It still hurts though…” They sit in silence for a while, letting Nino think while he munches the potato chips.
“Ne, Satoshi-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Those things outside…are they really zombies? Like in the movies?” Nino asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” he replies.
“We both got bit, so…does that mean we’ll turn into those things too?”
“I don’t know, baby. Maybe.”
Nino panics a bit but tries not to let it show. “If it’s true…then we’ll just lose our minds together in here, right?”
Satoshi winces when he moves his arm, “Probably. If it’s true.”
Later,when Nino lies down on the cold floor to rest, he tries to ignore Satoshi’s pained sighs and the sounds of the infected outside clawing at the door every time they make a noise during the night time hours. He finally falls asleep.
The next day Satoshi begins to act vicious and almost violent toward Nino.
“Satoshi-kun, when can we leave here?” he asks hugging Satoshi. Nino is pushed away.
“We’ll never be able to leave here. We’ll just die in here,” he says harshly.
Shocked that Satoshi pushed him in such a way he takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry, I-“
“It’s all your fault,” Satoshi says angrily, cutting Nino off rudely, “I should have just left you there and saved myself. Now I’m gonna die because of you.”
Nino just stares at him in disbelief, tears forming in his eyes. “Why would you say that, Satoshi?” he asks.
“Because it’s true” Satoshi says, scoffing.
“What’s wrong with you? You never speak to me like this!” Nino shouts, his voice cracking.
Ohno charges up to Nino and slaps him hard across the face. Nino hears his teeth gnash together on impact and loses his balance. He tumbles to the floor.
“I saved your fucking life, don’t mouth off with me…” Satoshi warns.
“I’m sorry….I’m sorry…” Nino whimpers, to get him to back off, which he does.
Satoshi drags himself over to the other side of the room and hisses while trying to re-bandage his wound. It seems he gave up on finding medicine.
Utterly heartbroken, Nino crawls to the wall opposite Satoshi and near the food. He lies down, facing the wall. His face hurts, his leg hurts, and Satoshi hates him suddenly. He feels a bruise forming on his cheek and cries quietly.
By the time evening comes, the infected are already clawing at the outside of the door, trying to turn the handle. Nino still rests near the food, wondering if Satoshi is feeling any better. His stomach growls loudly so he sits up and reaches for a can of corn to open. He begins opening it when Satoshi stomps over, “Who said you can eat anything?”
Nino stops opening the can with a hunting knife Satoshi brought back the day before.
“But I’m hungry…I haven’t eaten all day,” he says innocently. The bruise on his face is dark and menacing.
Satoshi frowns and tries to take the can away, but Nino holds on tight. They struggle, finally sending the can and knife flying to the wall, spilling onto the floor next to the other cans.
This sends Satoshi into a rage. He pushes Nino down and grabs his throat and squeezes. Horrified, Nino tries to fight back, “Let…let me go!” he manages to squeak out, kicking and squirming.
“Who said you could fucking eat anything?!” Satoshi rages, tightening his grip around Nino’s neck. Air supply totally blocked off, Nino panics and starts reaching out for anything to grab to get Ohno to release his grip. He feels a handle of some sort and grips it as hard as he can, still struggling for air, and jams it upward through Satoshi’s neck and head. Nino, about ready to black out, feels Satoshi’s grip lets loose. His body falls limply on Nino’s.
A sudden rush of air fills his lungs and he gets light headed, his ears ring loudly, his vision blurred. Once his vision clears, he sees it. That handle belonged to the knife, and it was lodged in Satoshi’s neck.
His eyes widen, unable to look at the man’s unmoving body on top of him. Slowly his clothes became saturated with blood. He lies there unmoving for hours.
“Satoshi-kun?”
-----
“I never thought it would end up that way. He wasn’t the same person any more. I blamed myself for his death. But over time, I realized that if I hadn’t done anything, he would have tore me to shreds and I’d be dead,” Nino says letting out a sigh. “I don’t blame him for what he did while he was infected, because that wasn’t him. Satoshi was a kind man, and he loved me more than his own life. That’s why he protected me all that time.” Nino stares at the corpse beside him fondly.
There is silence in the room for a while until Jun speaks up, “I don’t mean to change the subject. Such a tragic story, but…you said you were bitten?”
Nino nods and pulls up his pants leg to reveal a grotesquely scarred wound. “I never got any symptoms, but we were both bitten by the same infected person…”
“So you have immunity then,” Jun says softly, but wildly curious.
“I guess so,” Nino replies. He looks depressed from having told Jun his story, but in turn, Jun admires Nino’s strength and maturity over the chain of events.
Not knowing how to reply to such a thing, Jun changes the subject once again. “Would you like me to help you bury him?” Jun says nobly.
Nino’s eye light up, “Really?”
“Sure.”
Nino smiles brightly and looks down at the corpse, “You’ll be able to rest peacefully now, Satoshi-kun~”
Jun chuckles nervously. He isn’t sure how to deal with Nino’s habit of talking to the rotting carcass. Instead of saying something rude, Jun keeps his mouth shut and lets Nino dote over his lover’s corpse.
Jun disappears for almost the rest of the day looking for a shovel and somewhere nice to dig a hole for Ohno’s body. Meanwhile, Nino carefully wraps Ohno’s body tight in his blanket, wiping his hands off after touching the slimy body.
Jun opens the vault door and peeks in, “Are you ready? It’s clear out here for now.”
Nino smiles softly and nods.
Jun lifts the body by the shoulders and Nino lifts from the feet. They slowly make their way outside and back around the other side of the building where a shovel rests stuck in the ground upright at the foot of the shallow grave.
“I couldn’t dig it too deep because I was running out of daylight…” Jun says remorsefully.
“It’s alright,” Nino replies, just glad to actually put his beloved Satoshi to rest.
They set the body in the hole and Jun begins to fill it in. Nino gets on his knees and pushes some dirt into the grave with his hands. Within ten minutes the grave is completely covered and Jun drags over a beautiful granite rock. Nino looks confused.
“I thought it could use a gravestone, you know?” he says, sweating from all the manual labor.
Nino smiles, “It’s perfect.” He is relieved that there are no infected in sight considering it’s been swarming the past few months. He settles on the ground behind the rock Jun rolled over for the gravestone.
Jun waits patiently for the waterworks to begin, but it never does.
Quietly Nino rests his forehead on the rock and closes his eyes. He stays like that for a moment, letting the last of the sun beat warmly on his back.
“Now you can rest with dignity, Satoshi-kun. I’m sorry that I didn’t turn with you, otherwise we would have died together like lovers should,” Nino whispers.
Jun wanders off to give Nino privacy when he hears him speak.
“I may be weak, but you’ve given me the strength to continue fighting for my life. Thank you for loving me. I’ll always love you.” Nino smiles and stands up, brushing some dirt off his filthy pants.
He stares at the grave a bit longer and then wanders back to the vault to find Jun sitting quietly staring at a photograph.
“What are you looking at?” Nino asks.
“This god awful picture I found in your backpack,” Jun replies, chuckling to himself.
Nino stomps over and takes the photo, “It’s not awful. I think it’s cute!” It’s a photo of Nino and his beloved Satoshi in their Holiday sweaters. “We waited for hours to get this picture taken!” Nino whines.
“He looks like he was a funny guy,” Jun says.
“Naw, I’m funnier than him,” Nino says. “You’re making fun of the dead already?”
“Not at all, he never claimed to be funny at all.”
“Ah, well he looks nice enough.”
“Yeah…”
“No offense, but I’m surprised you’re not crying or anything,” Jun says crossing his arms. Nino sits in front of Jun and sighs lightly.
“I’ve already cried so much for him. He wouldn’t want to see me cry. If he’s stuck somewhere as a ghost or something…I’d want him to feel he could move on without worrying about me. So I don’t cry anymore.”
“That’s an odd way of looking at it,” Jun says, stretching out his legs. His back was tired from digging the grave.
“It makes me feel better looking at it like that,” Nino says with a smile.
“Whatever works, right?” Jun says stretching one last time before rising to his feet. Nino nods and stays seated.
“So I suppose you’ll be leaving then?” Nino says. “
Yeah…I won't stay here overnight. I need to be on the move,” Jun replies. He picks up his backpack, “You can keep the stuff you found and I’ll be on my way.”
Nino looks disappointed.
“What? You want to come with me?” Jun asks, hoping Nino would say no.
“If I may,” Nino says with a smile, “I don’t want to stay here forever! Satoshi would tell me to go with!”
“Eh? But you’ll slow me down!” Jun complains.
“Oh come on. You’ve helped me out so much. Just let me return the favor!” Nino replies stuffing the photograph and some other things in his already full backpack and slinging it over his shoulder.
“I can’t take care of you while we travel, you know. You have to be able to fight on your own…” Jun says, wary on letting Nino travel with him.
“I’ve been feeding myself all this time, haven’t I?”
“Well yes, but I almost killed you…” Jun retorts.
Nino heads to the big vault door, “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me turning on you.” Jun remembers that Nino is immune and thinks quickly.
“I’ll only let you come with if you don’t talk so much this time. I like to travel quietly.”
“I’ll start now!” Nino says and goes through the door.
“Good…” Jun says, “What do you all know about the infected though?”
Nino is quiet.
“You have permission to speak, kid,” Jun says rolling his eyes.
“Not much, sir!” Nino says.
“Don’t call me ‘sir’…” Jun says shutting the door behind him.
“Ah, sorry. I don’t know a ton of stuff about the infected people,” Nino says honestly.
“Well now’s the time to learn.”
“Okay.” Nino walks behind Jun for a while until he decides to hold onto a strap on Jun’s backpack.
“I’m not a shopping cart for you to hold on to…” Jun says swatting Nino’s hand away. Nino pouts but stays quiet. Jun seems to enjoy having a companion, but even more joyful that his companion is quiet. They finally reach the outside and step out into the street where there are scattered belongings, broken down vehicles, bodies that have been cooking in the sun and pecked at by blackbirds, and the dirt on which everything is covered.
“You sure you want to come? I’ve seen some shit…” Jun says, warning his little, noisy companion.
“Yup,” Nino says smiling.
Nino subconsciously grabs onto the strap on Jun’s backpack once again.
This time, Jun lets him.
======
a/n: I hope you enjoyed this new chapter~ Comments are much appreciated~
Author: junjun_pon
Pairing: Matsumiya
Genre: Horror, Angst, Adventure, Drama
Rating: R (language and violence (warning: character death))
Disclaimer: I do not own the boys!
Summary: Based off the popular game “The Last of Us.” After being left behind during a mass-evacuation, Nino struggles to survive against the infected and other humans.
a/n: A new chapter! This was heartbreaking to write T_T
=========
[Chapter 1]
=========
“A vault? What, are you a corpse?” Jun says, allowing Nino to lead him out into the hallway.
Nino has a delayed reaction as if he were thinking. “Practically…” he replies.
After a short time of walking to the basement, luckily avoiding any dead along the way, they reach the giant silvery door of the vault. Jun readies his knife just in case there is a surprise on the other side.
As the door opens, a rotten stench fills their general area and Jun’s face scrunches in disgust. He covers his nose and mouth with his left arm, “What the fuck is that smell?” Nino seems to not notice the smell and avoids a reply. He slips in through the narrow opening. The door was heavy enough to fear opening it too far in case of emergency. Jun follows in after Nino and feels nauseous as the dead stench intensifies.
“Satoshi-kun, I’m back!” Nino says cheerfully. He sets down his backpack and begins unloading some of the items in the corner with the empty cans. “I brought you kale. Do you know what that is?” he says examining the can.
Jun pushes the door shut and keeps his mouth and nose covered.
“Who’s Satoshi?” Jun asks. He lays eyes on the decayed body at the back of the rather small metal room. “Holy shit, there’s a dead person in here…what did you call him?”
Nino acts as if there isn’t anything wrong with the body, “Ah, this is Satoshi-kun. Satoshi-kun, this is Matsumoto-san.” Nino smiles cutely. As expected, the body lies there motionless.
“Ah…you do know he’s dead, right, kid?” Jun asks carefully, hoping he would not puke.
“Yeah…I know…but I should still take care of him…” Nino replies.
“You should toss the body. It reeks!” Jun says, not even bothering to move any closer than the door.
Nino looks at Jun with disbelief and a little anger, “I couldn’t just throw him out!”
“Well, it’s just a body…” Jun says. He grumbles, “This isn’t healthy, kid.”
“I couldn’t just throw him out!” Nino repeats, “I need to bury him…but-“
“You don’t need to bury this guy, just toss him out,” Jun says, getting irritated that Nino isn’t understanding him.
“You don’t understand…” Nino says a bit somber.
Jun is annoyed again, “No, you don’t understand. This is unhealthy. I’m surprised you’ve lived this long and that his maggots haven’t started eating you!”
“I wanted to bury him a long time ago, but I can’t do it alone,” Nino says, shaking because he’s upset. “Everyone’s gone, and there are infected outside, I just-“
“Who is this Satoshi-kun guy anyway?” Jun asks. He was slowly becoming accustomed to the smell in the room.
Nino calms himself and hesitates. “He was my boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” Jun says with disbelief. Nino nods and sits on the floor next to the body.
“I met him in a park right after I graduated from high school. He was painting a bird I think,” he says with a small smile, “He looked poor as dirt, but he was actually pretty wealthy.”
Jun holds in a chuckle and listens further, feeling he’d lend Nino his ear after insulting Nino’s decision about the dead man’s body.
“For almost six years he spoiled me rotten. I never had to work. I could just stay at home, do what I wanted to do while he worked and spoiled me some more,” Nino says softly, staring at the decaying body longingly.
“Spoiled? I could see that,” Jun mocks. Nino ignores Jun’s stab and continues.
“He never asked anything of me. So I felt that I should take care of him in return…” Jun opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off.
“When they evacuated this city, they made it clear that anyone left behind was left behind. The military would come back for no one,” Nino says, “Satoshi wanted to stay and ride out whatever was going on. This apocalypse or whatever he called it.”
Interested, Jun keeps quiet and sits on the floor, his back flush against the vault door.
“I wanted to believe we’d be safe, so I said nothing and let him protect me like he wanted.” Nino paused and took a deep breath. “But in time, we ran out of food and water, so we decided to leave our home and go into the city. The government said nothing about what was occurring, so naturally, we were shocked when we arrived and saw the infected. We ran for hours until we ended up right outside of this building. We stopped to take a breath and I got attacked. It was one of those fast ones. I almost didn’t see it in time, but I managed to run a little before it jumped me and grabbed my leg. Satoshi came after me. I tried to fight the infected person off, but I got bit on my leg instead. Satoshi grabbed the infected person off me and got bit on his wrist.”
Confused, Jun tries to interrupt, but Nino continues.
“From what I remember, he managed to disable the creature and picked me up. I fainted or something. Then I remember we ended were here, in this room, and Satoshi had already tried to bandage my leg and was struggling to cover his arm. In return I helped him, but he looked ill. He left to find food and told me to stay here, so I did. He had food and weapons when he got back, but he looked tired and just awful in general.” Nino looks down at the body beside him.
“We were only here for a couple days, and in that time, it happened…”
-----
“Satoshi-kun, are you sure you’re alright?” Nino asks softly, crawling over to Ohno who is looking at the unwrapped wound on his wrist.
“Don’t worry, Kazunari, it’s probably just infected. I’ll go looking for some medicine tomorrow, okay?” Nino nods and looks through the food and opens a bag of potato chips and eats some.
“How’s your leg?” Satoshi asks, giving Nino a warm smile. Nino smiles back, “It’s okay. It still hurts though…” They sit in silence for a while, letting Nino think while he munches the potato chips.
“Ne, Satoshi-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Those things outside…are they really zombies? Like in the movies?” Nino asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” he replies.
“We both got bit, so…does that mean we’ll turn into those things too?”
“I don’t know, baby. Maybe.”
Nino panics a bit but tries not to let it show. “If it’s true…then we’ll just lose our minds together in here, right?”
Satoshi winces when he moves his arm, “Probably. If it’s true.”
Later,when Nino lies down on the cold floor to rest, he tries to ignore Satoshi’s pained sighs and the sounds of the infected outside clawing at the door every time they make a noise during the night time hours. He finally falls asleep.
The next day Satoshi begins to act vicious and almost violent toward Nino.
“Satoshi-kun, when can we leave here?” he asks hugging Satoshi. Nino is pushed away.
“We’ll never be able to leave here. We’ll just die in here,” he says harshly.
Shocked that Satoshi pushed him in such a way he takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry, I-“
“It’s all your fault,” Satoshi says angrily, cutting Nino off rudely, “I should have just left you there and saved myself. Now I’m gonna die because of you.”
Nino just stares at him in disbelief, tears forming in his eyes. “Why would you say that, Satoshi?” he asks.
“Because it’s true” Satoshi says, scoffing.
“What’s wrong with you? You never speak to me like this!” Nino shouts, his voice cracking.
Ohno charges up to Nino and slaps him hard across the face. Nino hears his teeth gnash together on impact and loses his balance. He tumbles to the floor.
“I saved your fucking life, don’t mouth off with me…” Satoshi warns.
“I’m sorry….I’m sorry…” Nino whimpers, to get him to back off, which he does.
Satoshi drags himself over to the other side of the room and hisses while trying to re-bandage his wound. It seems he gave up on finding medicine.
Utterly heartbroken, Nino crawls to the wall opposite Satoshi and near the food. He lies down, facing the wall. His face hurts, his leg hurts, and Satoshi hates him suddenly. He feels a bruise forming on his cheek and cries quietly.
By the time evening comes, the infected are already clawing at the outside of the door, trying to turn the handle. Nino still rests near the food, wondering if Satoshi is feeling any better. His stomach growls loudly so he sits up and reaches for a can of corn to open. He begins opening it when Satoshi stomps over, “Who said you can eat anything?”
Nino stops opening the can with a hunting knife Satoshi brought back the day before.
“But I’m hungry…I haven’t eaten all day,” he says innocently. The bruise on his face is dark and menacing.
Satoshi frowns and tries to take the can away, but Nino holds on tight. They struggle, finally sending the can and knife flying to the wall, spilling onto the floor next to the other cans.
This sends Satoshi into a rage. He pushes Nino down and grabs his throat and squeezes. Horrified, Nino tries to fight back, “Let…let me go!” he manages to squeak out, kicking and squirming.
“Who said you could fucking eat anything?!” Satoshi rages, tightening his grip around Nino’s neck. Air supply totally blocked off, Nino panics and starts reaching out for anything to grab to get Ohno to release his grip. He feels a handle of some sort and grips it as hard as he can, still struggling for air, and jams it upward through Satoshi’s neck and head. Nino, about ready to black out, feels Satoshi’s grip lets loose. His body falls limply on Nino’s.
A sudden rush of air fills his lungs and he gets light headed, his ears ring loudly, his vision blurred. Once his vision clears, he sees it. That handle belonged to the knife, and it was lodged in Satoshi’s neck.
His eyes widen, unable to look at the man’s unmoving body on top of him. Slowly his clothes became saturated with blood. He lies there unmoving for hours.
“Satoshi-kun?”
-----
“I never thought it would end up that way. He wasn’t the same person any more. I blamed myself for his death. But over time, I realized that if I hadn’t done anything, he would have tore me to shreds and I’d be dead,” Nino says letting out a sigh. “I don’t blame him for what he did while he was infected, because that wasn’t him. Satoshi was a kind man, and he loved me more than his own life. That’s why he protected me all that time.” Nino stares at the corpse beside him fondly.
There is silence in the room for a while until Jun speaks up, “I don’t mean to change the subject. Such a tragic story, but…you said you were bitten?”
Nino nods and pulls up his pants leg to reveal a grotesquely scarred wound. “I never got any symptoms, but we were both bitten by the same infected person…”
“So you have immunity then,” Jun says softly, but wildly curious.
“I guess so,” Nino replies. He looks depressed from having told Jun his story, but in turn, Jun admires Nino’s strength and maturity over the chain of events.
Not knowing how to reply to such a thing, Jun changes the subject once again. “Would you like me to help you bury him?” Jun says nobly.
Nino’s eye light up, “Really?”
“Sure.”
Nino smiles brightly and looks down at the corpse, “You’ll be able to rest peacefully now, Satoshi-kun~”
Jun chuckles nervously. He isn’t sure how to deal with Nino’s habit of talking to the rotting carcass. Instead of saying something rude, Jun keeps his mouth shut and lets Nino dote over his lover’s corpse.
Jun disappears for almost the rest of the day looking for a shovel and somewhere nice to dig a hole for Ohno’s body. Meanwhile, Nino carefully wraps Ohno’s body tight in his blanket, wiping his hands off after touching the slimy body.
Jun opens the vault door and peeks in, “Are you ready? It’s clear out here for now.”
Nino smiles softly and nods.
Jun lifts the body by the shoulders and Nino lifts from the feet. They slowly make their way outside and back around the other side of the building where a shovel rests stuck in the ground upright at the foot of the shallow grave.
“I couldn’t dig it too deep because I was running out of daylight…” Jun says remorsefully.
“It’s alright,” Nino replies, just glad to actually put his beloved Satoshi to rest.
They set the body in the hole and Jun begins to fill it in. Nino gets on his knees and pushes some dirt into the grave with his hands. Within ten minutes the grave is completely covered and Jun drags over a beautiful granite rock. Nino looks confused.
“I thought it could use a gravestone, you know?” he says, sweating from all the manual labor.
Nino smiles, “It’s perfect.” He is relieved that there are no infected in sight considering it’s been swarming the past few months. He settles on the ground behind the rock Jun rolled over for the gravestone.
Jun waits patiently for the waterworks to begin, but it never does.
Quietly Nino rests his forehead on the rock and closes his eyes. He stays like that for a moment, letting the last of the sun beat warmly on his back.
“Now you can rest with dignity, Satoshi-kun. I’m sorry that I didn’t turn with you, otherwise we would have died together like lovers should,” Nino whispers.
Jun wanders off to give Nino privacy when he hears him speak.
“I may be weak, but you’ve given me the strength to continue fighting for my life. Thank you for loving me. I’ll always love you.” Nino smiles and stands up, brushing some dirt off his filthy pants.
He stares at the grave a bit longer and then wanders back to the vault to find Jun sitting quietly staring at a photograph.
“What are you looking at?” Nino asks.
“This god awful picture I found in your backpack,” Jun replies, chuckling to himself.
Nino stomps over and takes the photo, “It’s not awful. I think it’s cute!” It’s a photo of Nino and his beloved Satoshi in their Holiday sweaters. “We waited for hours to get this picture taken!” Nino whines.
“He looks like he was a funny guy,” Jun says.
“Naw, I’m funnier than him,” Nino says. “You’re making fun of the dead already?”
“Not at all, he never claimed to be funny at all.”
“Ah, well he looks nice enough.”
“Yeah…”
“No offense, but I’m surprised you’re not crying or anything,” Jun says crossing his arms. Nino sits in front of Jun and sighs lightly.
“I’ve already cried so much for him. He wouldn’t want to see me cry. If he’s stuck somewhere as a ghost or something…I’d want him to feel he could move on without worrying about me. So I don’t cry anymore.”
“That’s an odd way of looking at it,” Jun says, stretching out his legs. His back was tired from digging the grave.
“It makes me feel better looking at it like that,” Nino says with a smile.
“Whatever works, right?” Jun says stretching one last time before rising to his feet. Nino nods and stays seated.
“So I suppose you’ll be leaving then?” Nino says. “
Yeah…I won't stay here overnight. I need to be on the move,” Jun replies. He picks up his backpack, “You can keep the stuff you found and I’ll be on my way.”
Nino looks disappointed.
“What? You want to come with me?” Jun asks, hoping Nino would say no.
“If I may,” Nino says with a smile, “I don’t want to stay here forever! Satoshi would tell me to go with!”
“Eh? But you’ll slow me down!” Jun complains.
“Oh come on. You’ve helped me out so much. Just let me return the favor!” Nino replies stuffing the photograph and some other things in his already full backpack and slinging it over his shoulder.
“I can’t take care of you while we travel, you know. You have to be able to fight on your own…” Jun says, wary on letting Nino travel with him.
“I’ve been feeding myself all this time, haven’t I?”
“Well yes, but I almost killed you…” Jun retorts.
Nino heads to the big vault door, “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me turning on you.” Jun remembers that Nino is immune and thinks quickly.
“I’ll only let you come with if you don’t talk so much this time. I like to travel quietly.”
“I’ll start now!” Nino says and goes through the door.
“Good…” Jun says, “What do you all know about the infected though?”
Nino is quiet.
“You have permission to speak, kid,” Jun says rolling his eyes.
“Not much, sir!” Nino says.
“Don’t call me ‘sir’…” Jun says shutting the door behind him.
“Ah, sorry. I don’t know a ton of stuff about the infected people,” Nino says honestly.
“Well now’s the time to learn.”
“Okay.” Nino walks behind Jun for a while until he decides to hold onto a strap on Jun’s backpack.
“I’m not a shopping cart for you to hold on to…” Jun says swatting Nino’s hand away. Nino pouts but stays quiet. Jun seems to enjoy having a companion, but even more joyful that his companion is quiet. They finally reach the outside and step out into the street where there are scattered belongings, broken down vehicles, bodies that have been cooking in the sun and pecked at by blackbirds, and the dirt on which everything is covered.
“You sure you want to come? I’ve seen some shit…” Jun says, warning his little, noisy companion.
“Yup,” Nino says smiling.
Nino subconsciously grabs onto the strap on Jun’s backpack once again.
This time, Jun lets him.
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a/n: I hope you enjoyed this new chapter~ Comments are much appreciated~