All She Can Do Is Ignore

Not once, in all the time he had taken her around, had the zombie shown the slightest interest in anything. Meat shops left her blank. So did the vegetable stalls he fretted over, given how endlessly she chewed on grass. This bracelet was the first thing to drag a fierce reaction out of her.

Does she like it that much? Should I buy her one?

The image rose unbidden: the zombie with that bracelet on her wrist. It would suit her. Worse, he pictured her smiling, and before he knew what he was doing his hand had already reached out, as if he truly meant to buy it.

"……!"

Then his eyes met the ones lifted to his, and his face went hard.

Golden eyes.

A stark, bright yellow held Chesian in its gaze. No human was ever born with eyes like that. Golden eyes belonged only to a host infected by a Zombie Monster.

I've lost my mind.

Meeting that gaze felt like being flung out of a dream and dropped back into the world.

What in the world was I about to do with her?

She was strange, this zombie. She seemed to think. She learned. At times she looked like nothing more than a child in a body grown too large. But a zombie was still a zombie. The hand clasped in his was dry and cold, nothing like a human hand, as if to shake him awake, and those yellow eyes gleamed in the dark, their color unmistakable.

Jostling around among people doesn't make her one of them. Foolish Chesian.

With his free hand he shoved down the hat he had set on her to hide her eyes. Then, as if he could not leave the spot fast enough, he caught her hand and pulled.

"I'll come back for it next time."

"……Next time? And you think it'll still be here?"

"If it's gone, it's gone. Let's go."

Yes. She looked this much like a person, and she was a zombie all the same. On that thought Chesian slipped the bracelet from her fingers and set it back on the stall.

"Hey. Let's go."

He urged her, but she stood as if nailed in place, staring only at the bracelet.

"I said let's go."

He took her arm and tried to lead her off, and still she would not budge from the stall. Chesian's expression hardened by degrees. Hans, who had been hovering at the edge of the chill between them and working up the nerve to speak, took one look at the cutting edge of Chesian's temper and hastily turned his eyes away.

Just then a pale hand thrust itself between them.

"I'll buy this."

A clear, bright voice rang out. Chesian's eyes narrowed at the woman's sudden appearance. Hans startled.

"Ella?"

Light brown hair, a face made to catch the light—Ella had appeared out of nowhere and picked the bracelet up without so much as a greeting.

"Mister, how much is this?"

Hans lived by buying and selling, but even he had no wish to snatch a bracelet out from under a couple quarreling over it and hand it to someone else.

"Mister."

Ella's patience, however, was short. Irritation edged her voice as she pressed him.

Hans stole a needless glance at Chesian, who had gone utterly still, then squeezed his eyes shut and answered.

"A hundred and sixty shillings."

"Here's two hundred."

"……Your change is here. I'll wrap it, so wait a moment."

Hans took the coins and was already reaching for paper when Ella stopped him.

"No need to wrap it. I can put it on right here."

She gave Hans a bright little smile, set the bracelet against her own wrist, and held her arm out to Chesian.

"Would you put this on for me?"

He looked down at her as if he could not believe what he was hearing. Ella met those cold red eyes and smiled as if nothing at all were wrong.

"You can, can't you?"

She began to press him as though the answer were obvious. The more she spoke, the further his face twisted.

"Chesian? This—"

"Ella."

He said her name in a voice so cold it raised the skin of anyone who heard it, the voice of a man who had reached the end of his patience. Ella did not seem to care in the least. If anything, she turned playful and went on.

"Listen to that voice. What's so hard about doing one little thing for me?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Well…… I heard the famous Chesian had brought his lover along, so I came to have a look."

His tone had all but told her she was a nuisance and ought to get lost. Ella answered without a single crease in her expression, smooth as oil.

At the word lover he sighed and opened his mouth.

"And she isn't my lover. She's—"

"Hello?"

The moment he tried to correct her, Ella cut straight across him and greeted the zombie instead.

"Oh my. Are we the shy sort?"

"……."

The zombie gave no answer. Beneath the brim of her hat her yellow eyes only gleamed, fixed on the bracelet in Ella's hand.

"You there. Chesian's lover?"

Ella's face had been all smiles a moment ago. The longer she talked, the more her voice curdled into something peevish.

"Are you ignoring me right now?"

A zombie, of course, could not understand human speech. Ella, who could not even imagine that the woman in front of her was one, naturally assumed she was being slighted, and her temper began to fray.

"When a person speaks to you, you're supposed to answer."

"Ella."

Chesian moved to stop her. Ella never so much as glanced at him. Her eyes stayed locked on the zombie alone.

"I'm asking this young lady. I didn't ask you for an answer, Chesian."

Right then—

"Let's talk face-to-face, shall we?"

As she said it, Ella reached for the hat on the zombie's head.

Smack!

Chesian snatched her wrist out of the air before the hand could land.

"Ah!"

Caught in his grip, Ella twisted, a groan tearing out of her at the crushing strength around her wrist. Chesian might as well not have heard it. If anything, his eyes burned, sharp and savage.

"You."

"Ah—that hurts……"

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Let go!"

He stared at her in silence for a long moment, then flung her wrist away as if shaking her off. Ella looked down at the red mark blooming on her skin, her eyes welling, then pressed her mouth shut and glared at him.

A hair's breadth.

Chesian was still furious. The instant he had seen Ella's hand shooting toward the zombie, it was as if someone had poured cold water over his skull. A moment slower, and in the middle of this crowded market it would have come out that she was a zombie. And the one beneath that hat had a monster's strength.

"Ella. Are you in your right mind?"

"Chesian, this is—!"

Ella looked utterly wronged. In truth, he had saved her as well.

Was she trying to get herself killed?

If the hat came off and a startled zombie lunged, it would not have been Ella alone. The market would have become a slaughterhouse in the space of a breath. The mere thought turned his blood cold, and his words came out anything but gentle.

At first Ella had faltered under the force of him. Then her face crumpled, aggrieved.

Did I really do something that wrong? She's the one at fault. When a person speaks to you, answering is common courtesy.

She glared at the zombie and opened her mouth.

"That woman is ignoring me!"

"She ignored you?"

Chesian let out a hollow laugh, incredulous. But even Ella, who had kept her poise no matter how coldly he treated her, had no choice but to raise her voice this time.

"Look. Even now, the whole time I've been talking, she hasn't said a single word!"

Look at her. Even now the woman clung tight behind Chesian, refusing to show her face properly, saying nothing at all. Watching it, Ella felt as if she were being mocked, and the anger surged hotter in her chest.

"Ha. Still at it."

She raked the zombie with a look from head to foot, then found their joined hands and bit her lip. Had he ever held her hand like that, back when she had begged him for the smallest scrap of affection? Not her hand. He had barely even given her his eyes. And the look he turned on her now was cold besides. The sting of it drove her voice higher before she knew it.

"When you speak to someone, you look them in the eye. That's basic courtesy, and I still don't understand what I've done wrong—!"

"Ella."

Chesian only said her name, a warning to stop.

"You're the one being rude."

Those red eyes promised that one more step over the line would not be forgiven. The color drained from Ella's face.

"What's going on?"

"Ella and Chesian are……"

It was a market. Drawn by the noise, people had already begun to gather. At the sight of his cold face Ella flinched, then tried to press on, still looking wronged. But—

"My mood is completely ruined! I want an apology for being ignored, right this inst—"

"She isn't ignoring you. Ignoring is all she can do."

"……What? What is that supposed to mean?"

Ella stared at him, lost. Chesian did not answer at once. For a long moment he hesitated, trouble plain on his face, and then he said it.

"She's a simpleton."

"……!"

At the unexpected words Ella's expression locked, and the people who had crowded in went suddenly quiet.

"Ella? Ella again?"

"I know. Her again. And this time it looks like she went after a simpleton."

"My word. How vicious."

The onlookers broke the frozen air with a remark apiece, and in an instant the market was noisy again.

A simpleton?

Caught utterly off guard, Ella kept her mouth shut tight as a clam and stared at the ground. Then she spun around.

A simpleton? No wonder……

Only then did it make sense that Chesian tended the woman so carefully, and every strangely off thing about her fell into place.

How humiliating.

The face she turned away was flushed scarlet with shame. She left at a quick pace.

She's gone.

Watching Ella go, Chesian swept a look around them.

When did this many people gather?

His brow furrowed. He himself might weather it, but nothing good could come of every eye in the market landing on this zombie. From the moment he nodded, Ella had not looked back once. She was already hurrying clear of the place.

"We'll be on our way, then."

Hans accepted the farewell with a dazed look. But she did not listen when Chesian told her to come. She only watched Ella's back as it vanished into the crowd—or, more precisely, the bracelet Ella had bought and carried off.

"Let's go."

Chesian caught the wrist of the woman standing still as a doll and pulled, and so she had no choice but to walk after him.

"……."

"……."