You're Precious to Me
It was a wolf. Survival in this grim forest had left it anything but small.
Its teeth were packed huge and tight, the sort that would never let go once they closed. The beast was plainly larger than a grown man, and its claws were razor-sharp.
Still, if it's only one... somehow...
Give up a shoulder, and he could make it back alive.
Chesian dropped low, wary of the wolf, then muttered as if he couldn't quite believe it.
"I might actually die today."
The wolf was not alone. True to a pack animal, several more appeared behind the first.
It was already too late to run.
The instant Chesian's face hardened, the wolf at the front lunged.
Drop low, roll to the side, and go for the flank.
Sweat broke across his palms from the tension—and then his eyes flew wide at something that crashed over the wolf like a flash of light.
"...What."
"Yipe!"
The wolf that had closed to within a breath of Chesian's face was already airborne, slamming into a tree.
With a violent crack, the trunk bent backward and spat the beast back out. The wolf scraped along the ground, gathered its pack, and vanished in a hurry.
Chesian had only a moment to be startled before his mouth fell open.
"You?!"
The problem was the one who had half-killed that wolf.
The moment the wolves were driven off, the zombie spun around and threw herself into his arms like a child.
"You hopeless thing. You hopeless thing."
The instant she saw Chesian's face, her expression crumpled.
What do I do. Someone must have bullied him while I was gone.
The furball's face was an absolute wreck. He looked every bit the beggar. Feeling as if this were somehow her fault, the zombie scolded him as though her heart ached.
"Why are you getting thrashed in some godforsaken place!"
The zombie he had searched for all day had appeared out of nowhere, beaten the wolves senseless, and chased them off. Then she burrowed into his arms and went on muttering without pause.
Faced with a scene that felt nothing like reality, Chesian lost his words and stared blankly for a while.
I was going to give her a piece of my mind.
He had meant to ask where she had gone off alone, to tell her she couldn't just wander around like that.
But the words stuck hard in his throat, and nothing would come out. All he did was reach for her.
"Don't worry. You're safe now."
He only swept back the frightened zombie's disheveled platinum hair.
The corners of both their eyes were damp as they held each other without a gap between them, as if the two of them were all that remained in the world.
"Why are you so stubborn? The person who was here earlier is my master! My master is incredibly strong!"
"You were really scared, weren't you?"
"Why won't you talk? Why won't you say it!"
"Yeah, yeah. It's all right now."
Of course, with a language barrier between them, the two were talking entirely past each other.
Neither had any way of knowing that, so today, as always, they comforted each other through their own interpretations.
"Ha... thank goodness..."
Murmuring his relief, Chesian covered his face with his hands and bowed his head.
After saying it was a relief over and over, he finally got a proper look at the zombie's face, and his eyes went round.
"What happened to your face?"
He slowly took hold of her face, and his expression hardened into something grave.
Wherever she had been wandering, she was completely caked in dust. As for her hat, she had lost it somewhere so thoroughly that not even a trace remained.
"Is this all dust?"
It wouldn't come off no matter how he wiped, and Chesian muttered in disbelief.
"What, did you go roll around in coal, you idiot?"
This morning, the zombie had been truly beautiful.
Washing her had been an ordeal, and yet she had been lovely enough to make even those exhausting memories vanish in an instant.
Now she was no different from before the bath. Her face was a mess of dust, and the hair he had so carefully combed stuck out in every direction.
"What a shame."
In truth, while he searched for her, Chesian had at first been simply, enormously angry.
But when the sun had fully set, when even the merchants had all gone home, and he still could not find so much as a single strand of her hair, he thought he might truly go mad.
What if something happened to her. What if she was hurt. What if she followed some stranger without a fight and is suffering somewhere.
Every kind of imagining closed around his throat, and he could not stop looking.
Fortunately, unlike those imaginings—whatever she had gotten up to, he couldn't tell—she had come back to his side whole.
"I..."
Chesian opened his mouth, but he couldn't bring himself to go on, and only worked his lips.
Then the moment his eyes met the zombie's, his face felt as if it had caught fire. With a short, incredulous laugh he covered it in both hands and ducked his head.
"You're precious to me."
Human or zombie.
Chesian said it himself, then opened his eyes wide as if startled by his own words.
In an instant the nape of his neck flushed red, and then his whole face burned.
You're precious to me. Did I just say that? I said something that sappy?
Dazed for a moment, he let out a hollow laugh.
One thing he had realized while searching for the zombie all day was that he held this peculiar creature quite dear.
When did I let her this close?
Close enough that he couldn't do without her beside him.
At first he had only wanted to keep an unusual mutant zombie nearby and watch her a little longer. Somewhere along the way, it seemed, he had given away far more of his heart than he knew.
Better to realize it now.
Chesian hugged the zombie in his arms tight. Wherever she had been, she smelled of wind and earth.
Even as he held her, that made him laugh.
A scent that suits you.
The zombie, meanwhile, lay blankly in his arms.
For a while she leaned against him in silence with her eyes closed. Then, as if something suddenly felt missing, she began to fidget with her hands.
She fidgeted and puzzled over it for a long time, and at last, as though she had found the answer, she reached toward Chesian.
"—Honestly."
At that, Chesian burst out laughing.
"Now it fits just right."
She had seized his hand and laced their fingers together.
The zombie smiled, thoroughly pleased with herself.
Their joined hands were cold beyond words, but warmth began, slowly, to gather in Chesian's heart.
Still holding on and fidgeting, the zombie seemed to hit on a good idea. She cleared her throat with a little hum and opened her mouth.
"Teh-teh."
And before that warmth had finished filling him, Chesian doubted his own ears and opened his eyes wide. He glanced around for someone else, but this place held only the two of them—himself and this zombie.
In the meantime she opened her mouth once more, as if to make certain.
"...Teh—uh."
"Idiot. What are you doing?"
What was she up to, scrunching her whole face and working her lips like that?
If even this looks cute to me, I've got it bad.
With the hand that wasn't holding hers, Chesian reached up and pressed, bit by bit, at the brow she had knotted so tightly. All the while she worked her lips, then spoke again.
"Ter."
"You..."
"Che, uh—"
Chesian's eyes went wide.
At first he hadn't known what she meant. But as her words grew more concrete, he caught on.
No way.
He forgot even to breathe, and quietly gazed at the yellow eyes that looked only at him in the dark.
She was frowning hard with those large eyes, looking up at him, and without realizing it Chesian tightened his grip.
And at last—
"Cher."
After several attempts, she finally succeeded.
The moment he heard it, Chesian froze in shock. Afraid he might not understand, the zombie kept calling his name.
"Che, Cher."
"......"
"Che-er."
The pronunciation was hopelessly clumsy, but Chesian's heart began to pound like mad.
It thudded so hard that even he noticed.
Watching him, the zombie went on calling him Cher, waving her hand and smiling.
"So..."
Barely coming back to himself, Chesian looked as if he had seen a ghost.
Slowly, he pointed at himself.
"Me? Me... what did you say?"
He kept pointing, jabbing a finger at his own chest as if telling her to say it again.
"Cher."
She beamed and met his eyes, as if insisting he listen properly.
"Che. R."
Syllable by syllable, she pronounced it more clearly than before.
Was this what it felt like, to be overwhelmed? Chesian had been half-reclined in a daze. Now he hurriedly sat up straight.
"...Again."
"Che—r."
"Again."
"Cher."
No matter how many times he said again, she called him Cher just as many.
After listening to his own name for a long while, he folded his eyes into crescents.
"Yeah. I'm Cher."
"Cher!"
And he pulled the zombie into his arms.
"Yeah. I'm Chesian. Cher."
A bright smile settled on his face. Held there, she broke into a radiant laugh like a child.
Today, really...
Chesian thought it over.
He had searched for the zombie all day long, and he had nearly died. But the moment she called his name, all of it was forgotten.
It was a decent day.
He found himself thinking it hadn't been such a bad day after all.
In the forest Chesian and the zombie had left behind, a quiet stillness settled once more, as if the noisy clamor from earlier had been a lie.
A rustle cut through that hush as if to defy it. Grass parted, and a man revealed his face from behind a tree.
"......"
First to catch the eye was white hair that seemed to glow even in the darkness, bright as moonlight shattering across it.
For a long while the man stared with clouded eyes at the place where Chesian and the zombie had been embracing.
His Jewel Eyes rippled, as if a stone had been thrown into a lake.
"...This can't be."
Contrary to the mutter that it made no sense, expectation and a swelling emotion had taken root in his gaze.
But the light in those eyes soon began to burn sharp and bright.
"But who was the man beside her?"
Because today was a special day, a portion of the Imperial Palace—ordinarily kept shut tight against the empire's people—had been opened to everyone.
"To think I would set foot on the soil of this garden before I die..."
The place opened to them was the garden the reigning Emperor's late wife, Empress Lily, had loved so dearly in life.
Even within the Imperial Palace, it was famous as the most beautiful and magnificent of grounds.
"I wish we were walking it for a happier reason."
It was exceedingly rare for people of entirely different stations and political leanings to gather in one place, yet most of their faces were far from bright.