You know what's apparently rare in a zombie outbreak? God damn handkerchiefs.
"Nothing? Nobody?" I raise my arms in disbelief after trying my best to straighten my clothes, in order to look less like a crazed axe murderer.
(Well, all of them just fled for their life with only the clothes on their back so I shouldn't be surprised.)
I turn around and start shuffling around in my bag.
(...I could just use the bandages to wipe my face.)
I grab a roll of bandage, unroll a bit of it and start cleaning my face of the still liquid blood.
I then take off my gloves, unwrap more of the bandage and start wrapping my hand with the clean part, until it's about halfway up to my forearm, where the bandage runs out. Locking the bandage with the clips it came with, I then proceeded to do the same to my other hand with the second roll, before putting my gloves back on.
Afterward, I took the swiss knife out and cut the bloody part of the bandage, then looked at the bloody piece in my hand.
(This is the blood of the first actual person I saw dying in front of me. I keep surprising myself with how calm I am with all of this.)
"Uhh Alexander?" I turn towards the voice to see Kohta looking at my hands, along with the rest of the group.
"I know you said that you packed your bag for your part-time job. But, what exactly 'is' your part-time job? For you to need bandages and a swiss knife?" Kohta asks me while pointing at the swiss knife.
"I am interested to know as well. Those are quite an… interesting combination of items." I turned around to see that that question had come from Saeko.
I take a deep breath and try to look as serious as I can.
"My job is to make an example of people who do not want to cooperate with my boss." I respond with a deadpan look on my face.
As soon as the words left my mouth, silence. The whole group just stared at me.
...
And a couple of seconds later, my grim face cracked.
"Pppfft, heheh. Sorry, sorry my bad." I look down and shake my head with a slight chuckle as I put the swiss-knife back inside my bag.
The whole group relaxes after they see me chuckling, although their reactions differed quite a bit.
Kohta looked relieved, Takashi looked weirded out, Rei just had a blank stare, Saya went from a 'what' frown to a 'you are an idiot' frown, Saeko did not really react to the whole situation, she just slightly tilted her head sideways.
"They are more of a 'better safe than sorry' precaution" I answer.
(Ugh, crap. Think Alexander, what do you say now.)
The whole group just keeps staring at me.
"I help a friend of a 'friend' with his job. He sells hunting rifles, we go to the wilderness and I film him using the guns. Something like a promo video for the stuff he will later try to sell. We don't actually kill anything though."
(Huh, I just realized. I can lie through my teeth with a straight face. Should I be happy about that?)
The whole group just keeps staring.
"Oohh! That makes sense." Kohta was the first one to speak up.
"Wait? it does?" Takashi looks back to Kohta even more weirded out than before.
"Well I've met this 'friend' of his. So yeah, I could see that actually happening."
"Great, so now we have two gun nuts." Saya simply groans in response.
Ignoring Saya's unneeded remark, I thank Kohta in my head for pulling me out of the tight spot.
"I guess all of you have already heard it like twenty times by now, but the name's Alexander Greywald"
"Takashi Komuro" Takashi nods.
"I'm Rei Miyamoto." Rei speaks up after Takashi.
"Busujima Saeko, nice to meet you Greywald. The teacher behind you is Miss Shizuka Marikawa." Saeko then continues after doing a slight bow.
"Ohh that's me, nice to meet you Greffier, Graywas ughh Graywall..." Shizuka after hearing her name proceeds to apparently try to rename me to something more strange with each try.
(If I say that I'm surprised, I would be lying… again.)
"Ehh… just Alexander is fine, my Surname is quite the mouthful."
The group giggles silently while Shizuka pouts and silently keeps trying to get my surname right.
After we got over with greeting each other, I turned to Saya.
"So… what happened, are you alright?" I ask her.
"Huh, what do you mean?" she asks, slightly frowning.
"Well, after we split up I tried to find you two again but..." Before I could complete my sentence Saya butts in.
"We could not wait for you in that classroom, it was too dangerous." She says, while narrowing her eyes.
"Ehh that was not what I was going to ask… Was it you that screamed at the school on the second floor, near the faculty room at sunset?"
(Well I know it was her. But I figured that at least more interaction with her will make her less toxic towards me.)
She opens her eyes wide then quickly gets an angry frown
(Ooor not, figures that it was probably a bad subject… Definitely a bad subject to talk about. God I AM an idiot.)
"If you knew it was me then why didn't you come to help!" she 'asked' with a loud voice.
"I ran into some 'trouble'" I answered as I turned to look at the bloody bandage on my hand.
I then took a quick glance at the back of the bus.
"Wait, so you are the 'friend' Kohta was talking about?" Takashi asks.
I blink a few times before connecting the dots. And then I turn to Kohta.
"Please tell me you did not forget my name in all the panic and told them that you had a 'friend' that helped you?"
Kohta just laughs sheepishly and scratches his head. I just facepalm and groan.
"We tried to look for you but there were too many of them in the hallways for us to search efficiently." Saeko speaks up.
"It's alright, it worked out in the end. " I sigh and decide to not dig into the subject any further.
(If they don't care enough to look for me, then I'll just have to get closer to them until they'll do.)
"Well, we were off to a rough start, but I hope we'll get along now." I say, folding my arms with a nod, looking at the group as they nod back at me. Except for Saya, she just stared out of the window.
(Alright, let's not forget what's to come. Got to figure out where we are right now.)
I headed back to my seat and put the bag on the chair by the window so I could sit on the chair that was easier to get up from. Comfortable with my seating, I take my map out of the bag.
"Miss Marikawa, could you please tell me where are we right now?"
I ask Shizuka while looking at the map. She turns her head slightly.
"Hmm… I think we just passed a sign saying that we passed block 10-58 of the Kawashimo neighborhood." She answers as she glances around the front windshield.
"I see. Thank you." I respond and return to my map.
"Speaking of it… What happened to you Greywald ? You looked really awful when you got on the bus." Saeko asks me right after.
I turn my sight to the other side of the bus before answering. There I see the Kyoko Hayashi sensei, Momo Kawamoto, Fumiko Taniuchi, Misuzu Ichijou, Toshimi Niki, Miku Yuuki, Takuzo, Naomi, Yamada, Kurokami and Miura. The later turns his head side-ways, when our eyes meet. It seams that some shame exists in him.
To half the people here, he was literally a savior who had saved them from death, and they were grateful for it, but they still felt a certain fear—a fear that, deep down, was full of respect, admiration, and other positive feelings.
While I was talking with the main cast, Takashi Komuro, Rei Miyamoto, Saeko Busujima, Shizuka Marikawa, Saya Takagi and Kohta Hirano, the other people in the bus seem to process the narrow escape we just had. And settled to watching our interaction. Though I don't know how that will last. Without Shido and Tsunoda, I hope they don't start with any demands. But only time can tell.
"I'll tell you all when the time's right. And now it's not, trust me." Saeko follows my eyesight, looks at group, then back at me, and nods.
The rest of the group, seeing Saeko agree to wait, decided to not press on the matter either.
Looking at the map, I pinpoint the bus's location and then look at the nearest bridges drawn on the map.
Hmm. The city is actually three giant landmasses linked by bridges, and is surrounded by the sea at one end, much like Poseidon's spear. Right now we are at the rightmost 'island', with the closest police station, that I suspect Takashi mentions they should 'meet up' at, being the central landmass. Meaning that if we were to use the original meeting place, we'll need to pass the bridge to get there, and most of the bridges will be clogged with cars, or blocked off by cops.
Screeeee!
The bus lurched from a sudden stop next to a convenience store, and because I was standing right in the middle, I flew almost halfway down the bus and hit my head on the floor.
"Ow-ow-ow!" I started rubbing the back of my head, trying to ease the pain, curled up in the fetal position.
"Alexander!" "Alex-san!" "Alex!"
"Ah, sorry Alexander-kun, let me help you!" Shizuka was already up from the driver's seat and, pressing her breasts against my right arm, started rubbing the spot too.
"G-get off the bus... fuck, that hurts..."
"Can I ask why we are getting off?" Takashi watched me with interest while the other students waited for us outside.
"To go in, gather supplies. Better to get more canned goods, bottled water, condoms, toilet paper... basically, everything people need." Takashi tried not to blush when he heard about condoms, he already was seventeen, why would he?!