Chapter 2

For some reason, the handsome zombie kept following me.

At first, I thought he might be conscious like me, so I chattered to him about all sorts of things.

I complained about my bald boss, cursed my fake-sweet best friend, and reminisced about the handsome guys I’d had crushes on last year, three years ago, and four years ago.

But I talked until my mouth was dry, and he still didn’t react. He looked as vacant and foolish and easy to push around as ever.

Lust made me brave. I couldn’t help myself; I smacked his butt again.

You had to give him credit. Still so firm after becoming a zombie. Remarkable.

Before long, I got tired of walking. A convenience store nearby stood open, with a few zombies wandering inside. A whole row of shelves had toppled over.

It looked as though the people inside hadn’t escaped when the outbreak hit.

I swayed my way in, and the handsome zombie followed.

The zombies inside didn’t react to us.

We were all the same kind, after all.

I knew the clerk. He was very young, probably a college student working over summer break. More than once, when I’d come home late from overtime, the oden stew he’d cooked had rescued my work-battered soul.

He always slipped me two extra pieces of daikon, too.

I hadn’t expected him to become a zombie as well.

I still remembered the little pointed tooth that showed when he smiled.

He didn’t smile now that he was a zombie. His face was blank.

I crouched beside the young clerk, and the handsome zombie crouched with me.

Honestly, I was starting to wonder whether that kiss had broken some seal or formed some kind of pact. It felt as though I’d acquired a spirit companion.

We crouched there watching the zombies bump around. Two of them nearly collided several times.

Idiots.

Once I got bored, I started scrolling on my phone. Zombie news was everywhere.

I wondered if there were others like me who still had their minds.

Unfortunately, all that scrolling turned up nothing useful.

I opened a short-video app. The first thing I saw was some guy livestreaming.

People were still making money by livestreaming zombies? This zombie was astonished.

Soon, I started feeling hungry. Luckily, the convenience store had plenty of food.

Sadly, instant noodles and oden were off the menu for us zombies. Ugh. I wanted a meat bun so badly.

After a good rummage, I found some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. The young clerk had probably brought them for his dinner.

I bit into a tomato, and sweet-tart juice flooded my mouth. Why had I never noticed how delicious tomatoes were?

The handsome zombie was staring vacantly at me, so I tossed him a cucumber.

He didn’t want it. He batted it away.

I tried offering him a tomato instead.

Surely something bright red would appeal to a zombie.

Sure enough, he stiffly took the tomato and began eating in small bites.

Scarlet juice ran from the corner of his mouth down his jaw. Those clean lines were almost too much for a zombie to resist.

The handsome zombie had a big appetite. He ate all my tomatoes.

And I discovered it wasn’t just tomatoes. He liked anything red.

I wanted to test whether he was different from other zombies.

I snatched the half-eaten tomato away from his mouth. He tried to chase me for it, but one smack on the head put him straight back in line.

I waved the half tomato in front of the young clerk. His gray-white eyes shifted, and then he bit into it.

As I’d thought, liking red was a natural zombie instinct.

Even the handsome zombie wasn’t special.

I looked at his handsome face and gave him another smack on the head. All those good looks, wasted. What a disappointment!

After dark, the zombies became much less active. The handsome zombie grew sluggish too, his head drooping, with no energy for anything.

I’d found us somewhere to stay before nightfall: a small fruit shop. Barely enough, but it would do.

I didn’t dare wander around in the middle of the night. Some zombies were still pretty scary.

Earlier that day, I’d seen one with its intestines hanging out, dragging them along the ground.

I’d been so frightened I’d hurried off to hide.

There had been two zombies wandering around this shop. I chased them out with a broom.

Maybe it was because we were the same kind, but they weren’t very aggressive. They were easy to bully, too.

One of them even gave me a wounded look as it left.

I’d meant to chase the handsome zombie out as well, but looking at that face, I couldn’t quite bear to.

To be fair, I’d wandered over half the streets and hadn’t found anyone better-looking.

I’d never had any grand ambitions. Work hard, earn an honest living, occasionally scroll through my phone and look at handsome men.

With such an ordinary life, I could rack my brains forever and never understand why, out of all these zombies, I was the only conscious one.

I pinched his cheek and asked his name.

He blinked at me and made babbling noises.

But I firmly believed handsome zombies had to be smarter than ugly ones.

So I began trying to teach him to speak.

“You’re so good-looking.”

“Abba abba abba.”

“…”

After a week of tireless effort, I could tell what he meant from his tone and where he put the stress.

And I held a full conversation with him, doing all the talking myself.

Still, at last there was a zombie who understood me.

For a zombie, that was quite an achievement.

Over those days, the handsome zombie and I roamed everywhere. Now and then, we saw groups of zombies charging into apartment buildings.

Sometimes he’d go wild and try to run after them, but I always hauled him back in time.

Being a zombie with a mind of your own was actually pretty painful.

I didn’t have the nerve to bite people, and I couldn’t bear to watch other zombies doing it.

Nor was I heroic enough to stop them.

The handsome zombie had lost all his memories of being human. His brain worked like an idiot’s.

Or, more accurately, a preschooler’s.

Before I became a zombie, I’d wondered whether zombies needed to use the toilet.

Afterward, I discovered that really wasn’t worth worrying about.

Once you became a zombie, you rarely felt hungry or tired. You didn’t even feel pain.

But the handsome zombie and I still frequently snuck out to steal other people’s tomatoes.

I didn’t dare bite people.

And with me keeping an eye on him, he couldn’t go out and bite anyone either.

All we had to satisfy our cravings were tomatoes.

Once, though, we accidentally broke a watermelon while fighting over tomatoes.

He promptly fell in love with watermelon instead and started hugging one and gnawing on it every few days.

Pah. Fickle bastard.

But those peaceful days didn’t last long.

The human counterattack had begun.