Aoyama sat beside the fire, tearing the smoked crocodile meat into small pieces and chewing slowly.
Across from him, Kasumigaoka Utaha held the thermos in both hands, taking small sips of hot water infused with perilla leaves.
After drinking half of it, some color had returned to her face.
“How do you feel?” Aoyama asked.
“Much better than this morning.”
“My head isn’t as dizzy anymore, and my body doesn’t feel as heavy.
The herbs you found really worked.”
Utaha placed the cup down, pulled her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them.
“Thorowax and perilla are both used to reduce fever and dispel cold.
Drinking this for another two days should completely clear it up.”
Utaha nodded, but her gaze fell on the bulging new hiking backpack beside Aoyama.
She stared at it for several seconds before speaking.
“Aoyama-kun, when you went out today…
you met other people, didn’t you?”
Aoyama did not hide anything.
“Two men.
One was chasing the other with a knife.”
He briefly explained what had happened.
The backpack man had been chased by the knife-wielding man.
The knife-wielding man had tried to get Aoyama involved so they could split the supplies.
Afterward, Aoyama dealt with him, then took care of the backpack man as well.
He spoke calmly, as if he were simply describing something that had happened.
But while listening, Utaha’s fingers unconsciously tightened around the thermos.
“You…
killed both of them?”
“Yes.”
Utaha fell silent for a moment.
She did not show fear.
She did not ask for details.
She only quietly processed the information before asking in a soft voice,
“Did they want to hurt you?”
“The knife-wielding man wanted to use me.
The backpack man wanted to drag me into their conflict.”
“And…”
Aoyama paused.
“I was worried they would find this shelter.”
“You were here alone, and you haven’t fully recovered yet.
If you encountered either of them, you would have been in danger.”
Utaha froze slightly.
Then she lowered her head, the corners of her lips curving into the faintest smile.
Her eyelashes trembled as her gaze fell onto the flames, and her voice became softer than before.
“So you did it because of me?”
Aoyama did not answer.
Instead, he took the folded waterproof map from his pocket and spread it out on the ground between them.
“Let’s talk about something important.”
“I found this inside the backpack man’s hidden compartment.”
Utaha’s eyes moved toward the map.
It was a simple hand-drawn map.
The edges of the paper were worn, clearly showing that it had been folded and unfolded many times.
Near the southern coastline of the island, there was a location marked with a red circle.
Beside it were several crooked handwritten words.
“Gathering point, resource point?”
Utaha leaned closer to examine it carefully.
Her black hair fell forward, the tips brushing lightly against the surface of the map.
“It’s not only the two of us who ended up here.”
Aoyama spoke calmly.
“Those two men probably came from that gathering point.”
“Judging from their condition, that place might already be in chaos.”
Utaha raised her head and looked at him.
“You want to go to that gathering point?”
Aoyama answered honestly.
“Food, tools, supplies.
Those are my goals.”
“Of course, if we can find a boat there, we’ll have a chance to leave this island.”
“But…”
Aoyama glanced at Utaha.
Her complexion had improved significantly, but her lips were still slightly pale.
Her posture was also not as relaxed as usual, showing that she was still recovering from the illness.
“We’ll talk about it after you get better.”
“You can’t travel very far in your current condition.”
“According to the map, the southern shore is at least half a day’s walk from here.”
“If we run into other people along the way, it will be troublesome if you can’t keep up.”
Although Aoyama could simply kill anyone who got in their way, whether Utaha’s body could endure the journey was another matter.
Utaha tilted her head slightly.
“Aoyama-kun means…
I’m a burden?”
“No.”
Aoyama looked at her calmly.
“If a teammate’s condition isn’t good, we should wait until they recover before moving.”
“…That’s actually a decent thing to say.”
Utaha muttered quietly.
She lowered her eyes, but the tips of her ears had quietly turned a little red.
She returned her attention to the map, pretending to seriously study the markings.
“Then these two people came from the gathering point, right?
They ran away from there, which means there might have been some kind of conflict, or people fighting over resources.”
“If the gathering point has truly become a complete mess, then rushing in without knowing anything wouldn’t be a wise decision.”
Her finger traced along the map.
“But we can observe the area around it first.
If there is still some normal order operating there…”
Aoyama nodded.
“That’s what I was thinking too.”
The corners of Utaha’s lips lifted slightly.
A hint of satisfaction appeared on her pale face.
She folded the map and pushed it back toward Aoyama.
Then she hugged her knees again, resting her chin on her arms while watching the flames dance in front of them.
“…”
The two of them remained silent for a while.
Aoyama lowered his head and began sorting through the supplies inside the hiking backpack, organizing the canned food and compressed biscuits according to their expiration dates.
Across from him, Utaha sat quietly, her gaze wandering through every corner of the shelter.
And right now, Aoyama was sitting directly in front of her.
I wonder if he noticed…
I put my underwear back on.
The thought made Utaha’s ears heat up again.
She unconsciously pressed her legs closer together, bringing her knees side by side and using her skirt to cover the upper part of her thighs.
But that only brought another embarrassing thought to mind.
Whenever she wore those underwear, she could not help but remember.
She remembered how Aoyama had held them in his hands, soaked them in warm water, folded them into a cloth roll, and placed them on her forehead.
The memory made her feel restless.
“…”
Her legs pressed together even tighter, as if she could hide the embarrassment itself between them.
Sitting across from her, Aoyama noticed the small movement from the corner of his eye.
“Are you cold?”
His voice suddenly reached her.
Utaha immediately looked up and found him watching her.
More specifically, he was looking at her tightly pressed legs and slightly hunched shoulders.
“No!”
Her voice rose half an octave before she quickly lowered it.
“…The smoke from the fire is irritating my eyes.”
Aoyama looked at her for two seconds, then simply responded,
“Mm.”
He did not ask anything else.
He lowered his head and continued organizing the supplies, taking out the antibiotic packs and iodine separately and placing them somewhere easier to reach.
Utaha stared at his profile for a long time, trying to find even the slightest sign of abnormality.
But from beginning to end, he remained as calm as if he were simply organizing textbooks in the classroom.
Utaha quietly let out a breath of relief.
He didn’t notice…
Clearly, Aoyama-kun really was an upright person.
As Aoyama continued sorting through the supplies, his eyes swept past a stone nearby.
The white underwear that had been placed there in the morning was gone.
“Kasumigaoka Utaha put it back on?”
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