It was evening, but you could barely tell. The sky was dappled with bleak, gray clouds that blocked the sunset, which made the sky a dull, dusty orange.
It did not help Kirino Ranmaru's current mood.
The pigtailed boy stared at the scene before him in horror. Midori, Akane, and Aoi, all crowded around his boyfriend.
Almost immediately, tears began to run down the pinkette's face, and he winced as the trailed across the scars from various fights. His breathing was dangerously ragged, and each breath felt like a knife scraping against his throat.
Aoi caught wind of this and turned around, looking at him with concern and pity etched onto her face.
"Kirino...are you okay? Do you want to...come over?" she asked quietly.
Her eyes briefly glanced to Kirino's hands, and he followed her gaze down to see that his wrist was still bruised.
The bruises from when Shindou grabbed him and threw him to the side and then...
He slowly raised his hand to his face, shaking uncontrollably, and sniffed it. The metallic smell of blood filled his nostrils, accompanied with the sickening stench of gunpowder.
Kirino choked out a sharp sob, sinking to the dry, dead ground. He clenched his fists until the knuckles were white as bone and he pounded the ground with aggravation. The sight was painful for Aoi to watch, yet she couldn't take her eyes away.


"Guess it'll take him some time," said Midori, who, along with Akane, had also turned around to watch Kirino's breakdown. Akane nodded with sad agreement and turned back to continue digging Shindou's shabby, makeshift grave.
"Of course it will...Shindou was special to him..." murmured Aoi quietly, jamming her shovel in the ground and hoisting another pile of dirt onto the corpse of the brunette.
Two large wounds would have caught the eye of an onlooker: the large gunshot hole on the side of Shindou's head, caked with dried blood and dirt, and a greenish-blue bite mark on his shoulder. Aoi bit her lip and closed her eyes, continuing with her grueling task.
Shindou had saved Kirino's life and had sacrificed himself for his sake, and what did the rest of the team do when he was bitten? Forced the job of taking his life on Kirino.
Everyone that was left acknowledged how cruel and heartless the gesture was, but no one said a thing. The jobs shifted every week, and Kirino was just unfortunate enough to get the task of "putting people out of their misery" when they got infected.
In this apocalyptic world, it had been drilled into their minds that law and order were more important than compassion in order to survive in a group, and they all understood that...but sometimes, Aoi couldn't stand seeing everyone break down like this.
However, she pushed these thoughts out of her mind and shoveled more dirt onto Shindou's body.
This was how life was now. It would be best to get used to it as soon as possible.