Just the Two of Us in this Vast World

Chapter 1 — The boundary line, the marriage between a girl and a wolf. Part 18

“I’m not saying that I regret this,” he said, nodding. “It’s just that it’s heavy.”

If he still found it heavy, it was probably because he had to put the forest aside, but couldn’t bear letting it go.

“It’s merely that you don’t feel safe being thrown into a new world so suddenly.”

Just what exactly was he still feeling attached to?

I stood up and threw myself onto the bed. I left half of it empty for Shiro and asked him to come over.

He came over obediently and slept beside me.

“I’m here with you.”

His round black eyes wavered, akin to the ripples made on a lake’s surface by stones.

They looked almost like mirrors, completely omitting himself and solely reflecting my own image.

“Apart from me, is there anything else that you need?”

I extended my hand and placed it by his jaw, pulling him closer.

Then, without closing my eyes, I kissed him.

His eyes shook again.

Anxious, they shook.

Trusting someone was hard, loving someone was hard as well.

It was the hardest thing to do, even more for the two of us, who had lived till now without trusting anything, without loving anything.

Even though we were almost overflowing with hatred.

“…Your body is cold, it almost feels like you are the very embodiment of winter.”

“Then, you warm me up.”

I snuggled into his silvery white fur and closed my eyes.

I felt the warmth of his body, the smoothness of his fur, the rhythm of his heart, and the smell of the forest.

It was a calm and truly relaxing serenity.

~~~

In the end, I wasn’t able to recover my uniform so I had no choice but to attend school in my summer uniform.

Thanks to the recent events, I always walked while holding onto the knife that I had gotten from Mouse.

It wasn’t a bother to carry it around anyway, and the touch of cold steel somehow calmed me down.

Maybe because I had called for an ambulance, the event with Mouse became more of an uproar than expected, and they even ended up calling for an assembly of the entire school.

What they announced there was an explanation of her being attacked by a stray dog and being hurt badly, so she had apparently been hospitalized somewhere.

They also told us to walk home in groups of as many people as possible.

My classroom was dead silent.

Probably because there were two students who had been seriously injured, one after the other in such a short period of time.

Whenever the mood of the class became like this, it was usually Budworm’s gang’s time to shine, but it just so happened to be them who ended up being injured.

The honor student, who was the only one remaining amongst them, didn’t seem to be able to calm down.

Apparently he had already scheduled a visit to her, but there was no way I’d ever tag along with him.

If anything, it was simply so silent that it almost felt like my entire existence itself was being forgotten. For now, it seemed like some really good days would follow.

While I was casually watching the news on the TV one day, I heard that the authorities were setting off to work and would go on a mountain hunt.

To get rid of a large stray dog that had attacked two innocent girls, they said.

It all sounded like utter rubbish to me. They didn’t know anything about the so-called innocent girls, nor the wolf.