"What are you... what are you doing here?"
Bryan stared at the luggage in Sarah's arms, brow raised. "Why'd you bring all this? Don't you live over in the medical district?"
"Less talking, more carrying. I'll explain inside."
Sarah rolled her eyes at his barrage of questions, dropped the bags on the floor, pulled a key from her pocket, and unlocked the door to the neighboring room. She walked straight in.
Bryan didn't argue. He scooped up all four or five bulging bags in one go and followed her inside.
The layout was identical to his own quarters. The furniture was spotless—someone had clearly cleaned the place in advance.
"You're moving in next door?"
He set the bags down and crouched to unzip them, pulling items out one by one and arranging them around the room with practiced efficiency. He'd taken care of Sarah's daily life since they were children—her preferences for where things went were second nature to him.
"I applied for it." Watching Bryan organize everything, Sarah was happy to let him handle it. She handed him a form, then wrapped her arms around him from behind, draping herself across his back.
"Applied? For what?"
Bryan paused, the form in his hand. His eyes scanned the document—and he almost laughed. It was a marriage application.
The QZ did have such a provision. Married couples could request adjacent housing, regardless of whether they were civilians, military, or specialized personnel. The policy applied universally.
"What's this—couldn't wait?" He studied the form with genuine attention. Honestly, it wasn't a bad idea—he'd always felt Sarah's previous housing was too far away for him to keep an eye on her. This solved the problem neatly. But the smile creeping across his face was involuntary. He couldn't resist the tease.
"Shut up!" Sarah's cheeks flushed crimson. She buried her face against his back, then pinched the soft flesh at his waist in retaliation.
"Ow—easy, easy! That hurts!"
Bryan barely felt it. His body was solid muscle at this point, and Sarah's slender fingers posed about as much threat as a mosquito bite.
But he played along enthusiastically, twisting his face into an expression of exaggerated agony, begging for mercy.
Once Sarah had had her fun, Bryan turned around and pulled her close, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.
She put up a token resistance, then melted into the embrace. Leaning against his chest, her face softened into a smile that seemed to glow. Then, as if something had occurred to her, a fresh blush crept up her neck. She murmured, barely audible, "It was going to happen eventually..."
They held each other a little longer, exchanging quiet words, before reluctantly separating. The room still needed organizing.
Out of caution, Bryan searched the entire apartment top to bottom, checking every corner before he was satisfied nothing was amiss.
An hour of steady work later, with the sky already dark outside, they finally finished.
"Done at last!" Sarah dropped onto the couch, exhausted, and leaned her head against Bryan's shoulder. "Feels good to finally be here."
"What, were you unhappy over there?"
Bryan draped an arm around her, tucking a strand of stray hair behind her ear. His fingertips lingered against her skin.
"Of course not." She closed her eyes, savoring the contact. "Everyone was wonderful to me. I just... can't sleep right when you're not around. So I figured I'd make the sacrifice and move over here. Lucky timing—you got back just in time to help me unpack."
"And you didn't think to mention this beforehand?"
"Hmph. You're always busy—dealing with this, heading out on that. Like you'd ever think of something like this on your own. So I handled it. And look, you showed up right on cue to do the heavy lifting."
They nestled together, murmuring about nothing in particular, completely oblivious to the small figure standing awkwardly in the doorway.
Chen Shi had had, without question, the worst day of his young life in this world. Whatever Bryan had said to the man at the language center's front desk, the guy had gone into full panic mode—assigning three teachers to Chen Shi at once, piling on an avalanche of lessons. The pressure was suffocating.
He truly hadn't expected that even at the end of the world, he'd still be forced to study English. It was enough to make him cough blood. And true to his word, Bryan hadn't come to pick him up. A four-year-old, left to navigate the Quarantine Zone alone.
He'd managed to find his way back to the barracks by memory. Passing through the hallway, he'd noticed the door to the neighboring room was open. Curious, he'd peeked inside—only to discover Bryan wrapped around a gorgeous blonde on the couch, faces pressed together, doing... whatever that was.
Catching people in an intimate moment was mortifying. Chen Shi stood frozen in the doorway, torn between sneaking away unnoticed and clearing his throat to announce himself.
He dithered for what felt like an eternity before Bryan finally spotted him.
"Hey, kid—what are you doing standing in the doorway? Come in."
Hearing the call, Sarah turned to look and saw a small Asian boy shuffling through the entrance. She glanced at Bryan, curiosity written across her face—who is this?
"Oh, I picked him up outside the QZ. His whole group was killed—and he only speaks Mandarin, so he can't communicate with anyone. I brought him back, got him enrolled at the language center. When he's old enough, I'll put him in the school."
Under Sarah's questioning gaze, Bryan shrugged and laid out the whole story.
"Since when are you this compassionate?"
Sarah gave him a skeptical look, but she didn't object to the addition. Her attention shifted to the boy, and as she took in his uneasy posture and remembered what Bryan had just told her, sympathy softened her features. She reached out and gently stroked his head. "Poor thing."
Chen Shi had no idea what the blonde woman had said, but the pity in her eyes was immediately recognizable—he'd seen that exact look a thousand times during his hospitalization in his previous life. He played the part without missing a beat, lowering his head meekly and letting her pet him.
"Alright, you two will have plenty of time to get acquainted. Let's eat—I'm sure we're all hungry."
Bryan stood and, while there was still a sliver of daylight, retrieved several vacuum-sealed packets of jerky from his room.
"Jerky again?!"
Sarah took one look and made a face like she'd been offered roadkill. She turned her head away. "Every single day with this stuff. I'm going to be sick."
"You know how many people out there would kill for this?" Bryan shot her an exasperated look.
It wasn't surprising, though. The QZ's primary food source came from five livestock production facilities that raised chickens, ducks, cattle, and sheep. The meat-heavy output suited American dietary habits well enough.
Naturally, soldiers and specialized personnel stationed at key posts received priority—the common people's share had been skimmed through countless layers of corruption before it reached them. Bottom-tier food supply was always tight.
Since Bryan traded most of the external supplies he brought in—vegetables, canned goods, anything with long shelf life—for supply cards and intelligence, the endlessly distributed and impossible-to-stockpile jerky had become their default meal. No wonder Sarah was sick of it.
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