[Gintama] Immortal

A steady heartbeat continued through the chest.

Like low-pitched drumbeats, deep-sea currents, organs made of flesh and blood are like clocks that have never stopped for thousands of years—beating, expanding and contracting.Agitation, expansion and contraction.

Yae was leaning against Xu's left chest, covered with black feathers, warming the remaining warmth shared by the two of them.

The rain outside stopped, and the morning light seeped in through the hole, hazyly outlining the green edges of the leaves.

A good night's sleep, the tiredness in the bones melts into lazy comfort, there is no place to go immediately, no urgent tasks to be completed, no fatigue, and the hunger has not yet become strong.

The air in the early morning was quiet, and the color of the sky was still early. She was almost lazily nestling in her empty arms, her mind was empty, and she didn't think about anything except the rhythmic beating heartbeat beside her ears.

……

If the human heart beats 1 times in one minute, it is [-] times in one hour.

It beats nearly 3000 million times a year, and if it lives for 100 years, it will be 30 billion times.

The heart that beats more than [-] billion times is still repeating the same work today.

The sound that seemed to never go away was so reassuring that even if she didn't do anything, just listening to that familiar frequency, her mind would calm down.

The black feather slid down slightly, and Yae raised her head.

Leaning against the rock wall behind him, he closed his eyes as if he was just resting, motionless like a statue still in the morning light.

His hair was a very light flaxen color, and when the broken hair on his forehead fell down, his handsome facial features would look much softer.

The hair color is very light, and the skin color is also light. Sometimes it makes people feel that they are too white to have vitality and blood.

If the bright red eyes are bent, depending on the mood, it can make people feel like a spring breeze, or fall into a cold abyss.

In the hazy morning light, the flawless face could not see the traces of time. When it comes to the slow change, it is like a frozen river for thousands of miles.

... No, maybe the ice river changes its position every year more than the change that happens to this person.

Yae stared at the broken hair that fell on his forehead for a while, hesitated for a moment between pulling it down more and gently lifting it up, and finally withdrew his hand out of conscience.

— is sleeping.

And it is probably a light sleep that wakes up immediately when there is any movement.

Yae withdrew his gaze, turned his gaze a little, and saw the hand resting on the scabbard.

It would be nice to get a moment of real rest during sleep time.

With the other hand around her waist, Yae lowered her head.

The hand that holds the knife all year round has no thick calluses, is white and slender, and the joints are well-proportioned and distinct.

The fire that had been lit last night had been extinguished, gray embers piled up among the charred charcoal, the smoldering smoldering smoldering mingled with the early morning air.

The skin touched by the back of the hand was a little cold, and Yae put his own body temperature on it, trying to warm him up.

"……What are you doing."

Xu opened his eyes, his expression was sober, unlike the person who was still in a light sleep just now, as if he had switched back to reality from the resting state in an instant.

Yae blinked, but didn't take back his hand.

She let Xu spread out her palm, raised her finger, and slowly wrote down the familiar words stroke by stroke.

"お (early)"

"wa"

"Yo (good)"

Xu looked down at the words she wrote in his palm.

"Oh? You won't be able to talk when you wake up."

Yae patted his hand, clearly expressing the condemnation of "you will really spoil the atmosphere".

With an indifferent expression, he leaned against the rock wall behind him and watched Yae write and draw in his palm.

"う"

"つ"

"Ro"

——"False."

Write his name, then hers.

"や (eight)"

"え (heavy)"

The soft fingertips slid across the palm, leaving a slight itch like a cat's paw.

Yae drooped his eyelids, was quiet for a moment, and seriously wrote two more words in his palm.

"す"

"ki"

No words needed, it was the voice that echoed in her heart.

--"like."

Her fingertips were suddenly pinched, Yae raised her head, her bright red eyes were close at hand, reflecting her expression at this moment.

"...Really." Xu's voice was low and soothing, and the end of the slightly raised sentence seemed to have a smile, and it seemed to be tainted with other meanings.

"It's really a sudden speech." He narrowed his eyes and smiled as usual, his expression was unpredictable.

Yae thought for a while, and said, "...is it so difficult that we have to choose time?"

The tone was a little joking, and the look in her eyes was very frank: "I won't wait."

Xu looked at her:

"If you're expecting an equivalent exchange, you may be disappointed."

Yae let out an oh:

"If I was expecting an equivalent exchange, I would have been disappointed."

"...foolishness."

For a moment, Xu let out a mocking sigh, bowed his head and kissed the corner of her lips.

"Incredibly stupid."

The warm and mellow voice caused the air to vibrate slightly. After a short pause, as if unable to be satisfied from the kisses that were lightly tasted, he held her face in his arms, and kissed her possessively again on the wet lips.

"...You also know that you are unbelievable." Yae came back to his senses, and smiled vaguely: "The derogatory kind."

A chuckle escaped her throat, and Xu slightly moved away from her lips.

"Whatever you say."

Inserting fingers into the black hair, caressing her slightly messy temple hair almost intimately, read her name slowly and logically:

"Eight heavy."

As if the name belonged to him too.

The sunlight falling into the hole changed from light to bright, and the moisture accumulated last night evaporated completely, leaving only a crystal clear refreshing feeling.

Yae felt that the two of them had no sense of tension, and they didn't have the heavy heart that they might face life and death difficulties at any time when they landed on a strange planet.

She nestled happily with Xu for a while, during the whole process, she said three sentences and he replied one sentence, feeling a little hungry at last, and then put the goal of living in the wild on the agenda.

Stepping out of the cave, there are footprints of unknown beasts on the surrounding ground.Those footprints lingered near the entrance of the cave, and finally disappeared in the depths of the forest. Judging by their size, they were by no means the size of hunters on Earth.

Yae asked a casual question, and got a perfunctory reply of "I don't know". Thinking about how peacefully he slept last night, he put this matter aside for the time being.

The daytime is like spring and summer, and the night is like autumn and winter. Similar to but completely different from the earth, this planet is full of incredible vitality.

The green vitality is overflowing on the earth, and the fir trees up to tens of feet start from a thousand-year-old tree.The breeze blows, the distant treetops rustle softly, and the golden sunlight penetrates the ancient fog and falls obliquely into the secluded forest.

Soft vines grow attached to the giant tree, and the hanging branches bear fruits as dense as wildflowers.Yae tasted it once with the spirit of being poisoned, and came to the conclusion that humans can also eat it.

——She can be regarded as a representative of human beings now.

"Do you want to eat it?" Yae excitedly picked out a citrus-sized wild fruit from the collection, and then took out a slightly smaller, but darker fruit, "The one on the left is more crisp, but the one on the right It's sweeter. Which do you like?"

The misty sunlight slanted among the towering ancient trees, and the melodious birdsong seemed to come from the distant branches, which rippled in the air from time to time.

The food problem was solved, and the tentative goal of the two of them today was to find the water source.

There was a vibration from the forest floor, and before she could see the source of the vibration clearly, Xu had already led her back a few feet away, and the long knife was unsheathed in an instant.

The dense bushes made an overwhelming and breaking sound, dragging their slow and heavy steps, and a figure that looked like a deer but not a deer emerged from the depths of the trees.

"...Wait." Yae held down the knife in Xu's hand, unconsciously holding his breath.

The creature was too huge for a deer, and every step it took with its heavy body caused a tremor on the ground, and the rustling of pine needles and fallen leaves.

But the most eye-catching thing is the curved horns covered with flower vines.Like a vibrant waterfall, green plants and fine wild flowers bloom on the huge antlers, full of the brilliance and gifts of nature.

As if not noticing the creature next to it, the big horned deer raised its neck, walked slowly but gracefully, and walked in a specific direction along an invisible track.

Withholding his killing intent, the tip of the knife hung slightly, and he glanced at her, Yae patted his arm with excitement, motioning him to let her down.

"The water source has been found, let's follow quickly."

I don't know if the set on earth will work here, but it's always worth a try.

Hunters in the mountains can often find water sources along the trail of deer.

Following the huge but elegant creature, the two walked through the ancient redwood forest. When the vision suddenly became clear, groups of white pelicans flew up from the lake, and the splashing water foam brought up rainbow-like beams of light.

The huge sky is so blue that there are no impurities, and the lake extending to the distant mountains is as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the sunlight so clear that it is unbelievable.

Seeing a strange visitor, probably because they have never seen any creatures on earth, a few short webbed sandpipers seemed to want to come over curiously, but before they got close, they spread their wings and rushed into the lake by the lake. The reeds ran away, looking more frightened and frightened.

"...You are too fierce."

Yae turned around, and saw Xu standing behind him without any surprise.

With that chilly smile on his face, Xu glanced at her casually: "The law of the jungle is the same everywhere. It is impossible for creatures on this planet to be completely harmless."

"...Well, what you said makes a lot of sense."

Yae skillfully kicked and flicked the clogs, and ran to the lakeside directly on the soft sand without carrying the kimono.

The breeze blows slowly, and the sparkling light reflects the color of the sky.

The clear lake water overflows the insteps, Yae stands at the shallowest place, looks up at the sky, flocks of water birds hover upwards, and the falling white feathers hold the shimmer, people's mood seems to open up with the scenery in front of them, like Cleansing is generally refreshing and translucent.

Pushing her sideburns back behind her ears, Yae turned slightly sideways and shouted:

"Aren't you coming—?"

Against the light and shadow, she stood there in vain, she couldn't see his expression clearly for a while.

There seemed to be a little more softness in those scarlet pupils, but that brief softness was fleeting, like broken light passing across the lake, returning to the calmness of a mirror in the blink of an eye.

"Are you a child?"

Familiar, chilling tone.

"Wow, you are really an old man." Yae didn't care at all.

Immediately, she laughed and took Xu's lines: "Do you want to die?"

After the imitation, Yae let out a long breath, straightened her waist, squinted her eyes and smiled: "It doesn't matter."

From a long time ago, it didn't matter.

In the past hundreds of years, she has thought more than once:

If it wasn't for the fact that he couldn't cut her down, she would have died many times already.

I used to be confident, and I am still confident now.

Things like bad habits can’t be changed—especially bad habits that have been cultivated for hundreds of years.

The breeze blowing across the lake gradually subsided, and Yae stood in the water for a while, looking away.

When she returned to the shore, the soft white sand had the temperature of the sun, and it felt soft when she stepped on it, which she liked very much.

"...it seems so easy to make you feel content."

When Xu looked at her, Yae knew that he was looking at the real "her" - the self without human skin, neither living nor dead.

Feeling the sunlight and the living temperature on this planet, Yae narrowed his eyes slightly and did not refute his words.

"I love it here," she said.

Here—this strange planet.

"It reminds me of the original time."

"At first?" Xu asked her.

"I haven't established an intersection with anyone yet, and I haven't met you yet—all the time before this."

Yazhong looked at the distant sky, as if the world without haze is so vast, so clear that Yu Yu shines brightly.

"I went to many places at that time." She didn't look back, "You know, the human society has not yet developed at a high speed, the population is not large, the villages are not dense, and there are many, many rare natures."

Deep mountains shrouded in mist.The sea without land.

No one cares about the valley full of wild flowers, and there are only bare dead trees in the wasteland where the wild grass is crisp and yellow.

"You've seen these too, haven't you?"

I saw a storm, I saw a tsunami.

After droughts and floods, the withered and cracked land will be covered with green vegetation in the coming year.

"Everything in this world used to dazzle me."

But since when did she realize the existence of "I"?

Birds that return to their nests at sunset have nests, and solitary beasts look for mates in warmer seasons.

Humans cannot survive without each other, and something called a hug seems to bring a smile to the face.Even wildflowers that grow by the side of the road need to be rooted in the soil to bloom.

But one day, she suddenly realized:

She is different.

Unlike thousands of creatures in this world, she is "one".

There is no root to connect with, no companion to cling to each other, she is "one" from beginning to end.

That was a stinging concept she had learned long, long ago.

"Feel nostalgic?"

Xu Xu's voice came from behind, and he walked to her side, his indifferent tone could not hear the emotion:

"Those earliest memories of yours."

Yae came back to his senses: "It's okay."

After thinking about it, she added: "It's all in the past."

Stretching out her hand quietly, Yae hooked Xu's fingertips, and when he looked over, she put on a very serious expression:

"I still prefer now."

They are on one of the 2000 billion planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

It is far, far away from the earth, from the so-called end, from everything, and from its own time.

Think about nothing, worry about nothing.

Naturally, nothing is planned.

She likes the moment.

Because when Xu was by her side, it seemed as if he was just by her side.