Gintama; Takasugi x reader (Finale) [Take Me With You]

Chapter 28 {Y/N}

     Voices wake me from sleep. Unfamiliar ceiling streaked with sunlight greets me.

I stir beneath the thick sheet that covered up to my chest, and feel the familiar soreness seeping back inside my bones. My body feels hot and cold and restless. The signs of a fever.

Pushing past the absorbing fatigue, I sit up and face the plain white screen-door of the room at my right. Cool air penetrates through the thin infirmary yukata I'm wearing, and I shudder when the sheet comes off my body.

The voices speaking outside are hushed, but due to the usual serenity of the ship they're just fine to overhear.

I remain seated upright, waiting.

     "It seemed that she drowned before you found her," says a soothing voice.

I tense at the reminder. Memories of the black senseless sea rising and threatening to take me until it did unzip a bag of fear in my chilled body. I feel cold all of the sudden, my fingers stiff.

Who had saved me? I throw my gaze to the door again, wishing for a moment for it to be translucent and grant me the view of my savior. Heart pulsing in dreaded anticipation, I loathe on the possibility of being saved by-

A soft noise interrupted my thoughts, following by a sigh.

     "What happened this time..." Yokade sighs loudly again. Relief floods through me at his voice, glad that I won't have to owe my life to someone I can barely stand. I owe enough.

I pull the sheet aside, strongly convinced that Suguru-san had lent me his room for the entire night, and stand unsteadily. The sensation of being stranded in the waves with no solid surface to hold onto makes my legs wobble like the water itself. My low fever isn't helping much neither.

I make my way to the door and press strength to the frame to slide it across. This captures the attention of the men conversing outside, both standing near a bed stand with a tray of food atop of it. Light pours in from the multiple windows, brightening the room in an old sense.

Yokade quickly abandons his place by the doctor and comes to me. Worry and relief wrestle to dominate his face. "How are you feeling now?" he asks after stopping at a close distance from me. I feel too hazy to mind.

     "I'm fine," I assure him, surprised at my own firm voice, "apart from my fever." I invent a smile, then look to Suguru-san behind him. "Thank you, both of you, for always saving me."

The doctor actually smiles to that, his gesture is better depicted as forlorn though. Yokade stepping aside, I step out from his room and shut the door.

Suguru-san asks from where he is. "Could you tell us what causes you this incident?"

By the look Yokade is having, that question is without a mistake something he's been itching with since last night when he found me. I wonder if my seemingly lifeless figure scared him then. Whereas Suguru-san, his dark aged eyes hold a gentle look, but something in there shields a sharper intention, a deeper understanding.

I move to settle on a bed near the stand, intending to move away from the elder's prodding gaze. I believe something else about me interests him more than why I was found unconscious in the middle of the night.

     "It was nothing big," I finally let when seeing Yokade wanting to burst out in suspense. "I was on the deck and had slipped because of the rain."

     "On your own?" I can't tell if my friend sounds frustrated or skeptical. He quickly comes by me, his movement a rush. Impatient.

I don't see why I should shield this case. "Matako tried to send me away but I resisted. Then I fell." I shrug, hoping to cover my embarrassment, and not sure where should I direct my ember of hate to but myself. It proves a failure when I brood over it longer.