[EXCLUSIVE] - Gaia Gear Ch.01 Pt.02

　"A-ffranchi Chaaar!"

　Everly Key's exploding voice, one that could be heard even in the most violent of storms, made its way to Affranchi's ears. Except they were in an inland sea, and it was a sunny day.

　Her voice faded away like a flash between the sea and the atmosphere.

　Hearing it, he swam in the direction of her voice, cutting through the water with overarm strokes.

　She pronounced the initial sound of Char's name quite accented. 

　"A-ffranchi Chaaar!" 

　Everly Key was balancing on the diving board of the floating buoy. She was a girl who instinctively relished being seen. She knew exactly how to strike an alluring pose precisely in Afranchi's direction. However, there was no sign that she knew what she was doing.

　That's why it was so attractive.

　When Affranchi tried to grab her ankle on that floating board, she quickly flipped her body. In his eyes, her heels rose on the floating platform, and the toes on her long legs kicked and stretched out.

　"Eva!"

　Char called out to her.

　Her body vaulted over his head as he looked up like an arrow released from the bowstring, looking much longer because of the extension of her arms.

　The droplets were so tiny and light that the sound of her breaking the water's surface wasn't even audible as the water swallowed up her suntanned skin.

　Char dived as well, following after Everly.

　Beneath the water's surface, the translucent light crisscrossed unsteadily in vertical shafts, creating a hazy scene, and her limbs rotated gracefully across the blue expanse.

　Everly's body, already down on the coral reef, drew further and further away from Char. He chased after her legs as they bobbed up and down and the round, plump buttocks that supported them.

　The color from the tide cast a slight shade over her body, though the shadows that were highlighted were clearly visible. slightly but bringing it into sharp relief.

　The underside of the surface of the sea reflected her limbs in multiple fragments before fading away.

　Groups of small striped fish scattered in a flutter of brilliant colors.

　Crickle, crackle.

　As he followed after Everly Key, he could hear the sounds of the sea, the leftover reverberations from the ocean tide after it swallowed up the pulse that came up from the Earth, the seabed.

　Crickle, crackle.

　And a sudden flash.

　Even the tiny bikini Everly was wearing became a part of her body, accentuating her beauty more than if she were completely naked, as if she were a mermaid in a fairy tale.

 　"!!"

　Is this love?!

　Love?

　What is love?

　This here was the symbol of eternal, absolute ambiguity.

　And it was beyond the form of his focus, Everly Key, where the colors from the tide looked like a wall, an abyss, symbolizing the existence of something absolute.

　Everly's black hair spread wide in the tide, drawing her closer to Char. Her teeth glistened like pearls in the tide.

　"Hehe... Hahaha!!"

　Affranchi could hear her laughter as the tide carried it. This time, it was Affranchi's turn to be chased. Then, in one go, he took a deep breath and sped up his escape.

　Blub! Blub!

　The bubbles created by his breath grazed past his ears and mixed in that sound, that sizzling.

　It was not the sound of water pressure but the pulse from the Earth that thrummed rhythmically on his eardrums.　

　Then, Everly's hand touched Affranchi's skin. As he turned, her firm but supple breasts touched his chest.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

　The heartbeats made Affranchi feel, with the touch of skin to skin, the pulse of the organ that gives birth to passion, the source of energy that makes the blood run.

　How warm the tides of the southern islands were to these two.