Golden Time:Volume4 Chapter3

Status: Incomplete

30% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 4: Chapter 3

Chapter 1

That evening, a little after eight o'clock, Mitsuo knocked on Banri's door.

"Yo. Did you take a nap?"

"I thought it would be a waste of time, but laying still on the futon I eventually fell asleep. And you?"

"It was the same for me."

His body distinguished by his handsome looks more than anything else, his good friend came into the room in his stocking feet and handed Banri a plastic bag.

NANA-senpai had told them to get a nap beforehand, since they'd be working through to the morning. She also told them to bring something to eat, though she had no idea when they'd have their break time. And so, Banri had cooked white rice, and Mitsuo had bought some side dishes.

The always somewhat worried about money Mitsuo having no reason to refuse an invitation to work one day for good money, he had easily complied with NANA-senpai's requirement. Doing so, the two of them came today.

Handing over his portion of the change, split down to the penny, Banri set about preparing the easy dinner at once. Mitsuo, who had already come who knows how many times to visit, sat cross-legged as usual by the side of the low table, while Banri went about gathering the copies of "TV Bros" and sheets of report paper scattered about. And then, while fiddling with the remote control, he looked underneath the table.

"Isn't that your cell-phone making sounds?"

"Oh, it's e-mail. No big deal."

The incoming message light on Banri's charging cellphone continued blinking.

He served up the precooked white rice into suitable bowls and brought them to the table, returning once to the kitchen and bringing bottles and glasses of tea, he then looked at his e-mail.

"Kouko?"

"Yep. It'll wait until after we eat and have some tea. If I don't answer right away, she hangs up. While we're turning into Choushuu Koriki."

Mitsuo laughed, perhaps imagining Kouko, her head tilted to one side, a perfect smile glued to her face, asking him not hang up, but it wasn't really a laughing matter.

Kouko lately... from what Banri had seen since the part time job matter came up... was becoming a really restrictive character.

Worrying excessively, even neurotically over little things, like slow responses to her e-mails (usually because he just hadn't noticed them), why he arrived late for a lecture (because he'd gone to the bathroom), why he was so quiet right now (he hadn't realized he was quiet), which is the cutest? Eh? You can't tell the difference? ...Why? Are you ignoring me?

And so on.

After lectures, she clung to him tightly the whole time. He couldn't even hang out with the guys. As a human being, he wanted to have some time to himself, but couldn't have so much as that. Looking at it objectively, his days continued to be rather stressful.

Of course, he hadn't said a thing to Kouko about today's job.

Lying to her that he'd forgotten about a report in a class Kouko wasn't in, and that in order to hand it in tomorrow he was going to have to pull an all nighter, they parted after third hour and he headed home. When Kouko started to follow, saying "I want to see you working on your report; I can be quiet," he refused, saying "Sorry, but if I don't really concentrate this one time, I'll be in trouble!"

Because it was for the sake of taking Kouko to the sea, he wasn't worried about feeling guilty. Besides, he felt that from the very start, in saying that she didn't want Banri to take a job, Kouko was on the verge of leaving her proper course, straying towards her selfish side.

And most of all, number one,

"It must be annoying, how Kouko is restraining you so devilishly."

"No...? To be honest, it isn't all that bad."

...Because those were his true feelings, because he felt that way.

He wasn't keeping quiet and keeping his distance because it was annoying or troublesome. And so I guess I have no choice, thought Banri this evening, having no intention of blaming himself.

Messages from Kouko, as always, were silly things. Things like 'I'm drinking black tea ☆' That so~? Without any variation in reply. Every time, every time, it was like this. Good morning, good night, time to eat, I ate, I painted my nails, I cleaned my nails, I'm tired, I'm hungry, our cat, my little brother, it's hot, it's cold, it's fun, it's boring, where are you now? What are you doing? Do you love me? How much? Hey, hey, hey... Banri's cell-phone's predictive text algorithm already went like this: "So" becomes "That so?" "Me" becomes "Me too~", "Un" becomes "Understood" and "I" becomes "I love you too!" ...It was well on its way to becoming completely trained.

But, he didn't mind. Not at all.

Though it was not a laughing matter, it was off the beaten path and stressful, and while he had fallen into the situation, Banri was still enjoying himself aplenty, and was happy too. For a girl such as her to be so insistent over a guy such as himself... that was incredible.

At the end of the day, very simply, he felt that he was in love with Kouko.

Even if she caused him some undue trouble, it honestly seemed to him a joy. Passing through thirty pieces of empty mail per day was enough to make him smile. Even in pain, or depressed, or being a pain, she was so cute he couldn't help it. He was absolutely, completely happy with how Kouko loved him, how she obsessed over him, and he couldn't get enough of it.

If he entirely lost such days as these, or such times, he had no idea if he would be able to find happiness in this life. Life would become truly dull and meaningless, he thought. It would become completely empty.

Really, that was how he felt.

Those things... the feelings towards Linda that had been brought back to life, not saying anything, swallowing it to the best of his ability, it didn't seem that his emotions towards Kouko were any the less. In Banri's heart there should be only one of them; two people's worth of love could not exist together there. Apart from whether or not he would despise such a self as that.

He wondered if it was something people got good at, and recently even felt so. He wondered if everybody was like this. Or, with his problem they called amnesia, he wondered if he would become like them, given how his own personality had not yet entirely solidified.

Things could not remain like this indefinitely; he wondered if things would fall apart, that somebody would get hurt badly, and there would be a failure he could not bear to watch.

...He wondered, in this process, would his own heart change?

Which of his doubled selves would perish in the end?

He wondered if he was only at the very start of the adventure.

"I'm glad you met and are dating Kouko, really."

Mitsuo said that right after he'd started greedily eating his meal.

Once he'd sent a short reply to Kouko, Banri turned and look at that profile. He was indeed handsome, stuffing food into his wide open mouth as a young man would. With mixed feelings, part in wonder, part in guilt, Banri stared at him for several seconds.

"...How so?"

Or something, he asked back, a little bit idiotically. Hm? Mitsuo looked back at him sidelong.

"What do you mean, 'How so?' Because you know, I don't think just any guy would accept that failure of a stalker. You tolerate that stuff very well."

"...Well, of course I do. I love her. Kouko, that is."

"But aren't there limits to that? I've been watching over how you and Kouko have gotten along from the start, and it seems to me that you guys long ago went past those limits. Two Dimensions was a bit attracted by her too. In the abstract. She's always all over you, isn't she?"

"Hehe..."

Setting down his cell-phone, Banri set himself by the table too. Taking his rice bowl and chopsticks in hand half pretending, he waited and laughed.

The wound under the bandage below his mouth was of course still there. Not even moistened, it hurt something fierce.

"In general no, but because there's an incredible love, it's all right."

"Whoa... it's been a while since I've heard Banri speaking fondly of her. Of course, it feels a little creepy."

While he ate up the side dishes to a good feeling cadence, Mitsuo laughed even more. Watching that handsome, healthy, smiling face, he wondered just how different it was from his own.

Healthy and unhealthy. Handsome and unattractive. An honest person and a lying lout. A person prospering, and one who has confessed. Like positive and negative, completely opposite beings.

For some reason his chopsticks not moving, Banri shut his mouth then and there. He wondered how one such as himself would appear in Mitsuo's eyes? And then in Kouko's eyes. In Linda's eyes...

Suddenly, he felt as if he were looking into a mirror.

(It's all right because you love her, right?)

Tada Banri, his appetite gone, sat still.

On his knees before his own table, in his own room, he held his chopsticks in his right hand, his rice bowl in his left.

With his injured lip still swollen, not yet receding, a bandage remained on his face. He wore his usual blue-jeans and oversized house-coat T-shirt. His unkempt hair was too long, and it seemed that Banri had not noticed how much it showed from behind.

(You have a guilty conscience, and are feeling sorry for thinking such things as 'I want to return to where Linda is', so if you could be put up with, if you could be forgiven, ...that would be nice.)

So close we could almost touch noses, I stared back at my former self, right next to his face in the flesh. I wanted to find the colors of honesty and of falsehood in his eyes.

(That's disgusting...)

"..."

He wondered who it was that was muttering.

From beside him, Mitsuo softly poked the motionless Banri, his eyes staring vacantly off into space still, on the elbow. Coming back to himself, he saw that face.

"What's wrong? Eat! Didn't senpai from next door said she's coming about nine o'clock?"

"...Ah, yes..."

"Waiting tables, eh? It's the first time for me. I suppose the drinks will be prepared, of course. I don't like tending to drunkards and cleaning up after them..."

"...Ah, I wonder how it'll be? I didn't hear too many details about what we'll be doing."

"If it's like working as a host, what'll we do? We'll be forced to be chatty. Even though we are both rather quiet types."

Without any concerns, he had a refreshing smile.

Without Kouko next to him, he thought him handsome and without any inferiority. Easy to get along with, he was normally a really nice guy. He felt glad, from the bottom of his heart, that he had become his friend.

That Kouko had naturally fallen in love with the guy, even Banri could understand completely. If he were a girl, he probably would have fallen for him quickly.

Rather, he still didn't understand very well why she had clearly gone down a level from the cool-looking Yana-ssan, or so it seemed.

In Kouko's heart, Yanagisawa Mitsuo and Tada Banri were both present, but now only Tada Banri was left, and yet he wondered how in the world it had turned out that way. He wondered if it had been because he had confessed his feelings to her after she'd been clearly rejected by Yanagisawa Mitsuo. Had just that one thing really undone her ten years of unrequited love?

<~~30% Completed~~>

Back to Chapter 2

Return to Main Page