Editing Golden Time:Volume1 Prologue

"Kuwaa~n... aanaan iya aaaaan... ufuu~n...", as the usual, strangely erotic sound of the idiotic bell could be heard behind him, Banri was already halfway across the bridge, at the head of the group.

"Sorry, are we going too fast today?"

He turned to look back at the club's vice-captain, who had been running just behind him.

"Yeah, let’s go a little slower."

While he pulled out his pony-tail, which had fallen into the collar of his jersey, the vice-captain turned around too, and looked back at the other club members, who were running behind them.

If they went at their normal pace, the seductive bell could be heard when they were one quarter over the long bridge. The club manager, Kanada-san, followed the end of the line on his bicycle, where he kept an eye on the first year students (who weren’t all that strong yet) so they wouldn’t get left behind, and rang the bell, which was about half-way through their normal forty minute run.

"That bee---llll---,"

"Haaasss beeenn ruuunnng by..."

"Kana<nowiki>~~~da~~~~</nowiki>!" ...Holding imaginary microphones in their left hands and waving their right fists to an R&B rhythm, Banri and the vice-captain sang out in chorus. "Senpais are idiots!", a second-year student running up after them gazed upon the two with disapproval. Another of the second-years said, "Don’t they do that every day?", with a stunned look on his face. No matter how uncool it was, or how tired the juniors got of it, they couldn’t help it. Looking at the vice-captain Banri said, "Nothing wrong, is there?" Playing along with him, he replied "Right", and nodded.

Banri and the other track club members ran this bridge every day, what was said to be Japan’s longest wooden bridge. Even as a local, he thought the same: it's certainly long. A big river separated this side (the mountains) from that side (the sea), which could be sensed in the hazy distance. Especially now, the scenery was blurred by the dusty spring wind, and somehow trembling, looked even more distant. Because the bridge was so long, ten years ago a travel program had featured it on their show.

Next thing you know, there was a bridge boom! City Hall climbed on board this expected fad, saying "Let’s make sure we please the tourists that will surely descend upon us!" They had interminable meetings upon worse meetings and in the end, on the mountain side of the bridge, statues of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Lucky_Gods "Seven Gods of Fortune"] were arranged. The child sized statues were set up along a fairly sloping mountain trail, making an easy hiking course. Just before the grove of trees were cut off by the bridge at the end of the trail, above [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukurokuju Fukurokuju] a huge bell was hung, its sound bringing good fortune to the opposite bank. Like saying "Please sound the bell", a mallet was placed alongside. The fact that the bell’s sound reverberated in a strangely sensual way, they decided to leave it be, "Well, there’s nothing you can do about it."

However, the few tourists that came were busy taking pictures of the view from the bridge, and consequently the only visitors to the statues were either the neighborhood dogs on walks, or the local high-school track team training. The dogs, of course, couldn’t ring the bell. The only person who would make the obscene noise by ringing the bell was Kanada.

"Huh? What happened to that guy?"

Banri spotted someone, after he eased off on his pace and turned back around. Surprised, the vice-captain asked, "Eh? What?"

"Look, there... Maybe he is not well? Is he alright?"

On the bridge itself, a little further ahead of Banri’s group, a man wearing a khaki jacket was crouched down. He was clinging to the knee-height guardrail, as if he could hardly hold himself up. Banri glanced sidelong at the guy, but hesitated to call out to him, instead slowly approaching, quietly said to himself,

"I’ve got a bad feeling about this..."

That very moment, he passed by.

Their eyes met sidelong, quietly.

The crouching man as if being blind drunk, or maybe crying, or perhaps suddenly fallen ill, covered his face with both hands and looked at Banri through a gap between his fingers. On the back of his hands, a single mysterious character, something like a "wa" or a "re", was gleaming with a faint yellow light, that Banri noticed because it was fluctuating. He didn’t understand its meaning, but leaving it aside, the man's eyes were opened wide in surprise.

Startled, because the area of the man's half-hidden nose had a strange...

"Uo, o!"

Because he was looking way over to the side for too long, he lost his balance and stumbled a few steps. He really didn’t want to be seen like that.

"Banri!"

The vice-captain sounded surprised too, as he called out his name. As if it were to blame, the elbow of Banri's windbreaker was nudged.

"That’s dangerous! What’re you doing?"

"But, but something about that guy… what!? No way!?"

Stubbornly, Banri was already running back, blinking while searching for the person he must have just passed.

He may have been seeing things, or it may have been a waking dream.

However many times he looked back, the unfortunate phantom was now nowhere to be found. He suddenly wasn’t there. He had simply disappeared.

Was it entirely his imagination? Was it a hallucination? No, or maybe, no way… did he fall off the bridge?

But he couldn’t hear the sound of anything dropping into the water.

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