Editing Golden Time:Volume5 Chapter1

They were in identical yukatas and brand new snow white rubber-soled tabi socks. On the light green cuffs there was a blue design as of running water. Diagonally across the back "Alliance of Tokyo Region Private University Awa Odori Clubs" was written in large letters. They boldly wore those with the hems tucked up, showing white, even bleached tight pants, and they all had the identical blue fans they'd been given. All that was left was to tie hand-towels around their heads and their preparations would be complete.

"Today I'm a beautiful woman dressed as a man!"

The bright, funny, dependable and beautiful person with the scarlet painted lips drawn wide grinning at him was Linda-senpai.

"Whoa, that's great! Yo! You're handsome!"

"Thank you! Alrighty, right now I, am handsome!"

The senior in the club and her junior! Banri thought that now, perhaps, he was becoming accustomed to that simple feeling of distance in their relationship. There was nothing artificial about it: the smile he returned to Linda was the real thing.

In previous practice sessions, when their eyes met, it was still somewhat awkward. It was as if Linda were trying to make normal contact, and yet Banri could not make proper eye contact with Linda.

But today, it seemed to be okay already. He felt he'd exchanged smiles with Linda.

The heat yanked out his ability to think by its roots, and the festival music echoing in the already noisy area took his breath away. The costume he wore. Makeup different from usual. The approaching start time.

That those things were mixed together into a summer festival was unusual, but it may have been that the awkwardness that hung in the air between them had come to strike him with a strange kind of brute force. The vagueness was sort of like being dealt a blow with an all-conquering <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harisen Harisen]</span> Chop.

"Really, Linda-senpai, you look better than I do. For some reason, perhaps due to my slumping shoulders, I am strangely worn out."

The physical distance between the two, about two meters. If they were club senior and junior, then Kosshii-senpai... was at the natural distance, perhaps even too far away.

But maybe, the appropriate distance.

"You're okay, you're okay, don't worry about it. It's all about having fun. Or rather, Tada Banri, your girlfriend, actually, she's having a bit of a problem..."

"A problem? With Kouko?"

Linda, her smile fading a bit, frowning as if worried, turned her gaze away from Banri. Turning where that gaze was going, Banri looked too, and there was the shape of a sad piece of junk.

"Ko, Kouko...!"

She could no longer walk on her own.

Dressed pretty much in costume, but propped up on both sides by two senior girls, the two of them held the golden Robo-Girl, Banri's lovely girlfriend... Kaga Kouko, her strength entirely gone, the geta on both her feet dragging on the ground as they carried her.

Her turned up face was ashen. Her hair hung over her cheeks, disheveled as if she'd been struck. Rather than her resembling C-3PO as per usual, she was a butterfly resembling <span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoya_Oshichi Yaoya Oshichi]</span>, the girl who was arrested for frantically ringing the fire alarm bell.

Banri, completely confused, flew out from under the tent in a hurry, rushed over to the pitiful piece of junk and peered up into her face,

"What is it!? Hey, what's happened!?"

"Ba, Banri..."

"You went off and committed arson! Isn't that a capital offense!? Didn't you know that!?"

Obviously, she was confused.

"...Of course, you have no idea what that means...?"

Her colorless lips trembling, Kouko looked back at Banri's face with teary eyes.

"N, no, because! Because the situation is just too strange! It feels like I'm thrown back into the Edo times, and the fire, they say..."

"Don't leave... I am... still... a little... nervous..."

Kouko's too-white cheeks twitched dangerously as she shook briefly,

"Aaaahh!"

She uttered a single, high pitched shriek. As one, Banri and the seniors reared back without thinking. As for Kouko, she twisted her body and shaking off the hands of the girls that were holding her up,

"It's no use, of course! Back to the bathroom again!"

She turned back down the way she had just come. She walked by her own power after a fashion, but shuffled rather strangely... her body shook as if it were being twisted awkwardly by walking with her left hand and foot moving out together, then her right hand and foot.

"She's... Nanba-walking...!"

Banri gasped also, she indeed had that ancient style of walking.

"Kouko, Kouko! It's all right, Kouko-chan! Haven't you been to the bathroom three times since we got here!?"

"Li, Linda-senpaii..."

Chasing after her right away, Linda wrapped a gentle arm behind Kouko and caught her. While so doing, she drew her mouth close to Kouko's ear and,

"Your bladder is empty! It's vacant! Okay? Calm down and think it through! That need to go..."

"This need to go..."

"Is a phantom urge!"

"A phantom urge...! Aahh...!"

It seemed her persuasion was successful.

At length pulling Kouko under the tent, Linda looked over at Banri's face, saying "here you go now."

"The worst of the tension is over now. We had a hard time getting changed."

"Oh my..."

[[Image:Golden Time vol05 067.jpg|thumb]]

Made to sit in a pipe-chair, Kouko behaved like a machine, looking around in the area in a daze. The way her neck moved, creak, creak... it was messed up; she'd run out of oil... "I wonder if we brought any WD40?" Kosshii-senpai mumbled, as if it worried him.

Once they had started, or rather, once she'd put on her hat, Kouko would probably be okay. That, from experience, not just Banri but all the Omaken surely knew.

In their practice sessions, Kouko was able to dance normally if she put on her hat so she wouldn't notice people watching her. But, for her to get this upset over what she'd seen and understood before she put on her hat... as you might expect, Banri was getting worried for her too.

Just then right next to the tent with a boom, a strong barrage of Taiko drums started up. Shouts of challenge rose from here and there. The festival was starting. The excitement around the place was rising steadily to its peak. With a matching groan, Kouko's body went stiff too.

"...Well, for now. Shall we put it on you? Looks like you forgot your lipstick."

"..."

Sitting down next to her and kindly pulling some lipstick from her own bag, Linda handed it over to Kouko. Another of the seniors opened up a mirror and held it in both her hands so that Kouko could see her own face easily.

Kouko was a mere shadow of her usual perfect beauty, her face stiff as if cramped, but nonetheless she somehow removed the cap from the lipstick that Linda had lent her. Sheepishly, she mumbled things like 'Thank you very much', 'I'm so sorry' and 'I'm being such a problem for you.' Probably nobody caught what she said, though.

So doing, getting closer to the mirror held by her senpais, stiffly moving the deep red lipstick to her lips,

"...ngh..., ngh..., ngh..."

It stopped moving for a bit. It stayed there, stretched out before her delicate face, beneath her nose.

"What's wrong, Kouko!? Try harder!"

While peering into the mirror from right behind and next to Kouko, Banri was cheering her on, giving her even his own strength. ''You can do it somehow! Try harder! Draw the red! Fight!''

But Kouko's hand still raising the lipstick, it wouldn't go any further. Not only wouldn't it move, but at length beginning to quiver violently as if she'd heard a joke,

"Alcoholism...?"

Whoever muttered it, it was precisely what things looked like.

Still, in this moment, Kouko's spirit was not yet broken. Taking advantage of the trembling in her hands, somehow moving it up and down on her lips, without pulling it to either side, she went applying the vivid color as if she were pounding it into place. Saying 'Good, good, like that,' everybody clenched their fists and then, it was over and done.

"...Nnu!"

The strangest thing had happened: the lipstick had inserted itself deeply into Kaga Kouko's nostril, wreaking havoc on the lovely rose queen's fame.

Ooh... Banri shook. The rest of the gang too. Nobody could say anything more, the time for laughing already lost, the atmosphere under the tent stilled.

The groove between her nose and upper lip sharply highlighted by splendid red lines, like a nosebleed dripping right down the middle, Kouko closed her eyes. Leaning into the back of her chair, the queen fell into an eternal sleep just like that. ''Farewell Kaga Kouko, we will never forget how funny you were...'' All of the Omaken saw her gallant figure off with a tearful bow.

The one person left, Banri, clinging to Kouko's lap,

"No no no! Wait, Senpais! Please don't give up hope! Are you planning on leaving one of ours behind here!? Kouko! Get up, get up I say! The festival is starting!"

Completely alone in her "end" state, she swayed heavily from side to side. Kouko was dying.

Each of the senpais had started with the best of intentions towards Kouko, but,

"...There's nothing can be done already."

Taking a breath and stopping for her was Linda.

"Hey, Kosshii-senpai. Has the time finally come that we ought to instruct these freshmen about 'that'?"

"Ah, 'that' eh? Yes, I guess you're right. It may be so, it's come to this... do we have any other choice?"

"Though even for me, 'that' is a little embarrassing. I'd rather not do it..."

''We're going to do 'that'? Are we really going to do that? We have no choice. It might be all we can do. That's right. Already, unless we do it...''

Suddenly whispering amongst themselves, the seniors began to exchange meaningful glances.

"Eh? Wha, what's going on...?"

Even Banri noticed that strange sign, and making as if to embrace the dead Kouko's shoulder, looked up at the upperclassmen's faces. Even Kouko, who should have been dead, suspected a change in the situation, and, opening her watery eyes met Banri's gaze uneasily.

Just what in the world were the seniors about to try to do? Without saying another word, the seniors suddenly forming a circle close around the cringing Banri and Kouko,

"Hmm～♪"

It was Kosshii-senpai who in a low voice started off.

As he hummed, extending his right hand as if pointing between the two of them, he snapped his fingers. Over and over, the humming ran through the musical scale, ''"Hmm～♪" "Hmm～♪" "Hmm～♪" ...snap, snap, snap...''

As they hummed and snapped their fingers at the two of them over and over again, gradually the circular formation started moving like a loose whirlpool around them. Was this the introduction of an adult version of Shounentai's "Only For You?"

''What is this, what's going on?'' Banri and Kouko felt nothing but fear now. In a row face, face, face... slowly rotating, humming faces. Their frowning lips lightly closed, their gazes precisely on Banri and Kouko.

While the seniors surrounded the two of them, crowding around them, their humming like the moaning of a black magic ritual continued to pick up in rhythm. Before long the rhythm rose, and to the humming began to be mixed a groaning "Hoi." ''Hmm～, Hoi, Hmm～, Hoi, Hmm～, Hoihoi... Hmm～ hoihoi.''

''Hmm～hoihoi, hmm～hoihoi, hmm～hoihoi, hmm～hoihoi! And now, all together, as if you were casting a net with your whole bodies! Stretch out your arms! Hmm～hoihoi! With all your might! All together now! Hmm～hoihoi!''

Scary.

Frozen in the middle and unable to escape, Banri and Kouko could do nothing but moan and squeal. In a state of frozen withdrawal, there was being acted upon.

What's more, from their faces, from their heads, in case from their whole bodies, dozens of hands were separately striking out at them with a motion like that of casting a net. Clapping like crazy in time with the rhythm. And every now and then, somebody would get out of rhythm and be rapping out a back-beat.

"Nhhoihoi, hei! Nhho...hei! He, he, he～i!" "Hmm～hoihoi, hey! Hmm～hey! He, he, he～y!"

Moving together, they started to make strange faces. Each of them, not just the guys but the girls too, shouted excitedly "Hmm～hey!" "Hehey!" "Hmm～Hehhe～y!" Even Linda. Linda's movements were especially wild. As she shook her hips back and forth, she looked up to the sky and shouted "Hehehehehe-y!" Instead of trying to hide her swelling shape, she threw back her chin freely.

"Together now! Hey! Come on! Hey! Tada! Hey! Banri! Hey!"

She was inviting Banri. No! I can't! I can't do something like that! Compelling Banri with her hand on his chin as he childishly twisted his body trying to escape, she enticed him with a strange expression on her face.

"Hey! Hey!"

"Ow! No!"

"Hey! Hey!"

"Stop! Aah! ...Hey!"

Mass psychology is a scary thing.

Had he noticed, Banri was swallowed up in the whirlpool of older club members, as they shook back forth, ''Hey! With all you have, Hey! Cold eyes, Hey! Chin out, Hey!''

Being left behind by the world of sanity,

"Eeek! No way! Somebody help me!"

It was Kouko, twisting around, practically crying and shaking in fear. Sitting on the chair, lipstick drawn beneath her nose still, it was as if she were carrying the burden of the Omaken's behavior on her lap. By those chins, Banri's, Linda's, Kosshii-senpai's and all the other seniors too, "Hey!" "Come on!" "Kouko!" "Robo-Girl!" over and over again, inviting her with love.

"Kyaaa! Stop it! I can't do such things! Never! I can't! I can... he! I can... Hey! Hey! Hey! He～y!"

She'd fallen...

When Banri invited her with all he had, the queen finally surrendered. Standing up, swaying to the same rhythm as everybody else, she'd entered into a state of "Hey Hey" trace. Facing Banri, "With you, Hey!" "With me, Hey!" "Together, Hey!" "Couple, Hey!" Once she got like that, she was no more scared nor anything else. Leaving it to the festival rhythm, her whole body sprang up, becoming one living form, simply making a lot of noise.

"Omaken-saan, we're leaving! Ah, are we not all ready to go now!?"

The team's core people shouted back, answering all together as loud as they could, "He～y!"

The guys in their headbands, the women in their straw hats, each of them finished up perfectly,

"Whoa-shaa! Let's go, Omaken's first festival...!

At Kosshii-senpai's call, their reply was a roar like a wild beast's.

"That" was the traditional "Hmm...Hoi Hoi Heey Tension" passed along from generation to generation of the Omaken. At last, the musical groups making the summer sky echo, they quickly slipped away to the rhythm.

<span style="font-size: 300%;"><center>* * *</center></span>

Tada Banri was dancing.

On the asphalt, where the red hot air shimmered as if rising up eagerly, he crouched down, twisted his head-banded face into a funny expression, flexed his knees as he had been taught, and surrendered himself to the quick rhythm.

Kaga Kouko was dancing too. The line of deep red lipstick drawn from her lips to her nose peeking from under her hat, forgotten and not wiped off yet, she alternately stepped tiptoed in her clogs and swung both hands in the air as if she were trying to touch the very melody of the shamisen's playing.

As for Linda, rather than being in the line of dancers like Banri and Kaga Kouko, she was always out front, right behind the paper lantern that marked the start of their team. Right in the middle of all the noise and clamor, she was especially dazzling.

I wonder, where the heck did Linda learn how to dance? Though she certainly has had amazingly developed reflexes from the start, as far as I know, she probably hasn't received any special training in dance.

But even so, Linda's dancing was really terrific.

Dressed the same as many guys, stretching her arms widely as if to spread her wide sleeves, she twirled around as if she were a top. She jumped up all at once, dancing as lightly as a butterfly. Her fingers flew through the air. And every time, her golden costume glittered in the bright sun. Flying with a splendor and speed even the men could not beat, she spun about as if she were using her entire body as a spring. Even so, it was the beauty of her supple, outstretched limbs that caught everyone's eyes.

Linda's dancing wasn't carried away by the music, so to speak, but rather it was as if Linda's body were the instrument playing the music. Linda's dancing was caught up in giving birth to this melody.

Seeing Linda's magnificent jumps before them, the customers watching from the sides of the road cheered her loudly. While we made an uproar as well, our faces red from the heat, we encouraged the girl dancers on as hard as we could with our fans.

Banri, Kaga Kouko, Linda, all the gang, everybody was smiling. Under the blue and cloudless mid-summer sky, bathed in a sunlight akin to violence while surrendering themselves to the excitement of the festival, the cares of the present world entirely forgotten from their expressions, the dance group continued along, making their steady, noisy progress.

And then, not having a body to dance myself, in the end, I had no choice but to be left behind again today, biting my tongue.

Nobody can see me, nobody can touch me. Not even the burning summer sun can show even a faint silhouette of my paralyzed body.

This me is that... the past which had spilled out from the Tada Banri that lives on in reality.

Cut loose from my own body at the time of the accident, I became a wandering spirit, unable to be noticed by anybody, drifting around this world to no purpose.

My secondary problem: "How does a ghost level up to being a vengeful spirit?"

...I want to pronounce a curse.

On the one living and using the flesh that was mine, the one dancing, that, the clown-faced Tada Banri.

I don't think that as a ghost I would be able to do that much. Besides that, it wasn't very crowded there in that photo. If I were a little more real, could I not affect things physically? Back when I lived a normal life, hearing "It's the curse of a departed soul!", "It's a psychic phenomenon!" and so on, I accepted quite a few of such things as normal happenings. I even thought I wouldn't be able to forget the "<span class="plainlinks">[http://www.scaryforkids.com/purple-mirror/ Purple Mirror]</span>" quickly enough. In the end, I'd reached my twentieth birthday without a girlfriend, but, well, anyhow.

After all, since this is my first time as a spirit, I don't know how to become a proper avenging ghost. And not knowing, time marches on. In this corner of the spirit world, the blockhead ghost is falling down, unexpectedly defeated in the early rounds. This year's summer sparkled yet more and more.

Come to think of it, it's my second summer. ...Since I have come to be like this, it was now halfway through the season for the second time.

Last summer in Shizuoka, the days were spent at home recovering, going to the doctors and studying for exams. Those days, I had not felt I wanted to become an avenging spirit and curse the new Tada Banri. I could do no more than watch over him while waiting to see what would become of me.

So, up to now, I'd thought of the new and living Tada Banri, somewhere in my heart, as if he were a younger twin brother or something. As if I were a family member, terribly concerned and unable to take my eyes off the poor workmanship.

However, the events of the other day had been a turning point, and living with such half-hearted feelings had become impossible. My time as a free guardian spirit was over. And it was all Banri's fault it had gotten like this.

Banri had cast Linda... one whom held only great regrets for the me that had to be placed into this world, away entirely. She had superficial human contact with him, but she was shut out from the depths of his heart. Even though I had always been at her side, seeing her there, making sure she was happy, and if something happened, I would come running at once. ...No matter what, Linda cannot see me, neither can she hear me, even though I want her to.

I used to think that we shared the human "existence" called Tada Banri. Even unseen by eyes, and my voice not getting through, I had felt that Banri more or less respected the lives that went before.

But in the end, that guy, obviously from his own ego, without thinking even for a moment about my feelings, without so much as looking back, broke something that was important to me from the very bottom of my heart. And then he threw me away. He denied my existence. He rejected me, not accepting me.

The matter in question, me, this me who is no longer a person but just a spirit, was truly hurt. Even though there was nothing left of my "body" to be injured.

I only lived for eighteen years. That was all the time I had.

I was willing to devote all the time I had to Linda. Though short, the days I lived I had so that I could love Linda and be with her. Those days really sparkled, so when they came to nothing without reason, I was able to convince myself that the feelings, even if they hadn't borne fruit, had plenty of meaning still...

Linda would continue a long, long, long time after this, with a wonderful life, so it was okay that my existence was only faint, so long as I exist. If that be the case, that is my life, I said to myself.

And yet in spite of all that, Banri made it come to nothing.

Banri murdered me.

Even if inside of Linda only existed fragments of me, I was denied being, cast out and trampled underfoot. To where I was scattered and blown away to the edge of the world, as if worth nothing.

Isn't natural for me to bitter over such as this?

However, this body has no physical powers, like to knock down people from behind, to summon poltergeists, to sob or to scream. Both hands waving emptily through the air, the carefree Banri eats just yakisoba every single day. Boom! There goes the one o'clock boiled egg, and now for this guy over here, boom! a record breaking yakisoba coming up. Sauce, salty, pork, seafood... day after day with a clever rotation so he doesn't get bored... Be ye fat!

Once you get chunky fat like the pork you eat, Kaga Kouko will dump you no matter what!

Even trying to curse him with wounds, fatigue and desperation, his nineteen year old body was burning calories just fine. Was that it, was it my "gluttony" curse that made it a little spicier, so he exclaimed, "Eh!? Today's yakisoba turned out really good! How!? Yum!" Was it? It was just the other day...

Looking at the face of Banri in this way, now, under the sun, flushed by the excitement and the heat, I, by myself, feel anew the urge to curse him.

I'm going to become an avenging ghost for sure.

Directing all of what little remains of this spirit at it, I will curse Banri's summer. I will absolutely curse it. I will see it cursed.

Because I will cling to you like a shadow, harrassing you in many ways. Will I allow you to enjoy your fun summer any more? Sticking to you like a sweat soaked yukata, I will whisper my curses hotly in those ears of yours.

'This is the highest point... this is the peak: your summer is over now. It will be downhill from here, just meaningless things... boredom, nothing to do, idle days. Unable to do anything well, only troubles, bits and pieces of bad luck, one after another. Lonely, sad, unable to do anything about it, overwhelmingly empty, absolutely alone... that is the kind of summer you shall live. See ya, Tada Banri...'

At any rate, so begged your spirit. The body, well, it was dragged along.

In order to make the curse sink into him, I synchronized my movements with Banri's. Raising my hands as if they were his, stepping out together, even if I can't quite get in the mood... ''Hmm hoihoi! He～y!'' Even for spirits, in time of dancing you dance. Then imagining letting out a scream so loud it would give me a stroke, ''I pray! Make me an avenging spirit! Curse him! Tada Banri! Be over with, this summer! Let it end, still boring! Be submerged, soaked entirely in lonely isolation! Summer is THE BOSS! I am an Avenging Spirit! Here are SCREAMS! And after that EVEN MORE!''

And, the visitors by the road, while watching my face shouting "Go for it!" urged me on with their fans. What the? ...What, what the?

A strange thought passed through my mind. Of the people dancing here now, of the people watching the dancers, I wondered, how many of them are "real, living humans"?

| Forward to [[Golden Time:Volume5 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]