Golden Time:Volume1 Chapter5

Status: Incomplete

32% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 1: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Tada Banri has spotted me.

Being made fun of in a strangely confused moment in time while that long-missed seductive bell was ringing, while gasping in pain, Banri certainly saw me that day. And I saw him too.

The present and the past connecting in the middle of that bridge, Banri and I, our eyes met for only a moment. Mine, or possibly Banri's, maybe both side's mistake in vision, a bad guess, an accidental misunderstanding, a mysterious illusion, a common daydream, what he thought didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Anyway, the memory of that moment in my past certainly exists. This phenomenon, whatever you might call it, as far as I'm concerned, is real.

* * *

Serenely, Kouko said she was trying to collect the objective facts.

"To summarize them, Mitsuo and I are bound by fate. That is to say, it's been proven over and over again."

With a thump, she put a big paper bag from a department store, packed full of stuff, on the table in front of Banri. The table shaking and creaking from the weight, an older gentleman next to them, an espresso in one hand, briefly looked towards them. "Excuse me...", Banri bowing his head in a working class sort of way.

A little before three in the afternoon, walking from campus a short distance to the café--- which had now become outrageously memorable, the shop where they served café-au-lait in bowls. Thinking that perhaps they shouldn't go there a second time, they peeked into other cafes but found them completely full, and they finally settled down here, where they thought they might be able to have a quiet conversation.

"If I can pile up enough objective truth before his eyes, I think even Mitsuo would not be able to avoid his responsibility. ...And you could say, being a little law-school-ish would good right now, eh?"

Holding her bowl in both hands, sipping café-au-lait as if it were soup, Kouko could be seen smiling.

Taking his bowl in both hands like she was, Banri stared at her.

"...I couldn't get out even though I'd had enough of the lecture."

As if asking "What was that?", Kouko raised one of her beautifully cared-for eyebrows and looked back at Banri's eyes.

Between deep red lips, a line of pure white teeth. Smooth cheeks. The skin about her eyes was stretched smoothly. From her slim fingers, neatly manicured, to the line from her hips to her crossed legs, she was perfect in every way. Calmly returning her café-au-lait bowl to it's saucer, she looked out the window, elegantly composed.

Since that "worst day", when they'd escaped their awful situation, four days had passed. Having taken a break, it seemed that Kouko had gotten back on her feet. However.

"Well then, Kaga-san, are you really feeling better now? With how you were feeling Wednesday and all, not attending and looking like you were going to fail the class! All the first years but you have been getting perfect attendance."

"I just had to have a little time. Alone, by myself, thinking. And I arrived at a conclusion that of course I did the right thing. It wasn't a mistake. It was just right. ...As long as I keep to my plans, things will have to work out!"

Finally up to the task, even if only in front of Banri, as if acting the part of "the Perfect Kaga Kouko", she slowly raised her chin and smiled with her whole face. He could not discover even one flaw, not one spot on her creamy white throat.

With Kouko at long last back to school, just like that, Banri was even more high spirited than he had been worried before.

Wounded by Yanagisawa's cold attitude, confused by Chinami's entry into the fray, and along the way, embarrassed by the Extras, he had felt that she must certainly have been feeling down. Those four days, Banri had been really worried about Kouko. The day before, he had even called out to Linda when he spotted her in the lobby, and while leaving out the details, consulted with her about what to do about Kouko.

Banri said to Linda, "She seems to be lost, because she's so clumsy at it she's ashamed to join the Extras. Pressuring her won't do any good. But, it would be boring without a partner.", nodding to her. She replied, "If Kouko was so inclined, of course they would be happy, she would always be welcome, and it's OK if she's a bit confused up until when she agrees to join." Simply calling Kouko to be his partner, just that much was making Banri feel strangely embarrassed.

"What were you thinking about? There's no mistaking Mitsuo and I are bound together, just not completely yet. There's proof, such that nobody can evade, perfect proof."

Kouko was stubborn to the end.

Her straight-blown hair spilled right down her back, held by a hairband wrapped in a deep gray and purple satin design. In her dark brown hair, it really looked pretty. Then,

"Justice will be mine!"

She nodded vigorously, showing her enthusiasm. She was wearing a snow white blouse. Emphasizing the courtroom style, she had on a slender, mannish vest. And a black tie. And a black miniskirt, black tights and black high heels. She had the evidence stuffed in a paper bag, and carried a high-class brand of briefcase. Together with how she threw her head back, today's Kouko really, how can you say it? ... She seemed to be doing an impression of a sexy lawyer.

Banri even now didn't understand where Kouko got her certainty. The proof, the proof, she was saying, but in reality up to this point, seeing the so-called 'satisfactory relationship' that Yanagisawa and Kouko made, he didn't think there was such a thing in this world as pulling out "objective facts".

Rather, he didn't think a man's heart could be moved to one's own convenience.

Though thinking about it, he didn't want to say anything negative to this Kouko, just barely returned, finally, from getting back on her feet.

"Wellll...", carefully saying little, resting his chin on his hand, Banri's cellphone buzzed.

It was a text from Yanagisawa.

"Yana-ssan said the lecture is over. He's coming this way now."

"Did he happen to ask you if I was here too?"

"Yes, yes, he did", said Banri, nodding. Though it seemed she was coming to school, after the lecture they hadn't spoken but a bit. "What're we doing?", was all Kouko had said along the way.

Once he came alongside Banri, Yanagisawa answered frankly, "I wanted to talk with Kouko too, amongst other things." While he was speaking that way, he gave a brief glance full of meaning that even Banri wasn't fool enough to not notice. He couldn't recall even one time that Yanagisawa had actually wanted to talk with Kouko.

As if she were satisfied, Kouko's back became even straighter.

"Look at this, will you? Perfect. Of course, you've been worrying about me, for a long time. You've repented of how coldly you've were treating me. And then, little by little, unknown to yourself, I have filled up your heart. That is quite according to our perfect scenario."

Then as she were just remembering it, she took out a hand mirror from her pouch, looked into it, double-checking her beautiful perfection. Eyes upturned, blinking repeatedly, trying to make a smile from ear to ear, then nodding as if in approval, she put away the mirror.

This latest development startled Banri.

"Ka, Kaga-san, well... of course you aren't going back again!? And then, there's that, look here, rather than waiting in vain for Yana-ssan, once in a blue moon..."

"What are you saying? At long last, after waiting for him, I've can present my evidence to him."

With a smile quickly put back in place, saying "That's true, isn't it?", he had no choice but to shut his mouth once more.

Really, calling Yanagisawa here like this was bad. He had yielded to Kouko's excessive self-confidence, though she couldn't deal with being rejected over and over again.

Hoping for something like progress with Kouko, perhaps... no, never, won't happen.

Yanagisawa was planning to turn her down once and for all, here.

Besides, it seemed to Banri that during the time she was away from school, Yanagisawa and Chinami’s relationship had been making progress, little by little. Even at the club drinking parties, it seemed, the two of them had had plenty of time to themselves. Since Yanagisawa knew all too well that Banri was supporting Kouko, he felt no need to mention it. In fact, he would not have been surprised if they were actually starting to go out together.

"...Anyways... shouldn’t you not be getting your hopes up?"

Timidly, that was all he tried to say.

If he were untactful, Yanagisawa might have planned to come here together with Chinami. And then in front of Banri and Kouko, they would slap her with the announcement they were a couple. If such a thing were to happen, what would Kouko wind up doing? Becoming perfect, and then, ...what would she become, really? For certain sorry, standing petrified, in a strange cold sweat.

As for Banri, since such a Kouko's near future worried him, he couldn't just decide things were getting uncomfortable around here and take his leave, claiming "This has nothing to do with me."

"Why? He didn't just come here this way perfectly. There's plenty of evidence."

Looking strangely hesitant, Kouko looked back at Banri's face, handling her paper bag as if it were something valuable.

"But it's 'proof'... otherwise why would I have brought it with me?"

And saying, "He's come!", she sat facing the doorway, her eyes shining.

"Mitsuo! Over here!"

When she stood up with a flourish, like an actress, the old man next to them, apparently unable to deal with the noise, finally got up and moved over to the counter. "Sorry, really...", muttered Banri in a small voice that could hardly be heard.

Yanagisawa, his hair hanging down partway down the sides of his face, was standing in the entrance to the café. Raising his voice when he saw Kouko's face,

"Been a while, hasn't it?"

It seemed as if he were shrugging his shoulders while saying it. Chinami wasn't there, so Banri was able to relax for the time being. As he walked over to them, he jammed a knit cap he'd taken off into a pocket of his faded jeans. The heels of his well worn Red Wing boots made the floorboard creak.

Throwing her shoulders back, Kouko took a step towards Yanagisawa, keeping her perfect smile directed at him.

"Won't you sit down? What would you like to order? Mr. Defendant."

"Oh be quiet. Excuse me, could I have some coffee? Be normal."

"Hmph, you only just got here."

"I won't try to escape nor hide. You have nothing to be afraid of."

"Hey, what're you trying to say? Did I even set you free, or discover you hiding?"

"...Should I...really be here?..."

"It's OK! Stay here!", the two of them said at the same time, smiling, making Banri settle down and stop squirming.

In this meeting between the guy who was loved, and the girl whose love was unrequited, why was he here in the first place?

"Well then, prepare yourself. I will be understood completely. My perfection..."

"Something you want to say arbitrarily, as it were? Since it doesn't matter, I'll stay and listen."

"Anyways, sit down. Or have your feet cramped? Isn't it still early to be getting cold feet?"

"Huh? What have you been saying? Just why can't I have second thoughts?"

...Was this feeling like a duel?

Kouko's face smiling. Yanagisawa's face a mask. Giving each other exactly the same cool looks, they sat down, even their timing matching precisely, like mirror images. While between the two of them the tension crackled as there were unseen sparks flying, Banri, who had been watching from the start had been yawning repeatedly, exhausted from the stress. Oxygen simply wasn't getting to his brain.

Or rather, the scene these people were making, as if they were on good terms with each other, Banri didn't see it that way, not even for a moment.

Facing each other again, they always disagreed, would get to fighting and disputing. Somehow the two of them argued just like they were brother and sister.

"Well, let's start with me, OK? Let's start by stating the end goal. Mitsuo, who is recognized in truth as my lover, should be quickly and formally engaged."

Kouko preempted him with her perfect smile. Was she bewildered? Was she bashful? Were her delicate emotions wavering? Trampled by those high heels and flushed down the toilet! To all appearances, she was as self-assured as an fortress.

"These are the proofs. Look through it in order. Starting with where we were born."

Kouko pulled a file out of her paper bag, and Yanagisawa and Banri leaned over a map of a city center so they could see it.

"Here is the Kaga home. Here is the Yanagisawa home. In a straight line it's about eight hundred meters. Close from the start. The schools were together too. The probability of our getting to know each other in public elementary school was very high. In summary, our meeting was inevitable. It was determined from the time we were born that we would meet, somewhere. And it was fated that we would get together. We were classmates from elementary school onwards."

She turned a page in the file with her beautifully painted fingernail. There was picture, glued onto some cardboard, a caption hastily written all around it.

"This was from the entrance ceremony. We're in the same picture, both of us. We were only eight years old. We still hadn't even spoken with each other at that time. At seven years old, a picture of an outing. A patron visit... Mitsuo's parents and my parents were together. After that, an athletic meet. Eight years old, nine years old, ...allways together in pictures. Look at this, summer camp in our fifth year. Mitsuo, what's with such long hair? Then, this,"

"...Just what do you want to say?"

"Listen, just look. It's the graduation from elementary school! They took a picture of the two of us. We asked somebody to take it."

"You're sure drowning in memories looking at your album and remembering again. Just what's your point with all this?"

"Because of that, it's proof!"

"Of what?"

"Mitsuo and I are bound by this legitimate proof of fate."

Even when the file was closed with a bang by Yanagisawa, Kouko's didn't turn off her smile.

"What I think about Mitsuo, in truth has not changed. I've been that way since I was little, I was always together with Mitsuo. Remember when you confessed your love in first grade? Mitsuo said it, too. I love Kooko-chan, I'll be together with Kooko-chan from now on, you said, you'll become my bride, right, you said. You really did say it. Don't you remember? It was when we gave out presents at the Christmas party in first grade. You said it on the stage, my father and mother heard it too, even grandma heard it."

"...That, in the Christmas party, wasn't that a play!? That was a well-staged dramatization, so that your parents could hear."

"Ever since then, I've always been committed to getting married to Mitsuo."

"Look, Kouko. Between us, the dating thing won't work."

"But that was something between childhood friends. Again, I don't think I especially need to explain our relationship. That is something that goes without saying. Right?"

"Perhaps when we were children, we said things like that innocently. But, that was because we really were kids. Things like that could be said. But we're no longer little kids. Being a kid, wearing a uniform, going to and from school and studying; that's different from now."

"That's right. I understand that. We've grown up. Therefore, even in our relationship, we want to bring it up to an appropriately adult level."

"...'Bringing it up' or whatever, is something else though. "Loving" as a kid, versus "loving" now. I love Mr. Giraffe, I love Mr. Elephant, I love Kooko-chan... that happy time is already over. That's something normal; understand that. I mean, you can pretend to understand, or not."

"That's not it. Our relationship, ever since we were born, by destiny, for eternity, has been absolutely perfect."

"I don't understand where you get that from. I am fed up already, really, with your presumption. Because of it, how long have I been handicapped? First year middle school. Third year middle school. Second year high school. When there was a girl I could like, you're interfere one way or another, quarrel with with her, harass her, until you'd gotten her fed up with me. You even affected my friends, making them keep their distance. Thanks to you, all the way through graduation, not one girl would associate with me. I was truly left alone. As far as everybody was concerned, Yanagisawa Mitsuo had no choice in the end but to be Kaga Kouko's."

"Fooling around is not permitted. After all,"

"So! Already, it looks like you're telling me you're fed up with it!"

Kouko having once more opened the file, Yanagisawa roughly pushed it aside. Falling from the table, photos and memo-like things were scattered by Banri's feet.

"But, ...I haven't blamed you for what's happened until now. It's the past in any case. With childhood things in general, lacking judgement I made childish mistakes, drifting along, I think. I am thinking that now you should be taking responsibility for having come to my university, and certainly for your own life. Anyway, I am just telling you clearly in advance. I have the person that I like now."

"...It's me, of course?"

"Take it however you like. It's Chinami. It seems to me that a few times now you've tried to smear her name. If you so much as trouble her, put her on the spot, hurt her feelings or pester her--- if you try to separate her from me, I will not be happy with you. I will hate you, I will hate Kouko, eternally, absolutely and perfectly to the point where it will follow you even if you transfer to a different university."

Deliberately slowly so as to be heard, Yanagisawa with his finger as if setting a rhythm, stabbed out the words.

"I'm leaving you behind."

With a sharp sound, Kouko stood up.

She looked down at Yanagisawa.

"...Why?"

Her now visibly false smile vanished once, but then returned, stiffening.

"Why? What the, why such... what with this? I don't get you."

Yanagisawa silently looked up at the scene. Kouko was breathing as in gasps, trying to maintain her expression but her lips trembling more and more as she spoke.

"But, ...but, I don't understand. Am I not special to you? Do you remember that time you had such a big backpack on? Do you remember when you'd lost out because of your handwriting? Who comforted you then? When you were chosen to be a member of the relay team for the sports day, who baked the party cake? You dropped the relay baton, didn't you? Who of all the others knew that? That time the girls came in first, and our class came in first overall. Who was the anchor of the girl's relay team? Between "Mitsuo can see me" and all the cheering, I was always such a dunce. Who ran faster than anybody?"

"I remember."

"You do!?"

"But, it's impossible."

"Well then! ...Then, when I was born and started writing love letters, who were they to...? To who... do you know?"

Noticing that Kouko's fingers were trembling delicately where they touched the table, Banri involuntarily glanced up at her face. Looking, he saw how pale she had become. Her voice was shaking too. Even the café-au-lait bowl was rattling.

He didn't need to see this. Or rather, why was he being shown this? Banri hid his face, covering his eyes with one hand. He could only hear the trembling voice of Kouko.

"...Do you know this boy I've come to love since I was born, do you? On the occasion of my ninth birthday party, the boy who took me home? When I was feeling down because I wasn't chosen to accompany on piano, the boy who for my sake brought from home an origami set? That boy... do you know him?"

"...But, it'll never happen."

"Wouldn't you know!? You were that person! The reason I was able to run so fast, the reason I want to be pretty, the one I wanted to love was you! You've always been special! To be bound to you is right! Otherwise, if it weren't so... it wouldn't be perfect! Unless I was perfect, then I would not be able to get you to love me! Then what was I to do!? So, so always, I, I've tried, perfectly... hey! Why am I not special to you!?"

Quietly raising his eyes a fraction, Yanagisawa gave Kouko a penetrating look. Banri wished he could leave. If Kouko had noticed how badly she was shaking, she probably would have gotten up and left long ago.

"Answer me! Haven't I loved you since I was little!? Wasn't I raised with you and for you!? And yet, why am I not special for you!? Why am I not even important for you!?"

"So please answer me!", she repeated over and over again, whining like a little kid, unable to listen and beginning to tremble pitifully.

Ah, no way, such a---

"...You, are you an idiot...?"

Of sympathy there was not a trace. His expression was one of anger. Yanagisawa was angry.

"I don't think you ever understood me. It was always just about you. For that reason, you don't understand!"

Standing up, pointing at her with his finger, to his tearful female childhood friend Yanagisawa spoke.

"This was a careful decision. Really and truly, from the bottom of my heart, I am doing this for you. ...I did it for you! Why don't you understand that!? Do you want to get hurt because you fail to understand to something I'm telling you? You're not an irresponsible kid, so understand! In particular, don't be getting the wrong ideas just because I happen to care! I'm not going to talk about lovers, destiny or any such thing! Because in reality, it wasn't like that! We didn't even fool around, not at all! That was because I cared for you! If I had not cared, then with the right atmosphere, and the right feelings, what might we have done, we could have wound up having some fun! But that I could not do! I don't think one can become happy just by doing that! Because of that, it was something I absolutely could not do! I don't want to do such a thing!"

"...Well, weelll,"

Banri couldn't look at Kouko's face.

"If I'm important... if I'm special, that... love, is something different...? Is it not permitted to include 'love'? Coming to love me, falling in love, loving one another, getting married, for eternity, speaking that way... why, cannot it be? Is it not possible?"

Yanagisawa's reply was a shake of the head. Yanagisawa was crudely telling her they it would not work, the two of them together. Banri wasn't thinking that Yanagisawa would not understand just how much he was supporting Kouko. Neither was he blaming him, asking him to be flexible and not say such hard things. Because he was that sort of guy, maybe that's why he wanted to be friends.

"...Not possible...?"

A drop fell to the table.

"...This way, in spite of remembering our childhood...? Even though I'm special? In spite of that, there's no way? Then, then in short... it was my fault?"

That was how Kouko was defeated.

If she simply cried herself out, not her objectives, not her evidence, nothing would come to be more than a pile of papers.

"Because I was merely something to be despised? Then, to whatever extent you have memories, however long a time you give me in reality, there is simply no way? Could you not fall in love with me? If, if that's the case,"

In a small voice, he tried to call her. He was thinking it is time to give up. Kouko not knowing how to pull back, again sinking into depression before him, Banri wanted to hold her back. That is the reason I stayed here, he thought.

But that voice didn't seem to reach Kouko.

"If so, then I am already not needed! Always unneeded, always forgotten, done without! Made as if I never existed! If just one more thing happens to me that cannot be undone, I will be entirely gone!"

Hearing what seemed to be a scream in that voice, Yanagisawa said nothing more, rising from his seat.

Pulling his knit cap on his head nearly to his eyes, he swung open the door and went outside.

<~~32% Completed~~>

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