Golden Time:Volume2 Prologue

Status: Incomplete

30% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 2: Prologue

Prologue

The color of their class T-shirts was yellow.

On the front side, in large characters fading from deep green to orange was their graduation year, "3-4", drawn with a font to make them appear as if they were flying out towards you. On the back side in light blue was their home-room teacher's name, and then all forty of the class member's names were written in small letters, made to look like an English-language newspaper.

Though it looked rather crude, the design wasn't bad. If you were to look at it finished, you might very well call it something a high-schooler had made as a memento of graduation.

But to get to this point was a battle.

It was good to see the enthusiasm, "Let's making matching goods for the whole class!", but first they argued about whether to make T-shirts, ecobags or straps, and when they settled on making T-shirts, they then argued about the color, the design, the font... anyhow, they argued about everything the whole time. Did they argue so much on purpose?

Nevertheless, there was nobody speaking out, saying "enough, stop it". Everybody was aware of how much time remained before they graduated. Their state: the home room shut down and everybody arguing at once, would not happen a second time in their lives. Perhaps it was because they knew they wouldn't have another chance.

From gathering everybody's opinions, to placing an order with a contractor, had taken two whole months.

From that point they waited another month, and forty special order T-shirts arrived at the end of February.

In class, since springtime, half of them had decided their lines of study.

Of the remainder, some still had to take their entrance exams, some were still awaiting the results of their exams, some had decided to try again next year, some were working various part time jobs, and some were hoping to take over their family businesses.

Whether bright or gloomy, anyhow everybody had their own outlook. Even though their various circumstances varied, on that day everybody’s face was present in the classroom.

They lovingly passed around the plastic bags from the cardboard box, each with T-shirts packed inside. Waiting until everybody got theirs, they opened their bags simultaneously with a tearing sound.

All at once, shouts of joy erupted.

They went through the invoice, figured out who's was who's, and got them all passed out. It was nice to see such reasonableness from high school students. Things got more lively right away. One after another people put them on over their uniform shirts, pointed at each other while telling each other "It looks good on you!", gave each other high-fives, mugged to have their pictures taken with cell-phones, and even, overcome with emotion, put their arms weirdly over the shoulders of their fellow classmates.

In the middle of such uproar, nevertheless alone, seated in a chair, frozen in place as if he were dead, there was one more fellow.

"My name..."

He was Tada Banri.

"My name... is the only one missing..."

Banri was running his finger back and forth over the back side of the T-shirt spread out on his desk, verifying the lined up names over and over again. Slowly, carefully, so as not to mistake any letters for something else.

Yet he couldn't find his own name. However many times he counted them, from the very start he came up with thirty-nine names of students.

His own name only, nowhere.

However many times he checked, it did not change. Eventually, his field of vision began to tremble.

Without warning, he had been erased. It had been decided that he did not exist. Even though he'd always been there. Even though he'd been together here with them.

Or, was it that he only thought he was together with everybody?

<~~30% Completed~~>

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