Golden Time:Volume3 Chapter2

Status: Incomplete

13% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 3: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Tada Banri was checking his timing.

College first period, in the corner of the lobby.

While hiding himself stealthily by a column, he watched the students coming and going, mixing together, looking for the moment to jump out.

If you looked at him closely, he’d seem an ordinary guy, not very strange. And yet, with a ghost right next to him (mine!), sticking with him in the very same pose; if people had the least ability to see spirits, they'd see me, but it seems that such situations only exist in stories.

Banri, his back still stuck to the column, slowly stuck out his face, drawing it back at once. Concealing the pounding in his chest, he wondered if he could make his face more like Tom's in Mission Impossible, but unfortunately he could not. He was Japanese.

Some meters in front of the table, a few of the Omaken upperclassmen were seated. Linda was there too. There, in the club's territory, they were chattering away as always.

At first, Linda wasn't there. So Banri tried to get closer to the table, but noticing that Linda was coming from another direction saying "Good Morning!" and such, he had hidden here in a panic. And that's how it came to be like this.

He couldn't get any closer for now, but to make his retreat from here, getting close to that table was something he had to do, and Banri had become unable to move.

Still unaware of Banri being present in that way, Linda sat on the shallow bench, having fun chatting with the other guys about this and that.

Banri has been acting like this ever since the morning he ran away as soon as he saw Linda's face. He won't go near the places where the second-years are. If he happens to notice anybody that looks like Linda, he runs away instantly. Linda, nevertheless, sends him a text once every day. Did you come to school today? That kind of thing. But without answering, Banri continued to sneak away and hide.

Since the drinking party, he hadn't even shown his face to the Omaken upperclassmen. There were scheduled practices he hadn't gone to, and at present because of that something was going to happen, so of course it could not stay like this indefinitely.

"...Ahh... What to do..."

That was the truth! Looking up at Banri's face talking to himself, I told him. What will you do, Tada Banri?

Making a face like that, so miserably running from place to place. How long do you plan on going on like this!? Be firm! Be earnest!

Live life boldly!

---Of course, my voice doesn't even reach you.

"..."

Banri took a long breath and came out from behind the column. To look at him, he seemed a young soldier lost alone in enemy territory, seen dimly amongst the other students coming and going in the early afternoon.

I took a breath in the same way. Already tired of following along, even in Banri's hide and seek, I craned my neck to look over towards the table. At the table, or rather, at Linda.

Seated lightly with her hand stuffed in her pants pocket still, Linda was raising her voice in laughter at the joke of some guy he didn't know. From the pocket where her hand was still, a cell-phone strap protruded. Holding tightly to the cell-phone in her pocket, she was probably keeping on her wait for a reply from Banri. Linda was that kind of person.

That, Banri did not know.

He didn't know how pretty Linda's long hair was, nor how fast a runner she was, nor her sweet singing voice, nor how she was always wondering whether to get a piercing, nor even her pride at how her abs were about to break into a six-pack. And however gentle or cute she was, she was a splendidly willful person too... Banri knew nothing about Linda.

And so, not knowing how much Linda was worried about Banri, or how much she was restraining her emotions and not saying much in her text messages, even not knowing such things, she probably needed him.

It was intolerable.

To this body that understood Linda, Banri's attitude was unbearable.

If only I could step out, separate myself from Banri and snuggle up to Linda's side. Many a time, it was as if such thoughts were stirred up in me. If only I could hold wrap these hands around Linda's shoulders. If only I could caress her head, say "All's well!" and stick my nose into her hair like a puppy of the same litter. ...And yet, even just being able to sit next to her would be good enough. I want to be by her side.

Banri still hadn't moved. Hiding behind the column, hanging his head, he was troubled, looking as if he were about to cry. And so in the end, I continued in my presence at Banri's side.

Not moving from my, from Banri's side, was simply because of fear. If I were to separate myself from Banri's side, I have a feeling that really would be "the end." That Tada Banri's existence would be completely forgotten was scary. I'm scared that who I am, who I lived with, that all would be lost completely. And I'm scared of disappearing altogether.

For that reason, if I were to stop keeping an eye over Banri, a point of view would disappear from this world. Either way, I disappear. ...Perhaps.

Of course, I'm dead. I've known that. That's long over. I certainly understand that. Though I comprehended that, though I had already given up, yet still, to choose to step in out another direction from his own body was terrifying. There was an instinctive, primordial fear there, one he could not understand himself.

Unable to overcome that fear, the cowardly dead me had no choice but to continue hiding with Banri. ...For such as I, perhaps, may not have the right to say that I "cling tightly" to Banri.

At the Omaken table, just then, Kaga Kouko came into sight. Banri noticed, and his body went stiff.

Linda waved to her, calling "Ko-ko-chan," and made her sit next to her.

"Eh? Err, Tada-kun didn't come? But he said a little bit ago, 'I'll see you at the upperclassman's place.'"

"No, he hasn't come."

"Is that so? That's odd. I'll try calling him."

Kaga Kouko pulled out her cell-phone, with an elegant movement pulling back her hair to expose her ear.

Ma ma ma ma --- From Banri's back pocket started vibrating and jauntily playing a forgotten ringtone, at quite a volume.

Kaga Kouko lifted her surprised face, and looked over to the column where Banri and I were hiding.

Panicked, Banri tried to stop the melody, dropping the cell-phone in his impatience. Failing to pick it up, a private ring tone that, after saying only a few days ago "Gaga's good," Kouko had set in Banri's cell-phone, continued to play.

Po po po.

Pressing the button with his thumb, the melody finally stopped.

Holding his breath, Banri, his body ramrod straight, tried to become one with the pillar.

"..."

Kaga Kouko's white face. Her wide eyes. Forlornly looking into space, she closed her cell-phone as it was and put it in her bag.

"It didn't connect?"

At Linda's query, she answered "no" with a pretty smile.

"Sort of. It went to the answering machine."

I watched.

Everybody, each and every one--- had a poker face.

* * *

The moment he opened the door,

"It isn't very tidy, though."

Telling himself that he musn't show his bit of nervousness, Banri, casual to the max, in an ordinary way, entered into the next room. Kouko followed behind him.

"Pardon the intrusion. Are you locking the door?"

"Ah, as it was... ah, sorry, of course it's locked."

Ye-s. Click. The dull sound of a lock setting. The sudden feeling of being behind closed doors. Banri, awkwardly stepped forward, both right hand and right foot together.

"It's been since that day, hasn't it? I've come to Tada-kun's place."

Kouko took off her high-heeled sandals with a smile, "err", looking around the narrow entryway.

"Wh, what's up...?"

"Do you happen to have slippers? Because I'm wearing sandals, I didn't wear stockings, so I'm barefoot."

Drat. That's right. Slippers.

Slapping himself once on the forehead, Banri thought regretfully. He'd thought his preparations were perfect, but he'd had a blind spot.

If would have been a good thing if back when he'd just arrived in the capital, in the short while his mother was there for him, he'd accepted slippers from her. He'd said, "I don't wear them, and even if I had space they're a bother" and gave them back to her. Though his mother Mieko had told him, "If friends come over, what will they wear?" Banri had replied flatly, "Friends refined enough to wear slippers don't come over. Humans like those who come up to my room, all of them are guys that would probably pad around casually in their bare, sweaty feet." There's no use crying over spilt milk. Such were his thoughts.

"I have no excuse... Now, in this room, there is nothing like unto slippers..."

Somehow, he'd even done it a little literary in style.

"Oh. What can I do? Still, they're not done up, and going barefoot might be a little embarrassing..."

"I, I would never mind, though... oh yeah, instead..."

Banri dashed into his room, selected the nearest new socks from an unlabeled, semi-transparent box there, grabbed a pair,

"If it's okay with you, here's this..."

Like something offered to the gods, he handed them over to Kouko. Even with such a problem, Kouko received them, looking happy, her lovely face smiling broadly.

"Thank you. This is my second time borrowing your socks, you know."

"Is... that so?"

"Yes it is! Have you forgotten?"

Was she saying he'd forgotten the past? Was she saying he already had his hands full with the present?

There there, for now for now, come in come in, Banri invited Kouko to enter. He pleaded that his room wouldn't smell, nor his feet. That he wouldn't have a stomach-ache. While praying to the heavens for this and that, on his face was a smile. With all his might, right now, Banri wanted to bring about the most casual atmosphere possible.

Because, she suddenly said it. "Today, would it be all right if we go to your place?" or something like that. "Why not just take it easy, the two of us?"

Told something like that, suddenly, at the end of first period, Banri frankly returned immediately to his place.

Not saying anything to anybody, not giving a clue to Mitsuo nor even to Two Dimensions, ditching class, he dashed home temporarily, and desperately cleaned his room of the smells that go with unkempt males.

He took all the accumulated garbage bags down to the first floor garbage station (a most wonderful thing in this world, those 24-hour garbage stations), cleaned things, stuffed the dirty laundry for now all out of sight in the clothes washer, and stored all the not quite dry clothing and underwear into boxes in the closet and under the bed. The things he didn't want Kouko looking at, but were too valuable or precious to throw away, he stuffed into a box that had held stuff sent from home. A few "sexy things," which if they were noticed wouldn't be too worrisome, he dared to place in places easy to understand. This way, saying "I don't have anything hidden, do I? Men are all like this. I am entirely open." he would bring about the mood.

<~~13% Completed~~>

Back to Chapter 1

Return to Main Page