Golden Time:Volume2 Chapter3

Status: Incomplete

31% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 2: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Tada Banri was trying on blue-jeans.

And now, this old second-hand shop's cramped changing room had an overpowering smell.

There was the characteristic, detergent-like fabric-softener-like artificial floral scent. But on top of that, the fully half-tatami-sized carpeted floor reeked of the soles of unwashed male feet. As if in answer to that problem, set in the corner of the changing room was a car deodorant strong enough to kill a person, smelling of Hawaiian coconuts.

Coming from the other side of the ventilation fan there was a smell as of lunch and tobacco mixed together, and beneath it a rather unusual presence was drawing near, making itself known. Was it water in the basement? Or was it sewage? A bathroom-like smell was hidden there.

Forming a perfect blend in the confined airspace, the stagnated smells violently invaded Banri's nerves and mine by way of the mucous membranes of our noses. Feeling like the time we had that awful car sickness, our heads hurting and getting dizzy, our stomachs squeezed out from top to bottom like cleaning rags. We could've thrown up, really.

Though it was bad for a customer staying only a short time, didn't the employees think about it at all? Were their noses broken and numbed already? No, they must've thought it stank, else why the Hawaiian coconuts? But this thing's sickly-sweet, strong smell was on the edge of being dangerous, and in fact was the worst offender.

Enduring all this in bad humor, anyhow I quietly stood in the corner of the changing room, watching Banri changing, not all that impressed.

Staying like this, motionless, in the upper corner by the ceiling, I felt as if I were being sucked, as if hypnotized, into that notably gloomy, dark-looking shadow. And then clinging to it, as if I'd become stuck there.

To say that I think of myself as a ghost, in short this place, is haunted...

"...Zzu! ...Uoe...!"

Pulling on the cheap, 1600 yen blue-jeans, Banri looked down for a moment at the troublesome front buttons. He started to get nauseous from the overwhelming smell, which turned into a fit of coughing, and swallowing back something acid. It seemed somehow too much.

From the other side of the closed curtains, "How do they feel?", the store clerk was asking pointedly. In a panic, Banri fastened all the buttons, opened the curtain, and slipped on the shoes he'd left outside the changing room. He still wasn't wearing the New Balance shoes that Linda had given him. Today it was the same old Jack Purcells again.

Banri and I turned and left the narrow space together, taking the deepest breaths they could. I could not, since I am a spirit that people cannot see, but the store clerk was able to tend to the material Banri. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he was breathing desperately through his mouth.

The store clerk fawned over him, making little flattering noises as she squatted and fiddled around with the pant's cuffs appreciatively. Looking at Banri in a flattering way, her hostess-like done-up hair swaying, saying things like "Heeyy? Isn't that just right!? Look, the style looks good on you!", using no more volume than necessary for her compliments to be heard.

And yet, if I say so myself, the image of Banri in the mirror was certainly more than ever recklessly stylish. Even his legs looked longer and slimmer.

"Hey, you're right!" said Banri, slightly blue in the face, laughing foolishly as he turned around, confirming that his rear end was settling in nicely. It looked better than any other blue-jeans he had right now, so he muttered, "Why not go for this one?"

Banri, for the sake of the first-year's drinking party hosted by Oka Chinami tomorrow night, was out picking up some new duds.

Embarrassed to the breaking point, he didn't notice that the changing room mirror was one of those trick ones, reflecting only a narrow image.

The store clerk, making sure to not stand in front of the mirror (because the difference from reality would be revealed to the customer), immediately began trying to adjust the height of the bottom hem, rolling it up and down. When she told him that there was no need to bring up the hem, Banri said, "Well then, I'll go with this. I'll go take them off.", and once more closed the changing room curtain.

It seemed that he was completely decided to buy it. Well, the reflection in the mirror was good, and they were simple straight pants. Besides, what surprises would there be for 1600 yen? There wasn't too much funny stitching or extra stuff.

But that was often the case. He had spotted some blue-jeans that felt right in one of the used clothing shop's carts, but when he took them out and spread them, the upper legs had cheesy chinese-style tiger striped embroidery. The side seams were completely covered, from top to bottom, with some strange Tyrolean tape.

It was only through the magic mirror that he looked so stylish, but everything considered, you could call this a success. It's OK, Banri, go ahead and buy it. Through the mirror, I flashed Banri an OK sign.

Banri, looking pleased with himself, unfastened the buttons and was about to take off the pants, but suddenly he stopped moving. His underwear showing in the half-dressed style--- if somebody were to see him they wouldn't be pleased: the frozen figure of a young man bent over. It seemed he was looking at a seam between the legs, inside the taken-off blue-jeans.

Peeking from behind, wondering what he was worried about, at that moment, a shiver ran up my spine. This, for sure...

Right there, in the middle, around the stitching. Right between the legs, in the butt-crack, right in that area. Strangely the whole area, black perhaps, or maybe brown, a stain of a questionable color had not been fully removed.

At that spot only, for some reason or other... I don't want to say, for some reason... That, of course, to put it simply, what would you call it?

"What's this here?", he asked the store clerk from earlier. I myself thought, "He ought to point out how bad the damage is." If he could talk them into keeping it at the store and, without fail, removing the stain for him, that would be lucky for him. If that didn't work, then of course he could just stop, but that's OK, I think. It didn't need to be hemmed, and the style looked good even if it was a trick mirror.

However Banri was still looking motionlessly at the seam, thinking about something in a half-dressed style, in lack of movement thinking it through. "What's wrong? If you're worried speak up, otherwise stop it!", I nagged him from behind like that, but Banri didn't notice. He didn't move. He must've been confused as to whether to buy it as it was, or what. "If you're confused, stop it! Get it over with!", I kept beating him over the back.

Of course, Banri didn't notice it at all. Hmm... he frowned, his head tilted as he thought it through. He was completely silenced by the trap of the changing room mirror. "Stop it already!" It was at that moment that he was pushed rather hard on the back.

"Ah, ah, ah...!"

...By reflex, even if I was only a ghost behind him, I covered my eyes against the disaster.

It was a coincidence. Absolutely. I wasn't responsible for the push. Really.

Banri, unsteady on his feet, his balance destroyed, hopping on one foot, his rear exposed, jumped out from the changing room curtain into the bright store--- and said it. Said it completely. Whoa. Wh, ooaaaa...

...But, he was saved by there not being any other customers around. Still on one foot, he ran rather forcefully into the store clerk from before, standing nearby. As it was, supported by her as if in her embrace, at least he didn't fall down.

Excuse me... sorry... moaning feverishly, Banri, his rear exposed, ashamed, ran in his socks back into the changing room.

As a human being, so far, getting embarrassed, blushing and so forth, were things he seemed to encounter every step of the way. Banri, his face strangely darkened, took off the jeans in the blink of an eye. He took them off as fast as if they were on fire. Too quick to see, he gathered his stuff and went to the register. And then,

"This please! Do, ...does it show...!?"

With a terrible expression, he timidly asked the store clerk. He could see several security cameras watching over the store, protecting it from shoplifters. The clerk accepted his money as if nothing had happened, and gave him a receipt. While she folded the jeans with practiced hands, with a very small voice she said, "Eh? Black." Looking at him kindly, she smiled a bit and said, "I didn't see anything. Here you go." He had thought her a flattering salesperson, but then not understanding well what she said, his heart now thought of her as an angel. I'm sorry, store. Please excuse me, seriously. But the smell and everything else spoke thoroughly bad of you.

Taking the bag Banri bowed, and ran at full speed up the stairs to the store's open door. Going out to the street like that, he dashed even harder. He was fleeing. I saw that the strange things that had just happened had already disappeared from his brain.

At that moment his cell-phone rang, and he flipped it open as he ran.

"Hello, hellooo?", a woman's voice, sounding slightly nasal due to the telephone.

'You already done with your errands? As for me, right now I'm almost done at the hairdresser!'

From a different place in the same neighborhood, it was Kaga Kouko talking to him. After the third period lecture, Banri and Kouko met up at the same entrance as always, took the train and came here together. In order to tend to their various errands, they waved and separated at the crosswalk, the two of them to meet up again afterwards. Kouko to her favorite beauty parlor, Banri to the area around the second-hand shop that Mitsuo had shown him earlier.

"I'm done too! ...Some, some things happened... but anyway I'm done! You mean, you got your hair trimmed, perhaps?"

'No, just a treatment. Did you buy anything?'

"I bought some jeans! Well, I'm at the next intersection! See you shortly!"

Gasping as he said it, Banri stood waiting at the red light of a pedestrian crossing. Combing up his bangs, which had fallen to his eyes, he took a deep breath. Understood, I'll be right there too, she'd answered, breaking the connection.

Banri's cheeks were flushed red as if overflowing with blood, his temples, sweating lightly. In that corner of the twilit town, it looked like he was glittering.

With a little cough, Banri stuck his cell-phone in his back pocket, and put the bag from the second-hand shop back under his arm.

All he knew was that his heart was beating hard, to the point where you could see it through his shirt. It must've been the memory of his super huge embarrassment, plus a bit of running, and then the promise to go have tea with Kaga Kouko. And whatever else, without a doubt they'd head off to her beloved Starbucks again.

Within this past week, how many times with the same companion to the same Starbucks, had he drunk the same latte shot (sometimes fresh ground real drip coffee)? Talking about lectures during club time, talking about things to eat, talking about jokes they'd seen online, talking about magazines piled up in stores... It was like they'd been going around for weeks all over the place, in a repeating loop, having fun, like those girls that gather together to feel more secure. But at long last, the time to go out had come, and wasn't it about time to do something else? Hadn't it been a while since they last went to Veloce? Were things like that nothing?

Well, wherever they drank tea, whatever they talked about, such things, as far as Banri was concerned they didn't really matter. Meeting up as students, going to lecture together, drinking tea, gossiping, texting, walking side by side, going out for a while--- in such a loop, more and more, Banri was finding meaning. Repeating so many times it built up, the very thing itself was becoming important. That was how I saw it.

In his daydreams, from the very bottom of his heart, Banri innocently believed that someday, this 'loop of everyday bonding between friends' would eventually become something else. Without a doubt, genuinely.

For that reason, he innocently continued going around. Repeating it to that extent, Banri believed it reinforced the connection, and that his hope was taking shape and drawing nearer to him. He was convinced, with a child-like fastidiousness, that if he forced the emotions, it would all come to nothing.

As for me, I directed my attention to the cars passing to and fro.

Even Tokyo’s spring was already ending.

The air was warmly humid.

As if spreading over the city night, the store windows twinkled like stars. Even the cell-phones of the people passing by, the candles decorating the cafe entrances, the LEDs decorating the shrubbery, and even headlights stretched out like rivers. All the lights were too bright, dizzying to the eyes.

He couldn’t see the intersection where they were to meet from here. Of course, he couldn’t see Kaga Kouko nor anything like her either. Though they may be in the same town, to me it seems the two of them are very far apart. Would they really be able to meet up ‘shortly’?

Besides, Banri still hasn’t started moving forward.

The red light is shining.

We’re standing side by side, still impatiently shuffling our feet.

* * *

They said the reservation was from 5pm.

Banri thought they were starting rather early, but Oka-chan had insisted in her anime voice, "But we have all we can drink for three hours, five to eight, for only 1000 yen!" But the round of food added another 1000 yen. Since it was a chain tavern with a huge billboard hung near the college, and it was right along the main street, everybody should have known how to get there.

As four-thirty came and went, Banri watched the noisy students going back and forth expectantly. His hands stuffed into the back pockets of his new blue-jeans, the time slowly coming, looking around restlessly,

"Look here, Tada Banri!"

Slapped on the shoulder firmly from behind, he turned around.

"Oh!", he laughed, grabbing each other's elbows playfully. It was Mr. Two Dimensions. They were meeting up here after the end of classes. Banri and Mitsuo had invited him too, having arranged to go together from here to the drinking party.

Like Banri, Mr. Two Dimensions had not been to any drinking parties apart from those for club recruiting when they'd first started, and was going to enjoy himself today. If he were, even a little, one of those guys who believed the currently popular saying that goes like 'guys who can skillfully build multifaceted relationships in their lives gain the victory', then he could not let an opportunity like this slip away.

Immediately after Banri had reported breathlessly "I bought jeans specially for the drinking party!", he too sallied forth to the fashionable streets of Shimokitazawa~ Daikanyama area. Now dressed like a preppy, he wore a slim collared shirt, the spoils of his battle.

"Hey Mr. Two Dimensions, that's a nice shirt you're wearing!"

"Heh heh heh! And your jeans, they're what you bought. They look good."

"Though they looked better when I looked at them in the changing room. I mean, does it look in good shape? Tonight the drinks're gonna be dirt cheap; it might even be methyl alcohol. Will it give us hangovers?"

"I have everything perfectly arranged, of course, though it'd be good to use the hand sanitizer now. You can even use formalin. Ah, for the time being, shouldn't we stop by a convenience store before we get there? You might want to have a energy drink."

"It's OK, I'm coating my stomach lining with milk. I mean... eh? Though I only just noticed, is there something about you today that's cooler than usual?

"Oh, this? You've noticed?"

Mr. Two Dimensions, recently graduated from two to three dimensions, but still validating this three-dimensional world, stood out rather conspicuously, combing his silky hair with his fingers as if he were showing it off.

"Actually, it's been dyed a bit. Was it ash pink beige? Or was it golden brown? Or was it some sort of mixture? Anyway it was applied to me. For a three dimensional effect? So I was told, somehow or other."

"Really!? Eh, for today's drinking party!? You went that far!? Whoa, what? Are you really trying to make it in three dimensions!?"

"You got it wrong! This was by chance! Are you trying to mess with my head!? What do you mean by 'making it in three dimensions'!?"

"Eh, ah, sorry..."

"If you understand, then watch your mouth! In words, Lady Word-Power (Spirit Clan, Servant Class, Long Black Hair, Blue Eyes, Little Girl, Genius, Shelters from the rain under Eddoe leaves, Quiet except when Exercised – Super Bookworm) is a living being! Besides, I've received my bride from the best of the two dimensional world! It's a matter of believing!"

"Really, I'm sorry..."

"OK then! Don't worry about it, things like that really do happen. I, my sister had, an acquaintence now working as a hairdresser. I was told she would 'be practicing hair-coloring'. ...Honestly, how is it? Though it seemed she hardly knew what she was doing."

"Don't worry about it. I understand, I understand, coloring it like that looks cool. Hey, how about this coloring..."

"Have you ever done it?"

"No, no. I don't think so. We didn't do things like that in Shizuoka."

"You liar! You've even got Gundam deployed down there. It has military strength comparable to what they have at Tokyo Big Sight (in case of emergency, it transforms into a robot!)"

"Hmm, I heard the gundam was out there, but the big white fellow doesn't help out with the tea leaves."

"They used the general appearance from Turn A. So I heard. Myself."

Mr. Two Dimensions, laughing in amusement, pulled out an iPhone from a stylish, diagonally hanging leather bag. His touch on it was quite practiced. The cover, though made to resemble Ayanami's plug suit, if one were to close their eyes, in it's long and slender style it became Kanaka-sama.

He called himself Mr. Two Dimensions, and boasted of having no interest in three dimensional things, but even he brought more or less good sense with him. His real name, Satou Takaya. Tall and slim, always wearing glasses, apart from the pink and purple, his clothing was stylish; even his hair was neatly combed back. Easy to get along with, he really was a good fellow.

"It's a message from Yana-ssan. He got summoned by the student affairs office and says to go on ahead. Let's do like he said. Move it!"

"Ah, wait a bit more. Actually, there's another person I'm waiting for here. Kaga-san's coming."

"Eh!? Kaga-san!? ...That one!?"

While fluttering both hands in the air, miming the volume of her hair, "Oof!", he smiled, his eyes open like saucers. Well, he understood what he meant to say.

"Yes. That Kaga-san."

"...But, here!? I mean... that, that 'lady', coming out to a common drinking party!?"

"She's coming, she's coming. It looks like she likes to drink sake. Didn't she drink with you and me that time, up in the mountains... when we all went out, to that seminar of the Crystal God."

"But we didn't drink even a drop that time! I mean, eh, aren't you getting along rather nice!? Thinking about it, didn't you tell me you'd gone together to Sendagaya for dinner just like that!? What's more, you even joined a club together! Hey, what gives!? What's going on!? What is it!? Are you trying to explode!?"

"But we're still friends. As for our relationship, Kaga-san and I, it's like 'Sex'!"

And the city!

Catching the thought, Banri flashed a smile from ear to ear, put his hand on his hip in a girlish pose and called out. Mr. Two Dimensions gave him a rough tsukkomi chop to the side, telling him to cut it out.

"I mean, no way... but Kaga-san... look here. Before, all that about Yana-ssan, didn't we talk about it? How'd that turn out? Wasn't there something even Banri said before, that Kaga-san wanted to get married, kinda sneaking off, but Yana-ssan clearly rejected her, and dumped her, there was this and that gossip about it..."

"What kinds of gossip?"

From behind them, there arose the light, sweet smell of roses.

"Waah!", Mr. Two Dimensions jumped back, and Banri turned around awkwardly.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Tada-kun. Long time, no see, Mr. Two Dimensions."

---Well then. The fact that Banri had been talking with Mr. Two Dimensions about Kouko and Mitsuo had been easily discovered.

He didn't know what Kouko was thinking inside, but for now with her ever-perfect smile,

"I don't care if it was about Mitsuo and I. We were simply childhood friends. And now not even outsiders; we don't know each other. That's all there is to it."

Still, such things were being said.

And then, smiling, she became the magnificent queen of roses.

In the overwhelming glare of Kouko's entrance, whether Mr. Two Dimensions was listening to what she said or not, he seemed to be at a loss for words, standing at attention, watching her in fascination. He wasn't the only one: the other students gathered there in the hall had suddenly fallen silent too, turning towards them in ones and twos, their gazes riveted, as it were, on the glittering Kouko.

Fuller than ever, her extravagantly curled, dark brown, long hair shone beautifully, the result of the treatment the other day. Her smooth satin Katyusha was a noble jet black.

Her pearly white skin perfectly made up, she wore a crimson lipstick, deeper even than blood.

By her sparkling eyes, light grey eye shadow gleamed, tinged with sorrow. In the shadow of her delicate collarbones, there was a tight diamond necklace in the form of a key, swaying and throwing flashes of light all over.

While casually covering for Mr. Two Dimensions, nervous from how gorgeous she was, Banri also,

"...Wh, why did you dress up so incredibly stylish today, Kaga-san?"

Aren't you so incredibly, awfully pretty! ---So much so, it took him straight to sighing. She wasn't a foreigner, though that was not something he could come out and say.

"Eh? It's just ordinary stuff, the usual."

Kouko said that, but she was wearing earrings, and a ring on her middle finger too, with large diamonds sparkling in the shape of a flower. Her black high-heels were plainly works of art. The backs of her calves drawing elegant curves, distinctly beautiful all the way to the line of her ankles. Her heels were close to four inches high. Unfortunately, she wasn't bare-legged. She was wearing the black tights again today. He wondered if the snake-bite wasn't fully healed.

Her ahead-of-the-season short-sleeve mini-dress had the chest open deeply, and a bold white to gray gradation. With a layered feminine design of shiny crumpled silk, it had a high waist, just under her chest, looking as if she were being squeezed by a large ribbon. The sudden contrast from chest to waist gave emphasis at just the right point.

Kouko was so perfect, it took his breath away.

It didn't fit for such as her to be hanging around in a college student hall like this. It was a waste. It would have suited her better to be in the gorgeous lounge of a high class hotel, with a cocktail. Without question.

"So it is with you, too: you didn't wear your new blue-jeans. And the shoes from Linda-senpai? I was wondering if you'd worn them yet."

"I thought about wearing them, but then considered the risk and changed my mind. That even though the blue-jeans were used, and their being dirty would be OK. Rather, Kaga-san, are you okay with drinking sake today?"

"What are you saying, isn't it a drinking party? Haven't we decided to go drinking!?"

"No, look, your legs. Since you're still wearing tights, it might be a good idea if you restrained yourself. Hey, Mr. Two Dimensions, this person was bitten by a snake in her own garden! Isn't that awful?"

"Come back to reality!", Banri elbowed Mr. Two Dimensions, his eyes were half closed in abstraction. "Huh?", Mr. Two Dimensions eyes opened,

"Eh...? Sn, snake? Really? Kaga-san, where do you live?"

"In Tokyo. Resident of Minato Ward."

"A snake in Minato!? Wow! Come now, in the city center, apart from a lot of green, so to speak... was it a Green General? Or perhaps a Tiger Keelback? Thought it might be a recently escaped former pet, like something they import from foreign countries now and then."

Kouko, her eyes full of sadness, shook her head 'no' at Mr. Two Dimensions.

"That I don't know. Long, dark, rather macho... because it attacked our cat, anyway, in a haze, I already separated them. I've gotten used to the feeling of the leg injury now."

With the superior air of a magician, she opened her bag and pulled out a handkerchief. Spreading it wide, she showed the pattern on one side to the two guys.

On that blue and yellow curved surface there was depicted a bold, vivid design, certainly what he had seen the other day on Kouko's calf, and which perhaps represented the current condition of it. ...Which Banri understood, but Mr. Two Dimensions probably had no clue as to what it was. "Huh?", he said, looking at the handkerchief while tilting his head to one side in confusion.

"Tada-kun, this is Emilio Pucci. It looks rather like pretty bad internal bleeding. But it looks like it isn't festering, and if properly disinfected it will clear up soon enough."

"Really? If so that's good, but did you go to the hospital after all?"

"At home, because our house functions as a hospital. Even my mother, as a doctor, took a look at it for me."

"Hey, so that's how it is. I see, a hospital. Some sort of arrangement, as you would expect: rather like a princess. Your mother, for sure, wasn't she worried?"

"It was like, 'Soo lame, you're an idiot, aren't youu?'"

At that crude way of speaking, Mr. Two Dimensions and Banri both broke out laughing. Kouko, however, looking around restlessly,

"By the way, hey, umm, ...what about Mitsuo? Didn't he say he was coming?"

"Ah, he may be a little delayed. He wanted to stop by a convenience store beforehand."

Hearing Banri's reply, her lightly sparkling eyelids lowered a bit.

"That so", she nodded, that voice. So light he couldn't hear her, Banri put his ear near to Kouko's mouth. That way what he heard was,

"...But afterwards he's coming straight over."

The way she said it confirmed it for him.

Suddenly Banri was at a loss for words. Looking down at Kouko's white face, time stopped.

Or something like that.

He had stopped thinking. He felt as if cold water had suddenly been poured down his neck.

He thought she was participating because she had been invited by him. Did that mean... that perhaps, it wasn't so? Because Yanagisawa Mitsuo was coming, she thought to come too...? Was it something like that?

<~~31% Completed~~>

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