Golden Time:Volume2 Chapter4
Status: Incomplete
20% completed (estimated)
Golden Time 2: Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Tada Banri looked out the window.
It was eight in the morning.
Stopping his cell-phone alarm, which had just started sounding, he slowly raised his body from bed.
One futon was laid out on the floor, with Mitsuo and Two Dimensions peacefully situated there, their heads in opposite directions. Despite their smelling each other's feet and occasionally moaning as if suffocating in a nightmare, the two of them were still sleeping.
Banri stretched out his hand from his bed and poked Mitsuo on the shoulder. "Yana-ssan, shouldn't you be heading home before long?", he said, his voice extremely hoarse, sounding bone dry.
Mitsuo blinked, opened his watery eyes, and confirmed the time against his own cell-phone. And then he flipped it shut. He turned his face away from Two Dimension's feet, and as if he'd managed to escape once more, he buried himself deeply in his towel-blanket. Was it worth it? Probably not. It doesn't matter. Take your time.
To the north side of the room there was a veranda, to the west side a waist-high window had been set. The sunlight shining from the other side of the curtains is weak even when the weather was good, and doesn't reach to my feet as I am seated on the stool, no matter what.
From within the cool dark shadows again this morning, I watched the only person with his eyes open, Banri, giving up on waking Mitsuo.
Banri hadn't slept at all, just about. Even after his exhausted friends stayed over and fell asleep, he'd stayed awake, alone, thinking over the matter of Kaga Kouko, his eyes open.
I am not waiting for anyone, anymore. Facing her, Banri had said so.
This, to me, is somewhat of a marvel. Might some of the remnants of my memories be clinging inside of this Banri's body? Once upon a time, I had decided to not wait for anyone, anymore, I had. At the time I made that decision, it was something characteristic of me.
So it was. I--- Tada Banri, for a second time had decided to not wait for anybody.
That was decided, that day. I existed then, that, other day. The Banri existing now shouldn't know about that morning.
Alighting from the stool, I stepped softly over Mitsuo and Two Dimension's bodies and sat down on the corner of the risen Banri's bed. What was originally me leaned in close to Banri's body, and in the warmth the dead me started helplessly reviewing the memories.
He was waiting, but because he felt like running away, he had the volume raised. Any song, any singer would do.
From that bridge he was looking down, vaguely, upon the vast riverbank scenery he was familiar with since childhood.
Looking towards the opposite shore reached by the bridge, he was frightened. He was scared.
He waited and waited, but nobody came. Not coming, and so he decided to not wait any longer.
And then, turning my back on the riverbank, I set out walking over the long bridge and towards the mountains where my own house was... set out walking, and it all ended, going out to meet an instant of whiteness.
---Not having slept, Banri's eyes were red and dry.
Slowly, he laid his body down on the sheets again. So doing, the pale morning sun tinting everything yellow, he quietly looked up at the ceiling.
The room smelled of sake.
On the table, there were plastic drink bottles on top of plastic drink bottles. A tower of Chuuhai cans, piled up for fun. A plastic bag from the convenience store, stuffed full of garbage. Balled-up tissues. A cell-phone charger. Fallen to the floor, the television remote. The remnants of a bag full of candy. PET-bottle caps. An extra strap. Mitsuo's socks. Torn double-leafed pages. Two Dimensions' glasses. A cloth for cleaning glasses. A glasses case.
Nobody spoke.
On such a morning, Banri merely existed.
After fourth period, Banri was a complete zombie.
He was in an awful, intolerable mood.
With the least movement his head rang like a bell, his head, stomach, throat, back and hips hurt. Everything was sluggish, his feet were heavy. Far from concentrating on the lectures, he couldn't keep from dozing off.
The lecture over, delayed quite a bit by the other students streaming out into the noisy hallway, he finally stood up, dragging his bag along with him. Feeling terribly heavy, pushing open the door with both hands, he dragged himself out into the dark corridor, with its students coming and going. A unpleasant burp escaped him, and he held back a hot sensation from the area of his stomach.
By any chance, was this the state the world called 'being hung over'?
In this condition since the morning, for now he wondered if would it help if he ate something, though he suspected that wolfing down lunch wouldn't be a good idea. But even more than usual, the school cafeteria daily special was a mixture of fried stuff, and eating lunch without anybody to talk to, he cleaned his plate entirely, as fast as he could.
Yesterday, he'd noticed some friends heading towards an afterparty. From what he saw and heard, they seemed to be excited about a dirt-cheap karaoke place. In the end, five places... until seven in the morning, they said they drank. "What do you expect, though we left the fifth party", they'd laughed, their faces ghastly pale.
In second period, he found an unexpectedly energetic-looking Chinami, but then she said, with her cute anime voice, but dry and hoarse, "Talked too much, sang too much." Mitsuo said, "See me in the afternoon after I've gone home and got a shower", cutting him off and getting on a train going in the opposite direction, and Two Dimensions had declared, "I'm skipping today", and making good on his word, didn't show up.
Banri, rubbing around his chin, which was tingling strangely, yawned a bit, went out into the hall and headed for the stairs. Today, as things were, even if he had shopping to do or anywhere else to go, he was heading straight back. Once home he was going to cook himself okayu or something. He was lost in thought, when from behind him,
"Ta-da, Ba-n-ri"
She was calling his name in musical notes, as if singing, though for a woman her voice was a bit low and cool.
He knew at once who's voice it was, without even turning his head.
"What's with the face?"
"Morning... well... it's a hangover."
Hands still deep in the pockets of her hoodie, she walked around to the front of him. Peeking at Banri's face, it was as he thought: Linda. Her shiny, black, evenly cut hair swaying about her chin, she frowned as if she were concerned. Khaki cargo pants, with flourescent yellow Nikes. White, slender ankles. A friendly look on her face. Apparently worried, her pale lips were pursed.
For some reason, Banri was slowly pulling back.
"What, are you feeling bad? Shall I go to the infirmary? I could bring you something for your stomach."
Shaking his head from side to side, he tried to avoid Linda.
"...No, that's fine. I'm OK, it's no big deal. I was already thinking of going home."
In other words, he was trying to avoid looking at Linda. He was tired. Even talking was painful.
"I see. If so, then since you're leaving would you mind coming with me for a bit? There's something I need to post in the lobby. Since it looks like we've set next month's practice schedule, I wanted to post it."
"Ah... err..."
The energy required to turn her down having deserted him already, Banri looked downward ambiguously, not knowing what else to do. Linda acted as if he'd decided "yes".
"Then let's go. Come on."
As if to urge him along, she walked on ahead of him. There being no alternative, Banri followed at once, dragging his heavy feet.
Lightly turning about, Linda pointed a slender finger at Banri's feet.
"That reminds me: you're wearing the shoes I gave you. How are they?"
Yesterday, he had washed his customary Jack Purcells (well seasoned by his own vomit) in the bathroom and set them to dry in the middle of the veranda. Today was the first day he had worn the New Balance shoes that Linda had given him.
"They're great!", Banri replied, somehow smiling like an underclassman.
Their small college department, located right in the middle of a city center office block, had guaranteed ease of access from entry to graduation, but in exchange for this, they didn't build things like cool club buildings. They didn't waste money on club rooms.
Because of that, such people from campus as wanted to get together and chat, had no choice but to line up by the tables in the lobby, in the corners of the cafeteria, or to take up positions in the various gathering places or smoking sections.
In the Omaken's case, it was the edge of the lobby. With a bulletin board for posting news about lecture cancellations and for posting personal notes, and with constant foot traffic going by, you couldn't call it a bad spot. Not for a small, obscure club it wasn't.
As it happened, the most comfortable place was in the back of the cafeteria, hidden from sight by the largest pillar. The people who used that spot the most were from the Law School Tennis Club. Leaving huge bags there, opening meetings and doing whatever they felt like doing, they created an atmosphere such that Banri's group (or other students) couldn't even step foot there.
Banri followed behind Linda, until they got to the table in front of the bulletin board.
A bunch of uper classmen, all sitting back relaxed on a bench, waved him over.
"Aren't you Tada Banri? You sit over there!"
"Morning, pardon me... I heard there was something on the schedule..."
On the closest bench, Kouko was sitting, shrunken.
She must've noticed Banri's voice, as her white face turned this way.
Their eyes met.
Wearing a chiffon top with little flowers on it, a black miniskirt over black tights. Some things he'd seen before, like the black booties. She wasn't wearing a hairband either, her long, uncurled hair spilling down her back for now. She seemed to hardly have any makeup on, and where normally she took great pains to put herself in order, she was now looking pretty awful. Her swollen eyes were more awful than a bear's. She had drank no less than Banri last night. It appeared she was suffering from a hangover worse than his own.
Not even knowing what kind of expression he showed, their eyes still in contact, Banri had stopped moving, like a broken robot.
Kouko, like that, gave Banri a small, weak smile with parched lips, and raised one hand only so high as her chest.
For now, he acknowledged that with an ambiguous nod, but, beyond that, of course, he couldn't do anything more.
Only able to quietly avert his gaze from Kouko, he sat down at the other end of the bench, with the table between them.
What he should do, he did not know. Banri hung his head and lowered his gaze.
With what kind of face was he to look at her, if there was no love, nor friendship, and he personally wanted the relationship to go away?
He wondered if he ought to behave as if he'd forgotten everything, and show a face of "I don't know you at all." It was as if everything up to now were made null, so, for example,
"Hey, hey, where'd they put the schedule? Somebody took it?"
---He wondered if Linda was manipulating him.
To be precise, as she might have done in the past. Always with 'nothing'. Hello, how are you? Who are you? Like that.
Linda: next to Banri, quietly looking sidelong at how he was doing. Kneeling crudely on top of the bench, tossing snack candies somebody had scattered on the table into her mouth with one hand.
<~~20% Completed~~>
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