Golden Time:Volume1 Chapter4
Status: Incomplete
14% completed (estimated)
Golden Time 1: Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Tada Banri is turning into a tuna-fish.
In spite of being awake, he can't seem to get up, his body stretched out on the bed and his eyes open in slits, just like a cat's. He is just like a tuna-fish hauled up to Yaisu... for a half-hour already Banri has been like a tuna-fish.
In the entrance-way, corridor and the kitchen, despite it being early in the morning, the veil of darkness has been torn, as if forgetting the night. In the shadowy corner, sitting on a second-hand stool, I've been watching Banri, the tuna-fish.
Facing the two open windows to the northwest, today's weather looks good again, the morning sunlight shining in gently through the cotton curtains he had purchased at a home-center. But as bright as it is around the window, the light doesn't reach to the middle of the room.
By the time they were deciding on this room, they had stopped hesitating over other possibilities. If the place had been a Japanese-style room facing south, then by this hour even the room's nooks and corners would be brightly lit by the morning sunlight, and it would certainly feel nice. Of course that property was good, I am thinking even now. But the wardrobe was big. That room's closet is too small, and already clothes, pajamas, bags and such are already starting to be scattered here and there.
Wrapped up in an eggshell colored sheet, his face still a little puffy and disheveled, Banri as usual was only just opening his eyes. Banri's body wasn't moving, and the still unhealed scratches and sores over all his body were not to blame. Neither were the new complications with people, nor the hectic life of a student, nor the feelings of getting used to living alone.
Every now and then, Banri searches for me.
It's getting to feel as if by holding on to his dreams he were getting clues, as if he thinks that by not moving, he might catch his quarry unprepared, so with his eyes alone he is searching for me. He is understanding that it is futile, and he is planning to stop, but he searches anyway.
"How does he hope to find me?", as if he could hear me if he tried. But even if he could hear, "What in the world? Why are you searching?", he wouldn't understand. Finding and catching me, would that return me to inside of him? Or perhaps, would he erase me entirely? Even so, that guy would not even understand my so-called existence. Such a thing he just cannot do.
So then, Banri, realizing the impossibility of what he was doing, as usual became dejected. Taking a breath, he closed his eyes once more, as if he were awfully tired, bothered by nothing working, and before long crawled under the sheets once more. However many times he did it, even leaving his parent's home and living alone, Banri still didn't change. Still, here he was.
I knew what Banri was going to do next. After all, haven't I seen this show so many times before? Hiding under the sheets, Banri has after a while fallen asleep again. In the time I've existed, after all, how many times has he fallen into this trap? It's called falling back to sleep. This sleep is strangely powerful, heavy and deep, hitting Banri all at once. Even having set his cell-phone alarm to wake him up, with a required exposition on criminal law that he hadn't even started on, Banri doesn't even twitch.
Getting down from the strangely comfortable stool, I approached the bed. Buried near the pillow was the cell-phone, once more making noise. This time it wasn't the alarm that went off. It was from Linda. Wake up, Banri.
If he were to out and say, "Hello, who is it?", Linda would sure be surprised. ...But no, she wouldn't be particularly surprised, would she? There wasn't anything mysterious about calling Tada Banri, or going out with Banri either, in a normal world was there?
Anyway Banri, wake up quickly. ...In other words, really get up. The noise from the alarm or from the cell-phone is making the lady next door mad, and she's hitting the wall. There it is again, the strangely hard sound is frightening.
Doesn't that hurt her fist?
"Mr. Two Dimensions! Hey thanks! Heeyy Thaaankkss!"
"Noo proobleeem! Catch yooouuu laaateeer!"
"Toomoorrooww! Aarrouunndd luunnchhtiimmee!"
"Soouunnddss fuun!"
"Oookaaay theenn!"
"Toomoorrooww theenn!"
Giving a big wave, as if somebody were leaving the dock on a ferry, Banri saw off Mr. Two Dimensions, who went ahead at a brisk pace. He could see his back as he was swallowed up in a group of students, like a young girl holding both hands before his chest,
"Mr. Two Dimensions, Satou Takaya-kun... good luck with your job at the tempura shop! No matter what, don’t get yourself burnt...!"
He earnestly wished still more. As it happened, Mr. Two Dimensions' high-school nickname was "Satou Taka". Anyway, according to the guy himself, rather than be called by that name, he preferred Mr. Two Dimensions "forevermore."
Yanagisawa, staring at Banri with an amazed look in his eyes,
"Causing problems even for Mr. Two Dimensions, really, what were you doing?"
He drank down the cloudy green tea he had put into a bottle of black oolong tea. "In other words," his voice continued awfully scratchy, now in scolding mode.
"When I first saw your text message, I thought that was absolutely the strangest thing ever. Really, were you truly in mortal danger? How could you not notice? To begin with, taking along new students who weren't even proper members of the club to a training camp in April, wasn't that a bit strange? And you followed along blindly even so?"
Not even talking back, Banri's shoulders slumped. His honor as the elder, completely fallen. In the past such a problem didn't exist, even in theory.
That nightmare of a Saturday, driving back to Tokyo with the freshmen, Mr. Two Dimensions was unable to contact Banri and Kouko, no matter how much time went by, and wondered if he ought to report it to the police. He finally was able to get connection to Banri's cell-phone, and when he'd managed to explain the situation, "Are you all right!? We're fine~, Kaga-san had left too, we were really scared~!", Mr. Two Dimensions was crying into the phone. "Sorry for leaving you behind", he said again.
Remembering it now, he was truly sorry. Having caused somebody to worry about him, having been apologized to, all of it was inexcusable.
"Enough, really... even I don't understand my foolishness... a feeling like 'help me'. Save me from myself!, so to speak."
"But though there's Banri, there's also Kouko. She is such an airhead!"
While Yanagisawa leisurely went descending the stairs, he gazed longingly at the bit of tea powder stuck to the bottom of the bottle and let out a sigh.
"Did she even understand what kind of dangerous situation she was going through? ...Anyway if she was safe, then I suppose it was OK."
Banri pushed the arch of his foot against a corner of the stairs in order to shamble after Yanagisawa. The hard corner stimulated his still-sluggish feet. Having done so felt good, somehow.
They were engulfed in the hustle and bustle of school building at lunchtime, with people heading to the cafeteria and others heading to meeting places, some coming, some returning, some meeting, some separating. The people coming and going to their destinations made a lot of noise. Owing to the classrooms being on an upper floor, Banri and Yanagisawa, like Mr. Two Dimensions, watched the people coming up from the lobby one floor below.
At a landing of the stairwell, while swinging around a corner by catching the handrail, Yanagisawa looked down at Banri's face.
"In spite of having sent a text-message, 'Don't go, it looks suspicious', there wasn't even a reply. What about that?"
"Somebody extra showed up."
"So, if you hadn't accidentally run into that somebody extra, wouldn't you have been in real trouble?"
Nodding while saying "Yes, you're right", he slipped at the corner trying to do the same thing Yanagisawa had done. Yelping idiotically while dropping his briefcase, he banged his shin against the steps, a direct hit. He saw stars. A group of girls passing close by laughed a little.
"...Hey, what's he doing? Banri's really dumb, isn't he?"
Unable to even answer from the pain, Banri then and there crouched down on the stairs. It's not as if he'd been endowed with the physique, power or will-power of Musashibou Benkei. Even if Banri were your average person, or perhaps some low-life rascal, keeling over and dying from the impact would not have been funny.
"O...www...!"
"That must've hurt. That made quite a bang. Right on the shin, too. Aah, just because I couldn't get ahold of you, was I going to just casually text Kouko!?"
"...To Kaga-san? ...That... well certainly... 'Fuaaaaaa!'...?"
While rubbing his shin to dull the pain, Banri looked up at Yanagisawa as he gathered up Banri's stuff. Yanagisawa shook his good-looking face from side to side.
<~~14% Completed~~>
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