Golden Time:Volume2 Chapter1

Status: Incomplete

17% completed (estimated)

   

Golden Time 2: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Tada Banri was dumping a girl.

Because of the overly annoying noise coming from several guys at five in the afternoon at a Caffe Veloce, Banri was still off guard,

"We were only going out,"

"Yes, though being with Tada-kun is so much fun..."

"Therefore, from here on out would it be OK if we were just friends?"

Stating his request with a three lined conversation like that, he went quiet, hanging his head.

For no particular reason, he still had the wrapper from a straw in his right hand.

The wrapper swayed limply in the breeze from the air conditioner. His back bent, Banri inhaled into his lungs the heavy smell of tobacco smoke in the air.

The non-smoking section being in name only (can you call decorative plants a separation from the smoking section?); seated across the table from Banri was Kaga Kouko.

Earrings glittering in both her ears, her glamorous coral pink lips quietly closed, took a sip of ice tea through her straw. She was opening her big eyes as trying to peek at Banri's now fallen expression. Perhaps waiting for Banri to say something, her back straight, she put the glass in her hand down on a small tray.

Tada Banri, however, was still silent.

Getting uncomfortable after a bit, Kaga Kouko also dropped her gaze.

Several minutes passed by, idly. The two of them continued looking down at each other's hands.

I am the Banri from before, and I want to break into this awkward silence, saying "This is awful, hold on, do something please!", but there is nothing I can do.

And now, even such a prepared request, because this guy cannot deal with it emotionally! When little situations arise, his mind goes to pieces, because he can never see the world before his eyes! Or rather, he returned from Shizuoka a little bit ago, having seen what there was back home, and from that, ---what a mess. I would shout, but nobody would hear me.

Because I know that, I am sitting quietly on a seat behind Banri and to the side.

As it is, nobody hears my voice any more. Nobody sees my body. Nobody knows of my existence. Because I, am dead.

To put it simply, I've become a ghost.

Wandering about without a body as a ghost, I drift about like this, always near Banri's side.

...But that shouldn't be all that difficult for a living human being to believe. But as for me, while I was living, I hadn't believed in the existence of ghosts. From my own experience, I've gained an alternate view of the world. Even now I know nothing about the existence of UFOs. Neither do I know anything about the continent of Mu. Nor do I know anything about sea serpents nor the Loch Ness Monster. Nor about ESP. But one thing I know about: the existence of ghosts.

When I was alive, my name was Tada Banri. I was Tada Banri. From the time I was born for eighteen years, I existed as Tada Banri.

In the spring of my eighteenth year, I fell from a bridge into a river. At that moment, I fell out of my body, so to speak, and I, the Tada Banri that was, was left behind as a soul without a body.

On the one hand, the Banri who'd lost his soul was living for a time as "The Memory Loss Boy", easily became a college student, and now was even dumping a girl. Such were the circumstances in which we found ourselves.

Now, the living Tada Banri, his denimed rear situated on a narrow seat, bent over and vaguely pouting, eyes glazed over, breathing the smoky air, wordlessly sipped slowly on his iced café latte.

Surely, inside, it was a storm---.

Reaching from behind and to the side, I put my hand towards Banri's shoulder. I pat his shoulder, telling him to calm down. To my hand, it definitely feels like a living body. But Banri doesn't feel my touch. Not even noticing my existence, not even a blink of uncertainty. He might not even have noticed, but he was grinding his teeth so hard they were creaking. Doing that, sooner or later the lower left wisdom tooth would get to bleeding and hurting.

A forgotten storm blowing through Banri's heart, I suddenly understood the reason why. I even think, if there were anything I could do, I would cheer him up. I even know what Banri wants to do, I want to answer him. But, whatever words I use, this voice never reaches Banri's ears. There is nothing more I can do.

The culprit in putting Banri into his state of confusion: Linda--- no, am I wrong? There isn't anybody else. It is this me.

Something Banri had seen a few hours before, on a short trip home he'd made to Shizuoka... which, since he'd woken from his accident, had become sealed away in his high school graduation album. Stuck inside, how many pictures?

Records of when I was alive, in other words a record of Banri's unknown Banri, was stirring up Banri's heart.

And now, in front of Banri's eyes, the girl to whom he had just confessed yesterday was sitting. Several minutes ago she had shaken Banri cautiously,

"...Tada-kun?"

She said, cocking her head to the side in curiosity. "That, story... did you hear it?"

Abruptly, Banri lifted his face,

"Eh!? Y, yes!? I heard, but!?"

At that moment, with all his heart, he nodded ambiguously,

"Uwaa!"

He knocked his half-emptied glass of iced latte over, really hard. The glass fell to the floor and broke to bits, the loud noise echoing to the back of the shop. The other noisy customers suddenly all went quiet, looking over here. Without thinking, I covered my eyes too. Aah, he felt guilty... if a ghost in a ghostly way, could have caught the glass in mid-air... oh well.

Banri stood up in a hurry,

"Wow, wow, sorry sorry sorry! Excuse meee! I've spilled it! Excuse me, is everything OK!? I'm very sorry!"

While calling for the staff, turning in every direction and bowing his head, he lifted Kaga Kouko's bag from the floor where it had been to a chair, grabbed a bunch of napkins, and tried to contain the flow of latte that was turning into a small sea on the table. In spite of this, the drops dripping were staining Banri's bluejeans. Kaga Kouko put pocket tissues from her bag into the enbankment too, but the seat and floor were getting to be sopping wet.

An employee with a map and dustpan came quickly, gathered up the pieces of glass, restraining Banri by telling him "it's dangerous". Dropping his feeble butt into a seat, "Ahh, no more, no more...", Banri, rather upset, let his shoulders slump and sighed.

"What a careless person I am... already, sloppy, too crude, too indecisive... I mean, I'm really sorry Kaga-san, were you OK? Your clothing and all, it didn't get dirty?"

"I'm fine, nothing came this way."

"Your evidence bag? It didn't get wet?"

"Really, I'm fine, nothing, no-thing..."

So as not to interfere with the cleaning, the two of them half raised their feet, held for a brief moment in a pose by their abdominal muscles.

The unshaven mugs of his Jack Purcells, and the toes of her beautiful high heeled sandals, were lined up, nearly touching. The mop came up to my feet too, and I automatically raised my feet to the same pose. As though I could interfere with the cleanup not having a body, as if somehow these feet could bother the employee in his careful mopping.

Banri, and the Kaga Kouko dumped by Banri, faced each other that way for a little while with their feet raised, their feet not touching, keeping their distance perfectly, the two of them alike, their eyes downcast and not saying anything.

The two of them blinked many times, as if they were in a competition against each other. They didn't look like all that much of "good friends". Somehow even I felt uncomfortable, and we all looked downwards.

* * *

The first-period Chinese I lecture finished, their busy old Chinese lecturer left the small classroom and then the students followed, one by one, out into the dark corridor. Up to thirty people were allowed to enroll for the language lecture, and it happened that all of them were freshmen.

"Tada Banri, well done."

"You really stood out today. You did it."

Suddenly he had quite a few friends. People smiled when they passed by, lightly slapping Banri's shoulder.

Answering as needed with an "Oh", or an "Ah", he heard "Tada-kun well done!", "Super well done!", "Really, really good" ...this time, they were girls. The threesome was dressed almost, but not quite, alike in their showy hairstyle and clothing, and one by one they each waved at him, smiling. It seemed that suddenly his time had arrived! Guys and girls alike were entranced by Banri! So quickly he'd become the most popular in the Chinese class! But it wasn't that way at all. Even Banri understood that they were simply teasing him.

Half desperately, he was about smile and say, "Especially well done!", and wave back to the girls,

"Banri, hey, don't bother."

Yanagisawa Mitsuo (whom he tended to call Yana-ssan rather than Yana), with whom he'd become close friends since they started college, was calling him.

"Ah, Yana-ssan... it looks like I'm already a mess."

Too exhausted even to smile in courtesy, Banri finally, slowly shoved his texts into his bag. Today's lecture was truly awful.

In the middle of the lecture, he was taken to task by the speaker for absentmindedly staring off into space. "Tada-kun, come to attention!" Trapped, he recited, "Maa, maa, maaa, maa!" ---He was forced to repeat the four basic tones of Mandarin Chinese to the point of going mad. And after that, as the rest of the students read their texts he got suspicious again, and "Tada-kun, Come to attention!" "Now!" "Be an example for everybody! Now!" "Maa, maa, maaaa, maa!" That was it.

Yanagisawa sat on the edge of his desk, waiting for Banri to get ready while,

"You are quite a mess. Ah, there's an eraser."

He gladly collected the eraser from where it had fallen, to one side of the desk.

"Such torture! I mean, already, from the very first period, I'm lost. Horribly defeated. Why do such things happen to me in particular? And the girls were giggling a lot..."

"Well, during that time of the 'Maa!'s, you made the most incredibly good face."

"A good face? You're kidding, what kind of face was I making?"

"This kind. 'Maa!'"

He made an imitation of Banri's face, suddenly opening his eyes wide while lowering his left shoulder quite a bit, and sucking his cheeks in furiously. Of course, in keeping with that awful mug,

"R, really? I made that kind of face? So I've become this department's number one funny face?"

Disconcerted, Banri pulled a mirror out of his pocket, and opening it looked at his own face while trying to say "Maa!" again. Not to where Mitsuo would see him doing it, but certainly modeling in three dimensions what he had a hard time imagining, he found himself more and more gloomy, wondering 'How many times have I shown this face to everybody else...?'

"Huh, what's that? That's sparkling something awful!"

While Mitsuo laughed, he wasn't pointing at his face, but rather at the incredibly flashy mirror in Banri's hand. For something a college male might have, it was too much, overly luxurious like something from Swarovski.

"...Ah, you noticed, of course? Do you think it strange that I have it?"

"Do I think it strange? Well, I don't think it suits you. How'd you wind up with it?"

"It was given to me."

With a snap, he closed it and handed it over to Mitsuo. Turning it over to look at it, his simple good looks stiffened.

"...'Remember the anniversary of our escape! Your good friend, Kaga Kouko'...?"

Reading the message written on the back of the mirror with a permanent marker, Mitsuo looked at Banri's face. Once more he looked at the message, and then again at Banri's face.

"What's with this? This is awful."

"Ya... awful, or should I say... I'm not sure as to what she means."

Looking back and forth from the mirror to Banri's face repeatedly, Mitsuo hesitated to speak, looking doubtful. Well, it might even have been an act. As for Banri himself, he thought it quite strange to have something of his called "such a mirror".

"It's not like that, Yana-ssan. It's evidence of our friendship, Kaga-san and I, they're matching mirrors. In that way, of the time when Kaga-san and I became friends. ---That kind of thing."

"'That kind of thing'...?"

"It's merely a statement."

Taking back the hand mirror from Mitsuo, he held it gently in the palm of his hand, sparkling coolly. It was a declaration done as it should be. Kouko had pursued Mitsuo some ten odd years so far, and for now, Banri thought he ought to let others know about their entering into this new relationship as friends. He was thinking about what others must be saying, and thought it a good time to set things straight.

Mitsuo, his face was still pinched as if by a fox, was muttering things like "Declaration...?"

The mirror weighed heavily in his hand.

Chunky and rounded like a faba bean, on the silver back in white Swarovski crystal an extravagant rose was depicted. Obviously expensive, completely feminine, it didn't suit Banri in the least.

The more he looked at it, the more truly difficult, incredibly complex and extremely hard to describe the feeling became. But Banri carried it around, stuffed in his pocket. He polished it every time fingerprints got on it, and he was careful how he used it.

Because Kouko had told him to do so.

"...Well, in short, it's because Kouko gave you that flashy mirror? To Banri? ...Because you'd become friends?"

"Yes"

"...When? How?"

"Saturday"

His prominent brow gathering lightly, Mitsuo, still not fully satisfied, was asking with his expression for a continuation of Banri's answer. Banri searched a bit for the words, averting his gaze and looking out into space.

So--- that, what happened Saturday.

Returning from Shizouka, Banri went by foot to meet up with Kouko. They went to the live house locker to get the stuff they'd forgotten, then to Caffe Veloce to drink tea, then he'd dumped her, they'd became friends, and then she'd given him this mirror.

If he were to tell it all, that was all there was to say.

But he didn't want to tell it straight to Mitsuo like that.

Because he wanted to hide the part about "being dumped" if he could. Mitsuo had dumped Kouko, who in truth had loved him, and in the evening of the same day (even more shamefully), Banri had confessed to her at once. But, he dumped her quickly, the very next day. It was too embarrassing to talk about, even if it was true.

And so,

"Kaga-san, like this you see, 'Well, Tada-kun, you've got some snot stuck on you', tossing her hair~, 'Try looking with this mirror', fluttering her eyelashes~, 'I'd like to give you that mirror, so you'll be able to take care of yourself the next time you get snot on your face.' We'll match, as proof of our friendship!', flashing her eyes...'. She gave it to me like that."

With a stupid joke, he lied.

He couldn't look over at Mitsuo. He had no idea what kind of face he was showing.

In reality, about this thing, she said, 'In thanks for your having gone out with me to have fun, and in apology for having gotten drunk and caused you trouble. And, as proof of our friendship from now on', as if it were a blessing over the present. Apparently.

Written on the black paper bag in white letters was "Barney's New York".

From the neat and tidy appearance of the paper bag, it looked like it might be something high class, so Banri immediately raised both his hands in front of him. He made that gesture of refusal, and also said with his expression, "You needn't bother with getting such a present."

But, in what was practically a show of strength, Kouko had restrained him deftly. In front of him, her eyes glistening, she had said, 'I wanted to buy it for you, no matter what! Please! Accept it!'. Being asked so very beautifully, there was no way he could not receive it.

And then, encouraged to go ahead and remove the wrapping still on it, this beautiful rose and gorgeous mirror was revealed to view.

However you looked at it, it was girlish thing, and very expensive. This time, for sure, Banri was seriously bewildered. It was a shock. How was such a slight, careless, round-faced, hunched over bumpkin to receive this sparking, shiny, gorgeous rose mirror, fit for a queen?

Besides, looking at it from his own point of view, even calling it proof of their friendship from now on was rather strange. In other words, this was a memento of her being dumped... he thought, was it a sort of consolation prize?

But, according to Kouko, 'It may not be Banri-like, but, no matter what I want you to make use of it! Because in this mirror there is meaning, an awful lot of meaning!' --- and so on.

Thinking back upon yesterday's give and take with Kouko was a bit late, and to no purpose when right before him, Mitsuo snorted, as if a little disgusted.

<~~17% Completed~~>

Back to Prologue

Return to Main Page