Golden Time:Volume1 Prologue

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Prologue

"Kuwaa~n... aanaan iya aaaaan... ufuu~n...," as the usual, strangely erotic sound of the idiotic bell could be heard behind him, Banri was already halfway across the bridge, at the head of the group.

"Sorry, are we going too fast today?"

He turned to look back at the club's vice-captain, who had been running just behind him.

"Yeah, let’s go a little slower."

While pulling out the pony-tail, which had fallen into the jersey's collar, the vice-captain turned around too, and looked back at the other club members, who were running behind them.

If they went at their normal pace, the seductive bell could be heard when they were one quarter over the long bridge. The club manager, Kanada-san, followed the end of the line on his bicycle, where he kept an eye on the first year students (who weren’t all that strong yet) so they wouldn’t get left behind, and rang the bell, which was about half-way through their normal forty minute run.

"That bee---llll---,"

"Haaasss beeenn ruuunnng by..."

"Kana~~~da~~~~!"

Holding imaginary microphones in their left hands and waving their right fists to an R&B rhythm, Banri and the vice-captain sang out in chorus.

"Upperclassmen are idiots!"

A second-year student running up after them gazed at the two with disapproval.

"Don't they do that every day?"

Another one of the second-years said, with a bewildered look on his face. No matter how uncool it was, or how tired the underclassmen got tired of it, they could do nothing about it.

Looking at the vice-captain, Banri said,

"Nothing wrong with it, is there?"

Playing along with him, the vice-captain replied,

"Right," and nodded.

Banri and the other track club members ran this bridge every day, on what was said to be Japan’s longest wooden bridge[1]. Even as a local, he thought the same: it was certainly long. A big river separated one side (the mountains) from another (the sea), which could be seen in the hazy distance. Especially now, the scenery was blurred by the dusty spring wind and, somehow wrinkling, looked even more distant. Because the bridge was so long, ten years ago, a travel program had featured it on their show.

Next thing you know, there was a bridge boom! City Hall climbed on board this expected fad, saying, "Let’s make sure we please the tourists that will surely come here!" They convened at endless meetings after even longer meetings; and in the end, statues of the "Seven Gods of Fortune"[2] were arranged on the mountain view side of the bridge. The child sized statues were erected along a gently sloping mountain trail, making for an easy hiking course. Just before the grove of trees was cut off by the bridge at the end of the trail, above Fukurokuju[3], a large bell was hung, with its sound bringing good fortune to the opposite bank. With the saying, "Please sound the bell" in mind, a mallet was placed alongside the bell. Even though the bell’s sound reverberated in a strangely sensual way, they decided to leave it be thinking, "Well, there’s nothing you can do about it."

However, the few tourists that came were busy taking pictures of the view from the bridge; and consequently, the only visitors to the statues were either the neighborhood dogs on walks, or the local high-school track team training. The dogs, of course, couldn’t ring the bell. The only person who would make the obscene noise by ringing the bell was Kanada.

"Huh? What happened to that guy?"

Banri spotted someone, after he eased off on his pace and turned back around. Surprised, the vice-captain asked,

"Eh? What?"

"Look, there... Maybe he isn't well? Is he alright?"

On the bridge itself, a little further ahead of Banri’s group, a man wearing a khaki jacket was crouched down. He was clinging to the knee-high guardrail as if he could hardly hold himself up. Banri glanced aside towards the man, but hesitated to call out to him. Instead, he slowly approached, quietly saying to himself,

"I’ve got a bad feeling about this..."

That very moment, he passed by.

Their eyes met, quietly.

The man, crouched down as if he was blind drunk or crying, or as if he suddenly fell ill, covered his face with both hands and looked at Banri through a gap between his fingers. A flicker of light brought his attention to a single mysterious character, something like a "wa" or a "re"[4], on the back of his hand that was gleaming a faint yellow. He didn’t understand its meaning, but leaving that aside, the man's eyes were opened wide in surprise.

Startled, the area of the man's half-hidden nose had a strange...

"Uwoh, whoa!"

Because he was looking over to the side for too long, Banri lost his balance and stumbled a few steps. He really didn’t want to be seen like that.

"Banri!"

Sounding surprised, the vice-captain called out his name. As if it were to blame, the elbow of Banri's windbreaker was nudged.

"That’s dangerous! What’re you doing?"

"But, but something about that guy… what!? No way!?"

Banri was suddenly running backwards, blinking while he persisted to search for the person he must have just passed.

It may be that he was simply seeing things, or it may have been a day dream.

However many times he looked back, the unfortunate phantom was now nowhere to be found. He suddenly wasn’t there. He had simply disappeared.

Was it entirely his imagination? Was it a hallucination? No, or maybe, no way… did he fall off the bridge?

But, he couldn’t hear the sound of anything dropping into the water.


Notes:

  1. Japan’s longest wooden bridge
  2. "Seven Gods of Fortune"
  3. Fukurokuju
  4. わ (wa) and れ (re) look similar in Japanese.




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