Golden Time:Volume2 Chapter3
Status: Incomplete
5% 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, $25 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.
<~~5% Completed~~>
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