Golden Time:Volume1 Prologue

"Kuwaa~n... aanaan iya aaaaan... ufuu~n...", the strangely erotic sound of the bell could be heard in the distance again today. Banri went to the head of the group, already more than half-way across the bridge.

"Sorry, did we go 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 he pulled out his pony-tail, which had fallen into the collar of his jersey, the vice-captain turned around too, and watched as the last two guys in the group were just then getting on the bridge.

If they went at their normal pace, the bell could be heard when they were one quarter over the long bridge. Kanada-san, the club secretary, came up from the end of the line on his bicycle, from where he had been in order to work with the first-years who weren’t all that strong yet, from a whole forty minutes of road work, the sound of the bell letting them know where they should be.

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

"Haaasss beeenn ruuunnng,"

"Kana~~~da~~~~!" ...Holding imaginary microphones in their left hands and waving them to an R&B rhythm, Banri and the vice-captain sang out in chorus. "Senpai’s an idiot!", the second-year students running up after them cast a cool eye on the two. Another of the second-years said, "Don’t they do that every day?" No matter how uncool it was, or how tired you got of it, there was no way they would cut it out. They couldn’t stop what they wanted to do so badly. Looking at the secretary he said, "Nothing wrong, is there?" "Just keep up with Banri’s pitch.", he replied.

Banri and the other track club members ran this bridge every day, what was said to be Japan’s longest wooden bridge. He agreed with the locals: it was certainly long. A big river separated this side (the mountains) from that side (the sea), which could be sensed in the hazy distance. Especially now, the dusty spring wind blurring the view of the bridge winding off into the distance. 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 latest fad, saying "Let’s make sure we please the tourists that will surely descend upon us!" They had interminable meetings upon worse meetings and in the end, on the mountain slope the statues of the "Seven Lucky Gods" were arranged. About the size of children, placed here and there along the trail, they were set up like an impromptu banquet, just before the trees stopped at the bridge. At the end of the trail, above Fukurokuju a huge bell was hanging, the sound of the bell bringing good fortune to the opposite bank. "Please sound the bell", it said on a mallet alongside. The fact that the bell’s sound reverberated in a strangely sexy way they decided to leave it be, "Well, there’s nothing you can do about it."

But the infrequent tourists visiting from the city were only concerned with getting the best shots with their cameras. Consequently, the only visitors to the statues were either the neighborhood dogs, or the after-school track teams practicing. 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 him, after he eased off on his pace and turned around. Surprised, the vice-captain asked, "Eh? What?"

"Excuse me, you there… perhaps you are ill? Are you alright?"

On the bridge itself, a little further along than Banri’s group, a man wearing a khaki jacket was crouched down. He was clinging to the knee-height guardrail, as if he could hardly hold himself up. Banri glanced sidelong at the guy, but hesitated to call out to him, and instead quietly said to himself,

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

That very moment, he passed by.

Their eyes met sidelong, quietly.

The man was crouched down, unable to stand as if he were really drunk, or maybe crying, or perhaps suddenly ill. Both hands covering his face, he saw Banri through a gap in his fingers. Something shone on the back of his hand. There was a mysterious character there, perhaps "wa" or "re". He caught it gleaming faintly yellow. He didn’t understand its meaning. The man’s eyes were opened wide in surprise.

There was something quite strange where his half-hidden nose could be seen---

"Uo, o!"

Because he was looking way over to the side for too long, he lost his balance and stumbled a few steps. The underclassmen hardly saw anything of what happened.

"Banri!"

Surprised, the vice-captain called his name too. As if it were to blame, the elbow of his windbreaker was nudged.

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

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

Stubbornly, Banri was already running back, searching for the person he must have just passed, as if drawn by the look he had received.

He may have been seeing things, or it may have been a waking 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 didn’t think he could hear anything apart from the sound of the water.

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