#itd be worse if it had to accompany smthing subpar

[aranarumei]

bonus hanzawa to tashiro (ft. the anomalous agate)

have you read the anomalous agate? yes? if so, this is the bonus I was talking about—if not, as long as you know what I mean by hanzawa to tashiro, this should still make sense. if you were introduced to hanzawa and tashiro as characters through the anomalous agate and that alone, consider reading this post where I explain little but talk a lot.

this bonus scene takes place between the two scenes in ch 4 of the anomalous agate. specifically, it takes place around two weeks after the first scene in ch 4 / a week before the last scene in ch 4, during tashiro's cultural festival as a third-year.

and since this exists within the context of the anomalous agate, which is written first-person and trying to emulate seigi's pov, this bonus is written in tashiro's pov, and attempts to blend my style with tashiro's first-person narration in love & passion.

ok I think I've spent enough time talking. fun stuff is below the cut!

bonus: hanzawa to tashiro, ft. the anomalous agate

Tashiro Gonzaburou, third-year. At the moment, I was experiencing a horrible case of déjà vu.

Two years ago, I’d lost so badly at a ping pong match that I’d stumbled my way into being the captain of the ping pong club. And as much as I liked the club, and had even gotten pretty good at ping pong, I was still pretty annoyed about having been tricked into joining. 

Though the former captain of the ping pong club who’d tricked me then wasn’t the former captain in front of me now, I couldn’t help but feel the way I had then—cornered. 

It was hard to pinpoint the exact reason. Maybe it was the black and red sailor uniform I was wearing. But Kuresawa had worn it just fine the year before, so even though I hadn’t shaved my leg hair, I couldn’t have looked too bad. I’d also worn this specific outfit quite a few times—we’d needed to adjust the fit, and I’d needed to practice my lines. Maybe it was the makeup I was getting done. But I’d tried some of that before, too. Getting blush dusted on my cheeks had gone almost exactly as the same as it had last time.

Almost, except for one thing: it was way too quiet. The guy sitting in front of me, Hanzawa Masato, was probably used to that kind of thing. In fact, he was the type to take a normal silence, extend it until I felt awkward, and then mercilessly tease me whenever I blurted out something to fill the space.

“Weird to see you with earrings on,” I said. …And here I was, falling for it again. 

Hanzawa-senpai didn’t seem fazed at all by what I’d just said, but he was an annoying guy who looked the same whether he was angry or not. “You’ve seen me wear them before, though?” 

“Not in school,” I pointed out. Hanzawa-senpai had been a terrible sadist of a president, but he was squeaky-clean about the way he did it. Even now, with his earrings clearly visible, he was the perfect picture of a model student working in quiet concentration. 

Hanzawa-senpai hummed in thought, his hands rummaging through the bag of makeup products he’d left on a nearby desk. “Well, I’m not a student anymore,” he said with a shrug. “Even so, aren’t they fairly hidden?” 

As if—they were small, and a plain steel color, but it was Hanzawa-senpai. Of course I couldn’t stop staring.

“Trying to hide your delinquent ways?” I asked, not expecting a serious answer. Hanzawa-senpai’s secrets probably had secrets. He’d passed over his title of captain to me, so I knew his caginess wasn’t completely because I was unreliable, but it still bothered me.

“If you’re looking for a delinquent, look in the mirror,” Hanzawa-senpai teased, and then produced some kind of torture contraption from his bag. “Now don’t move, okay?” 

I yelped and threw my hands up in self-defense. “You can’t put that thing near my face!” 

Hanzawa-senpai just laughed at me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. Sadist!

 “It’s just an eyelash curler, Tashiro-kun,” he drawled. “Calm down, would you?” 

I shook my head furiously. “No way,” I said, ready to fight for my life. When we’d gone over the basics, this guy hadn’t mentioned this step—I’d bet anything it was purposeful! “How can—” 

A warm hand curled around my wrists, and I froze. Hanzawa-senpai pulled my hands away from my face, pressing in close, and made an order: “Sit still, would you?”

I’d barely listened when he was captain of the ping pong club, but something about his voice held me in place. I’d never really thought about it before, but Hanzawa-senpai had one of those storybook-narrator voices—the kind that made even simple things sound weirdly compelling. And then he had to go be one of the most eloquent people I’d met, too.

So, my eyes, which I thought would never hold still, obediently refrained from twitching as Hanzawa-senpai slowly curled my lashes.

The process was less painful than I thought, but it was still freaky—my vision was half metal, and so even though I knew that Hanzawa-senpai was right in front of me, the only real cue for that was the way he kept murmuring instructions into my ears. Once he’d curled my eyelashes, he carefully applied mascara, and then leaned back to survey his work. 

I could finally breathe again. My eyes felt… different?

“Blink a few times,” Hanzawa-senpai suggested. 

After taking his advice, I got a bit more used to the feeling. “Huh.”

“Eyeshadow next.” After that announcement, Hanzawa-senpai started digging through his bag again. 

“Right,” I suddenly remembered, “Were you planning on buying something fancy?” At Hanzawa-senpai’s blank stare, I elaborated, “Fancy earrings. Since there’s that jeweler guy you’re friends with.” 

“Not friends,” Hanzawa-senpai corrected after a beat. “I’ve met him a total of four times.”

You’re counting? 

For two people who weren’t friends, they sure had talked to each other like they were. And now Hanzawa-senpai was looking through his stuff with a strange look in his eyes, so I’d clearly touched some kind of nerve. 

I sighed. “Do you have to overthink everything?”

He didn’t even pause his search. “Maybe you could stand to think more?”

“Hey!” I crossed my arms. I think about you all the time, don’t I?

“…Okay, that was a little rude,” Hanzawa-senpai admitted. “Forgive me?” When he smiled, his eyes would always curve in a way that made it impossible to be angry.

“…We’re doing eyeshadow next, right?”

Instead of answering, he pressed an eyeshadow palette in my hand. Palette wasn’t the right word—what did you call something that was just one eyeshadow? Before I could think too hard about it, I got distracted by the eyeshadow’s color. “…You’re not colorblind, are you?”

“I can tell that’s green,” Hanzawa-senpai said, clearly amused. “No, that’s just for you.” He gestured to the eyeshadow palette in his hands, which was way more color-appropriate. “Close your eyes.”

I did close them, but I couldn’t stop thinking—what did “just for you” mean?

After I’d faced an eyelash curler, the eyeshadow and eyeliner didn’t seem so bad. The hardest part was staying still—how did some girls do this daily?

Once Hanzawa-senpai was done, he tugged me to a standing position, and moved a few steps away to check the result. Judging by the irritating smugness radiating from his expression, he’d done a good job.

“Where’d you get this eyeshadow?” I asked, holding up the one still clutched in my hand. I couldn’t bring myself to ask why. 

“…When I was helping Seigi cover his bruise, I happened to find it, and—” He shrugged, deliberately casual. “You like that shade of green.”

I did. It was my favorite color, and I wore it all the time. But I still didn’t understand why Hanzawa-senpai had gotten this eyeshadow for me. And I didn’t understand why my chest felt so weird when I heard him talk about Seigi. 

“…Is that everything, then?” I asked.

“There’s lip gloss,” Hanzawa-senpai said, handing me a tube of the stuff, “but that’s easy enough for you to do. Sit down, but turn to the side—I’ll do your hair.” 

I had a faint memory of Shirahama saying he didn’t trust anyone else with hairstyling, but I figured he’d accept Hanzawa-senpai’s skills, so I didn’t protest.

In this new setup, I was stuck staring at a random classroom wall. Though I couldn’t see Hanzawa-senpai standing behind me, I could feel the brush he was carefully pulling through my hair, working through the tangles with a steady hand.

“You know,” I said, “why didn’t you ever do the contest yourself? You’d be so good at it.” 

“I prefer to be on the sidelines for this kind of thing, I think.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But if you did—oh, you’d have to pick out a name!” 

“A name?” 

“It’s a conversation I had with Kuresawa. Like, his girl name would be Tasuko. And I could just shorten my first name to be something like Gon-chan. For you, maybe… Masako?”

I thought he’d laugh at my lack of naming sense, but instead, Hanzawa-senpai just shook his head. “That one’s out—it’s my sister’s name.” 

“Ah—that’s right, you have a few siblings, don’t you?” 

“I do. And you’re quite obviously an only child.”

“How do you know that?”

He simply smiled. “It’s impossible not to.” 

“...Sure,” I said. 

I didn’t have an immediate reply, so I unscrewed the tube of lip gloss. It was easy enough to apply, even without a mirror, so once that was over, my thoughts wandered.

What kind of magical, mystical quality did having siblings give to someone? Maybe even thinking that was what made me an only child, but really… 

I stole a glance up at Hanzawa-senpai. If this guy was my brother, I don’t know if I would cry or laugh. 

As it turned out, you couldn’t unnoticeably look upwards when you had someone’s hands fiddling with your hair. Our gazes met, and Hanzawa-senpai smiled—like a cat who’d gotten the canary. I stayed frozen in place as he leaned down.

“Alright, Gon-chan,” Hanzawa-senpai purred. “It looks like you’re all set.” 

My face turned instantly, abruptly red. No wonder Miyano had said I’d been way too casual about accepting the name. It definitely, definitely, without a doubt, definitely, definitively, couldn’t be used casually! 

Hanzawa-senpai straightened back up. “...Tashiro-kun?” 

“I—” My voice came out way too high. “I’m going to ask Shirahama to help with my hair!” 

Then I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. 

(...Running in a skirt wasn’t that hard—it was actually kind of fun—but that was the last thing on my mind, then.)