#tho that means nothing bc spellcheck sucks nowadays

[aranarumei]

the anomalous agate (part four)

hello, all. we've made it to the home stretch! this is the last main chapter of the anomalous agate—there's an epilogue after this, as well as bonus extra set more in the world of hanzawa to tashiro. I've also been playing around with the idea of doing a sort of… director's commentary? something like that. where I get to indulge and talk about some of my thoughts.

for anyone who has no idea what this is about, go here for part one

for those who do, here's the ao3 link, and if you prefer tumblr, it's just under the cut

case 2-x: the anomalous agate (part 4)

Sunlight set the streets before me aglow. It was, by all accounts, the warmest day in autumn we’d had this year, and I was beginning to sweat. There was a restless kind of itch inside my skin that I couldn’t seem to quell. Part of it was the bruise—the mark had faded, but now the area of pale purple felt consistently irritated. 

The other part was the fact that it was Saturday afternoon. Richard had closed the shop to make a special house call, and it was only now that I realized I’d spent the majority of every weekend working in Ginza. Rather than feel like I was chomping at the bit, though, the sudden free time left my skin itching to head into Jewelry Étranger like always. 

After poring over my various options, I’d decided to spend my day off on various chores and errands. I was currently on my way to the supermarket, but in the absence of any attractive deals awaiting me, I was dragging my feet in the afternoon heat. While looking around for a reasonable distraction, my attention was waylaid by the sight of the café I’d entered just over a week ago, and after considering its merit as a temperature-controlled room as well as my flagging enthusiasm for shopping, I decided to enter. 

The moment I stepped inside, a cooling breeze swept over my skin, and I was immediately refreshed. Then I scanned for a free seat and caught sight of a familiar head of black hair. A chill skittered up my spine; the person in question turned around and froze the moment our eyes met. 

Hanzawa Masato’s mouth parted in an involuntary ‘O’ shape, and I knew, again, that I was bearing witness to a scene I shouldn’t have seen. I thought about tucking myself into a different corner of the café, but the person he was sitting with had already spotted me, and obliviously waved me over. 

Hanzawa’s companion was a boy with half-dyed hair, the natural dark brown color abruptly transitioning into a sharp blond-gold. In the time it had taken me to approach them, he’d moved to sit next to Hanzawa, leaving a free seat for me on the other side. I took the offered seat awkwardly, wondering if there was any normal way to introduce myself. 

Thankfully, Hanzawa took the lead in greeting me. “…It’s nice to see you, Seigi.” 

“…It’s nice to see you too, Hanzawa.” As shocked as he’d been when we’d first made eye contact, he didn’t look irritated or out of sorts. I addressed the person next to him. “And you are…?” 

“Tashiro Gonzaburou! Is it fine if I call you Seigi, too?” 

“Sure,” I said, a little stunned by his easygoing smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Tashiro.” 

Before we could get too deep into a conversation, I ordered an iced americano. Hanzawa took a careful sip of his milk tea—it wasn’t the kind that Richard liked, but I wondered if that was why Hanzawa had asked for the royal milk tea in our first meeting. 

Once I’d gotten my drink in hand, Tashiro asked, “So how’d you meet Hanzawa-senpai, anyways?” 

Before I could muster up a vague enough answer that would satisfy a guy who seemed wholly blunt and direct, Hanzawa cut in with a response. “Seigi works at a jewelry store in Ginza,” he said. He addressed me: “I was under the impression you worked weekends?” 

There wasn’t a hint of turmoil on his face. I thought I’d gotten better at reading him, but I had no idea what he was thinking at the current moment. The circumstances through which I’d met Kaede were kind of awkward, so maybe it wasn’t right to explain… but it wasn’t like these were non-awkward circumstances, either. 

“Oh—well, yeah, that’s normally the case,” I said. “But Richard’s making a house call today, so the shop’s closed… we’ll be open tomorrow, though.” That was at least double the words necessary for an explanation. It wasn’t like Hanzawa was going to show up and buy something—he didn’t need me to prattle on about the exact specifics of Jewelry Étranger’s schedule. 

“A jeweler’s store?” Tashiro mused out loud before clapping his hands in epiphany. “Hanzawa-senpai, were you buying earrings?” 

“…Perhaps?” I’d seen Hanzawa be reticent with information before, but the tone of his voice here was an obvious tease. 

With a put-upon sigh, Tashiro asked, “I guess you’re just allergic to straight answers, huh?” At Hanzawa’s answering smile, he added, “Are you finally going to tell me how many piercings you actually have?” 

Hanzawa seemed to consider it for a long time, before simply declaring, “That’s no fun—I’ll let you keep guessing.” 

For all that I’d worried about an awkward situation, Hanzawa and Tashiro were more than able to carry conversation. Rather than cultivate a sense of unease, Hanzawa’s air of mystery had turned into something almost playful, something which Tashiro’s presence seemed to actively encourage. The two people sitting across from me both carried an inherent kind of charm—from Tashiro, so natural he likely didn’t notice it himself, and a deep, practiced consideration from Hanzawa’s end. I would have been fine just watching them talk to each other, but Hanzawa took note of my sense of distance and conscientiously pulled me into a discussion about various customers that had passed through Jewelry Étranger. We began to trade stories about the interesting people we’d encountered—Hanzawa had stories about almost anything, and Tashiro helped out at a bathhouse near his home that was full of interesting characters. 

Still, I couldn’t help but feel the sense that I was a third wheel in this situation. 

During a lull in the conversation, Tashiro tilted Hanzawa’s drink towards him and took an exploratory sip. “You got a new flavor,” he observed. “Don’t you usually stick with the same one?” 

Hanzawa’s gaze lowered towards Tashiro, slumped forward on the table in the perfect picture of relaxation, Hanzawa’s drink in hand. He tilted his drink back towards him and took a sip. “It is college,” he said. “I think you’re meant to loosen up a little.”

“And have all-night karaoke sessions?” Tashiro replied with a laugh. He straightened back up in his seat, not once breaking eye contact with Hanzawa, and added, “You’ve never really been uptight, anyways.” 

Hanzawa raised an eyebrow. “I was president of the disciplinary committee, you know.” 

“Hirano-senpai was vice-president,” Tashiro replied scathingly. 

I had no idea what that name meant, but seeing as Hanzawa’s lips twitched in amusement, it was an excellent point. 

“Anyways, you weren’t uptight, you were up in everything!” Tashiro exclaimed. With his brows scrunched in concentration, he began to count a list of Hanzawa’s activities on his fingers. “President of the disciplinary committee, captain of the ping pong club, head of the dorm, all the random stuff you did for the cultural festival that you’re still doing…” He punctuated his list with a dramatic huff. “I was right—you are a masochist. I bet that hasn’t changed in college.” 

On second thought, maybe the ability to carry a conversation didn’t exactly mean one was a good conversationalist. I didn’t know how to look at the two of them without feeling embarrassment, but strangely enough, Hanzawa didn’t seem to mind the impropriety.

His lips curled into a threatening smile. “Tashiro-kun, are you sure you want to repeat that?” 

At the deep fondness hidden in his voice, I had a sudden epiphany. Blankly staring at Tashiro, I knew—this has to be what that guy meant. 

Unaffected by Hanzawa’s words, and unaware of the whirling thoughts in my head, Tashiro simply muttered, “This is exactly what I mean.” 

“How is the ping pong club, anyways?” Hanzawa asked, confirming my suspicions as he pivoted topics.

Tashiro flashed him a peace sign. “Doing great! The guys in our year keep telling stories about you—that’s how they terrify the first years!” 

“And I’m sure you’ve let them know that these are terribly unfair rumors?” Hanzawa said, leaning towards him. He fluttered his eyelashes, the action dancing on the edge of mockery and sincerity. “Disparaging a poor alumnus who can’t even defend himself, really…” 

Before he could get too far in his speech, they both seemed to realize there was a third person at the table and jerked back into regular sitting positions. Hanzawa ineffectually cleared his throat, and said, “Ah, Seigi—you used to be in a karate club, right? Don’t you still keep in touch with the members?” 

“…Well, not any of the newer ones, really,” I said, doing my best to convey that I hadn’t seen anything incriminating. “But I help out in events every once in a while, and I’m on an email chain with a bunch of people I knew at the time. It would be hard to pick it back up all of sudden, but I’ve been considering it.”

Hanzawa’s eyes flickered over to my fading bruise. He opened his mouth as if to ask me a question, and then seemed to think better of it.

“I did karate for a year, actually!” Tashiro piped up. 

Genuine disbelief and interest bled into Hanzawa’s voice. “Really?” 

“Closer to half a year, probably,” Tashiro amended sheepishly. “But yeah, I cycled through a lot of different sports back then, so I know the basics. Maybe I would’ve picked it back up in high school, but then I got conned—” 

“You bore the consequence of terms you accepted, you mean,” Hanzawa cut in. 

“Conned,” Tashiro repeated with extra emphasis, “into joining the ping pong club. But karate requires a lot of discipline, so I probably wouldn’t have ever stuck with it for long.” He sighed. “Now that I’m the president of the ping pong club, I can’t even skip practices!” 

“Well, obviously,” Hanzawa drawled. With a lightly accusing finger pointed at Tashiro’s hair, he added, “Unfortunately, I only hear good things about you from your clubmates. They don’t even think your hair makes you look like a ruffian!” 

“I haven’t dyed my hair in two years because of that stupid rule!” Tashiro replied. “Seriously, what was that president thinking…” 

“Probably that you’d grow your hair out and then cut off all the dyed parts,” Hanzawa replied dryly.

“No way,” Tashiro said. “Besides, this is kind of my brand now, anyways.”

“Delinquency?”

Tashiro glared at him. “If only he knew your hair was dyed,” he griped, “then I bet he’d—” He paused in the middle of his complaint and peered at Hanzawa’s unchanging expression. “He knew?”

“Well, my hair doesn’t stand out like yours does.” 

“So what?” Tashiro asked. “Just because you look normal doesn’t mean you are.” 

Hanzawa ruffled his hair in retaliation. “Show some respect for your senpai,” he huffed. Ignoring Tashiro’s squawks of protest, he added, “Besides, we didn’t force you to dye your hair back to brown, right?” With his hand still near Tashiro’s hair, he curled a stray stand around his finger. “Has your hair been growing much longer recently?��

“Yeah,” Tashiro said, smoothing his hair back into submission. “I think I damaged my hair pretty badly when bleaching it, so it grew kind of slowly, but recently that hasn’t been the case. I don’t know why, but it’s useful for now, isn’t it? I might not even need a wig.” 

“…A wig?” I ventured. 

Pink dusted Hanzawa’s cheeks. “I—I forgot… that you wouldn’t know,” he finished smoothly, though I had a hunch what he meant to say was I forgot you were there. I’d feel offended if it wasn’t for the fact that this meant that Hanzawa had drastically lowered his guard around me.

“It’s alright,” I said. “Is the wig for your cultural festival?” 

“You know about that?” Tashiro asked. 

“I heard a little about your… cross-dressing competition?” 

“It’s officially termed a beauty contest,” Hanzawa said, “but unofficially… no one calls it that.” 

“That’s cool,” I said lamely, but maybe Tashiro had picked up on the sincerity in my voice because he blinked at me for a few moments before beginning to motormouth. 

“Hanzawa-senpai’s helping me out!” he exclaimed. For the first time since we’d met, he ducked his head out of shyness. “It’s—for this year, I’m participating… some guys wanted me to do it in my first year, but I refused to, and well, I’m way taller than I was back then so it’s kind of weird, but still—I think it could be kind of fun? And it turns out that a lot of making things look good is in costuming and makeup, which I don’t know anything about, but of course Hanzawa does because he creepily knows everything, right?” He paused, and added, “For that bruise on your face, he could probably help you out there, if you wanted?”

“Oh—he already did, actually,” I said. “I learned how to cover it up when it was way too obvious to go to work, but I didn’t want to bother, otherwise.”

“Of course, he’s amazing,” Tashiro said, like it was a natural law of the universe, and Hanzawa stared, spellbound. “I don’t know how anyone’s going to pull off anything good next year because he’s got things so well-handled. It should really be impossible for a human to actually do that much”—he turned to Hanzawa and glared without much heat—“so maybe actually rest some time, would you?”

Slipping back into his regular grace, Hanzawa gestured at the café. “Isn’t this resting?” 

“It’s—I don’t mind that you’re helping,” Tashiro said, a frustrated edge to his voice. “I’m happy about it; I just need you to be, too.”

Hanzawa’s gaze drifted to an aimless point in the air. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, voice a little strangled. “I’m… going to stop by the restroom before we head out.”

With that said, he glided towards a distant corner of the café. Tashiro’s eyes tracked his back as he moved, and once Hanzawa left his line of sight, he studied me with careful eyes. 

There wasn’t any pressure behind it, but I couldn’t look away. 

Tapping his empty drink against the table, Tashiro said, “Like he said, we’ll probably head out soon.” His voice had dropped in both pitch and volume. “You seem like a good guy, Seigi—it was nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Since that’s the case… he jokes about it, but if you run into Hanzawa-senpai again, could you make sure he’s not actually running himself into the ground?” 

Caught by the sincerity and intensity of his request, I agreed without a second thought. “Sure.” Then I realized it wasn’t the kind of promise I could meaningfully keep, but I didn’t know how to clarify my inadequacy.

“I seriously mean it,” Tashiro whispered, “a guy like that has to be a masochist for how much work he takes on. I mean, he’s helping me even though he graduated already…” 

It wasn’t the kind of thing I could say to his face, but I had a feeling that Hanzawa didn’t consider helping Tashiro as work. Hanzawa was only a year younger than me—maybe not even that, since I didn’t actually know his birthday—and so Tashiro was two years younger than me at best, but I couldn’t help but feel a rush of odd assuredness at the fact. Looking at him, I could understand, a little, what Richard had meant by saying that non-interference was sometimes the respectable choice.

When Hanzawa returned, he raised an eyebrow at the slightly somber mood of the table—Tashiro staring at his empty drink, and I, lost in my thoughts. “I’m going to assume you started gossiping behind my back,” he said. 

Rather than lie, Tashiro dismissively waved off his statement and said, “I told him to look out for you, since you’re up to something or the other. The moment you’re out of my sight, you’re doing all of these interesting things I don’t even know about…”

Stunned by his frankness, Hanzawa’s reply was stilted. “It’s… only expected, I suppose. That I can’t be around as much anymore.” 

“It’s not a bad thing,” Tashiro clarified. “It’s just a thing. Drag me around sometime when you go on your strange adventures, would you?”

“…I’ll consider it, okay?” Hanzawa said, gentler than I’d ever heard him, and I knew, surer than anything, that those weren’t empty words.

With Tashiro appeased, Hanzawa and I locked eyes.

There were a lot of things that I wanted to say. That more than ever, I felt that lapis lazuli was a perfect stone for him. That he was absolutely capable of grandness and importance. That Hanzawa carried different aspects of himself like he was a living example of metamorphism. But seeing him like this was the exact reason I couldn’t say anything to him. Today, we hadn’t spoken a single word about his visits to Jewelry Étranger, but I’d never felt the pressure to. Each time I’d met with Hanzawa, he’d been on his back foot—navigating his interactions with Richard and I at Jewelry Étranger, worrying over Kaede, or helping me cover my bruise.

But here, without any jewel in his possession, there was someone that recognized Hanzawa as he was. Maybe, then, he didn’t need anything at all.

Tashiro had asked me to look out for Hanzawa, but really, it was the other way around—I just never had to ask. Though there was a lot I didn’t know, I had the feeling that Hanzawa and I were similar types of people. If someone saw us as special, it would be impossible to let go.

I swallowed down all those presumptuous words, and said, “Have a nice day.”

“…You too, Seigi.”

— — —

Three weeks later, I was making a cursory sweep of the Jewelry Étranger floor, watching the clock tick over to closing time, when the door swung open with a blast of frost. 

In swept Hanzawa Masato. He was wearing the same shade of pale blue he’d worn during his first visit, but he’d opted for a warm turtleneck instead of a light sweater. He’d layered it with a soft brown coat, but his face was still tinged pink from the cold.

The door clicked shut behind him. I felt as if the broom in my hands should have clattered to the floor, but it stayed in my grip.

Even though it was our duty to greet a client, it was Hanzawa that broke the silence first. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be interrupting something,” he said. Something about his demeanor was noticeably different—he didn’t look uncomfortable, but he wasn’t speaking with his usual practiced composure, either.

I glanced toward Richard—he kept a cool face, but there was a slight deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes that he hadn’t yet shaken off. 

“You’re not interrupting,” I said, leaning my broom against the nearest wall. “Feel free to take a seat.”

“Hanzawa-san…” Richard began, before he fully collected himself. “It’s nice to hear from you again. Would you like me to bring out what you’d looked at previously?”

“I’ll make tea—” I offered, but Hanzawa stopped me in my tracks.

“There’s no need,” he said. “It shouldn’t take too long.” He took a deep breath, drawing closer without taking a seat. “To answer your question, Richard-san—you mentioned you carried different kinds of agate, yes?” At Richard’s ensuing nod, he said, “Do you carry any earrings with blue lace agate, then?” 

Professionalism snapped Richard back into action. “We do have a few,” he said, rising from his seat. “I’ll be back out in a moment, then.”

Once Richard had disappeared into a back room, Hanzawa offered me an appeasing smile. “I’m sure all these repeated visits are bad for business, but I do actually plan on making a purchase.”

“Richard treats all of his clients sincerely, whether they purchase something or not,” I said in instinctive defense. Maybe my next words weren’t appropriate for an employee to a client, but I’d run into Hanzawa outside of work twice. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d be back. Even though we ran into each other again…” 

“I wasn’t planning on it, then,” Hanzawa admitted. “So I do appreciate that you didn’t pressure me.”

“What changed?” I asked. 

“I won’t ruin all my mystery,” Hanzawa replied, a little flippant, and I was reminded of the lightness with which he and Tashiro had conversed. “But the simplest explanation is that I figured out what I wanted.” At my blank stare, he laughed, and explained, “I liked the lapis lazuli. But something so ostentatious won’t ever be my style. I said I wanted a statement piece, right? This is one—but it’s a statement to me, not someone else.” He gestured towards his sweater. “And it’s this shade of blue. I do like blue.”

What I’d noticed earlier was the difference between composure and confidence—the latter of which was unmistakable in Hanzawa’s voice.

“If you’re happy with your choice, that’s great,” I said.

In lieu of a proper reply, Hanzawa said, “…If you ever feel like hanging out sometime, Seigi, you do have my number.”

I didn’t give a proper reply, either; Richard returned with his collection of blue lace agate.

There were only three pairs of earrings, so he offered to have a stone worked into jewelry if Hanzawa preferred. Despite his initial hurry, Hanzawa took the time to inspect each set of earring as carefully as he’d studied eyeshadows. Finally, he decided that Richard’s offer wasn’t necessary, and picked out a pair of teardrop-shaped earrings.

“Can I wear these out of the shop?” Hanzawa asked as Richard advised him on the best way to store jewelry. After brushing past his annoyance at the interruption, Richard gave the okay, and so Hanzawa carefully tried them on, closing the back with a soft click.

After making his goodbyes, he paused by the opened door. In the next moment, he whipped back around to face me, displaying a brilliant, evanescent smile. Against all odds, he’d found a way to glow beneath the gray winter sky.

Just outside the door, I caught a glimpse of a green hoodie, and heard a familiar voice. “Your ears!” 

Startled, Hanzawa turned and closed the door behind him, but I caught his response just before the door swung shut. “My earrings, Tashiro-kun. Really, it’s rude to point…” 

As if on cue, the clock ticked over to closing time. I wasn’t sure when I’d see Hanzawa Masato again, but I knew—whatever conversation he was about to have, it wasn’t one he’d run from.