2024-11-05: Grading Process
- Log: 2024-11-05: Grading Process
- Cast: Akane Shinjo
- Where: Nouvelle Tokyo - Imaishi Jewelers
- Date: U.C. 0099 11 05
- Summary: Akane gets the ring she made professionally graded. It's a time to think back.
Akane shifts uneasily in her seat next to the jeweler. Telling her that the ring being appraised was for a university project earned her an invitation to sit in on the process -- and naturally, she's a little nervous. After all, it's her baby on the operating table.
"Hmmm. Well, it is of course a unique, hand-crafted piece and of exceptional quality. You mentioned there was something special about the metal?"
Akane scoots in, excited to talk about her process. "So -- the metal is a gold-platinum alloy, mostly platinum. It's designed for wear resistance -- we use it at work in tools. One of my coworkers says that you could drag it behind the Internationale --" the train line connecting Dakar to several other major world capitals -- "and it'd probably stay intact if it never made a hard impact with anything on the track."
The jeweler raises an eyebrow. She gets back to it, pushing silver hair out of her face. Getting a little closer, she looks at it through her loupe. "The color is... nontraditional, but usually expensive. The quality is remarkably high -- this is a lab piece, you said?"
"That's right. We have a gem lab at work, but it's really something we mostly use in response to emergencies," Akane explains. "So running it in the 'off season' is actually pretty cheap... as long as we haven't had any big damage to any of the GS-Ride machines I can slip in requests." Her gaze turns away from the ring. "So my girlfriend has... it's like, a little bit of central heterochromia, and the blue in her eyes has this really interesting light-scattering effect..." With a sheepish smile, she admits, "I always wondered how that kind of thing happens, so one day I decided to look it up. Anyway, I used to wear a lot of purple, too? So that kinda pale violet color is..." She lets out a content sigh. "... I think of it as like -- the connection between us, I guess. And the red side stones are -- well, 'Akane,' right?"
Looking at her for a few moments, the jeweler eventually reflects, "This is a painfully sentimental design. I know some couples -- like yours -- both get engagement rings; did you make one for yourself?"
"I did! I don't have the stone yet though." Akane smiles. "They're pretty similar? The stone in mine is a fancy intense brown emerald-cut and the side stones are sapphire. I'll bring that one by when I actually have the gem. I, uh." She rubs at the back of her head, admitting, "I didn't think to book the gem lab twice. It might be a minute."
The jeweler cants her head a little, and eventually laughs just a bit. "That's going to be hard to accessorize with."
"Yeah, but it's more important for me to have the visual language match between them? My eyes look pretty red in the right light but they're actually a more boring brown, and her eyes are mostly blue, so if you take the side color from mine and the main color from hers or the other way around..." Laughing at herself, she concedes, "I wouldn't do that if I was, like, working for a client, unless they asked. I could do way more traditional boring round main and baguette side stuff with this same basic design? But here I think it's important that..."
Here, Akane trails off for a moment. Her eyes turn just a bit faraway, as she thinks back on their relationship.
"...I worry because I care about you. So much that it hurts. I've seen what this world is like, I know it can be so, so cruel... but I'm certain it's better with you in it."
"If you disappear from people's lives, they're sad for a little while, but like. A year later? Two? It's like they basically never existed."
"I still... really want to be your friend, Akane. I want that so much. But I can't go back to the way I was."
"I know I'm so rotten..."
"How do you feel about me?"
"He asked if I had a plan for if you took it bad, and... I mean, you always knew what 'a plan' meant with him, and I got so scared that I could hurt you and --"
"I'm... really lucky, getting a chance to fall in love with the same woman all over again..."
"... I think I like the kind of things a person gets a lot more than the kind a god gets."
"So why don't we pick up where we... left... off...?"
"I don't think any of them would have gone for this if you hadn't told them, 'I see something just a little better than her in her, and I'm not moving until we make it real.'"
"I guess... that really is going to be us eventually, isn't it? Making things work in an apartment of our own..."
"I already told you 'this doesn't need to involve you' once, and I sounded like an idiot then too."
"Th-that's- Well, I can't say I'd mind if you held off a bit longer..."
"I'm sorry for making you wait, too... we really need to stop ending up waiting for each other."
"Because I love her! Everything about her is something I'm crazy about! Her misery is only a single part of her, and it's something I want to share with her so she doesn't have to handle it alone! Maybe that is true - but I'm here now."
"We should do sakazuki."
"...I think I could get used to this."
"So. Cake? Presents? Or --"
"Now more than ever is when people ought to be sticking together, I think..."
"It's too cold to get out of bed... 'm gonna hibernate 'til winter's done and then trundle out to sea."
"Maybe if it was, like... the first place you went on a date or something, I could see it..."
"Oh, cool, I'm a 5, too! Hinoki had to size me for an Algernon Watchman Mini recently so I know that's right."
"...Akane... ...I believe in her. And I'm sure she's doing the same for us. We'll just have to prove that that belief is well-placed."
"Takarada-san, I've been with your daughter for almost three years now. Every day that I get to wake up next to her feels like a blessing so big it's hard to imagine deserving it."
"In a few years... We'll have probably moved out of this apartment. I'd like us to have a nice place together, that we can call our own. Get our living situation more stable. I don't want to rush into anything before we're ready."
"... I've had a great partner for building that kinda stuff back up."
"Thanks. It's kind of a lot, but... I'm glad you pushed me."
"Do you ever get, just -- those feelings where you know you're about to meet someone important? That little, like, tickle in the back of your head or whatever."
"...I'm activating HADES-E."
"You... L-Leina said, when we were working through it, that... maybe I don't... maybe we haven't been thinking about what it means to be, or be with, s-someone... someone 'different.' Like... with... brainwave, stuff. She... might kind of be right."
"So it's not too late..."
"I'm sorry that your girlfriend is turning into a sentimental old lady at 19. That must be very difficult."
"You've been working on that one for a while. I'm looking forward to seeing it, too."
The silence is welcome; it gives the jeweler a chance to spend a little more time with the piece itself. After a couple of minutes, she does break Akane's reverie with a gentle, "You trailed off a bit, dear."
Startling back to focus, Akane nods. "O -- oh. It's just... right. I was talking about the designs. It's important that they reflect... everything we've been through. The connection between us. That's more important than anything."
"You have a very unique aesthetic sense. You could turn this into a career, you know," the jeweler offers, putting down her loupe. "That's not a common talent these days..."
Akane raises a hand, shaking her head. "I could, and I know I could, but... I'm happy with what I'm doing." A half-second passes before she explains, "I work at Bay Tower."
Here, the jeweler smiles. "So does my nephew! He's a good bit older than you are, though, and I doubt it's the same department..."
"Oh -- wait, the family name... you're not Ken's aunt?" The thought catches Akane off guard. "Night shift desk work? I end up passing his office on my way out on work days..."
"You know each other!" Now thoroughly distracted, the jeweler turns to face Akane. "Yes -- that's right. After the One Year War, we were each other's only family, so I moved to Nouvelle... I was originally living down south, so that was -- for the best."
"I'm from Nagoya myself!" Akane volunteers.
"Oh, did your family know..."
... the conversation starts meandering.
Akane's stayed about an hour later than anticipated. The talk, meandering as it is, is nice, but --
Akane's eyes widen as the jeweler finally slides a written appraisal over to her. She has to put her glasses on, look again, then take them off and look again before she's got any confidence that she's looking at a real number.
"If you went for a more traditional appearance, it'd probably be higher," the jeweler -- now more firmly 'Imaishi,' no honorific, after that much talk -- says, with a twinkle in her eye.
Akane lets out an amused huff-sigh. "Yeah, I bet it would be. But I'm happier with it this way, and I think she will be too. Maybe her friends are going to talk about the cut being weird behind her back or whatever, but... it's not for them, right? It's for my partner."
"The path of the aesthete, all the way to the end... it'll be a little lonely."
Akane tilts her head, putting the writeup -- and the ring, discreetly boxed -- away. "It's not lonely. It's with the people I love the most."
"... Tell Ken I was delighted to meet one of his coworkers. Stay safe."