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For decades, Hanako has been one of the twin managers of the Kamome Valentine Company. You’ve probably seen him through the huge crystalline shop windows, staring out at the smoggy starless sky with a puzzled expression on, fluffy wannabe-angel wings tucked behind his back. Or it could be you’ve even gone to him to strike a deal — to trade a few velvety coin purses for an engagement ring made from a jewel crafted out of your own love, maybe, with colors and secrets and depths that belong to you alone… or maybe you’ve turned up at Hanako’s door to forget a love gone wrong, to rework a story of heartbreak into something new.
The Kamome Valentine Company handles jobs like that, after all: transforming memories and wantings and broken hearts all into gems like rich sticky rock candy or smuggled-down moonlight or oil-slick rainbow mermaid scales. Hanako handles some of the jobs, polishing memories to a devoted, clutching-sweet shine… laboring tenderly over every scent, every sound, so that any make-believe replacement romance he constructs is like a perfect world unto itself. And his brother Tsukasa handles the rest — he’s a little younger, a little wilder, Tsukasa. His craft is a little… different.
Hanako knows people in this new city wonder about the pair of them. They wonder if he has horns tucked discreetly under his jaunty hat, the way his twin brother wears his black-licorice devil horns proudly; he knows they whisper that he probably has necrotic venom waiting behind his too-fond smiles, or something equally awful. He must be awful, because he never seems to age. Because he never seems to feel anything but slow soft smiling interest, even working with the most devastating kinds of heartbreak.
That’s what they say.
Oh well.
Maybe the twins feed on some of the memories, before they shape them into jewels; maybe that’s what keeps them from aging. Do you think?
Maybe the twins are devils, always hungering for human lusts. Using us.
Maybe the twins were driven out of all kinds of cities before they turned up in this one. People probably got wise to the kind of monsters they are, back in their old cities. They must’ve salted the earth behind them and exorcised the glittering stolen-memory-sparkle out of their old shop walls.
But now they’re here. How long have they been here, anyway? And how do you suppose they do any of it, grabbing our memories right out of our heads?
Usually, that kind of gossip doesn’t matter. The Kamome Valentine Company gets its business one way or another, and Hanako tends to his work. He’s only ever really needed Tsukasa in this world, after all, no matter how childishly they might bicker in front of customers now and then.
But lately… lately Hanako’s flinched, a little, whenever he’s heard people muttering speculative horror stories, hurrying by the shop. Whenever they’ve glanced over their shoulders as if scared to find him leering at them, eyes knowing and hungry and fingers twitching, reaching for their romantic memories. He’s thought… well, you see, he’s thought…
“ Yashiro doesn’t think about us like that. Does she?”
“No… no, she can’t. She wouldn’t. We make her laugh; she comes to spend her lunch breaks with us. She doesn’t flinch away even a little bit when I hold her arm.”
“She’s only filling in as my assistant to work off her bill. For all that jewelry. I know it, everyone knows it. It’s not like she’d be here so often, otherwise.”
“But still… could she really be afraid of me?”
Hanako isn’t used to carrying around thoughts like those. The sort of churning, uncomfortable thoughts that squirm in his inhuman insides and ruffle his almost-but-not-quite angel feathers. That get him flushing a little redder when his temporary assistant Nene Yashiro grabs his hand to inspect a little sticky-black-blood wound there, or brings him an extra lunch that matches hers, or knocks on the shop’s windows when she knows they’re closed. Waving at him cheerfully, out with her friends, mortal breath fogging up the glass and shopping bags hanging from her arms.
Yashiro has a jewelry box of romance gems back in her apartment, each one wrapped up in a gentle, crinkly bed of pale green tissue paper. So many failed romances; so many times she’s come stumbling up the Kamome Valentine Company steps with raw red eyes and a trembling lower lip. Sometimes she takes them out and wears those jewels-that-aren’t-only-jewels around on her wrists, or on long chains, swinging against her ribcage, so close to the heart they were drawn out from. They don’t ache deep in that heart, anymore. Hanako has taken all Yashiro’s pain.
Oh, God. Yashiro. She’ll be coming by later today, to work another shift. Paying off her latest broken heart. Flouncing in with her silvery green hair pinned up under a classy hat, cherry cordial ruffles bouncing on her skirt… she’ll bring perfume smells and the smoke of the city in with her. She’ll probably want to tell Hanako all about her latest crush, just like she’ll probably bring him a sweet vanilla cream coffee. They’ll be working late to finish an order, after all. Yashiro’s job’ll be threading dozens and dozens of pearly beads across a headdress, a perfect task for a mortal with quick fingers — Hanako’ll slip the memories i n last, the jewels in the bridal crown.
Before Yashiro shows up, Hanako places a curious, frustrated hand against his chest. He hates, hates, hates how quickly his heart is beating, just now. How fluttery and strange his insides have gotten, thinking about Yashiro. There are so many things he and Tsukasa can’t have, you know.
Hanako should know that by now. He goes to find his brother, before he loses his nerve. Before Yashiro clocks in for her shift; before he remembers why he might regret what he’s about to ask.
“Tsukasa…” Hanako says. “I have a job for you.”
Tsukasa is perched up in the rafters of the shop, birdcages full of romantic memories swaying around him, a necklace of chaotic jewels spilling out of his hands as he studies his latest work, deciding if it’s finished or if he’s got to mash it back up and start again. His fluttery white suit matches Hanako’s slick black coat almost exactly; his spindly whip of a devil’s tail flicks and twines as he thinks. It’s never self-consciously, sensibly hidden, like Hanako’s tail.
“Mm?” Tsukasa says. “What, really? You’re not gonna try to beat me to this one?”
“No…” Hanako says. Why is this so difficult? Talking about the family business was never difficult before. “No, I can’t — I mean — what I want you to erase… it’s different…”
“Different how? ”
“It’s mine.”
Tsukasa’s smiles are full of fangs. Hanako’s could be too, if he didn’t file his teeth down every morning, like shaving. Like running a comb though his choppy dark hair or lacing up his boots. Has Yashiro guessed that? What would she think, if she knew?
“You want me to erase your feelings,” Tsukasa says. “Aw. Your feelings for Nene-chan, right?”
Hanako doesn’t look up at his brother. He knows he’s scowling. He knows he’s the sort of creature that’s supposed to find romance delicious; he knows he’s wondered what it would be like to steal all of Nene’s latest crush’s memories, leaving him only a hollow beautiful husk. Spinning on his heel and drifting away with his pockets full of quick and careless jewels. Even if it breaks Nene’s heart to find this new love interest dead, Hanako only has to shape the memory into another pretty ring for her, right? And then it’s over.
“Yes,” Hanako says. “I can’t feel… whatever I’m feeling… for her, anymore.”
“You’d really want to turn your love for Nene-chan into one of my projects? You’d throw her away, just like that?”
“I’m not throwing her away. I’m just not right for her, that’s all.”
“You’ve never had your heart broken,” Tsukasa says, in a brisk, knowing voice that makes Hanako want to snap at him. Maybe slam a fist against the side of the wall so he tumbles out of the shop’s rafters and has to catch himself with his brittle shameless devil wings. “Not the way Nene-chan could break it. I see.”
“ Tsukasa —“
“Fine, fine — I’ll be nice. If you really want to make your love for Nene-chan one of my projects, I’ll grant your wish. Just this once.”
One of Tsukasa’s projects. Everybody knows Tsukasa smashes memory-collages together so that nothing is left of true identifiable romance or regret at all by the time he’s done. There’s only the chaotic sparkle of his jewelry designs catching otherworldly in the light. If you try and relive your memories after he’s crushed them apart and reworked them, they’re just abstract art — they’re just romantic fever dreams, mostly raw, unexplainable sensations. A smell, a taste, a hand on your skin.
Maybe, once Tsukasa finishes this project, Hanako will be able to look at Nene Yashiro like just another client again. His eyes will still drip cunningly over her, hungry, sure, and wanting, sure. But not for anything he doesn’t believe he should have. He won’t remember —
He won’t remember what it’s like to trip down the steps after her, calling that she forgot her scarf —
He won’t remember what it’s like to spin her around, dancing to a song rattling through his outdated record player, dizzy and relieved after working too long hunched over a project that never seemed to end —
He won’t remember what it’s like to hold her as she shakes, burying her tear-soggy face in the bend of his shoulder. To say, “Shh, shh,” and run his cold fingers down her loose soft hair. “He didn’t deserve you. They never deserve you. Listen to me: it’ll be fine. I’ll make this fine. I’m here, I’m always here.”
If Hanako goes through with this, he won’t be here the same way for Yashiro anymore. The realization is a knife twisting in his chest, a swimmy heat rising into his cheeks. An unusual burning behind his eyes.
“We gonna get started, then?” Tsukasa says, snapping Hanako back into the shop. Back into the moment. “Or, let me guess… you don’t really want to do it, do you?”
Hanako hates himself for it, but he shakes his head. He grits his filed-down fangs as Tsukasa laughs. Demon tail twitching. Boots thwacking playfully, obnoxiously against the wall.
Yashiro will be here any minute. Maybe Hanako’s feelings for her are something precious, in the end. Maybe once Yashiro stops working as his assistant… once he has a little time to drift away, to grow numb, to remember what it’s like to outlive all mortal things… he can polish those feelings up into his masterpiece, his most perfect jewel. Maybe he’ll cherish those memories forever, even if Yashiro could never love him. Maybe he’ll wear them pinned on a choker around his neck, a thick red ribbon like a wet slit throat.
“You know… it’s funny,” Tsukasa says. “Nene-chan’s told us so much about her latest crush, and you still don’t get it.”
“What is there to get?”
“Oh, nothing. Only that he’s a little shorter than the guys she usually has eyes for… and she’s been working with him a lot lately… and he’s got a really artsy side, like he loves making things… and he’s always happy when she brings him coffee if they’re gonna be working late… oh! And he’s so mysterious! She doesn’t even know his last name, yet…”
Hanako sighs. “Don’t rub it in,” he says. “Yeah, yeah, she seems really into him. Lucky guy.”
“Lucky guy,” Tsukasa echoes. “Mm-hmm. If only he knew it, huh?”
Outside the Kamome Valentine Company shop door, Nene Yashiro is coming up the steps. She’s about to call Hanako’s name, throwing the door open. Smiling like no one has ever smiled at him before, sweetly venomous, heart-stealing creature that he is.
Oh, it’s such a thing, to have a heart of his own.