Chapter Text
He liked gemstones. He liked the way they caught the light, the way colors danced beneath their polished surfaces.
Emerald green jade, deep blue tanzanite, vivid red garnet… one gem after another was set into his jewelry, scattering brilliant rays beneath the sunlight.
Before him, the ministers continued their endless arguments. Voices rose and fell in a ceaseless cacophony. As always, their disputes were utterly meaningless.
Cyran lowered his gaze slightly. The jewels adorning him shifted gently with each breath, their facets turning and casting different shades of light .
For a brief moment, he found himself thinking of a face that had once been a constant presence at his side during his school days—a face that had long since blurred with time.
Pale hair tinged with beige, just like the luster of a pearl. The Reshiram Academy uniform had been a shade of purple reminiscent of sugilite. And those lips that never seemed to stop moving, colored somewhere between morganite and rose quartz.
…And those eyes?
Perhaps they had possessed the warm sheen of tigerite. Or perhaps they had been closer to the crystalline brilliance of a yellow diamond.
He could no longer remember.
Because what remained most vividly in his mind had never been the eyes themselves, but the way they narrowed whenever their owner laughed without restraint.
Sometimes he wondered whether it was because he had spent so long watching that person’s back, and had never truly looked into those eyes with any sincerity, that their once-radiant—almost painfully bright—light had gradually faded from his memory.
But what of it?
His fingertips brushed lightly across the necklace at his throat.
The gemstones reflected a cold, unwavering gleam.
Jade. Tanzanite. Diamond.
Every one of them was priceless. Every one of them was tangible, securely within his grasp.
As for the people and moments long since lost to the passage of time—
They had never been worth remembering in the first place.
He withdrew his gaze.
As though the figure that had just crossed his mind had never existed at all.
“ …Magister Cyran?”
A cautious voice, tinged with anxiety, broke the silence and pulled him back to reality.
He truly was getting older.
To lose himself in thought over something so trivial.
“…Go on,” he said. “I’m listening.”