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Let it be known that the morning shift is hellish for everyone, but it turns Atsushi in particular on her head every day. She barely gets in behind Dazai sometimes, the door heavy behind her as she pulls it shut and bolts it before their open hours officially begin.
For all seven months that she's been working for Fukuzawa and his eccentric son, she can say she's probably seen everything there is to see behind the sales counter of a jewellery shop. The Yokohama centre of the Authentic Design Aggregate is carefully tucked away above a local coffee house, all of the workers well fitted in dashing diamonds and succulent sapphires aplenty. Her direct boss—and most finicky supervisor—Edogawa himself is never in the office before 8:30 and is always touting a mountain of confection that only half fed all of the day's staff; he insisted that she must always be in her office and working (term used loosely, per his words) at 7:00.
Not that she minds the early rising; it's just hard to find it within herself to remember everything she needs—all the things she had to do to get ready now that she has choices! The orphanage did not prepare her for the whims of everyday people, of those who liked her and didn't wish she were dead for some reason or another. It's just…how does one learn to live? She's still trying to figure it out, one day at a time.
Or as many days as one specific coworker will let her have.
Akutagawa is already behind her desk, their shared office space dedicated to the actual gems and stones of the job (all pun intended, per Dazai). As a junior appraiser, she ensures that what Akutagawa—the second-best jeweller they have, much to her own chagrin—works with is real and worthwhile, both to their bank accounts and her customers' satisfaction. The woman before her always comes into the office first and leaves last, the stylus for her art tablet always flying across her screen. Ever since Atsushi started working here under Dazai's purview, she'd had a problem with her.
They argue, they bicker, and on one occasion she threatened to quit if Akutagawa didn't leave her alone. That was six months ago, and now she looks forward, somehow, to seeing the pretty bastard in the office. She can even say she's grown fond of her and her short black hair and fucked up little ear tassels. It's easy to say that she's even developed a little crush on her unreachable coworker. Not that she could ever know, no.
For what use would it be to fool herself into thinking she had a chance?
She greets her with a good morning, receiving a noncommittal hum in response as she usually does. Akutagawa wordlessly slips a piece of paper onto her desk behind the large monitor screen of her desktop. It's a classy advertisement, one for a jewellery supply store near their location, offering them a storefront partnership.
"I used to work there, so I can vouch for their quality and ethics," the woman begins. She's still on her tablet. "I received a commission when I got here; Dazai had dropped it on my desk, and I fear we will need a better selection in order to complete it."
Her roughened voice bled through the air, Atsushi reading through the infographics on the page. The Port-side Manufactory was a supplier that seldom felt the need to reach out first; she knew that from the grapevine, since the last time that they did was to fulfil an order for a special friend of the president's. She looks over the details of the commission that Akutagawa had pushed over just before she asked for it.
A 'Mori Rintarou' was commissioning a necklace for his daughter, which seemed easy enough on paper. The difficult part, however, was the kind of stones he wanted and how it was to look. There was no mock-up sketch, just a handwritten note on the same type of paper that Kunikida had in his notebooks that listed off the names of easily acquired stones—loose cut pink tourmaline, a dusting of cross rose true sapphires and some larger trilliant honeyed topaz—but the one that made her swallow in apprehension was the Bohemian garnet they were supposed to source for the centre, princess cut focus. Apparently the boxy stone was supposed to be as dark as possible, something that she knew would be hard to find and even harder to buy.
She smooths her thumb over the page, careful of smudging the pencil, before she clarifies with Akutagawa, "And you know from experience that they'd be able to sell us the pyrope?" She needs to be certain before she disappoints both her buyer and her supervisor.
"They probably already have it," Akutagawa confirms, finally putting down her stylus and shifting her round, big eyes up from the screen to look at Atsushi over her monitor. "Mori owns that location of PM; he's their biggest shareholder, anyhow."
"He owns it?" Atsushi whisper-yells, feeling her heart drop through her stomach at the notion. "Then we have to use them, don't we?"
"Most certainly."
Atsushi tries to calm her frantic-ness, busying herself with watching Akutagawa lean over in her chair to peer around the large computer monitor between them. She sits down and takes a faint fondness in seeing the other woman wriggle in her seat rather than just moving it over to see her properly. For the office spectre, she was rather cute.
Not that anyone else thought so. According to Naomi, even the customers thought Akutagawa was a terrifying beauty. Perhaps it was their close proximity, but Atsushi no longer saw her as the untouchable designer—that title went to Dazai, and Dazai alone. Akutagawa was…for lack of more apt wording, silly.
The woman was fickle and talked a lot, a messy perfectionist; she even talked back to the cats in the alleyway behind their building—though that titbit had been ransomed for her livelihood after Akutagawa heard the door close behind her. The woman barely came to work in approved attire, what with her overcoat and loose sleeves; she only ever carried figs for lunch (that Atsushi learned were her favourite, as a bribe, of course); she came up with the stupid weretiger nickname and refused to explain—she was an ever peculiar specimen.
"Shall we visit their storefront later this afternoon? Of course, I'll have to take you there, as I'm certain you wouldn't know how to get there with the directions plastered to your nose, hmn?"
Atsushi sighs before she nods, not intent upon arguing with the beauty before her. There's never been any use in it, so it's probably not going to start having any now.
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The ridiculous fool nearly walked into a pillar on their way to the subway.
Ryuunosuke had to fight the urge to gawk and laugh, difficult as it was. She has a reputation to uphold. She couldn't help a chuckle, though, when Nakajima tripped over her own feet trying to pretend that it didn't happen.
Their trek to the Port-side Manufactory from their building takes them fifteen minutes outside of the train ride. The railway takes them more than half of the way there before they're walking in companionable silence towards the quaint two-storey building that she used to work in. Her heart starts to palpitate, for she does not miss working there. Her old coworkers notwithstanding, the darkened rooms and impossible expectations from her former mentor made her stomach churn at the mere idea of going into work.
She no longer feels as if her organs are going to twist outside of her body at the idea of going to work, thank heavens. Maybe it has something to do with Kunikida's near-perfect interception of Dazai during working hours, or possibly her paid sick leave, but the experience of working with the ADA has been one of serenity and pleasure in abundance.
Which may be how she found herself falling for and wooing the weretiger. It's been slow coming, for the dastardly cheery girl had no sense of self, but she'd like to think they were much closer now than ever before. Nakajima and her delightfully messy hair, the lemon jade and lolite of her eyes; the young lady was a roughened gem that needed no polishing.
Even now, as they inch closer to the supplier of their dreams, she casts sidelong glances full of longing towards the woman mesmerised by the expensive buildings nearing their destination. She hears Nakajima take a shocked inhale at the sight of their plight: a three-floor, two-storey red brick building, outfitted in black and gold accents, nestled between two generic buildings.
The golden lettering stating Port-side Manufactory glistened in the noon light, right above the awning and doors to enter and exit. She could just barely see the old theft detectors that she knew didn't work for their actual purpose through the privacy shield on the glass door.
She lets Nakajima enter first, the bell jingling as she pushes open the door to reveal the quiet interior of the luxury building. The woman looks around in awe, and Ryuunosuke has to shuffle to the main desk to hide her smile. The weretiger is darting from display case to display case, muttering to herself when a familiar head of red pops out of the back room.
"Akutagawa! Lovely to see you again." Nakahara says when he finally takes her in. He reaches out to shake her hand and brings it up to his lips as he always does, ever the gentleman. His gloved hand envelops her own, and she feels the heat of his palm through the leather of it.
"You as well, Nakahara." She says, still keeping an eye on her excitable coworker behind her. Nakajima is peering into a case filled with jade, the rainbow of colours having drawn her eye. She finally looks away from the object of her scrutiny when she hears her talk, and Ryuunosuke can't help the smirk on her face this time. Not many people have been able to avoid feeling the presence of one Nakahara Chuuya in his element, after all.
"And who is this lovely lady?" He asks, stepping out from behind the sales desk and onto the sales floor. He's immaculately dressed as always, a tailored suit and what must be designer shoes clacking against the ornate onyx tiling of the storefront. He saunters over to Atsushi, finally commanding her attention, and she flushes at the innate compliment.
"Nakahara, this is Nakajima Atsushi, my colleague and business partner at the Design Aggregate. We're here because Mori would like us to use you as the supplier for his preferred centre stone in a necklace." She tries to intercept the man, but is not quick enough to get between them before her bows and takes Nakajima's hand in a swift kiss. Though this is how he greets most of his affiliates, it's mildly upsetting to see him do the same to Nakajima. Or, perhaps, the feeling stems from seeing her cheeks get even redder from the affection—flirtatious or not.
"Ye—yes! Nakajima, that's me!" She stammers, quickly pulling her hand away from him and turning back to her case. "We, uhm… We were told that we could get a Bohemian garnet here? For the piece?"
"Well, if you're looking for pyrope, you're at the wrong case," Nakahara laughs. He's not ill-meaning, but she could still see how Nakajima tenses at his tone. "If you guys'll just follow me up here, I can take you to our other imports."
They follow him up the stairs, though Ryuunosuke spends her time watching the sway of Nakajima's hips as they walk up the shallow steps behind Nakahara. The black Capris hugged her thighs just right, and—
"Right this way, ladies," Nakahara says with a smile on his handsome face. He opens a door on the right and allows Nakajima and herself in before he enters and lets the automatic lights trigger.
The room is filled with airtight display cases, some with suede arrays and others with labelled cloth bags detailing the stones and cuts inside them. The same black tiling on the first floor is set on this one, but there is no gold—neither accent nor embellishment—just wooden insets and tawny walls.
He leads them to the back of the room, where a normal building would have an east-facing window, but in there it only holds a simple desk with jeweller's tools. "Our selection of Sri Lankan gems is pretty wide, considering their history of gemstone mining," he begins.
"The country has a variety of precious—and rare—stones that are difficult to find elsewhere; their spinel gems are beautiful!" He tells them while fiddling with the combination lock on a display case next to the desk. "While they're not totally rare, Bohemian garnets are gorgeous stones that have this unique lustre about them that meshes well with the colour—kind of like a deep raspberry-like thing."
In his hands as he turns around is a luxury, polished stone nestled in his palm on top of what must be its keeping bag. The rounded gem is the colour of ripe pomegranate seeds; a deep, dark red that glints like neon in the artificial lights. She hears Nakajima gasp and knows that this is the one.
She lets the two talk about the finances and logistics of buying the garnet, more concerned with how close Nakajima has to lean down to see into Nakahara's hands. The long edge of her bangs hangs down, so she tucks it gently back behind her ear, looking like a picture of pure perfection.
"What do you think, Akutagawa?" She asks.
"Hmmn? Ah, yes," she clues into what they've been skirting around the whole time. "I can work with that one well, and it's big enough to get a decent cut out of it for the required design." She finds that she's speaking only to Nakajima, but that's fine with her. Nakahara is still too close to the other woman for her liking, though.
His long fingers were hovering over the small of her back on one side and held up the pyrope in the other, basically right under her nose. Much like everyone else who came into contact with Nakajima Atsushi, it looked like he, too, is smitten with the blithesome fawn. He places the gem back in her keep bag, careful with the weight of it. Placing the bag on the desk, he turns on the small tablet on the corner of it and starts to fiddle with more semantics while the two women face each other.
So many thoughts pass through her mind when they make eye contact, so she sidles closer to her coworker.
After dually convincing Nakahara to let them call back about the stone and letting him know their project financier will be calling about the pricing and lobbying the cost, they let him turn off the tablet showing the rough cost estimate per Nakajima's novice purview. Between her and Nakahara, they settled on about sixty-five thousand yen, if Kunikida lets them source it from the PM.
Nakahara takes them back downstairs to finalise the sale and send them on their way. She takes the liberty of passing off Kunikida's contact card to the man, hoping that the two can officiate the final exchange of both funds and stones.
With the passing of the business card, she receives one in turn.
"Can you pass this off to the cutie for me?" Nakahara asks her. Jealousy swirls in her stomach, a pit of angst and distaste inside of her.
"And you cannot do this yourself?
"I mean, I could," he begins. "But she seems the flighty type… like I'd be coming on too hard if I did it myself, y'know?"
She takes the offered card in her tight grip and doesn't deign to give him an answer. All the respect she'd had for her former coworker gets caged behind her own feelings of want and displeasure alike. She fights her urge to crush the stupid card in her fingers and simply puts it in her pocket with a small nod.
Turning back towards the door and Nakajima, she sees the girl eyeing the display case with the lemon jade once again, and instead of walking towards her, turns back and faces Nakahara.
"How much is the jade in that case for, retail-wise?"
"The jade?"
She nods her assent.
"If I'm not mistaken, the market price for ours is about twenty-four thousand yen? Decently priced for the darker shades, if I do admit. Why?"
Her debit card is in her hands in less time than it should have taken.
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Akutagawa must think she's deaf if she thinks she can't hear her asking about the jade nuggets before her. The lavender and lemon drop get pulled out of the case before her and packaged up at the main desk, per her request.
Atsushi thinks that the unfolding of events was less of a problem than Akutagawa posed it as. She wasn't as silly and blank-minded as the woman made her out to be, but she needn't stare her down during her evaluation of the stone and blatantly purchase the pieces she'd been eyeing the whole afternoon. There's a certain distaste that fills her palate when the delicate packaging is placed in a small bag for Akutagawa to carry with them back to the office.
Though their trip back is just as uneventful as the one to the supplier, Akutagawa fills their space with soft sentences and fiddles with something in her pocket the whole time. She points out the paths she used to walk to her old office, details how she would buy her younger sibling melon bread from a certain bakery that has since closed down in the two years she's worked for the ADA. All of their months working together have always coalesced in finding out candid little details about the other, in the din of busy days and the silence of late nights.
She can't quite figure out what draws her to Akutagawa so, but she'll let it stay as long as she can be in her orbit.
The office was nearly empty by the time they got back after a quick lunch of pastries stuffed with browned beef. Once at their shared desk space, Akutagawa once again folded into her seat, not without dropping her loot into a small drawer next to her.
Atsushi was called into Kunikida's office, working with the man and Nakahara over the phone to settle on the final price of the sizeable garnet. From the look on his face, she could tell that Kunikida had more to say about her appraisal than he felt comfortable saying with someone on the phone, almost like a teacher in turmoil over a student's answer. When Nakahara eventually hung up his end of the receiver, Kunikida finally turned to her.
"Atsushi, are you aware of our workplace relationships policy?"
She stammers out a quick 'no,' flushed to the roots of her hair and down her neck in embarrassment. That was absolutely not what she thought this was about, thank you very much.
"Well, then," he begins once again, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Initially the rules were put in place for Dazai and myself—" information which she promptly decided she did not need to be privy to! "But this is me imparting some Aggregate knowledge onto you for the future's sake. Under no circumstances are you to let your relationship with Akutagawa cloud your ability to perform perfunctory duties both around the store and with other businesses!
"That lovely gentleman sounded like a kicked puppy, and I can only assume it's because you let Akutagawa have his neck for something!"
"Why would I 'have Akutagawa' do anything? I don't control her‽" Atsushi exclaims quietly. Her cheeks are warm with confusion, still reeling over the implication of such a thing. "She doesn't even like me most of the time!"
Kunikida sighs, bangs hanging in his face as he looks down and shakes his head. "While I'd love to explain to you how incorrect you are, Atsushi, I currently only have two hours and forty-three minutes to coordinate pick-up and payment for your project with their sales team."
She nods, entirely used to Kunikida's way of implied dismissal and unravelling revelations, to take much offence to his curt ways. She rises from the seat in front of his desk, listlessly finding her way back to her desk with no Akutagawa in sight.
The remaining time she spends in the office flies past in a blur of typing and phone calls, fielded from both customer service and the direct line people can call for appraisal information, as the only paid intern under both of their elite appraisers, because why would Dazai ever be at work and why would Edogawa ever answer a phone? Ten minutes before closing, one of their store boxes is slammed on the desk in front of her. She looks up from the aggressive display to find Akutagawa, one hand still wearing one of the heat-retardant gloves that she wears when firing the silver and gold for their finer pieces that she does by hand, the other bare and calloused—clenched by her side and trembling.
"You seemed to fancy them in the shop, and I fear that this is the closest thing to a 'gift' you will ever get from me." She says. Akutagawa looks anywhere but at Atsushi, short hair doing nothing to block the pale blush on her cheek. "They're not lavish like my other creations, but I feel these will be to your liking."
Atsushi's hands tremble as she moves to pick up the box, glancing up to double-check that this was no hallucination of hers and that Akutagawa Ryuunosuke—their second-best jeweller and known spitfire—was demurely offering her a gift. With a fair bit of apprehension, she opens the velveteen box to reveal two sets of small, dainty earrings.
One set was comprised of teardrop-cut and polished lemon jade; the silver cuff atop connected to the post, smooth and sturdy. The long, dangling piece of jade would barely be seen below the ear tail on her right, but the crowning flecks from the leftover pressure cut were placed in a delicate ring around the ear post. The other was a set of chunky studs, once again polished, and the gorgeous lavender of purple nephrite. Picking up one of the purple ones, the piece is just heavy enough to have a solid weight behind it, but nothing that would stretch her piercings to high heavens.
"This is… Why? Why did you make these?" She asks quietly, still marvelling at the beautiful pieces before her.
"The simplest answer, Nakajima?" she starts, finally turning to face her. "I thought they'd fit you."
Atsushi remembers an occasion when she learned things about Akutagawa without paying for it with her life. The woman had glared at her phone while taking her break at their desk. When asked, she simply stated her sibling told her she left gifts as a cat does to their owner.
She's been given a gift. A willing one.
Maybe she's not as hopeless as she thought she was, after all.
She smiles straight up at Akutagawa, hoping that she can pour all of her feelings into the upturn of her lips and the apples of her cheeks. The blush on their faces probably matches right now. With her free hand, she reaches up and touches the glove still on Akutagawa's and squeezes around the Ansell gloves on the fingers she knows are calloused from work.
"Thank you," she responds quietly, trying not to break the moment. "They're so pretty… I— are you sure they're mine?"
"Fool," Akutagawa scoffs softly, a twitch of her lips as close to a smile that she'll give. "I would not have made them if I didn't intend them to be yours." Her un-gloved hand is placed on the still-open jewellery box, clear polish on her nails glinting in the low light of the fading day.
"Try it on." She instructs her, though she moves to slip her other hand out of the Ansell glove, letting it flop in Atsushi's hand while she plucks the lemon jade teardrop from the cushioning. Atsushi tucks the flyaway strands of her hair behind her ear, tilting her face just enough to let Akutagawa put the stud in her piercing. She shivers when her hands graze the soft skin of her cheek, surprisingly warm.
Akutagawa is gentle as she threads the post through her piercing, nimble and quick as she puts the silver butterfly backing onto it. Atsushi feels the solid weight of it pull slightly on her earlobe as she pulls her hand away. Without thinking—or, perhaps, this was her thought all along?—she grabs hold of Akutagawa's bare hand with her own, feeling her blush deepen across her cheeks when the woman threads her fingers through her own instinctively.
"I—" her breath hitches. Akutagawa's head tilts to the side, her owlish eyes wide and inspecting. "I love them, Akutagawa."
It's no confession, but Akutagawa brings their joined hands to her lips and flutters a kiss onto their crossed fingers anyway.
