I looked left and right on the road, and after following the road that headed towards Chuo Dori, I saw the back of a white s.h.i.+rt. It was quite a distance away. He was half-running, as though he was trying to escape from something. A raindrop hit my nose.

“Onodersan.”

I hesitated to call out to him loudly. He somehow looked as though he was about to collapse.

When I was about five steps behind him, I held up the umbrella and called his name. Onodersan slowly turned around. His face was blue, and it seemed like he didn't know who I was for a moment.

“It's Nakata Seigi. The part-timer at the jewelry store. I brought you an umbrella.”

“…You didn't need to do that. I'm going home by taxi.”

“It's fine, this is my umbrella, not the store's. Please take it. I'm doing this of my own accord. It has nothing to do with gems or anything else.”

Onodersan, who had stepped back, almost tripped on the curb. “Watch out!” I said, grabbing his arm, and a blue car rushed past him from behind. We both let out a sigh.

Onodersan murmured a few words, as though to have them disappear into the sound of the rain.

“Today is…the anniversary…of my wife's death…”

“Huh?”

The death anniversary.

Of the owner of the engagement ring.

While I held the umbrella over us, the rain steadily came down in earnest. The force of it was like a guerrilla rainstorm.* The three-hundred yen umbrella was not big enough to cover two people for a long time.

(TN: A guerrilla rainstorm is, according to wikipedia, “localized downpour of over 100 mm of rain per hour caused by the unpredictable formation of c.u.mulonimbus cloud.”)

Onodersan, who was staggering, grabbed the promenade railing and smiled. Shall we go to that shop over there to take shelter from the rain, he said.

He looked exhausted, like he was carrying heavy baggage on his back.

We entered a nearby coffee shop. Was this the place where Richard made small talk with that general store clerk about how the sponge cake here was tasty?* Because we weren't in the mood to eat and talk, we ordered two blended coffees. It was pouring more and more outside.

(TN: This is a callback to Case 3 when Takatsuki-san tells Seigi about when he first saw Richard.)

“…Today, I went to visit her grave, but…it was then that I realized that I didn't have the ring…I thought that it was better to keep it like that after all…”

Onodersan, a.s.sembling his words together fragmentarily, revealed it to me with one sentence while looking like he was at a loss.

She died in a fire.

Ever since Richard told me that it was soot and smoke, it was what I imagined somehow or other, but it looked like that soot really did come from something like that.

I wasn't dextrous enough to immediately offer my condolences. In the first place, those words were too prim and formal, and it felt like I was piercing the other person's heart with a needle rather than nestling close to it. But if I didn't say anything, it would be like pus.h.i.+ng my own confusion as it was on the other person.

Onodersan, looking at me deep in thought, laughed slightly.

“Even though you're still young, you have such thoughtful eyes. What a curious person you are.”

“Grandma…no, my grandmother was like that.”

“Your grandmother?”

“She was always thinking a lot about different things.”

By herself, with a face like Onodersan's.

Listening to a story was to take on a little bit of the other person's past. That did not necessarily mean that their burden would become lighter. But if they did talk about it, something that was lurking while shapeless might appear, like a ghost exposed to light. If the form was known, the weight would also be known. And if the weight was known, then it would probably be easier to bear it.

That was why I wanted to talk to my Grandma. About all kinds of things. I wanted to do something for her. But the me at that time wasn't able to do anything. The origin of why I recklessly wanted to help when I see someone in trouble was because I was praised by Grandma when I was little. But more than that, I felt like I was desperately trying to fill the hole of helpless powerlessness I felt at that time.

When I didn't say anything, Onodersan opened his mouth.

“My wife's name was Kyouko. She was a lively person. She was good at making kinpira gobou*, and even when our home was noisy until late into the night because of my job, she never complained…no, we would occasionally argue. She was adored by my employees, like she was their mother. Since we didn't have children…”

(TN: Kinpira gobou is chopped burdock and carrot root cooked in soy sauce.)

He told me that the fire happened at night.

Onodersan, who had gone out to drink with a client, was contacted through his cellphone that he had just bought about his home being on fire. The fire had started on the first floor, the location corresponding to the company's reception room. A cigarette someone had forgotten to put out had fallen on the floor, and the sofa burst into flames. Only Kyouko-san was at home.

The neighbours witnessed her state that night.

After their home began to burn, Kyouko-san came out once. However, before the firefighters rushed over, she went back inside.

“The ring…she said she was going to get the ring…that she was going to come back.”

Diamonds were carbon. They were made of the same thing as charcoal. Even I knew that. They would completely disappear if burned in super high temperatures. Kyouko-san would know that as well. But that wasn't just limited to diamonds. Humans were also made of carbon.

After the fire, only the darkened ring returned to Onodersan's hands.

“We had a small safe at our bedside, you see, and every time before bed, she would take the ring out from there and gaze at it preciously. Because it was at night…it was probably left out of the safe. The ring was found in our bedroom…my wife was next to it…only the part she was covering was unburned…”

Onodersan was at a loss for words, and brought a white napkin to his eyes. The ladies in black uniforms seemed familiar with these sorts of things and pretended not to see. This was probably how a “customer” and “store” should be. It was ill-mannered to get too involved. However, we had already gone past that point.

“Excuse me for losing my composure. That ring holds many memories, too many…”

It became a gem that was too much for me to handle, Onodersan expressed.

“When I presented her with the ring, she was overjoyed. She truly was so happy…when I think about it now, even though it wasn't much, she said, ‘So diamonds are this beautiful!'…but now, every time I look at that ring, I feel a pain in my heart. All I feel is bitterness, that if only that thing didn't exist. I don't want to part with it, but it is difficult for me every time I look at it. If that thing wasn't there, she would not have died. If only that thing didn't exist, if only, I…”

While repeating “pardon me”, Onodersan took out a handkerchief from his pocket. It looked as though it was kept folded in four for a long time. Now, there was no longer anyone who would iron his handkerchief and hand it to him every morning.

“…It's painful when someone precious to you is gone. To the point where you can't think of anything else for some time.”

“It is so. I feel as though I could not think of anything else for these past ten years.”

“Ten years!”

“Are you surprised?”

There was no energy in his smiling face. So Onodersan, everyday for ten years, remembered that fire when he looked at the half-darkened diamond.

Tentatively, I tried telling him about how the impurities on the diamond could be easily cleaned with neutral detergent. He should be shocked if he didn't know about it. However.

Just as I expected, Onodersan gently smiled. It was exactly as Richard said. He knew about it, but he was leaving it like that.

“As you get older, time pa.s.ses by tens or hundreds of times faster than when you are young, but all the painful and sad things…they won't pa.s.s at all.”

“Um, why did you go to our store to have the ring redesigned?”

Onodersan's expression became dark again. I knew that face. People made that face when who they were in their memories and who they were now were so inconsistent that it was unbearable. Even if I called to him, he would not answer. His expression had become stiff enough to scare children. It didn't matter if you were a man or a woman.

Onodersan put down his handkerchief and covered his face with a hand.

I said something selfish, didn't I, Onodersan said. No, he didn't. There were gradations to pain. You couldn't feel the same amount of pain distinctly every time, and since the pain when someone dear to you died launched a time delay attack again and again, there were times when you feel like crying in places that were completely irrelevant to it. You get angry at even small things, get exhausted easily, to the point that the people around you couldn't even bear to look at you.

In the midst of that, little by little, my mother faced forward and went back to work again. I still couldn't imagine just how much shock she must felt from having her only parent die. But now, just like before, she worked night s.h.i.+fts and still enthusiastically ate her favorite fried foods. I was glad about that.

Worrying about the people you loved if they were in low spirits, and being happy if they were smiling.

That was the way it was. For everyone.

“…Um, Onodersan, did you know? When diamonds are dug out from the ground, they apparently don't s.h.i.+ne all that much. That's why they became major pieces of jewelry more recently than rubies and sapphires. It was after the world's first diamond polis.h.i.+ng in Antwerp.”

I wasn't someone who could talk fluently like Richard. However, at a time like this, I could only believe that I could talk like that. At times when there was something you wanted to convey no matter what.

“When I began working at that store, when I began to learn about gems little by little, I thought it was strange at first. I thought the reason why natural objects were processed was just to make money from them…but if that was the only reason, then I don't think people love gems. Of course, so long as they're being sold, anything's a commodity, but I think the history of gems is the acc.u.mulation of the history of people trying to make others happy.”

Onodersan looked at my face in blank amazement.

“See, we feel happy just from looking at something pretty. We feel moved, inspired, and energy wells up within us…Because there is a ‘demand' to have to people special to us to taste those feelings, I think that steadily led to people wanting beautiful things. Rubies and sapphires were loved by the kings of the past, wine-colored amethysts were treasured as protective amulets for stopping drunkenness, and diamonds became popular when it became known that they could be polished. It's said that ‘cutting is the history of human challenges', but I think that is what it is.”

I didn't know what the man who decided to make a profit from diamonds a hundred and fifty years ago had in mind when he decided on the catchphrase “eternity.” But now, what was important was not what he wanted, but the fact that many people formed the shape of happiness in the eternal light he created.

If irreplaceable value dwelled in a mere stone, that was when its owner poured their sincere affection into it.

If it wasn't polished, a diamond could not be a gem.

That was why we polished it. To make it s.h.i.+ne. To put in the wish of wanting to make someone happy.

Stones responded to people's wishes, and conveyed their feelings.

“The diamonds I saw in s.h.i.+njuku recently were…like kaleidoscopes of light. It was like they contained everything that was happy in this world. Honestly, I don't really understand ‘eternal brilliance', but if I were to give one to my special someone, I would fill it with my wish for them to always have good things happen to you and for them to be happy, and present it to them.”

Onodersan from forty years ago would have also been the same.

The silent gentleman shook his head. If anyone heard this kind of talk from a complete stranger, a young guy who didn't know anything, it was reasonable to just silently leave, but he was listening to me. Please excuse me. There was just a little bit more.

“…I think the one who receives those feelings also feel the same way. They want the person they love to be happy. They don't want them to be sad. They don't want them to be eaten up by painful things for a long time. She went to take back the ring not because it was a diamond ring, but because it was a ring of memories with you. That was why it was important. So much that she didn't regret it even if she had to risk her life.”

Silence.

Gentle jazz played in the coffee shop. I knew this piece. It was “Singin' in the Rain.”  It‘s raining, but my heart is happy—the sun‘s in my heart, and I‘m happy again. It was a song from an old movie, and I made it my ringtone. The arrangement was effective, and the piano sang in a scattered way, like raindrops.

“…Lamenting and mourning seem similar, but are they actually different?”

That raindrop-like muttering didn't seem like it was directed towards me.

For the first time in a long while, the gentleman smiled the same way he did when we first met.

“Your grandmother was surely a lovely person.”

“Rather than lovely, she was lively and heroic. She was a bit like you…I'm sorry, I arbitrarily said you were similar to her.”

“There is no need to apologize. It is an honor to be told that.”

“…Do you want to try to guess my Grandma's job?”

“Hmm, was she a fas.h.i.+on designer?”

“Female pickpocket. She was a grand master at it.”

Onodersan, who was startled, began to laugh after a pause. I took a sip of my coffee that had cooled down, and told him about all the eventful happenings that occurred this spring. Meeting Richard on my way home from my job. Padparadscha. s.h.i.+n-Kobe. The young lady's ring. My part-time job in Ginza.

I just talked, and Onodersan laughed.

Walking on the streets of Ginza, where it was bright and clear after the rain stopped, I returned to Richard's store. With Onodersan.

“Regarding the redesign from earlier…could I have you continue it as it is? I am truly sorry for causing all this trouble. I will not do such a thing anymore.”

“Leave it to me.”

“Then, once more, I am in your care.”

The two men in suits shook hands in front of me once again.

After seeing Onodersan off, I looked at the store's clock and was astonished. It was five-thirty p.m. That was past the store's closing time. Because of the rain, I had no idea about the time.

“Richard, I'm so sorry! We have to close the store.”

Richard, who went into the kitchen, returned with two teacups. Royal milk tea. There was steam coming from them.

“Please drink.”

Still dazed, I sat down on a sofa and drank the royal milk tea. There was a lot of sugar. It was warm. It fell into my stomach with a thump. It was the same as when I first came to this store.

“…You waited up for us. Even though I didn't learn my lesson and acted recklessly.”

“I am accustomed to it. Or perhaps I should have closed the store and simply threw your bag out onto the street? It was a sudden rain. What is most important is that you did not seem to have gotten too wet.”

I thought I was going to get scolded and told to quit it, but Richard's words were kind. When I looked at him with a confused gaze, Richard responded while holding a cup.

“I think your straightforwardness is ninety percent an annoyance and ten percent likeable. We were blessed with a customer this time. You were truly lucky to have someone who would accept your sincerity.”

“I'm sorry about before. I said awful things to you. Like how you're so cool that you're like a stone.”

“I don't remember that very well.”

“…I don't think so. j.a.panese people greatly value conscience and human feelings.”

“As you can see, I am a foreigner, so I am unfamiliar with this country's culture and customs.”

So he did remember it. Richard drank his tea with a straight face. I could only smile wryly.

“…You make yourself drink my royal milk tea a lot, don't you.”

“Hah?”

“Because the originator's tea is tastier by a long shot. How is it so delicious?”

“The tea someone makes for you is something that tastes delicious with that alone.”

I widened my eyes, and Richard swiftly looked away.

“After you finish your tea, wash the cups and put them away, sweep up, and then close up. Let's get it done quickly.”

“Hold on, you're surprisingly shy?”

“You talk too much.”

We left the store at six, and after we bowed to each other and said good work, Richard pulled his black suitcase along and disappeared into the streets of Ginza.