Chapter Three: French Roast
Nagisa slipped back to his home base after a bathroom run, his earlier feeling of overwhelming self-satisfaction continuing to accompany him. He wasn't nearly as far along in his draft as he ought to have been, courtesy of stopping every minute or so to enthuse to Gou how pleased he was with finding his stranger. He suspected the redhead was even farther behind than he was at this rate. When he sat down, however, it was her turn to interrupt him with news.
"So you'll never believe who just texted me," she enthused, causing Nagisa to swing his chair around to face her. She had alighted and her eyes were shining with excitement.
"Who?" Nagisa prompted, leaning in closer.
"Hana! She's back from France!" Nagisa gasped which spun quickly into an excited squeal. When he and Gou had first been taken on as employees, Hana had been going steady with the magazine for a solid two years and they'd quickly discovered that she was on the fast track for an important promotion within the business, following the imminent retirement of the man who'd first recommended her for the job. The three had fast become friends, despite Hana's elevated status, and Nagisa figured they'd never be separated.
Of course, he'd been wrong. Hana's mentor figured he had a few good years left in him and again advised the magazine to give her an opportunity that would involve her with other magazines on an international scale. She had been flabbergasted when she discovered that this opportunity was for a paid two-year internship with the French branch of Vogue. The magazine covered basic living expenses and she'd receive valuable credentials and education. And so, Hana accepted.
As the two years progressed, Gou, Nagisa, and Hana had stayed in touch and the blond figured she'd be returning soon, but there had been no announcement of this from anyone. He was appropriately shocked at her return as, it seemed, was Gou.
"She's been back for like, a day, apparently," the redhead began, "but she was getting over jetlag. Hope you're not busy tonight 'cause I accepted her invitation to go out to drinks on your behalf." Her eyes twinkled and Nagisa's expression was painted with amusement.
"You know me too well."
Their colleague had invited them to a rather upscale, posh club known for their outrageously fruity drinks and often high prices. Nagisa fancied that a place like this was where heiresses went when they wanted to drink away their sorrows. He couldn't imagine spending nearly that much of his rent money to get drunk, but indulgence with old friends was a different matter.
The interior was bathed in low, buttery light, accented in darker shades of violet and rose, and provided many a dark corners for too-tipsy dancers to begin their nightly business. It was Friday night, after all - the majority of the club's occupants were preparing give them good use. The couches were sleek and sharp-edged, colored in chrome so not to distract from the lights. There were tables here and there, but Gou and Nagisa found Hana right where they expected her to be: seated at the bar, engaged in conversation with an openly harassed bartender.
Hana, better known in the fashion world as the up-and-coming fashion photographer extraordinaire Chigusa Hanamura, could just as easily have landed a job posing in front of the camera rather than snapping the shots behind it. She stood at 167 centimeters tall with slightly tanned skin and dyed chestnut hair pulled back in a bun which only served to bring attention to her high cheekbones and eyes that were a lovely green. When she caught them standing there, she grinned, released her captive, and beckoned them her way.
"Oh my God," Nagisa exclaimed, wrapping Hana in a tight embrace, the top of his head bumping her chin slightly. Gou clambered in next to them. "It's been forever!"
"Certainly has," Hana replied succinctly, stepping back from her comrades and tugging them immediately over to the bar.
"You clearly haven't forgotten Nagisa's taste though," Gou commented, reading over a list of the drinks. They shared a laugh and placed their orders. Nagisa was rethinking what he'd mused on earlier - maybe this was a good place to get drunk. After all, they were certainly right about the drinks.
"What's happened since I left?" the photographer inquired, opting, as she often did, to skip the small-talk and dive straight into the information. To this Gou informed her of Nagisa's recent promotion (which prompted Hana to order him another drink), complained about supervisors, and gave a little rant on stupid assignments.
"I mean, really, they wanted me to go back and re-tag all of the month's posts 'cause of a stupid mistake the tech department made?" she finished, shaking her head. "What bullshit." Hana nodded once in sympathy, concluding the topic and methodically moved on to the next.
"Love lives," she announced, flicking a manicured nail at Gou to indicate that she must suffer first. The redhead rolled her eyes.
"Nonexistent. I've been on a couple dates with some decent-looking guys, but they turned out to be arses." Her face curdled into a grimace as she recalled, "I even dated one of those loan-shark guys for a month or so. It was doomed to failure when he threatened to call in my unpaid debts." Nagisa and Hana shook their heads in unison at the disloyalty he no doubt had shown her.
"What about you?" Hana proceeded, her gaze flickering to the blonde. "How are things going with that guy from before?" With this, Nagisa visibly flinched and Gou uncomfortably drowned her gaze in her drink. Eva pried, "What happened? You were fine," and Nagisa sighed.
From thence forth the bar lost its exquisite lustre and the blond was practically drowning himself in his sorrows. "I was royally dumped," he stated flatly, tipping back a fruity drink. "It wasn't too long ago - during the summer," he sighed. "I was expecting a ring at that point, honestly."
"Now, now," Gou chided - after having dealt with the immediate aftermath all on her own, she wasn't eager to see him fall back into that post-breakup depression. "What about that tall, dark, and handsome stranger you've got distracting you?" Hana's eyebrows perked up, inviting him to continue.
"Well, there is him now I suppose," Nagisa continued, his cheeks going slightly rosy. Gradually, he grinned. "We met at this coffee shop and hit it off over the crossword puzzle."
"I see that's still your only hobby," Hana interjected, and they shared a brief laugh.
"Probably a match made in heaven," Gou agreed. Nagisa blushed harder and took a long sip of his drink.
"Anyways," he plowed through their giggles, "he showed up at a meeting with the Tokyo execs today and I wrote my number in his folder." The three gave cheers to that, and they fell into easy conversation about France, food, and a lovely date thereafter.
By the time Nagisa had left the bar, he was heartily warmed by alcohol and the few hours he'd spent in good company, and the streetlights were beginning to flicker on. The sidewalk was slick with an earlier drizzle, but it was of little consequence now; the evening had turned lovely, despite the bite of a chill. He pulled the lapels of his coat close to his shivering body. As he did so his phone vibrated, tickling his heart all pretty. He scurried to reach it and thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't one hundred percent intoxicated. He was certain he could conduct the conversation respectably despite his state.
"Nagisa Hazuki speaking," he chirped daintily, springing evenly along the boulevard.
"Oh, hello!" A gentle yet surprisingly masculine voice answered him. He was faintly surprised: he recalled the voice of the man being distinct, sharp, and efficient, not at all like this somewhat dreamy voice that spoke. He wondered if perhaps the static could truly distort it so much? "I'm sorry for the time, but I'm working for my report on overseas fishing and I would like your opinion on the impact that overfishing for cosmetic use has on the environment."
Several seconds of confused silence ensued, broken only be a huff of disappointment on Nagisa's end.
"Sorry, I think you have the wrong number," he replied, effectively cutting off the conversation. He dried the screen of his phone before slipping it back in his pocket.
Three days later, he still was in a mood as foul as the autumn weather. The little blond had been short-tempered with both Gou and Hana, who had been struggling to get back into the groove of the magazine's way. They'd openly told him that he was acting like a little bitch lately, but he couldn't help being irked by the smallest mistakes, though he was blind to his own. He'd had to rewrite his column three times already, after having been rejected by Ms. Amakata for his "forceful, un-fun tone".
Nagisa flung himself down beside Gou and Hana in the cafeteria, crumpling down to the surface of the table rather than even trying to sit up. Around him, senseless, aimless chatter of business, clothes, she said what, and such echoed through the high, windowed ceiling. The top of the cafeteria was more than two floors high and didn't have much artificial lighting, as most was supplied by the skylight. His friends shared a quick glance and leaned down a little to look at him where he lay.
"Sweetie," Gou began concernedly, "I think it's time for an intervention. You've been moping around for days about some guy you met that hasn't given you a call - I mean, that's happened to you loads of times!" Hana nodded in agreement and continued,
"It's not like you to take rejection this hard. Usually they're just for one-night stands." Nagisa huffed indignantly and slapped his hand on the table, not unlike a child would.
"Is that really what you two think I do all the time?" he protested noisily, feeling as though a marble had been caught and tangled in between his vocal chords.
"Well, you are kind of a slut," Gou admitted brazenly, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. Hana rolled her eyes and gave her a kick, clipping Nagisa on the calf as well, muttering about how she felt like a mother in the midst of a children's squall. The blond shimmied upwards and pathetically cast his gaze away, head in his hands.
"It's not only the guy," he lamented, "it's the new job and there's this hospital bill I haven't paid yet and my ex's still been calling to get some of his stuff and hasn't been at all kind about it and I've been hungover twice in a row and - ugh! It's just not my week!"
"It's Tuesday," Hana commented offhandedly, to which Nagisa rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth to make a scathing reply, but was stopped by her well-manicured hand lifting in an expression of silence. "Don't make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Go take a walk, get out of the building a bit." In a flash, she whipped out a couple of notes and handed them over. "And get us some coffee while you're at it."
And so he found himself marching roughly down the streets in search of the shop where he'd first met the damned man in the first place. Gou had tossed some pounds at him and requested he grab her some of the coffee he'd bought a few days back, which of course had led him to where he began. Honestly, the things he suffered for his friends. He knew in his heart, however, that his behavior warranted both a break - as Hana had suggested - and a coffee run for his friends. Although they'd given him what he needed to pay for it, he planned to simply purchase it himself as an apology for the shameful, petulant way he'd acted these past few days.
He slipped like a drowsy raindrop on glass into the flow of the line once he arrived and sighed at the poor weather. Pit-patters came along as the first of the darker clouds came strolling along and he realized that they were in for quite a storm tonight. He double-checked the time - he had about an hour and a half before he needed to be back at work. He'd been planning on an extended lunch to collect photographs to accompany his article today - a bit of field work, as it were.
He ordered himself an interesting mocha that was flavored with blackberry and the usual for his friends - both of which contained too many shots for his own taste - and settled himself at the counter beside a window. He was quick in yanking out his crossword puzzle, though it was from a few days back. What between his ex calling, a few hospital bills he'd left unpaid for too long, his couple of hangovers, and the drafts he'd worked on from home over the weekend, it was understandable that he hadn't finished it yet. He sipped at his coffee, hunched over the paper comfortably, and commenced his period of relaxation.
Here and there a gentle jingle of the storefront's bell would disturb him, but he otherwise made excellent time on his puzzle, each successful word erasing a little bit of the tension carried in his mind. He hardly noticed that someone had claimed the seat beside him until he saw the hem of his pants. It was sharp, precise, and by all means perfect, though they were a bewilderingly dull color. He peeked over the edge of his paper to examine the rest of the outfit and pass a judgement - it was his job to do this, of course - and was shocked when he realized that the stranger from the meeting sat there beside him, thoroughly immersed in his own work.
"Hey!" he greeted with a chipper tone, his smile delighted and warm. A few patrons gave him annoyed glimpses and he remembered to lower his voice. "Fancy meeting you here," he proceeded. At first glance the man was affronted by this sudden, welcoming reception, though a slight brush of pink on his cheeks brought to attention by those funny red glasses, betrayed the impression of irritability. "I didn't think I'd see you again," Nagisa commented, prompting the other to continue.
"Why ever not?" he questioned, leaning away from the documents in front of him and turning to face the little blond.
"Well," he responded, his voice picking up a little edge of regret, "you never called or texted me, y'know, when I wrote my number down in that folder the other day." He kept his sympathetic smile up though the disappointment was apparent in his demeanor, he supposed. He'd always been easy to read. He was bewildered when the well-behaved gentleman at his side smacked his forehead and muttered under his breath what Nagisa supposed was a curse.
"I forgot to write it down," he explained, though it sounded more as though he'd just realized it himself.
"You were supposed to keep the folder," the blonde explained cheekily, the hum of a laugh rising in his throat. The gentleman smiled slightly and replied,
"I was there as a favor to my coworker - he was ill that day but didn't want to miss it. I gave the briefing to him."
"That would explain the call," the smaller man snickered, remembering the strange man that had phoned him after his escapade with Gou and Hana. "He wanted my opinion on the environmental impact fish had or something." The brunet's face reddened further and he profusely apologized.
"Good Lord, I'm sorry about that, I don't know what he was thinking." He passed a sleek, black iPhone to Nagisa and requested politely, "Might I have it now?" The blond obliged happily. As he was typing, the man straightened himself and glanced at the newspaper he'd been working on. "You're working on yesterday's puzzle?" he inquired, his violet eyes analyzing everything he'd already written. He nodded and gave an exasperated sigh.
"It's been a busy week," Nagisa replied. The gentlemen reached in the pocket of his coat, draped upon the back of his stool, and glanced over the answers he'd previously written down.
"I've got different answers," he remarked with confusion lacing his voice. "See, for twelve across, I've got 'chiffon', and then all the answers around it are totally messed up." He scanned over both papers with an earnest intensity and Nagisa found himself chuckling - and this time, the stranger most certainly was affronted. "What's so funny?" he pried, eyes flickering back and forth.
"The clue asks for a silky fabric found in South Asia - seven letters across. It's not chiffon, that's French. You usually find silks in Asia, so the answer's dupioni, not chiffon." In reference to the evening they spent with one another the past week, he pointed to himself and reminded, "I write for a fashion magazine as a columnist." An appropriate pinch of pride peppered his voice and he gave his most dashing smile to the man beside him.
"Oh, I thought you were a receptionist or something of the sort. Why were you the one to hand out the briefings and coffee?" he interrogated, brows quirked at a funny angle. Nagisa gave a sigh as thick as the storm clouds and confessed,
"Okay, I just the promotion a week ago. But I was just doing my boss a favor since she hadn't gotten a new assistant yet." The other man nodded and offered his congratulations, giving the blond's ego a nice stroke. He shifted his focus back to his newspaper and frowned at it, as though it had committed a personal offense against him.
"You're certain the answer isn't chiffon? I mean, as I recall, it's a very lightweight fabric - wouldn't they use those in South Asian clothing?" He sounded quite determined to convince Nagisa of this, but he just chuckled prettily.
"I'm positive. It's not exclusively made with silk, anyways, you can have cotton chiffon, nylon chiffon, or rayon chiffon, too," he explained. Offhandedly, he commented, "You don't like to be wrong, do you?" The brunet broke into a flustered grin and he made reply, "Not particularly." He rewrote the word in and scrunched up his eyebrows while Nagisa informed him, "I was having trouble with three down - see, it intersects with dupioni at the 'n' and before I wrote in dupioni, I had barrister, but now it doesn't fit and I can't think of another word." Nagisa tapped the spaces with his pen and read over the clue - 'an advocate that can act in place of a client'. It had him thoroughly stumped and he'd skipped over it every time he finished writing in a word. When he glanced back toward the man, he found him grinning smugly and consequently, it was his turn to feel rather vexed. "What?" he inquired, tapping his pen on the edge of the paper, now quite flustered.
"Barristers can't act in place of a client," he informed the blond, pushing his glasses up his nose, "however, attorneys can." Nagisa cocked an eyebrow and awaited for his companion to take his turn. "I'm an attorney myself," he acknowledged, following their little trade-off.
"Okay," he defended himself, "that was not fair, the clue is singular and the word is plural." He hastily scrawled in the answer, folded the paper up and shoved it away, at last having finished it. He caught a quick glimpse of his phone and saw that he had an hour to go. Ever observant, the man caught his look and, in a tone that was rather let down, he inquired, "Must you be on your way now?" Nagisa's cheeks were dusted in pink at the disappointment the man expressed as for so long now, he'd thought himself rejected. Inevitably, the corners of his mouth rose into a smile and he shook his golden locks to and fro.
"No, I actually have like, another hour. I wonder, though… have you started today's crossword?" He fluttered his eyelashes, the fawn strands gliding across what few sun freckles remained from the pleasant summer they'd had before and his plum liner shimmered with his eyes, all of which served to bring attention to those beautifully blossoming cheeks. The man awkwardly scrambled through his papers, messing up what once had been a perfectly prime organizational scheme and practically ripped the day's paper out from under them, all while maintaining that of course he had barely started and he needed help with so many of the words. Nagisa laughed and leaned in over the paper, gracing an arm over the other man's shoulder. "I'd be happy to lend you my expertise," he replied flirtatiously, twirling a pen in his left hand with practiced dexterity. They examined the first clue together and its corresponding place on the puzzle. The editors had really wanted to challenge them - it was a twelve letter word with a prompt of "buzz, boom, bang"! His companion examined it thoroughly.
"Have you any clue what it could be?" he said, appealing to Nagisa for help. The blond gave a frustrated sigh, but snapped his finger a moment later when the answer came to him.
"Wait, try onomatopoeia!" The brunette wrote it in and mumbled,
"Why didn't I think of that? I always got top grades on grammar quizzes in school." Nagisa snickered at his offended tone and replied,
"So did I - but I bet you never got good grades in literature courses." He flinched slightly and seemed rather cross as Nagisa had been right on point, but the smaller man warmly added, "You seem more like the science, maths, and I dunno, about everything else kind of guy."
"That is true," he admitted to the little blond, but pursued the topic by adding, "You seem the type to enjoy bending things to suit you. Not that that's bad," he quickly corrected upon seeing the dumbstruck face of his partner and continued, "in fact, I find it a rather remarkable skill." It was true - Nagisa had always had trouble handling hard facts and took well to interpretation, however, always finding the loopholes in whatever he didn't like. He'd never been content with anything else. "It would explain why you'd have chosen such a free-willed path as a writer for the fashion industry. In opposition to this," he rambled, "I've never been so inclined to operate as such. It's why I chose to be an attorney." Nagisa nodded thoughtfully and found himself asking,
"But don't you have to interpret and like, I dunno, change the law so that your client can get off?" The stereotype that came to mind was that of sleazy lawyers easily ensnaring their opponents to win their money.
"Perhaps," he replied with a hint of a sneer, "for defense attorneys. I'm a prosecutor, I generally take on criminal cases." The little blond's prettily plucked eyebrows shot up as he enthused,
"Oh, wow! That's incredible!" His partner shrugged and opened his mouth to reply, but mid-word, in fact, he was stopped by a stupefied Nagisa. "Aren't you ever worried that you'll put away someone innocent?" The brunet's jaw was slack open still as he regarded him curiously. He seemed to be hesitating to answer and carefully chose his next words:
"The thought has in fact occurred to me before, though I haven't much… dwelt on that. I just do my job." Nagisa nodded, grateful for the honest reply, but prodded,
"But the real question is will you think about it, don't you think?" The man uncomfortably nodded and mumbled an agreement. For a few moments they sat in their own silence, unperturbed by the indie music, the gentle chatter of rain on the windowsills, and the hum of indistinguishable voices. Nagisa finished up his coffee and checked the time. "Listen," he began, "I've gotta go - I'm actually supposed to be doing some photography right now, but text me, okay? And think about it, too!" He chirped his end and fluttered up in a flurry of gathering and the man, polite as ever, slid his coat upon the blond's shoulders with a gentle, "allow me". Nagisa beamed at him and asked as he was leaving, "What's your name?" The man, still awestruck from the first flurry of lashes replied,
"Ryugazaki Rei. Or - erm, sorry, Rei Ryugazaki. Right. We're in the west. Um, what's yours?" The blond giggled at the error and teasingly tapped his phone screen, having entered it quite a while before, before turning with a flourish of his sunny tresses and long, bleu-de-France coat. His coffee roast lashes gave a final flicker in the direction of Rei Ryugazaki. Nagisa hadn't missed the cherry pink blush upon his cheeks this time.