The Case Files of Jeweler Richard - Chapter 1.4

So I just learned that it doesn’t show on the main page when a new chapter is added…I think I’ll stop using volumes after I finish this volume.

“We made the decision on the spot when we heard the name. It was lovely, like the ‘third eye’ of our Milk.”

“Kanako-san likes strange stories.”

When Hajime-kun didn’t say anything, Mr. Yasaka tousled his son’s dark head. His look was gentle, but he was very serious.

“Hajime, promise me one thing. Don’t go out so far by yourself like this a second time. Even if Milk is protecting you, you cannot do such dangerous things. You know this as well. If your own precious, young child, who was so cute that you’d be willing to sacrifice your own life for them, went somewhere faraway before you knew it, how worried would Mom and Dad be? Dad will not lie to Hajime anymore, and he will not treat you like a child or deceive you a second time. That is why, Hajime, you must promise me.”

“…Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Dad is the one who should be sorry. Nothing matters as long as you are safe.”

Mr. Yasaka embraced Hajime. Crap. I was going to cry if I didn’t look somewhere else. Teary father-son hugs were too much of a critical hit to my weak point. It’d be dangerous if I didn’t think about something else. That’s right, the milk. I was thinking about what to do with the milk in the fridge.

Perhaps unable to just watch me biting my lips with such a face, Richard called out to Mr. Yasaka.

“So, what would you like to do? Did you arrive here by car?”

“No, I took a taxi from the office to stop by the hospital…oh, I should have had it wait for us.”

“I shall call one for you.”

“Thank you so much for your help, Richard-san. We had you come to our house, but your store is also lovely. When I am discharged from the hospital, the three of us will visit again.”

“…Four of us, you mean. Kanako-san, me, and our two sons.”

“Ah, that’s true.”

Mrs. Yasaka, who was on the same eye level as her son, with her knees on the floor, put her arms on the sofa’s armrests and stood up with a shout of “heave-ho.” It was probably a challenge to stand when your stomach had gotten so big. Certainly, my mother, who was a nurse, told me that during pregnancy, bone fractures were more likely due to the lack of calcium.

Oh.

“Excuse me! While you’re waiting for the car, would you like some drinks?”

“…This big brother jokes around a lot, but he’s a good person.”

“Oh my. Hajime, you’re looking down on him.”

Hajime-kun looked uncomfortable. From behind Mr. Yasaka, who laughed a little, he quickly bowed his head.

“We’re sorry for interrupting you at work. I would be happy with water or anything.”

“…Mr. Assistant, Mom can’t drink coffee or black tea.”

“All right! Well then,” I cleared my throat. “How about honey milk?”

Ah, perfect , Mrs. Yasaka said, clapping her hands together.

As they waited for the hired car, the Yasaka family sat on the red sofas and happily drank honey milk. Mom and Dad sat next to each other, and Hajime-kun was on his dad’s lap. Richard meticulously introduced the gemstones in Urashima’s casket, and laughed, asking what kind of a stone their newborn child would like.

“We were in luck this time. Did you remember them by chance?”

“What are you referring to?”

“The sold stone, and the buyer.”

Richard looked at me with suspicious-looking eyes. Even as I waited and waited, he didn’t say a thing. Could it be…

“I thought it was impossible but…do you remember every stone you’ve ever sold to someone?”

“I do.”

“All, all of them?”

“Every one.”

I was at a loss for words. Of course, those weren’t the type of items that you could sell a hundred per day. Nevertheless, if you kept doing it for years, then you wouldn’t be talking about a hundred or two hundred pieces.

“…Do you have a ledger or something?”

“I use one when I need it for transactions, but not when I do not need to do so. In the first place, it is up to the other party to decide when we would meet again. When that time comes, do you think you would be able to do decent business if you have forgotten what they purchased before and what kind of stones they like?”

“I underestimated you.”

Thank you , Richard said and bowed. It was a doll-like bow that clearly did not have much emotion put into it, but it was elegant. I felt like I was seeing his pride as a jeweler.

“I was shocked at first, but I’m glad it didn’t become anything serious.”

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

“Because it’s so rare? A lot of elderly customers come here, but not a lot of kids. I guess Hajime-kun refreshes the record for the youngest customer. Is the record even lower if we count the baby in the mom’s stomach?”

“How carefree. I was wondering what was going to happen at one point.”

“You knew Yasaka-san’s phone number, right? Then, it wasn’t even that big of a deal. Wouldn’t it just be a scene in the daily life of a family and make a nice memory?”

For a while, Richard stared at me as though to say “Unbelievable,” but then nodded many times, as though accepting something.

“Seigi, it has been some time since you have started working here, so perhaps this is a suitable time for you to know the price of gemstones.”

“What kind of development is this? I still don’t know anything, but well…rubies are more expensive than sapphires, stones like turquoise and lapis lazuli have lower price ranges than other stones, quartzes are more reasonable…that’s about all I know. Is this what they call ‘a shop boy near the temple gate will recite sutras untaught’?”

(TN: This is from a Japanese idiom that basically means “learning things without realizing from what’s around you”.)

“Indeed. Then, how about a chrysoberyl cat’s eye?”

“I don’t think it’s as expensive a ruby or sapphire. Some of those would cost a lot, like five million for one or something like that.”

“The price of that cat’s eye from earlier is far more than ten million.”

My reaction was a strange scream. Far more than ten million. A chrysoberyl cat’s eye?

“Is that stone that high class?”

“And I ask you, why do you think cat’s eyes are not expensive?”

“Because, they’re not rare. They sell them everywhere. I’ve seen them before. At a store that sells jeweled bracelets, one cat’s eye bracelet was around five hundred yen, and there were pink ones and blue ones.”

“Those are man-made stones. What a truly wretched confusion. It is because cat’s eyes are so rare that the technology for making synthetic stones at low costs was developed. The difference from natural stones is apparent. Almost all genuine chrysoberyl cat’s eyes can only be found in Brazil or Sri Lanka. It is a very rare stone. Needless to say, the bigger and higher quality the stone…”

Even so, ten million yen—and above.

“I don’t know if I can ask, but…around how much is that one?”

“I will only tell you that it is enough for several of my Jaguars.”

The Jaguar that Richard used as a company car. For some reason, it was a sports car even though he should have just used an innocuous Japanese car. I remembered that he told me it was around five million secondhand when I asked him if I could take it for a drive. Wads of money danced in my head.

“Mined in Sri Lanka, thirty-six-point-four carats. Among the chrysoberyl cat’s eyes I have handled, it is undoubtedly the largest and most beautiful. I had doubted my eyes when he took it out of his pocket.”

For some reason, I imagined an innocent elementary schooler pulling out wads of money from his pockets all at once. It was a terrifying image. Richard must have seen Hajime-kun’s actions as something completely different from how I did.

Hajime-kun said that he would claim I was kidnapping him if I took him to the police box, but thank goodness he didn’t actually get involved in a kidnapping case. It was too dangerous.

“…But, I don’t get it. Were those people rich enough to shell out ten million for a stone without batting an eye? And, please ignore me if I’m going too far, but spending a million on a gemstone…this might be too awful to say, but it feels like it’s just the amusement of a rich person, doesn’t it?”

“Do you know the terms asset management or wealth management?”

“Of course I know, no matter how bad things may get for me, I am in the economics department at Kasaba University.”

I puffed out my chest with pride, but Richard wordlessly ignored me and continued.

“This is a hypothetical scenario, but what if you became a capable bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance with an annual income that was stable at a few million, and then your savings exceeded thirty million?”

“Did Yasaka-san consult you in that way?”

“This is hypothetical. It has absolutely nothing to do with his economic situation.”

“Ye-yeah, sorry.”

The problem of how to manage one’s money was a concern that everyone was connected to, or rather, no one could escape from. In my case, it was the work of allocating the income of my part-time job earnings and allowance for electricity, gas, hydro, other bills, rent, transportation expenses, food expenses, and entertainment expenses. My mother Hiromi paid for my university tuition. I was building up my savings little by little, so I was planning on paying her back some years after I start working. If I ever got married and had kids, I would need to save for their education, and if I bought a house, I would have to pay back the mortgage. The allocation of wages was never-ending.

The assumption that Richard was prompting was probably the case of there being money to spare even after all that.

“Let’s see…maybe I’ll buy stocks, since shareholder benefits are pretty sweet. If I still have money left, maybe manage real estate or something? It feels too unrealistic, so I can’t think about it too well.”

“Imagine it while you can. Your future is still a blank page, after all. In addition, I disagree that this feels ‘too unrealistic’ when it comes to talking about real money. In Europe and the United States, the hurdles to asset management in such a form are lower than in Japan.”

“Well, I would think so. The idea of capitalism was an invention from there in the first place.”

“Not so, the significance of having assets other than the form of ‘money’ is widely known. Banknotes and coins, when all is said and done, are merely the products of a value system that depends on the existence of the state. It is a kind of risk management. Of course, it is also a way to reduce taxes.”

In other words, he meant preparing for a situation where if a country collapsed, no matter how much money was in your bank account, they would just become scraps of paper. I see, so from that, gemstones.

“No, I don’t think that’s the way to think about it. Even if you brought to a pawn shop a diamond ring you bought for a million yen, you wouldn’t get that million yen back since it’s secondhand, right? Assets decrease in value.”

“A sound way of thinking. However, what do you suppose will happen if you have an extremely rare stone, a masterpiece that is unlikely to be yielded hereafter?”

Like the chrysoberyl cat’s eye from before? When I checked with him, Richard nodded without saying a word.

“Every item on the market is traded for a fair price. How do you decide on a fair price for an item like no other?”

“…I guess let whoever wants it set the price? No, the other way around. The seller will name their price and have you buy it…it’s going to completely be a seller’s market.”

“Exactly.”

I seemed to have made a strange face. Richard told me to stop it.

“It’s hard to believe. Are there really that many cat’s eye collectors out there?”

“Suppose that this wasn’t about jewels, but Impressionist paintings or high-rise condos in Shanghai, would it be easier to understand?”

“Uh…oh, I see…”

I felt that I was beginning to understand, little by little. Even if they weren’t a collector, even if they didn’t really want a room, it was commonplace to manage a fixed face value of money in the form of gemstones or real estate. Even as risk management, even as a tax reduction strategy, and even as speculation in anticipation of future increases in value.

“So gemstones are also ‘assets’…I’ve never even thought about it that way. Even though I’ve been working here for so long…”

I wondered if some of the customers who bought stones for several millions thought that way. They must have. The price of several million was too high to spend for the simple reason of “because it’s pretty.”

“You do not need to think too hard. It is just that there are also such ways to appreciate gems. Gems that can be called assets, that’s right, are said to be worth a million yen or more as a rule of thumb. If it is a stone of that value, unless more was suddenly discovered in the finest mines with rich veins, the value would seldom decrease and only increase. Unless the management of it is too extreme, the product’s quality would not deteriorate. Although it has not taken root in Japan very much yet, accessories have passed down from generation to generation as the culture in Europe. They are small, light, one can take them out in an emergency and they can be exchanged for cash in any country.”

I recalled Mr. Yasaka’s words.

A stone that will protect you. A gem that will be Hajime’s strength.

I didn’t know what kind of illness Milk the cat discovered in him, but maybe there was something to think about in that situation. I felt Mr. Yasaka’s awkward and clumsy affection. Even though Hajime-kun was still so young, I wondered if he felt that he had to leave something behind.

It was a somewhat heartrending story.

Nevertheless , Richard supplemented, as though to counteract the atmosphere that was seeming to become gloomy.

“Compared to bonds and real estate, gemstones are not as easy to convert into money. In my personal opinion, the essence of stones is beauty, not the ‘replacement’ for real estate or gold coins.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

Richard looked at my face and smiled. It was a nice smile. It wasn’t like I was the type of naive and good-natured person who feels happy every time they see the smiles of beautiful people around the world, but I thought that Richard’s face had a healing quality to it.

“Do you want another cup of tea? We still have a lot of iced royal milk tea left in the pot.”

I shall have some , Richard said. I returned to the kitchen and poured the tea into a glass.

An asset that didn’t diminish so easily. There were many dangerous things happening in the world lately. If I had children and could afford even just a small home, I could understand the feeling of wanting to forward your savings in a way that gave you peace of mind, even by a little. Although I didn’t have the idea of gemstones for the sake of that.

A dark cloud of unease suddenly passed by my head.

A second child was supposed to be born in the Yasaka family. I could only think of Hajime-kun, who said he wanted one more of the same thing, as charming up until now, but maybe that wasn’t such an unreasonable thing to do.

Because a cat’s eye couldn’t be divided into two.

Wouldn’t an asset that couldn’t be divided become the match that started a fire?

While I served the tea,I confessed my worries with the preface that it was obviously not my concern. Richard stared at me with a strange face, then suddenly broke into laughter and took a sip of tea. The ice in his glass rattled. His smile this time was incredible. It was a beauty to the point of unchanging solidity, like a cathedral that a master Impressionist painter had painted with all of their passion. I didn’t tell him that, though.

“The cat’s eye is a stone that wards against evil. It also drives away the ill will that nests in humans. If they do not lose the purity of their hearts that is like that stone as they age, then they should understand immediately. Someone one can say that a beautiful thing was beautiful with is more valuable than jewels.”

“…And Milk is there too.”

“Yes.”

I wondered what the guardian deity of the Yasaka family would think if he knew of this unusual disturbance. I liked both dogs and cats, but having never had any, I was yearning a little for the bond between humans and animals. I prayed that Milk’s protection Hajime-kun believed in would continue into the future.

“But they really saved us. Now the amount of milk has nicely decreased. I think there’s just enough to use up in two days.”

“……”

I smiled at him, but Richard’s expression was dark and sullen. What’s the matter with him? When I knit my brows together, Richard made a strange face, like a mirror image.

“Hey, you look stiff. Is something wrong?”

I watched him with a serious face, and then Richard spoke, somewhat awkwardly.

“…I am asking merely out of curiosity, but what sort of food is milk agar?”

My brain rewound the past dozen or so minutes at high speed. Milk agar. Because I bought too much milk. We had to consume it somehow. For that reason, agar.

Oh—.

When I stood up with a giant smirk on my face, Richard made an even stranger face.

“What is with that face of yours?”

“I’m gonna buy milk and agar at Meidi-ya.* A receipt’s good, right?”

(TN: Meidi-ya is an upmarket grocery store chain in Japan.)

“Please stop.”

“They must have agar. As expected of you, the great king of sweets.”

“Who’s a great king!? …Ah, excuse me, I do not understand what you mean. My words just now were a simple question.”

“When you add condensed milk to it, it becomes very sweet. It’ll refresh you like an energy drink.”

“I never told you to make it. There was nothing like that in the job details of the contract you signed.”

The formality was missing from Richard’s words. It was something I rarely heard. He was in serious mode. I tightened my joking face and turned towards the store owner again. Richard stared at me fixedly.

“…Got it.”

“As long as you understand.”

“I’ll make it at home.”

Richard looked like he was at his wit’s end. “You damned idiot” was written on his handsome face. I quite liked the square and upright side of this guy.

“…I am only praying that you do not have good-looking friends who will approach you with the proposal to ‘help me rob a bank together, if you don’t mind’ someday.”

“That’s a completely different story. You’re worrying about ridiculous stuff.”

“I will not raise your wages no matter what you do.”

“It’s no good? I was secretly hoping for that, though.”

“How shameless. This is not a restaurant, and you are in university. I assume that the duty of a student is to study, but what do you think?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Richard turned his face away with a hmm. The reaction of this guy when it came to sweets was thirty percent more childish than usual, so I actually secretly liked it.

“’…dding better,’ you said.”

“Eh?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

Richard looked demure and said nothing more.

The following Sunday, the store flourished with customers who had made appointments in advance, and I prepared many cups of rich royal milk tea. Richard showed stones with his smiling sales talk, sold many, and enjoyed chatting with customers about jewelry. If there was ever a perfect human being in this world, then I thought it would be Richard when he was in this store. I didn’t know any other faces.

I was just a little envious of the guardian deity of the Yasaka family, Milk the white cat, who was said to be able to predict the future. Cats couldn’t speak the language of humans. That was why even if they saw the future, they wouldn’t worry themselves with human relationships. If I was such an existence, would Richard also show his everyday face, even just a little? Faces other than that of the perfect jeweler Mr. Richard, even if it didn’t really have to do with sweets.

On the way home that day, I approached the back parking lot and learned one happy thing. Apparently, the name of the black cat that sometimes let me pet it was Sakura. A woman’s voice had called out “Sakura, meal time,” and the black cat had gracefully slipped out from beneath my palm. Someday, if I moved to a pet-friendly apartment—no, if I lived in a detached house or something like that, and at that time there was someone by my side who loved animals, then would I be thinking of a name for one? And possibly baby names as well?

Richard had said, Imagine it while you can. Your future is still a blank page, after all. It was difficult to imagine such a rosy future for myself, but let’s think about it. Since I didn’t have a strange power like Milk the white cat, I didn’t know the future, but I didn’t feel so bad about it. Dreaming was the privilege of humans.