Chapter 12. The Girl of Glasswork

I

A Tuesday near the end of July, the rainy season not fully broken. A woman came into the studio.

Three in the afternoon. While Sono was with a client on the floor, the reception intercom buzzed. Kurosawa called me over. “Himuro — new booking. You had the afternoon slot open, right?”

I went out to reception. A tall woman was standing at the door.

“Um — I heard you could — have a body measured, here —”

The voice was elegant. Clear, careful speech. But behind the voice was something — a hollow. A voice that rang well, but whose vessel was empty. The voice of an empty pot.

“Yes. Welcome to Life Compass.”

I made a smile. I took the hand she offered and shook it.

It was cold.

Even on a muggy July afternoon, her fingers were as cold as winter metal. The cold of a glass tumbler after the ice has half-melted — a cold with no dampness in it.

“Shiori Shindō.”

Shiori Shindō. Twenty-three. A fashion model, she said. Magazine, runway, and social-media work.

I looked at her.

Precisely — I was trying not to look. By trainer’s habit I read posture and muscle lay unconsciously when I see a person. But looking at Shiori’s body felt, somehow, like peeping. Because it was so exposed.

Thin was not a sufficient word. The neck was thin, the collarbones stood up beneath the skin, the arms were so slender they seemed they would snap. It was less that there was a body beneath the clothes than that the clothes were suspending the body. The face was certainly beautiful. An outline refined enough to make you think of course she became a model. But the beauty was the beauty of glasswork — polished, translucent, and about to break at any moment.

“What sort of outcome were you hoping for?” I pulled out the reception chair.

Shiori paused. Then said:

“I’d like to tighten up a little more.”

The moment I heard those words, something at the bottom of my chest went — cold and heavy, sinking.

II

“Tighten up — meaning —”

“The waist, another two centimetres or so. And the legs — here — a little cleaner.”

Shiori pointed at her own waist and thigh. The fingers were bony and thin.

I chose my words and asked.

“Your current eating and exercise — what are they like?”

“I’m careful with food. I cut carbs where I can. I keep the eating window within six hours a day.”

Within six hours. That meant eighteen hours of nothing.

“And exercise?”

“Gym four times a week. Ninety minutes of cardio a session. And Reformer Pilates.”

I kept my expression steady. Kept the trainer’s face. But my stomach contracted.

This was not effort toward thinness. It was trench warfare in defence of thinness.

“Your work — modelling —”

“Yes. Next month I have a Japan-side job for Paris Fashion Week. There’s a sample I absolutely have to fit. A specific size.”

Shiori spoke evenly. In a hollow, tired voice. As if describing someone else’s body.

When she said that size, I looked into her eyes. Large, beautiful eyes. But the light in them was thin. Less vitality than the still gleam of a glass bead.

I felt my own hands go cold. Not Shiori’s cold. The cold of my own memory.

III

“May I — just a moment.”

I led Shiori to the waiting chair outside the Circle and said, “Before the measurement, may I speak with you a little.”

Then I pretended to visit the toilet, climbed a few stairs, and stood in the empty hallway. In the polo pocket, the phone had grown faintly warm.

“Coh.”

”—— I heard, Seri.”

From behind my temples, Coh’s voice.

“This person is in danger.”

“Mm.”

“Any tighter and she’ll snap. The body is near its limit.”

“Near its limit, yes. She has gone far past the natural thinness of an ectomorph and pared herself down.”

I leaned my back against the wall.

“How — should I read her.”

Coh paused.

“Seri. A Reader reads others through her own wounds.”

“My own wounds.”

“You fought your body as an enemy once. That pain. That is what teaches you what you can read in this woman’s body. A Reader without wounds reads only the surface. But a Reader with wounds — reads to the depth.”

I bit my lip.

“But isn’t that — turning my own pain into a peeping tool?”

“It is. If you misuse it. Hence the Law. The story you read is the person’s. You must not rewrite her story with your wound. All you may do — listen carefully to what her body is saying, and give it back to her. That is all.”

”…All right.”

I drew a deep breath. And went below.

IV

When I returned to the waiting chair, Shiori was staring at her own hand. A bony, white hand.

“Shindō-san.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to measure you now, but before that — may I ask one thing.”

“Please.”

“Why did you come to Life Compass?”

Shiori dropped her eyes a little.

”—— A friend referred me. She said your measuring is a little different. Not only numbers — but something whole about the body, something you can see.”

“Something whole.”

“Yes. I’ve been measured at gyms, at clinics. Body fat percentage. Muscle mass. BMI. All of it numbers. But each time I saw those numbers —”

Shiori cut off.

”—— I was frightened. The numbers looked as if they were judging me.”

I nodded. I understood, painfully.

“Before I measure, I always ask leave.” I said. “Let me read your body’s outline. What I read is yours. I won’t speak of it to anyone on my own.”

Shiori’s eyes went a little wide. Then she nodded, small.

”—— Yes. Please.”

V

The Circle was quiet. The lighting along the walls shed a faint orange.

“Please stand, relaxed.”

Shiori had changed into sportswear and stood at the centre of the circle. Under the clothes, the thinness stood out even more. From the root of the arm to the elbow, bone showed in a straight line. The thigh was thin enough to close a hand around.

I propped up the phone. I started Contura.

“Please close your eyes.”

Pale blue light traced the surface of Shiori’s body, flowing. Particles drifted from fingertips, neck, shoulders, waist. The rings of light circled her, and white numbers rose in the air.

Shoulder width 35 Chest 76 Waist 56 Hip 79

I stopped breathing. Waist — fifty-six. More than ten centimetres below the average adult woman.

The rings circled further. Neck, upper arm, forearm, knee, ankle. Numbers rose one after another and linked. And into the air rose a luminous body shaped like Shiori.

It was beautiful.

I thought so honestly. An outline as finely ground as glasswork. It expressed Shiori’s essence more than clothed-Shiori had. Collarbones floating. A flat chest. A line from waist to hip nearly straight. The silhouette that fashion prefers.

But at the same time — it was painful to look at.

“The type is ectomorph.” Coh’s voice resonated in me. “Inborn: thin, long, not inclined to lay fat. In itself, neither good nor bad.”

“But.”

“This body has gone past the ectomorph’s limit. She has pared far past her native thinness. Bone and skin alone — too little to fill between.”

The luminous body was seen through. The skin lay bare; I was shocked by the thinness of the fat layer beneath. Deeper still, a reddish light surfaced — muscle. But it was thin. Thinner than my 13.8. Less muscle than the dying embers of muscle. A frail, untrustworthy red.

A number floated into the air.

Core Number 13.0

And beside it, a note.

Your Core Number falls well below the average for your age and sex.

“Thirteen point zero —”

A low number, standing in the same place as mine. But the meaning was different from mine. I had spent ten years fighting the body, whittling muscle away. Shiori had been pressured to be beautiful and had pared the body itself away. The destinations were the same; the shapes of the blades were different.

Shiori opened her eyes and looked at her own outline. I couldn’t tell what crossed her face. Perhaps surprise. Or perhaps the lonely relief of having, in numbers, confirmation of something she had long known.

“I’ll read.” I said.

The particles gathered, drew a single thread, became letters.

VI

Your body has swallowed blades, told to be beautiful. You may throw them up now.

Shiori read those words.

And said nothing.

A long silence. The lighting on the Circle walls held steady, orange. Shiori’s shoulders trembled a shade.

“Blades.” Shiori said, at last. “I’ve been swallowing them. All this time.”

“Shindō-san —”

“I’ve been in this work since I was fourteen. From then on — always. Thinner, they kept saying. At first it was, sure, a little tighter. But it wasn’t enough. More, more. I cut carbs. I cut fat. One day it was half an apple a day. And still — still they said it wasn’t enough.”

Shiori’s voice shook.

“When I’m hungry my hands shake and I can’t work. But when I’m empty, the photographs come out cleaner. The photographer praises me. The editor praises me. That body, perfect, they say. So I stayed empty. Always.”

I could say nothing.

“At some point I stopped knowing when it began. Eating began to bring guilt. After I ate, when my stomach was full, I felt dirty. So —”

Shiori cut off. And smiled thinly. The smile looked like a crack in glasswork.

”—— I’m sorry. It’s our first time, and here I am saying all this.”

“Don’t apologise.” I said. “Thank you for coming here, and for telling me.”

I was remembering my own past. The me who opened the refrigerator at midnight. The me who sat on the toilet floor and cried. The me who stood on the scale in the morning and let a number break her day.

Shiori’s pain and my pain were not the same. But we had swallowed the same kind of blade. I had eaten and restricted to punish myself. Shiori had been told to be beautiful and had pared her meals away. The blades were different shapes. But the pain they cut, landed in the same place.

Tears spilled from Shiori’s eyes. Silently. From the eyes of glasswork, transparent drops, like something breaking.

“I —” Shiori’s voice trembled. “I’ve always been told — be beautiful. But that —”

“Was a punishment.”

Shiori looked up at me.

”—— Yes. It was punishment. A punishment called beauty. I’d been inflicting it on myself, all along.”

VII

I spoke quietly.

“Shindō-san. I’m a trainer. I can help with measuring the body and with exercise. But the body you’re in now — I don’t think it’s something a gym, or an app, or I, can fix.”

Shiori listened in silence.

“The blades you’ve swallowed — they may be too many to throw up alone anymore. So I think you should be helped by someone whose work it is. A doctor who treats eating disorders. A clinical psychologist. A proper medical setting.”

“A hospital.”

“Yes. It isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Rather — it’s a place to take your body back, for the sake of living.”

Shiori looked at her own cold hands. Then up at the luminous outline — still drifting faintly in the air — the shape of her own body.

“Not to get thin.”

“No. To take back a body for living. That is what you need.”

In my pocket I felt Contura grow faintly warm. Coh said nothing. But his silence was assent.

For a long time Shiori looked at her own outline. The glasswork outline. Beautiful, fragile, pared to its limit — a body of light.

And then, small, she nodded.

“Tomorrow. I’ll try — going to a hospital.”

The voice was still hollow. But at the bottom of the hollow vessel, something rolled — a small, hard stone. Like resolve.

VIII

After Shiori left, I sat down on the floor of the Circle.

The luminous outline was already gone. But in the air the after-image of glasswork still seemed to linger.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“I used my own past. Reading Shiori-san’s body, I went through my own wound.”

“Mm.”

“Is that — something that’s permitted.”

Coh paused.

“Whether it’s permitted isn’t yours to decide. The one who was read decides that.”

“Did she — receive something, do you think.”

“She did. She said she’d go to hospital tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

“Seri. Your pain from the past was not wasted. The years you fought your body, starved it, wept — those have now become the wound by which you understand another person’s pain.”

I closed my eyes. Tears pricked again.

My past had become a wound for saving someone.

That was — a painful salvation. A salvation that could not be prettied. But certainly, a salvation.

I held my own shoulders. So as not to draw them in. So as to open them properly. The shoulders I had first un-drawn that night, in front of the mirror.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“Thank you.”

”—— Mm.”

From the top of the stairs, Sono’s voice came down. “Hi-mu-ro-o? Next client’s here-ee!”

I wiped my face and stood.

The girl of glasswork would go to hospital tomorrow.

And I would go and read the story of the next body. Whoever came next would also be carrying something, and push open this door. On the shoulders, the low back, or somewhere even less visible, a heavy thing balanced.

—