Chapter 18. The Husband's Nape

Reunion

A Wednesday, sunny — rare in a lull of the rainy season. Misaki came again.

This time, she was not alone.

The one who opened the entrance door was Misaki. But behind her stood a tall man. Grey polo shirt, black trousers. A man of mid-forties who seemed to be minding his flank a little. His neck sat slightly forward.

“Himuro-san — long time no see.”

Misaki bowed her head, small. The Misaki of three months on was a different person from the one who had wept in the Circle. The bruises under her eyes had thinned. Her voice was steadier than before. Beneath a loose cardigan, a T-shirt that followed the body was visible. She was not hiding her chest.

“Hello. I — brought someone today. My husband.”

The man glanced at me.

“Takanashi. Kensuke. — My wife has been in your care.”

A slightly blunt manner. But the air was less brought than been brought. Misaki laughed from the side, a little apologetically.

“He isn’t very keen, to be honest. But I insisted.”

“No, it isn’t that I’m not keen. It’s just — the neck and shoulders are stiff, that’s all. Nothing serious.”

Kensuke rotated his neck as he said it. A dull crack sounded. Misaki pulled a face.

“See, that sound it’s started making. And the headaches. He hasn’t had time for the hospital —”

“All right, all right. I came.”

Kensuke waved a hand. A husband-minded man, but inattentive to his own body. I saw, beneath the inattention, something. The habit of not looking at oneself. Or — the habit of using the body as a tool.

“Himuro-san — would you do that thing for him? The one you did for me?”

Misaki looked me in the eye, direct. The same gaze as that day — the day she had cupped her belly in both hands. I nodded.

“I can. Only — Kensuke-san himself must say yes. It’s his body’s story.”

Kensuke looked at Misaki. Misaki gave a small nod.

“I’ll do it. My wife changed so much. If that was your doing — then, well, once.”

“Thank you.”

I bowed.

“This way, to the Circle.”

The Circle

Below, the Circle. Concrete walls, grey mat. Nothing changed from half a year ago, when I had brought Misaki here. But now I understood what this room was for. A vessel for standing the body, unadorned.

Kensuke stood on the circle and looked up at the ceiling.

“Nothing here.”

“Nothing is fine. Here, you don’t have to adorn.”

Kensuke laughed a little through his nose.

“Nothing makes it harder to relax, if anything.”

Saying so, he stood at the centre of the circle in his slippers. He opened the collar of the polo a little. The collarbone area was hard.

“Kensuke-san. Please close your eyes for a moment.”

“Mm.”

Kensuke closed his eyes. A line creased between his brows. A face stiffened solid.

I started Contura.

Contura. The body tells the story of you.

“Coh.”

“Mm. I’ll read the whole of him carefully. Especially the neck and shoulders. What he’s been carrying. The cause of the distortion — we’ll unravel it in light.”

The light ran.

Pale blue particles spilled from Contura’s screen and fell onto the circle where Kensuke stood, soft as snow. The particles began to trace the surface of him. Shoulder. Collarbone. Back. Waist. Hip. Thigh. Rings of light circled, many of them. With Kensuke’s breathing, the light swayed, faintly.

And then, in the air, a luminous body stood up.

Kensuke’s shape.

“Please open your eyes.”

Kensuke opened them. And at his own outline standing beside him, he caught his breath.

”—— This is me.”

“Your body.”

The Forward Neck

The luminous body wore no clothes. But there was nothing obscene in it. A human form of outline only. And that form drew, without hiding, the habits of Kensuke’s body.

First, the neck.

The neck sat forward. The line drawn from the ear to the shoulder — the hole of the ear ought to sit directly above the shoulder. But Kensuke’s neck tilted forward by some fifteen degrees. The jaw jutted. The head’s centre of gravity floated, not over the body’s centre, but forward.

Next, the shoulders.

Both shoulders were rounded forward. The collarbones angled not straight but slightly inward. And from the root of the neck to the shoulder — the line the trapezius runs — there was a ridge, like a hill. Both shoulders were hiked up toward the ears. Shoulders that ought to hang were lifted by tension.

”…Severe.”

Kensuke muttered, looking at his outline.

“I knew. When I see myself from the side in a mirror — the neck. But I didn’t think it was this far out.”

“Your wife mentioned it. Headaches, too. Stiff neck and shoulders.”

“Mm. In the afternoons my head gets heavy. The hospital took an X-ray and it came back normal. But it hurts.”

“No abnormality and no load are different things.”

I said it. Kensuke looked at me a little.

Numbers began to surface in the air.

Neck 39 Shoulder width 45 Chest 98 Waist 88 Hip 96

And a number indicating the angle of the neck. The inclination from shoulder to neck. The position of the head’s centre of gravity. Coh stacked them up, dispassionately.

“Seri. Look at his neck.”

Coh’s voice behind my temples.

“The curve of the cervical vertebrae has almost vanished. The neck bones ought to curve gently forward. But the motion of putting the head toward a screen has stretched it straight. It’s a state called straight neck. The trapezius is tensed twenty-four hours a day to support the forward-leaning head. That ridge is the muscle striving, earnestly, to hold the head up. But it’s trying too hard. It’s exhausted.”

“A quarter-century in front of a screen, then.”

“Yes. Twenty-five years of lifestyle carved into his neck. Sitting at a desk, typing, peering at a screen. The head was pulled forward, constantly. Each time, the trapezius tensed to hold it. Eight hours a day, ten years, twenty. — His neck has fought on, and is exhausted.”

I turned back to Kensuke.

“Kensuke-san. Your neck and shoulders have stiffened solid, pulled toward a screen over a long time. The load has stacked up. That is why the headaches come.”

Kensuke put a hand to his own neck. To the solid neck. The ridged trapezius of the luminous outline and the solid neck beneath his hand held the same shape.

“I see. So my neck is speaking.”

He said it a little gruffly, but with conviction.

Two Outlines

Then Misaki spoke.

“Um — Himuro-san. Could I be measured too. Beside Kensuke. Put us side by side.”

I was a little surprised.

“Of course.”

Misaki stood on the circle. Beside Kensuke. The particles of light ran again, and Misaki’s outline stood up.

It had changed from half a year ago — from the outline that had honestly drawn the caesarean scar.

The roundness of the belly remained a little. But the softness of the lower belly had drawn tighter than before. The habit of the right shoulder going forward was still there. But the heights of the hips had come closer to even. And the lay of muscle from shoulder to back was better than before. The strength of a body built by carrying and chasing a baby.

Numbers surfaced in the air.

Neck 34 Shoulder width 38 Chest 84 Waist 72 Hip 90

I looked at the two outlines, side by side.

Kensuke and Misaki. Forty-five and thirty. An IT executive and a mother. Each body’s story, lined up.

Kensuke’s forward neck. Ridged trapezius. Rounded shoulders. A body stiffened by work.

Misaki’s right shoulder, slightly ahead. The roundness of the belly, still there. But muscle laid on the back. A body trained by childcare.

And what they shared. Both were carrying something. Kensuke carried work, and stiffened his neck. Misaki carried the child, and put her shoulders forward.

”—— We’re alike.”

Kensuke murmured.

“Neck, shoulders, rounded. Both of us.”

Misaki looked slightly surprised.

“Are we. I was so slumpy after the birth —”

“No. I was the one gnawing at the desk. You were holding the baby. Different reasons. But the bodies are facing the same way.”

I listened. And I noticed.

A married couple’s bodies carry different loads from different lives. But the traces of those loads cut into similar places. Shoulder, neck, back. The body of a person who carries something for someone distorts, by degrees, into the same shape.

“Both of you are carrying something.”

I said. My voice nearly shook.

“Kensuke-san, your work. Misaki-san, your child. — The body leaves that carrying in its shape.”

Kensuke looked at Misaki. Misaki looked at Kensuke. The two in the luminous outline stood side by side, facing the same direction.

Turn Your Face to the Sky

“Seri — I’ll read.”

Coh’s voice.

The numbers of Kensuke’s outline in the air burst at once into particles. Neck, shoulder, chest, waist, hip — every figure broke into light, swirled, gathered into a thread, and became letters.

Your neck has had its head pulled toward a screen for a quarter-century. Look at the sky, once in a while.

Kensuke stared at the words. Mouth slightly open.

“Sky, huh.”

He said it, isolated.

“I don’t look at the sky. Out the door in the morning, into the subway. At the office, all day, screen. Home again, subway. At night, at home, more screen. There’s no gap where the sky fits in.”

”…None at all.”

“None. I noticed — I haven’t looked, in years.”

Kensuke looked up at the ceiling. The concrete ceiling of the basement. Not the sky. But the motion of looking up lengthened the neck a little.

”—— Easier. A little.”

“That is the motion of lengthening the neck. The trapezius eases a shade. Several times a day. Ceiling or sky, either is fine. Time to look up.”

Kensuke put a hand to his own neck.

“I wasn’t looking at my own body. Work, work. My wife said something, and only then did I touch my own neck and feel it — hard.”

“You were always putting yourself last.”

Misaki said it. In a voice that nearly cried.

“I kept getting measured, and I’m sorry. Himuro-san said medal, and I changed. So I wanted you, too, to look at your own body.”

Kensuke looked at his wife’s face. Then at the luminous outline. At his own forward neck.

“My body, huh. — Used it like a tool. No oil, until it broke.”

“It hasn’t broken. It’s tired, that’s all.”

“I see.”

Kensuke let his shoulders down a shade. The shoulders of the luminous outline seemed, too, to drop a little.

Promise

The measuring ended. The luminous outline became particles and dissolved. At the last, the letters of the insight brightened once, star-like, and went out.

The silence of the basement returned.

Kensuke stepped down from the circle. And rotated his neck. A crack again. But the face was a shade brighter than when he had come.

“Himuro-san, thank you. I looked at my neck seriously, for the first time.”

“No. Your body spoke, that’s all.”

“The sky, huh. From tomorrow, once an hour, I’ll stand up. Open a window, look outside. I don’t know if the sky will be visible. But — up.”

Misaki laughed a little.

“You’ll forget.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll set a phone alarm. Once an hour. — And you watch your shoulders, too. Switch arms when you pick up the baby.”

“I know.”

Misaki caught Kensuke’s arm. Kensuke drew her shoulder in. Their shadows overlapped.

I watched them.

One family’s body story. Bearing different loads, wearing different habits, but facing the same direction. A married couple’s outlines resonating. That was a story you could not read from one body alone.

“Coh.”

I called inside my head.

“Mm.”

“It was my first time, putting a married couple side by side. There are things you can’t see from one body alone.”

“Family. Even the bodies of family not bound by blood, if they live together, grow alike. Breathing the same air, carrying the same things, facing the same way. — The body is a mirror of environment.”

“Mirror, huh.”

“One outline is one story. But put two outlines side by side, and another story surfaces — the story of the relation. Seri, remember that.”

I nodded.

Up the stairs, the sound of the two pairs of footsteps overlapped. Kensuke’s a tone lower. Misaki’s a tone higher. But the rhythm was in time.

“From tomorrow. Once an hour, right.”

“Yes, yes.”

Misaki’s laugh came down from the top of the stairs.

I was left below. On the circle — an empty place. But there, certainly, the resonance of two body stories echoed together. Like a fragment of pale blue light.

The Contura screen brightened faintly. And another small line surfaced.

Next guidance: there is a technique to read an outline in an instant.

In an instant.

I stared at the line. To read a person’s outline in an instant. In what scene would that be needed?

Outside, the sunny day in the lull of the rainy season had begun to slant. The Aoyama sky was staining orange. Had Kensuke looked at the sky today, I wondered.

I slipped Contura back into my pocket. The cold metal against my belly. It had grown warm.

—