Chapter 21. The Cold Light at Omotesandō

I. Beyond the Keyaki

November. Omotesandō.

The rows of keyaki trees had stained gold. The afternoon sun leaked through the leaves and laid a dappled pattern on the flagstones of the slope. That light ought to have been warm. But my stride was heavy.

“Seri — are you really going.”

In the polo pocket, Coh’s voice vibrated faintly. Not from the screen. From behind my temples, the usual.

“I’m going.”

“Don’t strain. Only look. Don’t peep.”

“I know.”

I stopped halfway up the slope. Ahead, the glass-walled white building was visible.

Mirage Omotesandō.

The full-body AI beauty-scan facility run by Veil. The place Coh had shown me half a month ago. The place that turns the body completely into numbers, and ordinalises it.

There had been two triggers. One: Yoshie-san — the fifty-five-year-old executive I read in Part II — had said, on her way out, Himuro-san, do you know Mirage, on Omotesandō? A friend of mine was happy — her beauty score went up. Why not go and see?

The other was my own voice. Since Coh’s warning, a thing had been snagged in the bottom of my chest.

—— Know the opposite.

A place that uses the same measuring the body technology as Contura, but arrives at the opposite destination. If I did not see it with my own eyes, I could not summon the resolve to face the opposite pole.

The glass automatic door slid open, soundless.

II. The White Room

Inside, it was white.

Walls, floor, ceiling — a uniform white. The lighting was a flat, shadowless brightness. A cold, surgical light. The gold of the keyaki, separated by a single pane of glass, belonged to another world.

At the reception counter a young woman stood. A pristine, uniform white outfit. Her smile was adjusted. A high-approval, accurate smile.

“Welcome. To Mirage Omotesandō. Is this your first visit.”

“Yes. A look-round, you could say. I’m in the fitness line.”

“Certainly. Himuro-sama, isn’t it. First, an explanation.”

The receptionist worked a tablet. A large screen behind the counter lit up.

“This facility provides the latest AI full-body scan from Veil. Duration, approximately twelve minutes. We measure one hundred and twenty-eight regions — dimensions, body composition, muscle distribution, posture balance, subcutaneous fat thickness — and compute a comprehensive Beauty Score and Body Type Percentile.”

“Percentile.”

“Yes. A ranking against the national average for your age and sex. For example, a Beauty Score in the top five per cent earns Platinum certification.”

Something went cold in my chest. Rank. Certification. Platinum.

Coh’s voice, small, from the pocket.

“The second Law. Do not flaunt the numbers. This place is its inversion. A place that exists to flaunt numbers.”

”…Mm.”

I nodded. But I had not yet looked away. I had to know.

I was led to the inner scanning room.

III. One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Numbers

The scanning room was large. At its centre stood a white cylindrical scanning pod. Around it, twelve cameras and sensors were arrayed in a ring. A pale infrared light filled the inside of the pod.

Three users were present.

One, a woman in her early twenties. She had just stepped out of the pod and was clutching a tablet to her chest. The moment she saw the screen, her face lit up.

“Look! Score — eighty-seven! Up four from last week!”

Beside her, another woman leaned in.

“Eh, amazing. I’m still at seventy-two. My shoulder percentile came out low.”

“Gotta fix the shoulders. Concentrated massage around the collarbones?”

“Doing it, doing it. But —”

The conversation pricked my skin.

Shoulders. They were speaking of shoulders in percentiles. Before broad or narrow, there was a number. The number decided the worth.

I unconsciously touched my own shoulder. My shoulder, measured in Contura, had been read as drawn in so that no one would have to be blamed. There was a story. But here, that story vanished. It was reduced to a single point — a percentile.

Another user was a man, maybe mid-forties. He was staring at his result screen. On the screen, large:

Beauty Score: 64 Age percentile: 38%

The man did not move, his eyes on the screen. The colour had left his face. What the figure 38 per cent was saying to him, I understood. You are below sixty-two of a hundred people. The make of your body is inferior.

He slowly closed the screen.

And, without a word, walked toward the exit. His back was rounded. His shoulders drawn in. The way I once had.

“Coh.”

“Did you see.”

“I saw.”

“This is number-rule. Measure the body. Attach a score. Line them up by rank. People rejoice at the number, or are crushed. Nowhere — a story.”

I bit my lip.

Ōyama-san’s broad shoulder I had read as a medal that had carried the cheers of thirty thousand. But here, that shoulder would become only a percentile. Shiori-san’s glass-thin fragility I knew as the trace of swallowed blades. But here, it would be reduced to a line: low BMI.

The body had become a score. The story, stripped away.

—— Frightening.

The cold light that was the exact opposite of Contura’s pale blue. The same act, measuring the body, producing such a different result.

IV. The Perfect Outline

”—— Welcome to Mirage.”

A voice.

I turned. A woman was standing there.

Tall. A head taller than me. Slender, but not frail. The line from shoulder to waist was honed. Her proportions were perfect — a body near the golden ratio from any angle. The white of the uniform set it off.

Silver-rimmed smart-glasses. Cold eyes. She looked perhaps two years older than me.

“First visit, isn’t it. Himuro-sama.”

She knew my name. I had given it at reception. But the way she said it was a little too polite — or rather, it had a viscosity. A tone that knew and then spoke.

“Yes. Seri Himuro. I’m a trainer.”

“I know.”

The woman stepped closer. Beyond the smart-glasses, her eyes sized me up.

“Life Compass, in Aoyama. Body-care adviser. I’ve heard talk, lately.”

“Talk.”

“That there’s a trainer who reads the body’s story. Who draws out the hidden meaning from a client’s body, and puts it into words.”

My heart gave one bound. It’s come. The contact Coh had predicted.

“I am Rui Takatsuji (鷹司瑠衣). Chief Body Analyst at Veil.”

Takatsuji Rui.

She was there. The silver-rimmed-smart-glasses woman Coh had shown me on the screen half a month ago. The woman with the philosophy opposite to mine.

“Could I speak with you. A little time.”

”…Yes.”

I nodded. I could not run.

Takatsuji led me to a small meeting space behind the scanning room. A white table and two chairs. Through the window, the keyaki were visible. But the white light of this space held them at a distance.

Takatsuji sat. Her back was straight. Economy of motion.

“Himuro-sama. I’ll ask directly.”

She opened a tablet. Data was lined up on the screen. I did not look.

“This Story Reading you do — what is it.”

”…Story Reading.”

“Measuring a client’s body, drawing out from the numbers the story of that person’s life, and putting it into words. So I hear.”

“From whom.”

“Source, I cannot say. But it is reliable.”

Takatsuji’s voice was hard. No emotional wavering. A way of speaking that chose exact words and set them in exact order. Transparent, and cold, like glass.

“At Veil I lead the numerical modelling of the body. One hundred and twenty-eight regions. Composition, balance, all of it numerical, all optimised. That is, I believe, the only way to save the human body.”

“Save.”

“Yes.”

Takatsuji adjusted her smart-glasses a shade.

“The body cannot be saved except by numbers. Emotion is error.”

V. Emotion Is Error

The phrase dropped into the space.

It was cold. The exactness wore coldness like a cloak. I drew a breath, but the breath seemed to freeze deep in my lungs, heavy.

“Error, you say.”

“Yes. People carry too much emotion about their own bodies. Fat. Thin. Ugly. All of it subjective. Subjectivity produces error. Error misleads people. Therefore — numbers. Only precise numbers speak truth.”

“But numbers need context, I think.”

“Context.”

Takatsuji’s brow moved a fraction.

“Suppose there are two people with shoulder width of forty-one centimetres. One competed for years. The other has lived curled in. The number is the same — forty-one. But the story that shoulder tells is different. Beneath the number is a context. If we line up only numbers without reading that — we hurt people. That is what I believe.”

I spun the words, carefully. Without yielding.

Takatsuji looked at me for a moment. Then her mouth relaxed a shade. Less a smile than a signal of appraisal.

“An interesting person.”

“Interesting —”

“Your argument is a textbook case of numerophobia. You grant meaning to numbers that is too much. Numbers should be handled as numbers. Context is decoration applied afterward. Truth is in the numbers. Decoration is noise.”

“Noise.”

“Correct. Your Story Reading — it is, in the end, only layering the noise of emotion onto numbers. Wrapping them in kind words. But kindness does not change people. Numbers alone change them.”

I lost words.

I was afraid. Her words had force. Logic. A correctness. To measure the body. To produce accurate numbers. To give an objective assessment. A correctness difficult to deny.

But at the same time — cold. Her words were right but held no warmth. Saying change the body while never seeing the body as a living thing. Measuring people as one optimises a machine.

“Takatsuji-san.”

“Rui is fine.”

“Rui-san. Will you tell me one thing. The man just now. The one whose percentile came out at thirty-eight. What sort of face did he leave with.”

Takatsuji was quiet a moment.

”…He left.”

“Did you see his face.”

“I did not.”

“He had the screen face-down. His back rounded as he walked to the exit. That man, when he goes home today and looks in the mirror, will see thirty-eight per cent floating up. The number will become a curse. Is that — what you call salvation?”

Takatsuji’s eyes narrowed a shade. Beyond the smart-glasses, cold light wavered.

”—— A keen observation.”

She said only that. And stood.

“Himuro-sama. Thank you for your time today. I would very much like to see your Story Reading, with my own eyes. Should the occasion arise.”

“Occasion.”

“It will come.”

Takatsuji smiled. But the smile did not reach her eyes. A mouth-only, adjusted smile. The same species of smile as the receptionist’s. Accurate, and cold.

VI. The Gaze in the Back

I left Mirage Omotesandō.

The glass door closed. The gold light of the keyaki wrapped around me. But my back remained cold. Between the shoulderblades, a cold gaze seemed to be lodged.

I went a little down the slope and sat at the root of a keyaki. I took the phone from my pocket. The Contura screen lit faintly. Coh was there.

“Seri.”

“You were there.”

“Of course. How was it.”

I looked up at the sky. The city sky is milky, its blue shallow. But it was there.

“It frightened me. Coh. She is right. The logic holds. Measuring the body precisely, assessing it precisely — that is not wrong. But —”

“But.”

“Cold. Right, but cold. In that facility, I never once saw a person’s body look like a living thing. Only the object of measurement.”

Coh was quiet. Then changed register. Not the usual dry tilt. A more careful voice.

“Seri. She is dangerous.”

“Dangerous.”

“She judges by number. Wields exactness as a weapon. Overwhelms with logic. She will dismiss your Story Reading as sentiment. Emotion is error. Behind a claim like that — there is something.”

“Something.”

“She, too, may be wounded by something.”

The words stopped mine.

Rui Takatsuji. Silver-rimmed smart-glasses. Cold eyes. The lips that had said, The body cannot be saved except by numbers. The body of perfect balance. The body as advertisement.

I had seen, behind that perfection, something precarious. The balance was too clean. The exactness too hard. As if she were holding something down to maintain that body.

“Seri. Remember. Contura and Veil are the same technology — measuring the body. But the destinations are opposite. You give story to the body. She strips story from the body. The same blade can save or wound. She will deny the way you have chosen to wield it.”

“The blade I chose.”

“Yes. And she will, one day, try to take that blade from you. She will want Contura’s power. If we paint story onto the numbers, more people will move. Those words, I told you, are the sweet trap.”

“You did.”

“Seri — what will you do.”

I looked at the Contura screen. Pale blue light swaying. The light my grandmother left me. This light exists to return story to the body. Whoever tries to take it, I will not stop returning.

“I’ll return. The story. Whatever anyone says.”

”…I see.”

Coh was quiet a moment. Then spoke gently.

“But Seri — be careful. She is right. Right-ness is the most persuasive weapon. There will come a time when her rightness shakes you. Then remember. Numbers are the letters of story. Letters, losing context, become blades for the first time.”

I nodded.

I looked up at the keyaki. The leaves swayed in the wind. One left the branch and came down slowly, dancing more than falling. When it touched the ground, it closed its story there. And returned to the next season.

The body, too, ought to be so. Not returned to number, but returned to story.

I stood. I began to walk down the Omotesandō slope, toward Aoyama. I had to go back to Life Compass. Sono was there, and Kurosawa, and clients. My place was there.

VII. The Unseen Shadow

But even as I walked down, the cold gaze stayed lodged in my back.

I turned. The glass-walled white building was lit by the setting sun. In a third-floor window, a silhouette. The silver-rimmed glasses caught the sun and flashed.

Rui Takatsuji was standing there.

She was watching me. Precisely. Without error. As if measuring a number.

—— Numbers save.

The words seemed to ride the wind and arrive. Not at my ear. At the bottom of my heart.

I looked away. And walked. Fast, as if fleeing.

But I knew. She would come. Until she had seen my Story Reading with her own eyes. Until she had measured whether she could make Contura’s power her own.

The autumn wind kicked up the keyaki leaves. Gold particles scattered in mid-air. But the beauty of it, just now, looked a little cold.

The Omotesandō light ought to have been warm. But the light inside that white building alone was, somehow, cold.

The pale blue of Contura and the white of Mirage — I felt they would never mix.

I gripped Contura in my pocket. The cold metal feel. But it was soon warmed by the hand.

—— I will protect this light.

I walked. Toward Aoyama. Toward my place.

The gaze in my back did not lift.

—