Chapter 23. The Stolen Outline

Past the middle of October the light in Aoyama lost its summer strength. The leaves on the ginkgoes along the avenue had begun, quietly, to turn. But that day, inside the dry autumn air, I felt something colder beginning to mix in.

I. The Emptying Calendar

Tuesday afternoon. I was at the reception counter of Life Compass, facing next week’s appointment book.

For two weeks my slots had been emptying.

Tuesday at three. Wednesday at ten. Friday’s last session. Names that had been written in were vanishing, one after another, under a single phrase — circumstances have changed. When I asked Sono, her roster was untouched. Only my slots were opening.

“Maybe I’m imagining it.”

The words went nowhere, to no one. But in my pocket Contura grew faintly warm. It might have been a denial. It might have been a confirmation.

Just then my phone buzzed. A name I knew.

Mai Aso

The contemporary dancer I had measured in the Circle at the end of June. The owner of those legs — the legs I had read as a debt to the sky. The woman who was supposed to leap on the stage with those legs.

The message was short.

Himuro-san, it’s been a while. It’s Mai. Do you have time? There’s something I really need to talk about.

The full stop at the end. The hesitation in it. The Mai of June had been a crisper person — someone who rarely ended a sentence with a trailing dot. I wrote back at once.

Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be at the studio.

The reply came quickly.

Thank you. — I’m sorry.

That second phrase, the one that sounded like an apology — it needled me.

At two the next afternoon, Mai came into the studio.

Half a year earlier, when she had stood before the Circle, Mai had carried her weight low, her toes gripping the floor the way a dancer’s do. She’d had a voice still rough with the embers of passion. Eyes that went straight through you.

Today Mai was slightly different.

When the automatic door opened I mistook her, for an instant, for someone else. Her shoulders were forward. Her weight had fled to the right. Her toes were not gripping — they were sliding, aimless, across the threshold.

“Welcome back, Aso-san.”

”…Thank you for having me.”

Mai sat down on the chair at the counter. I poured barley tea and offered it. She wrapped both hands around the cup. The hands were trembling, faintly. As they had that day in June. But the trembling ran deeper now.

“You said there was something you wanted to discuss.”

“Yes.”

Mai looked at the cup. She watched the tea shiver inside it.

“Himuro-san. After that day, I danced. The stage. I went to increase my debt to the sky, just like I said.”

“I heard. From Sono. A great success, she said.”

”…Yes. But it was after that.”

Mai set the cup down. From her bag she took out her phone.

“Look at this, please.”

II. Mai’s Legs, Again

Mai turned the screen toward me.

It was a social-media ad. On autoplay, a video began.

In pale blue light, a woman was dancing. A contemporary dancer. She drove off her heel, extended the knee, discharged the thigh muscle in a single instant of explosion toward the sky. Slow motion. The layers of muscle in the leg undulated like waves.

Beneath the video, copy floated up.

Those legs are a debt to the sky.

Veil reads the story of your body.

Mirage Omotesandō. High-precision full-body scan.

I stopped breathing.

”——”

No sound came out.

Those words. A debt to the sky. That was the story I had read. In June, in the Circle. When Mai’s legs had stood up in Contura’s light and the numbers burst and the particles gathered into letters. That sentence.

Your legs have defied gravity to leap. Their thickness is a debt to the sky.

That had been Mai’s story. I had read it, and returned it to her. It was Mai’s. Mai’s alone.

And now it was running, in an advertisement, on a wave of blue light.

”…This.”

My voice was shaking. It sounded like someone else’s.

“Since when.”

“Last week. It came up in my feed. At first I thought I was imagining it — the words were only similar. But the dancer in the video, too. That angle of the leg. That way of leaping. I understood. These are my legs.”

Mai’s voice began to shake.

“So I looked into it. A company called Veil. A facility called Mirage Omotesandō. — Himuro-san. I went there.”

“Went.”

“After the August stage. Someone from Veil came to the green room. What a wonderful performance. Your dance moved us. If you like, would you accept a complimentary high-precision full-body scan?”

Mai gripped the cup again with both hands.

“They said complimentary. And — at the time, I was still anxious about my legs. I’d loved the phrase you read for me, a debt to the sky. But the wish to look thinner, that was still there. I thought, if I can see the condition of my legs more precisely —”

“So you went.”

“I went. To Mirage Omotesandō. The building with the blue glass. The scan was quick. I stood, and light ran around my body. A machine sound. When it was over, an analyst came out.”

Mai cut herself off. The silence was heavy.

“That person asked. You have wonderful muscle in your legs. Is there some feeling you attach to them? — I told her. I told her the phrase. That a trainer had read it for me. That it was the meaning of my thickness.”

III. The Stolen Story

Mai bowed her head.

“At the time I thought I was just talking. It was my own body, after all. I thought it was fine to say. But —”

Mai looked at the phone screen once more. In the ad, the dancer was still leaping. In the blue light.

“They turned my words into a product. Because I’d said them myself. But those were my precious words. The words you gave back to me.”

Mai’s eyes went wet. She did not cry, though. Dancers do not cry on stage. The habit had soaked into the body.

I looked at my own hands on my knees. They were cold.

The story I had read. The single sentence Contura had drawn out. It had been the truth spoken by Mai’s body. I had given it a voice and handed it to her. Mai had received it and made it hers. A debt to the sky. It was already Mai’s word.

And a corporation had scooped it up. Baiting her with a free scan. Approaching her warmly in a green room. Drawing it out of her in idle conversation. Turning it into ad copy.

Do not flaunt numbers before others. The story you read belongs to the one whose body spoke it.

The second and third Laws. Both had been trampled.

“Aso-san.”

“Yes.”

“This ad. How long has it been running.”

“About two weeks, it looks like. Nationally. A friend said it’s on a billboard at a station.”

Two weeks. The same moment my slots had begun to empty. It was not a coincidence. Veil was targeting my clients. Running a campaign on the stories I had read. And peeling people away from me.

I bit my lip.

”…I’m sorry.”

Mai raised her face.

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry, Aso-san. If the reason your story was hunted was that I read it, then that is my responsibility.”

Mai shook her head.

“That’s not true. You read it for me. I was saved by it. Those words became my strength. Responsibility — there’s no —”

“No,” I said. “The story a Reader reads remains partly in the Reader’s hands. Knowing it was yours, I failed to guard it. That is my failing.”

Mai went quiet. She looked at me. In her eyes a complicated colour moved — anger, and fear, and one more thing besides.

”…Those words.”

Mai spoke.

“They are mine, aren’t they.”

“Yes. They are yours.”

“Then what do I do. Can the ad be taken down. My legs, used without permission. My words, used without permission. — I am angry. But I don’t know what to do with it.”

Mai’s voice had begun to shake again. This time I couldn’t stop it.

“When you read me that day, I was happy. I thought I finally understood the meaning of my legs. A debt to the sky. Proof that I’d leapt. And now it’s in an ad, and it’s like I’m being laughed at. Like my legs have been turned into merchandise. — I hate it.”

Mai took a sip of the tea. Her hand was still trembling.

“And — I’m frightened. That scan. The data they took. Where is it now. Every dimension of my body. Somewhere it’s stored. Someone is looking at it. When I think that —”

”…I understand.”

“When I was measured, I pressed I consent on the screen. But I didn’t really understand what I was consenting to. It was free. They’d show me my legs. That was all.”

IV. Coh’s Warning

After Mai left, I sat at the reception counter, unable to move.

Sono looked in, concerned.

“Seri. You okay? You’ve got no colour.”

”…Yeah. Just thinking.”

Sono didn’t press further. She understood where the seams of a person were and did not pry at them.

I went down to the Circle. The dim, empty room. I took out Contura. Pale blue light bloomed on the screen.

“Coh.”

“I was listening.”

Coh’s voice resounded from behind my temples. The usual calm, slightly dry voice. But underneath it, today, there was something hard.

“Seri. Do you understand what has happened.”

“Veil stole the story of one of my clients. Mai Aso. They drew out her data with a free scan as bait. They’re using the insight I read in an advertisement.”

“That is correct.”

Coh paused a moment.

“Count the Laws.”

“The second. Do not flaunt numbers. They made it public. It was broken.”

“Next.”

“The third. The story you read belongs to the person. A corporation took Mai’s story for itself. Broken.”

“One more.”

I drew breath.

“The first. Obtain permission before measuring. Consent. Mai was lured by the word free. She accepted the scan without understanding what she was consenting to. Can that be called consent.”

“It cannot,” Coh said. “The consent to be measured. That is what was trampled. Seri. This is a violation of the Laws, and it is one you are meant to fight.”

“Fight.”

“A Reader is not only one who reads. A Reader protects what is read. That is the other half of the craft. Your grandmother was the same.”

“Grandma —”

“Sae was a Reader, and a guardian. She read the stories written in people’s bodies, and she watched over those stories, to see that they stayed in the right hands. That was what she did, for a long time.”

I looked at Contura’s screen. The pale blue light. The light my grandmother had entrusted to me.

“Coh. How does Veil know the story I read. I never told anyone. I read it only for Mai.”

“A story, once it becomes words, begins to move. The moment Mai spoke it aloud, the words were no longer Mai’s alone. Someone heard. That someone wrote them down. They became an advertisement. — The moment a Reader reads, the story is born into the world. That is why the Reader carries a responsibility.”

“Responsibility.”

“The responsibility to watch that the story is treated rightly. The responsibility to keep it from being stolen. That is the weight of the Laws.”

I made a fist. The nails bit into the palm.

”…I’m a trainer. I don’t have the power to fight a corporation. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have money. I’m just a new trainer at a little studio in Aoyama.”

“True.”

“Then how do I fight.”

Coh did not answer. A long silence. The dim air of the Circle settled on my shoulders.

V. Powerlessness and Core

That night I went back to my apartment in Higashi-Nakano.

Outside the window the Chūō Line slid past. The last train before home. I sat with my back against the wall. I was tired. The heavy tiredness that resonates from the marrow of the bones. The same fatigue as the night I read a person’s story for the first time.

I took out my phone and looked at Veil’s ad again. In the blue light the dancer leapt. The copy floated up.

Those legs are a debt to the sky.

Words I had read. Truth that Mai’s body had spoken. And now they were the product description for a scan.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“I became a Reader. Half a year ago, Grandma entrusted it to me. The power to read stories. But reading wasn’t enough. I couldn’t protect what I read. I let Mai’s story stay stolen.”

”…”

“I should have been stronger. Deciding to keep the Laws isn’t enough to keep them. You need power. The kind of power that can stand up to a corporation.”

“Seri.”

Coh’s voice was, unusually, soft.

“Power takes many forms. Don’t imagine that the only power which fights a corporation is law or money.”

“Then what.”

“Words.”

“Words.”

“You are a Reader. You read the stories written in people’s bodies. You translate those stories into the right words. Those words are stronger than numbers. Deeper than ad copy. They reach the floor of a person’s heart. That is the Reader’s power. And that power can be used to protect.”

“To protect —”

“The Reader’s power is not only for reading. It must also be used to guard. When a story has been stolen. When consent has been trampled. The Reader stands. That is what it means to keep the Laws.”

I looked at my own hands. A trainer’s hands. Hands that touch someone’s body every day. Hands that hold a tape. Hands that hold Contura.

Did these hands hold the power to face a corporation.

”…I’m frightened.”

“Mm.”

“Rui Takatsuji is the chief analyst of a corporation. Silver-rimmed smart-glasses. Cold eyes. She believes numbers save. When I met her on Omotesandō I understood. She is in earnest. She is trying to make Contura hers.”

“Yes.”

“How do I fight someone like that. I’m just —”

“Just a trainer.” Coh laughed a little. “Seri. Your grandmother was just the proprietress of an antique shop. And for a long while she was a Reader, and a guardian. A title does not protect people. Resolution does.”

Resolution.

The word dropped to the floor of my chest.

VI. The Vow to Return

The next morning I sent Mai a message.

Aso-san. I took in what you told me yesterday. I will promise you one thing. I will return your story to your hands. Give me time.

The reply came in the evening.

Please. I believe you.

Such a small exchange. But the weight of that I believe you — I received it in my open palm.

And I sent one more. Not to Mai this time. To the press contact at Veil. A short note.

To Rui Takatsuji. Seri Himuro, Life Compass. There is a matter I would like to discuss in person. Might you grant me some of your time.

The reply came the next morning. Brief, courteous. But beneath the brevity something cold and leisurely seeped through.

Seri Himuro. Your request is received. Tomorrow, three o’clock. At Mirage Omotesandō.

I read the reply, and set the phone down.

Outside the window the Chūō Line slid past. Morning light lay over Higashi-Nakano.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“Tomorrow I’m meeting Rui Takatsuji.”

“To Omotesandō.”

“I’m not going to meet her. I’m going to meet her, and speak.”

“Speak what.”

“Return the story. Mai’s legs’ story. The story I read. Return what was stolen.”

“You have no power, Seri.”

“I have words. I have the Laws you taught me. That the story read belongs to the person. That permission comes before measuring. That numbers are not to be flaunted. I will speak those Laws. To Rui Takatsuji. Whether it will be enough, I don’t know. But I cannot be silent.”

Coh was quiet for a moment. The dim light of the Circle traced the outline of my body as it moved.

“Seri. Listen. Rui Takatsuji may laugh at your words. Story may not reach someone who believes only in numbers. Even so.”

“Even so.”

“A Law is a Law. If it is trampled, you set it upright again. That is the Reader’s work. If you do not flee that work, I will be at your side. The light your grandmother left is your ally.”

I breathed out, long.

I was afraid. I remembered the cold of Rui Takatsuji’s eyes. The blue, blade-sharp light of that facility on Omotesandō that put bodies in numerical rank. A light unlike my own pale blue — keener, like an edge.

But then I remembered Mai’s trembling hand. The tears in Mai’s eyes when I had read a debt to the sky. Those tears had been real. That story had been Mai’s.

I would take it back. I thought of nothing else.

I laid out my clothes for the next day. The white polo shirt. The name badge. The trainer’s uniform. But tomorrow I was not going to the studio in Aoyama. I was going to the glass building on Omotesandō.

Into the breast pocket of the polo I slipped the old phone, the one that still held Contura. The cold of the metal. But it would be warm soon, warmed by the hand.

“I’m going,” I said.

To the empty room.

The phone grew faintly warm. As if in answer.

Outside, the morning sun slanted up the slope toward Jingūmae. The slope that leads to Omotesandō. I looked toward it.

Tomorrow, beyond that slope, I would meet Rui Takatsuji.

Return the story. Tomorrow I would take the first step toward that. The step of a mere trainer. But also the step of a Reader.

My shoulders were not drawn in. Half a year ago my grandmother’s light had taught me to let them down. Now I stood on those shoulders.

In my pocket Contura pulsed, faintly.

—