Chapter 27. Rui's Wound

I. Three in the Morning

Three in the morning. Rui Takatsuji was alone in the glass box on Omotesandō.

The top floor of Veil. Outside the window, the bare winter branches of the zelkova shattered the streetlamp light into blades. The street held no figure. Tokyo, at this hour alone, fell silent as if it had stopped breathing.

On the desk, a mug of black coffee had gone cold. Her fourth of the day. A film of oil lay on its surface. Today, Rui had taken in only this coffee, a single protein drink before dawn, a lunch of salad and steamed chicken — nothing more. Eleven hundred kilocalories in. Out: basal metabolism, plus steps, plus the surcharge of a running brain — fifteen hundred. The balance was, as ever, negative. On this balance the body ran. Since the autumn of her thirteenth year, Rui had been built on this ledger.

— In the last two weeks, several anomalies had appeared in her body.

Her last period had ended two months ago and had not returned. Her fingertips trembled, only in the deep of night. When she took two stairs at a time, a black mist grazed the edge of her vision. Her eyelashes came out, several at each cleansing. She had processed all of this as variation within the numerical range. Weight, appropriate. Body fat, ideal. At her physical three months prior, every item had been green. There was no abnormality in the numbers. None at all.

At the edge of the desk, two reports lay stacked.

The first concerned Shiori.

Shiori the model. The woman Rui had summoned as the subject of the live measuring. Rui had read out the scan numbers with cold precision — beauty score, somatic deviation, room for improvement. Shiori had collapsed directly after, and then, at the Omotesandō intersection, had fallen in unfamiliar heels. A sprained ankle. A split lip. The rumour had spread through the industry. Veil’s scan broke the model.

Rui had never once opened that report. There had been no need. The numbers had been accurate. The analysis had been without error. That Shiori collapsed was a matter of Shiori’s own body and mind, not of Rui’s numbers. So she had decided.

The second report concerned Sono Kiryū.

She had tried to recruit Sono into Veil. A high fee. Access to the latest equipment. The promise that, behind Veil’s signboard, Sono could boast of her muscle as she pleased. Sono had refused in a word. My muscle only shines in the place I come home to. Rui had not understood it. To refuse, on a non-numerical grounds, what had been offered in number — it was an absence of logic.

Both reports indicated, in their separate ways, that Rui’s precision was failing, somewhere, to reach people. Yet Rui meant to solve it by raising the precision. More precise. More rigorous. The mesh of numbers, finer still. It was all she had.

II. The Green Lamps

Three-thirty. Rui rose and entered the private scan booth at the back of the room.

Veil’s newest model. Forty seconds to scan the whole body, quantifying measurements by part, body composition, posture, muscular balance, the state of the skin. Every night, Rui measured herself with this. A bedtime rite. Tonight, without having gone to bed, she measured at the very edge of the next day.

The blue-white light of the booth licked over Rui from the crown of her head to her soles.

Numbers aligned on the screen.

Weight 50.8kg Body fat 17.9% Lean mass 41.7kg BMI 18.0 Muscle mass 38.2kg Basal metabolism 1184kcal

A month ago, the weight had been 1.5 kilograms higher. Body fat had fallen by 0.8 of a point. BMI had dropped below eighteen. Lean mass, too, had edged down. But — every value sat in the optimal range. Veil’s algorithm judged this ideal for an advertising vessel. Six green lamps, in a row.

Ideal. Rui traced the word with her lips alone. The word she used to summon back that cold relief — the relief of the night, at thirteen, when she had first measured her own body.

But tonight the word rang hollow.

She stepped out of the booth. The instant she set her foot forward, the black mist ran across the edge of her vision again. Unconsciously, she reached for a handrail. There was none. She leaned her shoulder to the wall. Three seconds. The mist withdrew.

This mist does not appear in the numbers.

Veil’s scan measured weight, body fat, muscle, bone density, skin elasticity, posture angles, range of motion, blood-flow velocity — everything that could be measured. But it could not measure this. The black mist grazing the edge of vision did not become a number. Nor the fingers trembling at midnight. Nor the period, severed for two months. Nor the lashes falling out. Each of these, taken singly, could be set in the vocabulary of medicine. But the something they formed when bundled — that, Veil’s numbers could not catch.

The numbers were not lying. But there was something the body was crying out — and the numbers did not yet tell it.

For the first time, Rui set the question on her tongue. At once, she swallowed it. A question is an error. An error disappears when the precision of measurement rises. It must disappear.

III. The Visitor from Aoyama

Nine in the morning. When Rui returned to her desk, Sakuma was standing there with a perplexed face.

“Takatsuji-san. There is — a person.”

“A person.”

“Seri Himuro.”

Rui’s hand stopped.

”…Show her in.”

Seri was shown into the glass room at the top of the building. She stood before Rui. In the breast pocket of her polo shirt, that old phone. Contura. Its outline showed faintly, cornered, through the cloth.

“Good morning, Takatsuji-san.”

Seri’s voice was modest. But her eyes were level.

“I’ll say it plainly. I want you to return Shiori’s data, and her story. They are hers. And —”

Seri let a breath pass.

” — I want Veil to stop judging people’s bodies by number alone.”

“Judging.” Rui lifted an eyebrow. “I am not judging. I am only measuring.”

“Measuring becomes judging. I believe that.”

“Your belief.”

Silence fell. Beyond the glass, the morning light of Omotesandō stretched white across the floor.

Rui watched Seri’s face. Watching, she noticed something. Seri was not staring back at Rui’s face. She was looking lower. The line of the neck. The collarbone. The arms. She was looking at Rui’s body.

”…What.”

“Takatsuji-san.” Seri’s voice wavered, slightly. “The colour of your face —”

“The colour of my face.”

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

Seri closed her mouth. But in her eyes there was an agate-hard worry. It was the eyes of someone who had once looked at her own body in a mirror. Rui pretended not to have seen it.

“Himuro-san.” Rui lowered her voice. “I have not yet judged whether your story-reading is real. It matched the numbers. It reached a person’s heart. I grant that. But whether it holds something beyond number — that has not been proven.”

Seri was silent.

“Can you prove it.” Rui went on. “Here, now. With your Contura — read my body.”

IV. The Faded Outline

Seri’s eyes went wide.

“Your body.”

“Yes. Your Law was to obtain permission before measuring. I give it. You may measure. I order it. If your story-reading holds something that beats number, prove it. On my body.”

Rui’s voice was cold. But at the bottom of that cold, Seri heard something else. Provocation and prayer, overlaid. The same note Seri herself had turned on her grandmother’s legacy, that first night — the desperation of one who wished to be certain.

Seri touched the phone in her pocket.

“Coh.”

”— Seri. Rui Takatsuji. Has permission been given.”

“The person herself has asked me to measure.”

”…Understood.”

Seri closed her eyes. Contura started. Pale blue particles seeped from her hand and dissolved into the air.

The particles traced the surface of Rui’s body — shoulder, collarbone, chest, waist, hip, thigh. Light drew rings around her. Numbers floated into the air.

Shoulder breadth 42 Chest 82 Waist 58 Hip 86

They matched the Veil scan. A dimension is a dimension. Contura, too, stands on the same bedrock of number. Rui nodded — so far, as expected.

But from here, it diverged.

The numbers burst. Particles of light swirled, gathered, drew themselves into lines — and an outline rose. A body of light shaped like Rui’s.

Only — it was not the body Rui saw in the mirror each morning.

The outline was thin. Faded. The light, which should have been pale blue, was yellowed somehow, clouded like old paper. Cracks ran through the outline here and there, and particles of light spilled from them. As if it were a single old book, left long unread.

“This —” Rui caught her breath.

Seri swallowed hard. Coh spoke, quietly.

“Freshness.”

“Freshness.” Rui repeated it.

“The story of the body has freshness. The moment of measuring, it is newest, the colour deepest. But time fades it. And it is not only a matter of days since the last reading.”

Coh’s voice dipped.

“Freshness is decided by whether someone — or the person herself — is honestly listening to what the body is telling. Measuring alone does not preserve freshness. To listen to what the body speaks. To receive it. That is what waters it.”

Coh looked up at Rui’s outline.

“Rui Takatsuji. Your body is measured every day. The numbers are current. But the story of the body has withered. You have never listened to what it tells. You have picked up the numbers and thrown away the story. That is why the outline is faded.”

V. Armor of Number

Rui stared at the outline in the air.

Her own outline — yellowed, cracked, withered. That it was the same thing as the balanced body in her mirror, she could not believe.

The numbers were perfect. Weight, body fat, BMI, muscle mass — all green lamps. Veil’s algorithm had judged it ideal. Beyond reproach, as an advertising vessel. The body she had held up to the world as the finished form of a body ruled by number.

And yet — the story had withered.

“I will read,” Coh said.

Letters rose above the outline.

Your body has stood for a long time, wearing numbers as armor. But the body beneath the armor is already weeping.

Rui’s knee nearly buckled.

— The words struck. Like number, cold and hard, as fact. But they struck in a place number had never reached. Behind the ribs. Beside the heart. The place where, on a night at thirteen, the number on the scale had given outline to the darkness at the floor of her chest. The place where she remembered relief.

”…Liar.”

Rui’s voice went hoarse.

“The numbers do not lie. My body is appropriate. Green. Ideal.”

“The numbers do not lie,” Coh returned quietly. “But the numbers have not gathered all that your body is telling. Not lying and telling the truth are not the same thing.”

Rui bit her lip.

She had known. The black mist of this morning’s booth. The trembling of her fingers at midnight. The severed period. The lashes falling out. The something they formed when bundled — the something Veil’s scan could not catch — this app had caught it. And returned it to her in the most painful word possible: story.

“I will not grant it.” Rui forced her voice cold. “This is sentiment. You are only projecting emotion onto number. My body is perfectly managed. It is not broken.”

“Not broken, is it.” Coh softened, slightly. “Then why is your freshness withered.”

There was no word to return.

VI. The Crack

Rui cut Contura off. The outline in the air collapsed without sound, particles of light, and was gone. The morning light returned white to the glass room.

Seri looked at Rui. She said nothing. Only, her eyes travelled once more over Rui’s neck, her collarbone, her arms. In them, the agate-hard worry remained.

“Himuro-san.”

“Yes.”

“Forget the reading just now. I do not grant it.”

”…Yes.”

Seri bowed. But on her shoulders something remained, half-spoken. She had been about to say it, and stopped. Instead, she said this.

“Takatsuji-san. If your body is crying out something — it is not the fault of the numbers. It is the fault of not having had ears to hear them. Someday — please, listen to it.”

Rui did not answer. Seri turned on her heel and left the glass room.

— Alone, Rui put her hands on the desk. Her arms were trembling.

Not the fault of the numbers. The numbers were perfect. Perfectly managed. She had always done so. Since that night at thirteen. Since the number had met her, given outline to the darkness, and saved her. She had gone on believing in number. She had to believe — or she would fall back into the dark. Into the borderless terror, the body going blurred. Into the summer of her twelfth year.

Number had kept Rui standing. As armor. As frame. As ground. To let it go, she would be the girl in the dark again.

But.

The outline that should have vanished remained at the back of her eyes. Yellowed, cracked, withered. The body beneath the armor, weeping. The self she had refused to look at.

Seri’s words echoed at the floor of her ear. Someday — please, listen to it.

Rui refused it. Still refused it. She tried to return to the armor of number. As always. To the cold, hard, unmoving outline of number.

But in the seam of the armor, a single crack had opened. It would not fit together as it had before.

Rui looked out the window. Morning on Omotesandō. People walking, untroubled, about their own bodies. She had thought them to be in the dark. Hand them numbers, and they would be saved.

But — the one who has been handed numbers longest, and is closest to the dark — who is that?

The question was born in her for the first time. She decided not to look at the answer.

The intercom on the desk sounded. Sakuma’s voice.

“Takatsuji-san. There is a Kurosawa, from Life Compass. He has brought a reporter from an industry paper.”

Rui’s hand stopped. Kurosawa. The owner of Life Compass. Seri’s employer.

The body does not lie, but numbers do — the man who stood in the industry and said so.

Rui did not yet know. That Kurosawa had moved. That the matter of Shiori, the matter of Sono, the matter of the stolen outline — all of it was joining into a single thread, about to stand before her.

Rui stood. A dizziness came. She put a hand to the wall. Not the fault of the numbers. The numbers are perfect.

The crack in the armor opened, a little wider.

—

(Continued in Chapter 28. Kurosawa’s Judgment)