Chapter 29. The Choice of the Outline

Five days had passed since Kurosawa’s complaint.

The criticism of Veil was still moving, like a wave. Voices online ran hot. The industry papers laid out their articles. Sono said the reservation slots at Mirage Omotesandō were beginning to show gaps. But the main body had not shaken. Rui Takatsuji remained silent. That silence did not read as surrender.

It was that Rui who came to Life Compass.

After closing, a little past nine at night. Sono had already gone home. Kurosawa should still have been in the office, but on the lesson floor there was only me. As I was rolling the last mat, the automatic door opened.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed —”

I knew before I turned. The cold, sharpened quality of the air. Behind the silver-rimmed glasses, a thin light.

“I have business.”

Rui Takatsuji stood there.

To come, after hours, alone, into the stronghold of the enemy — was it recklessness, or arrogance, or desperation? Her face kept its usual coldness. But beneath the smart-glasses I could see a faint shadow beneath her eyes. The line of her cheek was sharper than before.

”…What business.”

“To talk. A deal.”

I looked at her, rag still in hand. There was no air of retreat. Nor of attack. She only stood there.

II

We went into the staff room. I did not pour tea. Rui did not sit.

“I’ll say it plainly.”

Rui kept one hand on the back of the folding chair, and looked at me.

“The standoff is pointless. For both of us.”

”…Pointless.”

“Your Contura. That analysis engine. What you call the story-reading. Share it.”

My heart stopped for a beat.

“If you put it on Veil’s infrastructure —” Rui’s voice was hard and clear. She cut each word as if carving it into a plate of glass. ” — you could add the value of story to number. What you spin by a single pair of hands — you could deliver into millions of hands. Across the country. No — across the world.”

Rui cut the sentence, once.

“You could save the people who suffer over their bodies.”

Save.

The word dropped into the air of the room.

I was silent. The weight of save was heavy. Misaki’s face came to me. Rin’s. Shiori’s. The people whose stories I had read, one by one, and returned. If that could be done at the scale of a million —

“Veil’s full-body scan already holds four hundred and seventy thousand entries of data,” Rui went on. “Run your story-reading logic over that data. One scan, and a story returns to every one of them. Efficiency. Scale. A righteous cause. — These are not things you can deny.”

It sounded plausible. Too plausible.

The logic held. Rui, who had believed that numbers save, had now grown wings of story. Scale. Efficiency. The salvation of more people. Was that not good? If I, alone, could save a few, and this could save many — was that not the right thing?

I knew my own speed. One client took an hour, or two. To listen, to measure, to read, to return. In that time, the people who could not come to me — there were mountains of them. People crying in front of mirrors. People trembling on scales. People dying, nameless, hating their own bodies.

If what Rui said was true — if a story could be returned to those four hundred and seventy thousand — it would reach places I could not reach in a lifetime. The pull was strong. Too strong.

At the floor of my chest, something shook.

III

“Seri.”

A voice. Not from the phone. From behind my temples. Coh.

“Be careful.”

Coh was, unusually, sharp.

“Seri, be careful. A story belongs to one. Make it the property of all, and it stops being a story. It becomes data.”

”…Data.”

“There is such a thing as the violence of scale. Words born to attend a single body — pour them over a million bodies, and what happens? They are averaged. Levelled. They become safe sentences that fit anyone. — That is no longer a story. It is statistics.”

I bit my lip. I knew it. In my head. But I had also understood Rui’s point. The pull of save had been too strong.

Coh let a moment pass, and went on.

“And, Seri. Remember the Laws. The story you read belongs to the person. To attach a story to a million pieces of data — is that to take on a million stories yourself? Or is it to let Veil’s server take them on? To make a machine tell a story?”

“That’s —”

“A story lives only in honesty. Honesty is preserved only in the time of a single human being. To think you can separate it from anyone, from anywhere — that is the trap.”

I looked at Rui. Rui could not hear Coh’s voice. But she must have read the change in my expression. She narrowed her eyes, slightly.

“You’re hesitating.”

”…I am hesitating.”

“Good. To hesitate is proof that you understand. You feel, too, that the standoff is meaningless.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean.”

I searched for the words. They did not come. The ethics of scale, and the ethics of the one. Efficiency, and honesty. The two pulled against each other inside me. Both were right. Both spoke of good. But they could not both be held.

IV

Just then, the automatic door chimed.

” — We’re closed.”

A low, flat voice. Short black hair, uncovered by a hood. A black hoodie, jeans.

Kanade Kuze stood there.

My heart jumped. Since that night. The boy who had left the words a Reader pays a price and dissolved into the dark. Half a year. But he did not seem to have grown. The same tired, all-seeing eyes, for his age. A focus that would not settle. An empty presence.

”…Kuze-kun.”

“Yo.”

He lifted a hand lightly and came into the room. He looked at Rui, and his eyebrows moved, a fraction.

“Rui Takatsuji. Of Veil.”

“And you are —” Rui shifted, slightly, on guard.

“Kanade Kuze. Just a programmer.”

A lie, I thought. But I did not press it. Kanade slid, naturally, between Rui and me. As if he had appeared in order to.

“Neesan.” He turned to me. “A moment?”

”…Please.”

“Neesan — Contura was —” Kanade said it in a flat voice. ” — made to attend to a single body. Not to process a million.”

I held my breath.

“Choose,” Kanade said. “What it is for.”

“Choose, what —”

“A tool has a purpose. Scissors exist to cut paper. A knife exists to break down a thing. Used outside its purpose, a tool cannot remain a tool. The blade dulls. Or it breaks. — Do you want to see Contura’s blade go dull?”

“Dull.”

“Averaged,” he said. “Turned on a million bodies, Contura will produce only safe sentences that fit anyone. No one will be wounded. But no one will be reached. That is not a story. It is the decoration of data.”

Kanade turned, there, to Rui.

” Takatsuji-san. What you are describing is not sharing Contura. It is killing Contura, and making use of the body.”

Rui’s face went rigid. For the first time, she wavered.

”…What is it you know.”

“What Contura was made for.” Kanade said it evenly. “A little.”

V

Silence fell.

I stood between the two of them. Behind the silver rims, Rui’s eyes were fixed on Kanade. Kanade received that look full-on. The eyes that would not focus were, only tonight, clear.

“Kuze-kun.” I squeezed the words out. “Did you make Contura?”

“Not me.” Kanade shook his head. “But I know the one who did. What that app was written for — the answer to that, I’ll tell you when Neesan has gotten a little stronger. I promise.”

“Always that.”

“To one who cannot wait, I cannot speak. A Reader needs the strength to wait.”

So saying, Kanade smiled, a little. A lonely smile. The same as that night.

“Only — a hint.” He looked at me. “I believe Contura was written to be made the property of all. But — I read the property of all differently than Takatsuji-san.”

“Differently.”

“It is not a matter of growing the number. It is a matter of being open to anyone. Open to each person, one at a time. That is not a question of scale. It is a question of honesty.”

“H honesty.” Rui said it low. “How many do you save with honesty? Honesty is not speed. It is not scale. In the name of good will, you are choosing to let them die.”

“I’m not letting them die.” Kanade returned it quietly. “It is effort. To refuse to skimp on effort. It may be slow. But where it reaches, it is real.”

Kanade’s words overlapped with Coh’s. A story belongs to one. Made the property of all, it becomes data. But — open to all. One at a time, it reaches.

VI

” — Pretty words.”

Rui said it. Her voice had gone low.

“One at a time. Honesty. The individual. Pretty, pretty words. But —” Rui gripped the back of the folding chair, hard. ” — millions of people hate their bodies every day. They’re afraid of the mirror. They’re accused by number. How many does your one at a time save? In ten years, a thousand? While you do that, how many break?”

”…”

“I choose efficiency. I choose the many. What you call sentiment, I call responsibility.”

Rui’s voice was shaking. No — not shaking. It was anger. Or it was fear.

“Takatsuji-san.”

” — What.”

“Have you ever measured your own body?”

Rui froze.

I was watching. That night — the outline Coh had shown me in secret. Rui’s freshness. Faded, precarious. The body collapsing behind the perfect numbers. I knew it.

”…You can measure any number of other people’s bodies,” I said, choosing each word, ” — but if you have never once read your own, then it isn’t story-reading. It’s only measurement.”

” — Be quiet.”

“Takatsuji-san. What story is your body telling, right now?”

Rui’s hand came off the folding chair. It shook. Behind the smart-glasses, her eyes flashed, for the first time, with a clear light. It was not anger. It was the face of one who has been seen through.

”…My body.” Rui killed her voice to say it. “Is perfect. Proven by number.”

“Numbers lie.”

It was Kurosawa’s words. The body does not lie. Numbers lie.

Rui stood where she was. A crack opened in the mask of cold. Beyond it — fatigue, desperation, the obsession of one who could not stop believing.

She, too, believed. That numbers save people. That if the many could be saved, the collapse of one was only a price.

It was a justice. Distorted, but a justice.

VII

Rui left without another word.

The automatic door opened, and closed. Into the night of Aoyama, the silver-rimmed light disappeared.

Kanade was still there. He leaned against the wall, looking at the door Rui had gone out through.

”…She isn’t lying.” He said it as if to himself. “She believes. That numbers save. That as she was saved, so others can be saved.”

“I know.”

“If you know, then you understand. To cut down a person who believes, with logic, is hard.”

”…I know.”

I leaned against the lockers. My legs were heavy. I was shaking. The ethics of scale and the ethics of the one. Efficiency and honesty. I could not say, fully, that what Rui said was wrong. The pull of save was still in my chest.

“Kuze-kun.”

“Mm.”

“What is Contura — for?”

Kanade let a moment pass.

“I can’t say, yet. But — Neesan will notice, soon, on her own.”

“On my own.”

“A story is something you read yourself. Not something you have read for you. What Contura is for — that answer is one you’ll arrive at on your own feet.”

So saying, Kanade moved toward the automatic door, hood down.

“I’ll see you.”

“Wait —”

“I won’t.”

The same words as that night. The door opened, and closed. The boy dissolved, again, into the night.

VIII

I was alone.

The fluorescent light of the staff room shone white. Two folding chairs sat empty. Where Rui had been about to sit, it seemed to me the air was still cold.

“Seri.”

Coh’s voice came. Gentle.

“You’re wavering.”

”…I am.”

“Good. To waver is to feel the weight of both. A person who feels only one side is dangerous.”

“Coh. What do I do.”

“The answer is in you. I can’t hand it to you. — But there is one thing I can say.”

“What.”

“Before you decide, measure yourself.”

I pressed Coh’s words into my chest.

“Check the freshness of your own story. Before you read another’s body, read your own. That is the first Law of the Reader.”

Freshness.

I tried to remember when I had last measured myself. Lately my head had been full of clients. The contest with Rui. The harm to Shiori. Kurosawa’s complaint. In all of that, I had neglected to look at my own body.

A story has freshness. Left alone, it grows old. You must not put yesterday’s self in place of today’s.

”…Understood.”

I took the phone in my hand. Contura’s old phone. The screen was faintly warm. The presence of Coh.

“To the Circle. The underground one.”

“Mm.”

I left the staff room. Down the corridor. Down the stairs to the underground. The Circle — the measuring room beneath Life Compass. The place where the body of light rises.

I pushed open the iron door.

IX

In the Circle, I stood.

A dark room. At the centre, a circular platform marked with a white line. On it, I stood.

“I’ll measure,” Coh said.

A pale blue light filled the room. Particles danced around me. Rings of light circled the body — shoulder, chest, waist, hip, thigh. Each part, carefully, as if tracing it.

Numbers floated.

Shoulder breadth 42 Chest 85 Waist 73 Hip 91

It had changed. Only slightly. It was not the self of half a year ago. The shoulders had grown, a little, broader. The result of consciously drawing down the shoulders I had once hunched — it was here, in the number. The mark of the training I had kept up, to build a core — it lay behind the figures.

And then, the luminous outline rose.

The shape of my body. The outline, as it was.

“Will you read.”

”…Read it.”

Coh let a moment pass. And read.

Your body has, for a long time, put aside its own story to listen to the stories of others. But now — your outline has regained, a little, its light.

Freshness.

The story of myself, which had grown old, had now — by measuring it again — taken back its colour. Freshness is a thing you preserve yourself. It is not measured by another. It is a thing you return to, regularly, with your own hands. Left alone, it fades; rewritten, it shines again. That is the life of the body’s story.

I looked at my own outline. The body of light wavered. It was not perfect. There were distortions in it. The breadth of shoulder was still far behind Sono’s. The cinch of the waist was shallow. But it was there. My body was there. Half a year on, the core ran, a little, truer.

— Rui’s words grazed my head. Save millions of people.

— Coh’s words returned. A story belongs to one.

— Kanade’s words closed it. Open to each person.

Scale or the one. Efficiency or honesty.

I had not yet reached an answer. But I understood one thing.

To hold the stories of others without reading the story of oneself — that, I had no right to. One who cannot keep her own freshness cannot be entrusted with the freshness of a million.

So — first, oneself.

In the Circle, I closed my eyes. The luminous outline wavered behind the lids.

Tomorrow, I will answer Rui. The answer has not come yet. But having listened, properly, to what this body tells — I will decide.

—

(Continued in Chapter 30. The Chosen Path)