Chapter 30. The Chosen Path

On a morning in early July, I stood alone in the Circle beneath Life Compass.

Only the blue-white light of the emergency lamp crept along the groove of the circle in the floor. In this room I had read so many bodies. Misaki’s body, which had carried life. Ōyama’s shoulders, which had borne the roar of thirty thousand. Shiori’s thinness, which had swallowed blades. Ren’s outline, straining to catch up to itself. But this morning, no one was here. Only me, and my body.

“Seri.”

Coh’s voice resounded behind my temples. Not from the screen. The inner voice, audible only when I had sunk deep.

“Will you measure.”

“I will.”

“Yourself.”

“Myself.”

From the pocket of my polo I took out Contura. The old phone my grandmother had left. Its weight, this morning, was more certain than usual.

Last night, Rui Takatsuji had said: Share Contura, and you will save millions of bodies. Kanade Kuze had said: Contura was made to attend to one body, not to process a million. The two words crossed in my chest, light and shadow.

I did not know which was right. But I could not choose without knowing. So I would measure myself. Whether my own outline was still my own. Whether my own story was still alive. I would be sure of that, and then I would choose.

“Coh. Please.”

” — Starting.”

Pale blue particles seeped from the screen and dissolved into the air.

I. One’s Own Outline

The particles traced the surface of my body like water.

Shoulder. Collarbone. Chest. Waist. Hip. Thigh. The light drew rings around me. Neck, upper arm, forearm, knee, ankle. Ring after ring, the numbers rose.

Shoulder breadth 41 Chest 84 Waist 72 Hip 90

The same numbers as that night in March. Then, looking at them, I had been dizzy. Too accurate — I felt stripped. But this morning, no dizziness came. The numbers were only numbers, there. The present, exact measurements of my body. No more, no less.

In the air, the luminous outline rose. A pale blue solid in the shape of my body.

— I looked at the freshness.

Three months since the first measuring in March. In that time, had I kept looking at my own body? Had I not, in the absorption of reading others, left my own unattended? The outline gave the answer.

The outline had not faded.

The light was clear. No cloudiness in the pale blue. No cracks ran through the outline. The particles pulsed along it, living. It was altogether different from the yellowed, withered outline that had appeared on Rui’s body.

“Freshness is preserved,” Coh said quietly. “You haven’t only been reading the bodies of others. You’ve been listening to the voice of your own. That is why the outline is alive.”

I looked at my own outline in the air. The shoulders broad, the cinch of the waist shallow, the line from waist to hip curving gently. The shape was unchanged from that night in March. But something was different. As if, inside the same shape, a different person lived.

“I’ll read,” Coh said.

Letters rose above the outline.

Your shoulders are no longer drawn in. The body stands here, so that you may choose.

My breath stopped.

That night in March, Contura had said: Your shoulders have stopped, drawn in a little, so as not to blame anyone. I had wept at those words. Because what I had hidden had been seen through.

But now, Contura returned a different word. No longer drawn in. Standing, in order to choose.

It was growth. Not the me of three months ago. I had read bodies, resonated with pain, struggled with ethics, exhausted myself, and still kept standing on the side of the body. That accumulation had opened my shoulders, a little.

I reached my hand toward my own outline. Particles of light touched my fingertips and spilled. They were warm.

”…Thank you.”

Who I said it to — Coh, my body, or my grandmother. Perhaps all of them.

My own story was still my own. Not faded. Not stolen from me. I had made sure of it. Then — I could choose.

II. Before Rui

Before noon, I was on Omotesandō. The top floor of Veil. The glass room.

Rui sat at her desk. Behind the silver-rimmed glasses, the eyes were as cold as yesterday. But beneath that cold, I had seen it — the afterimage of the faded outline. The body weeping beneath the armor.

“Sit.”

I did not sit in the offered chair. I stood, and said:

“Takatsuji-san. There is something I wish to say.”

“Speak.”

“Yesterday — you said that sharing Contura would save millions of bodies —”

“I did.” Rui cut me off. “Your power, gathered in one place, would reach the millions of bodies that the sun does not touch. Do you mean to shut it up in a little studio in Aoyama? Is that good will? Or is it monopoly?”

”…”

“If the rule of number is evil, then open your story-reading to all. That is the logical consequence.”

Rui’s words were sharp. And right. At least, as logic. To grow scale is to widen reach. Efficiency rises. That was not a lie.

But —

I recalled the sensation of that morning, measuring my own body. The warmth of having made sure my outline was my own. How was I to pass that to a million people?

“Takatsuji-san.”

“What.”

“Let me ask one thing. You say you can save millions of bodies. But — can you read the story of each one of those bodies, one by one?”

Rui’s eyes narrowed.

“There is no need. Quantify. Pattern. Systematise. That saves.”

“A system does not read stories.”

“Stories are unnecessary. With accurate numbers and a proper course of improvement —”

” — Shiori-san was broken that way.”

Silence fell. The noon light of Omotesandō lay white across the glass room.

Rui’s lip trembled, faintly. Shiori’s name was the thinnest part of her armor.

”…That is an exception.”

“It is not an exception.” I lowered my voice. “It is where the judging of people by number arrives. Takatsuji-san. You say you will save millions. But of those millions — how many will break, like Shiori-san?”

Rui did not answer.

III. The Chosen Path

I drew a breath. And I spoke the words that had already settled inside me.

“A story belongs to one person.”

Rui raised her face.

“It cannot be made the property of all.”

”…”

“But — one at a time, it reaches.”

I laid a hand on my own chest. Remembering the warmth of the outline I had measured that morning.

“Kuze-san told me — Contura was made to attend to a single body. I believe it. There is no magic that saves millions at once. There is only sitting before a single body, and listening, properly, to what it speaks. And then repeating that, one, and one, and one. It is plain, and slow, and inefficient. But — it is the only road that delivers the story without breaking it.”

“Inefficient.” Rui said it low.

“Yes. Inefficient.”

“Millions are waiting. Discard efficiency, and they go unsaved.”

“To try to save millions at once is to break someone, always. As Shiori-san broke.”

I drew one breath more.

“Takatsuji-san. What is your body crying out, right now?”

Rui’s eyes wavered.

”…My body is perfectly managed.”

“The numbers are. But the story has withered. I saw it, with my own eyes.”

” —”

“You haven’t even listened to the story of your own body. And yet you say a system can save the stories of millions?”

A long silence fell.

Rui stood. The chair rang. Behind the smart-glasses, I could see her fighting to hold something down — anger, or pain, or both.

“Seri Himuro.” Rui said it, one character at a time, as if testing each. “You are a fool. You abandon the millions and cling to the one. That is not good will. It is only narrowness.”

“Perhaps.”

” — I do not grant it. I do not grant your choice.”

Rui turned on her heel. She walked toward the glass door. Her back was straight. The armor still fitted.

But — her step stopped, for an instant, at the door. She did not turn. Only stopped. Three seconds. Then she pushed the door, and went out.

In those three seconds, I saw it. Rui’s hand had pressed, unconsciously, against her left flank — the place Coh had read, that night of the live measuring, as the body beneath the armor weeping.

A seed had fallen. In those three seconds.

IV. The Name of Reader

I was alone in the glass room. The noon light of Omotesandō stretched white across the floor.

“Seri.”

Coh’s voice came from behind my temples.

“I will not say your choice was right.”

”…You won’t?”

“Whether it was right, no one can know. The road that saved millions might have been right. You may have been wrong. The future decides that.”

“Then why —”

“But you chose for yourself. Not efficiency, not scale — the road you believe in. That is worthy of the name of Reader.”

I pressed Coh’s words into my chest. Worthy of the name of Reader.

“Coh. I haven’t managed anything yet. I don’t even know if I saved Shiori-san. Or if I stopped Rui —”

“You didn’t stop her. She has not pulled back. She only left. But — don’t forget those three seconds.”

“Those three seconds.”

“The three seconds her hand touched her own body. That was something number could not absorb. It means a single thread of story reached her.”

I looked at the door Rui had gone through. Beyond the glass, the zelkova of Omotesandō stirred in the wind.

The battle of Part III was not over. Veil stood intact. Rui had not withdrawn. The air of the society was beginning to change, but that was not a victory. Only the shape of the fight had changed.

But I knew my own standing place, for the first time, clearly.

To stand on the side of the body. To return stories, not steal them. To be honest, one at a time. Not to yield to the lure of efficiency and scale.

It was what Kurosawa had taught me. What Sono had shown with her back. What my grandmother had left me.

V. The Question Left

It was night when I got back. One room of six mats in Higashi-Nakano. Outside the window, the Chūō Line passed.

I set Contura on the desk. The light of the screen wavered.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“You said I was worthy of the name of Reader. But — to tell the truth, I’m full of things I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand.”

I counted on my fingers.

“What Contura is, to begin with. I know it isn’t an ordinary app. But what is it, really? Why did Grandma leave it? Why to me? Who is Kanade Kuze? He knows far more about Contura than I do.”

” — Mm.”

“And — those words. A Reader pays a price. What is that? If I go on reading people’s stories, does something — happen?”

Coh fell silent. A long silence. The light of the screen wavered once.

“Seri. I can’t answer that. Not now.”

“Why.”

“It isn’t time. But — there is a place to look for the answer.”

“A place?”

A knock came. From outside the door.

VI. The Kagurazaka Underground

When I opened the door, Kanade Kuze stood there.

Nineteen. Slender. The boy with the hood pulled deep, the mysterious boy. The last time I had seen him was yesterday, in front of the studio — when he left the words, made for one body, not a million.

” — Kuze-kun.”

“Neesan. A moment?”

I let him into the room. He sat on the chair. He lowered the hood. The face that appeared was, for his age, terribly composed. Eyes that harboured some old shadow.

“I heard you refused Takatsuji Rui’s deal.”

“How.”

“Contura told me.”

I looked at the phone on the desk. The light of the screen pulsed, gently. As if nodding.

“Neesan.” Kanade looked me straight in the eye. “You chose the right road. Contura was made to attend to a single body. Not to process a million through a system. You saw that, yourself.”

“Saw it — or, I was only afraid. I couldn’t believe I could carry the stories of millions.”

“That is enough. Fear is the other face of honesty.”

Kanade stood. And looked out the window. Night in Higashi-Nakano. The Chūō Line passing as a band of light.

“Neesan. I came to tell you one more thing.”

“What is it.”

“You’ve noticed, haven’t you. That Contura is no ordinary app. That your grandmother was no ordinary grandmother. That I am no ordinary programmer.”

”…Yes.”

“When you want to know the truth —”

Kanade turned. His eyes went deep, and shone.

” — go to the Kagurazaka underground.”

“Kagurazaka —”

“The basement of Himuro-ya. There is a place your grandmother kept hidden, all this time. The answer is there.”

“But — what’s there —”

“Your grandmother is waiting.”

“Grandmother is waiting? But Grandma —”

“Died half a year ago. Yes. But she was someone who could leave a story behind, even without leaving a body.”

Kanade moved toward the door. And, without turning:

“A Reader pays a price. That isn’t a lie. But once you know the price, it is no longer frightening. Not knowing is far more frightening.”

“Kuze-kun —”

“Let’s go, Neesan. The truth does not wait.”

The door closed. The footsteps receded.

I was left. With Contura’s light, and the ghost of my grandmother, and a new question.

VII

Late at night. I sat at the desk.

I looked at Contura’s screen. Contura. White letters. Beneath them — The body tells the story of you.

Grandma had left this. To me. Why to me. Why at this timing. Had she known this day would come? That I would fight Veil, face Rui, be forced to choose?

The Kagurazaka underground. In that shop, I had spent every weekend of my childhood. Grandma had sat in the back room, turning the pages of an old ledger. But I had never known there was anything below. Had she hidden it from me alone? Or had she been waiting for the time to show me?

“Coh.”

” — Mm.”

“Tell me. What’s in the Kagurazaka underground?”

Coh fell silent. And then said, quietly:

“You should see it with your own eyes.”

“My own eyes.”

“Yes. If I explain it in words, it becomes my story. Your grandmother’s story is one you must read yourself.”

I nodded. Understood.

Beyond the window, the eastern sky was paling. Mid-July. Summer was only beginning.

I stood. I slipped Contura into my pocket. The cold of the metal settled into my palm.

Yesterday, I chose. That a story belongs to one. That, one at a time, it reaches. From here I will live those words, and prove them. But before that — there is something I must know.

The origin of Contura. The intent of my grandmother. The price of the Reader. And the story of myself, still unseen.

All of it begins in the Kagurazaka underground.

The body tells the story of me.

Then — I will go, and read that story.

Toward that light, where my grandmother waits.

—

(Part IV. The Memory of Contura)