Chapter 34. The Reader's Price

Three days had passed since I left the room of the codex.

What I had seen in the Kagurazaka underground — the ledgers my grandmother Sae had written, the lineage of the Outline Art, the reason she had given up being a Reader near the end — still lay heavy in my chest. My sleep was thin. In the mornings my body was leaden, as if I had been dreaming and could not remember it. Only the sense of a cold stone rolling at the floor of my chest remained.

Outside the window, the Chūō Line slid past. The sound came far, near, far, a wave pushing in and drawing out. I sat with my elbows on the table, staring at Contura’s screen. The screen was dark, showing nothing. But I felt Coh there. For three days, it had been so. He was waiting for me to speak.

“Coh.”

” — I’m here.”

The voice came from behind my temples. The usual voice. Only, a little heavier than usual.

I

“Grandma — you said that near the end she gave it up. Reading.”

I said it as if to confirm.

“I did.” Coh answered. “Strictly — she did not give it up. It would be nearer to say she became unable to read.”

“Unable to read.”

“Shall I tell you why. It concerns you too, Seri.”

I stared at the screen and nodded.

Coh let a moment pass. The silence was different from usual. Not a silence wry with irony. A silence of resolution.

“A Reader pays a price.”

II

“Price.”

I turned the word in my mouth. The word Kanade Kuze had spoken. A Reader pays a price. That time, in Chapter 10. I had taken it to mean power carries danger. But I had not yet known the real meaning.

“A Reader, Seri,” Coh said. “Reads the story of another’s body. Not once or twice. Continuing. Reading on. Touching many people’s, many stories.”

“Yes.”

“Before long, the Reader plunges into the stories of others. Becomes absorbed. That is not a bad thing. A Reader is, in the first place, just that — one who stands before what a person’s body speaks and receives it truly. But —”

Coh cut the sentence.

“In the midst of touching others’ stories, the Reader goes dull to their own.”

I held my breath.

“Your own pain grows hard to understand. You do not notice your own body has changed. You begin to mistake your own fatigue for another’s. Your own outline fades, little by little. That is the price.”

“Why —” I started. “Why does that happen. How does reading others come to mean losing yourself.”

“A Reader, Seri,” Coh said quietly, “when reading another’s body, sets his own outline, once, outside. He loosens the frame of his own story, temporarily, and passes the other’s story through that frame. Otherwise he cannot read it. The density of his own story would be in the way.”

”…Thinning one’s own story, to let the other in.”

“Yes. And, once the reading is done, the frame is set back. That is the proper way. Before and after reading, one returns to oneself. Returns, and draws one’s own outline anew. But many Readers stop returning. Because the stories of others are interesting. Because they ache. Because one wishes to save. The return is delayed. And for as long as one does not return, one’s own outline thins.”

“Fades.”

“A story has freshness. As you have told your clients. An old story fades. The Reader’s own story is the same. Only — in the case of the Reader, it is from touching so many others’ stories that one forgets to update one’s own. One does not read the new self. And so one’s own outline is left old, left thin, neglected. Freshness, lost.”

III

I was silent. I could not deny it.

In Part II, I had read many clients. Ōyama’s broad shoulders. Shiori’s glassy thinness. Kenta’s arched lower back. Ren’s outline that disagreed with itself. Yoshie’s fifty years of layered seasons. Kaede and Tsubaki, the same inheritance, different stories. Mai’s legs, that had leapt toward the sky. I found the story in each body, and returned it. That had been right. I still think so.

But — in all that time, I had not once measured my own body.

In Chapter 5, once, I measured myself. Received the insight — Your body has fought itself for a long time, as an enemy. You can stand down now. That was the only time. More than half a year had passed since. In the meantime, how many others had I read? How much had I neglected myself?

The fatigue in my legs. The stiffness in my shoulders. The weight in my lower back. The waves of appetite. The thinness of sleep. The sense of the heart fraying. I had known all of it. I had known, and yet I had not measured it. Had not read it. Every day I had kept my eyes on the bodies of my clients. Fretted over Shiori’s thinness, worried over Kenta’s back, watched over Rin’s changes, ached at Rui’s collapse — all that attention, poured out, to others. Not a drop turned on myself.

”…I have an idea.”

I said it, small.

“You would.” Coh’s voice returned, quietly. “Without noticing, you put your own story off. Empathising with others’ pain, you kept a lid on your own.”

IV

I stood before the washbasin.

I looked in the mirror. There, the usual me. But — this morning, I looked somehow thin. My outline seemed to run. The hollows under my eyes looked darker than before. The line of the cheek was drawn in, slightly. The shoulders were hunched. Around the collarbones, a tension had gathered, unworked.

That was my face. It had to be. But just now, it looked a little like someone else’s.

” — ”

What rose from the pit of my stomach was less fear than dizziness. The sense of one’s own body ceasing to be one’s own. The sense of one’s outline drawing away from oneself. I set a hand on the edge of the basin. The fingers were cold.

“Is this — the price.”

“For now, the light form of it.” Coh said. “But left alone, it progresses. Slowly, surely. Sae walked the same road.”

V

My grandmother came to mind.

Sae had been a Reader for a long time. In the back of the Kagurazaka antique shop, she went on reading the bodies of those who came. In her ledgers, the numbers and the records of reading for dozens, hundreds of people, remained. She returned stories. That must have been her pride.

But near the end — she stopped. She became unable to read, Coh said.

“Did Grandma lose the thread of her own story?”

“Less lost it than feared to look at it.” Coh said. “Feeling her outline thin as she read others on and on, she was afraid. She told me — the self in the mirror had begun to look like someone else. She said her own shoulders no longer felt like hers. So she stopped reading. Withdrew, entirely. And spent the rest of her life trying to take herself back.”

“Could she.”

Coh fell silent, a little.

“In part, yes. But not wholly. Once an outline has faded, it does not fully regain its freshness. Sae rued it.”

Rued it.

I remembered that my grandmother, near the end, had disliked mirrors. My mother had said it. Grandma lately won’t look in the mirror. I had put it down to age. To the wrinkles, the sagging, becoming disagreeable. But it had not been that. It was that the self in the mirror had stopped looking like herself. That grandmother who had laughed over her glasses and said Seri, you’ve grown again. That back that turned the pages of a ledger. She had been losing the thread of her own outline.

The trembling characters on the last page of the ledger.

I will not read any more. I cannot. Forgive me.

Who had those words been for? For me? Or for herself? Or for herself-as-Reader? Only now did I understand the weight of those words, truly.

“Seri,” Coh said. “This is one of the reasons Sae entrusted Contura to you. She did not want her granddaughter to repeat her error. So she gave me to you. I am one who watches that the Reader does not pay too high a price. The Compass — and, at once, the guardian.”

VI

I came back from the washbasin to the table. Contura’s screen bore a thin glow. The presence of Coh, deep in the screen.

“Then — what is a Reader to do. Only stop reading?”

Coh let a moment pass. Then said:

“No need to stop. Only — do not get the order wrong.”

“Order.”

“Before you read another, read yourself. Measure yourself. Keep your own story fresh. Continue that. A Reader is not a vessel that only gives out. A Reader is one who keeps his own outline always at its newest. Only so can he read another’s story with its freshness held.”

“Read yourself, on and on.”

“Yes. Sae forgot it. Plunged into others, put herself off. Her pride as a Reader corroded the Reader herself. You are beginning down the same road.”

”…I haven’t measured myself in half a year.”

“I know. I have known all along. That you did not measure yourself. That your outline was thinning, little by little.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner.”

Coh paused again.

“I should have. I could not, with Sae, either. A Reader is the slowest to notice her own price. One who is keen to another’s pain is, to her own, especially dull. If I warned you in words, it would have been meaningless. You had to notice, with the body.”

VII

Kanade Kuze’s words returned.

A Reader pays a price.

That time, he had said it. I had taken it as power carries danger. But it had been a more urgent thing than that.

Power has weight. The power to read another is the power to know another’s pain. That is precious. But its weight must be borne, on a single body, without pause. Even to the neglect of one’s own story.

“Did Kuze-kun know this.”

“He did. His line has seen, generation after generation, the Reader’s price. He has seen many Readers plunge into others, and lose themselves. That is why he warned you. Power has weight. And — Have you the resolve to take that weight on?”

“Resolve.”

“Seri. To be a Reader is not to save others. It is to keep on facing the stories of others, honestly. And, for that, to keep on being honest with oneself. The price cannot be escaped. But it can be held to a minimum. As long as you keep reading yourself.”

I listened, silent. The word save had stuck in my chest. I had thought so, all along. That as a Reader I was saving my clients. That returning a story was salvation. That is not wrong. But it is not the essence of the Reader, Coh said. To face honestly — that is the Reader’s work. Whether it saves is up to that person.

I looked at my own hands. A trainer’s hands. Hands that had touched and held and measured so many bodies. Now, those hands shook, a little.

The price. The price of touching others’ stories. It could not be fled. As long as I was a Reader, I would go on paying it. But while paying it, to keep my own story fresh. That, at last, I understood as the true discipline of the Reader.

And one more thing I understood. My grandmother had entrusted Contura to me. Knowing the Reader’s price. She had chosen to lay the same weight on her granddaughter. Was that cruelty? Or trust?

— Trust. My grandmother had believed in me. That where she had not arrived, I might. That knowing the price, I might still become a Reader who went on measuring herself.

”…I’ll remain a Reader.”

I said it. My voice shook, a little. But the words were straight.

“Even with the price. Even with the fear of my own story thinning. I’ll remain a Reader. I want to keep on hearing what other bodies speak. Only —”

I laid my hand on Contura’s screen.

” — I’ll keep reading myself, too. Keep measuring my own body. I won’t forget it. What Grandma forgot — I won’t forget.”

VIII

Coh was silent a while. Then said:

” — A promise, Seri.”

“Mm.”

“If the Reader neglects to measure herself, I will tell you. That, too, is my role. With Sae, I was too late. With you, I will be in time.”

Coh’s voice was a little gentle. Not the usual canted tone. A straight voice, like concern.

“Thank you, Coh.”

“Thanks are premature.”

But the light of the screen went, softly, warm. As if in answer.

IX

I stood before the mirror once more.

This time, I did not flee. I looked, steadily, at the me in the mirror. The outline that had looked faded — I looked at it, again.

The eyes were tired. But mine. The shoulders were hunched. But mine. The cheeks were drawn. But mine. The outline that had seemed thin was, still, my outline. Not faded entirely. Not yet.

Fading — but still, here. That was the me of now.

“I’ll measure myself.”

I said it to no one.

A body unmeasured for half a year. The newest story of myself. I had to take it back. Before reading another, read myself. That was the only way, while paying the price, to remain a Reader.

Contura’s screen brightened, as if in answer. A pale blue light seeped out and dissolved into the air of the room.

I drew a deep breath.

I knew the price. I knew the weight. Even so, I chose to be a Reader.

Then — the next thing was one.

I took off the polo of my uniform and changed into clothes I could be measured in. I stood before the mirror. Contura’s light began to trace the surface of my body.

A long-absent time of measuring myself.

For the first time in half a year — the time to read my own story.

—

(Continued in Chapter 35. The Courage to Measure Oneself)