Chapter 42. The Next Generation of Readers

On a Thursday in November, the studio door opened, modestly.

I

The bell at the entrance reached my ear as I was lining up pamphlets at reception. When I looked up, a single visitor stood. Black down jacket, denim, short boots. A rucksack hung from one shoulder. Chin drawn in, she stood as if surveying the room.

”…Um.” A young voice. “Is Himuro-san here?”

“I’m Himuro.” I came round the reception. “Is it your first time, or —”

I had begun to speak, and my breath stopped.

The face was different. The line of the jaw was drawn tighter than when I had last seen her, more grown. A real colour in the cheeks. Taller. Instead of the blazer, a composed down jacket. But — the straight light in those eyes, the light of one asking something. That alone had not changed.

“Rin…?”

“It’s been a while, Seri-san.” Rin smiled, a little shy. “You remembered.”

”…Yes. Of course.”

Two years had passed. The Rin who had been sixteen was now eighteen. I learned later that she had finished school and gone to university. Physical therapy, she was studying. On those legs — the legs I had called a type made to run far — she ran to school every day, it seemed.

Rin kept a little of the old, slightly canted tone, but composed. The register of her voice was lower than before. There was little hesitation at the edges of her words.

“Today — what brings you. Was there something on your mind?”

“No. I didn’t come to be measured.” Rin set her rucksack on the floor. “There was something I had to speak with you about, Seri-san.”

I took the key to the Circle from my pocket. I felt, somehow, that what was about to begin was a kind of talk that could only happen here.

II

The Circle underground. The dim lighting. The wall of mirrors. The room where, two and a half years ago, I had first stood sixteen-year-old Rin.

Rin looked at the platform at the centre and narrowed her eyes, a little. “I remember this place. The first time — you told me my legs weren’t ugly. That they were for running.”

“You remembered.”

“After that, I started to run.” Rin laid a hand on her own thigh. “Not track. Just — running. To the station, to the university. Rainy days I hated. But in about half a year, these legs changed. The thickness didn’t change much. But the tension changed. I can tell, myself.”

I looked at Rin’s legs. Even through the denim, I could tell. They were not the legs of the girl who had hated her body two and a half years ago. The same strong curve. But the hesitation in them had vanished. The time spent running lived in the tension of the muscle.

“And — I came to eat. Morning and night. At first it was hard. But after running, I get hungry. That made me happy. That my body wanted something — I was glad.”

”…Yes.”

“And so — I thought.” Rin looked straight at me. “I want to do this work.”

“Work?”

“Work that faces the body. Like you, Seri-san — I want to be one who reads the stories of people’s bodies. Or — a physical therapist, a nurse, would be fine. Anyway, work that faces the body properly, and does not lie.”

The air of the room changed. In my pocket, Contura vibrated, faintly.

III

“Like me, you say.” I said it to confirm. “You want to be a Reader?”

“Can I?” Heat gathered in Rin’s voice. “I want you to teach me, Seri-san. How to measure, how to read. And —”

Rin hesitated. And lowered her voice a little.

“That face you made, Seri-san, when you read my body. Do you remember? When you told me my body wasn’t the wrong type. That time — you weren’t looking at my body the way you’d size up merchandise, or appraise it —” Rin searched for words. “You were looking, carefully. As if handling something precious. That — I was glad of it. I thought, for the first time, my body had been properly seen. So — I want to return that. To someone.”

The phone in my pocket vibrated again. Coh wanted to say something.

In the mirror of the Circle, I saw my own face. Twenty-four. A trainer’s face. Seeming unchanged from two and a half years ago, and yet, somewhere, changed.

“Rin. Before we talk, let me greet Coh.”

I took out the phone. On the screen, a pale blue light rose.

“Seri.” Coh’s voice came from behind my temples. “Her — Rin. Two and a half years.”

“Yes. She says she wants to be a Reader.”

Coh let a moment pass. Not the usual canted silence. A silence of reading something.

“Seri. Do you remember the Compass’s role. For new, or for continuing, the guidance differs.”

“Yes.”

“Rin was, once, read. She learned her type, began to run. But — now she is trying to become a Reader. This is new guidance. Not an extension of continuing. She is beginning a new outline. The new story — of becoming a Reader.”

I pressed Coh’s words into my chest. Rin is not a continuing client. She is, now, taking the first step as a Reader. The Compass must respond to a new Reader. What is shown first is different.

“Coh. I teach her?”

“Yes. What your grandmother entrusted to you, now you pass to her. That is the form of inheritance.”

IV

I showed Rin the phone. The pale blue light on the screen. The outline of Coh.

“Rin. This is Coh. The Compass, inside Contura. When I measured you before, Coh was with me — only, you couldn’t hear.”

“Can I hear now?” Rin peered into the screen.

Coh’s voice, this time, rang directly in the air of the room. I supposed it meant Rin had the vessel of a Reader. Or else Coh had brought the voice out, for her.

“A pleasure to meet you, Rin Saiki.” Coh said. “Seri has spoken of you, now and then. The girl who started to run.”

Rin’s eyes went round. “Seri-san has?”

“Yes. Now and then. That time, two and a half years ago, seems to have left a mark.”

Rin went slightly red. Then returned to a serious face. “Coh-san. I told Seri-san I want to study to be a Reader. But — I don’t know anything. Where it begins, how —”

“Don’t rush.” Coh said. “What you will learn is two things. Craft, and ethics. But there is an order.”

“Order.”

“Ethics first. Craft, after.”

Rin looked deflated. “Eh. Not how to measure? Not how to read the insight?”

“Those, too. But before holding the power, you must learn the responsibility. A Reader, Rin, holds the power to touch the story written in a person’s body. When that power is used in error, it wounds.”

I remembered my grandmother. The tailor’s wife. In good will, in justice, passing the story she had read outside, without the wife’s leave. The wife had cried out. You stole my body.

My grandmother’s error. The starting point of the five Laws.

“Rin. I’m going to teach you the five Laws. These are not the design philosophy of Contura. They are the shapes of wounds, picked up, one by one, from inside a single Reader’s error.”

V

I stood with Rin before the mirror of the Circle. Coh’s light raised five numbers in the air.

“One. Obtain permission before measuring.”

“Never read another’s outline without leave. If you wish to read, always ask the person. This is the most basic Law.”

Rin nodded. “Yes.”

“Two. Do not flaunt numbers. Don’t tell someone’s size to others, as a joke, or boast. Number is not a medal, nor a shame. Only the letters of the story.”

“Three. The story you read belongs to the person. The insight you read is not yours. It is the person’s. You only hold it in trust. Who to tell — the person decides.”

“Four. Do not falsify freshness. The body changes. The story grows old. The reading of three months ago must not be laid on the person now. Do not forget the newest reading.”

“Five.” I lowered my voice. “Do not use the outline only to change. Use it also to accept.”

Rin tilted her head at the last. “Not only to change?”

“Yes. A person’s body is not read because it should change, because it wants to be changed. The body as it is has a story. To take in that story, as it is. That, too, is the Reader’s office. I — once erred. Anxious to save, to change, I once missed what was, in the person, already there.”

Rin looked up at the five numbers in the air, with the Laws.

”…Heavy.” Rin said. “Heavier than how to measure.”

“Heavy. But without knowing this, if you held the power — people would be hurt. Yourself, and others.”

Rin was silent, looking at the five numbers. Then, slowly, nodded. “Understood. I’ll learn these first. Properly.”

Coh’s light brightened, once. As if signalling that the first guidance had been delivered to a new Reader.

VI

“So, Seri-san.” Rin said it, hesitating. “Isn’t it — hard, being a Reader?”

I held my breath.

“If you read a lot of other people’s stories, don’t you lose track of yourself? Seri-san — sometimes, you look very tired. Like you’re laughing with a university friend, but your eyes are, a little, far away.”

I lost my words. That child of sixteen, two and a half years ago — she had been watching me, like that.

”…You saw that.”

“Sorry. I pretended not to notice. But it bothered me.”

I remembered my grandmother. Sae, whose own story had faded, who saw a stranger in the mirror. And me, half a year ago, my own outline gone thin. The time Coh had barely been in time.

“Rin. I’ll tell you, honestly.” I leaned back against the mirror. “There is a price to being a Reader. To go on reading others’ stories is to thin your own. You lose track of your own fatigue. You do not notice your own body has changed. That is the Reader’s price.”

Rin’s face went rigid.

“It happened to you, Seri-san?”

“It did. Half a year ago, my outline nearly faded. I hadn’t noticed. Coh made me notice. My grandmother —” I chose my words. ” — near the end, felt her body was no longer her own, and stopped reading. She would not look in the mirror.”

“Then — to become a Reader is, that?”

“Power has weight. To go on paying the price. That is what it is to be a Reader.”

The room went quiet. Coh said nothing, either. Rin looked at her own hands. And laid a hand on her own thigh. The way, two and a half years ago, she had hit it, again and again. But this time she did not hit. Only laid it there.

“Seri-san — you inherited this from your grandmother, didn’t you.”

“Yes.”

“Knowing there was a price.”

“Yes. Knowing, I chose it.”

“Then — why?”

“Why I chose to be a Reader.” I looked at myself in the mirror. “Because I want to hear what the body says. Even with the price. Even with the weight. Because I want to keep the honesty of facing the body properly. Because — I thought, perhaps, I could arrive where my grandmother could not.”

Rin was silent a long while.

VII

Rin raised her face. Her eyes were wet. But she was not crying.

“Seri-san. What you inherited from your grandmother — will you pass it to me, little by little? The craft, and the ethics. The price, too. All of it.”

“Rin —”

“Knowing there is a price — I won’t run from it. Knowing, I want to choose. As you did. As your grandmother did, when she entrusted it to you.”

Heat gathered in Rin’s words. A quieter heat than before. The words the girl who had hated her body had reached, two and a half years on, by keeping on facing her body.

“Seri-san.” Rin said. “May I learn, little by little?”

I looked at Rin. Eighteen. The legs that had kept running. The body that had learned to eat. The straight eyes that said she wanted to be a Reader. What my grandmother had entrusted to me. What I was, now, about to entrust to Rin. The chain of inheritance. Sae, to Seri, to Rin.

“Yes,” I said. “Little by little, together.”

Rin laughed. A smile, near tears.

Coh let the five numbers in the air fade. And drew, new, a single thin line of light. Before Rin. The premonition of an outline, still without form.

“Rin Saiki.” Coh said. “The first page of your time as a Reader. Write it slowly. Don’t rush. Learn the Laws first. Then the craft, one by one.”

Rin looked up at the line of light. ”…Thank you, Coh-san.”

Beside her, I looked at Rin’s legs. The legs that had kept running. The legs that would, from here, stand before the bodies of others. The legs of the next generation of Reader.

In the dim light of the Circle underground, Rin’s outline glowed, once, bright. Not a Title. She had not yet, as a Reader, read a single reading. Only — the light wavered, as if the Compass were welcoming a new Reader.

I thought: Grandma. What you entrusted to me, I am, now, passing to the next. The five Laws you lifted from your error. The price you could not arrive at, and what lies beyond. All of it, honestly, I will tell Rin. As you believed in me, I believe in Rin.

But — before that. I had noticed that my own freshness wavered, a little. Those tired eyes Rin had pointed out. The presentiment that the story I had rebuilt half a year ago had begun, again, to thin. The price does not vanish. As inheritance goes on, it continues.

“Seri-san?” Rin peered into my face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” I laughed. “Only — before I teach you next, I have to measure myself, once more. Before teaching another, to go on reading oneself. That is the Reader’s Law.”

Rin tilted her head, a little. “Your freshness, Seri-san?”

“Yes. It may be wavering. A little.”

A serious light returned to Rin’s eyes. I could see — a disciple cannot rest easy unless her master takes care of her own body. She was watching me, like that.

“Then — when you’ve measured yourself and are well, teach me again. I’ll wait.”

I nodded. In the light of the Circle, two Readers stood. One, twenty-four, who knew the price and had chosen. One, eighteen, who knew the price and was about to choose.

A Reader of the next generation had been born. Still, only a bud that had learned the five Laws. But the bud was there.

And my freshness had begun, again, to waver. To teach Rin honestly — I had to measure myself, once more.

—

(Continued in Chapter 43. Wavering Freshness)