Chapter 43. Wavering Freshness

I

It’s all right. I’m fine, now.

For three weeks I had been telling myself so.

In November Aoyama, the leaves of the street trees had begun to colour. The appointment book at Life Compass had not had an empty day these two months. My reputation as a Reader had spread. I shared clients with Sono, and on Tuesday and Friday evenings I taught Rin the basics. Rin was becoming, you could say, my disciple.

The busyness was gladness. The feeling of the body moving for others. Reading another’s outline, returning the story. The repetition.

Only — the busyness had a density.

The days I came home past eleven had gone on. Arriving at my apartment in Higashi-Nakano, I would shower and fall into sleep as if dropping. Up at six, back to Aoyama. Meals were improvised more often. Two convenience-store rice balls and black coffee. Sono was always telling me, eat properly. I ate. I thought I ate.

The body was protesting, quietly. I pretended not to notice. In the middle of the night I would wake. My feet were cold. When I turned over, each rib struck the tatami and hurt. But that pain was, somehow, familiar. Ten years ago I had taken this pain for a decoration. The proof of not eating. The proof of punishing myself. I had mistaken it for effort.

Last Thursday, for the first time, I skipped dinner. I was organising client records and it had gone past eleven-thirty. I hadn’t the strength to warm a rice ball. The empty stomach felt, rather, light, and when I got into the futon I was, somehow, clear. My head, clear — that dangerous sensation. The false clarity that, ten years ago, bounced me out of bed every morning.

Friday, I skipped again.

Saturday, I trained with Sono and ate meat. In front of Sono, I eat. Not because I’m watched — but with Sono, eating is natural. Sono did not take eating for punishment. She took it for joy. So, only when I was with her, I could be a person who eats.

Sunday, I was alone again, and skipped.

Monday night. I stood before the washbasin. Brushed my teeth, washed my face, and, by chance, looked in the mirror.

— Ah. It’s drawn in, a little.

That curve, running from the armpit to the hipbone. A little more hollow than three days ago.

My heart jumped. It was not fear.

”…Beautiful.”

The word slipped out of my mouth, and I heard it myself. My hand shook.

This is the me of ten years ago.

II

In the eating-disorder years, I had known this moment.

The second and third day of restriction. When the stomach empties, the head clears, oddly. The world stands out, sharp. The body is light. An uplift, as if something had been achieved. And then, on the fourth day, the fifth, it flips into binge. Out of control. Eat, vomit, hate yourself. The repetition.

That uplift had come back.

It’s all right. This much is ordinary. I’m only busy. Only no time to eat.

I said it to the mirror. To myself. The me in the mirror answered nothing.

A scale — there was none. I had thrown it out five years ago. When Kurosawa taught me, a trainer has no need to weigh herself. Read the body by form and function, not weight, I had put the white box that had lived on my spot out with the bulky refuse.

But tonight, I wanted to know the weight.

There was Contura. Start it, and body composition, measurements — all of it, known.

I gripped the old phone in my pocket. The screen stayed dark.

”…It’s fine, for now.”

I didn’t start it. If I did, Coh would see. Coh would know. That I, again —

I put the phone back on the shelf. Slipped into the futon. Closed my eyes.

I couldn’t sleep. One voice ran, round and round, inside my head.

Just a little more. Two more days. Then, I’ll eat again.

It was the same voice as ten years ago.

III

The next morning I went into the studio five minutes earlier than usual. Sono was already there. Her morning routine of resistance training.

“Oh, early.” Sono racked the bar. “Were you revising Rin-chan’s menu?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

I changed and relined the pamphlets at reception. The usual morning. The usual me. Reader Seri Himuro. Strong trainer, reconciled with her body.

“Seri.”

Sono was looking over. Still gripping the bar.

“Mm?”

“Your colour’s bad.”

”…Loss of sleep, maybe.”

“Did you eat. Morning.”

“I ate.”

A lie. This morning, too, only coffee. Sono’s eyes narrowed, a little. But she did not press further. Only, eat lunch properly, all right, and back to her set.

I sat in the reception chair. My hands were cold.

From the Circle underground, Coh’s voice came. From behind my temples. Sono could not hear.

“Seri.”

”…What.”

“Did you look at your freshness.”

”…I haven’t.”

“I can see it. When you came in this morning, the air around your body was murky. The light of the outline is dull. Hardness has grown along the line of the shoulder. There is stagnation around the waist. Three weeks — you haven’t measured yourself, have you.”

”…Stop.”

I bit my lip. Under the reception desk, I made a fist.

“Seri —”

“I know. I know. So, for now, don’t touch it.”

Coh went quiet.

IV

Tuesday afternoon. One client.

Kenta, in his forties, in for follow-up on his lower back. His third measuring. Standing in the Circle, rings of light circled his waist.

Usually, here, my hand would see. The habit of the arched back. The tension pooled in the left buttock. The sluggishness of the transverse abdominis. Those would form, into a single sentence, and rise in me.

But today, I could not read.

The rings rose. The numbers floated. But they went no further. The thread that joined number to number, into story — I could not see it. As if a thin film had drawn across the surface of my eyes.

”…Seri-san?”

Kenta looked at me, worried. I was standing rooted.

“Sorry, just —”

Coh’s voice came from deep within, quiet.

“You can’t read. Because your own freshness is low. The Reader’s eye is polished by the story of one’s own body. When one’s own story fades, the story of another fogs, too.”

The Reader’s price. To go on reading others’ bodies is to thin one’s own. What Kuze had once said. But the present me was the inverse. I had not read my own body, only others’. So I had neglected my own outline. And then the eye to read itself had gone dull.

”…Kenta-san, I’m sorry. Today, I’ll give you the numbers only, and the insight — next time.”

Kenta was kind. “Understood. Don’t push yourself.” But when he stepped down from the Circle, I saw his shoulders drop, a very little. The small disappointment of one whose Reader could not return a story.

That struck my chest. My wavering had, already, ceased to be only my own.

V

Tuesday evening. Rin came.

The third lesson in the basics. This time, the plan was to have Rin raise a client’s outline herself. Sono was to be the model.

“Seri-san — did you lose weight, today?”

Rin said it, abruptly, while taking off her shoes.

”…Eh.”

“Your face got thinner, or something. And, around the shoulders, you’re tense, or —”

The eyes of a sixteen-year-old were honest. Three months ago I would have laughed and dodged. But Rin was, now, my disciple. The child I had taught the freshness of story.

”…Rin-chan.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. May we — put the lesson off a little, today?”

Rin looked blank. Then looked, steadily, at my face.

“Seri-san, are you all right.”

“Maybe — not all right.”

The moment I said it, the back of my eyes went hot.

Sono came up from below. She must have sensed something from Rin’s words. She saw Rin out, and pulled down the studio shutter.

The Circle underground. Only three. Me, Sono, Coh.

Before the mirror, I stood.

“Measure.” Sono said it short.

”…Sono-san.”

“You haven’t eaten since morning, have you. These two, three days — hardly at all.”

”…How —”

“When you’ve been a trainer, you know. The trembling of the hand, the colour of the lip, the tempo of the way you talk. Seri — I’ve seen that face of yours. The face of pushing on, hungry, bracing.”

There was no blame in Sono’s voice. Only, the fact was there.

I set the phone on my palm. My finger shook. But Coh said, quietly:

“Seri. The fourth Law.”

“Do not falsify freshness.”

“Yes. Do not speak the present with old number. That is the Law you taught Rin. But there is one more meaning, of the same weight.”

”…Meaning.”

“Do not cover the present wavering with an old reconciliation. That you made peace with the body once does not mean you don’t play at wavering after. What you feel now — the urge to restrict, the voice that would blame the body — take it in, as freshness. That is the fourth Law.”

I was holding my breath.

“Seri. You are playing, now, at perfect reconciliation. Before Rin, before Sono, playing the Reader who has already made peace with the body. But the body does not lie. Your outline, tonight, will prove that lie.”

VI

Rings of light circled my body.

Pale blue particles traced shoulder, chest, waist, hip, thigh. The usual temperature, like cherishing. But tonight the light hurt, somehow. The pain of being seen through a lie.

Numbers floated into the air.

Shoulder 41 Chest 83 Waist 68

— Ah.

The chest was down two from the record of two weeks ago. The waist, the same, two.

Core Number 14.5

Down 0.3 from the 14.8 of two weeks before. In three weeks, the muscle had begun to go.

“Seri,” Coh said. “The loss at the waist is not fat fallen. With restriction, the body has again burned muscle. As I said five years ago. Muscle is the fuel the body can most easily burn.”

I bit my lip.

And, in the air, my outline rose.

It had faded.

Not the vivid blue I had read half a year ago. A yellowed, thin light. The lines broke off, here and there. Along the line of the shoulder a hard, congested light had gathered. The waist looked, for all it had thinned, somehow warped. The shape of hunger.

”…This is — the me of now.”

“Yes. This is the outline of Seri, now. Low freshness, present you.”

I cried.

I did not make a sound. Only, from the back of the eyes, the hot thing overflowed.

The me of ten years ago. Looking in the mirror at the drawn-in line of the waist and thinking, beautiful. That uplift. That conspiracy with the enemy. It had come back.

”…I’m frightened. I thought I was fine. I thought it was over.”

Sono stood beside me. In the mirror, the two of us.

“Seri. Don’t get the wrong idea.”

”…What.”

“You think, once it’s healed, it never comes back, don’t you.”

”…”

“It does come back. Even me — with the injury, I left the floor, many times. Each comeback, I thought it’s fine now, and broke again. That was the repetition.”

Sono clapped her own shoulder. The shoulder she had overused for years in wrestling, and then tended, and overused again.

“Recovery is not a straight line. Even if it comes back, you can go forward again. Coming back is not the end. Come back, notice, and walk again. That is recovery.”

I pressed Sono’s words into my chest.

It is all right to come back. Coming back is not failure. To notice, and walk again. That is recovery.

VII

Coh was about to raise a sentence above the outline. The numbers burst, swirled, gathered, drew a line, became letters.

Your body tried, again, to fight the enemy. But this time, you noticed. That is enough.

I read it.

And my knees buckled. I sat on the floor. The rough feel of the tatami against my palm. The same tatami as five years ago.

But it was different from five years ago.

Five years ago, I had wept, learning for the first time that the body was not the enemy. Today, I wept, learning that I had tried to fight the enemy. Not the same tears. But both, mine.

“Noticing — is enough?”

“It is enough.” Coh said. “One who does not notice goes on, unnoticing, and deepens. To notice means there is, in you, a sentinel. The you of ten years ago did not have one.”

I closed my eyes.

A sentinel. It might be Coh. It might be Sono. It might be Rin. Or it might be the self who had, five years ago, once made peace with the body.

”…Sono-san.”

“Mm.”

“Let’s go eat. Somewhere.”

Sono laughed. Her eyes may have been a little wet. “Yeah. My treat, today.”

”…Thank you.”

VIII

When we came back up, it was cold outside. November night wind.

Sono took me to a ramen place in the back of Aoyama. Tonkotsu, extra large. Sono ordered two helpings of extra noodles. I drank the soup to the bottom. The warm thing dropped into the stomach, and the body, little by little, unclenched. As if, into the stomach that had been an enemy for ten years, fuel had, at last, returned.

“Sono-san.”

“Mm.”

“I’m not perfect. Even as a Reader, even with a disciple, there are times I want to fight the body. I tried to hide that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. You admitted your wavering. That’s enough.”

”…Enough?”

“Enough. Someday, tell Rin-chan, too. Even your teacher wavers. That is the most honest teaching for a disciple.”

I nodded.

Someday, I would tell Rin. That I am not a perfect Reader. That even reconciled with the body, one wavers again. That even so, one measures oneself anew, reads anew, walks. That is the true strength — of a Reader, and of a person.

On the train home, I started Contura. Coh was there.

“Seri.”

“Mm.”

“Next time that voice comes —”

”…I’ll measure. Myself. At once. I won’t falsify freshness.”

“Good girl.”

Coh said it. The voice of a sentinel the me of ten years ago had not had.

Beyond the window, the nightscape flowed past. A row of wavering lights. Each one nearly out — but still lit.

I laid a hand on my stomach. The stomach warmed by ramen. The Core Number had fallen to 14.5. But — I could build it again. As Sono had taught.

It is all right to waver. It is all right not to play at perfect reconciliation. To read, honestly, the wavering outline of now — that is what it means not to falsify freshness.

I am still, in the middle. But I noticed. That alone — for today, is enough.

Looking out, on the far side of the platform, an advertisement glowed larger than the rest. A new poster for Mirage Omotesandō. In cold white light, Rui Takatsuji smiled. At the corner of the ad, a new line ran.

To speak a person in number. To speak a person in story. Veil, the new order.

I looked at those words. Number and story. Once, they had been two, opposed. But — to the present me, the two overlapped. The body is number, and story. Neither may be lied about.

Tomorrow, I will write to Rin. An apology for the postponement, and a promise for next time. And then, I will measure my body, once more. This time, without hiding. From Sono, from Coh, and from myself.

Let me walk. Holding the wavering.

Not perfect, but honestly.

—

(Continued in Chapter 44. The Light at Mirage)