Chapter 6. The Core Called Sono Kiryū

I

The next morning, standing in front of the mirror frightened me a little.

The night before, I had measured myself. Contura’s light had circled my body, the Outline Sight had stood up, and the insight had spoken: Your body has fought itself as an enemy for a long time. You may lay down arms now.

I had wept at those words. For so long I had lived treating the body as an enemy. Bound by numbers, accused by sizes, avoiding mirrors. And the body had granted me leave to lay the weapons down. The tears had not stopped. I had thought I was saved.

But — it was after that.

When, in the corner of the screen, a second number had surfaced.

The Core Number.

Coh had called it the FFMI — the fat-free mass index. A figure that shows the hidden bottom strength of muscle, he had said. Those whose number runs higher than their looks suggest are said to have a core. Mine had been low. Astonishingly low.

The insight had said I had been at war. It had said I could surrender. But what stood at the place I had surrendered to was only a thin-bodied me with a faint core. Weapon set down, armour peeled off, standing there unarmed.

“A story has freshness,” Coh had said at the end. “The body’s story fades with time. You must not speak the present in an old self-image.”

Those words stayed. But before freshness, I had a more basic problem. I had no core. Before I could speak of fading, I had no depth of shade to draw with.

I changed into the work polo. I slipped the phone, tethered to Contura, into the pocket. The cold metal was the same as last night.

Time to go to the studio in Aoyama. To Life Compass.

II

I was tying my hair back in the changing room when the door opened behind me.

“Oi, Seri. We’re partnered today. Look sharp.”

It was Sono Kiryū.

Twenty-eight. Senior trainer at Life Compass. Short hair, an easy smile. But what always stole my breath was that her body entered the room before her voice did.

Sono was less a person who moved than a person whose presence pushed the space wider. Broad shoulders. A deep chest. The waist was trim, but not thin — rather, the muscle wound round it gave the outline a powerful edge. The line of her back was legible through her T-shirt, the rivers of muscle reading like contour lines on a map. With every stride the muscles of her thighs shifted beneath the skin like living things.

A former wrestler. Even retired, the body still remembered the shape of competition.

“Good morning, Sono-san.”

“Yeah. Two clients this morning. Stretching practice in the afternoon.”

Sono opened her locker and, casually, pulled off her T-shirt. Her back in a sports bra caught the fluorescent light and shone. The latissimus spread like a wing, and across both wings ran fine cords of muscle like the contour lines of a map. The way the flesh lay from armpit to waist spoke of something more than mere muscle. The trace of years, every day, on the mat — with weight, with an opponent, with herself.

I looked away. I had been looking too long. And — it had been too bright.

“Seri.”

Sono, still holding her bra in place, turned.

“Whatsa matter, you were staring. Something on your mind?”

”…Sorry. I just — your back is beautiful.”

“Beautiful, huh.” Sono laughed. “I’ll take it as a compliment. But you know, when you compliment someone like that, it’s usually because you’re worrying about yourself.”

She had me. I said nothing and straightened the hem of my polo.

III

After the morning clients, Sono and I went into the stretch room. It was Sono’s turn to release the muscles around my shoulderblades. The moment she laid her hands on my back, I knew the difference. Her palms were hot. And hard. As if there were rock beneath the flesh — my fingers would not sink in. Everything about the temperature, the pressure, was different from my own hands. In my work I touch other bodies every day. But when Sono’s body touched mine, I always felt the unreliability of my own hands, keenly, almost painfully.

“Seri. Here. Bound up. Upper traps.”

“Yes. I’ve been trying too hard with my posture lately, tensing —”

“Trying too hard.” Sono, opening the muscle carefully with her thumb. “You do have that. Too serious. You tie yourself in knots.”

A pain ran through. But after it, something seemed to widen.

“Sono-san.”

“Mm.”

”…Do you know about the Core Number.”

The hands stopped. One beat. Then they moved again.

“FFMI, you mean. ‘Course I know it. I know my own too.”

Sono knew everything about her own body. Weight, body-fat percentage, every circumference, and her Core Number. She carried them without shame and without pride — simply as the present location of her body.

“Mine’s high. Down a little from my competing days, but still.” Sono said it with a shade of pride. “This body stood on the mat for years. Muscle is my medal.”

At the bottom of my chest, something creaked.

”…I think that’s wonderful,” I said.

My voice went small.

“Mine is low. The Core Number. I measured it, and I was shocked. I didn’t know it was that low.”

Sono’s hands stopped again. This time they stayed stopped.

“And so you’re down about it.”

“Down, or —” I searched for the word. “I’ve been at war with my body. So there’s no muscle. I came all this way with no weapon to fell the enemy. I was able to surrender. But at the place I surrendered to, there was no core.”

Sono lifted her hands from my shoulders. She knelt in front of me on the stretch mat.

“Seri. Look at me.”

I raised my face. Sono’s eyes met mine, straight. She wasn’t smiling. But there was warmth in them.

“Don’t mistake it. The core isn’t something you’re born with.”

”…Eh.”

“The core can be built.”

IV

That sentence drove straight into the hardest part of my chest.

“Built, you say.”

“Built. I wasn’t always this.” Sono lightly gripped her own upper arm. The muscle pressed back against her palm with a spring. “Six years of wrestling, middle school through high school. Every day, the same body, moving — thrown, grappling, hurt, healed. Stacking up, day after day. Finally it took this shape. Not good breeding. Accumulation.”

Sono narrowed her eyes a little.

“You — do you think of muscle as a punishment? A punishment for getting fat, or the trace of a failure, something like that?”

I held my breath. She had me. I had always resisted the word muscle. Becoming thick. Becoming big. Being seen. It was the thing I had feared most. In the years when I had wanted a smaller body, muscle had been the enemy.

”…Maybe I do.”

“Then learn this. Muscle is not a punishment. It is the joy of accumulation. Every day, a little, you lay it onto the body. That is the precise opposite of punishing yourself. It is — raising yourself.”

Here Sono softened her voice.

“You can read bodies with that thing, can’t you. Contura. Then can you read mine too? How my core was built.”

I opened my eyes wide.

”…May I measure you?”

“‘Course. I invited you. You have leave.”

Coh’s voice came faintly from beyond the phone.

“First Law. Before you measure, obtain consent. Cleared. Thank you, Sono-san.”

Sono, glancing at the phone, grinned.

“Quite the handy partner you’ve got there.”

V

Sono locked the stretch room door. She pulled the blinds so no one could see in.

“No one’ll come in here. Do it.”

I launched Contura. The phone’s black mirror caught Sono’s body. Particles of light ran into the air. Pale blue points trembled, widened, drew lines, and became an outline.

Sono’s Outline Sight stood up.

My breath caught.

It was beautiful.

The luminous body held nothing extraneous. The shoulders were broad, gently rounded, springing strongly outward. The chest was deep, and on the ribs the layers of muscle could be read, ply on ply. The waist was trim — but tight rather than thin was the word. The hips were round and hard, holding the force of a body that could shove the earth aside. The thighs were thick, sprung, each one rooted into the ground like the trunk of a tree. The neck was short and sturdy, and the rise of the trapezius sat on it like a pillar holding up the head.

And — the back.

I stepped round the luminous outline and looked at the back. The latissimus spread like wings. Across those wings, fine cords ran like contour lines. A symmetrical, powerful back, ringed like the grain of a tree.

Numbers surfaced.

Shoulder width 45 Chest 94 Waist 74 Hip 96 Upper arm 32 Thigh 58

And — the Core Number. Far, far higher than mine.

“Incredible…”

“Yeah.” Sono folded her arms, a little proud. The luminous outline folded its arms the same way. “This is my body. What I stacked up, every day.”

Coh spoke quietly.

“Seri. Read it. What Sono-san’s body is saying.”

I sank my awareness into Sono’s Outline Sight. The shoulder, the back, the thighs. On each part, the accumulation of days was legible, ringed like tree-grain. Here, countless times, she had locked an opponent. Here, countless times, she had been thrown to the mat. Here, she had been injured. Here, she had moved again. Love of the sport. Terror of losing. The pure, clean thirst to win.

The particles of light swirled. They gathered into a single thread and became letters.

Your back is a thick ring of growth, forged on the mat by refusing to lose.

Sono read the words. Her eyes widened a shade. Then she laughed, a short breath. But inside the laugh, for an instant only, something hard flashed.

”—— Hit. Refusing to lose. I did hate losing on the mat worse than I hated dying.”

“Sono-san —”

“But listen, Seri. This back doesn’t only say I refused to lose. It also says I stacked it up. Every single thing I chose to do every day, this muscle remembers.”

Sono laid her own hand gently over the hand of the luminous outline. Her solid hand overlapped the hand of light.

“What’s here isn’t a punishment. It’s proof that I lived. You can build it too.”

I nearly cried.

VI

“Right.” Sono said it brightly. “I’m starving. Food. You’re coming.”

It was a sister’s command, with no gap left for refusal. I folded Contura away and followed Sono to a small set-meal shop in the back lanes of Aoyama.

Sono ordered without hesitation: grilled chicken breast, two eggs, a large rice. I, at random, a salad and soup. A mountain of chicken breast rose on Sono’s plate. She ate that volume every day. To build the body.

“That all you’re having.” Sono frowned at my order.

“I’m not really hungry —”

“Liar. After a stretch you’ve got to be hungry. Eat. Protein. Your body’s asking for material right now.”

Sono added a dish to my order, on her own initiative. Karaage.

“Eating isn’t a punishment. It’s putting material in to build the body. It’s fun. Today this meat is tomorrow’s muscle. Think of it like that and even a meal gets exciting, doesn’t it?”

I looked at the added karaage, somewhat at a loss. But — watching Sono’s face, I found I wanted to eat it, a little. Sono did not treat eating as punishment. She enjoyed it as pleasure. Bite by bite, she tasted it as material for the body.

”…Itadakimasu.”

I bit. The warm juice of the meat spread through my mouth. Strangely, it was delicious. It had been a long time since I had been able to think, honestly, that something was delicious.

“Sono-san.”

“Mm.”

“Sono-san — is strength training fun?”

“‘Course it’s fun.” Sono spoke with rice stuck to the corner of her mouth. “There are hard days. But I can see the accumulation. A month ago, I lift more. Half a year ago, the shape was different. That’s — just unbearably glad. I can make myself, by myself. That’s amazing, isn’t it.”

I can make myself, by myself.

The words seemed to move something in me that had been rusted shut a long time.

VII

Sono and I parted at five in the evening. I went down the slope in Aoyama toward the station. The July sky had begun to stain vermilion.

I held the phone in the polo pocket, gently.

“Coh.”

“Mm.”

“I’ve never lifted. Not properly.”

“I know.”

“But — I think I’d like to try.”

Coh paused.

“In order to reduce your size?”

”…No.” I shook my head. “Not size. To build a core.”

Coh said nothing. But the phone seemed to grow faintly warm.

“After measuring Sono-san’s back, I understood. Muscle isn’t punishment. It’s a story of accumulation. I’ve only ever thought about subtracting from the body. Reducing. But — I’ve never thought about adding.”

“And what do you intend to start with.”

“I don’t know. But tomorrow, I think I’ll ask Sono-san. Whether there’s something a beginner can do.”

“There is. There certainly is.” Coh’s voice was a little gentle. “Seri. What did Sono-san’s body show you? What was that thick ring of growth on her back saying?”

“That she kept choosing. Every day. And stacked it up.”

“Yes. The core cannot be built in a day. But choose every day, and in a year, it will certainly be there. That is the story Sono-san’s body told.”

I looked up at the sky. The first star had come out, a single point of light. Thin, but certainly there.

”…Coh. Sono-san’s body — you said it was mesomorphic. The type that carries muscle well. What’s my type?”

I thought Coh laughed, a little meanly.

“That is the next chapter, Seri.”

I scowled a little. But I wanted to know what came after. My body’s type. The quality I was born with. What shape of story it made.

Tomorrow, I’d ask Sono-san to teach me to lift. And after that, I would ask Coh about type.

I boarded the train for Higashi-Nakano. Outside the window, the lights of Tokyo streamed past. Today, compared to yesterday, I had — only a little, truly only a little — not drawn in my shoulders.

And tomorrow, compared to today, I might have a little more core.

— Because it was accumulation, after all.

—