Chapter 7. The Story a Type Tells

I

A Thursday near the end of June, in the afternoon. Two strangers appeared at the reception of Life Compass.

The one in front was a woman — the mother, apparently. Around forty. Well-kempt, with deep lines scored between her brows. Behind her, a teenage girl stood sideways, pretending to examine the posters on the wall.

“Excuse me — we just walked in,” the mother said. “Would you — see my daughter?”

I set down the brochure I was holding. “See, in what sense?”

“Training, or counselling, or —” the mother paused, choosing her words. “She is desperate to be thinner. She’s cut her meals. She doesn’t eat breakfast. At night, only a little. I’ve told her to stop and she won’t listen.”

My eyes went to the corkboard behind reception. Last week Sono had pinned up a poster. Kurosawa had written on it: The body is not a punishment.

The girl turned toward me.

Rin Suzuki (涼木凜), sixteen. The blazer of her school uniform swam on her a little. Swam was not quite the word — it was more that the blazer still held the creases of a body that had been larger a few months ago, and the body inside it had since shrunk. The line of her jaw was sharp. The collarbones stood out beneath thin skin. The cheeks had little colour. But the eyes — the eyes were angry. Not at anyone in particular. At the body.

“Sit down,” I said.

Rin sat on the edge of the sofa. A cushion’s width of distance from her mother. That distance told, in itself, what was between them.

“May I ask your name?”

“Rin Suzuki.” Short, dry. “Mum dragged me here. I’m not — worried about anything, for the record.”

The mother let out a small breath. The sigh held about half a year’s tiredness.

I laid a hand on the bulge of the polo pocket. The cold metal of Contura.

In the pocket, the phone vibrated faintly. Coh had something to say, it seemed.

II

I had the mother wait in the lobby. Rin had insisted. I can’t talk with her here, she had said.

In the Circle below, it was only Rin and me. Low light. Mirrors on one wall. At the centre, the measurement platform.

“What’s this room for?” Rin looked around. “Shooting, or something?”

“It’s a room for measuring bodies.”

“Measuring what?”

“Outlines.” I said it straight. “But before I measure, I need a promise.”

“A promise.”

“Whatever I find in the measuring — if you don’t want it told to anyone, I won’t tell. The story of your body is yours. I won’t carry it off somewhere on my own.”

Rin looked slightly wrong-footed. “You’re really playing the good Samaritan. Don’t worry, my body’s nothing special anyway.”

Even as she said it, she set both hands on the outside of her thighs. Beneath the school skirt, on the outer thigh. Gripping. The whiteness of those hands, and the force in them, made my chest tighten.

“Have you been doing anything that hurts?”

Rin let go. ”…No.”

“Your mother says you don’t eat in the mornings.”

“I just don’t want to. Because I’ll get fat.”

“Does being fat frighten you?”

“Frighten, or —” Rin looked at herself in the mirror. “I hate it. This body. This.” She hit her thigh once more. “On social media everyone’s thin. Their legs touch all the way down. Mine don’t. Here’s too thick.”

I looked at her thighs. They were not, in fact, thin. But the word thick did not fit them either. They had spring. The curves were powerful. They were the legs of a person who ran.

I knew, though, that saying so now would not reach her.

“Listen.” I said. “There’s something I’d like to show you. Something that will show your body to you, too. May I?”

“What sort of thing?”

“Your body. Three-dimensionally. Just the outline, lifted out and shown.”

Rin knit her brows, suspicious. “What do you mean. Like a 3D scan? Like that app at McDonald’s?”

“Something like it. But a little different. I want you to see, with your own eyes, what shape your body is.”

Rin thought for a moment. Then she said, “You think I’m up to something, don’t you.” But curiosity had crept into the edge of her voice.

“If you’re not convinced, I’ll erase it. I won’t tell anyone. How about that?”

”…Fine. Do it.”

III

I took Contura out. The old phone. Pale blue light on the screen.

“Stand on the platform. Would you take your socks off?”

Rin pulled off her socks. Her bare feet touched the cold floor. The toenails were painted a pale pink. Sixteen, I thought.

“Arms out a little. Yes, easy.”

The rings of light began to move.

Around Rin’s body, from the ankles upward, in a slow circuit. Pale blue particles traced her outline as they rose. Calves, knees, thighs. Waist, hips, chest. Shoulders, arms, neck.

Rin, at the light drifting around her, caught her breath. “Whoa.” Nothing more.

And then, in the air, Rin’s body stood up.

A pale blue luminous figure. The outline of Rin. The shape beneath the clothes, exactly as it was. No face. But unmistakably, Rin.

“This — is me?”

“It’s you.”

Rin looked up at her own outline. Slowly, she turned. The luminous figure turned with her. From the side. From above and to the diagonal. From the back.

”…Thick.” A murmur. “It really is thick. Here.” She pointed at the luminous thighs.

I said nothing. I only stood beside her and looked the same way.

In my pocket the phone buzzed again. This time the screen lit. Coh had come out.

“Seri.” Coh’s voice from beyond the screen. Rin could not hear it. It resonated directly behind my temples. “Read the type. She does not know her own type. She hates what she does not know.”

Type. Somatotype. A concept I was still mid-way through learning myself.

On the Contura screen, beside Rin’s outline, numbers began to line up. And beneath them, three symbols floated up as light.

Body Type (Somatotype) Endomorphy: low Mesomorphy: mid Ectomorphy: high

“Ectomorph-leaning,” I murmured.

“But there’s power in the lower body.” Coh pressed. “The upper body is thin, light. But the thigh, the calf, the hip — the muscles for running are well placed. The lightness of ectomorphy with the force of mesomorphy, lodged only in the legs. Not a rare arrangement. It’s the type of a runner.”

I looked again at Rin’s outline. The upper body was, truly, thin. The shoulders narrow, the chest shallow. The trunk was long, slender. The ectomorph’s lightness — like a young tree stretching upward.

But from the waist down, it was different. The hips were round, sprung. The thighs firmly thick. The calves straight, the tendons standing. This was not thin, nor thick. It was legs made to move.

“Rin.” I said. “The place you think of as thick — it’s here, isn’t it.” I pointed at the luminous thigh.

Rin gave a small nod.

“Here, actually, is the most powerful place in your body.”

IV

“Powerful — what do you mean?” Rin’s guard had returned to her voice.

I glanced at Coh. Coh made an outline’s motion of nodding.

“Listen, Rin. The human body has an inborn type. Three large categories.”

I indicated the three luminous outlines Coh had floated in the air. Three human shapes.

“The first is endomorph. A storing type. It holds energy in the body, warmly. Round, soft, with a warmth that seems as if it would hold you. It’s said to be common in people from cold regions. A shape that protects life.

“The second is mesomorph. A moving type. Powerful, muscular, thick-boned. The body of a fighter, or a carrier. Kiryū-san — my senior — is exactly this type. So handsome it makes you stare.”

“The third is ectomorph. A light type. Thin, long, fuel-efficient. Moving a long way on little energy. Marathon runners — those stick-thin people who go vast distances.”

Rin looked hard at the three luminous outlines. “Which am I, then?”

“You.” I said. “Basically, the third. Ectomorph. Thin, light. In fact, your upper body is very thin. Your collarbones show, don’t they.”

Rin put a hand to her collarbones. A little self-conscious.

“But only the lower body has the second type mixed in. The mesomorph’s power has lodged in your legs. So — your body is a type built to run, lightly, for a long distance.”

“To run?”

“To run. A long way, on little energy, with powerful legs, pressing into the ground. Your body is shaped for that.”

Rin went quiet. She looked up at her own outline. She looked at the luminous thighs again.

”…But.” Rin’s voice shook. “But it isn’t thin. It’s thick here. It’s totally different from the people on social media.”

“It is different,” I agreed. “Your body is not like the thin people on social media. But that is not the same as your body being bad. Your body is a type for running. The social-media people have their own type. That’s all.”

“Only the type is different?”

“That’s right. There’s no such thing as a bad type.”

Rin looked ready to cry. She did not cry. But she was close. She bit her lip and held it.

“I always —” Rin said. “I always thought my body was the bad type. That being thick was bad. That being thin was right. I’ve thought so, all this time.”

“Mm.”

“But — it’s a type for running. Truly?”

“Truly. These legs are power. That they aren’t thin isn’t a bad thing — it’s that they have power.”

V

Coh floated a sentence above the luminous outline.

Your legs were built to run far. They are still mid-stride — a shape still on its way.

I read it aloud. To Rin.

At first, Rin did not believe it. “Huh. My body — said that?”

“Yes. A sentence your body spoke. I didn’t read it. Your outline told its own story.”

”…Still mid-stride.”

“Yes. Your body isn’t finished yet. You’re sixteen. How you’ll run from here, how far — none of it is decided. You’re mid-way through the shape.”

Rin stared at the powerful curve of the luminous thighs. For a long time.

“My body.” Rin spoke. The tone was different from earlier — not the dry, cross voice. Truer, frailer. “My body isn’t a bad type. It’s a type for running.”

“That’s right.”

“Then — how come nobody ever told me?” Rin’s voice shook at the end. “Everyone only had to say you’re thin. They wouldn’t say you’re thick. But no one ever said a type for running. Not the teachers at school. Not my mother. Not my friends. Everyone — thin, thin, thin. As if the fact I wasn’t thin made me wrong.”

“Mm.” I nodded. “I’m sorry. We adults didn’t notice. We didn’t know the word type. Or we did know it, and forgot.”

I let my eyes fall, for a moment, to my own shoulders. Broad. A waist barely nipped. This was my type. Different from Sono’s. Different from Rin’s. But it was not a bad type. It was the type of my story.

Thinking so, my shoulders lightened a little.

“Seri-san.” Rin asked. “What type is your body?”

“Me? Let’s see.” I laughed. “Broad shoulders, shallow waist, not delicate. Close to mesomorph, I think. A type for carrying things, for bearing weight. Doesn’t it sound rather dashing, when you say it like that?”

“Not for running, then.”

“Not for running, no. Mine seems more the type to stand and hold things up. Though I’m still short on core.” I laid a hand on my own belly. My low-FFMI body. “But I was taught recently that a core can be built. So I’m building, bit by bit.”

Rin looked at my body. Then she said, “Seri-san — do you like your body?”

I choked a little. And then I answered honestly. “Not all of it. Not yet. But more than before. Because before, I thought it was the enemy. Now I can think — my body is telling my own story.”

“Story, huh.” Rin murmured. And then, toward her own outline in the air, she said: “Then mine is a story for running.”

The luminous outline seemed to brighten for an instant. Perhaps Coh had floated a Title. Or perhaps the light had merely wavered. But for one moment, a phrase flickered above Rin’s outline.

One Who Begins to Run

Rin saw it. “This is — mine?”

“Yours,” I said. “Your body’s first story. You can add to it however much you like.”

VI

Rin left, her face a shade brighter. To her mother she said, as if half-proud and half-not, I’m a type for running, apparently. The mother looked blank, but she could see that the face before her was not the face of thirty minutes ago.

I was alone in the Circle. Coh peered out from the screen.

“Seri,” Coh said. “It seems you’ve taken back your own type as well.”

“Yes. Explaining it to Rin, I understood. The broad shoulders, the shallow waist — they’re not a bad type. They’re my type.”

“Exactly. There is no better or worse among types. Only differences. Only shapes for telling each story.”

“Mm.”

“However.” Coh lowered his voice a little. “Seri — keep one thing in mind.”

“What?”

“Her — Rin-chan. Right now she thinks she knows her type. But.” In the screen, Coh turned the outline slowly. “A story has freshness. Once read is not the end. The body is alive. In three months, it may be telling a different story. If she believes one reading is enough — she will begin to be bound by the old story again.”

“Old story?”

“The Rin of three months from now may not still be One Who Begins to Run. She may have stopped running. She may have begun to change into a different type. And if she has taken the story of three months ago as gospel, it will be out of step with her current self, and she will wander again.”

I laid a hand on Contura in my pocket.

“Freshness.”

“Yes. The freshness of story. The body is forever turning a new page. The Reader must keep reading the latest page. To read on at the old page is to falsify freshness.”

I looked at the entrance to the Circle, where Rin had gone. Those powerful sixteen-year-old legs, climbing the stairs. One Who Begins to Run.

But she, most likely, would not come again. She would think once was enough. I had that premonition. Behind that slightly brightened expression, the words once more had not been there.

“Coh,” I said. “Rin will have to come back, won’t she.”

“She will. But I can’t force her. It is the Law. The story read is the person’s. Unless she wishes read me again, you cannot pursue.”

”…Mm.”

“However, Seri.” Coh’s voice grew gentler. “Your own body is the same. Today you took back your own type. But that, too, is the freshness of today. Tomorrow’s you will again be slightly different. Keep reading. Your own outline.”

I nodded.

The Circle, beneath the studio. The dim, quiet room. My outline in the mirror. Broad shoulders, shallow waist, the trunk short of power. But it was my type. The shape for telling my story.

I slipped Contura back into my pocket. And climbed the stairs.

Outside, the strong July sun poured down on the streets of Aoyama. Rin was already gone.

I thought: the story her body had told was still mid-way. She had only just begun to run. But a story fades if the Reader does not keep reading it.

The fading of freshness.

That, I was about to learn.

—