Chapter 207: The Fifth Reader

Chapter 207: Chapter 207: The Fifth Reader

The Lantern met on the second Wednesday of December, two days before the hearing, in the small office above the tea shop in Kichijōji. Its first item of business was a letter from the man who had written the false Kanemoto claim, asking whether he might be allowed to read contracts for them.

Tanaka read it aloud, standing by Hirose’s filing cabinet, because nobody else wanted to.

To the Lantern,

I understand that eight creators at a publisher in Iidabashi need their contracts read before the thirty-first of December, and that you don’t have enough readers.

I spent sixteen years writing clauses like Schedule C, or approving them, or not asking about them. I know where they hide, which pages are placed to be skipped, and which words are chosen so a frightened person won’t stop on them. I know because I chose those words myself, for a long time.

I’d like to read for you. For nothing, at any hour, in any café you choose. I’ll sit with whoever you send me to and show them every page I would once have hoped they wouldn’t read.

I’ll understand completely if the answer is no. Some of the people in your room have every reason to say it.

— Kagawa Tetsuya

Tanaka lowered the letter.

The office was very quiet. Outside, it was already dark at five, and the tea shop below was closing. Someone was stacking chairs.

There were eleven people in the room, more than had ever fitted in it before. Hirose sat at his desk. Sugiura sat on the only other chair with her new notebook on her knee. Hayama was on the edge of the filing cabinet, and Akari stood by the window with her arms folded. Hoshino Mai was on an upturned box with Asahi Nanami beside her. Nanami had come straight from the bakery and still had flour on her sleeve. ōkubo Shin sat on the floor. Tsubasa sat cross-legged beside him with his portfolio. Haruki stood by the door.

Morikawa Sayo sat on the floor by the wall. She had come up from Fukuoka for the hearing and stayed for this, with a fresh jar of blue flowers beside her.

Nobody spoke for a long time.

"He wrote the claim," Akari said finally. Her voice was very flat. "The false one. Against Amamiya-kun, in the first April. On Ishikawa’s orders. It went to a seventeen-year-old’s mother." She didn’t look at Tsubasa. "He wrote may have, and Ishikawa wrote has."

"He wrote may have," Tsubasa said quietly, from the floor.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"I’ve read the draft," Tsubasa said. "Aya-san brought it to our kitchen. My mother asked her to read both versions aloud." He was looking at his portfolio, not at anyone. "He wrote may have because he knew it wasn’t true. He was trying to make it weak enough to fail." He paused. "That’s not the same as being brave. But it’s not nothing."

Akari looked at him for a long moment. She didn’t unfold her arms.

"It’s your decision more than mine," she said. "It was your mother’s table."

Tsubasa didn’t answer immediately.

"My mother said something when Aya-san left," he said at last. "She said she’d believe the company when she saw its name beside mine on the credits." He looked up. "I think it’s the same. I don’t believe Kagawa-san because he wrote a letter. I’d believe him if he sat with eight frightened people and showed them page fourteen, and they came out knowing what it meant." He shrugged. "Saying sorry doesn’t mean anything. Doing something afterward does."

The room was very quiet.

"That’s from the kitchen too," said ōkubo, from the floor. "Isn’t it."

"It’s mine," said Tsubasa. "I said it first."

Hirose took off his glasses.

"I’ve spoken to Kagawa-san three times this year," he said. "In May, for ōkubo-kun’s case. In August, in a café in Setagaya, when he put his face in his hands. And in October, when he brought me his handwritten statement at six in the evening, before he lost his nerve." He polished his glasses on his cardigan. "He works in a secondhand bookshop. He doesn’t own a computer. He reads, as somebody once told him to." He put the glasses back on. "I’d trust him to read a contract. I wouldn’t trust him to decide anything for anyone. I don’t think he’d want to."

"That’s the job," said Hayama quietly, from the filing cabinet. "Reading. Not deciding."

Sugiura had been silent the whole time, with her new notebook closed on her knee. Now she opened it to the fourth page and looked at the single line written there in near-black blue ink.

Singapore, November 24. He gave them the names.

"In eighteen years," she said, "I wrote down forty-one people who stopped drawing. Kagawa Tetsuya’s name was never in the notebook as one of the people who hurt them. It was always beside Ishikawa’s, as the hand that held the pen." She closed the notebook. "I watched him at Yamashita for six years. He was never cruel. He was obedient. That was worse, in its way, because it meant he could have stopped at any time."

She looked around the crowded room.

"He’s stopped," she said. "I’d like to see what he does with the rest of it."

They voted at 5:40. It was a show of hands, the Lantern’s way, with no secret ballot. Nanami had once said that if you couldn’t vote with your face showing, you shouldn’t be voting.

Ten hands went up for yes. Akari kept her arms folded.

"I’m not voting no," she said, when everyone looked at her. "I’m abstaining. That’s allowed." She looked at Tsubasa on the floor. "If he sits with the eight and they come out understanding page fourteen, I’ll put my hand up next month." She paused. "I read contracts on my lunch breaks at a hardware store. I don’t trust anyone who reads them for a living. Not even Hayama-san, and she’s the best I’ve ever met."

Hayama almost laughed.

"That’s the right instinct," she said. "Keep it."

Tanaka wrote the result in the Lantern’s ledger: Kagawa Tetsuya — contract reader (probationary). 10–0, 1 abstention. Then he looked up.

"Who’s going to tell him?" he asked.

Nobody answered for a moment.

Then Morikawa Sayo spoke from the floor by the wall, beside her jar of blue flowers. She hadn’t said a word all evening.

"I will," she said quietly. "I’d like to meet him. The man who wrote may have." She looked down at her hands, at the green and blue paint that never quite came off. "I wrote avenge us because the outline said TBD. He wrote may have because he knew it wasn’t true." She was quiet for a moment. "We both wrote something we were told to write. I’d like to sit across from someone who knows what that’s like."

She went the next morning, the eleventh, a day before the hearing, to a narrow secondhand bookshop in Setagaya.

Kagawa was on a stepladder at the back, shelving a stack of old paperbacks, in a cotton shirt with dust on the sleeves. He didn’t see her come in. She stood among the shelves for a long time, watching him place each book carefully, spine out, and straighten the ones on either side.

Then she said his name.

He turned on the stepladder and looked down at her. He didn’t know her face. He knew her name from a statement read on the steps of a court, in the rain, on the evening news. But he had never seen her.

"I’m Morikawa Sayo," she said. "I drew Crownless. I wrote avenge us."

Kagawa came down the stepladder very slowly. He stood at the bottom with a paperback in each hand, not knowing what to do with them.

"I wrote may have," he said.

"I know," said Morikawa. "I read the draft."

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Somewhere at the front of the shop, the owner was listening to the radio very quietly.

"The Lantern voted last night," Morikawa said at last. "Ten to nothing. One abstention." She held out a slip of paper with eight names on it, in Hayama’s handwriting. "Eight creators at a publisher in Iidabashi. Their contracts need reading by the thirty-first. Hayama-san will send you copies." She paused. "Tsubasa-kun said he’d believe you when they came out understanding page fourteen."

Kagawa looked at the slip of paper for a long time without taking it.

Then he set both paperbacks down on the bottom step of the ladder, wiped his hands on his trousers, and took it.

"Thank you," he said. His voice was barely audible.

"Don’t thank me," said Morikawa. "Thank the boy whose mother you made cry. He spoke for you." She turned toward the door, then stopped. "Kagawa-san. When you were told to write that letter, did you know what it would do?"

He was quiet for a very long time.

"Yes," he said. "That’s why I wrote may have. It was the only thing I was brave enough to change."

Morikawa nodded slowly.

"Me too," she said. "With the letter in Crownless. I made it a mother. They’d wanted a mentor." She almost smiled. "It was the only thing I was brave enough to change."

[The Lantern — Vote: Kagawa Tetsuya admitted as contract reader (probationary). 10 yes / 0 no / 1 abstention (Sato Akari).]

[First assignment: Iidabashi creators (8), Schedule C review. Introduced by: Morikawa Sayo.]

[Court hearing: December 12 (2 days).]