Chapter 178: Two Feet From the Screen

Chapter 178: Chapter 178: Two Feet From the Screen

The head of children’s programming at the public broadcaster had a drawing on her office wall. It showed a sea serpent with its teeth pointing backwards, cut from a magazine and pinned beside a window over Shibuya.

Haruki saw it the moment he walked in. He stopped in the doorway.

"My daughter found it," the woman said, following his gaze. She was in her late forties, small and brisk, in a cardigan and trainers, with her reading glasses pushed up into short grey hair. Her name was Sakurai. "In a parenting magazine in March. There was an article about the #ThreeLines weekend and the boy who started it, with a photograph of his worksheet." She smiled. "She’s seven. She cut it out and asked me to put it on my wall, so I’d remember that boys who hate reading can change their minds."

Haruki couldn’t answer. Beside him, Minase glanced at him, then at the drawing, and understood.

"Please, sit down," said Sakurai.

It was the fifth of June, at ten in the morning, on the fourteenth floor of the broadcaster’s building. It was a plain, cluttered office with stacks of children’s books on every surface, a small television in the corner, and a window full of grey rooftops and early-summer haze. Tachibana had come too, in his cardigan, leaning on a cane he had started using since the stairs. He sat down in the chair nearest the door without being asked, with the patience of an old man who had spent fifty-five years waiting in offices for people to say no.

Sakurai didn’t say no.

"I’ve watched your twelve seconds nine times," she said. She had the file open on a laptop on her desk. "I showed it to my department. I showed it to my daughter." She turned the laptop toward them. "She watched it sitting on the floor, about two feet from the screen, which is where she watches everything. When it went white, she didn’t move. She didn’t ask if it was broken. She just waited."

Tachibana, by the door, made a small sound.

"When the music came back," Sakurai said, "she said, Oh. He was scared, and then he wasn’t." She closed the laptop. "She’s seven. That’s exactly right, isn’t it?"

"Yes," said Minase quietly. "That’s exactly right."

The terms took an hour. They were simpler than any broadcaster’s terms Minase had ever heard, she said afterward on the train, and she had heard hundreds.

The broadcaster would license Threadless Gate for its early-evening slot, six o’clock on Saturdays, the slot reserved for programmes families watched together. It would pay a licence fee of fifty million yen into the production committee, on the same terms as everyone else, with no rights and no participation. It would broadcast twelve episodes the following April. If the first season did well, it would take a second.

The twelve seconds would stay, white, with no sound. So would Shiori’s silver scissors, and Mio’s short thread, and the question at the heart of the story, about what happens when a thread ends.

"You’re not worried?" Haruki asked. "About children watching a story about people’s threads running out?"

Sakurai looked at him for a long moment.

"Amamiya-san," she said. "My daughter’s grandfather died in February. She asked me where he went. I didn’t know what to say, so I said something about sleeping, which was a lie, and she knew it." She took off her reading glasses. "Children know people die. What they don’t have is stories that tell them the truth gently, and then let them sit with it for twelve seconds." She put her glasses back on. "I’m not worried about your series. I’m worried about all the ones that pretend."

Nobody said anything for a moment. By the door, Tachibana had closed his eyes.

"There is one condition," Sakurai said. "Or perhaps it’s a request. You can say no."

"What is it?"

"At the end of every episode, after the credits," she said, "I’d like one minute. Just a still image and a voice." She looked at the sea serpent on her wall. "A child reading three lines they’ve written about a book they love, any book, not yours, in their own voice. We’d take submissions from schools and libraries all over the country. Every week, a different child." She paused. "For the ones who hate reading. So they can hear someone their own age who used to hate it too."

Haruki didn’t answer immediately.

He was thinking about a tall woman with white hair and a bicycle in a library in Helsinki. He thought of four hundred pages of research on something Yui had done by accident with a sea serpent, and a scrap of lined paper at the bottom of a shoebox. When I grow up I will teach every child in the world to read. Even the ones who hate books.

"Yes," he said. His voice wasn’t steady. "Yes. Please."

Sakurai smiled.

"I thought you might say that," she said. "The first one’s already been submitted, by a tutoring centre in Asagaya. A boy of twelve. He sent a recording and a drawing." She opened a folder on her desk and slid out a single sheet of paper.

It was a sea serpent with its teeth pointing backwards, drawn in pencil, much larger and more confident than the one on her wall.

Beneath it, in careful, uneven handwriting, were three lines.

For people who hate books.

I used to. Then someone asked what my sea serpent wanted.

Read the next page. Find out.

Haruki sat very still in the chair.

"His tutor sent it," Sakurai said gently. "An eighteen-year-old called Hino. He said the boy recorded it eleven times before he was happy with it." She paused. "He also said the boy asked that it be dedicated to someone. A woman who’s studying in Finland. He wouldn’t say her name. He said she’d know."

They left the building at 11:40 into warm, hazy sunshine.

Nobody said anything until they reached the station. On the platform, Minase took out a marker from her bag and, of all things, a small whiteboard she apparently carried for exactly this purpose, and wrote on it standing up.

¥103,000,000 + ¥50,000,000 = ¥153,000,000.

73%.

She held it up and looked at it for a long moment.

"Seventy-three," she said.

"In 1987, I made a series on six percent," Tachibana said from the bench. He was leaning on his cane with his eyes half closed. "I told you twenty percent was luxury." He opened his eyes. "Seventy-three is a palace."

"We still need fifty-seven million."

"We’ll find it," Tachibana said. "Up the stairs, one person at a time." He looked at Haruki. "But I’ll tell you something, Amamiya-kun. Every studio I’ve ever known has had to choose, in the end, between the broadcaster that pays the most and the one that understands the show." He smiled faintly. "This is the first time in fifty-five years I’ve seen them be the same one."

The train came. They got on, and stood in the crowded carriage, swaying.

Haruki took out his phone and wrote a message, although it wasn’t Sunday. It was early morning in Helsinki.

Next April. Saturdays at six. Early evening, for families. The white stays.

And at the end of every episode, one minute of a child reading three lines about a book they love.

The first one is Kenji. He dedicated it to you.

He didn’t hear back for forty minutes. It was, he realized later, the longest Yui had ever taken to reply.

When the message came, it was only four words.

I’m crying on campus.

That evening, before the broadcaster made anything public, he went to the Koenji bookstore at 5:50, ten minutes before closing.

Hinata was behind the register in her too-big apron, counting the till for the first time that day, very carefully. She looked up when he came in, saw his face, and stopped counting.

"You’ve got a date," she said. It wasn’t a question.

"I promised to tell you first."

Hinata put down the coins she was holding. She came around the counter, stood in front of him with her arms folded, very straight, and waited.

"April," he said. "Next year. Saturdays at six in the evening, on the public broadcaster. Early evening, for families. The first episode is the Gate ceremony."

Hinata didn’t say anything for a long moment.

"Six o’clock," she said finally.

"Yes."

"On Saturdays." Her voice was very steady. "That’s when your Chapters come out. Every Saturday at six. Since the beginning."

He hadn’t thought of that. He stared at her.

"I’ve been refreshing the page at 5:55 every Saturday for two years," Hinata said. "Everyone in my class does." She unfolded her arms. "Now I’ll be sitting in front of a television instead." She turned back to the register and picked up the coins again. "Don’t tell anyone else until tomorrow. I want one whole night of being the only one."

"All right."

"And Amamiya-san." She didn’t look up from the till. "Thank you for telling me first."

In the stockroom doorway behind her, Oda had appeared with her arms folded. She looked at Hinata’s back for a long moment, then at Haruki, and said nothing at all, which was the highest form of approval she had.

[Broadcaster: Public broadcaster (educational channel). Slot: Saturdays, 18:00. Premiere: April (next year). Licence: ¥50M.]

[Production funding: ¥153M / ¥210M (73%).]

[Post-credits segment: "Three Lines" (child readers). Episode 1: Kenji (12), Asagaya. Dedication: Unnamed ("She’ll know.").]

[Air date (provisional): April, next year. First to be told: Hinata.]