Chapter 195: Read My Name Once

Chapter 195: Chapter 195: Read My Name Once

The five Lantern Cards went up at nine o’clock on Monday morning, the first of September, on seven accounts at once. By noon, Morikawa Sayo’s name had been read by more people than had read everything she’d drawn in her life.

Haruki wrote all five himself, over the weekend, sitting on the crate in front of his desk. He had never written five cards for five strangers in one sitting before. He did it the way he had written the first card for the dragon bakery in the first summer, and the one for a florist in the first autumn. He read everything each of them had ever drawn, slowly, until he knew what they couldn’t say out loud. Then he wrote three lines about that.

For Morikawa Sayo, he wrote:

For anyone who has ever left flowers in a window for someone who might not see them.

Two rival florists, one street, and eighteen months of arrangements neither of them will explain.

Start at Chapter 12. Trust me, again. — Morikawa Sayo, Fukuoka.

For Ogawa Daisuke, it was a page from a comic about a night-bus driver:

For anyone who has ever kept a seat for someone who never came.

The tea is still warm on the front seat, every night for eleven years.

Read it on a night bus, if you can. — Ogawa Daisuke, Nagoya.

For Fujita Emi, a single background of a Kyoto alley in fog:

For anyone who has ever walked home through a street they couldn’t see the end of.

Every lantern here is drawn so it floats. So are you.

Stay in this alley longer than you mean to. — Fujita Emi, Kyoto.

For Mizutani Kei, a boy teaching a broken robot to fly a kite:

For anyone who was ever told something broken can’t learn.

The kite goes up on page nine. Watch the robot’s hands.

He’s nineteen. He’s only getting started. — Mizutani Kei.

For Sano Aki, a girl who returned lost umbrellas to Shinjuku Station:

For anyone who ever lost something on a train and didn’t think it mattered.

Somebody noticed. Somebody carried it back.

So will this. — Sano Aki.

He posted nothing else with them. There was no explanation, and nothing about Crownless, the binder, or the police. There were only five cards on seven accounts, with five real names at the bottom.

Tanaka sent the first numbers at 10:15, because he couldn’t help it.

Morikawa’s florist series (dormant since March): 4,100 new readers in 75 minutes.

Fujita Emi doesn’t have a series. People are asking where they can see more of the fog. Three bookshops in Kyoto have written to ask if she’d draw a card for their counter.

The robot kite has been shared 11,000 times. Someone’s already made a #ThreeLines card for it saying "I’m nineteen too."

By noon, it was sixteen thousand readers for the florists, and somebody in Nagoya had posted a photograph from a night bus of a thermos of tea on the empty front seat, with a card propped against it. By three, a station worker at Shinjuku lost property had posted a photograph of an umbrella on the counter, with a card tied to the handle in string. It said Somebody noticed.

None of the readers knew who the five were. None of them knew that until Thursday, for five months, those five had drawn a boy with nothing above his head from a tabbed folder in five rooms in four cities, for a company that had made sure nobody would ever read their names.

The five knew, though.

Morikawa called Haruki at 4:40 that afternoon from her apartment in Hakata, with its walls full of flowers. She didn’t say hello.

"Someone left a card in a window," she said. Her voice was very unsteady. "A real one. At a florist’s shop in Fukuoka, two streets from my apartment. The owner photographed it and sent it to me through the platform." She took a breath. "It says For the girl who draws flowers in windows. We read it. We noticed."

Haruki didn’t say anything.

"I’ve lived two streets from that shop for three years," Morikawa said. "I’ve never gone in. I buy my flowers at the supermarket, because I was always too frightened to talk to a real florist." She laughed, a small, wet sound. "I’m going in tomorrow."

"Buy blue ones," said Haruki.

"I was always going to buy blue ones," said Morikawa.

[Lantern Cards (Sept 1): 5 — Morikawa, Ogawa, Fujita, Mizutani, Sano. Reach (first 6 hrs): ~260,000.]

[Morikawa Sayo — Florist series: +16,000 readers (dormant since March).]

At 7:40 that evening, the second announcement of the day went up. It came from Osaka, and it had nothing to do with any of them.

Haruki saw it first on the industry news site Minase always read, because Minase sent it to him without a word, from her desk by the window in Mitaka.

Studio Kurenai announces TV anime adaptation of hit web manga Crownless*. Broadcast: March, next year. Late-night slot, national network.*

He read the rest twice.

The anime had been in pre-production since June, the announcement said, based on the web manga’s first twelve Chapters and the creator’s extended story outline. A new creative team had been appointed to complete the series after production changes. It would premiere on the fourteenth of March, four weeks before Threadless Gate.

The announcement didn’t mention the ghost team, or a suspended Chapter nine, or a police visit to the Osaka platform’s offices.

At the bottom, beneath the broadcaster’s logo, was a list of the production committee. The first name on it was a fund based in Singapore.

Haruki sat on the crate in the dark with the phone in his hand for a long time.

The creator’s extended story outline.

He knew exactly what that was. It was a sheet of paper printed at 3:14 in the morning from a dead man’s account, and a copy of it sat in a grey binder in Hirose’s office. Somewhere in Osaka there must be other copies, and a new creative team was now turning it into twelve episodes of a boy with a sword, to air four weeks before the boy with no sword and twelve seconds of white.

He called Mitaka at 8:10. Minase answered on the first ring, still at her desk by the window.

"Four weeks," she said, before he could speak. "Same season. National network, late-night slot. With a sword." Her voice was very flat. "They’ll have trailers on every channel by January. By the time we air, half the country will have seen a boy with nothing above his head, and he’ll be theirs."

"Can they do it that fast?"

"With money, yes. With a studio that’s already storyboarded twelve Chapters, and a fund that doesn’t care what it costs." She turned her cup; he could hear it. "They’ll finish it badly. Rushed, with a new team who never read the source. But they’ll finish it."

Haruki didn’t answer.

"Hold on," Minase said. "Someone wants the phone."

There was a creak of an armchair, and a cup being set down on a stool.

"Amamiya-kun," said Tachibana. His voice was calm and dry, and completely unworried. "I heard."

"They’re going first," Haruki said. "Four weeks before us. With my outline."

"Yes," said the old man. "Let them."

Haruki stared at the dark window.

"In 1979, a bigger studio heard what we were making and rushed out something similar, three months before ours," Tachibana said. "More money, more explosions, a louder theme song. Everyone said we were finished." A pause. "Theirs ran twelve episodes and nobody remembers it. Ours ran twelve episodes and nobody watched it either, but the ones who did still write to me." He picked up his tea again. "That’s not the lesson. The lesson is this. If they air four weeks before us, with swords, then for four weeks, every seven-year-old in the country will sit two feet from the screen watching a boy fight. Then on the twelfth of April, at six o’clock, they’ll watch our boy walk under a stone arch, and nothing will appear above his head. The whole screen will go white for twelve seconds, and nobody will be fighting at all."

The line was quiet.

"Silence sounds louder after a sword, Amamiya-kun," Tachibana said. "They’ve just made our twelve seconds the loudest thing on television." He paused. "Now go to sleep. You have a Chapter due on Friday, and I’m told page nine is too slow."

His phone buzzed once more. It was Morikawa again.

I saw. They’re finishing it without us. With his outline.

A pause, then:

I’m taking the binder to the police tomorrow morning. All five of us are. Before I go to the florist’s.

He looked at the calendar on the wall above his desk. Tomorrow was the second of September. A year ago, at 11:40 in the morning, a girl had walked through a security gate at Narita without looking back until she was past the X-ray machine.

Tomorrow, five people who had never been allowed to sign their names would walk into a police station together and sign them.

[Studio Kurenai — Crownless TV anime announced. Premiere: March 14 (4 weeks before Threadless Gate). Basis: "creator’s extended story outline." Committee lead: Singapore fund.]

[Ghost team — Submitting evidence to police: Tomorrow (Sept 2).]