Chapter 199: Four Pages

Chapter 199: Chapter 199: Four Pages

The garden scene in episode three of Crown of Ash’s second season lasted three minutes and forty seconds on television. Kanzaki Hayato watched it on the floor of a small living room in Chiba, between Haruki and the girl who had told him to cut his embers. He didn’t breathe for any of it.

It was the eleventh of October, a Saturday, at 1:30 in the morning. Crown of Ash aired in a late-night slot, and the house belonged to Akari’s aunt, a quiet woman in her sixties who had gone to bed at ten and told them to keep the volume low. Her living room was small and tidy. The television was older than any of them, and there was a kotatsu table with a plate of mandarins on it that nobody had touched.

Akari sat on Kanzaki’s left with her knees drawn up and her plait over one shoulder. She was holding his hand under the kotatsu blanket, where she assumed nobody could see. Haruki sat on his right. He had come on the last train from Koenji because Kanzaki had asked him to. Kanzaki had called him directly, and said only, Episode three is on Saturday. I don’t want to watch it with only people who are kind to me.

On the screen, the king sat on the floor of his throne room in unbuckled armour. Then the scene cut to the past, and a garden in summer, with a girl of eight sitting in the grass, braiding stems into a circle.

It was four pages, as storyboarded and restored by Minase in season one. The new managing director had called in March to say it would be cut to thirty seconds. Two weeks later he had called again to say that the owners’ advisory board considered it essential to the series’ emotional identity.

It was the entire scene, and nobody had cut a frame.

The girl braided the grass for a long time with no music, only wind and birds and the soft sound of stems. Her brother, the young prince, sat beside her and watched. The animators had drawn every stem one at a time, the way the keeper in Glass Harbor climbed the stairs, so that you could feel each one bend.

Then she stood up, reached up, and set the crooked circle on his head.

"There," said the voice actress. "Now you look like a king."

It was the eleventh take, from the recording booth at Studio Kurenai in December two years ago, when Haruki had stood at the back in the dark and heard a story become real for the first time.

The prince reached up, touched the crown, and didn’t fix it.

On the floor of the small living room in Chiba, Kanzaki let out a breath he had been holding for three minutes and forty seconds.

Akari’s hand tightened under the blanket.

Nobody said anything until the episode ended and the credits rolled. White text scrolled over a still image of a crooked crown of grass resting on a wooden table in soft light.

Haruki stared at the image.

It was the drawing on the second postcard from Singapore: the crown of grass on a plain table, a few loose stems beside it. Someone at the studio had used it as the background for the end credits, redrawn in colour, but unmistakable.

"Did you give them that?" he asked quietly.

Kanzaki didn’t look away from the screen.

"No," he said. "I didn’t show it to anyone. It’s on my desk." His voice was very strange. "Someone at the studio must have been sent a copy. By the advisory board."

The credits scrolled past: the director, the producers, the animation staff. Near the very end, in small type, among the special thanks, was a single line.

Special thanks: I.K.

Kanzaki read it and closed his eyes.

They sat on the floor afterward for a long time with the television off and the mandarins still untouched. Akari’s aunt’s clock ticked on the wall. Outside, a train went past on the elevated line toward Tokyo, nearly empty at that hour.

"There’s something I need to tell you," Kanzaki said at last. He was looking at Haruki, not at Akari. "Before you hear it from someone else."

Haruki waited.

"Kurenai called me on Thursday," Kanzaki said. "The new managing director. He was very polite." He took a breath. "He said that since I’m one of Kurenai’s most important creators, and since a competitor has filed a lawsuit against the studio, it would be very helpful if I made a public statement of support for Crownless. He meant something short, saying I’ve worked with Kurenai for two seasons and I trust their creative integrity." He looked down at his hands. "He said it would reassure the international buyers for season three."

The small room was very quiet.

"Season three," Haruki said slowly.

"Yamashita licensed three seasons to Kurenai, under Ishikawa," Kanzaki said. "Two years ago. The third season starts production in January." He was quiet for a moment. "He didn’t say they’d cancel it if I refused. He didn’t need to. He said the buyers were nervous."

Haruki looked at him. Kanzaki had been brave a little more each time, at the Roundtable, in the stockroom, three chairs away at the script meeting, and on the ninth floor with a crown of grass inside his jacket.

"What did you say?" Haruki asked.

"I said I’d think about it," said Kanzaki. "That’s what I always say, when I’m frightened." He almost smiled. "Then I came here, and watched my garden."

Akari had let go of his hand. Not to pull away; she had turned on the floor to face him.

"Hayato," she said quietly. It was the first time Haruki had ever heard her use his given name. "It’s your decision."

"I know."

"But you’re going to tell us what you think," Akari said. "Before you decide. Not after." She glanced at Haruki. "He taught everyone that, last year. I’m using it on you."

Kanzaki looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at the dark television screen, where, minutes before, a crooked crown of grass had sat on a wooden table under the words Special thanks: I.K.

"I think," he said slowly, "that a man in Singapore saved my garden twice. Once by cutting it, so I’d learn it mattered. Once by refusing to let anyone cut it again." He swallowed. "And I think the same fund he works for paid five people to copy my rival’s next Chapter, and stopped paying them when it was inconvenient." His voice cracked. "I don’t know how both of those things are true. I only know they are."

"Both," said Haruki quietly.

"Always both," said Akari.

Kanzaki laughed, a small, broken sound in the dark room.

"I’m not going to make a statement," he said. "Not for Crownless." He looked at Haruki. "And not against it either. I won’t say anything for either side until a court decides. I’ll draw season three if they let me, and if they don’t, I’ll draw something else." He paused. "Ishikawa taught me to say what would work. You taught me to say what’s true. I’m going to try saying nothing until I know which one this is."

"That’s allowed," said Haruki.

"I know," said Kanzaki. "It took me four years to learn it was."

Kanzaki walked Haruki to the station at five in the morning, through quiet streets in Chiba still grey with the last of the night. Akari had stayed behind to clear away the untouched mandarins before her aunt woke up.

They didn’t say much on the way. At the ticket gate, Kanzaki stopped.

"I.K.," he said. "In the credits."

"I saw."

"He’s on the advisory board of the fund that owns the studio that made Crownless," Kanzaki said. "The same fund paid five people to copy you. And he put his initials under my garden, where nobody but you and me would know what they meant." He shook his head slowly. "Is he protecting us, or playing both sides?"

Haruki thought about it, standing at the ticket gate in the grey morning. He thought of a red pen left parallel to the edge of a table, a postcard of a boy at a bus stop, and a name signed in red ink on a paper sheet in a bookshop in Koenji.

"I don’t think he knows either," he said at last.

Kanzaki was quiet for a long moment.

"If they cancel season three," he said, "because I wouldn’t make the statement—"

"Then Tachibana-san will want to read your sketchbook," Haruki said. "From the first page. Without saying anything for forty minutes." He almost smiled. "The stairs are terrible. The top one’s new."

Kanzaki stared at him. Then, for the first time that night, he laughed properly, loud in the empty station.

"You’re the worst rival in the history of manga," he said.

"Everyone keeps telling me."

[Crown of Ash S2 Ep. 3 — Garden scene (3:40): Aired uncut. End credits background: Crown of grass (from Ishikawa’s postcard). Credit: "Special thanks: I.K."]

[Kurenai — Request to Kanzaki: Public statement supporting Crownless. Implied leverage: Season 3. Kanzaki’s response: Neutral until court rules.]

[Kanzaki Hayato & Sato Akari — Relationship: Acknowledged (in front of the Host).]