Chapter 205: The Third Reading

Chapter 205: Chapter 205: The Third Reading

Hayama Rin found it on the third reading, at 9:40 at night, at her desk in a loan office in ōji. Every other desk was dark, and the only sound was the hum of the photocopier in the corner, which nobody had ever managed to switch off properly.

She had read Kuroda Ryu’s print contract twice already, on the train home the night before and over her lunch break. She was a loan officer, and loan officers learned early that a document rarely hid anything on the first reading. The first reading told you what the document wanted you to think. The second told you what it said. The third told you what it did.

It was twenty-two pages long, on the letterhead of a respectable mid-sized publisher in Iidabashi that had existed for forty years. Most of it was ordinary: print rights for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, royalties at a fair rate, delivery schedules, and cover approval. It was the kind of contract her own publisher should have offered her at nineteen, instead of a Theseus agreement with a grey header.

Page six was about royalty statements. There was nothing hidden in it.

It was page fourteen.

She had read past it twice. It was a single clause in the section on Subsidiary Rights, three lines long, in the same polite, careful language as everything around it.

14.3 — The Author agrees that, during the Term and any Renewal Term, the Publisher shall have the exclusive right to negotiate and conclude agreements for audiovisual adaptation of the Work through the Publisher’s nominated adaptation partner, as designated in Schedule C.

She turned to the back of the contract.

Schedule C was a single page with a single line of text, and a company name and registered address in Osaka.

Nominated adaptation partner: Kōyō Media Planning K.K.

Hayama sat very still at her desk in the dark office.

She had spent nine years reading other people’s contracts so that nobody would do to them what had been done to her. She knew the shape of a clause that had been placed somewhere to be skipped. Subsidiary rights came after royalties and delivery schedules, when the reader’s attention was tired and the important things already seemed settled. Fourteen was well past six. A reader who had been taught to read page six twice would stop being careful by page fourteen.

She opened her briefcase and took out the photocopies Hirose had given the Lantern in October, for reference. They were the two Osaka company registry extracts, with the same representative director on both: the property company that had tried to buy the Kinoshita building, and the platform that hosted Crownless.

She read the registered address on both.

It was the same address as Schedule C.

She called Kuroda at 10:05. He answered on the first ring. He had been waiting, apparently, since she’d told him she would read it that evening.

"Kōyō Media Planning," she said. "Have you heard of it?"

There was a pause on the line.

"No," Kuroda said. "Should I have?"

"It’s in your contract. Schedule C, at the very back." She kept her voice very level, the way she did with clients at the bank who were about to hear something they wouldn’t like. "Clause fourteen point three says that while your contract with Iidabashi runs, any anime or film adaptation of Blade Campus Rebellion must go through the publisher’s nominated adaptation partner. Schedule C names the partner." She paused. "It’s registered at the same address in Osaka as the company that offered to buy Studio Hikari’s building, and the platform that published Crownless."

The line was completely silent.

"The same address," Kuroda said at last.

"The same address. I’ll know tomorrow who its directors are. I’ve asked the Legal Affairs Bureau for an extract. But I think we both know."

Kuroda didn’t say anything for a long time.

"Ishimura," he said finally. "She sent me Saito-san. And Saito-san brought me a contract with her company at the back of it." His voice was very quiet. "So if anyone ever wanted to make an anime of my work—"

"They’d have to go through her," Hayama said. "For as long as the contract runs. You’d have no choice of studio and no veto. Whatever you’re paid would come through her company, after her fee." She paused. "It’s not illegal, Kuroda-san. It’s very carefully legal. Subsidiary-rights clauses like this exist all over the industry. It’s simply that you were never told who the partner was, and the man who brought you the contract worked for her."

"Has anyone offered?" Kuroda asked. "An anime? Of Blade Campus?"

"I don’t know," Hayama said. "Have they?"

The line was quiet again for a long time.

"In September," Kuroda said slowly. "Saito-san mentioned it. At a dinner. He said there was interest from a studio, very early, nothing to discuss yet. He said Iidabashi would handle it, because that was their right under the contract." He stopped. "He said the studio had just been restructured and had new owners with international reach. He said it was a very good opportunity."

Hayama closed her eyes.

"Kurenai," she said.

"He didn’t say the name."

"He didn’t need to."

She stayed at her desk after the call, in the dark loan office with the photocopier humming. She read the rest of the contract a fourth time, slowly, because Hirose would, and because she had learned from him that the fourth reading was for the things you were afraid you’d missed.

There was one more thing, on page twenty-one, in the section on Term and Renewal.

20.1 — This Agreement shall renew automatically for a further Term of three (3) years on the Expiry Date unless either party gives written notice of non-renewal no later than ninety (90) days prior to the Expiry Date.

The Expiry Date, on page one, was the thirty-first of March.

Hayama counted backward on her fingers, sitting alone at her desk.

Ninety days before the thirty-first of March was the first of January.

Kuroda had to give written notice by the thirty-first of December, in five weeks. Otherwise his contract with Iidabashi would renew automatically for three more years. Clause fourteen point three would come with it, and Schedule C, and a company in Osaka with the right to decide who made an anime of Blade Campus Rebellion until he was twenty-nine.

She picked up the phone again.

"Kuroda-san," she said, when he answered. "One more thing. Get a pen."

She read him clause twenty point one twice, slowly, and then the date.

The line was quiet for a long time.

"If I send the notice," Kuroda said at last, "I lose Iidabashi. The print volumes in Korea and Taiwan, and the Chinese edition that just came out." His voice was very even, the way it had been when he stepped off rank one for three days in the first summer. "Three countries. Five years of work."

"Not necessarily," said Hayama. "Notice of non-renewal isn’t termination. The contract runs until March. The books already published stay published. And Iidabashi is a forty-year-old publisher with an editor-in-chief who has probably never read Schedule C either." She paused. "You could write to the editor-in-chief. Tell him what’s at the back of your contract and who put it there. Offer to renew on new terms, without fourteen point three and without Schedule C." She paused again. "He may say yes. He may be horrified. Most publishers would be."

"And if he says no?"

"Then you’re free on the first of April," Hayama said. "With seven volumes in three languages and readers in three countries, and no company in Osaka deciding who animates your rooftops."

Kuroda didn’t answer.

"Hayama-san," he said finally. "What would you do?"

She sat in the dark loan office with the photocopier humming in the corner, and the grey wool scarf folded in her bag on the floor beside her desk. It had been her mother’s, and she had worn it every winter since she was eight.

"When I was nineteen," she said slowly, "I had a contract with an automatic renewal clause and a schedule at the back I never read. Nobody told me what it did. When it renewed, I couldn’t leave for three years. By the time I could, I’d stopped drawing." She was quiet for a moment. "I’d have sent the notice, Kuroda-san. If anyone had told me the date, I’d have sent it the same night, by registered post, and then decided what to do about everything else afterward."

The line was quiet.

"Hirose-sensei will draft it tomorrow," Hayama said. "One paragraph, with no explanation required. You sign it, and it goes by registered post. Then you write to the editor-in-chief, separately, and tell him the truth." She paused. "One thing at a time. The date first."

"The date first," Kuroda repeated.

"That’s what I wish someone had told me," Hayama said quietly.

[Kuroda Ryu — Iidabashi print contract: Clause 14.3 (audiovisual adaptation via "nominated adaptation partner"). Schedule C: Kōyō Media Planning K.K. (Osaka; same registered address as Ishimura’s companies).]

[Reported (Sept): "Interest from a studio" in adapting Blade Campus Rebellion (via Saito).]

[Auto-renewal (3 yrs) unless written notice by December 31.]