Chapter 206: Schedule C

Chapter 206: Chapter 206: Schedule C

The editor-in-chief of the Iidabashi publisher read clause fourteen point three twice. Then he turned to Schedule C, read the company name, and asked his secretary to bring him every contract Saito Kenji had signed in five years.

There were nine.

It was the second of December, a Tuesday, in a small, book-lined office on the fourth floor of a forty-year-old building near Iidabashi Station. Kuroda Ryu had posted his notice of non-renewal by registered mail the previous Friday, signed in black ink, one paragraph long, drafted by Hirose. Then he had written separately to the editor-in-chief, by hand, the way Haruki had written to Singapore.

He hadn’t explained everything in the letter. He had written only that he had found something at the back of his contract that he didn’t understand. He would like to show it to the editor-in-chief in person, before anyone else.

The editor-in-chief had called him the next morning and asked him to come on Tuesday at ten. He had asked him to bring whoever he trusted.

So Kuroda had come with Hayama Rin, who had taken the morning off from the bank, and with Haruki. Kuroda had asked him on the phone, very quietly. You told me first. I’d like you there when I tell someone else.

The editor-in-chief was a small, round man in his sixties named Nakajima Tōru. He had thick glasses and a cardigan with leather buttons, and an office so full of books that two of them had to stand. He had founded the publisher’s manga line twenty-two years ago, with three creators and a borrowed photocopier. He said so within the first five minutes, the way Tachibana talked about four people in a borrowed room above a bicycle shop.

He read Kuroda’s contract at his desk in silence for twenty minutes. He turned the pages one at a time with a licked finger, as though they might stick together.

When he reached Schedule C, he stopped for a long time.

"I’ve never seen this," he said at last. His voice was very quiet. "This schedule. This company." He looked up at Kuroda. "Our standard print contract has no Schedule C. We don’t have nominated adaptation partners. We negotiate every adaptation case by case, with the creator in the room. That’s been our policy since I started the line." He laid his hand flat on the page. "Who drafted this version?"

"Saito-san brought it to the first meeting," Kuroda said. "Already printed. He said it was standard."

Nakajima Tōru took off his glasses and polished them on his cardigan very slowly, the way Hirose did, and didn’t put them back on for a while.

Then he picked up his telephone and asked his secretary to bring him the files.

The secretary brought them in two cardboard boxes. There were nine contracts, signed over five years by nine creators whose print volumes Saito Kenji had edited. Nakajima laid them out across his desk and the two chairs and the top of a stack of books, and read the back pages of each one.

Hayama read them after him, one at a time, three times each, standing at the edge of the desk with her notebook.

Eight of the nine had Schedule C.

All eight named the same nominated adaptation partner, at the same registered address in Osaka. All eight had automatic renewal clauses, with notice due ninety days before expiry. All eight had been signed at dinners, by creators who had been told it was standard.

The ninth was the oldest. Saito had edited it in his first year at Iidabashi, before he had apparently learned to add a schedule at the back. It had no Schedule C at all.

Nakajima sat down slowly in his chair, among the open contracts.

"Five years," he said. "He’s worked here five years. He was recommended to me by a friend at an investment fund. Very highly. He was the best editor I’d hired in a decade. My creators loved him." He looked at the eight contracts spread across his desk. "He was signing them away to a company in Osaka, one by one, at dinner, under my publisher’s letterhead."

Nobody said anything.

"Two of these renew in March," Hayama said quietly. "Besides Kuroda-san’s. The notice deadline is the thirty-first of December for all three." She looked at the editor-in-chief. "The creators don’t know."

Nakajima Tōru looked up at her.

"Then they’ll know by tomorrow," he said. "I’ll call each of them myself, tonight." He put his glasses back on. "And I’ll call Saito-kun into this office at nine tomorrow morning and ask him—"

"Please don’t," said Haruki.

The editor-in-chief turned to look at him, surprised. It was the first thing Haruki had said in the room.

"I’m sorry," Haruki said. "It’s your publisher and your decision. But there’s a court hearing in ten days, on the twelfth. His name will be read out in it, with an expense report for a trip to Hakata in June, and a receipt for two coffees." He hesitated. "If you call him in tomorrow, he’ll know what’s coming. He’s very good at being polite. He’ll have ten days to make sure every original document in Osaka is somewhere a court can’t find it."

Nakajima looked at him for a long time across the cluttered desk.

"You want me to let him keep working," he said slowly. "For ten more days. Knowing what he’s done."

"I want you to decide," Haruki said. "That’s all. I only wanted you to know what happens either way."

The small office was very quiet. Outside the window, the Chūō Line ran past along the river toward Ochanomizu.

The editor-in-chief looked down at the eight contracts on his desk, the ninth without a schedule, and Kuroda’s on top of them all.

"Twenty-two years," he said quietly. "Three creators and a borrowed photocopier." He picked up the oldest contract, the clean one. "I started this line because I’d watched big publishers do exactly this to young artists. I swore we’d never be the kind of place where a creator signed something at dinner they didn’t understand." He laid it down. "And for five years, under my own letterhead, we were."

He was silent for a long moment.

"I’ll call the creators tonight," he said finally. "All eight. They’ll each have a letter from me by Friday, offering to remove Schedule C from their contracts immediately, without conditions." He looked at Kuroda. "Yours first."

"And Saito-san?" Kuroda asked.

Nakajima Tōru folded his hands on the desk among the open contracts.

"Saito-kun will come to work tomorrow and find nothing unusual," he said. "On the thirteenth of December, after the hearing, he’ll find me waiting in this office with these eight contracts and a lawyer." He looked at Haruki. "Ten days. I’ve waited twenty-two years to find out what kind of publisher I’d built. I can wait ten more."

They came out onto the pavement by the river at 11:40, into a cold, bright December morning. A barge went past slowly on the grey water of the canal below the station. Office workers hurried along the bridge with their collars turned up.

Kuroda stopped at the railing and looked down at the water. He didn’t say anything for a long time.

"He offered me a new contract," he said at last. "At the end. While you were putting on your coats. The same terms, without fourteen point three and without Schedule C. Three more volumes in three countries." He looked down at the barge. "He said he’d personally edit them himself, until he found someone he trusted."

"Will you take it?" Haruki asked.

"I don’t know yet," Kuroda said. "I sent the notice. I’m free in April either way." He was quiet for a moment. "But I think so. He read my contract the way Hayama-san does. Twenty minutes, with a licked finger." He almost smiled. "Nobody at that publisher ever read it like that. Not even me."

Hayama stood beside them at the railing with her notebook held against her chest. She hadn’t said anything since they came out.

"Eight creators," she said quietly. "I’ll have their names by tonight. They’ll all need someone to read their new contracts, separately from the publisher, so nobody can say they were pressured." She looked down at the water. "The Lantern has four contract readers now. That isn’t enough."

"Then we’ll find more," said Haruki.

"I know," Hayama said. "I’m only saying it out loud, the way your list says." She almost smiled. "Number one."

Kuroda looked at her, puzzled.

"It’s a long story," said Haruki.

"It’s always a long story with you," said Kuroda. He pushed himself off the railing and put his hands in his coat pockets. "Ten days. Then the court, and then he sits in that office with eight contracts and a lawyer." He looked toward the station. "I’ll still be in the front row on the twelfth. Whatever he says, I want him to see my face when they read his name."

[Iidabashi publisher — Editor-in-chief Nakajima Tōru: Unaware of Schedule C. Contracts reviewed: 9 (Saito’s). With Schedule C: 8. Same partner: Kōyō Media Planning (Osaka).]

[Action: All 8 creators to be offered removal of Schedule C. Saito Kenji: Not to be confronted until after Dec 12.]

[Kuroda Ryu — Offered: New contract (no 14.3 / Schedule C), edited by Nakajima personally. Decision: Pending.]