Chapter 160: Twenty-Four Stairs, Again

Chapter 160: Chapter 160: Twenty-Four Stairs, Again

Mizuno called at 11:52. Haruki had been sitting on his floor with the phone in both hands since 8:40, and he answered before the first ring had finished.

For a moment, neither of them said anything. He could hear the particular quiet of a stairwell, echoing faintly, and footsteps somewhere far below. She must have walked out of the boardroom and found the nearest place where nobody could see her face.

"Six to three," she said at last.

He closed his eyes.

"Section ten is gone," Mizuno said. Her voice was unsteady in a way he had heard only once before, at a yakitori table with a grey wool scarf on the chair beside her. "For every paid-tier renewal, from April. You, and a dragon bakery, and a lighthouse, and a haunted laundromat. The platform keeps the right to publish first, online, for two years. Nothing else." A breath. "The adaptation rights stay with the creator. Completely. Nobody has to ask us for anything."

He couldn’t answer.

"Arai-san voted yes," she went on. "After it had already passed. His vote didn’t count for anything, and he raised his hand anyway." A pause. "The man who wrote Section ten nine years ago is drafting the deletion himself. He said it should be done properly." Something that was almost a laugh came down the line. "Kōsuke-san read your card aloud. Arai-san’s card. Nobody in the room knew who’d written it except Arai-san, and he didn’t say a word."

"Mizuno-san—"

"And Ōtsuka-san’s hand didn’t shake," Mizuno said. "His wife made him promise."

He sat on his floor in the grey December light, with the phone against his ear and the open doorway across the room. Two new pencil lines stood above twelve old ones.

"In April," Mizuno said, very quietly now, "when your contract ends, I’m going to offer you a renewal. The new terms, with no Section ten, and everyone’s clause, and Section 4.3 in the binder." Her voice steadied. "You can sign it and stay with me, and take Threadless Gate to Mitaka the same morning. Both. For the first time, nobody has to choose."

"I know."

"I’m not asking you to decide now."

"I’ve already decided," Haruki said.

The stairwell on the other end of the line went very quiet.

"I decided in September," he said. "At the yakitori place, when you put the list down and I read the title of your proposal. I didn’t say anything, because it would have sounded like I was asking for your vote." He took a breath. "If it passed, I’d stay. With you. And take it to Hikari."

Mizuno didn’t say anything for a long time.

"You’re a terrible liar," she said at last. "You’ve never been able to keep anything from me."

"I kept this for three months."

"Yes," Mizuno said softly. "You did." A pause. "Go to Mitaka, Amamiya-kun. Tell the old man with the teacup before somebody else does. I’ll see you on Friday. Chapter fifty-five, page nine, is still too slow."

He took the Chūō Line west to Mitaka that afternoon, in the thin December light, with his sketchbook under his arm.

The bicycle shop was open, its owner wheeling a row of secondhand bicycles out onto the pavement. He looked up as Haruki passed, recognized him, and nodded toward the narrow unsigned door beside the shop.

"Mind the top step," he said. "It’s new. People keep tripping on it because they’re expecting it to be broken."

Haruki climbed them all, twenty-four worn stairs with one pale new plank at the top. He counted them, as he always did, and didn’t skip the last one.

The studio was quieter than he had ever seen it. There were eight people at eight desks, working in the grey afternoon light over the street. Minase sat by the window with paint on her fingers and a pencil behind her ear. At the far end, in the worn armchair, sat Tachibana, with his wrist free of its brace now but still stiff, and a cup of tea on the stool beside him.

The young animator who had once drawn the Gate for her portfolio looked up as he came in. Her face went bright red, as it always did. This time she didn’t look away.

"Sketchbook," Tachibana said, without looking up, and held out his hand.

Haruki didn’t give it to him.

The old man looked up.

"The board voted this morning," Haruki said. "Six to three. Section ten is deleted for every renewal from April." He looked at Minase by the window, and at the eight people at their desks, and at the old man in the armchair. "My exclusivity ends on the twenty-fifth of April. On the twenty-sixth, I’ll be free to choose."

Nobody in the studio moved.

"I’m choosing Hikari," Haruki said. "If Hikari will have me."

For a long moment, the only sound was the bicycle-shop owner whistling on the pavement below.

Then Tachibana set down his cup very slowly.

"Minase-chan," he said, without turning his head.

"Yes."

"How long does it take to storyboard a first episode properly?"

Minase looked at Haruki across the long room. Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was perfectly steady.

"Four months," she said. "If nobody sleeps."

"Then start in January," Tachibana said. "Unofficially. The way you made the twelve seconds, in the evenings, with nobody paying and nobody allowed to see." He picked up his cup again. "On the twenty-sixth of April, we sign. On the twenty-seventh, I’ll want to see the storyboard for the Gate ceremony. Page twelve, the blank one." He looked at Haruki over his thick glasses. "I want to know what a white page sounds like."

The young animator at the end of the table had put her face in her hands.

Minase came across the room and stood in front of Haruki. She didn’t say anything. She held out her hand, palm up, the way Tachibana did.

He gave her the sketchbook.

As he turned to leave, the young animator at the end of the table stood up.

She was twenty, small, with her hair tied back and ink on the side of her hand. In six months of visits, she had never once said a word to him. She had only gone red and looked at her light box.

"Amamiya-san," she said. Her voice was very quiet and shook a little. "My name is Ichinose. Ichinose Mao." She swallowed. "I drew the Gate for my portfolio. When I applied here. Before I knew you’d ever come."

"I know," Haruki said. "Minase-san told me in June. She said not to mention it or you’d die."

Ichinose went so red that the colour reached her ears. At the window, Minase made a small sound that was definitely a laugh.

"I own one share of this studio," Ichinose said, very fast, as though she had rehearsed it on twenty-four stairs every morning for a month. "The same as everyone else. So I’m allowed to ask." She took a breath. "In episode one, can I draw the Gate?"

Haruki looked at her for a long moment. Eighteen months ago, a boy in Saitama had copied his pages because he didn’t believe he could make anything of his own. Now that boy drew every background in Threadless Gate and taught reading to a sea-serpent boy on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"It’s not my decision," he said. "It’s your director’s." He glanced at Minase by the window. "But if anyone asks me, I’ll say yes."

"Then it’s yes," said Minase, without looking up from her desk.

Ichinose sat down very suddenly, as though her knees had given way. At the far end of the room, Tachibana laughed so hard he had to hold his stiff wrist.

[Animation Production (Locked) — Condition 3 ("The right to choose"): Secured from April 26th.]

[Progress: 2/3 → 3/3 (pending).]

[Studio Hikari — Threadless Gate: Pre-production (unofficial) from January.]

He called Helsinki from the pavement outside the bicycle shop, although it was a Wednesday. It was early morning there, and he knew she would be awake, because Yui was always awake before seven.

She answered on the second ring.

"It passed," he said. "Six to three."

She didn’t say anything at all. He heard her breathe out, very slowly, eight thousand kilometres away, in a small room with a radiator she didn’t know how to turn off.

"And?" she said at last.

"And I’m staying with Mizuno-san," he said. "And in April, Threadless Gate goes to Hikari. The old man wants to hear what a white page sounds like."

Yui was quiet for a long moment.

"You told them both what you wanted," she said. "Before you decided. Didn’t you?"

"Yes."

"Good," Yui said. He could hear her smiling. "Then I’ll check the doorframe in September. You’ll have grown."

The first snow of the winter began to fall in Mitaka while they were still talking. It was fine and light, the kind that melted before it reached the pavement. He stood outside the narrow unsigned door with the phone against his ear and watched it come down over the bicycles, and the street, and the twenty-four stairs behind him.

The blue screen opened quietly beside him in the falling snow.

PART THREE COMPLETE: THE ROOKIE TOURNAMENT. Tournament: Runner-up (0.2). First book: Published (Naniwa Shobō). Printings: 4. Platform: Section 10 — Deleted (6–3). Studio Hikari: Employee-owned. Threadless Gate — Confirmed (April 26). Main Quest: The Golden Age — 8.3% → 10.0%. NEW MISSION — PART FOUR: CROSSROADS. "Every door you opened is now a road. Choose which ones to walk down, and who walks beside you."