[Novel: Venus Syndrome] (159) The Auntie from Kawachi's Song ~Torso Worker Guideline Update Meeting~

Chapter 1: Preparation and Reunion

The guidelines for so-called "Torsos"—officially, the "Employment Guidelines for Disabled Persons Engaged in Physical Display Work." But hardly anyone calls them by that name. In meetings and documents alike, everyone just goes with the "Torso Guideline Meeting."
It is hosted by the "

Venus Child" advocacy group, the "Colchicum Association." Once a year, they take the "gray area" issues that tend to arise during apparel shoots, fittings, and exhibitions, put them into words, and organize them into rules.The content is quite heavy. For example—

"How much can you touch a disabled person working as a display model?"

"Does giving instructions with just your eyes, without speaking, count as a valid work order?"
"What should be done if a costume is slipping off and they can't fix it themselves?"
—It's the work of taking those "hard-to-articulate parts," daring to put them into words, and updating them every year.

Institutions, workplaces, the individuals involved, companies, government offices, and supporters. It's a once-a-year reality-adjustment meeting where everyone faces each other at the same table. And the one handling the behind-the-scenes work is—

"…No way, is the hot water already out?"

It was

Tsubasa Kajigami, standing frozen in front of the electric kettle in the Kanda conference room.As she lifted a bottle of cold water with her prosthetic hand and carefully poured it into the empty kettle, Tsubasa sighed inwardly. She was used to using the metal prosthetic arm extending from her shoulder every day, but these mundane tasks required careful attention to subtle angles and balance. Taking care not to spill, she set the timer with her other prosthetic hand.

In the aging conference room where the lights hummed, everything—the air conditioning, documents, attendance, agenda, paper cups, moderator's script, and even the hot water—was her job. The Colchicum Association did have veteran staff like Toru Morizane, a former city hall employee, and Yoshie Imazuwa, a former public health nurse, but she was the only young, full-time employee who was also a person with a disability out there doing the legwork.

(Couldn't someone at least praise me? Am I not doing the work of five people today?)

Just as she closed the lid of the kettle with that thought, the door swung open vigorously.

"Alrighty, good morning. I'm here again this year!"

The person who entered was Ran Yabuuchi. A former torso, she had returned to Osaka after finishing her work in Tokyo and apparently worked as an office lady at some company now. She was the kind of person whose mere speech dragged the atmosphere into the Kansai region, and she was invited to this meeting every year.

"Ran-san, you're early."

"Yeah, I cleared up my paperwork and slept like a log on the Maglev. Had some ice cream at Shinagawa."

"…Ice cream before a meeting?"

"What's wrong with that? You need sugar to get the brain moving. Wait, Tsubasa-chan, you look exhausted?"

"I don't want to hear that from you, Ran-san…"

Ran walked in empty-handed and sat down in the back seat. Her movements were efficient, and you could tell that the way of standing as a torso was still ingrained in her body. But she didn't seem to care about the way she spoke, which could shatter that image in an instant.

Next, the door opened quietly.

"Good morning…"

A white blouse, a gray cardigan, and prosthetic arms carefully attached to both shoulders.

Yumi Yakuno. Felice's exclusive torso, and today's "active representative." Her demeanor and handling of her prosthetics were calm; to those who knew, she was clearly "the real deal.""Yumi-chan, thanks for coming. Did you get lost?"

"No… I'm mostly used to it. I arrived safely."

"Oh, that's good then. …Wait, huh? Yumi-chan, are you from Kansai?"

"Eh… oh, yes. Well… just a little bit."

"Hey, you should've told me sooner! I'm from Matsubara in Osaka!"

"…I'm from a place not many people know… over in Tanba…"

"Wow, that's great! Sounds like the air is clean!"

"We get a lot of deer… but the air is, well…"

Tsubasa, still holding a stack of documents, took a mental note. (Wait? Yumi-chan is from Kansai too…)(I mean, just having two people from Kansai here, this space isn't Tokyo anymore…)(I feel like my intonation is going to shift too…)

Yumi sat down, gently resting her prosthetic hands on the desk. Ran sat down next to her. The air trembled as stillness and motion sat side-by-side. And so, another complicated, slightly interesting meeting began this year.

Chapter 2: Opening and Crosstalk

"Let's begin."

Toru Morizane opened his mouth while organizing the documents. A former welfare section chief at city hall. Now, as the secretary-general of the Colchicum Association, he is always at the center of such meetings.

"Today, as we consider revisions to the guidelines for torso employment, I would like to use last year's version as a basis to concretize reasonable accommodations in shooting, fitting, and exhibition settings, and to share our on-site sense regarding 'non-verbal work instructions.'"

The sound of turning pages continued, and the breeze from the air conditioner gently brushed over the desks.
Tsubasa started up her tablet with her prosthetic hand and called up the meeting minutes template. Magnetic ring operation. Turning pages with one hand, typing headings with the other. Even if her body was used to it, there was a different kind of tension every year.

"First, from the perspective of those with on-site experience. Yakuno-san, please."

Prompted by Morizane, Yumi Yakuno nodded slightly.

"Yes… when they are pinning, I… worry about whether they will call out to me… Especially when they stand behind my back… if they pin without a word, I sometimes get startled."

Her voice was quiet and slow. But the core of her words did not waver.
How much that momentary "startle" makes the whole body stiffen. I understand.
Tsubasa typed "Notice of contact" and "Tension while stationary" side-by-side on her tablet.

"…I really do feel safer when there's a voice."

Morizane nodded once and turned his gaze to the next speaker.

"Now, opinions from the brand side. Today, we have Fumie Tamatsukuri, a pattern maker from Ria, joining us."

Fumie raised her face somewhat slowly and began to speak while tracing the documents at hand with her fingertips.

"…Nice to meet you. My name is Tamatsukuri, and I'm a pattern maker at Ria. This is my first time at a meeting like this… so I'm not quite sure how things work, but I look forward to working with you."

Morizane nodded softly. Fumie continued.

"We have a lot of girly clothes… so it's not really a site where we 'stop to pin.' For dress brands like Felice, there must be a lot of pins during fittings and shoots, right?"

Yumi straightened her posture.

"…Yes. During shoots and fittings, I often can't move. And there are quite a lot of pins…"

Fumie nodded once before continuing.

"We mainly do flat cutting, and the fabric is light. So, a girl named Ayane Iehisa at our place works as a torso, and her work is mainly showing clothes to customers at exhibitions or for SNS shoots. So, actually, there aren't many scenes where she has to 'stand still and be pinned.'"

Yumi nodded.

"…Certainly… for exhibitions and customer service, it's better to be able to move… isn't it?"

Fumie tapped the documents and smiled just a little.

"But hearing today's talk, I realized how hard it is to stand still and show clothes. We tend to just say 'Please wear this next' in a workflow… so it's more of a reflection, or rather, I've learned a lot."

At that moment, a different rhythm jumped in.

"That's it, that's it! That's the spot!"

Ran Yabuuchi. With her arms crossed, she leaned forward. Fumie was surprised, and Yumi blinked.

"Back in the day, I'd be put in a dress and pinned, and told to 'stay still,' and my back would itch but I couldn't move. That's hell, you know? Clothes with pins in them lose their balance if you move."

Yumi let out a voice involuntarily.

"…I understand… when it itches, I really can't do anything about it…"

Fumie shrugged.

"No… I haven't experienced that… just hearing it makes my back itch…"

Tsubasa, without stopping her recording, made a mental remark. (We've entered Kansai time again… Yumi-chan is being pulled in too…)

Morizane relaxed his mouth just a little and looked forward.

"Thank you. The 'presence or absence of calling out' and 'physical burden while stationary' like we just discussed are also extremely important points. Let's continue to organize based on case studies by site."

The breeze from the air conditioner brushed over the desk again. The edges of the paper quietly lifted and fell.
Even though it was supposed to be a meeting about systems, all that could be heard were the temperatures of the sites and the shapes of the voices.

Tsubasa took a quiet deep breath, adjusted her fingertips, and moved to the next page.

Chapter 3: Systems and Silence

"Now, including institutional organization, could Hatayama-san provide some supplementary information?"

At Morizane's signal, Hatayama, a labor and social security attorney sitting at the front table, stood up.
Black-rimmed glasses and a gray suit. A person known for speaking calmly without inserting unnecessary words.

"Thank you. I am Hatayama, a labor and social security attorney."

His voice carried but was restrained, and the air in the conference room tightened slightly.

"Regarding the 'non-verbal work instructions' that have been mentioned, this is legally a problem concerning the 'form of work orders.' In a labor-management relationship, whether verbal or non-verbal, if the other party can understand it as a work instruction, it is basically interpreted as being valid as an order."

On the tablet screen, Tsubasa typed the heading "Requirements for the establishment of instructions."
The fingers of her prosthetic hand traced the keys quietly. In tune with the tone of Hatayama's words, the sentences were organized calmly.

"However, from the perspective of reasonable accommodation, 'being able to understand' and 'not being accompanied by physical burden' are completely different things. For example, if instructed only by gaze, it often involves mental pressure for the model, and there is room to review this from the perspective of the duty of accommodation."

A quiet pause emerged in the conference room.
It wasn't that anyone was arguing. But it was a somewhat subtle silence.

Tsubasa sensed that atmosphere.
What Hatayama was saying was correct. But how should they use that on-site?
"Whether it can be understood" and "whether it hurts" were probably different stories.

"…That is all. I hope this is helpful."

As Hatayama sat down, Morizane immediately began to supplement.

"Thank you. Now, I would like to consider how to write in the guidelines whether such 'instructions that are valid as a form' are becoming a physical burden—and how to determine that."

Papers were turned again, and only the sound of several people running pens echoed.
The conference room, where even laughter had been heard until just a moment ago, suddenly switched to a business-like atmosphere.

The Kansai contingent—Ran and Yumi—were both silent.
Ran kept her arms crossed and leaned back in her chair, and Yumi was quietly turning the documents at hand.
Each silence seemed somewhat detached.

Fumie tried to open her mouth, but stopped.
Instead, she clicked her ballpoint pen to retract it.

Tsubasa, while filling in the blanks of the minutes, realized that she was currently chasing "atmosphere" rather than "records."

When it comes to institutional talk, it certainly becomes quiet.
The right words are lined up, but no one can return a hook to them.

(This is when the meeting stops the most.)

The fingertips of her prosthetic hand touched the corner of the tablet.
The sound that had stopped began to move quietly once more.

Chapter 4: Unrecorded Troubles

"Now, if there are any actual trouble cases, let's share them."

When Morizane said that, Ran Yabuuchi raised her hand without a pause.

"Oh, there are. There are tons of those."

While raising her body from the backrest, Ran began to speak with a slight smile. However, deep down, there was something dry.

"When I was working freelance, at an exhibition shoot, I was told 'don't move,' and then they'd talk about the line of my chest, or 'make your expression a bit softer,' or 'look this way'… things like that."

Yumi Yakuno tilted her head.

"…Wasn't that for swimwear or some special project?"

"Nope. Spring shirts and skirts. The usual 'fluffy' kind. It's just the atmosphere of 'be refreshing,' and the rest is just the air. 'You can't use that face,' nobody says it, but you can tell they're thinking it."

A silence suddenly ran through the conference room.

"And when I said, 'Wouldn't it be better to ask a model for that?', they replied, 'But you're wearing it, aren't you?' I'm just standing there 'as a torso.'"

Yumi asked quietly.

"…What did you do then?"

"I laughed it off. I could have stopped it, but if I stopped it, the atmosphere would get bad, right? I didn't want to be thought of as a 'troublesome person.' But now that I think about it, that wasn't work. The job of a torso is to 'show the clothes,' not to 'show feelings.'"

Yumi was silent for a moment before answering quietly.

"…I do get told 'give me a look' or 'be a bit brighter.' But… I, well, I thought that much was fine, so I complied."

Ran nodded.

"That's it. Everyone thinks 'that much is fine.' But if that piles up, before you know it, the atmosphere becomes 'it's natural to do model-like things too.' If they think of you as a 'girl who will do it,' it's over."

Yumi looked a little surprised, but didn't reply. She just felt like she understood.

At that moment, Fumie opened her mouth modestly.

"…Even at our place, when I was present at a shoot, the photographer said 'make the clothes come alive more.' To Ayane, the torso, he said 'your eyes are dead.' He probably didn't mean any harm, but… the moment I heard it, I thought, 'Oh, he's trying to make her compensate for the clothes with her expression.'"

The way she said it was gentle, but what was mixed in was a calm sense of discomfort as someone involved in making clothes.

"Well, it's true that the clothes are the main thing. At Ria, too, how it looks is the first priority…. So I tend to say 'I want you to do just a little something.' But 'if you're not going to talk, use your eyes' or 'if you're not going to move, use the atmosphere'… when you think about it, that's quite gray, isn't it?"

Tsubasa stopped her fingers for a moment while typing "Boundary of acting guidance" and "Illusion of compensation by expression" in her notes.

—The excuse of "for the clothes."

—The imposition of "just a little."

—Everything that hasn't been recorded, hasn't been recorded until now.

Morizane summarized it quietly.

"…It is thought that such situations are often not left in documents or reports at the site."

"They aren't. I didn't either."

Ran said it nonchalantly, but surely everyone understood what was behind her words.

Tsubasa quietly placed her finger on the save button of her tablet.
The sound of her prosthetic hand operating rang out in the dry conference room.

It was the moment that stories no one had written down were "left behind" for the first time.

Chapter 5: After the Meeting

"…Then, with that, we will conclude today's meeting. Thank you all for your cooperation."

As Toru Morizane's closing remarks ended quietly, the air in the conference room loosened up.
The creaking of chairs, paper cups with leftover water, the presence of people slowly standing up.
The end of a meeting doesn't necessarily mean it becomes quiet. Rather, it was a signal that reality was returning with a buzz.

Tsubasa tightened the cap of her plastic bottle with her prosthetic hand and collected the documents on the desk.
The typing was already over, but her body hadn't returned from "minutes mode" yet.

"Whew, talked a lot."

Ran Yabuuchi stood up with a big sigh. Yumi Yakuno smiled slightly at that voice.

"…You're energetic again this year."

"Well, I can't go on without talking. Especially when it comes to institutional talk, if you stay silent, you lose."

Yumi asked suddenly while putting her bag on her shoulder.

"…Um, Ran-san, you're in Osaka now, right?"

"Yeah. Went back to my parents' place, and now I'm working normally. You know, an OL."

"Eh… you're not in Yoshimoto or something?"

"Nope! It's a serious company called Kinki Electrical Safety Inspection Association. I schedule inspections for electrical equipment, make reports, chat…"

"You… chat too?"

"They say if the atmosphere in my department gets bad, we'll get electrocuted. So, I'm the one providing safety. Of the atmosphere."

Yumi asked back with a blank look.

"…Is that the job of the Safety Inspection Association?"

"It is. It's an important safety duty… wait, what are you making me say!"

Yumi laughed, shaking her shoulders. Tsubasa was also drawn in and let out a breath.

It was a little different from usual—the atmosphere.
It's not that anyone said anything definitive. But still, there was a feeling that something had "remained."

"Tsubasa-chan, you work hard too. You recorded everything, right?"

"Well… I suppose. But even if you record it, things that don't move won't move."

"You say it well!"

Ran put her eco-bag on her shoulder while laughing. Yumi also said "That's true" and carefully filed the paper documents.

The conference room door opened. The air outside was a little dry.

"Well then, see you next year."

The words Ran said as if waving her hand felt surprisingly natural.
Someone will talk here next year too. Someone might laugh, and someone might come while still hurt.
But if someone comes, that's probably fine.

Tsubasa turned off her tablet and, while gathering the used paper cups, thought of only one thing in her heart.

Putting things into words is really troublesome.
But only what has been put into words remains.

In that way, I felt like something remained today as well.

The End.