Web of light. book 1

"Here are the coins. Two hundred is enough for you. If anything, I'll add it."

Yuto spread it out in the palm of his hand: one 100 yen coin, another, and on top of that, a heavy 500 yen coin, like a backup plan.

"I remember," he said softly. "Two hundred."

Rinko smiled, not at him, but as if she was proud that he had noticed it:

"Yes. And look, there's a diagram on the wall. Do you see these numbers? This is how much it will cost to get off at each stop. We're coming out on the 23rd — it says here: 230 yen. Almost like two taiyaki."

Yuto nodded, clutching the coins and the ticket to himself. He suddenly felt better: the numbers weren't enemies, they were just pointers. Like the arrows on a rocket diagram: if you know where they lead, you can sit quietly by the window and watch the city slowly float by.

* * *

Together with Rinko's mother, Yuto went downtown to the bank to get a checkbook and a card. He received an email from the social network yesterday. The committee requested that a card be issued in his name, but with a request to be accompanied by at least the neighbor's mother.

Rinko sat on a chair in the hall while Yuto and her mom issued a card for Yuto to receive money from the clan's account. Mom showed me a letter from the social network. The Committee, and she was given a Yuto card in an envelope and told that the limit would be replenished every week by a certain amount.

"When I looked at the contract, it's a regular debit card for a child. You can open the envelope and sign the contract. And put it in this document, it's for auto-replenishment of communal services."

"I don't have my signature yet."

"Your accompanying person can sign the document, she will be your official representative at the bank from your quarter."

The card was an ordinary dark blue plastic one, and Yuto just chuckled when he saw it.

Especially in the absence of a broken number, Rinko herself had the same one, where her mother transferred her 2,000 thousand yen per week.

"Yuto, what's your limit?"

"Eight thousand a week for Rinko."

We were whispering on the bus seat.

"Mom, why does Yuto have so much money on his card?"

"Because he is paid by the social committee from the treasury of the Amakawa clan. Yuto is the last heir. Yuto, if you need to buy some clothes, warn me or the seller at least a couple of days in advance so that you can transfer the tranche to the purchase card."

* * *

Rinko clicked the lock of her purse and pulled out a thin white card with her name neatly written in black hieroglyphs. Nothing else: no long rows of numbers, no strange icons. It's just that "RINKO" is like a plaque on the door of a room that definitely belongs to her.

Yuto turned over his own card in his fingers, the one that showed both sneakers and house bills, and which he was always afraid of "spoiling" with one wrong number.

"You don't have any numbers at all," he said softly, as if he was afraid that if he spoke louder, the numbers would suddenly appear.

Rinko shrugged her shoulders and smiled, calmly, without boasting:

"But why? I don't need to remember them. Mom says it's like a house key.: You don't remember the pattern of the teeth. You just plug it in and the door opens." Rinko turned to the seller. "Two buns with sweet filling, please."

She held the card up to the terminal. A squeak. A green light. The salesman nodded:

"Two thousand. The limit has not been reached."

And everything. No passwords, no "enter code", no trembling fingers over the buttons.

"A card with no visible details. Closed loop: authorization by chip, data is stored in the block system, the user does not see and should not see the number. This is not a simplification for the sake of the child — it is a conscious security architecture." the graduate student inside almost exhaled from this cold, neat order.

Haruno's mom, who was standing a little behind him, seemed to hear this inner sigh and quietly added:

"There's a number on any card, Yuto. The system doesn't work without it. But he's not for you. It's for the bank, for the quarterly office, for reports. And there's only one rule for you: if you need to buy something, you put it on. We keep the rest on ourselves. Rinko tugged on his sleeve:

"Let's go. Let's take another yakitori. I still have almost everything left."

"Let's go, but now I'm crying. I have a bigger limit." Yuto said and followed her, and his fingers no longer clenched into fists. Because now he knew: you don't have to be smarter than numbers. Numbers are the work of adults. And his job is just to live.

* * *

Yuto ran into the house, waving a white envelope as if it were a trophy or, conversely, a verdict.

"Rinko! There's that piece of paper again! With numbers! And it says "pay by the 25th"! I don't want our lights to go out when you cook again... or I'll just do my homework!"

Rinko just sighed and waved her hand towards the kitchen:

"Take it to Haruno's mom. She's friends with these papers."

Rinko's mom was sitting at the table with a cup of tea and a stack of folders, but when she saw Yuuto's frightened eyes, she immediately pushed the papers away.

"Let me see."

She took the receipt, glanced at the lines, and calmly placed it on top of the folder labeled "Quarter-utilities."

"See? You don't have to press anything, run anywhere, or even get money. We have an autopayment here."

Yuto frowned, as if trying to catch the word and see if it was biting.

"Auto... what?"

"Autopayment," Aunt Haruno repeated, taking out the glasses again. For some reason, it was always easier for her to explain everything through water and jugs. "Look. This is our big jug — money for your life. And this little jug is the bill for the light. Every month, on exactly the same night, the bank itself takes from the big jug as much water as the little one needs. Without you. No queue. Without papers."

Yuto tilted his head like a puppy that had heard a new whistle.

"So... the bank comes and picks it up on its own?"

"Not by myself, of course. I once told the bank, `When the bill for the light comes in, pay from this bill.' And now it's just a rule. It's like saying to a cat, `Every day at six o'clock sharp, you get a bowl of food.' You don't have to pour every night. The rule is already working."

"Autopayment on a pre-agreed order. The write-off takes place on a fixed date. The initiator is not a cardholder, but a legal entity of the quarter; the Yuto card is only part of the content budget access system", Alex inside almost exhaled with relief: finally, instead of the frightening uncertainty, there were clear, fixed rules.

Yuto was still looking at the glasses, as if he was afraid that the water would disappear.

"What if... if I buy another pair of sneakers and there's not enough water in the big jug?" Aunt Haruno calmly ran her finger along the black line that she had once drawn on the glass.

That's what the threshold is for. If the water drops below this line, the social committee immediately sees and refills. So even if you buy sneakers, the cat's bowl will still fill up and the light won't go out.

Rinko, who was leaning against the door frame, chuckled:

"In general, you don't have to be afraid of this piece of paper at all. She comes just so that the adults know how much has run up there. And they pay without it."

Yuuto slowly reached out his hand and carefully placed the receipt on the folder.

"Means... Don't I have to hide it so I don't get upset?"

"You don't have to be afraid of her," Aunt Haruno said softly. "Let him lie. This is a job for adults. Your job is to have comfortable clothes for school and not to think about these numbers."

"The system is designed to eliminate the human factor at a critical stage. Mandatory payments do not depend on the child's memory or courage. They just happen," the graduate student thought.

And for the first time, Yuto looked at the white envelope not as a threat, but as an ordinary piece of paper. He even smiled a little:

"Okay. Then... can I still take those sneakers? Well, the ones with the blue stripe?"

Rinko rolled her eyes, but there was no anger in her voice:

"Go already. Just don't say later that I didn't warn you: in these sneakers you'll be jumping on ledges again."

And Yuto ran out, no longer looking back at the receipt. Rinko ran to run with him, she always had an awl in her ass, as her sensei said at school. Yuto, let's go to the city library, there's a department for children.

"Well, you know that I'm still a homebody. I don't have a library card, my parents probably didn't get it."

"Well, you know that I'm still a homebody."

"Yuuto, but you went to the library with me a month ago. I really didn't take anything."

"I seem to have lost it. You don't know if he's recovering."

"Yuto-kun's mom needs to restore the lost reader like I did that year!"

Haruno-san came out into the hallway.

"I'll ask our inspector from the social committee to help you with a trip to the library."

* * *

The building of the social committee smelled not of dust and books, but of something completely different — clean, slightly drugstore, with a slight admixture of coffee from the vending machine in the hallway. Yuuto tried to stay close to the wall, as if it could cover him.

"You know, I probably just lost her when my parents..." Tears welled up in Yuto's eyes. "I searched for the documents and couldn't find anything. And I probably watched it."

"There's no need to be afraid," Tanaka-san, the caseworker, said softly, adjusting her badge on her chest. It had her name and job title printed flat, without flourishes-Yuto managed to read it twice while they were waiting for the elevator. "We're just going to the library. And I'm coming with you to arrange everything. It's my job to make sure you have books, a travel card, everything you need.

Rinko walked on the other side and pretended that nothing special was happening at all: she chatted about the new manga, about the fact that there was a soda machine in the library, about the cat sleeping right on top of a stack of magazines in the reading room. And from her chatter, the world seemed to shrink slightly to an understandable size.

The library was quieter than Yuuto had expected. Not "silence when everyone is looking at you," but a calm silence where everyone is busy with their own business: someone is leafing through, someone is writing, someone is whispering something to the librarian.

The library still smelled of the same calm smell of paper and wood. The librarian, the one who had given Yuto the ticket, didn't even frown.

On the contrary, she tilted her head slightly, as if she wanted to catch his eye and say without words: "It's okay. We'll fix it."

"You're Yuto-kun, right? I remember you a month ago, such a lost young man...." She asked softly. "We already have you in the system. Let's just find your card in the database."

Yuto froze for a second. He suddenly felt ashamed: he was afraid that he would be scolded now, they would say that he was careless, that such things should not be lost.

"Identification based on saved data: the system stores the user's profile. The physical medium is secondary. Loss does not revoke access rights", the graduate student's voice sounded not like a cold report, but almost like a defense: he seemed to stand in front of Yuto and shield him from possible reproach.

Tanaka-san calmly placed her ID on the counter:

"I'm escorting Yuto from the social committee. A replacement of the reader's ticket is needed due to the loss."

The librarian nodded, clicked her mouse, and checked something.

"Yes, here it is. Everything is fine. We only need to print a new card. Sometimes they charge a small fee for a duplicate — I'll look at it now... yeah, a hundred yen."

Yuto immediately reached for his wallet, as if he wanted to prove that he wasn't helpless:

"I have. I'll pay for it myself."

Tanaka-san smiled a little-not broadly, but so that the smile would not scare away his determination:

"Good. Let it be your payment. It is right: You're responsible for your card."

He took out a hundred yen coin and placed it on the counter. It rang softly, but to Yuto it sounded like `I did it.'

The printer clicked again, and a new card crawled out of it — exactly the same as the previous one: white, with dark blue letters, with the same number.

"Here," the librarian handed it to Yuto, as she had the first time, holding it by the very edge, as if the card needed to be handed over carefully. "Now she's yours again. If you get lost again, come back. We'll find you in the database again. You're not going anywhere. Just bring your guardian to reissue the card."

Yuto squeezed the card with his fingers, then carefully put it in a special pocket inside the wallet, where only the most important things were.

Rinko, who had been standing nearby all this time, pretending to look at the children's book stand, finally turned around:

"You know, my library card went missing three times last year. And every time I had it done all over again. So you're not the only one."

Yuuto smiled faintly. He didn't want to be pitied, but Rinko's words made his anxiety seem to settle somewhere below, like dust after rain.

"Now I'll only put it here," He tapped the pocket with his finger. "And check. Twice."

Tanaka-san nodded, as if that was the most sensible rule in the world:

"Twice is good. And if you suddenly forget, you know where to call. We will help you."

And they went to the shelves. Yuuto walked a little more confidently because the card was with him again. And also because now he knew for sure that if she disappeared again, the world would not collapse. They will find him by name, by address, by date of birth — and again they will give him a pass to this quiet, paper-smelling island, where you can just read and not be afraid that you will be kicked out for one small loss.

Although you still need to buy an old used computer at home as a work machine and run the Internet around the house.

"And now," Rinko pulled him towards the shelves, where a sign above the shelves read `Manga. Children's and teenagers', "Let's find something about space. You said you like stories where everything can be counted.

And they walked between the rows, and Yuto clutched the card in his pocket so that he could feel its corners — sharp, but not prickly, like small steps that you can climb forward, step by step.

"Let's look for Star Wars."

The shelves in the children's department were cleverly arranged: at the bottom there were books that you could leaf through while sitting on the floor; a little higher there were manga that were pulled from the shelves by everyone; and at eye level there were the most "catchy" covers: bright, with characters who seemed to be looking directly at you.