Page 112 of Little Miss Fortune

‘On your marks!’ a man shouts. In a coat. ‘Get set! Go!’

I jump into the water. Icicles pierce through my skin, leaving every inch of it as red as my face post the West End audition. I am about 1 kilometre in when I take my first five-minute break, which I regret immediately, as being out of the water is now worse than being in. I chew on a handful of jelly beans and jump back in.

I hit my second kilometre just after an hour, which is when things take a turn for the worse. I get a cramp, I lose my rhythm, I tap out of the race after completing 2.3 km.

‘That was honestly impressive for someone who doesn’t do any physical activity.’ Sashka is rubbing my back after I change.

My teeth keep chattering against my paper cup full of boiling tea. A lady from the other team had to give me her extra gloves and hat. I look at my phone: an ‘it was great filming with you’ message from Malik, a shout-out from Adzo on the work group chat, an e-mail to say my audition for the new musical was unsuccessful, but that’s not what I care about. It’s the amulet that is dangling from it.

Silent.

Fuck.

I just need the final piece of luck. The one that will set the whole plan into motion.

The house smells like roasted green tea when I come back. Dad is whipping the hojicha powder into a foam. When he lived in Japan, Obaachan made him do tea ceremonies for the family before giving Dad her blessing to marry her daughter.

‘Hi, sweetie, did you beat them?’ he asks, seeing how I fell onto the couch, face first, legs and arms flapping lifelessly.

‘It was so bad. I couldn’t finish.’

‘That’s unlucky.’

‘You could say that again.’

‘Do you want a hojicha latte?’

It’s our version of hot chocolate. I nod, and he places a cup on the table. Part of me is certain that Japan is selling so much matcha to foreign countries on purpose to keep hojicha for themselves.

‘What’s bothering you, little one?’

‘What is the bravest thing you’ve done?’ I reach for the delicious brown drink.

He crosses his legs and thinks. I am half expecting him to say something about jump-starting his car from a tractor back when we lived in the rural inaka of Toyama.

‘When I told your mother that I loved her.’

A blow I did not expect. ‘Really?’ I ask with some stinging in my eyes.

‘Oh yeah. We worked at the same school. It could have ended so badly. But I was certain that her rejecting me could not be worse than me wondering.’

‘Do you ever feel unlucky?’

‘Never, you can’t feel unlucky with a wife and daughters like mine.’

An uncontrollable smile unfurls on my lips—to be that happy with the cards you have been dealt, maybe Dad is extremely lucky after all.

I take a long hot shower, missing Japanese hot springs, which might be the only things capable of getting that arctic shiver out of my bones. With my hair wet, I type out a text with an explanation of my feelings, how I should have said it sooner, how I don’t want him to read too much into it.

But I delete all of it and send:

Fuko: I love you.

A dull ache sings in my chest. It muffles my hearing so much that I stop feeling my heartbeat.

No response. I’m losing all hope, when a bright, relieved jingle rushes through the bell.

I open my laptop, open the website that I’ve been staring at for the last week, and press Submit.