Page 23 of Little Miss Fortune

‘You were going to call them my cum socks.’ I lower my voice even further. ‘Despite knowing perfectly that that’s not how lady parts work.’

And you’ve seen proof of that, I want to add but decide against it last second. Something about him remembering our naked encounter feels... odd.

‘Yes. Yes, I would have, how do you know?’ He leans in, matching my volume and cadence.

‘Because you’re a dude. And because I am excellent at predicting patterns. Therefore, I will thrive in digital marketing. You coming to Japan told me everything I need to know about you.’

‘Yeah?’ he asks with amusement. He jerks his chin in a challenge. ‘Go on. Tell me what you know about me.’

The lift panel lights up. It’s crawls back up. G to 1...

‘You are a massive weeb, but you think you ‘love Japan for the culture’, probably very into some niche Japanese band, Bump of Chicken or something, ended up in Toyama because Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto are too mainstream and you think you are better than that, or because you’re a massive World War Two fanatic.’

He thinks for a moment; a playful smile blooms on his face.

‘I prefer the term nerd, not weeb. I do love Bump of Chicken, and no, I was in Toyama because...’

The doors of the lift open, and I don’t let Toby finish.

‘Fuko?’ he asks with obvious concern.

I hide myself under the desk, finger pressing into my lips, begging him to keep quiet.

‘Fuko.’ Toby bends down and says as if through a megaphone, ‘That is strange of you, do you know that?’

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.’ I try to shoo him away by shaking his knee.

He looks around, then at my hand gripping his leg. ‘That’s my bad one.’

‘Oh, fuck, sorry.’

‘It looks like you’re hiding from the filming crew. I told you they were coming when we were on the Tube.’ Is that what he was saying? ‘Wait, you’re not hiding from the whole crew. Only one person. And by your reaction—a man.’

He studies my startled face.

‘An ex?’

I don’t respond.

‘Ah, the ex. Bingo. You’re not the only one good at reading people.’

His satisfied smile sends another set of shivers down my spine—this time of complete fear and terror. He just found himself a new toy.

CHAPTER 7

John has no power over Fuko

John G. Bigby is the twattiest motherfucker I have ever known. And it’s because he is such a twat that he has to be the luckiest, or there would be nothing left of him. When we were at uni, his team was selected to go to Amsterdam to present their short film as a sort of ‘opening act’ for the local film festival. Flights and accommodation were provided but not food. He scoffed three space muffins instead, showing up to the ceremony high but still somehow came back with very important contacts in the industry.

When he was filming a documentary about some start-up company in Argentina, he accidentally filmed a couple of documents that proved the entrepreneur was involved with some federal crime in the States, and John was given $50,000 as a reward.

You would think he would have used that money for something sensible, like a house deposit or some equipment for his business. No, the fucker went to Dubai for a month and sweet-talked a sheikh, who then bought him and his team all the filming equipment so that John could film his wedding to his third bride.

He is a buffoon. He idolises and copies Stanley Kubrick too much.

Shamefully, he was also my boyfriend for a year. And what an absolute joke of a year that was. He tried to propose to me on our third date with a plastic katana that sliced through some sushi rolls. That should have been such a warning sign, but I just thought he was funny. If we went out, he always wanted to go to karaoke (and he pronounced it correctly as ka-ra-o-ke, which I thought was impressive at the time for a white guy from St. Albans but now think is weird), and he would only want to sing songs by Japanese artists: Kenshi Yonezu, LiSA, Bump of Chicken (yeah, that one), which they never had, but he always checked. They had a Japanese version of the Backstreet Boys, so that was his go-to.

I don’t know why I stayed with him for so long, but I think the turning point was when he tried to contrive an ideal situation to profess his love. We had already said ‘I love you’ by that point, but no, he meant the Big L. The dai-love. Daisuki—the ultimate confession of undying love... but it’s not a thing, not even in anime. I bet he read about it on some silly forum.