Page 48 of Little Miss Fortune

Smelly sibling: Can you buy them for me? :3

FU-chan: You are such a problem.

Smelly sibling: 39

She knows virtually no Japanese but somehow picked up on the slang: three nine—san kyuu—thank you. I didn’t say I would buy them. Ugh. Sisters.

When five o’clock rolls around, I am one of the last people in the office. Toby’s gone. Not that I should care or notice.

The Tube is crowded, but not overwhelming. It could do with an aircon. The Central line is particularly bad and insufferable. I look at the time—I might arrive before her. On the way up the escalators, I follow the crowd but take a turn left, right before the shopping mall. There is a coffee shop that I can wait for Hanako in.

An iced dirty chai isn’t something I normally get, but I am more in the mood to try new things.

You’re too boring to be lucky.

It’s not about him. I am choosing to explore the world and all its different flavours. I am in control of my life.

‘It’s your choice, but I want you to know that I am going to be quite upset about it regardless,’ says a man to a woman next to him. I am just within earshot.

‘You can’t just say no to everything I want to do,’ The woman responds.

‘I just don’t want you to devalue yourself because of the people you choose to associate with.’

‘Devalue myself? We are going out for drinks, not to a strip club.’

‘Yeah, and what type of women go to clubs, Soph?’

Huh? I go to clubs. What does that have to do with anything?

‘We keep having this conversation. Any time I want to do anything with the girls, you have some sort of problem with it.’

‘I just don’t understand why you would choose to go to a club if you’re in a relationship with me.’

To have fun? To dance a little? What’s up with this dude?

‘I...’ The woman tries to defend herself but just sits quietly.

‘I just think there are better things for you to do that behave like a slut in front of all those loser men.’

‘But we are not even going to a club. I told you, it’s just some cocktails.’

‘It’s your choice, Soph.’ He says it too loudly, too proud, as if he wanted the rest of the coffee shop to hear him, to agree with his line of thinking.

He reminds me of John a little. But more unsettling, there is something in his body and tone that’s making me extremely uncomfortable.

‘If you want to be a dirty slut, be my guest.’ That he whispered so that no one but her would hear the real him.

He walks out of the shop calmly, leaving the woman alone. She doesn’t move. Her flat white is untouched.

‘Hey, sorry, I was eavesdropping, are you okay?’ I turn to her.

‘Sorry?’ She looks up at me, her hair is in a slicked-back ponytail, blue eyes red from tears forming.

‘It might be none of my business, but I don’t think he should be talking to you like that.’ I say and wait for her to tell me to fuck off.

She doesn’t. ‘He is not always like this.’

‘You don’t have to defend him to me. I don’t know either of you, but I think if this is what he is like in public, he must be worse at home.’