Page 59 of Little Miss Fortune

And then we start talking about luck. About my forgotten Momotaro Dentetsu gambling/train game and how it only rains when I do not have an umbrella on me. About how it was my small misfortune that brought us together when he walked in on me naked.

‘It was fate.’ He shakes his head dismissively.

‘There was nothing fateful about a man walking in on me. That was bad luck.’

‘Tomato, tomato.’

‘Actually, when I think about it, a lot of bad luck has happened around you. Maybe you’re my bad luck charm. Fainting, stuck on a Tube, stuck in the club...’

‘Being stuck in a lift. Oh, wait, that sounds a lot like fate.’

‘Are bad things also considered fate in your world?’

He gets quiet, as if this question was never meant to be asked. ‘Especially the bad things. You just have to accept them. But nothing about you is bad, Fuko.’

‘So what, you believe that we are meant to be together?’ I bat my eyelashes, ignoring the clench in my chest from him saying my name.

‘That we are meant to... something. I just don’t know what yet.’

He sounds serious, as if I am the oblivious one. The conversation up to this point has been so normal and friendly that I forgot that at the beginning of it he asked me on a date. But now he keeps looking at me in a way that makes me cross my legs.

His arm is on the back of my chair. What if I let myself sink into it, let myself be closer for just a moment? But instead, I deflect, ‘See, your concepts are lacking. You have no evidence. I have years of empirical observations.’

He sits with that knowledge, really considering it. He glances up at the apartment building that stands threateningly above us, overwhelming the city with its might.

‘Hmm, perhaps, but as I said earlier, I know something you don’t.’

‘What is it?’

‘Come with me, and I’ll show you.’

The glimmer in his eye is a gentle flicker of candlelight, a will-o’-the-wisp that leads lost travellers astray,

Six beers down, one major upset with three minor ones, and two beautiful eyes staring right through me. Who am I to say no?

CHAPTER 21

Hotel by the station’s looking at you, Fuko

I was wrong about the pub being a great filming location. These... These are new heights.

SCENE

INT. LUXURY APARTMENT FOYER – NIGHT

TOBY and FUKO walk through the doors of a luxury apartment block. A CONCIERGE in a uniform greets them and puts his card on the scanner by the lift. He looks at the woman with a slightly raised brow, as if to ask Another one?

The lift dings and doors open.

CONCIERGE

Have a good evening, sir.

TOBY

Thank you, Rufus, you too.

The doors shut.