Chapter 7 John has no power over Fuko
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.
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.
He had set up a massive argument the day before so that I could feel the emotional low before the ultimate high, which is just fucking weird.
When he explained that this, the bizarre confession, was the reason he manufactured a disagreement about me not caring about him and his interests, I shut the door in his face.
It woke me up. I cared too much; he cared too little.
He viewed me only through the lens of his life, how I fitted into his story.
And now he is contracted out by SIMPO to shoot an ad for a client. This is as convenient as a wedgie. Steven hollered Toby and me over to join the meeting in the glass-walled room.
‘Which one is it?’ Toby asks.
This corridor feels long. ‘Drop it.’
‘I don’t think it’s the one with the beard. He just looks too dull for you ever to have had an interest. It’s not one of the two girls, is it?’
‘That feels like workplace harassment, mate,’ I hiss.
‘As I said, in for a penny—’
‘It’s a tenner by this point.’
‘I don’t think it’s the Black guy. I feel you would have stayed together. He’s stylish and has kind eyes.’
He is quite fit, to be fair.
Fuko, no. Not the time.
‘Oh, my lord.’ Toby puts his arm out and stops me seconds from the door. ‘It’s the mullet man. I didn’t see the mullet man until we got here, but it is so the mullet man. Isn’t it?’
This journey feels like that one scene from the 2003 Oldboy film, where Oh Dae-su walks down the corridor and fights the guards, except I’m not met with steel pipes and bloodied fists but with Toby Lewis’s annoying speculations, and I would much rather be beaten by pipes right now.
He steps to the side and lets me enter first.
‘Oh, Fuko! Ohisashiburi.’ John G. Bigby stands up and bows. His fuckass mullet swishes from the rapid movement.
Hisashi-bury-your-fucking-ass-into-the-pits-of-hell. ‘Yup. It’s been a minute.’ I squeeze a smile and take a seat next to Steven.
Disbelief and pure joy flood Toby Lewis’s face. I sigh. This is going to be a long meeting.
The meeting was an introduction between SIMPO and CM Shot. There weren’t even vague smiles on anyone’s faces at the ridiculousness of the name. CM Shot? Cum Shot? C’mon people. A message comes through the work portal.
Toby Lewis: Are they not hearing the name? How can they give a contract to a company with such pornography?
Fuko Brewer: Thank you! It was driving me up the wall.
Toby Lewis: Why is it even called CM? Isn’t the founder JB, John Bigby, your ex-lover?
Fuko Brewer: I know a two-letter acronym you should be very interested in: HR.
Toby Lewis: That was good. You got me. Pay attention to the meeting, your honey-poo is speaking.
John has an incredibly annoying tendency of adding a triple yeah to the sentences that don’t require even a single yeah. It’s good to see that even in his professional life, he stays true to himself.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had a meeting with our legal team, and they said that the terms are equivalent to the industry standard.’
‘So no qualms about having members of our staff be present on-site?’
‘No issues, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Every yeah is a needle to the eardrum. ‘It would make sense to ensure that the shoot is strategically aligned with the goals of the client.’
Some files are shared. Predicted timelines, estimated costs, success measurements, CM Shot’s scope (ha ha), SIMPO’s scope.
I don’t understand the details, but I am sure I will figure it out.
John keeps throwing ardent sidelong glances my way, which Toby notices and does an awful job of hiding his smile.
‘All right, thank you so much for coming, everyone.’ Steven begins the handshaking goodbye procession.
The two women on John’s crew are swift with their goodbyes.
The handsome man, who’s called Malik, shakes my hand and winks at me.
Should I ask for his number? Is that problematic after a work meeting?
Most definitely. I’ll keep our tender moment in my memory.
The other two men—one short, one tall—are quick but firm, perfect business-handshake form.
And then, finally, there’s John. His hand is sweaty, and when he pulls it away, it lingers on mine.
Ugh.
‘Do you want to grab drinks with Alexandra and me after work?’ Toby Lewis whispers, waving the crew away.
His breath sends another shiver down my spine. I suspect it’s because of how traumatic it was to see John here that my nervous system is on edge.
‘Isn’t that supposed to be a date? Why would I be there?’
‘The date is on Sunday. We are just grabbing some drinks after work. See?’ He lifts his phone up with a last message from her.
Alexandra Judgement (The Club): Ask Fuko if she wants to come! Leon might come as well.
Alexandra Judgement (The Club)? Yabai. Don’t know if that should go into my report about Toby Lewis’s behaviour. Normally, I would’ve rejected the invite, but seeing John again... I agree to go with a curt nod.
The rest of the day is just online meetings that Steven recommended I attend for an introduction to the partners.
Recommending that you do tasks when you are paid to do them is a strange choice of words, but that is Steven for you.
He talks at length about Toby’s impressive marketing research delivery plan that Steven thinks he is severely underpaid for and hints that I might want to shadow him for that period.
I would’ve preferred being Toby-free for a minute—I hate being a target for someone to mess with.
The Spread Eagle, the pub, is not too stuffed, pun intended. It is a Monday after all. Toby asks for my order—cider on tap—and gets himself an Asahi. On tap? Since when was Asahi on tap at a pub called the Spread Eagle? Everything is coming up Japan.
‘So, how does it feel working with your ex on a project?’ The first question Toby asks.
I think for a second and then say, ‘It feels like if someone proposed in public and then you said no, but then you also have to take the same transport back in awkward silence.’
‘You take the Northern Line back?’
‘Yeah, why?’
He kneels on one knee. ‘There is a question I’ve been meaning to ask you—’
‘Get the fuck off this floor right now, or I will scream.’ I pull him up.
My reaction was satisfactory enough for him, so he listens to my command and sits back in the booth with me, asking me a barrage of questions that I ignore.
Sashka joins us shortly. She orders a Hugo spritz, which, shockingly, the Spread Eagle does not have, so she has to settle on an Aperol.
‘Congratulations on your first event-free workday, Fuko.’ Sashka tilts her glass.
‘Well...’ I lower my voice.
‘Oh, I would be very interested to hear if you truly thought it was uneventful.’ Toby creates a bridge with his hands and rests his chin on it.
‘What? What does that mean?’ Sashka sips on her cocktail.
I sigh. ‘John is contracted to work with SIMPO.’
‘Big Dick John? You’re joking!’ Sashka’s voice rises above the level of concealment.
‘Big Dick John?’ Toby grimaces at either the name or the visual. ‘Is it, like, metaphorical or literal?’
‘Both,’ we say in unison, and Sashka turns to me. ‘How was he today? After, you know...’
‘What?’ Toby keeps snapping his head between us like a member of the audience at Wimbledon.
With my reluctance to answer, I gesture for Sashka to explain our breakup after his elaborate and psychotic way of professing his undying love.
Toby looks at me in horror.
‘And then—’ She lifts her finger like a teacher who’s trying to convince her students that Shakespeare is cool.
‘What the fuck do you mean and then?’ Toby asks.
‘And then he stole her script, went to Amsterdam with her film crew, won an award for it, and wrote a series of defamatory blog posts about her that got published in their uni’s newspaper column.’
This cider tastes like pork scratchings all of a sudden.