Chapter 10 Boredom, Fuko
Boredom, Fuko
Not a single soul moves, watching the numbers on the lift go from the seventh floor down to our third. My jaw is clenched, muscles are tense. I can feel my heartbeat in my knees.
A distant, menacing tune of an accordion echoes from the shaft—the oesophagus of the metal cage. The door dings like a timer that has run out. Fog emanates from the maw and then belches out onto the corporate carpeted floors.
A clanking trolley rolls out, with a stack of boxes and tools, a man pushing it from behind, as Charon himself ferried the boat down the river Styx.
‘Brewer,’ the trolley man called me to the front with a surprising inflection that explained why everyone is so terrified of calling FM.
That man... is French.
‘Um, yes, hi, it’s the printer...’
‘So.’ He lifts his hand up to stop me from talking. ‘You broke the printer.’
‘No, it was already broken. You know, technology breaks,’ I defend myself, strong and unwavering.
‘No, technology does not break. You broke the printer, and now you are making it my problem.’
There are so many Rs in his sentences—as if he is winding his fury into his final ultimate fighting move. I open and close my mouth trying to find anything that absolves me of the guilt.
‘I—’
‘I speak four languages. I graduated from Sorbonne Université, but you people think you can tell me to crawl on my hands and knees, fixing the cables for you, whilst you break the printer machines?’
He moves closer and closer to me with every word.
His arms undulate in an interpretive dance that brings his shoulders up beyond his ears and down to his knees.
It’s uncertain whether he is seconds away from exploding or completely deflating.
He traverses like a puppet pulled by strings, so completely inhuman.
Every gesture is a flamboyant display of his misery, Pierrot himself covetous at this display.
‘What did you do to the printer?’ His face is inches from mine. I wouldn’t put it past him if he decided to lick me to show dominance.
‘I swear it wasn’t me.’
‘That’s what they all say.’ He drops his gaze at the staff; it’s as loud as thunder. ‘I will take the printer today, but it is not my job to fix your pathetic lives. You need to take some responsibility for your actions. You think you’re better than me? You are four floors below me. Remember that.’
He unplugs the broken printer and uses one of the tools to load it onto the trolley. When the doors shut behind him, the music is gone; the temperature returns to normal, but no one is the same.
‘What just happened?’ I turn to Toby.
‘I think he likes you.’
‘He... he had a go at me for asking him to do his job. And made me feel really bad about myself for it.’ I go back to my chair, replaying the interaction from start to finish.
‘Welcome to SIMPO’s FM team of one—Jean Luc.’
My head rests on the table.
‘You did well.’ Toby lies down on the table with me.
With his soft, encouraging gaze so close, my heart is felt through my body again, but not from fear this time. No, this is wrong. I snap back straight in the chair.
‘Have you ever tried doing something to improve your luck?’
‘No, you can’t,’ I respond, too quickly and harshly, the tightness in my chest getting more apparent.
‘Maybe we can try something to make that bell ring so that I am the one who calls the other Jean Luc clone next time. What do you think?’ he reaches his hand out for a handshake.
There are calluses on the cushions under his fingers, freckles spilling from his forearms, blue veins rising and falling over the tendons. No. No, this is a bad idea. I shake my head. ‘I’m all right without it, thanks.’
He playfully clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes. ‘See, that’s what I mean. You are a bit too boring to be lucky.’
‘What?’
‘You are. You are too skilled for this entry-level job, intelligent, pre— pretty good taste in films. But you don’t do anything risky.
You sent me a message last week that someone was sitting in your spot.
We have no assigned seats. The whole office is hot-desking.
When was the last time you did anything actively fun or embarrassing? ’
‘Fainting and having a nut allergy was pretty embarrassing,’ I announce proudly, proving a point.
‘Yeah, but they are things that happen to you. You are not an active doer in your own life. Your fate is slipping away. Do something fun. You are not putting yourself out there.’
I can’t even respond, because I have no retort. I’m racking my brain for the last time I did anything that wasn’t applying for jobs or getting on the Tube. Clubbing was something different, but I didn’t even want to go.
‘Thanks for your advice.’ I log back into my laptop.
‘Sorry, was that too harsh?’
‘No,’ I say quietly.
He looks around, opens his mouth to say something, reaches his hand in the air to me, but then pulls back like a turtle hides its head.
‘I need to go to the ho— home, will you be okay if I leave early?’
‘Yeah. Go whenever.’
It was hurtful to hear that I am boring. That I don’t live my life. But Hanako always says the same thing to me, and so does Leon. Why does it matter now?
We continue filling out the HR application for the advertising request. It’s probably the quietest the two of us have been with each other. There is a light blush on Toby’s cheeks, and I see him throw some sad, shameful glances at me, but I ignore them and type away.
‘What a prick!’ Leon pours me another cup of his homemade kombucha.
He and Sashka go shopping together; Sashka and I watch mind-numbing reality shows on her couch every Saturday; and Leon and I enjoy going to the cinema or watching films in his apartment.
Before my internship, I used to bring some Chinese from the takeaway, but since I don’t work there anymore, we decided to order from the takeaway next door to him.
It’s not great, but it will get tastier over the sound of my complaining about my supervisor.
‘Like, why is he saying anything to you? You met like, what? Three weeks ago?’ Leon passes the sweet and sour chicken balls with his perfectly tanned hand. He just came back from Tunisia after winning a free holiday.
‘Exactly! Why is he coming at me like he knows anything about me?’
‘Have you told Sashka?’
‘No. I don’t want her to be influenced by my opinion. He’s a bit of an arse. Stop dating him. I am not 12.’
‘No, but he acts like it.’
Leon is always on our side. He is the ultimate yes-man. He knows virtually nothing about Toby but is refusing to play the devil’s advocate.
‘And there is nothing wrong with being boring.’ I stuff my prawn cracker with the house special fried rice and beef in black bean sauce into my mouth.
‘And you are not boring. You are just sensible. We need more sensible people in the world. Why are you so bothered by that cis-white man, anyway?’
‘Ugh, he got on my nerves.’
I continue eating, but Leon doesn’t move a muscle. He stares at me with the passion of a seasoned escape room–goer, as if solving the mystery of an oddly placed portrait.
‘What?’
He shakes his head, shooing away the previous thought and replacing it with, ‘I think these shenanigans have a horrible potential to go tits up.’
‘Not yours.’ I regurgitate his own joke to him.
Leon pauses, assessing whether he is happy with that comment or whether it toes the line of being offensive. Then, deciding to give me grace, he lifts his hand up for a high five. ‘Beautifully said. And speaking of, there was a scandal in the art world the other week.’
‘Do tell.’
‘Some visual artist tried to book out a venue for their trans poetry and art installation—the owner said that they are welcome to go ahead if they put up signs to say that the visitors can only use the bathrooms with the sex they were assigned at birth.’
‘No! That’s insane! Why is it always the bathrooms with these people?’
‘Yeah, we got a newsletter about it. I can send it over if you’re interested.’
‘Please do.’
‘Also, Fuko.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I worry that maybe Mr. Naked Man is right. I have a food blog and try new cuisines almost daily, but we order the same thing from the Chinese takeaway every time.’ He points at the same set-meal we—I —always order. ‘You’d think you’d be tired of it after working in one for so long.’
Beef in black bean sauce, chicken sweet and sour, prawn toast, and special fried rice.
There are about fifty more items on the menu, but I stick to those only...
Both times my phone got stolen, I repurchased the exact same phone with the exact same phone case.
Even my mayo has to be Kewpie, which was very hard to source when we first moved here.
I am so boring that when I announced that I was going to Japan, Leon and Sashka asked whether I was all right and whether job hunting had finally broken me down. It had, but surely that’s a sad state of affairs if that was their first thought about me.
‘I think maybe I need to push you out of your comfort zone. That’s what friends are for.’
‘What is your suggestion?’ I drop my fork, defeated.
‘I will send the details, just show up.’
I have a bad feeling about it, but there is a weird fire in me that wants to prove Toby Lewis wrong.