He wasn’t a very good liar, and Shoko’s instincts told her that he was having an affair. Though since they were both going through a period of uncertainty, she had thought she’d be able to forgive him – whether he chose to confess or not.
But then, she had been gobsmacked to see that very same quiet type sitting beside him at the restaurant to which she had been summoned.
Her?
‘We should break up.’
Why were those words being directed at her? It made absolutely no sense.
‘You owe me an explanation.’
Shoko’s response was not meant for him but instead for the quiet type, who drew close to him, looking frightened.
In silence, he produced a pink notebook. It was a pregnancy planner – and it had the quiet type’s name on it.
Shoko was utterly speechless.
‘… you mean to say that you cheated on me while we were planning our wedding – and that you did it in the raw?!’
Shoko blurted out this vulgar phrase – there was no time to choose her words carefully – and the quiet type spoke up, in tears.
‘I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I was the one who said he didn’t need to use anything. I told him that, if I got pregnant, I’d have an abortion so it wouldn’t cause any trouble.’
And this fool, he’d believed what she said.
In that moment, it dawned on her, calmly and clearly. That the man she’d been with all this time, the man she’d thought she was going to marry, was this much of a witless chump.
‘So you just leapt at the offer, did you? Because she told you she’d get rid of it if she got pregnant. Do you have any idea how disgusting that makes you?’
Ugh, it was so awful. She was aware that the people around them were eavesdropping. How humiliating to be associated with such a sordid pair.
‘And what else’ve you got to say for yourself?’
Shoko gestured towards the quiet type with her chin. It was obvious to Shoko that she was fake-crying, but she managed to respond.
‘I’ve had feelings for X ever since I started working at the company … so when I realized that I was pregnant, it turned out … I said that I would raise the child on my own, he didn’t even have to acknowledge us.’
What a load of crap. You must have delivered that line to him, anticipating that he’d be taken in by it.
Though she didn’t know whether to be glad or sad that he could be taken in like that.
‘You’re strong, Shoko – I know you have what it takes to be on your own,’ he said.
Don’t feed me the lyrics to some tawdry pop song! If I can make it on my own, what have I been doing with you for the past five years? Why was I working through all that premarital anxiety with you then?
‘But now that she’s pregnant, and such a quiet type, the kind of woman who would make a good mother and good home … I could never be happy, being with you, pretending not to know that she was having my child.’
You’re a chump and a fool – do you really think a woman who claims to be my friend while seducing you is really such a quiet and marriageable type?
‘Besides, you’re not even crying, are you? Even when this happens to you. Here she is, crying her eyes out, and all you do is get angry and allot blame, right? If you were a bit more sympathetic …’
‘I’d stop there if I were you. You’re only making yourself out to be even more disgusting and you’ll ruin your chances with her too.’
Shoko’s warning seemed to land, because he shut up.
Was he really implying that if she were more congenial, he’d have chosen her? That he wouldn’t have hesitated to insist that the quiet type have an abortion?
Enough.
‘I’ll allow you to break our engagement on one condition. And if you don’t comply with it, I’ll sue you for breach of promise.’
They’d been together for five years and had been planning their wedding for months. She was well aware of his financial position, that on top of a shotgun wedding he couldn’t afford to be hit with a breach of promise and have to pay compensation.
The two of them gulped in anticipation of what Shoko’s condition would be.
‘You must invite me to the wedding.’
The quiet type, she was a romantic dreamer. Of course there would be a wedding, in one form or another.
Only now did she look like she was going to cry for real. Which made it all the more obvious that her tears shed previously had been a façade.
When the new couple made the rounds at their company to announce their impending marriage, they were met with uniformly dubious looks from the heads of every department – that was because each of them had already heard about it through Shoko’s network. In other words, the backstory of the quiet type sleeping with Shoko’s fiancé and getting pregnant, and of him then leaving Shoko had spread through the office.
All Shoko had to do was maintain a tragic but brave face as she went about her daily tasks – that was enough for the couple’s stock to plummet. Shoko had always had a stellar reputation at work, so the bosses’ sympathies were with her.
That slippery woman who glued herself to me like a sharksucker fish only to steal away my soon-to-be husband, and the fool who’d fallen for it hook, line and sinker: don’t think the two of you will just live happily ever after.
Apparently they were making it seem as though the wedding would be a modest gathering, only for their inner circle. Shoko heard that one of their superiors had made the blatantly snide remark, ‘I had been looking forward to attending your wedding, but not so much now that the players have changed.’
The wedding day arrived.
It was an intimate ceremony, with only family and the couple’s close friends, and Shoko was indeed invited as a ‘friend of the bride’.
From the moment she walked in, Shoko’s white dress, whose design could easily be taken for a minimalist wedding gown itself, caused a stir at the reception.
It was a rather tepid event. None of Shoko’s acquaintances had been invited. Naturally, she and the groom shared mutual friends but, thinking ahead and for the sake of appearances, it seemed he had only invited second-tier acquaintances whom Shoko had never met. It was their misfortune to have to bear the brunt of the celebration.
The bride’s guests did not seem to be very close friends of hers either. At work she had disappeared into the crowd by attaching herself to Shoko. Presumably she had done the same during her school years as well.
‘That’s some dress!’
The compliment was given with a curious look at which Shoko beamed a smile.
‘The bride slept with my man and got herself knocked up, so as the former fiancée, I think I deserve a bit of spitefulness, wouldn’t you say?’
Judging by the gleeful squeals of the women at her table, it seemed unlikely that any of them considered the bride a friend.
Never was she gladder to have been gifted with natural beauty than when the bridal couple made their entrance and began to circulate to each table.
Even aided by the talents of a professional makeup artist, the bride was no match for Shoko. And had Shoko been wearing a fancier dress, the disparity would have been more extreme.
The bride’s face contorted wildly. She looked back at the groom with an expression like a Shinto demon, and Shoko knew that she was checking to see where the groom’s eyes were at that moment.
And there was no question—
In that instant, the groom was looking at Shoko. At the one who could have been his forever, had he not fallen into the trap laid by the woman he had just married.
‘I hope you have a wonderful life together.’
Shoko bowed, while the women at her table chimed in with a light-hearted, ‘Congratulations!’
When it was time for the photographer to snap the guests with the bridal couple, the bride’s voice rang out sharply.