Temper: Dread (+18) Excerpts

Chapter 3 - No Child Game

**This music video is the perfect background music for the first half of this chapter. Suggested by Lik0na

At that time of the day, the train was moderately packed. Lana found a seat right away. Once she had checked her emails, her eyes wandered over her fellow passengers. The car was quiet, something she still hadn't got used to after years of commuting in noisy public transportation in Montreal, but that she welcomed with pleasure as it created a break, a transition between her work and personal spaces.

Trains were a complex affair in Japan, in particular in Tokyo. People were forced to coexist and share their precious personal sphere with throngs of complete strangers for long periods of time, something anathema to local social and cultural rules.

To overcome such nervous and emotional toll, everyone locked themselves up in their own world, going online, playing games, reading books, often falling asleep or in a half-sleep, half-meditative state that surprised visitors. Commuters liked to pretend they were not stuck in a steel box along with thousands of others, traveling alongside millions, crisscrossing the body of the restless Beast which was Tokyo. The silence was key to this affair, and disruption a severe breach of etiquette.

After three years in the city, Lana had yet to adopt those avoidance practices. People watching was one of her secret pleasures, and trains were perfect for indulging in that. Today, she was lucky.

Right in front of her, sitting on the other side of the car, a twenty-something woman wearing a sharp dark blue business suit carried a large shopping bag from an upscale department store with 'Fuckin' sales max 50% off' written in large, bold letters. She bit her cheek to stifle her bubbling mirth. Those slogans, written in hopeless English, French or Italian to make bags or shirts look cool, were priceless. She took a pic to upload it to one of her favorite Facebook pages that collected those treasures.

Further down on her right, three elegant older ladies in shimmering kimono were going to a formal event or maybe see a kabuki play. Their heads brought together, they were quietly sharing the latest gossips; how long had these three known each other? 40, 50 years? On her left, five teenagers coming home after a baseball game were snoring, sprawled on their seats, their pristine white uniforms now dirty. Yes indeed, trains carried the essence of Japan, its very soul with its millions of facets.

Something touching her right foot broke her quiet contemplation. A plastic ball, red and white, had come rolling to be stopped by her shoe. Lana picked it up. It was one of those bikkurapon -- surprise-balls -- children bought for 200 yen at the ubiquitous vending machines near the cashiers in supermarkets. It was hard to see what was inside, but that was the whole point. Usually, they contained some stickers or erasers adorned with popular anime characters.

Lana took a peek on her right to try to identify its point of origin. From what she could see, there were no kids there. She quirked an eyebrow and put the ball in her bag. It was quite possible the ball had been rolling around the carriage for a while now. She would throw it out later. No need for a granny to twist her ankle on it.

Resting her head on the window behind her and closed her eyes, enjoying her favorite song. It was so tempting to fall asleep. But her station was four stops away now, and it would be annoying to miss it. Her eyes shot open when something else hit her foot. Another bikkurapon, this time green and white. Lana picked it up, and this time she leaned forward, looking harder on her right. Ah, there. Gotcha.

Two short legs covered in pink and purple high socks were swinging from the seat just next to the farthest exit of the carriage, on the same side as Lana. She couldn't see their owner, but she was very young, bored, and unsupervised by the sleeping adult on her left.