Mina walked slowly as she exited the detention room. It was Friday afternoon and her detentions were scheduled to be after school at the end of every week. She headed towards the car park where her chauffeur was already waiting to pick her up. She stopped suddenly as she heard a strange sound coming from one of the side classrooms. She moved closer towards the sound and it came again. She recognised it as sniffling and wondered who would be crying at school.

Peeking around the corner, she looked into the classroom where the sound was coming from and saw Momo seated at one of the desks. Momo sneezed and a sob escaped from her which was blocked out as a phone began to ring somewhere. Mina started and ducked down thinking that it was her phone and that she would be found out but then realised that it had been Momo’s. Slowly moving back up to look through the window, she began eavesdropping on the conversation.

‘Hey gran. How are you? Mm. Yea I’m doing fine. What? No, I’m not crying. I just have a runny nose from being sick. Why would I be crying?’

Momo forced out a laugh as she wiped away her tears and an uneasy feeling began to grow in Mina’s chest.

‘Mm. It’s alright granny. I will make sure to visit you at the hospital before I go there. Alright, I will study hard. Love you.’

Hearing the phone click, Mina crawled away from the window and stood up when she was clear of the classroom before continuing on her way. The uneasy feeling in her chest had only intensified as she listened to Momo speak, and she wondered if she was feeling regret for her past actions. She shook her head and shuddered as if the very thought disturbed her and waved to her driver. She was about to get into the car when the door opened and she saw her father seated in the back. Her eyes widened as she had not known when her father would be returning and the sight of him filled her with a feeling of safety and comfort. However, those feelings quickly disappeared as she registered the displeased expression on his face.

She got into the car and stayed silent as they drove back towards the house. As they pulled into the driveway, Mina stole a glance at her father but his face was still stony as ever and for a second, she regretted his return home. The chauffeur grabbed her father’s luggage and moved it into the living room where a maid took over. Mina was about to return to her room when her father cocked his head in the direction of his study. A feeling of apprehension fell over her as she walked to his study, feeling like she was a little girl when she had been scolded for stealing sweets. She took a seat and her father did the same, not saying anything and only watching her.

After a few moments of this, her father sighed and looked down at his lap. He held out a manila folder and placed it on the table. “Do you know what this is?” he asked her. Mina shook her head and he gestured for her to open it. With shaky fingers, she opened the folder to see a grade report and some photos taken of her. She looked over them as her father spoke.

‘Please explain this. I leave for a month on business and this is what you do? You play truant and to make matters worse, you were caught doing it outside one of our stores? Do you know how much bad publicity this will give us? I only just got back from calming down the storm in Japan and I come back to find this. You’ve even gone so far as to fail your classes for the term. I got a call from your teacher as well as the school principal. Can you please explain to me how this is all possible?’

Her father paused and looked at her expectantly but there was no excuse, no reason to be given. She had plainly ditched school and gotten caught at it. “I solved an incident outside our store with a disgruntled customer,” she said lamely. At this her father took in a deep breath. He had spoken normally before but now he raised his voice.

‘I don’t care about what you did. I want to know why. Why did you do all those things? This is out of character for you. Tell me!’

Mina kept silent and looked down at her lap, twiddling her fingers. Her father softened his tone and sat back down, having stood up in his outburst.

‘Please Mina. Help me understand. Is there something I’ve done wrong? Tell me so we can work something out. I can’t find a reason beyond your choice of friends for what you’ve done. They are a bad influence on you.’

Hearing her father once again bring up the topic of friends as he had done on so many occasions before annoyed Mina. It was true that of recent, there was the growing idea that her friends did not suit her but she didn’t mention that now.

Hearing her father bring up the topic of friends as he had done so on so many previous occasions, Mina couldn’t help but to get fired up.

‘Why do you always bring my friends into this? I just wanted to. You never pay me any attention so why do it now?’

Her father’s face flushed. “You overstep yourself,” he said in a dangerous tone that would have normally sounded alarm bells, but Mina was gone too far to care. A part of her was telling her to stop before her father did something they’d both regret but she pressed on. Recent events had left some anger brewing inside her and now it exploded.

‘You say that now! You only ever care about your business and your stupid image. It’s all just money to you. I wish you had stayed in Japan and never come back.’

‘That’s enough! You are grounded. You are an adult now and your childish behaviour can be excused no longer. I will not have you destroy your future and so I will be setting in motion a few changes around this household. Foremost, you will not be allowed to see any of your friends outside of class and due to your lacklustre academic efforts, I will be enrolling you into a tutorship program which you will attend during the holidays to make up for your poor efforts. You will also be disowned of any household privileges so you will be travelling to those classes by yourself. I have frozen access to your bank account and your travel costs will be coming out of your weekly allowance.’

‘Fine! Do whatever you want.’

Too angry to care, Mina stormed out of her father’s study and wen