I ♥ Japan.

By lunchtime, I am incoherently, head-over-heels in love with Tokyo. As my brand-new T-shirt, baseball cap, pen and pencil, and badge will tell you.

I ♥ the strangeness and the noise and the height of it.

I ♥ the politeness and how simultaneously ordered and manic it is.

I ♥ the two-storey-high televisions stuck to buildings, and the way the shop assistants bow and sing irrashaimmaasseee!!! (welcome!), as if you’re royalty.

I ♥ the fact that you can throw coins in a ticket machine any way you like and it still counts them properly, and the way people fall asleep on the tubes against the shoulders of strangers.

I ♥ the electric toilets with warm seats that play music and spray water at your bottom and pretend to flush while you’re peeing so that nobody can hear you.

I ♥ people who actually wait on the side of the road for a green light, even when there are no cars coming.

I ♥ the sense that I could never be bored, not if I lived in Japan for a billion years.

And, more than anything:

I ♥ how ignorant I am here.

I can’t read, I can’t write, I can’t speak. All I can do is marvel with wide eyes at just how insignificant and tiny I feel.

Bunty was right: I even feel temporarily free from being me.

“Tokyo’s OK,” Rin concedes with a casual shrug. She’s been racing us through tourist attractions as if there’s a twelve-hour deadline before the entire city falls down. We’ve been up the enormous Tokyo Skytree; lit incense at the Asakusa Kannon Temple; wandered through Ueno Park and watched the jugglers. We’ve eaten bits of chicken on sticks and coffee jelly and tuna mayonnaise wrapped in rice and seaweed and bits of fried octopus in balls of batter (sorry, Charlie).

We’re now in Harajuku, having crêpes on Takeshita Street, and it’s taking every bit of my inner dignity not to attempt a joke that – frankly – I’m too old to be making.

I stare at Rin over the top of my strawberry, banana, ice cream and cheesecake pancake. “Rin, Tokyo is incredible.”

“Not like Sydney” – Rin shakes her head – “There is no aces beach and BBQ and flaming gallahs.”

I laugh. “Did you know that there are more people in this city than there are in Australia and New Zealand put together?”

Poppy sighs. She’s picking off bits of strawberry, wiping cream on her napkin and then flicking it on the floor. “I find it all a bit much, really.” She points at a tiny, fluffy dog walking by in a green dress with a bright green, lit-up, pulsing lead. “I mean, what exactly is the point of that?”

“But that’s what’s so brilliant,” I say in surprise. “There isn’t one.”

We watch a couple of Japanese girls wander past. One has bright pink hair with blue tips, a purple tutu, green stripy tights, a camouflage-pattern jacket and yellow shoes. The other is covered – head to toe – in cuddly pink toys, as if she’s doused herself in glue and run really fast through a toyshop. I turn back to Poppy with a huge smile. “How lucky are we?”

“I’ve been a successful international model since I was fourteen,” Poppy says, pulling a bit of chocolate off her pancake, sniffing it and then wiping it on the bench. “The world gets boring pretty quickly.”

I suddenly feel a pang of pity for her.

Toyshop girl and her friend notice Poppy and I, and stare at us. “Kaaawwaaaiiiiiiiii,” they squeak. Then they dissolve into giggles and skip down the street, glancing back so that they can collapse in hysterics again.

I turn to Rin. “What does kaaawwaaaiiiiiiiii mean?”

“Cute. Kawaii mean cute.” Rin looks with open loathing at her black jeans and vest. “You are wrong, Harry-chan. There is point. Cuteness is point.”

Everything surrounding us is fluffy, or pink, or sparkly, or covered in hearts. Everything has a face: gloves, umbrellas, crisp packets, mascara. Rin’s bank card is pink. Even the poles holding up the building works opposite have yellow bunnies drawn on them. “In Japan, all must be cute,” Rin explains firmly, “or …”

“Or what?” Poppy suddenly says. “For goodness’ sake, Rin. There are more important things in life than being cute.”

I glance at Poppy in surprise. She’s been staring at herself in every reflective surface since we left the house. A few minutes ago she was checking herself out in the pancake spoon.

Rin is appalled. “No,” she says belligerently. “Cute is most important. Love is cute. Fashion is cute. Flowers is cute. Animals is cute. All good things is cute.” She gestures at us. “Friendship is cute. We shall ask BFF questions and do answers now, ne?”

I beam at Rin. I love questions and answers. Plus, I’m not sure any girl has ever said that to me before. Even Nat tends to avoid Q&A whenever possible. She knows I get a bit too carried away.

“Brilliant,” I say, trying not to notice Poppy stifling a yawn. “I’ll start. Rin, where in Japan do you come from and what is it like?”

“Nichinan,” she says. “It is small fishes town at bottom of Japan. Very hot. Palm trees and chicken and rice and mountains and sea. Pretty but nandakke … hushed.” She pulls a face. “Me now. Harry-chan, have you always been wanting to be modelling?”

“No,” I laugh. “It just sort of … happened.”

“You enjoy model much?”

I think about this. “Sometimes. It’s fun and exciting, but it can be a bit scary. And I’m a walking disaster in high heels. I guess I’m always waiting for it to end, to be honest.”

Rin nods. “And you are possibly here for more Baylee, Harry-chan? I see cute jump jump picture in snow.”

“Nope.” I wipe cream off my jeans with a bit of pancake and then stick it in my mouth, like the Goddess of Class I am. “Actually it’s for Yuka’s new campaign. She’s left Baylee, and she’s setting up her own label. There are quite a few of us working on it in different countries. I got Tokyo, so I’m super happy.” I smile at Rin. “Your turn, Poppy.”

Poppy throws another strawberry on the floor. “Hit me,” she says.

“Nick-kun,” Rin replies, and my stomach drops as my ears go totally numb. “How long have you been in awesome twosome with perfect Australian, Poppy-chan?”

“Oh, I don’t know, six weeks?” Poppy says, instantly brightening. “Seven?”

What?

He waited less than two weeks before moving on?

“We met on a shoot and REALLY hit it off straight away. I could tell he liked me immediately. He’d just split up with somebody else, but that was a total non-issue.”

An involuntary twitch has started in the corner of my eye. Change the subject, Harriet. Quickly. Pretend like Nat told you to. “Who…?” I hear myself say, and then clamp my mouth together.

Yup. Whatever comes, I’ve totally asked for it.

“Just some girl,” Poppy shrugs, throwing a bit of pancake at a passing scooter. “He must’ve got bored of her pretty quickly. It was no big deal.”

I suddenly want to cry. The only romance of my life was No Big Deal?

It was a big deal to me.

No: it was a massive deal. Elephantine. Titanic. Megalithic; cumbersome; stupendous; monumental. I feel like I’m a tiny fly that accidentally zoomed into Nick’s face: as if he’s just wiped me away on a bit of tissue and carried on walking with slightly watery eyes, while I’ve been totally obliterated.

Boring?

I start getting all indignant and then abruptly stop. Oh, who am I kidding? I hear that insult all the time. It’s currently scratched into my pencil case.

Rin is totally fascinated. “You are One for Him, Poppy-chan,” she says, her eyes glittering. “I feel it here.” She pats her chest. “Everything until you meet is … nandakke. Rehearsal.”

“I guess,” Poppy says, standing up gracefully and throwing the rest of the totally uneaten pancake in the bin. “When it’s perfect you just know, don’t you?”

No, I realise. Clearly I do not.

“Entirely,” Rin says cheerfully, hopping off the bench. “I think we will go have biff photos taken now. We can ride horse and wear bunny ears together. Amazingballs?”

“Cool,” Poppy says. “Can I be in the middle? I’ve just bought a new lipstick.”

As we start making our way to a huge machine with a queue of giggling girls standing outside it, all I can think is if there’s anything worse than being dumped, it’s knowing that you were just a dress rehearsal.

That a Big Deal for you was just practice for somebody else.