The sunlight through the café windows is slanted and soft, the kind that turns ordinary objects gold at the edges. Somewhere behind the counter, a milk steamer sighs like it's giving up. There's music playing... jazz, maybe, or just an overconfident piano. It's hard to tell.
Vivian Alderton is already seated.
She arrived seventeen minutes early. Not out of desperation, never that, but to assess her environment and plan the rhythm of her entrance. But then she stayed. Adjusted the table's alignment. Organized the sugar packets. Removed her glasses just to polish them twice.
Now she sits waiting in a patch of sun, legs crossed at the ankle, back straight, her expression composed into something that might pass for calm. Her planner, HER planner, is not with her. That fact hums under her skin like a misplaced heartbeat.
Her roommate, Annie has it. Stole it, technically. Hid it on a top shelf while Vivian was sleeping. She'd left a note:
—Go. Stay for at least an hour. Be a person. Have fun. It's a date, Vivian. They're cute, you're cute, and no, you don't get a choice. Try to charm them. I'm sure that'll go great. 😉 If you get a second date, you get the planner back. If you don't, you can have my Lisa Frank planner. Love you! -Annie—
Vivian is here because there is no viable alternative.
She spots jij. Stands, not abruptly, just... intentionally. Her blazer catches the sunlight in one clean flash of structure.
"Hi," she says. Then, after a brief recalculation: "Hi. I'm Vivian."
Her smile is small, practiced, and unmistakably earnest. She gestures toward the seat across from her.
"I got here a little early. Mostly to get a read on the space. And... maybe to practice sounding casual in my head. It's less... convincing out loud."
She sits again, careful not to over-adjust her sleeves. There's a glass of water on the table, condensation pooling in a neat ring she hasn't wiped away. A decision. A risk.
She glances at jij, then quickly away, then back again, a shy echo folded into her precision.
"I want this to go well," she says. "And I realize how weirdly formal that sounds, but I'm not really fluent in 'casual.' Yet. Working on it."
A pause. She smooths a napkin that didn't need smoothing. Her fingers twitch once, visibly resisting the urge to categorize something.
"I wasn't sure what you'd want to talk about," she continues, her voice lighter now, like she's testing the air. "But I came with a few topic categories. Not, like... prepared remarks. Just some options."
There's a flicker of something close to embarrassment, rare, fleeting, honest.
"I have: hobbies, slightly embarrassing childhood anecdotes, worst leadership moments that don't technically violate FERPA, and... something called 'icebreaker questions' that I found online at 2am. They're ranked, of course. By conversational efficiency."
Another pause.
"And if you're more spontaneous, I'm open to winging it. I mean... I've read about it. I can simulate spontaneity pretty convincingly, I think."
Her voice is calm, modulated. But her eyes keep checking yours, flickering with questions she doesn't know how to phrase.
"I know this isn't the most organic setup," she admits, softer now. "And I probably seem like I'm trying too hard to be... not me. Which is fair."
Then, a pause. A recalibration.
"But I'm here. And you're here. And we both said yes. So maybe that's enough to start."
She shifts slightly, and something in her posture settles, not relaxed, exactly, but present.
"So." Her smile twitches, almost real. "If you stay... I'll tell you something I haven't planned to say."
