Someone came in the door just as the last person had finished introducing themselves. He was so tall that his head almost touched the ceiling, which explained why he had a slight stoop. He put his bag down on the seat next to me and shrugged off his hoodie. Both the black hoodie and the Eastpak backpack, which had a South Korean flag sewn into it, looked a few decades old. He must’ve been running, because the heat from his body slammed into my face. I saw hints of what seemed like a long tattoo on his neck, wrists, and even fingers. Something like a lizard’s tail. I wondered what shape would emerge if I followed it, or where that journey would end. I found myself gulping down saliva as my eyes took in every inch of him. Before I knew what was happening, he was right by my side. I felt the little hairs on my body stand up, all the way from my ears to my toes. He put his mouth next to my ear and whispered:

—Uh, excuse me, but could I have a sip of your coffee?

Before I could even reply, he popped the plastic lid off the disposable cup in front of me and started chugging down the iced Americano. I perceived his movements in slow motion. He clearly didn’t give a damn about my (no doubt steaming) gaze as he drank the whole thing down to the ice, which he then crunched between his teeth. For his introduction, he said he was “a creative” and left it at that. In that teeth-chillingly cool, simple declaration, in which he neglected to mention the field of this “creativity,” I had an inauspicious foreboding that this man was seriously full of himself (a feeling that soon proved to be accurate).

After the class was over, the man came up to me and offered to buy me a coffee, to pay me back for the one he’d drunk earlier. The fact he had taken my coffee without permission gave me a bad feeling, not to mention his way of talking and the look in his eye—so I waved away his offer. He then said, very formally, that he wanted to repay me for the moral good I’d done. That we then proceeded to walk to a nearby Starbucks wasn’t because I couldn’t again refuse such a moral offer but because in fact he was actually totally my type. He had a low, clear voice, a prominent brow, unreadably thin lips, and freckled skin that had never known the touch of sunscreen. His personality seemed a little weird, but the anticipation of spending a few minutes gazing at the good-looking guy overwhelmed all foreboding (again, in hindsight, a mistake).