Of course. Another one of Ji-yeon’s thirty thousand followers. I’d had strangers come up to me from time to time and strike up a conversation. Not because they were interested in me but because they wanted to talk to “Friend 3” of Ji-yeon, the gay influencer with the handsome face, ripped body, and big dick. You, bartender, must be trying to get in a good word through me. I wasn’t a total idiot in that sense. But while we’re on this topic, I should probably mention to you that I was nothing but a parasite feeding off his halo and waiting for scraps. I was the backdrop to my gorgeous friends, the big mama figure taking care of the drunk young’uns at the end of the night who couldn’t flag down a cab. I didn’t mind the role too much, but I was a little tired that day. I couldn’t take care of anyone right then.

—Oh, too bad. It’ll be a couple of hours before the second act ends and I finish cleaning up after. I don’t think today is a good idea.

—That’s fine. I’ll just be on my phone at that Starbucks over there. Take your time.

He swept out of the theater before I could answer. I went back to my seat and fiddled around with the arrangement of the program booklets that didn’t sell and wiped the spotless table over and over again with a wet wipe. But this was odd. Why was I smiling? Idiot.

The performance ended, the audience left, and I moved the life-size cardboard cutouts from the photo zone to the back and turned off the lights. It was after ten, surely he wasn’t still waiting for me? Foolish of me to care either way, but I thought, Why not see? and went to Starbucks just in case.

You were sitting cross-legged on a sofa, your tortoiseshell-bespectacled eyes looking down at your phone as you played some game. That sincere expression you had beneath the dim club lighting was gone—who was this stupid-face? The spitting image of that cartoon penguin Pororo. You looked up and almost jumped off the couch getting to your feet and taking off your glasses, your face back to before. I couldn’t hold back the laughter that burst out of me, and I was still laughing as I sat down across from you.

—Please stop laughing.

—Sorry. But why are you really here?

—You asked me to forget you and that made it even harder to do.

—Oh . . . Look, I’m sorry about the other night. I’ll buy you a coffee. What would you like?

—I’ve already had some. Here, take this.

The thing he handed over was, Jesus, my white Louis Vuitton phone case. The most expensive gift that Civil Servant Dogshit had left me, from which I could still remember the feeling of the whole world turning into flashing neon lights when I first received it (a totally shattered memory now, but still, my one luxury-label possession), and I had dropped it?