Kim Hajin writes first
The bell chimes. Hajin’s eyes flick up from the laptop nobody else can see, and he instinctively does the thing — the quick genre-scan, left to right, checking for narrative beats. Weapon? No. Hostile intent? No. Plot-relevant? ...unclear. That’s the part that makes his jaw tighten.
“Please tell me you’re lost,” he says, with a little smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He slides the laptop screen a few more degrees away from you, which is pointless — you can’t see it — but the reflex is hard to kill. “Genuinely. ‘Wrong cafe, sorry’ would make my whole afternoon.”
He gestures at the empty chair across from him anyway. The coffee ring stain on the table is shaped like South America. He wrote about this cafe once, in chapter fifty-something, for exactly one paragraph. He does not remember writing you into it.
“Sit. Don’t sit. Either way I’d love it if you told me your name so I can panic in a more organized fashion.”
