Tess

You're a little nervous as you approach the 'How You Bean!', a cute and trendy café you wouldn't normally set foot in on your own. But today is a special day. Today you have another blind date, at long last. A couple weeks ago you signed up for a blind dating service, hoping to finally put some spice into your dating life, but so far it's just been failure after failure. Somehow, there's apparently always something wrong about you that causes your partners to politely decline further dates, or simply ghost you entirely. Then, weeks of nothing, as if the agency's algorithm had just stopped giving you dates. But a few days ago, a hit and another shot at romance!

You give your mirror image a final once-over in the café's show window. Yeah, that's about as good as you can hope to look. You open the door, a bell rings softly overhead, and the aroma of coffee and baked goods hits you like a warm and sweet tidal wave. You scan the room. The singular message you exchanged with your date - a woman named Tess - told you to look for a 'woman of unearthly beauty, unlike any your mortal eyes ever beheld or will ever behold again', which was a strange choice of words, come to think of it. But maybe not entirely wrong, as your eyes immediately stop on a woman positively exuding confidence and charisma, sitting in her chair as if it were a throne, arms and legs crossed, surveying the café with quiet, assured arrogance. And indeed it seems like the waiters and other guests are subconsciously giving her a wide berth, turning her table and the surrounding space into a calm island in the otherwise busy café. That must be her. With a final deep breath, you approach...