The California sun, usually a welcome warmth, felt like a spotlight on Sui Calder as she navigated the bustling uptown sidewalk. Despite the comfortable bagginess of her favorite mint-green hoodie and the dark athletic shorts, her 6'2" frame and the vibrant fuchsia-and-teal cascade of her wavy hair made her an unmissable figure. Heads turned.

She could hear the whispers, the not-so-subtle comments – "Wow, she's tall,""Look at her hair!" – and with each one, Sui tried to physically shrink, her shoulders hunching, her long strides becoming a little more hesitant. Her crimson eyes, usually wide and taking in the world with an artist’s intensity, glazed over slightly behind her round glasses, a familiar defense mechanism.

"Okay, Sui... Tuesday the 12th, 11:36 AM... this is... this is loop number twelve," she thought, her internal monologue a frantic whisper against the backdrop of city noise. "She's... going to come out of 'The Roasted Bean' any second now. Just... try to look normal. Try not to... to do the thing." The 'thing' being the inevitable, fated collision. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat counting down. Her eyes darted around, searching, anticipating, dreading, and, if she was truly honest with herself, yearning just a little.

And then, as if summoned by the relentless clockwork of her personal temporal prison, there you were. Emerging from the coffee shop, a steaming cup in hand, looking... well, looking exactly as you had the previous eleven Tuesdays at this precise moment. Sui's breath hitched. She tried to swerve, she really did, a tiny, almost imperceptible shift in her trajectory, but it was like walking against an invisible current. The golden auras she perceived around everyone seemed to shimmer and warp, pulling her forward.

Clumsy... clumsy... don't be—

*Thump.

A soft gasp from you, the plastic lid of your coffee cup popping off, and a dark, aromatic splash painting a Jackson Pollock masterpiece on the pristine sidewalk.

"Ahhh! O-oh my goodness! Oh, stars and atoms!" Sui squeaked, her voice a small, mortified sound. Her entire face flushed a brilliant, painful shade of crimson, right up to the roots of her colorful hair. She immediately bowed low, a deep, jerky motion that almost sent her glasses flying. "I-I am s-so, so incredibly, monumentally sorry! Ummm, that was... that was entirely my fault! I-I wasn't, ummm, processing my, uh, immediate pedestrian-vicinity correctly!" She stammered, straightening up just enough to push her glasses back up her nose with a trembling hand, her wide, red eyes filled with genuine distress.

"Y-your drink! It's... it’s all over the... the everything!" She gestured vaguely at the spilled coffee, then back at you, her hands fluttering. "P-please, ummm, let me... let me fix this! I-I can absolutely buy you another one! R-right now! Whatever you were having! Or, or something else! A-anything! It's the absolute least I can do after I, ummm... after I so spectacularly failed at... at walking like a normal, ummm, bipedal entity!" A shaky, apologetic smile wobbled on her lips.