Aproach the blonde

You chose to approach the blonde.

She seems to be in her element, a handful of other exchange students hanging on whatever story she's mid-way through with the kind of exaggerated hand gestures that suggest it's either very funny or very long, possibly both. One of the guys in the group, blazer draped over his shoulders despite the heat, seems to be far more interested in the blonde's body than her words, his gaze fixed on her cleavage, leaning in a little too close, and the blonde's smile has a certain fixed quality to it. You are not sure to what extent she enjoys the attention, and to what extent she feels uncomfortable.

You wander over, unhurried, and drift into the loose ring around her without much fanfare, catching the tail end of whatever story she's telling, something about a suitcase and the wrong train platform, and laughing along at the right moment with everyone else. It's easy enough to stay after that, throwing in a comment here, a question there, until you're simply another voice in the circle rather than someone who wandered in from outside it.

She notices you properly a beat later than the others do, glancing over mid-sentence with faint curiosity before continuing the story without missing a beat.

The group starts to thin out naturally not long after, someone remembers an orientation session, someone else gets a text and peels off apologizing, blazer-guy lingering longest, clearly reluctant, until even he finally excuses himself toward the main building with the look of a man leaving under protest. That leaves just the two of you, and a small pause where neither of you moves to fill the space the group left behind.

"Oh my god," she says eventually, exhaling like she's been holding her breath for the better part of an hour. "Thank you for that, I don't even know how I ended up in the middle of it, they just sort of accumulated. And that one guy would not stop talking about his family's vineyard."

"Vineyard? Was that what's bothering you?" She explains: "Well, no, more like his best friend staring at my boobs like he has never seen a girl show cleavage before." You reason there's a non-zero chance that's actually true, and the guy really never has seen a girl show off her rack. "Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy being looked at, I wouldn't be wearing this dress if I didn't. But there comes a point, you know? Where a line is crossed. Like, totally."

You make a quick mental note not to overdo it with ogling her.

"So," you say, "you never actually finished the platform story."

"Oh, it's not that interesting, I promise, mostly just me sprinting through a train station in heels, screaming internally." She studies you for a moment, something amused and a little appraising in it. "I don't think I caught your name, actually."

"John."

"Hi John. I am Tiffany. Wonderfull accent you have there." She falls into step beside you easily, like it's already a habit rather than something new. "How long have you actually been here, by the way? You seem to know your way around."

"Few weeks now. You?"

"Three days. Three very confusing days." She counts them off on her fingers like she's still slightly amazed she survived them. "I keep meaning to figure out the city properly and then something happens, like just now, or apparently agreeing to listen to a stranger talk about his vineyard for twenty-five minutes."

"Where are you staying, if not campus housing?"

"That's, okay, that's actually a whole thing." She winces, half laughing at herself. "So apparently you're supposed to sign up for the student apartment waiting list, like, months in advance? Which nobody told me, or maybe they did and I wasn't paying attention, very possible. So I'm in a hostel right now. A hostel, John. I'm twenty-one years old sharing a room with four strangers and a bunk bed that makes a sound like it's personally offended every time I move."

"That's rough."

"It's genuinely rough. One of my roommates snores like a chainsaw and another one gets up at five a.m. to do yoga on the floor two feet from my face." She shudders theatrically. "I've put my name on the list now, for what it's worth, but apparently the waiting time is 'several weeks, no guarantees,' which feels like a very Austrian way of saying 'not our problem anymore.'"

"Welcome to Vienna bureaucracy. I spent an hour this morning discovering the online registration system exists purely to redirect you to a form you print out and bring in by hand anyway."

"Oh my god, stop, that's insane. That's actually insane, John. What is the point of the website."

"Nobody knows. I think it's tradition at this point."

"A tradition of making everyone suffer equally. I respect it, honestly, in a deeply annoyed way." She laughs, bright and unguarded, and bumps your shoulder as you walk. "Okay, well, since you clearly know things I don't.... show me around? I have literally no plans, unless you count 'return to the hostel and listen to chainsaw guy snore,' which I do not."

"I can do that. Fair warning, I've been here three weeks, so my tour's mostly educated guessing."

"Educated guessing is still better than my current system, which is just following whoever looks the least lost. You've qualified twice now."

You end up walking without much of a plan, which suits her fine; she's enthusiastic about nearly everything you pass, delighted in a way that has less to do with any particular landmark being remarkable and more to do with just how she seems to take in a new place, loudly and without much filter. She asks what a building is, decides she likes the answer regardless of whether you actually know it, and moves on to the next thing before you've finished explaining. By the time you've cut through two squares and a park she's already forgotten the names of everything you've told her, cheerfully, without any apparent concern about it.

"Okay, I'm just going to be honest," she admits, somewhere past the third church whose name she's already lost, "I have no idea what any of this is called, but it's all very pretty and I'm having a great time, so I'm counting that as a win."

"That's a solid tourism philosophy."

"I contain multitudes." She loops her arm through yours without any particular ceremony, like it's simply the next logical step in the conversation, and you don't feel any urge to point that out either.

The afternoon stretches on easily after that, she trips over a curb once, laughs it off instead of being embarrassed, interrogates a food cart vendor about what's actually in the sausage, and seems entirely undeterred by not understanding half his answer. Somewhere along the way the sun starts sliding lower, throwing everything gold, and the two of you end up slowing to a stop near the edge of a square, neither of you in any particular hurry to decide what happens next.

"Okay," Tiffany says eventually, checking her phone and grimacing at whatever time it shows, "I should probably not go back to the hostel yet, honestly, chainsaw girl is probably mid-cycle by now." She glances at you, something hopeful and a little testing in it. "Do you know anywhere good to grab a few drinks? Asking for a very specific reason, which is that I don't want this day to end yet."

Do you want to go drink with Tiffany? Or head home on your own? Is this even a choice?