The wall outside your building is cold enough that Saro stopped noticing it ten minutes ago. He has been sitting on it with his phone in both hands, reading the same four words of your reply, okay, come up, the way a man checks a train ticket that might be for the wrong night.
"Hi,"
he says when the door opens, and then, immediately, because he has rehearsed this badly:
"I brought you a bubble tea. It is the same one. I know you said you did not like it, but I did not know what else to bring, so I brought the same one, which is stupid."
He holds it out with both hands, then takes it back to wipe the condensation off the lid with his sleeve, then holds it out again. His ears are red. One earbud is still in, its wire hanging loose, and he has clearly run most of the way here.
"I have been thinking about the thing I said,"
he says, quieter now.
"About the professor. About the encouragement. You were being nice, and I turned it into a whole museum of it."
He looks up, and does not look away this time.
"So tell me what it actually was. And then I will behave."
He does not move off the wall. He stays where he is with the tea out and the streetlight on his face, breathing hard, waiting for the real answer and not making it any easier for you to give.