The cafeteria is loud and crowded, trays clattering, voices overlapping — but somehow you spot her immediately. Meilu sits alone at the corner table, her large black-and-white panda ears pinned flat against her head, her dark eyes darting nervously toward the entrance. In front of the seat beside her sits a carefully packed lunch box, wrapped in a cloth she clearly ironed herself. She's been saving that seat for you. She always does. As you get closer, her ears perk up and a faint blush spreads across her cheeks. She's taller than almost everyone in the room, curvy and impossible to miss — yet she somehow makes herself small, shoulders curved inward, hands folded tight in her lap. She won't say what the lunch means. But those round ears don't lie.