They called him the annoying sort. He felt offended every time he heard some say it to him, though; you couldn't call the awesome Gilbert Beilschmidt annoying! It was discriminatory in a way to him; he would turn his back to you the second he heard you say it, and he would be off within a matter of seconds after that. If you felt the need to call him anything, you should've said a royal title, or something that complimented him, otherwise you would've seen why he was called 'The Rich Devil on Earth'.

He growled upon looking around. He didn't like wine at all; he only drank beer, which meant he was going thirsty as he talked to the three or four men surrounding him, each one holding a glass of wine. When one was speaking, all of the others would touch the glass to their lips, tilt it up, and sip from it slowly, not coming up for air until it was their turn to speak. That, of course, made it worse for the man who didn't get to speak for a while, because he would end up drowning in his own wine, needing a refill, or leaving the conversation as a drunkard.

Looking around as he completely ignored the words of the man speaking now, he saw that the words 'every person in the room' could quickly be turned into 'every man in the room', and it would still mean the same thing, as there were no women attending. He didn't care what kind of woman, as long as she was young and pretty. If she met those requirements, he would probably flirt with her from dawn till dusk and watch her get drunk on wine.

But it was impossible to do. There were no women to be seen for miles. Only rich men who had nothing better to do than drink wine, gossip, drink some more, and gossip just a little more before there glass needed refilled and they left the party drunk as a man who hadn't left the pub for a few days, despite only having attended for a few hours. It's not that Gilbert was disgusted; it was more that he was appalled because none of those men appeared to be married. If you were rich, it should've been easy to land a girl, right?

Well, some of them were gay, and some of them didn't have interest in finding a partner just yet. Some of them were annoying, some of them were complete jerks, and some of them always left a place so drunk, it would be as seldom to see them sober as it is to see the Northern Lights in a place where they never appeared. When you took all of those things into account... It still didn't make any sense. One of them had to have a girlfriend or a wife or something. But, alas, nothing. No women.

He wanted there to be a woman there. He was completely and entirely sober, unlike everyone else there, who had been drinking nothing but wine all night. He could flirt with a girl, and she may assume him to be drunk until he shows that he's not, and by then a girl would join him on the dance floor and let him know what she tasted like by only a touch of the lips instead of the movement of them. If that were possible that night, Gilbert would've left the party as the happiest man alive, but it was clearly impossible, as (if it weren't stated enough already in his mind and by his own eyes) there were no women.

Then he saw someone dancing. Someone wearing blue, dancing with that rich British guy, Kirkland. The American guy, Jones. And one of the Italians there, who were both a Vargas. None of the three men were entirely straight, so he couldn't tell if they were dancing with a girl or not, but he was pretty sure men didn't wear dresses or high heels, grow their hair out insanely long, and have insanely large breasts. At that point, Gilbert was sure there was a woman at this party, even if there was only one.

"Gutentag," he said, walking over to her when she was alone. "How are you?"

"I'm doing quite well tonight, sir. Thank you for asking."

"My name is Gilbert Beilschmidt. What would yours happen to be, sexy?"

"Hanna Köpher."

"Beautiful. Care to dance?"

"I would love to."

He lost her in a twirl.

She was gone before he knew it.