-53 Heat and light-
Finding the place Hasuko had mentioned went better than I thought, thanks to a pair of helpful citizens and me not taking any wrong turns. The bar—because of course it was—looked like it straddled the middle ground between the 'party bar' I had gone to with Hasuko to celebrate her promotion and the quiet bar where I had sat the night I had killed Mado. At least this place probably wouldn't have karaoke.
"Allen!" The door hadn't even closed behind me and I was being waved at. "Back here!"
I wound my way between tables and noise to a corner booth in the back, where Hasuko and a quartet of companions were waiting. I recognized one as one of the curious sets of eyes from when I had visited Hasuko's cubicle. As for the others, I had no idea.
"Hey, welcome!" The guy sitting in the aisle seat shook my hand. "You must be Allen. Sit down, have a beer."
"Allen isn't much of a beer man, Kouma." Hasuko said, a smile crossing her lips, "Shoot, I forgot to get you a drink! Take my seat, I'll be right back."
"You must be the American that everybody at the CCG's been talking about," The lady sitting next to Kouma nodded, "and even then, I didn't expect you'd be so damn hot! Whoo!"
"Heyheyhey, Aiko, I thought we were dating."
It was only as Kouma spoke again that I realized just how many bottles were on the table. A lot of bottles, actually: we were approaching the quantity that crossed the line from comedy to concern. Now that I looked at the other couple, they were looking pretty flushed...and failing at hiding the game of footsie they were playing under the table. I knew they were because I got kicked in the shin.
I was frowning through the table at said kicked shin, when an impressively full glass was placed down in front of me.
"Vodka, on the rocks." Hasuko sounded very pleased as she sat down next to me. "I wasn't too drunk to remember what you liked last time."
"I guess so." The size of the glass was slightly intimidating.
Her only response was to laugh and wiggle just a bit closer.
"So what's the occasion?"
"Ah, we've all been friends since our Academy days." Kurona nodded, taking a swig from a nearly empty bottle. "When we've got free time—which is rare as all hell, let me tell you—we get together, and catch up."
"Nice." I didn't do much of that back home. "What's the deal with the lovebirds there though?"
Next to me, Hasuko snorted through a sip of beer. "Those two lovestruck fools got married last year and still act like they just met yesterday."
"Well, at least they aren't making out at the table." I honestly couldn't figure out if that was a snort of laughter or derision.
"Give 'em another hour." Hasuko muttered darkly. "They'll be slobbering all over each others faces."
Across from me, Kouma laughed in that overly long manner favored by drunks and the nervous. The couple next to me either didn't care or were too intent on each other to notice.
"Don't worry about Hasuko," Aiko fixed me with a knowing stare. "She's just angry because shes been the fifth wheel at these for a while now."
"Maybe that's because you scare off your suitors with your Amazon physique." Unexpectedly, this came from the female of the lovebirds.
"That's their loss then." I took a sip from my glass and discovered it to be stronger than I expected.
The conversation wasn't quite as lively as the last bar adventure I had been on, mostly due to this being as much a time for the others to catch up as much as have fun. I got to listen in on most of it; mundane office stories, everyday gossip, shared rumors about investigators. That third one was what really grabbed my attention when I heard Aiko bring up the name 'Arima', a name Mado had referred to as an upstart
"Who's that?" I butted in as politely as I could.
"Arima? Geez, you've been here for this long and you don't know who Arima is?" Kouma stared at me like I had shown him my eye. "He's only the most effective investigator in the country! He's killed enough ghouls to pile up a small mountain."
"That many, huh." Wonder how many of them could fight back.
At least the vodka was strong enough to take the hair off my chest, not that the scars had left much anyway. It helped keep my mind numb to the less pleasant bits of the conversation. Also helpful was that Hasuko had basically nestled up to me as a soft, muscular, and very warm distraction.
"You're getting a little close to Allen, Hasuko." Aiko fixed her—and possibly me too—with a sly grin.
"S-shut up. He's warm."
Warm? How could you be cold when you've been cooking my left side for the past hour?
Kouma and Aiko both laughed. Kouma looked me dead in the eye, pointed at me and Hasuko with his first two fingers, then snapped them together like a scissors. Or, I suspected, implying that we were a pair. Fortunately, he didn't say anything; my cheeks already felt warm, and I didn't know if it was from the drink in front of me, or the crush sitting next to me. The very pretty crush with large brown eyes.
"You've probably got the most field experience here, what's the most dangerous ghoul?"
"Huh?"
"Stop staring at the girl, you're making us lovebirds look like amateurs. Besides, with most of us being transferred over to the eleventh, we could use a few nuggets of wisdom."
"The most dangerous ghoul…" I echoed, dragging my eyes free from Hasuko, "The most dangerous ghoul is an old ghoul."
From there, the conversation lapsed into an inebriated argument over whether short ghouls were more dangerous than tall ghouls and further devolved into bickering on whether a ghoul could use their kagune to pick up items out of reach. I certainly couldn't, but then I was tall enough to not have much out of my reach. At least I was sober enough to not say all that aloud. Checking my drink—which was nearly empty—I could consider myself surprised that I was still somewhat sober.
"Oh crap." I quickly moved to cover my eye, but it was only one of the lovebirds looking at his phone. "It's almost midnight! Hun, we gotta go if we're gonna do anything."
Unsurprisingly, the discovery of the hour spelled the ending to evening, though the fact that the two couples wanted to 'do something' probably helped it along. Not even Aiko and Kouma were being too subtle about it, and they were probably the closest to sober at the table. Apart from me I guess; I had only had that one drink, but that had been like seven or eight shots.
The wild card here was Hasuko. She didn't sound like she had been drinking, though I could smell a whiff of alcohol on her breath. Her face had been tinted a lively shade of pink, but that might've just been because she was in the process of barbecuing my torso with her body heat.
"Hey." I nudged her gently. "Maybe we should get going too."
"Mhmm." She was looking me in the face, a possessive look flashing across her eyes. "Let's."
She grabbed a drawstring bag from under the table and scooted out of the booth, freeing me to do the same. Almost: as I turned away from the table to stand, she stepped forward, blocking me.
"Uh..." She had to know she was in my way right? "You're—"
That look flickered through her eyes again. One hand reached down and cupped my chin, tilting my head back, while the other gripped my collar just enough to make my heart race. In the back of my head I knew what she was going to do, before she leaned in, before I felt the heat of her breath on my face. It was only when her lips brushed into mine that reality clicked in my head.
She was a bomb, full of heat, light and life. Caught in the shockwave, all I could do was yield to her force.
I woke up in bed—my bed—slightly hungover and incredibly warm.
