Chapter 4: Unexpected Coincidence

Just an hour ago Alex Ricardo, my boss, was shot. I didn't hear a gun being shot but I heard the screams of pedestrians even through the overly loud music. I instantly jumped off the stage, kicked off my black pumps and ran outside.

Alex Ricardo, big time drug lord and pimp, was lying in a pool of his life's blood. One ofthe prostituteson the other side of the street cried out in panic.

"Someone call 911!" she yelled.

It wasn't like I cared if Ricardo died or not. In fact, I preferred the former and silently wished that the police and ambulance wouldn't arrive in time. Besides, it was Ricardo's own fault that he got shot. He was doing some pretty risky work lately and I knew he was bound to be done in sooner or later.

I just walked back into the club and gathered my abandoned high heels. I didn't want to wear those uncomfortable things anymore and just walked home bare foot, although it was even more uncomfortable doing so. I hope I don't get bunions after this...

There was no point in going back to the Honey Bee. With the boss gone, I wasn't sure if there'd be business. There probably will be, but I wouldn't want to work with a new boss. They were all scum and when I got used to one piece of scum, he dies. Nope, I wasn't going to deal with them anymore even if it made me broke again. I began to reconsider Miss Madrena's offer for me to work with her at the inn.

Oh, fuck it.

I decided that I'd just go to a bar tonight and have a... "Celebratory" drink.

I had just arrived at the inn and I was now sitting at the kitchen table. Repentance. Lord knows I need it. I've killed so many people, and no matter how bad they were, I have sinned.

I'm surely going to hell for this.

I got up from the chair and went to take a shower. I needed something to cleanse myself and this was as good as it can get. I couldn't simply leave my job for to do so would bring great consequences. Not that I didn't enjoy the thought of dying, but I'd rather kill himself than be hunted down. And I couldn't bring myself to death just yet.

Fifteen minutes later I stepped out of the shower feeling replenished in a way. I dried my hair and body before walking out of the hotel bathroom to get dressed. I took out another black dress shirt and black pants. I abandoned the gloves for tonight.

I was going to a bar and for one simple reason. To forget. It was like this after every assassination. Read File. Formulate plan. Kill. Forget. It was simply to lessen the reality that I had in fact taken the life of someone. And the pain of the hangover the following morning would be my punishment.

I checked the time. It was midnight already. I shrugged and put on a pair of black shoes before stepping out of the hotel room and walking down the hall. I took the stairs rather than the elevator because I didn't want to wait for it and then exited the inn. The front door was quite low and I was forced to duck a bit to get through it without banging my head. The front sign only said Inn in glowing letters. Simple and to the point.

Walking down the street, I decided that maybe I could visit the Seventh Heaven. I remembered the exact location of the tiny bar and turned in that direction. What strike me as odd was that it wasn't there. I looked to the store at the right and left of it and found that they were the exact ones that were there the last time I saw Tifa's bar. Why then was it no longer here and replaced with a very peculiar looking store? There were a few possibilities such as Tifa finally moving away from Midgar. I shrugged it off and continued on my way to the bar I frequented on my visits to Midgar.

The taste of vodka on my tongue was bitter and it burned down my throat when I'd swallow. But it felt so good and the effects were great. I loved the sense of forgetfulness after several glasses was soothing. I didn't have to remember dancing on the poles. I didn't have to remember the filthy men catcalling me and handing me money. Best of all, I didn't have to remember my pain for just a few hours.

Barret, the owner of the bar, befriended me after a while. Said I was a sweet girl. Tried to cut me off once, but I convinced him to give me more. He'd always tell me how it would slowly harm me and that it wasn't good. Ha! That coming from a bar owner. I know he's just trying to care for me, but I need no one. My life is based solely on making it through each day and existing. There's no future for me. No love for me, neither.

I laughed bitterly as I took another shot. I arrived ten minutes ago and was now on my tenth. My stamina for alcohol had increased since my first time drinking large amounts, but even so the effects were starting.

"Barret, another shot please!" I called out to the bulky black man.

"Tifa, you really shouldn't torture yourself like this." He told me. It was the same thing everytime, but he gave me another shot glass-full of vodka.

"What am I to do then, Barret?" I said, "There's nothing left for me except a hotel room and alcohol."

"Try to better yo'self, Teef. Find a future." He told me for what seemed to be the thousandth time.

I laughed and downed the shot. Slamming the glass down, I said, "There's no future, Barret! How many times must I tell you? I can't better myself, anyhow."

The conversation always ended here. He'd never elaborate the idea of bettering myself for some reason. Oh well, it was better that way. I received another shot and downed it as well. The music in the background was beginning to fade to a quiet whispering, to me. My senses were deteriorating now. Ah, the wonders of alcohol.

I saw everyone that I expected to be here. They were all the same people I'd see whenever I came here... at least, all except one. I never expected to see her here. I walked closer and sat on a stool not too far from hers. Yes, the long chestnut hair and peachy complexion were the same, although she did look a good deal paler than she used to be. She also looked quite skinny and was scantily clad in a red tube top and a black mini skirt. She was bare foot, for whatever reason and she looked drunk with a goofy smile on her face.

"Hey, Damien, whaddya want today?" a tall black man asked. For a second I didn't respond and then I remembered that Damien was one of my fake names. He always seemed to remember the names of his drunkards whether frequent or not.

"Whatever's strongest, Barret." I told the barkeeper. He just nodded and went to get my drink.

He came back a few seconds later and handed it to me. Muttering a thank you, I swallowed the liquid in the shot glass without even looking at it. My attention was still focused on Tifa, who was downing her second shot since I came in. She was looking crazily drunk and I wondered why exactly she was here in the first place.

She turned her head towards me and scrutinized me like she did on that train ride two years ago and then turned her attention to another full shot glass. Back then she was annoyingly optimistic and happy, but now she looked pained. It was evident that she was an alcoholic with the amount of shots she had consumed since I first saw her here. She was on her fifth and she must have had several more earlier.

Barret came back with another shot ready for me and followed my gaze.

"Yeah, she's lovin' those shots." He said. I looked at him and nodded. The glass in front of me was filled with the same alcohol that hers had and then I wondered just how drunk she was.

"How many has she had?" I asked Barret.

"Why would ya care?" he shot back at me. I could see in his eyes that he held deep concern for Tifa.

"I was just wondering..." I answered vaguely before receiving another shot and draining the glass.

"Righ', when there's otha drunkards in this bar, you choose her." He scoffed before going to get another man down the bar a drink.

"Hey, you!"

I didn't respond thinking that she was speaking to someone else.

"Heyyy! I'mss talking to youssh!" she said with a slur again.

I watched the clear poison in my glass slosh around then drank it.

A shoe connected with my head. "Yousssss sirr! Look ats meh!" she cried out drunkenly.

I winced at the pain throbbing near my temple and rubbed it gently as I picked up the offending shoe. It was a four inch high heel shoe that was black. I glared at Tifa who, despite the usual intimidation of my angry stares on other people, laughed. I guess she was talking to me.

"What do you want?" I spat at her. I didn't mean for me to sound so aggravated, but the pain was becoming more pronounced with the blaring music.

"Yous lookssh familiarrr." She said with a cheery, alcohol-induced laugh.

She hopped off her stool and swerved toward me, unable to walk straight in her state. She stumbled a bit as she tried to make it to the stool next to me and when she finally did; she tripped and fell sideways onto the side of the counter. Laughing, she picked her self up and maneuvered herself onto the little stool and looked me over.

"You're hot!" she exclaimed with that horrible crazed grin that was beginning to annoy me. She wasn't in her right mind and it bothered me that she'd get so drunk. And her sudden impulse to tell me I'm hot was just too strange for me.

"Name... name... name..." Tifa muttered while holding her chin and staring at the counter. She looked deep in thought but I knew the information probably wasn't processing correctly in her brain.

"FREDDY!" she cried out suddenly. I raised an eyebrow at the name.

"No, no, no... that'ssss not rightss." She muttered. This time she squinted at me as if I was in some way blurry. Then again, I probably was.

"Ch... chri... Chris!" she exclaimed and then laughed triumphantly. I was amazed that she got my little alias right on only the second try.

"Tifa, you're drunk." I stated simply before downing another shot.

"Well, yous gonna be drrrunk, tooss laterrrr!" she said in a sing-song voice.

Barret eyed me queerly as he handed me another shot and gestured to the heavily inebriated Tifa. I shrugged my shoulders, not wanting to give him an elaborate answer.

"You knows Barrret?" she asked while drinking my shot. Well, this kind of is his bar.

I didn't think that last shot was very good because her eyes fogged up a bit and her head drooped forward a little. She recovered quickly and gave me a goofy smile before stealing another one of my shots of vodka, again. That one definitely did it because a second after she set down the glass on the counter, she swayed on her stool and then fell on me. She'd finally passed out.

Barret was too occupied with a couple of brawling drunks to tend to us, so I just handed the nearest bartender a wad of gil and carried Tifa's sleeping body out of the bar. The Midgar air wasn't very refreshing when I stepped out and I felt a little tipsy, but not so much so that I couldn't make it back to the inn without ending up in a ditch at the side of a road.

Tifa's dead weight was very light. Her head lolled back and forth as I carried her through the streets. I thought that I'd be forgetting the assassination of tonight and getting drunk. It turned out to be quite more eventful than that, though.

AN: It took me a while to write this chapter. These are probably the longest chapters I've written for a story. I guess I'm getting wordier the older I get. Well, tell me what you thought of this one. Oh yeah, and being that I'm not very far into my teenage years, I haven't really gotten too drunk or really seen someone severely drunk, so if my interpretation of a drunk person was incorrect, then please inform me and tell me what it really is like.