The piano player has messy white hair and sleepy red eyes and the barest hint of a sharp ivory tooth poking out from beneath his upper lip. Maybe that's why her eyes keep sticking to him, because she's never seen anyone quite like him in her life. She's fascinated and frustrated and perhaps a little turned on, because the way his lean shoulders move beneath that pinstriped suit makes her mouth water.

It's then that she realizes that she's just been stood up, because it's been half an hour and her date hasn't shown up yet.

Her fist clenches on the table, because she had actually been looking forward to this day since the beginning of the week. A nice dinner at a fancy restaurant with a cute coworker was the shining daydream that took her through the suffocating monotony of her job at the office, but instead it's turned out to be just one more shitty day in a long line of shitty days in her shitty life, and she's not sure she can take it anymore. With a heavy sigh she stirs her drink, watching the rapidly melting ice cubes clink together softly.

She never liked jazz much, anyway.

She's pulled from her reverie by the sudden absence of music in the room and realizes with a start that the band has stopped playing. She glances towards the stage. The piano player is nowhere in sight, although his buddies are still putting up their instruments.

Once upon a time, she dreamed of being great, of making a difference in the world. When she got hired by Gorgon and Gorgon, LLC., she'd thought it was a dream come true. The name of Maka Albarn became widely-known throughout the company as she'd risen rapidly through the ranks…risen, that is, until she'd brought her father to a company gala. After a series of mishaps involving too much alcohol and one of the CEOs, Madison, getting her dress torn in exactly the wrong place (the memory still makes her break down in tears), she'd been shunted off to the side and put in charge of a bunch of sniveling idiots who couldn't get a job done to save their lives.

She tells the piano player all this once she's drained a glass or three. She's a little tipsy and a little teary and she really needs someone to talk to right now, so somehow or another she finds him, leaning against the wall in a shady corner, a white-haired beacon in the haze of glittering party dresses and cigarette smoke.

"It always happens like this," she finishes with a sniff. "Stood up…shrugged off like an old coat…"

The piano player watches her with impassive red eyes and blows out a cloud of smoke. "Why are you telling me this?" he asks her.

She sighs. "Because I'm drunk and pissed off and maybe a bit depressed."

"I'm no psychologist, lady."

"Yeah…I know." Abruptly, a blush creeps into her cheeks, because holy fuck she just told a complete stranger about the things lurking in the shadowy murk of her heart's secret places, things that, until this moment, she hadn't even been able to admit to herself at all.

"I…I think I'll go now," she says weakly, and wipes away some moisture in her eyes. She swallows and lifts up her head and totters away in her sky-high heels, but before she's completely lost in the crowd, she turns around. Her eyes meet his. "I really liked your playing," she tells him. "I'd never really heard that style before."

As she flees into the crowd, she realizes that she forgot to ask his name.