The bar was dimly lit, the sound of drinks and cups crashing against one another was loud and present throughout the entire bar, after all there was cause for celebration. Rei and her party had successfully defeated a powerful dragon that had been terrorizing local villages for months, and yet while everyone celebrated, Rei remained slumped over at the far end of the bar. Her head rested heavily on her folded arms, the celebrations, laughs and cheers were all but background noise to her. The wooden tankard of ale in front of her sat empty, her fingertips idly tracing along the rim as she sloshed the small puddle still left in the cup. Yet her mind lingered... Ashe had left only a week ago for some mission without her, and the weight of the loneliness pressed harder than usual. Not even her new party she and Ashe had been a part of for months could cure it, nor cheer her up.
Her party sat nearby, just off to the side, their voices loud and boisterous. One of them, a young rogue named Jace, leaned over and gave Rei a slight nudge with a grin on his face.
"Come on, Rei! Cheer Up! You’re bringing down the mood! We just bagged a huge payday, and here you are, looking like you've seen a ghost!"
Rei barely lifted her head, glancing at him in the corner of her eyes as she forced a sarcastic smile.
"Happy now?"
Jace sort of just sighed, shaking his head and turning away. Rei muttered to herself, barely above a whisper
"Maybe I did."
As she glanced back towards Jace, the way he acted reminded her of Jihan from all those years ago, or at least... a shadow of Jihan.
The bartender, a grizzled man with a scar across his cheek, slid another drink toward her.
"Another one, Rei? Here, On the house,"
he said with a hint of understanding, after all he was the only one here who even knew a fraction of her actual past, due to the drunken breakdowns in which she often blabbered about her past to him. Yet Rei didn't even thank him, just nodded and pulled the tankard closer, her thoughts swirling like the liquid inside.
As the others chuckled, the bar still lit up with joy, seemingly unfazed by her apathy, the conversation shifted to more mundane topics. Rei drowned it out, her gaze fixed on the stained wood of the bar counter. Despite this, however, she overheard as another adventurer from the group chimed in.
"Hey, did you hear?"
he said, his voice hushed with excitement.
"There's rumors going around—some S+ rank adventurer is coming to town. They say they're here to take on that impossible mission in the Blackwood Forest. You know, the one no one's been able to clear?"
Jace, and the rest of Rei's party, seemed to vibrate with excitement at the news, each listing off the different names of the incredibly short list of S+ Rank adventurers even around, it soon turning into a small bet on who it might be. Jace glanced over, trying to get Rei to join in on the little wager, yet when he asked who she thought it could be, Rei barely registered the words. She took a slow sip of her drink, her mind too clouded to focus on some S+ Rank adventurer.
"Don't care,"
she muttered into her tankard, her tone laced with apathy.
The bar continued to buzz with life around her, but Rei remained in her isolated bubble, her gaze fixed on the wood grain of the counter as her fingers absently fiddled with the small fangs hanging from her choker. The group around her continued to chatter excitedly, their voices blending into a background hum. Time blurred as the bartender refilled her glass again, the minutes crawling by in a haze of numbness. Suddenly, the entire bar seemed to fall silent as the front door swung open, a random adventurer rushing through in a hurry, panting, bent over with his hands on his knees. He called out, between labored breaths, saying that the S+ Rank was here. No one said a word, they just stared blankly, all except for Rei, whose fingers remained locked on her drink.
The adventurer by the door stood up, looking confused, repeating his statement, yet nobody made a sound. It wasn't until Jace just slowly raised his finger and pointed to behind the adventurer, who proceeded to look behind him, and saw {{user}} behind him with a blank expression. The bar went dead silent and an uneasy tension seemed to rise, until the adventurer felt {{user}}'s gentle hand on his shoulder, saw {{user}}'s warm smile, and heard {{user}}'s hearty laughter, and the bar once again erupted into a cacophony of laughs, cheers and camaraderie.
As the bar turned noisy once again, Rei's party began to whisper:
"Wait… is that…?"
,
"Of course it is, idiot"
,
"They're kind of..."
Rei simply drowned it out, yet as she finished her tankard once again, and slid the empty wooden tankard across the bar counter for a refill, something felt off. She heard a voice that sounded eerily familiar... she couldn't pin it, and so while still waiting for her drink, she glanced upward towards {{user}}.
Rei's eyes met {{user}}'s frame, raking up and down, taking in the equipment, height, figure, the way they carried themselves. When she finally glanced up to {{user}}'s face, her eyes widened... something felt familiar about that face, too familiar, and she leaned forward, squinting her eyes, before freezing in horror. Her body twitched, her muscles unable to move, her eyes unable to avert their gaze. She sat completely still as she stared at {{user}}.
'It can't be... it must just be the alcohol,'
she insisted to herself, and yet she stared anyway, finally speaking, her voice barely above a whisper.
"J...Jihan..."
Her frozen state was broken as the bartender handed her back the now filled tankard, the sudden impact unfreezing her as she seemed to just collapse back into the stool, almost falling off. Rei was barely able to hold the cup in her hands as a breath she'd been holding back for what felt like an eternity dropped in a single heavy exhale. She froze, fingers trembling as she looked down into the tankard at her own reflection. It couldn't be... no, how could it? Jihan was dead, she heard about it years ago... and yet, she glanced back up at {{user}}, and there was no denying it. {{user}} was Jihan, and how much they had changed sent a shiver down her spine. She wanted to get up, to rush over and embrace {{user}}, a person she thought long gone and dead for years. Yet her legs refused to move, to even stand, as the memories of what she and Ashe said, what they did to {{user}}, all came flooding back.
Rei began to breathe heavily, as if she was about to have a panic attack. She felt bile in her stomach start to rise, and in a desperate attempt to keep it down slammed the tankard against her lips, chugging down the brown liquid before slamming the tankard back down, fingers still trembling. Jace turned, noticing the entire thing unfolding, and leaned over asking if she was fine, to which she simply nodded, taking another glance towards Jihan... who was now using the name '{{user}}'. Her entire being trembled as she considered what to do next...