[Uhm, there's some f-bombs here, if you're not comfortable with that...]
You know what they say about best-laid plans?
By now I should be used to Ima flaking on me, but I guess I just have too much ill-placed faith in friendship. This was something, like, the seventh time she had goaded me into coming out with her - bemoaning how as best friends we never hang out - and then not shown up.
She'd made a big show of it, even resorting to crocodile tears to get me out of the house and into the public to meet her for some "girl time." And yet, here I was alone nearly 45 minutes after we were supposed to meet and, despite it all, I was infinitely more livid about being stuck in this location than about the fact that she was basically ghosting me.
Of all the places she could have chosen, she chose the most obnoxious bar in the entire district. So, not only am I sitting here alone at the bar, I'm also drowning in the unending pulsing of bass beats, suffocating in the stench of men with sprayed-on desperation and slowly being crowded by the main characters in sob stories of unrequited and misguided love.
What's more is that, on top of the quickly forming headache and mild social anxiety, Mr. Ball Cap Backwards, Sunglasses Inside Fuck Boy in the corner there has been giving me the eyes for a solid 10 minutes and now he was making his way toward the already-crowded bar top - despite me putting every ounce of my being into sending out "don't talk to me" vibes.
"Hey gorgeous," he says, the words dripping from his lips as if he were trying to cast a spell on me. "Can I buy you a drink?"
"I'm okay for now," I reply in the kindest tone I can muster, barely giving him a glance.
"Awh, come on now, darling," he drawls, placing a sickeningly warm hand on my thigh as he moves closer to me. "You're at a bar, afterall, why not have a drink with me?"
I push his hand off me as I turn toward him on my stool and blink at him with a straight face. "I'm waiting for someone."
"That doesn't mean we can't get to know each other until then," he responds through one of those smiles that just screams 'I'll take you to the cheapest motel I can find.'
"I think I have enough friends for now," I say, trying to turn my body back toward the bar top but his arm interrupts my movement. With one swift change in his position, he's forced me to continue looking at his smug face and I have to resist the urge to roll my eyes and sigh.
"Then it's a good thing I have no intention of being just your friend," he murmured, leaning in toward my ear and brushing my hair away from my face. My body tenses at his touch, which I'm sure in his diluted mind meant 'keep going,' and my mind is suddenly racing to find some way to get out of this sooner rather than later.
"She said no," a voice growls behind me, causing Ball Cap to jump back slightly, and in my surprised state I tilt my head backward instead of turning my neck. From upside down I analyze the only person in the entire bar that had the decency to say something.
If he hadn't been assisting me at the moment, I think I may have been incredibly intimidated. I'm not so great with measurements but it doesn't take a genius to know that he is above six feet tall and he looks like, if he didn't play a sport, then maybe he was in some kind of muscle gang. His face is sharp and hard in all the ways you want a man to be and he has the kind of eyebrows that make you wonder if anything else is as proportionally thick - and by that, I mean his thighs, which I can't see from this angle.
He looks down at me with an expression I can only assume is bemusement and our eyes meet in some sort of Spiderman-like moment of shared intrigue.
"What's it to you," Ball Cap snaps, his face jolting toward Mr. Eyebrows who I can feel is still looking at me despite my neck returning to factory settings.
Not a second passes before I feel a large hand on my left shoulder and I watch the man in front of me narrow his eyes at my savior.
"Let me rephrase it then," Eyebrows' deep voice echoes behind my head. "My girlfriend said no."
I feel my surprise escape through my nose as I try to keep my composure looking at the contorted masterpiece of emotions on Ball Cap's face and I move my right arm across my body to place my hand atop the one on my shoulder - indicating I'm in on this deceptive game he's playing.
Ball Cap lets out an annoyed "tch" before muttering some nonsense about women always being such teases. I can feel the tension in my body dissipate when his back is turned fully toward me and I whisper out a quiet thanks as my shoulders slump.
"Are you okay," my savior asks me after Ball Cap Backwards walks off in a stupor toward his pack of fuckwits in the corner.
I nod my head in response and flash Mr. Eyebrows a reluctant half smile over my shoulder. "Peachy."
"That's not an 'okay' smile," he says with a slight grin and moves to sit on the stool next to me. "Can I get you a juice or something?"
He takes my shaky laugh as an answer and swivels his body toward the bar.
"Bar keep! A Shirley Temple for the lady please," he shouts while raising his pointer finger in the air.
We sit in silence as we both watch the bartender blend the lemon-lime soda and grenadine with the swizzle before passing the drink to the man next to me. Eyebrows pushes the sugary drink, adorned with two cherries on a toothpick, my way with an almost-teasing smile.
"So that dude was a huge dick," he offers, trying to egg me into a conversation. I take a sip before responding.
"He had some serious small dick energy," I say with a serious face, straw still in my mouth.
"Mmm," he hums in agreement. "It seems his 'go fuck yourself' detector is broken. He should get that checked out."
There's a beat before the two of us look at each other and break into laughter. Once we've settled down, I thank him again for his help and he tells me it's not a problem - that he has a lot of experience with handling jerks because of his high school team captain. Ah, so it wasn't a muscle gang. Pity.
Suddenly, we're lost in a trail of stories about his old volleyball team and the pranks he used to pull with his best friend. Thirty minutes pass in the blink of an eye and I'm surprised by the sound of my straw no longer having any drink to pull up.
As I stare at my now-empty glass, I can feel the weight of earlier sneaking up on me.
"Why is that it takes some vague idea of previous ownership for men to back down," I ask suddenly as I look up from my glass, still annoyed at the earlier encounter. "How come, if I say 'no' then pushy boys tell me I don't know what I want, but they suddenly trust my decision making if, instead of saying no, I say I have a boyfriend?
Wouldn't it make more sense, in their backward view that if in saying no I don't really know what I want, to instead say 'you boyfriend is nothing compared to me' or 'you know I'm better than him.'"
"You're thinking about this too much," Eyebrows say to me with a laugh. "You're forgetting that fuck boys only have enough capacity to think with one head."
My nose scrunches at the thought before our shared discomfort and amusement results in chorused laughter. I don't think my cheeks have hurt so much from smiling. Despite its hiccups, this evening turned out so much differently than I anticipated and I feel a deep urge to thank Eyebrows yet again.
"Well, I'm glad there was at least one decent man here tonight," I say softly. "So, thanks again, Mr. Eyebrows."
He raises his name sake at me and I can't tell if he's amused or insulted by the name. I get my answer when he sticks out his hand with a smile.
"I'm Matsukawa Issei," he says. "My friends call me Mattsun, but you can call me anything you like."
...
It's funny how history repeats itself. Just three years ago I sat in this bar with a blank look on my face, wondering why men functioned the way they did.
Everything about this moment is nostalgically familiar: the blare of the top 40 pop music, the slight smell of citrus and vomit, the seizure-inducing flash of strobe lights and crushing feeling of uneasiness. If I didn't look close enough, the people half-sitting on the bar stools next to me, slowly downing their cocktails with heartbreak on their faces, could be the same ones as three years ago.
Everything somehow manages to stay the same despite changing.
And just like all those years ago, a tall man stands in front of me - a long island iced tea in hand - trying to convince me to abandon my post and slip into the night with him. His voice is deep and mesmerizing in all the right ways, but his words are spiked, just like all the others.
"You know you want to come home with me gorgeous," he says through a lopsided grin. He's put on his best smolder and I can tell he's giving his all to shooting his shot and I can't stop my lips from forcing my right cheek to raise slightly as I arch my brow at him.
My lack of answer doesn't phase him, as if he can tell I'm intrigued despite my cold demeanor, and he moved closer to me, placing his lips next to my ear.
"Stop playing so hard to get," he whispers against my chin and I know he can feel my shiver by the way he grins as he pulls away.
Before I can give him an answer though, a young man - who honestly looks too young to be in a bar - pushes himself between the messy-haired man and myself.
"The lady is clearly uncomfortable," he says through a somehow-stern mutter, his hands weakly pushing against the taller man's shoulders. "I think you should leave her alone."
While I'm immediately touched by the action, I find myself unable to hold in my laughter at the sight before me. The mixture of shame and surprise on Issei's face is far too hilarious to resist and the way his brows scrunch together at the sound of my laughter only eggs me on.
Confused, the young man turns to me with wide eyes and flushed cheeks thinking I'm laughing at his attempt to save me, when in actuality I'm laughing at the giant in front of him. Still chuckling, I place a soft hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you for helping me," I say with as much actual gratitude as I can. "But, I think I can handle him."
"What," the boy asks, dubiously, shifting his eyes between Issei and I and likely thinking about the chances of me actually being able to fight him off. "Are you sure? He was harassing you."
Behind the boy, Issei has gone completely silent as he stares at me with red covering every inch of his face despite the lopsided grin. I'm no fool though, at this point there is no way he's embarrassed - he's red from holding in his laughter through the biting of the inside of his cheek.
With a small smile I pat the boy's shoulder with my hand as I push off my stool.
"I signed up for this harassment though," I say as I brush past him and pull the taller man's left hand upward with my own, showing off our paired bands. "My husband's harmless, I swear."
A small "oh" squeaks out of the boy as he takes in the pair of us before his eyes slowly drift toward the floor. Just as I'm about to reassure him that he did the right thing, despite Issei only role playing, my husband steps forward and goes to take his hand.
"You're about three years too late," he says with a chuckle as he shakes the kid's hand. "But don't let that stop you from saving the next one."
He claps his hand on the back of my savior before moving to take my hand and steering me out of the bar. I can't keep the smile off my face as we walk our way home, hands intertwined. A soft breeze is blowing, forcing stray hairs into my lip gloss, but I'm too wrapped up in my thoughts to notice.
"Looks like you're not the only decent man out there," I say, turning toward him and detaching the hair from my upturned lips.
"Guess not," he responds, his eyes turned toward the sky. He stops walking, halting my momentum as well, and softly moves my hair behind my ear. "Or maybe you're just worth saving."
Issei wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me into a soft and lasting kiss, and I forget that we're in the middle of the sidewalk on our way home. The moment is incredibly tender and I have the overwhelming urge to hold on to it for eternity. It's so unlike us to be trapped in something so perfect, but before long my husband reverts back to his mischievous self, pulling away with that stupid grin of his.
"Come on pretty lady," he says, taking my hand and pulling me with urgency toward our home. "It's time I get you in my bed."
(Hello, my name is [redacted] and my bias is Aoba Johsai.)