I stopped paying attention to his strange chatter and swallowed a little more whisky. It warmed my throat, loosening something inside me. It should have improved my mood, yet instead it had cracked the wall I had been carefully building over the past few months.
The glass in my hand was new, perfectly clean, and without a single scratch.
Not like at that bar.
There, they had always used ordinary glasses, pouring anything into them regardless of what was ordered. There was no way they would serve whisky there, especially not such an expensive one.
I smiled, thinking of the little umbrella he had once added to my cocktail.
Suddenly, I remembered the day I first walked into that bar. I was exhausted. So exhausted that even moving was like a burden.
My father's demands weighed heavily on me, and it had become a habit of his to threaten me over the slightest thing. As for my mother… She believed I had to meet their expectations. Not once did anyone consider that I might need rest. All I heard was talk of contracts I was to secure, meetings I was to attend, and the importance of not tarnishing their reputation.
Home had become unbearable.
I still remember falling asleep at my desk and being struck by my father afterwards. My cheek took a long time to heal. He had always been quick to use force.
"Everything for the family, Edward. Everything for the business. Do not ruin your legacy."
His words rang in my head even now.
I had wanted to sleep. Nothing more than that. But there had been no place in the entire damned city where I could close my eyes without being interrupted or worn down by someone else.
So I just drove.
I remembered the blur of traffic lights, the warmth of the car, the ache burning behind my eyes. My body had begged for rest. At some point, the road began to blur. My eyelids grew heavy, and I dozed off for a moment. When I opened my eyes, a wave of terror washed over me, and I slammed on the brakes.
My heart pounded. Breathing came with difficulty.
I nearly died.
A vibration rattled somewhere inside the car.
Bzz... Bzz... Bzz…
My phone had slid somewhere out of sight. I bent down to search for it. It took me a moment before I managed to pull it from beneath the seat.
Bzz... Bzz... Bzz…
I looked at the screen.
Father.
Again.
Another demand.
Another threat.
A wave of nausea rose to my throat.
Bzz... Bzz... Bzz…
That was enough. I could not bear it any longer. I tossed the phone into the glove compartment and pulled the car into a parking space.
The vibration grew quieter, though it did not vanish entirely. The sound pressed on my nerves until I could not bear it. I stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind me.
Inside the car, it had been dark, and because of that, the sign outside nearly blinded me the moment I stepped onto the pavement. I blinked several times, trying to focus my eyes, and then lifted my gaze.
The Little Night
That was the name written above the door of the place before me.
Beneath the sign hung the carved head of a wolf. But it might not have been a wolf at all. The wood had aged badly, and no one had cared for it in years. Pieces had broken away, and it was no longer possible to say with certainty what creature it had once been meant to depict.
The door had seen better days as well. Everything about the place suggested that it was not meant for someone like me. Perhaps that was the reason. Or perhaps I had simply been too tired to think clearly. Whatever the case, I went inside.
It turned out to be a bar.
A very cheap one.
The barstools along the counter did not match. Some were covered in cracked leather, others in worn fabric that had clearly not been cleaned in a long time. Old wooden tables stood scattered through the room, and behind the bar, there were rows of shelves filled with very inexpensive alcohol.
The guests were even more curious. They were loud. Some laughed, others argued. There were humans, beastfolk, and hybrids.
Hybrids! Imagine that.
They did not hide. Their ears and tails were out in the open while they sat, laughed, and spoke with everyone else.
It was an extraordinary sight. Most likely, the most unusual thing I had seen in years.
Mesmerised by it all, I took a seat on a barstool in the corner. My eyes wandered from one part of the room to another, catching on the worn furniture, on the guests, on bottles of alcohol, on the labels, which looked rather odd.
The light there was soft and warm.
It eased something in me. I closed my eyes.
The moment I did, I fell asleep.
For the first time in many weeks, I shut down completely. I slept so deeply that nothing disturbed me. I don't remember the noise of the bar in my sleep, nor the clink of glasses, nor the small bell above the door.
Nothing.
I just slept.
Although there is one thing I do remember. Through the haze of sleep, I heard a voice beside me.
"Let him sleep. Go bother someone else."
I never saw the face of the person who said it, but the voice remained in my memory.
When I woke, the bar was still loud and crowded, though I felt astonishingly rested. My body seemed lighter, and moving came far more easily, even though I had slept in an utterly uncomfortable position on that barstool.
I left the place, got back into my car, and drove home.
However, that sense of comfort I had felt there did not disappear. So I returned.
And once again I fell asleep.
I did not notice when it turned into a habit. I would exhaust myself at work, endure the pressure, the endless negativity, and in the evening, I would go there.
The place drew me in.
Sometimes, I even caught myself thinking about it during business meetings, wondering how pleasant it would be to abandon everything and drive there instead.
One evening, I arrived there less tired than usual. I sat and looked around the room, without the slightest wish to sleep.
That was when I saw him.
He was remarkably strange. The place itself was unusual enough, yet he still stood out. He wore a mask painted like the muzzle of a fox, a red fox, with narrow openings for the eyes. I tried to see them, though the shadow beneath the mask would not allow it. His hair was white, though in the warm light of the bar it carried a faint golden hue.
He stood behind the counter. The local bartender, apparently.
The moment I heard his voice as he spoke to someone else, I understood at once. It was the same voice that had protected my sleep on my first visit to that bar.
I could not take my eyes off him.
There was something about him, something that felt like the discovery of a puzzle too fascinating to ignore. So I returned again and again.
At first, I told myself it was simply because I felt comfortable in their bar. But with each visit, it seemed that his attention towards me grew. And somewhere along the way, my own interest grew too, perhaps even more than his.
Something clicked beside me, pulling me out of the memory.
I turned my head, realising that Michael was still sitting next to me, discussing something with the bartender.
Now I was in a completely different bar. One that suited me perfectly. Elegant, expensive, silent. The alcohol was refined, the surroundings impeccable. Even the bartender perfectly blended into the place.
And yet a sense of longing had taken root in my heart. A longing for the place that had once become my refuge.
A refuge that no longer existed.
A refuge I had left behind myself.