The rain drummed against the slanted roof of my little apartment, finding every loose patch of tin, every uneven surface, until the sound was everywhere.

Nights like this were supposed to be comforting. However, today, the rain only dragged me into my own head, making me think too much about things I’d rather leave alone.

Several weeks had passed since that car ride, but I still couldn't get it out of my head. I couldn’t forget the way he’d looked at me. The slight curve of his mouth. How nervous I’d been. And most of all - his scent, the one that washed over me when he opened the door.

We’d been so close. Too close for me to breathe normally.

Damn, weeks had gone by since that moment, and I hadn’t seen him once. He never came back to the bar. I didn’t run into him on the street. He had simply vanished.

Аll that time, I kept replaying that day over and over in my head until I couldn’t tell where reality ended, and my imagination began.

I went over everything I had said that day. Maybe I’d said too much. Maybe I’d sounded like a loser. Or maybe my words had been too vague, and he’d thought I was hiding something. Which, honestly, I was, but was that really so bad? Had that been my mistake?

Or maybe I’d asked the wrong question. Maybe I’d pushed at something I shouldn’t have. It crossed my mind that it might have been too personal, but I wasn’t so sure. All I’d asked was where he worked. So that couldn’t be the reason.

Especially since I still knew almost nothing about him.

Well, one fact I knew for certain. He was rich. That much was obvious. His car alone cost more than anything I’d ever touched in my life.

People without money do not ride around with drivers, right?

Rich people had always looked at me from above, even when I was a kid trailing behind my mother. Back then, she told me not to pay attention to the way their eyes slid over us, as if we were something they stepped around on the sidewalk.

“Don’t lower your head,” she used to say. “Remember, your worth isn’t in your status or your origin. It’s in what kind of person you choose to be. And it doesn’t matter who you are, human, beastkin, or hybrid. The way they look at you is nothing but arrogance. It doesn't make you worse than them.”

And I believed her.

I believed every word for as long as she was alive, for as long as she stood between me and the world, shielding me from its uglier parts, from its cruelty, from those stares, from everything they could do.

But after she was gone… everything changed.

The fear had grown many times stronger. The looks caused almost physical pain. The wealthy people with power seemed terrifyingly dangerous. So dangerous that I needed to stay as far away from them as I possibly could.

And look at me now, lying awake in the middle of the night, replaying every moment connected to the man who clearly had enough money to pay for a personal driver.

Despite this, I believed that he was different.

…Or maybe I just wanted him to be.

If he really was different, then why did I still know nothing about him? He had not even told me his name. Not that I had asked, but still, he knew mine.

Wait. Did he even know my name?

Come to think of it, I kept thinking of him as him, or that man, or something like that, and he called me bartender. It seemed there was an invisible line drawn between us, and somehow that really bothered me.

I lay there, wasting precious sleep on thoughts about the man who did not even know my name, or, if he did, saw no reason to say it out loud.

Once again, I came back to the same realization. I did not know a damn thing about him.

All I had were a few miserable fragments I had picked up here and there. It was a handful of insignificant details. They meant nothing. They should have meant nothing. And yet, pulled by some unexplainable attraction, I kept returning to them.

I didn’t only think about them; I wanted more.

I wanted to know what kind of tea he drinks. Did he even drink tea? Maybe coffee? Or he didn’t touch caffeine at all. Maybe he was the type to favor water or fresh juice.

Did he like the rain? Or did he hate it because rain could ruin his polished shoes? I tried to picture him walking under a storm with his hair damp. The picture was comical, and I’d love to see it in real life.

What about the sun? Did he spend his days surrounded by light, or locked in his office, hidden behind glass walls with other men of his kind?

He must have people who respected him. People who followed his lead, who trusted him without hesitation.

He probably had everything he could ever want.

So why come to our bar?

The question chased itself in circles. I had no answer. Maybe his life was dull, and he needed a distraction. Maybe the bar was his way of reminding himself that not everything had to be pristine, that life could be messy and loud.

Or maybe it was all because of me… Maybe I was nothing more than a convenient toy… Something interesting to keep his attention for a moment, something he could drop without a second thought once the entertainment wore off.

I wanted to be angry at him. I wanted to be angry at his money, at his arrogance, at his questions, at all of it. I wanted to fear him the same way I feared other rich people and anyone who had even a little power.

I wanted to. But when I tried, none of it felt real. It seemed unnatural, like I was pretending.

“God, I'm going crazy,” I muttered, pulling the blanket up over my head.

As if answering me, the rain grew louder, wailing harder against the roof.

Enough.

Somewhere out there, he was sitting in his beautiful tower, living his beautiful life. And I had to work to survive. I needed sleep. Morning would come fast, and with it, another shift.

So enough of these useless thoughts.

******

By the evening of the next day, the rain had slowed to a thin drizzle. That only worsened my mood, because I especially hated that kind of rain.

I barely dragged myself to the bar after that sleepless night.

When I stepped inside, the bar was already ready to open. Everything was the same as always. The same dim lighting, the same familiar mix of alcohol, citrus, wood, and something else that was typical of places like ours.

I reluctantly slipped behind the counter, pulled off my hoodie, and tugged the mask over my face. I let out a breath, hoping that by the time my shift was over, the hoodie would have dried and stopped being so unpleasantly damp.

Behind the bar, I got a little better, but my head still throbbed from the lack of sleep.

The first hour passed in the usual blur. I was mixing drinks, sliding glasses down the counter, leaning close to catch orders over the noise.

But even as my hands worked on their own, my head felt thick with fog. I was grateful I’d been here long enough for muscle memory to take over. Because after that stupid night full of maddening thoughts, I was barely holding it together. If I were new at this, I probably would’ve shattered half the glasses by now.

A hand tapped the counter, pulling me back. Kazuo leaned in, resting his forearms on the wood.

“You’re quiet tonight,” he said.

“I’m working,” I muttered, grabbing a glass and filling it.

His eyes narrowed slightly, but before he could push, someone else slid into the space at the bar.

“Hey, you guys seen what’s been going on?”

It was Anton — one of our loudest regulars. The same guy who’d tried to shake him awake on the first night. Tonight, Anton wasn’t drunk, only fired up. His cheeks were flushed, his hands tapping restlessly against the counter.

“Those damn protests,” he spat. “Kept me up all night. Shouting, chanting the same crap over and over. I swear, they don’t shut up.” He laughed bitterly. “And for what? What the hell are hybrids even doing that’s so bad?”

Kazuo gave a small shrug. “Disliking those who are different from you, especially when they’re a minority, is pretty common.”

“Disliking?” Anton snorted. “No, it’s hate. And it’s everywhere. My wife—she’s a hybrid, you know? I don’t give a damn. But they’re out there yelling as if we’re the enemy, too. Like she’s some kind of threat just for existing.” His hand smacked against the bar. “And I’m supposed to sit there, pretend it doesn’t matter?”

“I know it’s hard,” Kazuo said in the same calm tone. “But anger still doesn’t solve anything.”

“Oh, come on, man. You always do this.” Anton shook his head, frustrated. “I’m not gonna sit around and watch them do whatever they want. If I’m pissed, why shouldn’t I punch one of those assholes? That’d boost my mood.”

They kept going for a while longer. Anton was running on pure emotion, waving his hands, throwing out sharp, heated words, while Kazuo stayed as calm as ever. A few people around them turned to look, but no one joined in. Music played in the background, serving as a soundtrack to this tense scene.

I kept working, pretending I wasn’t listening. And yet I caught every single word.

Hearing someone I knew be that openly angry at people who hated hybrids was strange. I should have been relieved knowing his wife was a hybrid. If that was the case, then he wasn’t one of them.

Still, doubt lingered somewhere deep inside me.

Was all that anger and protectiveness only tied to his wife?

Would it change if it were about someone else?

I glanced at Kazuo. He held himself unbothered, though I could tell from the tightness in his shoulders that all this was bothering him.

And then—

The bell above the door rang, interrupting them.

I turned my head toward the door and nearly dropped the glass in my hand.

It was the man who hadn’t left my thoughts for weeks. The man I had been waiting for.

When he stepped inside, my pulse kicked up so hard it seemed as if it made the mask tremble.

I dropped my gaze to the glass in my hands, grabbed a rag, and started polishing it. I had to do something. Anything, so I could keep pretending I didn’t care. That his absence all this time hadn’t mattered. That these weeks hadn't drained me with the same questions, fears, and doubts swirling around in my head. I told myself I didn’t care and kept up the act.

I couldn’t sort out what I was feeling. Shock. Anger. Relief. Maybe all of it at once.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kazuo looking at me with a strange expression, asking me silently if I was okay.

I didn’t react. I couldn’t.

Because at that moment, he stepped up to the bar, calmly took an empty seat, and the scent of his cologne drifted toward me. Something tightened in my throat.

It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like months. I kept telling myself not to react, to act like everything was fine.

My eyes stayed glued to the stupid glass I was wiping, afraid that looking up would break something in me.

And God, I hated that.

Hated that my hands trembled. Hated that the mask didn’t save me from him.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and put the glass down on the bar. I did it too harshly, sending a loud thud echoing through the room. A few people turned to look. His lips curved slightly, almost like a smirk.

He’d definitely noticed how nervous I was.

Anton cleared his throat and grumbled something about needing fresh air before hurrying toward the door. Kazuo lingered for a moment, glancing from him to me, then back again. His eyes swept over the bottles behind the bar, and he announced that he “suddenly needed to restock a few things,” wearing that sly, annoying little smile of his. Then he slipped off toward the storage room.

I swallowed. Words itched on my tongue, but I couldn’t force them out.

He leaned closer. His low voice slipped beneath the hum of the bar: “Evening, Bartender.”

My stupid heart missed a beat.

Yeah, apparently, the consequences of that sleepless night were not limited to me barely being able to move and desperately wanting sleep. Something was clearly wrong with my brain too, because the word Bartender pissed me off so much that I had to fight the urge to snap back with something sharp.

Was it really that hard to notice my name? Or to learn it? Or to ask? I would have answered. And then I would have had an excuse to ask for his in return.

I found myself wondering what it would sound like if he said my name.

Just my name.

Damn, why do I even care?

For some reason, those thoughts made me feel warm. That was definitely the lack of sleep.

Absolutely.

And the fact that I was blushing under my mask while looking at him was also one hundred percent because of exhaustion.

I sucked in a breath, trying to calm myself. I wanted to ask why he came back. Why did he keep finding his way into my orbit? Why couldn’t he leave me alone and let my life stay the quiet, simple thing it used to be?

But instead, I only nodded. “Good evening. What will you drink this time?”

“As always,” he said slowly, “I’ll leave it to your judgment.”