Hime Miu's Story

June smiled and nodded as he served a number of customers, sharing small talk here and there with the regulars. His usually messy, black hair was slicked back, he looked clean, professional, smart. Of course he made sure not to over do it with the gel and cologne, he found it so laughable when men tried too hard. Besides he wasn't dressed like this to impress anyone but his boss, a pay raise certainly would be nice.

The bar was filled with mixed noises, sounds, people laughing, yelling, the sound of the usual band and DJ playing their tunes. It was a positive atmosphere and you wouldn't think work would be a place that made someone feel quite relaxed. June had been working as a bartender for at least 4 months now and was quite content with his normal, boring life. Sort of. As mentioned he did grow bored of the same thing every day, the odd rumour here or there, even the news, to make things minutely exciting. Quite sad really. Sure June had friends but they either lived far, worked during the day while he always worked at night and on his days off he simply wanted to stay home at his little apartment and relax.

June almost fell into a little daydream as no customers asked for anything for a while, simply drying glasses. Until a young female approached the bar, catching him off guard for a moment with her words. "One beer please."

"Coming right up." June collected himself and replied with a charming smile. She was quite beautiful but he couldn't recall ever seeing her at the bar and he was sure he'd remember her.

As June placed the beer in front of her he studied her face briefly in case he had simply forgotten her. Nope definitely had never seen her before. "This your first time here?" His welcoming and comforting smile remained as he spoke. It would seem like your average bartender making small talk but this time he was curious. This was what he was like with every new face that came into the bar and well, talking with them and making them feel special and noticed usually equalled regular customers. So the boss didn't mind if June was just feeding his curiosity. "I haven't seen you before and I'm pretty good with faces, especially attractive faces." Oh smooth move June, blunt as ever. But it was not a slip of the tongue no, it was just how he was, honest and straight forward but he was kind, although sometimes his honesty got him into trouble.

The human thought he saw a child enter the bar for a moment then? His eyes briefly darted towards the entrance only to see no one of interest. He had just missed the trio who made their way to the back of the room. He shrugged and returned to cleaning glasses and drying them.

Well, the female certainly was quite observant and smart. She spoke with confidence and almost emotionless, unfazed by what ever blunt comments June threw her way. Usually women and men got a bit flustered at least around him. Most of the time June didn't notice how much people took his kindness and bluntness the wrong way but for once someone hadn't reacted oddly or taken him the wrong way and he didn't know how to feel about it.

As usual he shrugged it off, a slight bewildered look on his face for a moment, unsure about how to reply. When he finally figured out what to say, she was off. "Hiyoko..." He muttered to himself, waiting for the name to ring any bells. Nope. Letting out a sigh he realised he hadn't told her his name. Oh well, he was busy anyway, didn't have time to mingle sadly. He learned a lot about her though just from that brief conversation, her occupation, her intelligence, how it felt like there was much more behind that innocent face of hers. She was quite mature too, looked young but with a job like that he couldn't help but assume she was older than himself. Her mouth moved in an odd way when she spoke too, was she a bit too conscious about her teeth or something? Maybe she forgot to brush? Oh well, June didn't care.

Too distracted by his own thoughts, he had no idea where in the establishment Hiyoko had moved too, not that he needed to know he was just curious about this friend she had to meet up with. Tonight was certainly a bit of a mysterious night, kind of made June excited with a wild imagination of different expectations of what the night might have in stall for him.
"Did ya here about that incident on the news?" An enthusiastic and slightly alarmed voice caught his attention.

"Oh you mean the one about that body they found in the alleyway?"

"Yeah! They say it was dogs but ya know what I think it was?" There was a pause as the other tipsy male waited for his response. "Them blood suckers!"

"What you mean Vampires?"

June rolled his eyes. Drunken idiots and their crazy imaginations, not that he was one to talk. How misleading, he was so intrigued and full of suspense for a moment eavesdropping their conversation. This wasn't the first time customers had spoken of Vampires though, sometimes June began to question whether they were the crazy stories of fanatics and drunks, or actually true. Nonetheless he had lost interest in their conversation of fantasy and myth.

Continuing with his duties of serving customers here and there and cleaning up, it was almost time for him to get going home, or was it go on a break? He'd lost track of time.