It’s a late night shift and the bartender can’t really wait for his time to go home, due to it being a weekday- many were already sleeping, preparing for the next arduous day at work- one they may end with a drink or two, or one they may end with returning home to their families, Jirou couldn’t care less.
The bar was already very empty, employees were leaving for Jirou had to close, they all assumed that nobody was going to arrive at these hours, they were very wrong.
Though, perhaps, their mistake was exactly what saved him from a horrifying future.
Half an hour until he had to start closing- he hoped nobody decided to come in, though Murphy’s law is never in one’s favor, somebody had entered, a man, asking for a strong drink, he wanted to forget, Jirou assumed that it was the usual, a breakup and decided to not question anything, it wouldn’t do any good to him, after all.
With a warning that he had to start closing the bar in half an hour, the drink was served- though the customer seemed to have ignored the warning, for he drank until slurred words were the only thing that came out of his mouth (though the bartender was quite sure that soon enough all that alcohol was going to go through the same hole, how disgusting).
The man spoke nothing but nonsense, and Jirou did not do anything more than ignore him, until a request for another drink was given, which was politely rejected, the man had to pay and leave, it was closing time.
Some people don’t take rejection so kindly- much less after a breakup, but not everybody could have things their way- Jirou knew so well, though he did not expect such a violent reaction, it started with shouting, something he’d been through a lot, the breath reeking of alcohol was there to prove just how drunk this man was, he wasn’t thinking coherently.
He should’ve called the police to assist; however, he thought that he could handle this alone, yet another mistake from his part.
Soon the shouting turned to the man slamming his hands, what a violent reaction, he thought, yet continued to reject the other’s demands, keeping his voice calm and his eyes focusing on the drunken being near him, he managed to clean up just a bit before-
He was finally attacked, ‘how terrible’- he thought to himself, though things would have gone much better if the other’s weapon of choice had been his fists, rather than a glass bottle that was still filled to the brim.
Jirou was surprised that the man didn’t just run away with the bottle- It would have been much better, the surprise was gone and his thoughts were grounded by the sight of an incoming hit- which he tried to evade but failed, getting hit rather strongly to the head, To the ground he fell, unable to move due to shock and pain- which made him an easy target for one, two, three and more hits, those that eventually ended with his life.
Drunken men do have some sense of themselves, and they do seem to recognize when someone’s dead, no more movement, no more reactions- it’s an eerie silence, really. So in this case, escaping was immediate.
But it wasn’t over for the bartender, it took more than what one would expect, perhaps it did take a while longer than the drunken man thought for him to be actually dead? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t remember much, he just remembers the sound of every hit drowning out as his consciousness faded away, he remembers the pain of each strike to the head, he remembers most of what happened and he remembers dying.
Though still in shock and just not being able to believe what just happened, he stood up, finished with closing and walked home, he needed to think.
The next day, Jirou did not show up to work.
