He mulls over whether or not he should continue on about it like that, but he knows he can't. He doesn't want to. The thought of it is too harsh. Maybe there is another reason for it, less morbid and upsetting than being gone for good. "Maybe he's found a new life elsewhere," the bartender proposes, in the hopes of lightening up the sudden change of moods.

"Maybe," the customer sighs. The sullen atmosphere disturbs Howie too much that he fails to notice the man had already finished through his drinks, again. He just hopes the man had dinner at least. He occupies himself with his bartending duties. His coworker to the left, a tall man with a high, pointy nose called Wolfgang, can't seem to catch a break as another new customer lands himself another round of drinks to make. He does this because Howie, besides being new to the job and having no idea whether he's worked in a bar before, still has a lot to learn, and he also doesn't work as efficiently as the original bartender.

"I'm sorry about that," Howie acknowledges. "I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"No, it's fine. Really," the customer's eyes are beginning to look a lot droopier, all that alcohol must feel like crashing waterfall to his senses. He can still hold himself up though, so that's a good sign.

"Are you used to drinking that much, sir?" the bartender worriedly asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm probably more tired than drunk."

The customer smiles at him again, after a while. His grin reaches all the way to his eyes. He seems too nice that Howie had to wonder why he had chosen to be an NBI agent. He could have worked better as a kindergarten teacher with his docile disposition. "Do you need anything else?" the bartender prods. The customer only keeps his smile while he shakes his head.

The song has changed for a second time now, he realizes. Another slow song, more suitable for the night as it gradually progresses, deepening into the late hours of the evening. Howie glances at the singer, Santi, as he lets his soulful voice radiate throughout the entire premise, swallowing the somber lights and the smell of smoke and alcohol, all the yellows and oranges of the bar's light bulbs and blacks and blues and purples of the shadows that they couldn't touch, and all the whites and pinks and greens that the guests have brought along with them, as everyone drinks and chatters and laughs and listens to their hearts' content, all of these things tacitly imprint themselves as a permanent picture in Howie's mind, a memory he can come back to as the days continue to move forward, a first after a long while.

He'd have never known he could feel so alone and yet still belong somewhere at the same time.

"Are you okay?" Wolfgang asks from his side. The newbie turns to the other person behind the counter with him, whose eyes exposed their worry. Out of all the other employees at The Roundtable, Wolfgang has been the most consistent in showing his interest, if not mere kindness, towards Howie.

"Yeah. Why?" he responds. The taller bartender points to the table with a turn of his head and a raised eyebrow in its direction. His mind follows and discovers that the customer he'd been serving drinks to and conversing with for the past five minutes is gone. He had left a few notes on the table and had placed the small plate of limes on top of them so they don't get swept away. His naturally sharp-looking eyes lose some of their edges for a second as he tries to locate the man within the bar and amongst the crowd. He can't find him. He's probably left already. It's fine, he thinks to himself. Customers come, and then they go. He'll probably come back, or maybe he won't. It doesn't affect him either way. He has to continue with his life and focus on the things he has to work on about himself.

The agent had been the most interesting thing he had come across, he admits, after days of hectic bartending and waiting and cleaning up and mopping floors and wiping tables and glasses and organizing bottles and memorizing bottles and alcohol recipes. It's been a lengthy two weeks in his new life so far, and he hadn't even realized it up until that point. He's still getting used to living with strangers, and living with the life he has now, and working at a bar, which is why he mostly keeps to himself. The owner and manager, Mr. Jeon, only comes around during the early hours of the morning to check on mostly the logistics of running the business. Other than that, they've never shared casual dialogues between each other. He figures he doesn't really want it, either, as he's already indebted to him by a lot for providing him with work and lodging. It's too much on his part, actually. And for that he's beyond grateful. But now that the one interesting, outside the ordinary conversation he had had with a strange new customer ended, he has to force himself to go right back to the tedious routine. And Howie has to be fine with that.

​​​​​​It had already slipped his mind to ask for a name or even a contact info anyway. What if the agent needs to ask him more questions? What if, who knows, by pure happenstance, he stumbles upon answers that would help the investigation? Then again he's probably just getting carried away by the idea of that—having the purpose of being involved in something larger than the mundane bar employee life. He hadn't even seen the man leave, so he can't really be burdened by it.

The evening steadily turns into dawn. There were only a few customers in the bar, and one by one they had soon gotten enough of their fill for tonight's leisure. Wolfgang engrosses himself with organizing the bar while Howie helps Santi and G with cleaning up the tables and picking up trash and mopping up the floors. The bouncer is just turning the door signage hanging by the glass from OPEN to CLOSED. The singer is putting away the used table rags into a broom closet by the left of the small stage. Meanwhile he has to take the trash out again. He can get away with just putting them outside for now and then disposing it in the industrial bins later in the morning, so after laying the black bags down behind one of them, he goes inside and finds that almost everything had been taken care of, and that The Roundtable is finally done for the day. Things will cycle right back around here in the late afternoon up until the first crack of sunlight the next day. He retires to the employee quarters, a simple flat in the basement of the two-storey building. The first and second floors are designated to the bar. He descends through a small flight of stairs that you can find around the corner of the backrooms where the storage and double-door back exits are. When you pass through the red curtains beside the bar counter, you quickly see the red doors to the left, piles upon piles of boxes and other things, a small kitchen, where G sometimes works, as he doubles as the bar chef, and a little to the right, you can see the cream-colored door by a niche in the wall. You open that door, and you see the stairs that will bring you down to their lodging.

It's a decent-sized flat, with two bedrooms, in which the doors face directly opposite each other. You immediately see the living room, it's the vast empty space in the middle of the floor, with a flat screen TV mounted to the walls right beside the stairs and a stereo system right below it, and a long gray couch, a lazy boy by the far-right end propped up against the walls next to the door to one of the bedrooms. It's not pristine but it doesn't look cluttered either. It looks like it is lived in. There's a mini hallway you reach by turning right at the bedroom that is immediately in front of you a few feet from the stairs, and that shows you the door to the bathroom at the end of the hall. It has a shower, a toilet and a sink, and a small dryer. The room he shares with Santi is the first door. He opens it, leading him into the bedroom with a bunk bed on one side, and two cabinets on the other. Since Santi has been there longer than Howie, he had more things around. A keyboard and a chair by the left side at the foot of the bunk, his other guitar leaning against the wall, a music sheet stand that he had thoughtfully inserted between the small space between the keyboard and the bed, so it isn't a tripping hazard for the person walking in. There's a small gray couch, much like a matching set with the bigger one in the living room. There's a backpack by one of the cabinets, that is Santi's too. His things, however, well, he doesn't have a lot. He literally has one pair of slacks, a leather jacket, a cotton shirt, and a pair of underpants—all in black. His other clothing items are the uniform—white long-sleeved shirt, which is quite new since Mr. Jeon had just given it to him and it's never been used, a black apron, and black trousers. The black boots and black socks he's currently wearing are an old piece of his as well. Santi had spared him some of his own clothes before, mainly a shirt and shorts for when he's just lounging around, and he changes in between these every day, so he had to wash them up almost daily. He sighs as he peels himself out of his work clothes, hanging the apron by the foot of the lower bunk which he sleeps in, and proceeds to go to the bathroom to quickly wash and dry his shirt, pants and socks. He fishes out the clothes he'd borrowed from Santi that he had forgotten in there after he had washed them that morning and puts them on. He instinctively groans when he realizes he has to wash his underpants too... damn, what a life.

Should I go