Date written: November 30th, 2016. One of those Modern AU oneshots I really want to write. (Inspired by ThatCertainNerd 's idea.) Also, you might want to listen to "Treat You Better" by Shawn Mendes while reading. ;)

She isn't just irritated, annoyed, angered, or pissed off.

She's infuriated.

Now, most would say there isn't any kind of boundary between her anger levels, but in truth there were large gaps in between. There is a wide difference between her being irritated (something you can see when she purses her lips and furrows her brow), and her being absolutely infuriated - which she is, now.

"I can't believe him," she says, teeth gnashed together in a snarl as she stomps her way down the rain-slickened pavement, miraculously staying upright in her abominably high heels. "Canceling on me like that, saying that he's got a fucking business meeting he can't just let slide.."

She huffs, pausing in her muttered tirade - and her incensed gaze flicks up to the neon sign of a bar. It's a bright, almost looming set of blocky letters spelling out the word Pandemonium, and she throws aside her inhibitions, heels clicking upon the gravel path as she makes her way up to the doors.

The bouncer lets her in upon seeing her ID, and she lets her fingers untangle the intricate knot she's put her long, red hair in as she walks straight to the bartender, sliding onto one of the stools. She leans her head against her palm, elbow propped up on the counter.

He looks to be about her age, maybe a year or so older, with messy brown hair - or so she thinks, with all the neon lights and the fog machine billowing clouds of white mist she can't exactly see its natural color - and bright green eyes, which regard her curiously. Maybe wondering why she's so fucking depressed this early in the evening.

As if a stranger could give a shit about her mental state.

"You alright, miss?" He asks, and she lifts her head just enough to glare, gaze catching the way the spotlights dance across his features. 

"What the fuck do you think, bastard?" She snaps. The bartender shrugs, busying himself with several bottles behind the counter, and she heaves a short sigh of frustration, looking down on herself. God, was she such a mess. 

She squeezes her eyes shut, ignoring the burn of humiliating tears. No wonder Shu preferred business over her.

"Here," she hears the man's voice, then the clink of a glass set before her. "Ya' look like you might need a drink."

"Por el amor de Díos," she mutters, opening her azure eyes to look at the bartender, "I don't need your help."

He simply smiles, inclining his head. Pessimistically, she wonders if he's taking satisfaction from her pain. Nevertheless she reaches out, taking the glass of scotch, and downing it in several, unladylike gulps. The sleeve of her black lace dress pulls down as she lowers her glass, revealing the stupid soulmate thingamajig she never really believed in.

Some sort of thing that the first words your soulmate would ever say to you would be etched into the skin of your wrist. Hers was, "You alright, miss?" And to be honest, she couldn't give less of a damn. 

Because she wasn't - isn't - 'alright', and she doubts that she'd ever be.

The man seems to look directly at her soulmate mark, and she refuses to meet his gaze. Before long the song playing in the background changes, and she straightens in her seat, gesturing for the bartender to get her another drink.

"I won't lie to you,

I know he's just not right for you.

And you can tell me if I'm off,

But I see it on your face--

"When you say that he's the one that you want.

And you're spending all your time,

In this wrong situation,

And anytime you want it to stop."

She curses, the lyrics of the song hitting her hard. She turns her head away, seeing the other patrons of the bar to be undisturbed as they dance along to the beat, not caring that one such stranger's deeply affected by the goddamn song they're dancing to.

"'I know I can treat you better, than he can,

And any girl like you deserves a gentleman,'" she hears singing behind her, soft and almost hesitant. She turns, catching the eye of the bartender, who offers her a small, almost reassuring smile. 

"'Tell me why are we wasting time,

On all your wasted crime

When you should be with me instead,'" his smile turns into a grin, one which she almost, almost reciprocates. Because damn, his voice is way too much for her to take. (She mentally insists that it's the alcohol talking, but that's bullshit because she's only drunk a single glass of scotch, for God's sake.)

"'I know I can treat you better

Better than he can.'"

She scoffs as he finishes the chorus, still keeping his eye on her. 

"Was that an attempt to flirt?" She says sardonically. "Because I'd rather walk out the door at this moment."

He actually laughs, handing her her second glass. "It wasn't, not really," he pauses, that same grin adorning his lips. "Unless you want it to be."

She hesitates, a poisonous retort on the very tip of her tongue, but she merely sighs. What the hell, right? "I'd say that I have a boyfriend," she starts, looking down at her clasped hands, "but with the asshole practically fucking married to his business, I'd rather say that I have none."

He hums in return. "And is this asshole the reason why you're here, tryin' to drink the night away?"

Her lips twitch into a slight smile, bitter in all its glory. "Sí."

He rocks back onto his heels, studying her with a careful gaze. "He's an idiot for letting a pretty woman like ya' get away, then." The bartender pauses, almost as if in afterthought as she sips at her drink. (Roughly her fourth glass - she could drink fast if she wanted to,) "Y'know, I've been wondering - ya' keep saying foreign words since earlier. Are you a foreigner?"

She laughs, soft enough that he can barely hear her over the music, but needless to say causes his smile to become a bit wider than it already is. "And here I was assuming that my hair color would give it away, not my speaking habits."

"Well, with all the neon shit in here, that's not really a dead giveaway at the moment."

She smiles, then, leaning just a bit closer. By this point she'd already drank about six or seven glasses of scotch. Quite a bit of alcohol tolerance for this woman, he'd noticed.

"So, yeah. I'm a foreigner, guess you could call me that - my mother's half Japanese and half Spanish, while my father's also half Japanese and half British. So, in total, I'm half Japanese, a fourth Spanish and a fourth British. Pretty weird gene pool, I say so myself. I was born and raised in Japan, but we moved to San Francisco when I was seven. When I turned eighteen, I moved out here, to New York. I still occasionally visit my parents back in Madrid, though."

He blinks, before letting out a chuckle. "I don't even known your name, yet you've already told me about your past."

She simply looks at him, raising a brow as she lifts her eighth glass up and drinks it - all in one fell swoop. Her fingers nudge the glass towards him, and he provides her another one. "Just the barest bones of it, anyway," she agrees, a pink flush to her cheeks brought about by the alcohol. "But fine. My name's Aoi. Aoi Hanazono."

"Basil. Basil Eren." He replies, watching as she bursts into drunken laughter. 

"That's such a girly name!"

"I know," he sighs.

"Hey, hey Baz - can I call you that? - d'you really think you're better for me than Shu ever was?" She's slurring her words now, a cheery grin on her lips despite the painful, almost heartbreaking sadness underlying her voice. He assumes that 'Shu' is her boyfriend, the one who caused her to stray into this bar on a weekend night. 

He can feel the hungry stares of the male patrons of the bar aimed at this vulnerable girl in front of him, and a sense of protectiveness curls inside him. They don't have the right to look at her in that way just because she's defenseless. Sure, Aoi's pretty - heck, she's dangerously beautiful, which is why all those cronies are eyeing her like she's dessert - but it doesn't give them a right to pervertedly eye her like that while she's at her weakest. 

And with that thought in mind he passes off the rest of his shift to his coworker - a blond named Sinon - and gets out behind the counter, taking a seat beside the redhead. She's looking at him with an almost desperate, lost look in her azure eyes, and he drapes an arm over her shoulders, pulling her close to his side, if only to hide her barely covered upper arms from view. 

"Baz?" Her voice seems to crack, and-- oh God, are those tears in the corners of her eyes? She's looking at him, begging him to tell her something, anything, because at this point she's just trying not to break down. "I-I mean, I'm just--"

He smiles at her, pushing back stray locks of her hair away from her face. "I meant it," he says gently. "I--"

And that's when she leans in, a trembling hand clasped over his cheek as she kisses him.

end?