Othello sheepishly glanced at most of the unformed insides of the Shattered Skyscraper Mall. She thought she would really have to touch up the place when she felt better later.
But that was fine since she was guiding him to something specific. A storefront with seemingly more care to it fluttered past as they boarded an escalator to the second floor.
Vere didn't disdain the unfinished state of the mall. In fact, he felt oddly nostalgic for whatever reason. As they walked, he liked the glass handrails and the squarish flats, and a simple fountain chugged out surprisingly clean water up and along.
That said, they still reached the top of the elevator with a dim hum. Then, as they milled through the surprisingly expansive contents of the second floor, they neared the very end of its reach.
This place had the most care and consideration poured into it; it wasn't even a contest!
The front was clearly unfinished, but there was an excellent windowed front coupled with a graceful transparent door. As Vere stepped aside and opened the door for the weakened Othello, he inwardly marveled as he took in the scene before him.
He first noticed the worn-looking record player in the corner of the bartender's counter. It played music that also felt familiar to him. It was his favorite genre of music—jazz.
There were, of course, other types of music he seemed to remember enjoying. But nothing beats the variety and variability of jazz in his mind—effortlessly able to incorporate all other hosts of instruments and sounds under its faintly discordant yet rhythmic melody. The tune being played gave a soft swing, the plucking of the cello and piano enticingly sounding underneath intermittent rasps of the saxophone.
There was a stage off to the left, a microphone stand ways before a slim pole supporting the roof even further. The wood of it gave off a homely feel, slightly shifted under the hazy, dim light pouring down from panels in the ceiling. The red and yellow light provided a subdued, hidden composure to the sloppily arranged bar.
Tables crowded the reasonably large area, and there were ripped cushions on the barstools along the counter. Othello sat on one as Vere moved behind the said counter almost instinctively.
The shelves along the bartender section were lined with a lousy selection of boozes and spirits. Vere wanted to joke about them but didn't want to hurt the feelings of Othello, whose eyes shined brilliantly with anticipation and hope as she waited for him to finish.
The counter itself had all sorts of drawers and pantries, most of which revealed themselves to be empty. Instead, there were miscellaneous things that didn't really draw his attention inside, and he decided to worry about them later. The same went for the door in this section of the place.
Aside from the panels on the ceiling, some doors were strangely placed. They didn't have much design to them, but he felt a subtle feeling towards them as well. They emitted thought power that seemed to obscure their contents; for now, thought power was much more collected and powerful than even his cognitive force.
Vere decided that he would open them later. All in all, he quite liked this bar. He even looked at the booths along the wall, deciding he'd sleep there, if that was all. He rested his hands on the counter, leaving over Othello.
"This is my gift to you. Name it whatever you like, okay? This is a place you can always return to, a place that belongs to you and you alone. I give the reins to its intended owner." A spark with shifting red and yellow tongues of light formed in her outstretched palm, drifting from it and hovering around Vere's head. She giggled as she watched this, her fingers tapping on the counter.
"Go on, absorb it! I would have planted it directly in your thought nexus, but that would've just gotten me a bullet to my face." Vere seemed to be considering it every now and then, and this didn't escape her. Indeed, he put a hand on his chin and looped a finger in front of his lips as he nodded in approval, a pondering expression filling his handsome face.
In his thought nexus, the pearlescent wisp shone as cognitive force welled up within him. Then, a strand of it wrapped around the spark, drawing it into the pitch black void.
As it entered, it dispersed, the energy melding with his thought nexus. The bar seemed to hum as it became more and more familiar to him, the yellow-red lights responding to the Conspiracy branch within his thought nexus.
"You can change this bar in the future however you like. You might need to raise your cognitive force to do it—you don't have much thought power as it is!" Othello said as she got up to leave the bar, casting a discrete yet longing glance at the distracted man as she went.
"Wait." Vere suddenly spoke as his deep black eyes slid over and fixed onto the demoness. This prompted her to turn around and face him, a blush spreading over her face as her lips trembled.
Because Vere gave an even smile—a genuine one. He brushed back his messy strands of hair and fixed his ponytail to drop past his collarbone, doing his best to seem authentic since it was the first time he had done something like this.
"Thank you." His deep and pleasant-to-the-ear voice echoed in her head as his crescent eyes closed, veiled by the meeting of his eyelids. His long, elegant eyelashes gracefully entwined as his sharp brows arched upwards, and the whole bar seemed to shine despite the haziness of the luminescent fixtures.
"Ah- um! Give me some time, and I'll have more for you, okay? I know you don't like debts, so I'll tell you how you can help me later. Enjoy the place!" She bowed, saying this before rapidly speeding out the door. Vere couldn't help but laugh to himself as he watched her rapid movements, tracing her speeding figure through the glass as she went.
'This won't be such a bad place to stay after all. You're not off the list— not completely, but I owe you a lot more than you think. I'll…soften up in the future.'
A portion of him felt disgusted at the gentleness that beset him. His eyes sharpened under this influence, brought to open once again, but he kept that feeling as best he could.
With this, he confirmed that he really wasn't a good man in the past. But, even now, he still had his suspicions, and he didn't think he'd ever entirely drop them until his mission was complete.
A conspiracy board materialized over his head and stuck to the empty spot on the wall behind the bartender's counter. He noticed this and smiled, wiping off some of the grime on the adhesive part of the sticky note he placed back in his pocket long ago.
Cleverly, he mobilized the thought power contained in the Branch in his Nexus that signified Conspiracy. Yellow-red energy stuck to the sticky note as a pin formed in his other hand, and he nailed it on the board.
'I won't forget—I can't. I need to find out who I am, and following the clues of the past me, I need to find out who C is as well.'
——
Othello pressed her hands on her hips, thoughts rapidly racing. It had been more than a few hours since she guided Vere to his bar/home, and she stood before the slightly developed storefront.
She was going to make it a restaurant. But what should the motif be…!
She paced around the obscured area, thoughts bouncing around like a full trampoline. There were a few things that Vere liked, but those things seemed so infinitely small. Especially because this was technically a "new" Vere, she wondered if he would even associate with some of the things he liked.
"Should I just stick with the basics? I mean, one of the reasons I liked him so much was because he liked people like me…." She said as she pulled out a red rubber nose from who knows where. It was technically a body part of hers, if she was perfectly honest.
That's right, she was a clown demon. If we got into specifics, she was a Pirouettetress, a clown demon that was somewhat similar to the ballerinas of yore. That was the main driving reason for her gait—she just couldn't help but perform. It took a lot of effort to stop the urge to spin and twirl, a leg propped up in the air as she repeatedly rotated when she was happy.
But still, Vere did find clowns funny. There didn't seem to be that big of a reason behind it—the past him just enjoyed the humor. It was one of the only pure pleasures that were left unstained by quite a bit of unfortunate happenings.
Othello brought a fist down on her spread palm, nodding to herself with pursed lips. 'That's right!' She thought. She was an honest demon, and she should be honest to herself! She pulled out a can of spray paint and opened the door, ready to at least name the place.
As she walked out, she was surprised that a figure was sprawled out on the floor. There were no signs of life from it.
"What the fuck? Is that a werewolf?!" She hopped slightly and frowned, nearing closer until she sighed in relief.
It wasn't a werewolf; he just had a hairy face. He was also dead.