When He Calls My Name

25

"Heizou...?"

My face goes as red as the hair of the man across from me, who leans an arm over the bar, staring at me with a teasing grin.

"Hey there, Traveler," he says, "fancy meeting you here."

I take a step back, stumbling a bit as my ass meets with a bar stool, and decide to smoothly break my fall by sitting on it.

"Uh, yeah..." I say, "I was invited here by a friend. What are you doing here? You're not busy, I don't know, with a crime or something, Detective?"

He chuckles. "As much as I love keeping up with clues, a man's gotta have a break once in a while, right? What's a drink or two, or five, every now and then gonna do? The better question is, what have you been up to these days? Hmm?"

Heizou moves in closer to me, sliding his arm first, then his body, until he's right in my face. His speech is slurred, his breath reeks of alcohol, and looking at his eyes, it's very clear he's already highly drunk.

"Oh, um," I say, looking around to find Xiao, "not much. I mean, the usual. Saving the world and whatnot, you know how it is... I—"

"You know," Heizou interrupts, "this reminds me of the last time I saw you, Traveler... remember? We both got a little drunk that night, we were talking, laughing, and then suddenly...poof! We were naked." He chuckles again, a hand reaching to trace at my jawline. "Oh Traveler..." he slurs, "sweet, dreamy Traveler... I can make that happen again, if you'd like?" He leans into me, lips closing in on mine as I gently pull back. This action earns me a pout from the detective. "Aww, what's wrong?" he teases, "you don't like me no more? Don't tell me you got a boyfriend while I was gone..."

"Yeah. He did. It's me. Now back the fuck away from him or I'll kill you."

I jump at Xiao's sudden presence in front of us. He folds his arms, not even looking at me, but piercing daggers toward the other anemo man pressed against me.

"You have five seconds to back off," Xiao says, "or I will guarantee your life on this planet will cease to exist."

I put a hand up. "I-It's okay, Xiao. I know him."

"Clearly," he says. "Five...four..."

Heizou looks to my fuming boyfriend, the slightest smirk across his face, and I silently pray to the probably also drunk anemo god that he doesn't speak.

"Well," Heizou says, and my whole body clenches, "I see you have a type."

"Three..."

"Xiao," I say, "stop. He's just really drunk. It's the alcohol talking."

"I'll have you know...p u n k~ ..." Heizou sings, "you're just the rebound. I'm pretty sure... I hit it first~"

"DISAPPEAR!"

"Xiao stop!!" I place an arm across Heizou, who moves it out of his way quickly, squaring up to my boyfriend.

"Oh yeah? Let's...let's dance then," Heizou slurs out, his stance very off, distance in his eyes.

There's a lot of anemo charging up around the area and debris is blowing left and right.

"Guys stop!" I say, grabbing Heizou's arm and pulling him back. He stumbles backwards, falling against a bar stool, but that doesn't stop Xiao from coming at him. "STOOOP!" I scream again as Xiao comes in for the kill, but just as he's about to attack, he is forcefully knocked to the side but something chucked at him from nearby.

"Sheesh, you know for a little guy, that dude's got some biiiig anger issues."

My eyes are as wide as my mouth as I stare at the bull pressed against my unconscious boyfriend on the ground.

"Sorry about knocking out your boyfriend." Itto slicks back a piece of his hair as he reaches for my hand to help me up, as I just realized I'd lowered myself to the ground in shock. "I just know how it feels, you know? The fear for my life when this anemaniac is around—uh, no offense of course. He do that often? The mask thingy where he tries to kill people and all the weird smokey thingies come out of him? It's kinda scary, just saying. Gives me the heebie-geebies. Anyway, I'd give it about say... 5 minutes? He'll be good as new. So yeah, uh, sorry again, I'm sure he's a cool dude like you said, but uh, someone had to break up this fight. Hey, if they wanna settle this outside of the party, I am all for it. But come on guys, not the decorations... we're here to have fun! There's too much wind and stuff going on over here. Anyway, I just came to grab some more drinks, really. Don't mind me. Hey, I'm not even here, alright? You do you boys."

Itto slips passed me, and I finally let out the breath I was holding. Someone helps Heizou get to his feet, and I jog over to Xiao, moving Ushi over and pulling him onto my lap.

"Oh, Xiao..." I say to his unconscious body, "you've got to stop trying to kill everyone who breathes near me."
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TO BE CONTINUED (Disclaimer: don't come for me if Heizou isn't a drinker! I haven't listened to his voicelines yet. In this story he is lol. I don't know much about him yet other than he's flirty af with the traveler. Didn't finish his hangout yet 🙃 I'm also assuming since he's a detective that he's legal, so if he isn't, he is in this story. They all are. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk ❤️)