Drinking alone was boring. Why was this bar so empty?

Kira had stumbled upon it when she’d stumbled drunkenly out one bar into what she presumed was another, but this was the first open empty bar that she had ever seen in her life. She’d proceeded to pour a drink and waited, and still no one came. It seemed as if she was able to drink as much as she liked without paying here, and she immediately felt a fondness for the place.

Her own personal bar.

That was what she needed. How had she never thought of it before? Yep. Kira had officially dubbed this place her bar. She’d think of a fancy name later. But as of right now, she was going to run it. And enjoy it. That way she didn’t have to keep hassling the local taverns to keep giving her more drinks, and here she was sure Marina couldn’t find her.

She wasn’t even sure where here was.

A little while later, someone else stumbled in, seemingly also already drunk.

Kira straightened up in excitement. New potential drinking buddy. Oooh, he’s cute, too. And he’s a got a crown. And a cat around his neck?! Is that cat alive?!

As the cat meowed as if in response, Kira cocked her head. Is the cat psychic?! Where can I find a psychic cat-scarf?

At the stranger’s request, Kira grinned. “You have good taste, my friend. Coming right up.”

She had spotted a bottle at the back earlier. It had a label. Strong enough to knock out a troll was what was written on it.

She opened it deftly and poured the contents into two glasses.

She had no idea what it contained, but they were both going to find out.

“Cheers,” she said, raising the glass.

Their glasses clinked and Kira took a big gulp, scrunching up her face as it burned its way down like an inferno. She let out a native Andromeda curse. “That was… something.” She picked up the bottle and looked at it. Still nothing else beside the vague label. “I may be taking this home. Never had anything like this on my planet.”

She turned back to her new friend and returned his grin. “Agreed. Let’s just live here together forever.” She climbed onto the bar and lazily stretched her legs along the counter.

“R?” she rolled the letter on her tongue, which was starting to feel numb already. “Like the letter? Is there a reason you only go by an initial?”

Her attention was attracted by the cat. “I definitely thought that was some kind of new fashion statement. Cat scarf. Do you always take your cat out drinking?” she tilted her head, wanting to pet the creature but wondering if he’d like that.

“I’m Kira, by the way,” she added at last, eyeing the crown on his head, thinking whether it was polite to ask whether he was a nobleman.

Kira ‘hmm’-ed in thought at his comment about alcohol who ‘burned with more fury’, so much so that it had driven him away. She couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. On one hand, she wanted to try it. On the other…

Her eyes glinted when he said that drinking was a ‘hobby’ for him. “Finally! One of my people! I have desperately been searching for a drinking buddy. Everyone back home is way too uptight about drinking.” Okay, maybe it was only one person. Or two. But even Narcissus didn’t seem to want to drink with her—not that she wanted to drink with that useless man either. But it was still kind of insulting.

Giggling when he said his name was supposed to be a mystery, Kira did try to imagine him in a cape. “I think you would look most dashing in a cape.”

“Well, R, I am honored to be one of those people you appreciate. I promise I won’t be an obnoxious drinking buddy.”

She looked back toward the cat then, and reached out to pet his fur. “Awww, he’s such a cute kitty,” she cooed, wanting to cuddle him already. “You know, one of my friends is a cat too. Also pretty cute. But I think he’s technically human. Actually I’m confused about that most days,” she rambled, thinking about Percy and how she had once carried his kitty form all the way home from Crystal Tokyo.

As her new friend extended his empty glass toward her, she refilled it easily, before resuming her own drinking to catch up to him.

“If you want to come back here, there are tons of bottles in the back. I have no idea what they all are, but I think it’s all the more reason to try them all.” She hopped back behind the bar and began rummaging in the back room. Some of them had funny names, some of them had unhelpful labels like ‘for rainy nights’ or ‘to mend a broken heart’, or her favorite, ‘to keep you on cloud nine six ways til Sunday’, and some had none at all.

Ah, well. All the more adventure for them.

“You have to tell me some of your favorite hangover cures,” Kira drawled as she finished her glass. “We have one but it sucks.”

As for his question, she had to struggle to remember what Percy had told her. “I think not, but he’s only ever been a cat for me.”

She was impressed at how sure he was on his feet while drunk, and looked at the unlabeled bottles he’d picked. “I am very curious about those, too. And as for the bar… I don’t know whose it is. I found it and it’s empty so I decided to claim it,” she shrugged, completely blasé, as if people walked into empty places and claimed it for theirs all the time.

“So… where are you from? Also, can the cat talk?”

He chuckled.

"Spacetravel strangely helps with that. So do emergency landings."

Something amused shone in his eyes while Enjolras seemed utterly disgusted. Roy took a long sip of his new poison, observing her attentively while keeping his pose extremely casual. He didn't seem stressed or in a hurry for that matter. As if suddenly finding himself in a strange bar in the middle of the solar system was entirely mundane.

And in a way, it was.

"Some decide to do that with planets, so you are of the minds I can instead relate to. I will take this bar as yours then."

He stretched his legs on the counter, leaning back on one hand while the other kept his glass close to him.

"Earth. Somehow." He let out with an hesitation that shouldn't be heard when one told their birth place. "Paris. Though I doubt you heard of it."

A pause. A sip.

"And he can't." He added, looking back at Enjolras. "Unless he is sulking since I've found him, but he does appear to be intelligent." He could almost read 'you think?' in the cat's eyes.

"He is quite the charming companion."

His name even brought him a certain sense of nostalgia he never understood...

"And you? I am quite sure you are not a star of this system. I have visited many of the surrounding planets and you do not seem to fit any of them."

“Space travel? Emergency landings? Are you speaking about a… ship?” Her eyes shone. She’d never been on a spaceship before. Senshi could do space travel on their own, after all, but a spaceship would be so cool to ride.

“We can share the bar, if you like. After all, you appreciate your liquor, just like I do. What shall we call it? Space Bar? It seems simple but has a nice ring to it.”

He told her he was from Earth, and she was surprised. She kind of expected him to be from somewhere more exotic. “I’ve been to Earth, but only Crystal Tokyo. Perhaps you should take me sometime to this… Paris.”

Unfortunately the cat couldn’t talk, but it was okay. Most Earth cats couldn’t, anyway.

“I am from this system, actually, I guess you just haven’t traveled as much as you thought. You’re familiar with the Andromeda constellation, yes? I’m from Andromeda, which is around there.”

"I sure am." He said with the hint of a small smile stretching his lips. He loved his spaceship. Even if his knight form allowed him to breathe in space, to travel in space without the protection of a ship, he loved to be able to go around casually in his civilian form. So this ship was handy.

He'd like to think of it as his home, but Paris... Paris held a special place and his memories... well, his home, his real home, probably didn't even exist anymore.

"She is an old soul, but she never let me down. Cosmos knows I do not always treat her well." Enjolras seemed to agree by the way the cat presumably snorted? "She is solid, that is all that matters." He appeared amused despite his cat clearly mocking his lack of skills.

The fact was... he knew how to drive a ship. It wasn't as difficult as many made it to do, mostly because this ship was almost automated and artificially intelligent (he would forever be grateful for that old man's gift), but rare were the days - or nights - where R wasn't drunk.

It made for bumpy landings.

Those landings were the bane of Enjolras' existence, bless the ball of white fluff.

"Anticlimactic, right?" He admitted with a chuckle. He didn't resent having been reborn on Earth, but Earth had nothing that came even close to how beautiful Apollon was. And the Queen didn't nearly have as much charm as Sailor Apollon.

His throat constricted and his mind blissfully changed the topic of his thoughts, drinking what was left in his glass in one sip.

"I could totally take you there. It is fancier than Crystal Tokyo in surprising ways. Do not get me wrong, Crystal Tokyo is a beautiful place, that is where I lived for a major part of my life, but Paris... Paris has charms you cannot find anywhere else."

The smile was back.

Then he laughed. Of himself.

"Andromeda? Seriously? I did go way farther than it and beyond most of this solar system, so please let me drown my shame of ignorance in another glass of anything strong enough to kill me." His eyes shone a little bit with derisive amusement. "Andromeda is not one I visited yet, strangely. I try to go outside the system as much as possible so when I am old I can leasurely travel about without being too far from Earth."

He glanced at Enjolras.

"I found Enjolras on an asteroid near the border of this solar system. He literally is more exotic than I am." He scratched the cat's neck with tenderness. "He has a fiery attitude, but I do wonder who would be dumb enough to abandon a cat in the middle of space. Look at him, would you leave him on an asteroid to die from hunger?"

He stretched his arm to pour himself another glass.

"And you? I am a traveller. Plain and simple. What about you?"

Kira practically clutched R’s arm. “Take me on your spaceship,” she said, her eyes glowing with excitement. How wonderful would it be if Andromeda had their own spaceship? Their technology was so far behind even Earth that it seemed like it was something who would take ages to build. In the meantime, if she could hitch a ride from someone else, well… she could go on a lot more adventures. “Maybe I could try piloting it too sometime…” she added with a grin.

That would be the coolest thing ever.

“So why’d you move to Crystal Tokyo, then?” she asked, grabbing a random bottle and refilling her glass. “If Paris was so beautiful?”

She smiled at his surprise upon finding she was not from a planet far away. “I’d be happy to give you a tour of my kingdom too, sometime. We also have some of the best drinks, if I do say so myself.”

She glanced at the cat curiously when R said he’d found him on an asteroid. A cat stranded on an asteroid? There seemed to be a bigger story there… If only the cat could talk. “I agree… maybe someone left him there to protect him? Maybe they went off to battle and was afraid he’d die if he came with them.” It sure sounded more noble than the idea that someone just abandoned him in the middle of nowhere like that.

He asked what she was, and she pondered the question. She was many things. A princess, a warrior, a daughter, a friend… but she didn’t know which defined her the most.

“I am… a soldier, I guess,” she said finally, latching onto her moment of awakening as what felt the most right to her. “A sailor senshi. And a princess of my kingdom. I travel mostly to fight and eradicate Chaos in other places.”

Her reaction shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. A little. It should be normal for people to be curious of spaceships, but if she had travelled to this bar in the middle of the universe, she probably had already used one right? His answer came later on, but he then smiled, unbothered by the physical contact. He was mainly amused.

"Why not? I can teach you."

It didn't come to mind to refuse. He was bored out of his mind most of the time and even if he liked his cat, having some human company wouldn't hurt. It'd be a change even.

He sipped on his drink slowly, seemingly pensive.

"More happening I guess. Lucky me, because it is where I was gifted my spaceship. And sure, I totally would like a tour. You have already given me all the reasons to come if your drinks are as good as you say. Never say no to an invitation of the sort. Drinking, I say, is a poetry that is lost on the close-minded and stiff ones."

He paused.

"Ah, but I do not see the world in such a positive way. Perhaps are you right, and I wish I could believe it possible, but I rarely came across something left behind for their own sake. Usually, when you are abandonned, you merely outlived your usefulness. And Enjolras has... an attitude many would not appreciate from a pet."

He chuckled, scratching Enjolras' neck with a certain melancholy, ignoring the cat's glare. He then looked at her fully when she said what she was.

Senshi then?

He knew Crystal Tokyo, of course, but senshi weren't his usual drinking buddies. Maybe would he share that they were more alike than they first thought later, but then again, he was nothing close to a royal. If anything, he was lesser still than most of the universe's creatures.

"Well, your Grace, do not expect any flourish from me." He mocked gently, with a small wink in her direction. He was almost certain she didn't want to be treated like a princess, so he wouldn't. She was Kira until she asked of him otherwise. He jumped off the counter with a short laugh and put down his empty glass.

"Ready to go then?"

As he asked, he was looking at the many bottles behind the counter, apparently choosing some to take with them, waiting patiently for an answer.

"I hope you are a good student, because I am a rather bad teacher."

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