quiet talk #1: Balalaika or XYZ
Tucked into the third floor of a mixed-use building down a Roppongi back alley, the authentic girls’ bar Antiqua. Its owner and sole bartender is a woman of mystery, one who captivates every customer with a pair of amber eyes round as the full moon: Shandy.
Open, probably, all night every day except Sundays and holidays, Antiqua draws all manner of drunken wanderers through its door.
Take this one, for instance.
“Bahahaha! What the hell, this isn’t a girls’ bar at all!”
“But isn’t it kind of nice? Like, way too dark for photos, but there’s like, a whole vibe to it, right?”
“Right?!”
A shrill pair of voices cut through Antiqua’s quiet, classical-scored hush. The source: a young couple, man and woman, both loud, both clearly slurring. In Antiqua’s darkness it was hard to make out details, but there was no mistaking they were drunk.
Without so much as a flicker of expression, Shandy greeted them.
“Welcome, and thank you for coming to Antiqua.”
“Whoa! A lady bartender! That’s so cool!”
“For real, this is so cute! Hey, can we take a photo and post it to Instagram?”
“Let’s get all three of us in it! That’s cool, right, bartender lady?”
The two of them pulled out their phones and tried to frame a shot with Shandy sandwiched between them — though in Antiqua’s dim light, nothing short of a flash would actually capture anything.
“Bartender lady, turn the lights on. It’s way too dark in here! What if someone gets pickpocketed?”
“Also doesn’t this place kind of smell like old men? Only middle-aged guys come to places like this, right?”
“You idiot, this is what you call a grown-up’s hideaway. Right, bartender lady?”
Amber eyes held steady at full moon, Shandy answered in a tone that managed to sound apologetic — in tone only.
“My apologies. The darkness is actually part of what we’re known for. And I’ll have to ask you to refrain from photographing me — I happen to have a bit of a stalker problem.”
“Nah, c’mon, it’s fine. A stalker’s not gonna be checking Instagram!”
“Actually, this particular stalker is so obsessed with me that he gets jealous of anyone who appears in a photo with me. Please do watch yourselves on the walk home tonight.”
“Wh— that’s… super creepy, ngl.”
Giving up on both the photo and the lighting complaint, the two of them settled themselves at the counter without waiting to be shown a seat. The cramped shop — five counter seats and one table — now held only the noisy pair, the woman seated against the wall, and Shandy.
“This place isn’t popular at all, though. A place that’s not even on Tabelog is probably trash, right?”
“No, no, finding a hidden gem nobody else knows about is exactly what makes you a real foodie.”
Shandy kept her eyes wide, letting a moonlit gaze settle over the room. Even on the darkest night, the moon illuminates everything with its own brightness. Nothing escaped Shandy — a creature of the night with eyes built for the dark.
Sizing up the two drunks in an instant, Shandy spoke quietly. Only the woman seated against the wall caught the faint edge of tension beneath her tone.
“May I take your order?”
“Oh, so you say ‘order’ like that here? Isn’t there like, a fancier way to say it at places like this?”
“Ehh, I have no idea what that even means!”
“And for the bill, you say ‘check,’ by the way. Man, that’s just common sense at the bars I usually go to.”
“Anyway, isn’t this technically an unlicensed girls’ bar or something? I’ve done a shift at one of those before.”
“Wait, so bartender lady’s just a part-timer? Nah, I knew something was off — a girl this pretty being an actual bartender didn’t add up.”
“Excuse me? What are you doing complimenting other girls in front of your girlfriend?”
“You’re obviously number one, babe.”
“Damn right! Just making sure you know it!”
Shandy let out a quiet “ha” of a laugh — one that leaned closer to couldn’t quite hold it in than anything polite. Luckily, a pair of drunks lost entirely in their own little world never noticed Shandy’s thin smile of contempt.
“My apologies. Might I take your order now?”
“Ugh, what do I even get. Is there no menu?”
“I’m afraid we don’t keep a drinks menu here. That said, we can make most any cocktail on request.”
“Huh? No menu’s basically a rip-off, right? Is that even allowed?”
“We’re open all-night at the moment. Five thousand yen gets you entry plus one drink.”
“That’s so expensive! Hey, let’s just bail on this place. A regular karaoke box would be fine.”
“Karaoke booze is garbage, though. Besides, a classy spot like this’ll set the mood way better tonight, y’know?”
“Ugh, could you be any more obvious.”
“Once the good stuff kicks in, it’ll totally be different, trust me! Besides, didn’t you say you wanted a pretty cocktail?”
“Oh yeah! Let’s order that then! Hey, can we?”
Shandy answered with a short “Of course,” and the woman of the pair held up her phone. Likely pulled from some restaurant-review app, a grid of glossy cocktail photos filled the screen; she pointed to one.
“Make us the one with the red and green layers. You said you can make basically any cocktail, right?”
Shandy glanced at the photo and answered “Of course” in exactly the same flat, even tone as before.
The cocktail the woman had pointed to, incidentally, was a Pousse-café — a novelty drink built by layering four or five spirits of different densities in sequence, deliberately not mixing them, unlike virtually every other cocktail in existence: grenadine liqueur’s red, mint liqueur’s green, and so on, stacked in careful strata.
“And for you, sir?”
“Hey, bartender lady. You know how to actually test a bartender’s skill?”
“Hm, and how would that be?”
Shandy played dumb — or rather, put on her best show of not already knowing exactly where this was going.
Watching the man’s smug expression, Shandy quietly ran through her own predictions of what he’d say next.
He wasn’t wrong that there are ways to gauge a bartender’s real skill.
To judge cocktail-making ability, the Gin and Tonic is the classic test — precisely because its simplicity (just gin and tonic water) leaves nowhere to hide, demanding real creativity from whoever makes it. Shandy’s own version added lime juice and a splash of rum to the base recipe, rimmed half the glass with salt (snow style), and finished it with a cut lime wedge on the other half.
To judge technical skill, there’s the ice cube. Anyone serving a long drink or something on the rocks tends to fuss over the shape of the ice — some carve it into perfect cubes, others cut elaborate diamond facets. Shandy, for her part, preferred ice left exactly as it was.
To judge aesthetic sense, look at the glass itself. A bar’s most essential tool is its glassware. Prices range wildly, but most bars — especially authentic ones like Antiqua — use glassware that balances formal beauty with function, and that kind of glass tends to run expensive. Shandy herself had sunk no small sum into her glassware; losing a single glass to breakage stung far worse than losing an entire bottle.
So, which test would it be?
“Ehh, you don’t know? That’s like, common knowledge for a bartender.”
“Ha. Would you care to enlighten me?”
While Shandy ran through her mental shortlist of bartender-skill tests, the man snapped his fingers with an air of self-importance and announced:
“A highball, straight, on the rocks.”
Shandy exchanged a brief glance with the woman seated against the wall.
“What’s that, some Starbucks order?”
“Yeah, figures you wouldn’t know. My usual bar’s master taught me this one — says if you order like that and the bartender just makes it without questioning you, that’s how you know they’re any good.”
Reading the intent quietly implied by whatever ill-mannered bartender this man apparently frequented, Shandy let her wide-open eyes narrow into a waxing crescent.
“Understood. Right away.”
“And make mine good too!”
Taking their order — and ignoring every word of it entirely — Shandy produced her shaker.
The pair, likely seeing a proper silver cocktail shaker for the first time, lit up with excitement.
“Whoa, it’s one of those shaky-shaky things!”
“Idiot, it’s called a shaker. I actually know a bit about this stuff, for the record.”
“Wait, seriously? Did you used to work as a bartender or something?”
“Ahh, well. More like I used to shake up a few things myself—”
At the word shake, Shandy, already pulling bottles together, reacted.
“Plenty of people like to play bartender at their little house parties.”
“Wait, ‘play’? Like pretend?”
“No, it wasn’t pretend! I made screwdrivers and Shandy Gaffs and stuff!”
At the mention of the Shandy Gaff — the very cocktail Shandy’s own name came from — her hands paused, just for an instant.
“Oh? You made a Shandy Gaff by shaking it?”
“You know the recipe, bartender lady?”
“Of course. Beer and ginger ale, isn’t it?”
“Right, right! You put that in the shaker and give it a good shake. The shake technique’s the important part, y’know — I’m actually pretty good at it.”
“I don’t get why you’re bragging about this, but is he actually good, bartender lady?”
“Well, let’s see…”
Shandy curled the corner of her mouth up with just a touch of spite.
“…I’d say it’s impressive. Making a Shandy Gaff by shaking it — honestly, I wouldn’t even dare imagine what that comes out like.”
“See? Told you I’m good.”
“Whoa, impressing an actual pro! You should open your own place!”
“Right?! Bartender lady, hit me up anytime you need someone to cover a shift, I got you.”
“Yes, I’ll be sure to take you up on that.”
With that, Shandy flipped the switch into full bartender mode.
Truth be told, the cocktail she’d serve this pair had been decided the instant they walked through the door.
Trampling all over the shop’s comfortable hush, forcing a photo without asking, seating themselves without waiting to be shown, calling Antiqua a rip-off, bellowing crude conversation at top volume, and then testing the bartender’s skill with an order for a “highball, straight, on the rocks” — a phrase that describes nothing that actually exists.
In short: a hopeless customer who understood nothing about liquor or bar etiquette. Whatever bartender this man apparently trusted had clearly fed him a ridiculous lie, meant as a message to every bartender he’d go on to visit —
This one actually believes “highball, straight, on the rocks” is a real thing. Please go easy on him when he’s rude to you.
Even so, there were two things Shandy wasn’t willing to overlook tonight: the important customer quietly drinking alone in her usual seat against the wall, and the insult just leveled at the Shandy Gaff.
“I’ll get started on that, then.”
“I wanna record this but it’s way too dark.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll narrate the whole thing for you.”
Shandy felt something in her curdle with pure exhaustion. Deciding to let them do as they liked, she began measuring out the ingredients.
Out came the white rum. She measured it out for two, into a slightly larger shaker. Ignoring the man’s entirely wrong commentary on jigger technique, she moved briskly on — white curaçao, lemon juice, one after another.
“I’ll shake this now.”
“Whoa, the shaky-shaky sound, so cool! Bartender lady’s seriously awesome!”
“See? That sound’s actually hard to pull off. I mean, I can do it too, but still.”
Even a toddler who’s never touched alcohol could make a shaker rattle. With ice inside the container, the real challenge would be shaking it without making noise.
Shandy shook it an arbitrary number of times and removed the top. According to the man, who’d apparently been counting, it came out to “twenty-five, not bad” — Shandy paid this no mind whatsoever, and poured the chilled drink into two glasses.
“Here you are. Your order.”
Both glasses held nothing more than a faintly cloudy white liquid. Not the Pousse-café the woman had asked for. Not the mysterious “highball, straight, on the rocks” the man had asked for either.
“Wait, we didn’t order this? Look at the picture again, it’s way more colorful than this. This is way too boring, there’s no way this’ll look good in photos.”
“Hey, bartender, don’t mess with your customers. There’s no way this is a highball, straight, on the rocks!”
“You’re quite right, it isn’t. This is an XYZ.”
Serving a cocktail that matched neither order at all, Shandy smiled, unbothered.
“Incidentally, sir — since you clearly know your drinks so well, may I ask if you happen to know the origin of the name XYZ?”
“H-huh?!”
“Oh, my apologies. Given that you’re able to shake a Shandy Gaff, I simply assumed you’d know that as a matter of course.”
As a general rule, nobody makes a Shandy Gaff by shaking it. Both beer and ginger ale are carbonated to begin with — even a grade-schooler could guess what happens when you seal that inside an airtight container and shake it violently.
“So what, do you actually know something or not?”
“N-no way, how would I know that? I’m not a pro, I’m an amateur! Man, there’s always some guy showing off random trivia like this to make himself look good.”
Shandy let out one small “ha” of a laugh, and decided to offer the explanation as a small parting gift.
“XYZ takes its name from the last three letters of the alphabet. In other words — the highest, the finest, the very last cocktail there could possibly be. Nothing surpasses it.”
“Whatever, who cares. Hey, is my sparkly cocktail ready yet?”
“Skip the trivia lecture and just get the drinks out already!”
“Oh, my apologies. It seems last call has already passed.”
“Huh?! You literally just said you’re open all night! Last call doesn’t even make sense!”
“Yeah, this really is a rip-off! Let’s just go, okay? It’s not even on Tabelog, it can’t be that great a place anyway.”
“And she didn’t even bother taking our actual order right! Hey, bartender. Check, please. Since you didn’t even listen to what we ordered, it’s free, right?!”
“Of course. On the house.”
Without so much as touching their glasses, the two of them rose from the counter. Before chasing after the woman, who was already heading briskly for the exit, the man shot Shandy a final glare.
“You’d better remember this, lady! I’m never coming back to this dump!”
“The exit’s right this way.”
“Tch! Some ‘Antiqua.’ Hope this place goes under!”
With one last petty parting shot, the troublesome pair finally left.
Darkness and quiet settled back over Antiqua. The instant they were gone, Shandy threw back the freshly made, entirely untouched XYZ in a single go.
And then—
“Ha, ha ha ha…!”
Whatever she’d been holding back the whole time finally broke loose. Shandy tapped the counter lightly a few times with her palm, laughing in that bell-like voice of hers.
“Ahh… that was genuinely entertaining. What delightful customers, wouldn’t you say, Kurosu-sama?”
“Yes, absolutely. I had a hard time holding back my own laughter.”
At the far end of the counter, in her usual seat against the wall, Mikoto had been quietly sipping her drink the whole time; she returned Shandy’s laugh with a wry smile of her own.
Mikoto, at the very least, knew more about cocktails and liquor than the drunk pair who’d just left. She could easily picture what shaking a fully carbonated Shandy Gaff would actually do, and she knew perfectly well that “highball, straight, on the rocks” wasn’t a real thing.
“Come to think of it — what happened to the stalker story?”
“Just a lie. Oh, does Kurosu-sama want to take a photo of me too now?”
“I would, but — the real thing is far more beautiful than any photo could be.”
“My, aren’t you smooth. By the way, Mikoto-san — did you happen to notice the cocktail you’re drinking?”
“Ah, the Balalaika, isn’t it.”
Right before the noisy pair arrived, Mikoto had been served a Balalaika — vodka as the base, with white curaçao and lemon juice as supporting spirits, shaken together.
Which meant the only difference between a Balalaika and an XYZ came down to a single ingredient — whether the base spirit was vodka or white rum.
Before Shandy could even ask, Mikoto answered her own question.
“I’ll make sure that vodka in my Balalaika never turns into white rum.”
“Yes. An XYZ, here at Antiqua, is a sign of parting. Though — unless you actually wish for it, I’ll never make you one.”
“Is that a confession of love, Shandy-san?”
“Take it however you’d like.”
Shandy moved back to her usual spot, directly across from Mikoto. Raising her own XYZ in one hand, she gave Mikoto’s glass a small, quiet toast.
Only then did it finally occur to Mikoto —
—Shandy really does choose her customers. She really does.