Author's Notes: Dear beloved readers, yes you are looking at it. This is 'Dragon's Moon'. I've had a lot of requests for it, so I'm bringing it back. Unfortunately, there has been no edit job done on this. I'm bringing it back exactly the way I took it down. So, it looked the same in 2005. Please enjoy and review, even if you've read it before. Seriously, I need the cheer leading. Loads of Love, Sapphirefly
Chapter One
A Night at the Club
It just stopped raining. The sky looked steely and cold. How could the sky still be so bright, like metal, so late in the day?
Hitomi decided there was no delaying it, and she went to put on her coat. She pulled it out of the closet and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was so cold! The folds swung around her body in waves of cold. The chill of the coat hurt and annoyed her since she was on her way to meet someone who was not exactly inviting. Well, inviting in a pleasant sort of way. She vaguely decided that if she was going to go then she would be at the club at nine o'clock.
She shook her head, and the chill with it.
She went to the counter in the kitchen and saw the note written in her mother's neat handwriting,
I went to the airport to drop off your father and I won't be home until late. Marlene is on a sleep over. She went with Katy on the bus after school, so don't worry about her. Leave a note if you go anywhere and don't forget to wake me up to let me know that you're home safe if it's late.
Love you honey.
It was signed with her mother's perfect signature.
Marlene was Hitomi's younger sister. They weren't very much alike. Hitomi wondered sometimes if they were even related. Marlene's room was across from hers. Marlene's walls were waxed with pictures of teenage boys she'd cut out of magazines. The pointless of it boggled Hitomi, but it was Marlene's room, and mentioning the idiocy of it to her was pointless. She had to let it go.
Hitomi walked out of the door, checking her pockets for her keys. Yes, they were there. She walked down the hall of the apartment building and down the flight of stairs to the outside doors. Stepping onto the pavement, she realized that she was actually going to see that guy after all, even when she hadn't planned to. In fact, she had been quite adamant about leaving him waiting, while she never came. Funny how these things worked out for her, and she continued out of the building.
It was quite a unique sensation for her as she walked along the sidewalk, in the direction of the bus stop. When he called she told him that she would 'think about it'. That wasn't doing it, she told him. With his usual arrogance, he said that she would be there all the same and that he wouldn't be left waiting for long. She didn't like to admit it to herself, but of course he was right. She hated the idea that he had so much control over her, but he did. She proved that just now on the way to her bus stop. How could she have let things get this out of hand?
She touched the metal post that held the bus stop sign. It was cold and wet from the rain under her fingers. Again, that cold!
Ah, the bus was there. Hitomi stepped onto the metal stairs. She sat down on a bench near the back, as usual, and looked absently out the window. There wasn't really anything to see outside. What could she look at? The darkened shop windows or the ugly street lights?
The bus was crowded, though not full. The people looked bored, and a few people stood in the aisle holding the cord to signal the driver when it was their stop. They might be on their way to a place they would enjoy. It was such a contrast to where she was going. She looked miserably at the floor and thought for a moment that she was going to cry, but she managed to get it together.
Her stop was coming up. She pulled the black cord, and made her way to the side door. Her legs were restless from anxiety. Even a moment on the bus seat was enough to irritate her. She should be walking to work off her tension.
This wasn't her real stop, she remembered as the stepped off the bus. She needed to transfer. There was no one around this bus stop and she stood by the bench, unwilling to sit down on it. It was dripping wet from the rain. It was all right though, because she knew that the bus would be there in a minute or so.
Here it was.
She got on.
The second bus was very crowded and Hitomi would be lucky to get a seat at all. As she looked around the bus after presenting her bus pass to the driver, she noticed that there was something unusual about the people. The people in this bus; they were all young. Most of them were clothed in black leather with metal dripping from them. There was one empty seat in the midst of them. She moved to the seat. Maybe they would let her have it. The seat was by a window on a bench with a man sitting close to the aisle. As she got closer, he got up to let her sit next to the window. When she was in the bench, he sat down beside her and said nothing. He started straight in front of him.
Hitomi looked at some of the people standing in the aisle hanging onto the metal poles for support. A woman just older than herself gave her a spiteful look. She was carrying several grocery bags and looked as though she was having a hard time of it. Hitomi had to look at the floor to escape from the woman's glare. Then, the strangest thing happened. The man sitting next to Hitomi turned on the woman in the aisle with a potent dark look. Then the woman was suddenly pushing past the other standing passengers to the front of the bus. The woman was afraid of him.
Hitomi didn't understand why the man had allowed her to sit down at all. Why hadn't he treated her with the same disdain with which he treated the woman in the aisle?
None of the people in black spoke to her and she didn't try to speak to them. She felt out of place with them in her light brown trench coat. She wasn't like them. Some of them had pierced their eyebrows, or noses, or both! One man who sat a little ways away from her had a tattoo of a dragon down the back of his neck. Their hair was dyed strange colours, and looked like it hadn't been washed in days. There was dark lip stick on their mouths and strange dark smudges around their eyes. She was hardly wearing any make up at all.
She looked over at the man sitting next to her. He didn't look as old as the others. His face was clean and freshly shaven. Hitomi guessed that he couldn't be that much older than herself. He didn't seem half as intimidating, yet he was sitting confidently in the midst of them.
Right then, he seemed to be watching for his stop, because it was coming up soon. He stood up and pulled the cord. It seemed it was the stop of all the skids as well, because they all moved to get off.
Hitomi silently got up with them – it was her stop too.
The bus was half full now, and everyone standing took a seat.
Once on the sidewalk, Hitomi began walking to the club. Oddly enough, the strange group from the bus walked with her. It was the weirdest experience. Some of them walked in front, some behind her, and some on either side of her. None of them said anything to her. Not one of them said a word. She wasn't afraid, exactly. None of them looked at her. Even the ones behind her seemed to be looking off to the side.
The club she was going to had bright orange lights outside. The punks took her to the door, but didn't follow her inside. She watched them walk down the street, in search of a real place to party. She heard them laughing and talking as they went. They had been totally silent as they took her to the club from the bus.
Strange.
The club was noisy and smoky as usual, with the young teenage girls walking around in the little tank tops that never seem to go out of fashion.
It was dark in the lounge, but she spotted him sitting at a table by himself. He had nothing on the table in front of him, but an empty glass ash tray and the drinks menu held up by a plastic stand.
She went and sat down across from him, as she knew she had to. She was meeting him here tonight.
He looked up at her with his sharp eyes. "You're a little late. I didn't think you'd leave me waiting long though." He surveyed her; "you haven't taken off your coat?"
"Why would I? I'm not staying long."
"Hitomi, you did come and you ARE staying," he looked at her again with those sharp eyes.
Why could he make her do exactly what he wanted her to do? It made her mad, but it had been this way a long time. What was she expecting from him anyway?
"What did you want to talk to me about?" she asked, trying to defy him in a small way.
He took her chin in hand, with a smile and said, "Look at me."
Hitomi looked at him; longish blond hair that didn't quite fall into his eyes, glinting eyes that always had gleams of mischief in them. He was tall with broad shoulders and managed to attract attention wherever he went. He definitely looked better than any other guy in the room. How was she going to get away from him?
"Do you think I would ask you down here without a good reason?"
"You never know," she said cynically.
He didn't even notice her tone of voice, and went on without a problem. "I need you to help me with a project I've been working on."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Tomorrow I need you to go buy me a couple of extension cords, a pair of wire strippers and some antifreeze. I'll give you the money. Feel like helping out?" He pushed a piece of paper to her across the table.
She picked it up and read it. It was only a list of the things that he had just mentioned. She raised her eyebrow at him. He was looking over across the room at the dance floor. "Dilandau, I have a question for you. What exactly do you need all this stuff for?"
"My car," he said absently, still looking at the dance floor, maybe at somebody. "I'm spending loads of cash trying to bring her up to snuff," he finished.
There was no point in his explaining all the little details to Hitomi. She had known next to nothing about cars until she began hanging out with him. Now she knew more than she ever wished to. She kind of expected him to tell her about each phase of the operation, but he didn't. He just continued staring out onto the dance floor. He used to tell her all kinds of things. She used to even think they were friends, but even then things weren't really different.
A waitress came up and asked them if they wanted anything.
Dilandau said he was fine.
"I'd like a lemon Italian soda . . . medium please," Hitomi said, and the waitress was gone.
"I don't get exactly what you mean," she said to him. "You could have told me all this over the phone when you called me. Why haul me out her with all this mystery? Why . . ." She was about to ask him about the punks who seemed to be her personal body guards, but stopped herself. What if he didn't have anything to do with all that? After all, if it was his doing – he would laugh at her for not understanding exactly why he did it. Dilandau did hang out with some bizarre people sometimes and even though they had been 'friends' for years, there were still many things that she didn't know about him. She kept silent on the subject.
He turned to her. "Don't you think I want to see you?"
"No."
He laughed, but it wasn't for real. Besides, she couldn't hear him over the thunderous music coming from the speakers. He didn't look at her, not even when he laughed; he was watching the dancers out on the floor.
"Did you want to dance?" she asked.
"Let's dance," he said, as if he hadn't heard her offer. He rose from his chair and hardly waited for her to take her coat off before hauling her off by her wrist. They walked down the steps and into the dancing area.
As they went into the streams of green light, the fast song ended, and a slow song came on. Dilandau grabbed her and yanked her close to him. It was uncomfortable to be so close to him. She put her arms around his neck, because there was absolutely nothing else she could do. She could feel his hands on her hips. He was squeezing, she clenched her eyes shut at the pain of it. A few months ago when he did that, she blushed over his shoulder, and didn't seem to feel the pain. Now that she wanted nothing more to do with it or him. She bit down on her lower lip and waited for the song to end.
He bent his head down and rasped in her ear, "I need those things by Sunday. Bring them over to my place." He took something out of his back pocket and slid it calmly into hers. "My interac card," he informed her indifferently.
Then the song was over.
Dilandau walked away from Hitomi and over to some girls he knew and began dancing with them. He waved for Hitomi to follow him, but he looked so absorbed with the other girls that she thought she could sneak back up the stairs without him noticing.
The table that they had been sitting at in the lounge had her soda on it. She went to the table and sat down. She hadn't really wanted anything, but felt that she had to order something. She took a drink and set it back down on the table with a thud. The list of things Dilandau wanted was still on the table. She didn't really feel like doing favours for him, but he did give her his bank card. She toyed with the idea of going on a shopping spree with his money. He did always seem to have plenty of money, but such a thing was out of the question. He would have her head for that!
Just then the man Hitomi recognized from the bus came and sat down in the chair Dilandau had been sitting in. He didn't say anything at first. He was staring at Dilandau out on the dance floor. Then he said to her, "Dilandau Albatou. You know him. How?"
Hitomi didn't want to answer and instead called the waitress over and asked for her bill. He took it from the waitress before Hitomi could reach it. "I'll pay for it," he said shortly, holding the slip of paper between his fingers, almost as if it were a cigarette.
"Why? Are you interested?"
"Extremely."
She raised her eyebrow at him. "There's not really much to say. I met him when I was in the tenth grade. I thought he was going to ask me out, but he never did. I guess we've been friends ever since."
"Did he tell you why he never asked you out?"
"No."
Hitomi took a drink of her soda and looked at him. He was thin and tallish when standing, with dark brown eyes. She wanted to ask him some questions, but didn't dare to. She was constantly leery of Dilandau's friends and acquaintances. Instead, she picked up the list and slid it into her pocket.
He noticed her action, but said nothing.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Van," he answered. "When you want to head home," he continued after a pause, "I'll take you. I have my car here, but if you'd feel more comfortable on the bus . . . I can do that too. It's up to you." He smiled at her.
"Why should you care if I get home or not?" she asked. What Van said to her confirmed that Dilandau had nothing to do with those people on the bus. Maybe she should have spoken to him about it.
"I don't want you to get hurt, and there are dangerous things going on tonight. Please don't give me that look. Dilandau isn't going to take care of you. He didn't come to pick you up tonight, now did he?"
Hitomi looked at Van closely. Was he one of those punks? She couldn't make up her mind. But why would he offer to do such a thing? Why would he bother? He didn't even know her.
"Are you stalking me?" she asked suddenly.
He looked into her eyes, but did nothing to indicate whether or not he thought her question ridiculous.
"Do you want to dance?" she asked. There was no way she'd let him take her home (she already felt strange about allowing him to pay for her drink), but it would be all right to dance with him. She could give him the slip later on in the evening, after she made him feel comfortable. He just didn't seem like the kind of guy who would take 'no' for an answer.
"No," he answered shortly.
"Please," she begged with a practiced pout.
"No. Did you come here to dance?"
"Of course not, but come on anyway."
She got up from her seat and took his hand in hers. "Come on."
Van looked at her and shook his head in resignation. Then he got up too and paid her bill. Van came back from one of the cash registers and surveyed the dance floor. "Okay," he said dryly, "just so long as you don't make me dance on the stage or on the speakers. Understand?"
"Deal!"
He shrugged for her to lead the way and took her hand.
Together, they went down to the dance floor. They danced and danced. He wasn't a great dancer, but he could hold his own, she noticed. During the slow songs they danced together, but not the first one, they went back to the table and gulped the soda together. She took a drink and then offered it to him. He drank it steadily. After that they didn't go back to the table at all. Van put her coat in a locker that was handy and gave her the key, so she could dance without worrying someone would take it.
When they were dancing, she half looked around for Dilandau, but never caught a glimpse of him. Had he gone so soon? Hitomi was angry at him for making her come out to meet him, especially if he was going to leave without even talking to her. She could have gone to the movies with Millerna. Her annoyance with Dilandau was usually strong, but with Van here it was easier to forget him. She decided that Dilandau was ruining her evening, even though he wasn't there. She had to forget about Dilandau completely and just dance with Van. After all Van was good looking, and he wasn't presumptuous when they slow danced. He kept his hands firmly on her waist – no straying.
Hours later she looked at her watch and saw that it was past one o'clock. Aghast, she ran to the lockers. It would take her at least forty minutes to get home, or more. She thought that if she disappeared quickly she might be able to lose Van. Suddenly, she ditched him on the dance floor and bounded up the stairs and over to the lockers, pulling the key he gave her out of her pocket. She slid it into the slot and ripped her trench coat out of the metal box. She pulled it over her shoulders and was on her way to the door. Maybe she was fast enough.
Van ran up to her, dodging people as he went and grabbed her arm.
It was impossible. His eyes hadn't left her since he came up to her at the table.
"Wait! I was going home with you," he shouted at her over the music.
"Don't bother," she yelled back, and pulled her arm out of his grip.
He let go of her, but followed her out of the club. He got on the bus with her too when it arrived.
There were no more arguments over the subject. Neither of them said anything. He walked her to the door of her apartment complex.
They were standing in front of her door. She put her key in the door's key hole.
"Thanks for bringing me home. I had a good time," she said in a smudge of a hurry, still feeling like she had to lose him, and if she was much longer, she'd get in trouble.
"My pleasure," he said indifferently as he shut the door between them. He gave her one last glance through the glass, and she thought for a moment that she saw a shadow of regret cross his features.
Then he walked away.
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