Gojyo was not the type who frequented bordellos. They were always dark and out of the way, hiding in plain sight. The desperation of the girls, the cunningness of the their pimps, and the reek of old, cheep perfume mixed with cigarette smoke, stale beer, sweat, sex, and pain weighed like a heavy oil on one's skin; the smell would stay with you for days even after constant scrubbing in the shower.

Besides, why would he have any reason to go to some hellhole bordello, anyway? He would have laughed in the face of whoever might have suggested that going a bordello would ever cross his mind. He would have lazed back in his chair, one of his lank arms draped carelessly over the back, and laughed from deep inside his belly that someone would even come up with such a ludicrous idea. He was Sha Gojyo, the infamous card shark and lady killer of the bar scene. Chicks fell into his lap after only a smile and a smoldering look from his wine red eyes. And he never under any circumstances forced a girl if she wasn't into it, no matter where they were in the process when she wanted to put the breaks on. After all, where was the fun if the pleasure was just one sided? He loved to coax moans from luscious lips closed so stubbornly tight, to worship a woman's curves with his hands just to hear her sigh…there was where he truly got his kicks. The mind-blowing sex sure didn't hurt, though.

Of course, this was all before tonight. The ladies had been elusive, the cards unfriendly, and the idea of drinking alone while trying to ignore the hunger that was eating away at him like a cancer was unthinkable. Strangely enough, nothing out of the ordinary had happened to precipitate this turn of events. His nightly routine began the same way as it always had. He washed up and headed for the bar, prepared to clean house in poker and maybe find a little pleasurable company to waste the night away with. Still half way down the street from the bar, the high-pitched twittering laughs of women and the lower, rougher guffaws of men were already audible along with the clinging of glasses, scrapping of chairs against the floor, and other mindless noise. Such were the sound of his nighttime kingdom, his playground to escape the face that stared back at him every day from behind the mirror. It was his haven, his refuge, and his quarters.

So why hadn't he gone gallivanting through the doors as usual?

As he had stood there in his self-made purgatory in the middle of the road, his kingdom suddenly seemed so unappealing. He realized he didn't want to play poker against novice idiots and rob them blind while plying them with drinks. He didn't want to be smooth and bedazzle the ladies with his charm while swallowing the razor-edged simpering about the beauty of his hair and eyes. He stared at the stained stucco façade of the bar, trying to shake whatever had come over him. He took a few steps forwards, and then hesitated again, running an angry hand through his hair. What was wrong with him? Pissed off at this inexplicable change in him and comparing his behavior to that of a girl with a serious case of PMS, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked off into the night.

After he had put a good distance between himself and the bar and ending up in a part of town he rarely ventured into, he knew he wanted a distraction. Considering where he was, that wouldn't be a problem. There were houses full of distractions here, with ample breasts and wide, welcoming hips. He walked with meaningful steps through his red-light district, forcing away the niggling reservations he held about actually buying a girl for his bed rather than wooing her there. Gods, it did seem wrong, so unlike him…but then again, he wasn't exactly feeling like himself, anyway. Screw the reservations. He'd just chock it up to experience and put it behind him.

Once inside, however, the bravado that he had used to bolster his courage was failing hard and fast as he walked amongst the girls and other potential customers who were mingling in the foyer that the greasy pimp had led him to. Had he not been so determined to erase his earlier doubtful hesitance from his memory, he would have noticed the sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. Instead of Don Juan looking for his next conquest to seduce with wine, flattery, and song, he was suddenly John Doe going through a supermarket, looking for which piece of meat he wanted to buy for dinner.

Meat.

That pretty much summed up the girls that Gojyo looked at. They displayed their goods and flirted with practiced seduction, but many of their sexy smiles failed to mask the deadness of their eyes. The one's who wore bedroom eyes weren't any better, either; it was still fake. They were just breasts, thighs, hips…meat to be devoured by uncaring mouths.

Gojyo gave himself a little mental slap. Since when did the lady-killer start acting like a timid virgin? He was here to get satisfied, not empathize with the plight of these creatures of the night. He had far more of a caring soul than he would like most people to know. Lighting the fire in his eyes, he weaved through the bodies and summed up the potential choices.

Too dead… too much makeup…too dead…too dead…too fake…too sickly…

No matter how many different girls he talked to, he could not find one who's touch didn't make him want to pull away. The hunger he had been feeling was dying now, as was the light in his eyes. He could never ask for anything from these girls, who were already fading into the night like shadows. He couldn't look at a pretty face ruined by too much makeup without wondering what had driven her to this end. He wanted out of this place. He would just go home, take a long, hot shower, and then go to bed like this night never happened. As he looked for the door, his eyes swept over a figure he hadn't seen before.

She was standing at the window with his back to him, her pale fingers resting against the casing of the window. Her form was lithe and slim, graceful as a cat and not too curvy, clad in black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt. Her hair was an odd cut, long at the top and shorter on the side, but it was such a tempting color: sweet dark chocolate. Despite his shame, Gojyo couldn't help but feel a tug of desire as he drank up her form. Smiling softly, he made his way over to her, placing a gentle hand on her hip.

"Hey," he breathed softly into the delicate shell of her ear, unable to say more. Asking if she wanted to go with him seemed pointless. If a customer could pay, the girl had little choice in the matter.

Gojyo held his breath as she started to turn around. He caught her face in fragmented pictures.

Eyes that must have been cared out of the purest jade known on earth or heaven, deep and expressive, rimmed with thick, dark lashes…

A soft, almost timid smile, like a shy schoolgirl might show to her sweetheart…too innocent in a place like this…

As the images came together, Gojyo's eyes widened and he pulled his hand back as if he had been burned. His coherent thoughts fled like birds on the wing, and it took with him the ability to speak as well. He simply stared for a moment before he could force the words off his clumsy tongue and numb lips.

"You…you're a guy!"

If he could have physically managed it, Gojyo would have gladly kicked himself in the mouth for his reaction, and his continuing to stare at the poor guy only served aggravate the remaining thread of his common sense all the more. He must have looked like the biggest ass in the world, staring with his eyes as big as dinner plates and his jaw hanging, but he just couldn't tear his gaze away. Gods, he really thought that it had been a girl! He was so…wait, what the hell was his problem today? Sorry, but he was not about to start spouting poetry about some dude's looks! Trying to gather his vocabulary up off the floor where he had dropped it in that moment of shock, he started to stumble through an embarrassed apology, but—mercifully—the guy just smiled wider and waived off his pathetic attempts with a gentle laugh.

"Please, don't let it trouble you," he said in a soft tenor, an impossible mix: rich in tone and light with laughter. He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling away as if the whole incident had been his fault. "You're not the first to have done than, and I don't think you'll be the last."

Unexpectedly, Gojyo found a smile on his own lips and laughter rumbling in his chest. Why had that happened? It must have been the guy's smile. It was pretty darn infectious. Gojyo looked down at his feet and laughed, still slightly flustered from before. "Thanks for being so cool about it," he persisted. "I had no intention of offending you or anything…"

"Not at all," the smaller man insisted. Gojyo looked up from his feet and saw that a hand had been offered to him. Looking up higher, he found himself staring into those unbelievably green eyes, which were sparkling with only goodwill and amusement. How could anyone look that way in the midst of this hell?

"I'm Hakkai," the brown-haired man said, his hand still outstretched.

Gojyo took his hand and gave it a shake, the commonplace gesture seeming surreal in this place. The brief meeting of their flesh had been friendly rather than seductive, as if they were meeting at a church function instead of a run down little bordello with (mercifully) unidentifiable stains on the carpet.

"Gojyo," he answered, barely having wits about him to respond with his own name. Could it be possible that he was sharing pleasantries with some random guy right now? Hakkai didn't seem too phased by it. Hell, and if he wasn't just a little young to be in here…

"It's a pleasure to m—"

"Hey, bitch!" a gravely, metallic voice called through the room. Both Hakkai's and Gojyo's attention turned to a slightly overweight man in good quality slacks and a button down shirt soaked with sweat under the armpits. He was looking at them from behind the glinting lenses of his too small glasses. His skin was about as greasy as his hair, which was in a dire need of a washing. A five o'clock shadow stained his face. What caught Gojyo's eye was the golden watch clasped about his pudgy wrist. Damn, it didn't look fake, either… Gojyo simply shrugged it off, and turned his focus back to Hakkai. He wouldn't be so rude as to walk out of that place without so much as a quick 'bye' to the man he'd mistaken for a whore. Had Gojyo turned his head back a second later, he would have missed the streak of fear that rippled across the calm green sea of Hakkai's eyes. It happened so fast that Gojyo wondered if he had just imagined it, but Hakkai turned to him, his lips arranged into a polite, demure smile.

"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Gojyo-san," he said softly, dipping his head in respect.

"Yeah, sure man. No prob," Gojyo answered, still trying to make sense of what he though he'd seen in Hakkai's eyes. When Hakkai smiled at him one last time, Gojyo realized that his smile hadn't touched his eyes. The green was dulled, like the deathly veiled eyes of just a common prostitute—sweet, demure, and sad. Hakkai turned and walked away from him. Something in the pit of Gojyo's stomach soured as he watched him head towards the man who had shouted. Had that man's hungry eyes been resting on Hakkai?

Gojyo's cavalier grin froze, and shattered when it fell off his face and hit the floor. No, not him…

Hakkai stood before the man, offering that sweet, innocent smile to the man, dipping his head with a grace not commonly found in men. Gojyo's pulse thudded loudly in his ears, blocking out all other sound. Like being in a movie, the frames of the scene began to slow down, playing out like some old silent film.

Hakkai's lips were moving in what must have been a greeting, but the smile melted to a look of agony as the large hand of the man came out of his pocket and grabbed at Hakkai's privates.

Hard.

Gojyo felt bile rise up in his throat as instead of pushing him away, Hakkai simply bit his lip and shut his eyes, enduring the groping with inhuman patience. Gojyo swallowed back the need to vomit, but his head continued to reel. The world blurred around him. Soon there nothing was left but Hakkai's pale face creased with pain, and the sadistic bastard who was hurting him. A knife through the heart would have felt better than the vague wondering of Hakkai's purpose there suddenly becoming a terrible, blinding white truth

No, Gods, no…

Hakkai was a prostitute.