I was missing NYC something fierce when I wrote this.

She knew him.

Almost. Maybe. He was familiar, though completely unrecognizable. Nothing really stood out about him, except that he was beautiful in an elegant way and that he was tall, considering how far his legs stretched out even when sitting. He had dark hair that fit tan skin, but his hair was short and it almost didn't fit.

Where would she knew him from? It would be impossible to forget him. His height alone, but also the striking features of his face. Strong jaw line, straight nose, plush lips, and a demeanor that set him apart from the rest of the people in the car. People around him were giving him a wide berth due to that demeanor, but even the resolute distance of his person didn't push her away.

Looking back to her book, Rin shook him out of her head. It wasn't the first time she saw someone she'd never seen before and had the feeling she knew them. Little moments through her life, looking at faces that would then haunt her dreams, but never finding answers to her questions.

Just last week, she ran into the same thing. Only this had been a woman with bright blue eyes and long, dark hair. She was waiting outside a local coffee shop, sipping her latte and waiting for a man with long, brown hair who instantly filled Rin with dread. Something about him turned her blood to ice and she hadn't been able to shake that unease all day.

Her dreams that night were nightmares, filled with fear and blood and death and the howling of wolves.

In comparison, this man on the train with the cold stare and aura dripping with disdain filled her with a hope that didn't make a bit of sense. Last week, all smiles and laughs and loud jokes and Rin wanted nothing more than to hide away until they were gone. Now in the face of what she almost thought was disgust and a man probably capable of a great many harmful deeds, she felt warm and safe.

Weird.

The subway came to a stop and she quickly bounced to her feet. She was going to barely make it to work on time and only just made this train. Last thing she needed was to miss her stop because she was too busy studying the beautiful stranger in the car.

He was still on her mind when she made it up onto the street and into the crowd, but that wasn't a surprise at all. She'd always experienced life like this, her mind focusing on things that didn't really pertain to it while she watched others through a fog. Her move to the city helped some of it — it was easy to accept a restlessness when one was surrounded by people day in and day out. The crowds helped hide her loneliness and the busy schedule distracted her from feeling unsettled.

But even in the big city, she still knew she was missing something.

…

He was there again. Same seat, same suit, same unwelcoming aura. Same sense of familiarity. Rin was closer this time, sitting just a seat from diagonal. On one hand, she enjoyed the closer proximity. It was easier to study him through the other passengers, steal quick glances and evaluate what she was feeling against what she knew.

On the other hand, it was almost impossible to look away.

Something about his face struck her again, but it resonated deeper. Her eyes jumped back to his hair, studying the ends that fell just short of curling around his ears. It was a good style, right in current fashion and framed his face well, but it was too short and too dark and just…wrong.

She remembered the feeling that something of his hair bothered her from the day before, but this overwhelming knowledge that it was wrong didn't make sense at all. How could someone's hair color be wrong when it fit them so well? Anything lighter wouldn't match his brows and would contrast with his skin color.

Rin needed a break. People weren't wrong, they weren't in eras they didn't belong in, and they didn't have features that changed from their natural state. No matter how unsettled she felt or how much she just knew she was living in the wrong time, she couldn't project that on other people in an effort to not feel so alone.

That man probably had everything he worked for in life. His clothes were expensive, his body taken care of, and he was in command of his person. If she really thought about it, he would be perfect and it wasn't fair of her to project imperfections on him to make her feel better about her insecurities.

He turned and Rin met brown eyes. Brown eyes that weren't right. They were beautiful and she wouldn't have expected any other color, but that didn't stop her heart falling upon finding out that they weren't amber.

Wait.

He was looking at her! Embarrassed and shocked, she jerked her gaze away. God, how humiliating. She had been staring at him, outright staring. And even when he saw her, she continued! Who does that? On the way to work, trying to ignore the pressing stress of the world, minding one's own business, and some random girl is staring on the subway?

In a rare stroke of luck, the subway stopped and Rin leapt at the chance to get away. She couldn't spare a glance his way after making such a fool of herself and she refused to even chance the opportunity to do it again. Next time, she'd catch a different car. Two days in a row didn't make a habit, but she couldn't risk it. No way could she risk it and end up being the stalker girl chasing after the successful business man.

Losing herself in the crowd, she hoped her shift was busy and saved her from reliving her stupidity.

…

It had been a week and Rin had been careful. No matter how much she wanted to see him or how many times she saw his face in her dreams or how much she tried to convince herself that she wouldn't stare at him, she rode a different car. When she had time, she checked the car before getting on, making sure no beautiful men in expensive suits were sitting on one of the seats.

Some days, she left early for work. Funny to think that for the two years she'd worked at the bar, she hadn't once had the motivation to arrive early, but give her one memory of making a fool of herself in front of the most beautiful man she'd ever seen in her life, and Rin was suddenly pulling her life together.

Even though she only saw him twice, she couldn't risk a third time, not when feelings she'd been ignoring for years resurfaced with a vengeance. She was missing something. Almost like a piece of her being was out in the world, waiting for her to find it and until she did, she would never be whole.

And on the tail end of these thoughts, she remembered the stranger in the subway. A fanciful part of her wanted to believe he was the key, that he held the missing piece of her, but that only made her feel worse. How could she pin her own unhappiness on a man she'd never met before? Her aunt's cruel words echoed back in her head at those times, reminding her of how often she lived in the clouds. There she goes again, the voice would taunt, off in her own world where she refuses to face reality.

Even with five years and a thousand miles between her and those memories, Rin still felt the sting of tears when she heard the bite in that tone.

She needed a break. A vacation was out of the question. While she was making ends meet and slowly building a savings account, it was still going slow. It had only been six months that she'd been able to quit her second job, it was too soon to take advantage of the higher tips she was pulling in. Six more months and she'd be able to take that vacation. Maybe get an Airbnb upstate and spend the week in a cabin. Or land a nice place on the coast where she could forget the world existed, even if only for a few days.

Until then, she would make it through and take small breaks where they were offered. Miraculously, she had just that coming up. On her way home from a long shift, one that was supposed to be a quick afternoon shift that turned into a double and got her out after midnight, Rin had the next two days off. At first, she didn't know what to do with the time, but the last week had pushed her to make better plans.

She'd spend the first day off cleaning her apartment. Get her laundry done, finish the dishes she kept putting off, clean out her desk and closet where she'd been ignoring things piling up over the last few weeks. The second day, she was getting out of her apartment. Maybe explore a different area of the city, spend the afternoon in Central Park, find a new cafe she'd never visited, and meet up with friends she hadn't seen in a while.

And before any of that, she was going to get home to her quaint apartment in West Harlem, climb the three flights of stairs to her floor, crash in her bed, and ignore the world until she woke the next morning.

Exhaustion beat out thought and Rin fell into one of the seats as soon as she climbed on the subway. Being after midnight and heading north, there were only a few other passengers and she couldn't muster up the energy to even look around at them. She didn't need to. Six stops and she would reach hers—

Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Fatigue took away all sense of care and Rin found herself looking up as a tall, well-dressed man took a seat right in front of her, and when he looked at her, she froze.

He was still dressed nice, though a long coat hid most of his suit. Inky black hair that wasn't styled, but still managed to be perfectly disheveled, features still dark and perfect and stunningly beautiful, and not one sign of fatigue even though it was 1:13am and she felt like death warmed over.

And he recognized her. Shame, humiliation, and embarrassment all showed on her face in the form of a blush over her cheeks that swept down her neck, but Rin couldn't think of a thing to say. An apology would usually be off her tongue before she could think, but working an extra six hours behind the bar on a busy night took everything out of her, save one tiny, inconsequential thought: how did he find her?

He seemed content in the silence even as her discomfort grew. His dark eyes never left hers and she couldn't begrudge him for it. Considering her blatant perusal of his person the week before, his quiet study was practically polite. If anything, she hoped whatever he saw didn't leave him in distrust of the crazy girl lost in her head.

When his gaze left her face and graced down the length of her body, she finally managed to tear hers away. Looking anywhere but him, she focused on her fidgeting hands in her lap. Her own coat was worn, but still good, her clothes underneath professional enough to pass as polite, but fitting to her form to gain the best tips, and her shoes ugly, though functional for her work.

Whatever he saw, at least it wouldn't leave him with the crazy thoughts she had of him. Crazy thoughts that followed her in her sleep and haunted her throughout her day. Silver hair didn't exist outside a bottle and eye color wasn't wrong just because her brain deemed it so.

"Rin."

Her head jerked, her eyes flying to his, and a name she never heard before but sounded right in her soul filled her mind. She knew his voice, she knew his face, she knew his name, and she hadn't met him once in her life.

"I've been looking everywhere for you."

Memories shifted, dreams she once had that made no sense rising to the surface. An injured man in a forest, a two-headed dragon that didn't exist anywhere but in fantasy, a green toad-like creature carrying a staff. Years away from him in a village, returning to his side a grown woman, traveling different lands with him at his side, falling in love with a man she once never thought she'd know.

"Do you remember me?"

A small ceremony, not a wedding, but just as binding. A life she built next to him, learning the ways of his kind. Teaching him the ways of hers. Saying goodbye to times as they passed, watching the world age alongside her. And finally, discovering an enemy she couldn't fight, couldn't beat, and promising to see him again.

"Sesshoumaru?" she whispered, that empty hole suddenly filled. More than she was expecting, more than she'd ever felt, more than she could have imagined.

His eyes flashed amber and she knew. She knew. She'd been right all along. Her whole life of not fitting in, of never adapting, of missing something, she'd been right.

He stood as the subway slowed, holding out his right hand expectantly. "Come here," he murmured in that way of his, that way she missed so much and hadn't known it. A vocal demand that when directed toward her turned soft and coaxing.

She moved without thought, rising to her feet and placing her hand in his. This wasn't her stop, this wasn't near her home, but Rin didn't care. Following Sesshoumaru, she would have gone anywhere knowing he would take care of her.

"Come home."

Long story short: Rin's parents and her mom's family immigrated to the US when her mother was pregnant. They died when she was young and she was sent off to live with her aunt that didn't appreciate suddenly having a child to raise.

As soon as she turned 18, she booked it out on her own and tried to figure out a way to drown out the dreams of the previous life she didn't know she had. I have a long-abandoned SessRin wip that touched on Rin bartending, so I moved it over here and enjoyed the setting.

Let me know what you think!