The back of my eyelids was the only relief that life could give. Twenty-three years old and still trying to figure out a crazy thing called life. It was impossible with the world constantly changing to be able to plant your feet and pretend like you weren't being thrown out into expectations, to feel as if you were actually standing with your feet planted on the ground.

"You're coming Hisagi," His voice was shrill and ruthless.

"No," I replied not moving a fraction of an inch, trying to find the eternal peace in life, the one that could only be found in the afterlife.

"No?" His tone was questionable.

"No," I said telling myself to stay calm.

"No?"

"No!" I was going to lose.

"How about yes?" He asked and his lips twisted at the side.

Yumichika was could never be stopped. He was high-maintenance, egotistical, narcissistic, flamboyant and manipulative. He would always find the weakness behind your words and although we did not get along, I found that I was more often convinced to do unpleasant things by him.

"Fine…" I said with a shallow sigh.

I turned away from Yumichika, who I swear let a victorious smile run over his face, as he walked from the room. I let my eyes fall onto the mirror. Dark hair and pale grey eyes that could be taken as white from a distance; I would've been eye catching once… My hand came up and landed on the right side of my face tracing the three parallel lines that stretched down from forehead to chin.

"You going to be finished getting ready soon?" His voice came from the washroom.

I sighed as I climbed to my feet taking in the full picture of myself. The black t-shirt I was wearing clung to my chest letting my thin but muscular frame show and the washed out jeans sat nice around my hips showing a little but still giving enough to keep the mind guessing.

"I am ready," I said keeping as calm as possible.

Yumichika came back in the room and looked towards me with a disgusted look on his face, "You can't be serious."

"Yes, I am…"

He laughed and moved a hand to his lips, "Well at least I will not have an competition from you tonight."

He stalked out of the room with his laughter ringing behind as I sat back onto my bed. I wouldn't have been competition anyways… the scars made sure of that.

"When you said we were go out and meet people, this is not what I thought you meant," I was a little frantic, a little nervous and very uncomfortable, this was not my thing at all.

"Its speed dating," Yumichika said as he smiled and clipped number 11 onto his jacket, "You get two minutes to talk with people and decide if you like them."

The whole idea was ludicrous! You take two minutes to talk to someone and you are suppose to figure out in such a short time whether you would want to see them again or not? Preposterous!

"Look, they're better at this one," Yumichika said staring at me, maybe he saw something on my face that showed I was prepared to run, "If you are stuck with someone you don't like, they have a button set up. It's kind of like walking out of a date because it's just to horrid."

I couldn't help but have a small twinge of joy at the thought of that. Desperate people feeling instantly rejected as one after another the button is pressed before them. Although cruel it was the small piece of irony that made this activity maybe a little enjoyable and I was forced to clip my nine onto my jacket.

The process was set up that odds and evens would be on opposite sides of the table because most people choose to come with a friend. There would be no chance of me and Yumichika being sat across from each other although I did consider which one of us would've been the first to press the button.

We took our seats and stared across the table. The man across from me looked professional, calm, and quite handsome but he looked quite uninterested as he played with a phone in hand.

"Gentleman, please remember that names and addresses are not to be shared. When you hear the buzzer, the even numbers will move to the next table, if you feel you need to hit the stop button, excuse yourself from your table but return to the next table when the buzzer rings. Let the dating begin and good luck on finding happiness," The announcer said before the first buzzer sounded.

I stared at the man as he slid his phone into his pocket and looked up at me, "So do you do this a lot?"

"No," I said blunt and took a second pause, "to be quite honest I think it was a waste of money. I spent fifty dollars to sit with multiple people for two minutes and probably I will walk away in the same position as I came here tonight."

He stared at me for only a second before he pressed the button and stood up. I couldn't help but smile for a second because of the look of absolute humiliation flashed across his face; obviously this was not his first time here.

I turned my head to look towards Yumichika at the table beside and saw that he was sitting by himself, "What went wrong?" I whispered over to him.

"He wasn't attractive enough," he replied looking at his nails.

I sat in silence waiting for the buzzer to sound and when it did a scruffy looking man with long brown hair joined me.

"So what do you do?" He asked looking just over my shoulder and surprisingly I found that I was rather annoyed.

"I write an opinion article about whatever hits my mind at the moments for a entertainment magazine," I saw his eyebrow raise and his eyes actually moved to stare at me but I was already to annoyed and I pressed the button this time.

As he moved away I turned to Yumichika and he sat alone again, "Attractiveness again?" I said with a small smile on my face.

"He was chewing a toothpick, how disgusting," he replied as he stared in the mirror at himself.

Two for two had made me feel a little less enthusiastic about this situation and I debuted silently whether Yumichika would actually let me leave or if I would be able to sneak out without him noticing when the buzzer rang again.

I looked as the man sat down. His hair was pure business, cut short, professional and a nice shade of brown that brought out his nice skin tone and made his eyes pop. It was the guy that was at Yumichika's table before; the toothpick was still in his mouth.

"May I ask how you got the scars?" His voice was pleasant and he sounded honestly curious but the subject itself had always been taboo.

"Car accident," I said and my hand landed on the button again.

"I'm sorry to hear but it doesn't give you an excuse for being an asshole," He said as he climbed to his feet to leave.

I took a quick glance over and saw Yumichika, who had a hand over his mouth as he quickly laugh, had kept someone. Seeing that he had given someone a chance I felt a little disparaged at this situation.

"Excuse me sir," A woman asked from behind me and I jumped to look back at him.

"Something I can do for you? I'm in the middle of about 30 dates right now," I said in an annoyed tone.

He smiled and held out his hand, "I'm Isane Kotetsu, I'm the manager of the dating service, would you be kind enough to come with me?"

A smile spread across my face at the irony. After only three thirty second dates, I was going to be asked to leave.

I stood up and fallowed her as she began to walk behind the counter, "Just a quick word, you will have the choice to go back afterwards," she said as she lead me into a back office.

"What's it all about?" I said making my way in the office.

"Please close the door and have a seat," she said as she opened a file on the desk and I instantly began to wonder about the whole situation I was in.

I closed the door before sitting down and glancing towards the sheet in front of her.

"As I said, I'm Isane Kotetsu, the manager of this establishment," She said picking up a bundle of papers and holding them in front of her, "Along with our usual speed dating, we offer a private room for our special guests to come and have a couple of short dates themselves although they are able to select there own potentials. One of our special guests has asked if you would be so kind as to join him."

I stared at her for a moment and thought about the whole situation. Special guests obviously would refer to the quite wealthy or famous and to have someone in the situation take a noticing to me? It was so unreal.

"I guess I could meet him I suppose," the toying smile on my face must have shown that I was more eager then I wanted to let off.

"Very well," she said sliding the bundle of sheets towards me, "I need you to sign this, a standard gag order that says that you won't reveal the identity of our special guest or mention anything said or actions taken in our private rooms. It's our policy here."

My mind was racing in laps, going around the same words over and over just trying to make sense of what exactly was happening. I didn't know what I was about to get myself into but I knew it was too much. I screamed in my head to stop myself but reluctant of my thoughts, my hand took it upon itself to sign my name on the gag order.

The idea of the story has been playing around inside my head and I more or less want to see what you think about it. I've been tied up between two different stories on which one I wanted to write first and if this one doesn't seem to catch the attention of anyone, I will remove it and post the other.

Thank you to Jennamarie29 for the title of this story.