I don't own Inu Yasha.
Rin laughed, throwing her head back, cascading her hair as she let the beat of the Music bend and jive her body on the dance floor.
Who cared that she'd come alone? It wasn't for herself or anyone else that she came here for.
It was for the Music. The gorgeous, pounding Music that swayed hips and freed souls as it penetrated through the ears and coursed through the body via bloodstream.
Rin could practically feel her essence dancing at the tips of her fingers as she waved her hands over her head, waiting for its chance when Rin's grasp on it faltered for just a single instant to fly away and escape the cage that her body was whenever the Music wasn't there to show it a way out.
The song came to an end and the DJ announced a five-minute intermission, leaving Rin high and dry in the middle of the floor, her spirit once again unwillingly falling back into its human casing, unhappily biding its time 'til its next escape attempt.
Making her way over to the DJ booth, she rode the leftover rush that dancing had given her, letting it carry her through the now-stagnant crowd.
"Hey! What's the deal?" she demanded from the man making his way down the stairs that led to the booth.
"Chill, Rin-child. It's just five minutes," the DJ calmed, having dealt with Rin's constant need for sound for a while now, almost every night that she'd been coming to the club (which was every night).
"I'm not a child," Rin pouted. "Please?" she begged, almost fully grounded in reality again.
"Sorry, Rin, but I need a bathroom break, and all the other people in this club need a chance to catch their breath."
Rin crinkled her nose a little, looking adorable to the friendly DJ. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"
"Go let the guys who've been admiring that fine body of yours think they have a chance for a bit. I had a hand in carving that body; I should at least get some say in how it's used," he teased, referencing Rin's toned frame that was kept in such a condition from her constant visits to the club.
Rin snorted, smoothing her cream and orange tie-dye tank top over her dark jeans. "It doesn't work that way."
"Whatever, child. I'll play something just for you when we get started up again. For now, go have a drink or something. I'll give you a beat soon enough." With that, he disappeared, diving off in the direction of the men's room.
Rin blew a slightly damp strand of hanging hair out of her face in exasperation before turning to the bar. She wasn't interested in getting a drink, but neither was she interested in standing by herself in the middle of the dance floor, looking like a lonesome loser.
There weren't any seats left open; everyone who'd evacuated the dance floor before her had already taken them for their own. Completely undaunted, Rin spotted a few inches of space between two people sitting at the bar and shimmied and squeezed herself in. The woman to her left was utterly inebriated and nearly fell off her stool, but merely laughed her ass off as her friend on her other side righted her, not paying any attention to Rin. The man on Rin's right, however, slowly turned to look at her with cold, gold eyes.
Rin smiled, feeling her eyes crinkle at the edges. "My bad," she said, thinking she might have caused him to spill his drink as she'd bumped and compressed herself into the limited area where she was now standing, or something like that.
His eyes slowly roved over hers, giving her a chance to study how solid the color of his irises was, with no flecks or imperfections of any kind. They seemed to linger at the corners, at the laugh lines to be.
"…Would you like something to drink?" he asked, stilted.
She blinked her own plain, chestnut-colored eyes, thinking that he'd be just the type to turn away and not give someone like her a second thought, at the same time considering himself to be too superior.
Snapping back to herself, Rin looked behind the bar and saw that the three bartenders were already in a flustered rush to serve everyone while the Music was temporarily out of commission.
"Mm, no thanks," she said, turning back to the man. "I don't think they—" she jerked a thumb at a passing bartender "—could handle another order right now."
"That's not a problem," the man with golden eyes said, seeming suddenly more comfortable, though not very much more.
Turning his head, letting Rin see the gorgeous white hair that was even longer than hers, the man watched and waited until a bartender passed, then, shot out his hand and snagged the person, a harassed young woman, by the sleeve.
She gasped and jumped with a shock and instinctively pulled away as she faced the grabby customer. She looked about to bite the head off of whoever it was as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, but then she saw his handsome face, and the tucking of her hair became twirling it around her finger as she batted her eyelashes and asked cloyingly, "Is there something I can get for you?"
Without blinking, he slowly tilted his head in Rin's direction and commanded, "Ask her first."
The bartender jumped slightly at the nearly cruel tone in his voice before shifting her annoyed eyes to Rin.
Rin, in a probably unwise move, shook one hand, slightly frantically, and said, "Oh, no, really. I'm fine; I don't need anything."
The man with golden eyes measured her out of the corner of his eye, making sure that that was what she wanted.
"Truly, I don't want a drink," Rin assured him, having the feeling that he would keep the woman there all night if that was how long it would take Rin to make up her mind on whether or not she'd like something.
He nodded and flicked a hand at the bartender, dismissing her.
Rin chuckled once, catching the man's direct attention.
"Do you own the bar, or something?"
"No… Why would you think such a thing?"
Rin laughed a little again. "Because, you don't seem to mind giving orders to the people who work here, is all."
His golden eyes seemed to tighten almost imperceptibly. It made Rin appreciate what it would mean to have this man full-on glare at you. "There job is to do as I ask them to, even if I'm not the owner."
Rin shrugged, a grin tugging one side of her mouth up. "I'm just saying that you seemed as if you could be the owner, come to inspect his staff, or whatever."
Again, he replied, "No, I'm not.
"Ah…" Rin's eyes brightened. "Then, are you here for the Music? Do you like it?" It would be nice to find someone who was here for the same reason she was.
The man looked up at the speakers mounted above the bar. "Not particularly."
Rin pouted. "Then, what are you doing here if you don't like Music?" she asked, curious.
He blinked his golden eyes slowly at her, allowing them to linger on her still pouting lower lip. "I have no idea."
"Hm," she grunted, becoming uninerested in the man. Her eyes darted to the bathrooms, wondering when the DJ would make his reappearance.
"…Why do you like music?" he asked, latching his eyes onto hers carefully, as if staring too hard would bruise her. He got to watch as her eyes glazed over and an unconscious, barely-there smile tilted her lips now that she had the chance to tell someone about her passion.
"Because, Music can't turn its back on you or leave you. Music loves and hates and gives everything that a person can gain emotionally. And," Rin paused and blinked, "Music takes you to that point."
"What point?" Sesshomaru breathed and growled at the same time, having become inexplicably caught up in her description, no longer holding back the intensity of his gaze. She looked at him, her dark eyes taking everything he was able to focus upon her.
"The point where there is no point. The point where there's no need to strive anymore for that feeling of being alive, because you know you are. The point where all constraints are gone for as long as the song lasts. The point where Music isolates you from everyone and everything, but still brings you in contact with it all, pulsing through you as it does."
Sesshomaru's voice was husky when he spoke again. "You could be describing sex." His eyes were burning.
"I could be; there's a reason so many songs are about sex. But, I'm not. I'm describing Music."
Catching sight of the DJ making his way back to his booth, mischievousness took light in her eyes. She winked at Sesshomaru, dazzling him. "Maybe later I'll talk about sex. For now, the DJ's back, and I'm ready to become part of Music again."
She left him sitting at the bar, watching her, wanting her.
Rin once again noticed the guy with white hair watching her as she danced. The really handsome guy with white hair.
So many other girls were staring at him, and had been staring for the past three weeks. None of them ever got him to look back for more than a fraction of a second, and that was only when they did something so flamboyant and attention-demanding that they made fools of themselves right in front of the man they were trying so desperately to impress. It made Rin laugh.
The way he watched her did not, make Rin laugh, that is. It was as if he were able to take in part of the Music just by seeing her do it. If Rin could just get him out onto the dance floor, she would love to see what his normally impassive face showed as he took in a full dose of it.
But, his comment about sex rattled her. Not in a bad way, but more in a 'I-don't-know-how-to-respond-if-he-says-something-like-that-again' sort of way. But, after she'd thought about it, she'd decided he was right: it had sounded like she was talking about sex, so she'd really brought it upon herself.
Still, the way he kept his eyes fastened to her didn't reassure her that, even if she kept herself from leading into the topic, that he wouldn't somehow steer their minimal conversation there. He was probably coming here every night for the chance to do that, Rin having become his reason for sitting at the bar every night, keeping the harassed bartenders on their toes, and keeping a stool open for her for whenever the DJ took a break.
She'd never taken the unspoken offer, instead choosing to follow the DJ invariably to the bathrooms, only at the last moment making the left-turn to the women's rather than the men's. The DJ had started to joke with her that he worried that she might forget to make the turn and would follow him into the wrong restroom. Rin smiled ruefully at the joke, but never said anything back, too focused on the eyes that she knew must be following her all the way to the other end of the club.
The song currently playing came to a wild, energetic solo, giving Rin the chance to wrack her body in several violent, angry twists to try to alleviate some of her frustration. She'd come here the day after her first encounter with the golden-eyed man to find him in the same place she had left him the night before with the club about to close. At first, she'd just shrugged it off, not caring that he observed her. But, after about the third day of his doing the same thing, Rin had found herself unable to completely connect with the Music as she had once been able to; he was getting in the way.
If she didn't talk to him and tell him to get out of the way of the Music soon, she'd go insane. But, then again, it had begun to feel as if telling him that would also end up causing her to go insane. She'd become so accustomed to him always being there that just noticing his absence would put enough of a block in her mind to blot out the Music.
Though Music had always been something she'd bonded with on her own, Rin thought she had found the best way to finally get back to that bond, with a little detour.
The DJ wound up the song and announced a five minute break (you'd think he'd have found a way by now to not let his bladder get in the way of his job). Rather than following him tonight, Rin determinedly strode over to the bar, making it there before most of the rest of the throng.
The man's golden eyes betrayed, for a mere instant, the surprise he felt at having her finally give in to his silent persistence. Recovering almost immediately, he began with: "Would you like to take a seat?" It nearly sounded as if he'd rehearsed the common pick-up line.
"Nope." Crossing her arms, Rin asked demandingly, "What's your name?"
For a moment, it seemed as if the man with golden eyes was rethinking if he even wanted to reoffer the seat to someone who was so suddenly insolent, but he eventually relented, responding, "My name is Sesshomaru."
Rin stuck out her hand. "And, I'm Rin."
Sesshomaru took the proffered appendage and enfolded it in both of his without saying a word. He looked up from a brief contemplation of her hand between his, seeming to wait for her to make the next move.
Making her move, Rin adjusted the hand he held captive so that it gripped one of his wrists and tugged him to his feet, having to put her other arm to use as well to get him to budge.
When he finally stood, she began to drag him from the bar to the middle of the empty dance floor.
"Where are we going?" he asked, as if it were not obvious, the corners of his mouth edging up slighlty.
"To join the Music."
Thanks for reading!
Before I get complaints about the characters being OOC (which they hopefully weren't too much, but just to be on the safe-side), I'd like to point out that it's kind of hard to write Rin as an adult when she's such an obvious, playful kid in the anime, and that it's also difficult to write a demon lord from Japan's Feudal Era in a night club setting, which is normally why I try to avoid such fics. So, please recognize that some contortions were necessary to make this fic work.
Also, to anyone here who's in any way interested in my fic Photography or Pornography?, please go read my blog (its listed as my homepage in my profile) for an important announcement in regards to that.