A/N: Thanks for the review, craven fox! ^^ My quickest review on a story yet! Hiei appears in this chapter. For those who are wondering, this does take place in America...I guess. Anything can happen in anime, right? As for the mob...blame it on Gakuen Prince. Please read and review! Enjoy.

Act as if what you do makes a difference.

It does.

William James

Michael lasted a whole sum of two seconds.

It's weird how some things work in small towns. People around here have the strangest tendencies to not remember seeing anything unusual – to suddenly forget something when they had a front row seat to see it. It's worse than it is in the big cities, and that's saying something.

I ran as fast as I could down the street, my World skate shoes pounding against the pavement, the sounds of it an intro to the roaring of steps behind me. People watched the show with some amusement, some even moved out of the way where I wouldn't run into them; but none offered to help me. Figures.

I didn't hate the male population of my school for doing this, because I knew that this wasn't about me...it was the fact that I was a female, and that there weren't nearly enough of us to go around.

Luckily enough I was wearing a skirt, and that gave my legs enough freedom to propel myself forward. I was still a good bit away from them – their cat calls barely reached my ears. I had to find a place to hide. They would catch up to me eventually, probably more sooner than later. As luck would have it, an alley appeared to my right, with only enough room for maybe two very small people to stand abreast from each other. It was small from the lack of size, and dark because it led to a dead end.

In short. It was perfect.

I dove into the alley without thinking, shuffling back far enough to where I could tell what was going on but not be extremely noticeable to the passerby. Oh please, God...don't let them find me. I've seen what they do to girls; oh please...

"You're only making it worse for yourself, fool."

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the voice that was as cold and sharp as chipped ice. I spun around, bringing a hand to my throat. It was a gesture that I'd developed over the years to stop myself from screaming. The voice was definitely male, but all I could see in the dark were his eyes, and...

They were blood red. Deep, swirling, malicious blood red.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. Nothing human had eyes like that.

The voice chuckled, as if he found me amusing. "It's hard to tell what you're more afraid of – me, or those boys chasing you."

He was right, and his words brought me back to reality. They were almost upon me, if I didn't do something now I was dead.

I acted without thinking: I reached out and grabbed what felt like an arm. "I'm sorry."

His lips were soft, much to my surprise - It felt like I had pressed my mouth to feather-soft rose petals. I could feel his eyes staring at me; I imagined they were wide with the surprise that the tenseness of his body suggested. He felt as if he was very skinny, that most of his weight was made up with muscles like the ones that I felt coiled beneath my hands. I prayed that both he and God would forgive me for this, but I WAS getting out of this...even if it meant kissing a total stranger. Instinct at it's best.

"Dude, what the...?!"

I froze; the pounding of the feet had stopped. I cracked my eyes open, risking a glance at the person I was kissing. He no longer looked surprised – his eyes were strangely calm as he looked at me, those blood red orbs as blank and beautiful as his face. He was maybe a half an inch taller than me, which was saying something, seeing as how I'm the shortest person that I know.

He was dressed in all black; or, at least the long cloak that he wore and his boots were black; the white cloth that made up the collar of his cloak the only color in his wardrobe. His skin was milky pale, almost ghostly against his clothes. Maybe his eyes shined so brightly because of that pale skin...I didn't know.

"Hey," A young man stepped forth from the crowd, his towering height and short blonde hair seeming to contrast with the boy in front of me in every aspect "what's going on, here? Who are you?"

This boy wasn't going to help me.

He pulled away from me, our lips making a soft wet sound as he leaned back against the brick wall, looking completely at ease, as if he hadn't just been kissed by some strange girl. I could feel my face falling, my eyes filling with tears as I accepted my fate...

Then, he did the last thing I expected him to do. With those eyes still as blank as a china doll's, he put his arm around me, drawing me close to him, rolling his head to stare at the mob of young men.

"Do you mind? We're busy." He said, a bored expression on his face. His body was still tense, but it wasn't like it was just seconds before...this tension wasn't from surprise – it was from discomfort. He wasn't used to be being touched, and apparently didn't like the feeling.

"You..." The young man stepped forward, his voice almost frantic, unbelieving. "You can't be with her! She doesn't have a boyfriend!"

"Situations change all the time, fool - Get used to it." The stranger continued, turning his face to nuzzle at my neck. I gasped, trying to pull away. "H-Hey..." I said softly where only he could hear me.

"Shut up or I'll kill you." He growled into my ear before giving it a soft nip. I squeaked, jumping. To the onlookers it must have looked like quite a show.

"For example," His voice lowered to a growl the likes that I had only heard from animals "one step closer, and you'll have to learn how to live with missing body parts."

The man's eyes widened. He took a step back,melting back into the uniformity of all the others like him. They muttered and complained, but they left, trickling away until the mob was no more.

I sighed, sagging against the cool brick as my savior walked to the mouth of the alley, stopping with his back to me. In the sunlight I saw that his hair was jet black and...spiked, like he had stuck his finger in a light socket, with white trim on his bangs. I'd have to make a mental note to apologize to Michael for making fun of his fashion sense; this guy's spikes were real.

"Th..Thank you." I breathed, smiling gratefully at him. He didn't know what he had just saved me from, he had no way of knowing. "You really saved me just then..."

"..." He snorted, glaring at me with those red eyes that were so frightening. "You didn't give me much choice, human."

I let it go; I deserved that. "Thank you. You could have turned me over to them, but you didn't...thank you so much."

He shrugged, turning away from me, but didn't quite turn his back to me. "I was bored. Don't let it go to your head."

Talkative, wasn't he? Still, he had saved me when it was obvious that he didn't care either way what happened to me. "Thank you." I said for a third time, giving him my best smile. "I'm Aaron, my friend's call me Air. What's your name?"

"..." He looked at his feet, refusing to meet my eye. Maybe he wasn't horrible, but just shy? Maybe.

"I'd really like to know the name of my savior." I did my best to appear disarming. He didn't seem the type to relax anywhere he went, but I at least wanted him to know that he didn't have anything to fear from me.

"...Hiei."

"What? Hi...ei?" I pronounced the word slowly. He nodded, moving his gaze to stare out into the street. "What is that? Chinese?"

"Japanese." I could tell that he was becoming more uncomfortable by the second. It didn't seem that he talked to people very much.

"Well, Hiei," I smiled, stepping up beside him "you have my eternal gratitude for helping me-" Then, I made the biggest mistake of my life, something that I would kick myself for long after:

I touched his shoulder.

Indescribable pain shot up through my arm and spread throughout my body. It felt like my blood was boiling in my veins, almost like liquid fire. Needles of pain fired inside of my body, hitting anything and everything that they could...they felt like little lightning bolts. I could feel a scream ripping from my throat, and I heard a scream that sounded like the lone howling of a wolf.

I squeezed my eyes open. Hiei sat crouched on the ground, his back now completely facing me. The spot where my hand had touched him was smoking. I realized, to my horror, that my hand was smoking too. I turned it around to see what damage had been done, it felt like I had burned it somehow...

I gasped, holding my hand as far away from my face as I could and still see it. A smoking black mark sat in the middle of my palm. It was...beautiful. A crescent moon with a clear sphere sitting on its inner lip made up the mark, plus a few lines of a language that I couldn't understand.

Hiei's ragged breath brought me back to reality. He was still crouched down, but the smoke had cleared to reveal a mark similar to mine through the burnt cloth on his shoulder. His mark was a beautiful black sun, intricate designs fanning out it's center from the ebony sphere in the middle of it. He had a grip on his own throat; his eyes were so wide, I thought they would spill out of the sockets any second.

"W...What just happened?" I breathed, doing my best to keep Hiei and my hand in my line of sight.

He was on his feet faster than my eyes could follow. It was like one minute he was there on the ground and the next...boom, he was standing. He turned to face me, baring - I kid you not – fangs. He had grown fangs...

He wasn't human.

"Hiei?"

"Stay away from me!" He snarled, vanishing in a blur of speed.

I sank to my knees in the grime of the alley, holding my own throat. He wasn't human. There was no way that a human could grow fangs like that, or move that quickly...and those eyes, those terrifying blood-red eyes...

He was a demon. He had to be a demon.

I stared down at my palm, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

So much for my ordinary day.

A/N: Okay, peoples, what did you think? Did I have Hiei in character? I tried to imagine what he would do in a situation like that. I mean, he even said in the show that he wouldn't attack anyone that was innocent or defenseless. I felt that Aaron fell into both of those categories. Is anyone curious about what just happened? Do you want to know? Read the next chapter, then! ^^ Please review!

P.S: The lines in the beginning of the prologue are Hiei's basic feelings throughout the story, kind of like a preview of the angst to come. Until next time!

roseeyes out!