He stood over me like some dark, lovely illusion, white and black shadow swirling and dancing behind him. Motion bleeding, faster and faster, and he and I were the only solid things that existed at that point in time. The only things that seemed real in the Underworld opium dream cloud that surrounded us both.

He smirked and leaned down toward me, palming the wall and the torn posters, lustrous black eyes locked so deeply into mine that I feared I'd never be able to see anything else, that I could never break the gaze.

"I've never seen you around here before," He began. Cool, slow.

"I've never been around here before."

"I see. . ."

His calculated beginning was broken off by a young girl's hand on his arm, squeezing it affectionately. He - and I - glanced up to see a young woman with short black hair, wearing hooker clothes and insistently fingering her tongue ring, as if urging this dark, dangerous stranger of mine to come out and play.

I couldn't do much more than just stare and blink, feeling completely idiotic to even have been speaking with whom I figured was this woman's boyfriend, lost in the throbbing beat of a nightclub I didn't belong in. Nothing but a dust particle floating over by the wall to be carelessly flicked away by long, black fingernails, which the girl was chewing nervously now, whispering in heated discussion with the God of the gothic hoards.

"Leave." He ended it sharply, brushing her off with not so much as a grunt of further

acknowledgement. She scowled, her anger showing as clearly on her pale face

as his current disinterest in her.

She hadn't noticed me up until then, observing as usual, the bitter wallflower; but when she finally did, whirling around in a fury on her four inch heels, feeling like a factory reject as she sought comfort in the mass of tangled, dancing bodies, she really noticed me.

At first her eyes only widened at the sight of a fresh new face. Then something else registered. It was hate at first sight. No; second sight.

"God, Naraku," she spat bitterly before turning to leave, "I can't believe you're screwing this trash."

She disappeared, devoured by the writhing masses.

We were both quiet for a moment.

Then his gaze came to rest on me again, a smirk once more lighting the corners of his sensual mouth. "Don't mind her," he said casually, "she's just jealous."

His face moved carefully, dangerously closer to mine. His breath on my neck was toxic; the blaze in his eyes was toxic; everything about him, noxious and lovely and alluring, a drug to be used. And abused.

" . . . . After all, we don't get many girls like you in this place."

"Oh?" I questioned, playing the same naïve, innocent girl card I'd used with InuYasha so long ago. No, I scolded myself. don't think about InuYasha now. "And what kind of girl am I?"

"Beautiful." He whispered, one elongated finger sliding slowly over the arch of my neck. He smiled. ". . . Let's get out of here."

My head screamed NO.

My heart wasn't really sure.

But inevitably, my mouth said, "yes."

And we were flung headlong from the suffocating, smothering atmosphere of "The Underworld" back onto the city streets outside. He had me by the wrist; pulling me along as we ran across the street, and I gasped, confused but excited, having no idea where we might be going- and honestly, I didn't even care.

And we didn't wait for the signal to turn green.

We just dodged past all the cars, coming at us with their blinding lights, honking their horns like there was no tomorrow.

And we didn't care. We didn't care.