AN: all my love goes out to the chixxors ( SPK ). SHOVE THAT DRESSING, and don't stop reviewing.

The cold leather of the seat pressed against HIS dirty t-shirt as I slid forward, my nose pressed against the foggy window. The morning world rolled by quickly; the drug store parking lots we'd torn through, trash cans we'd knocked over, rubbish sprawled on the pavement. The places where I'd fallen behind him.

I glanced down at my fingers, instantly reminded of Sango. I wondered if it had all really happened. Images of her pink glitter polish and the crowded table flashed through my mind, his smirking lips, the pale face framed by curtains of black hair. Eyes that had seemed to glow red as he lifted me up into the heroin dream cloud that I had sworn never to get involved with.

Naraku.

All I had for proof were the marks on my arms, and his phone number, written on my hand with a sharpie.

I could have smeared it right then. I could have gotten rid of Naraku forever; banished Sango, The Underworld, the drugs, into memory. I could have walked back into my apartment, settled down on the couch, and picked up Kagome's magazine. I could have ignored the note they left for me on the table. I could have stayed clean. I could have drifted back into my vegetable state of non-living, beating myself up day in and day out about the breakup. But I didn't.

Instead, I pulled out a pen from my purse and copied the phone number onto a piece of paper so I could call him up later.

Sliding the paper back into some dark corner of the purse, my fingertips brushed the sharp end of a syringe. I shuddered at the memory.

Naraku had told me with the same devil's grin on his face that I'd be wanting one of them soon enough, despite my refusal to take one home with me.

And now my veins called out for the drug.

I didn't want to be an addict. I'd always thought of addicts as people that curled up in some dark, dusty corner of their filthy apartments and got high all day. So in my eyes, Naraku wasn't an addict. I glanced down at the needle. Naraku was fun, handsome, and social. He just liked to get a little buzzed sometimes.

I could deal with that.

I repeated it in my head like a mantra, a holy prayer, God's whining little voice toying with me, persuading me. Just a little buzz. I'm not addicted. I'm not addicted.

I turned and surveyed the rows of people seated around me.

Pre-teens head-banging to something their parents hated, blaring from the oversized headphones they wore as they tried to finish their homework at the very last minute. The elderly hunched over and leaning on each other, drooling on the person beside them, dreaming of their younger years. Stiff men in three-piece suits on their way to work, all with identical briefcases. Housewives smoothing their skirts over and over again, anxiously awaiting the morning sales at WalMart.

There was nothing to worry about.

Just a little buzz. This is only my second time.

I smiled, seeing that Naraku had already filled up the needle for me. I plunged it into my arm, and again it was euphoria.

Just when I thought the pleasure was dying out it would come back twice as strong-- in waves, rolling over my entire body, invading my bloodstream.

"This IS heaven," I said aloud, to no one in particular.

And then I fell asleep, the needle limply falling from my arm and onto the dirty floor below.