Warning: alcohol (nothing severe tho/all are the legal age)
Shinobu's eyes snapped open, startled by the pool of sweat that she had woken up in. She wiped her forehead, her skin already damp from the touch. She shuddered, throwing the sheets off. Her dream had been interrupted by a sudden nightmare.
And she had enjoyed it.
She shook her head, patting her cheeks to snap herself out of it. Standing up, she opened the curtains only to be greeted with the lights of a city still asleep. She looked at the clock.
3:00 AM
Well, this was a start. It wasn't every day that some sort of nightmare invaded her usually peaceful mind.
She shook herself out of her thoughts.
The dream had suddenly become a recurring nightmare, something that she could only dream and terrorize herself about. She had gone to see a therapist, to ask if her mind was diagnosed with something she could potentially fix. But everyone had turned her away.
In the end, she had become desperate. A psychic and hypnotist had encouraged those nightmares to leave her body.
She didn't need to be plagued by nightmares of a man, whose color blue of his eyes was so deep that she could drown in them.
Whose skin was pale, bags underneath them.
Whose very nature screamed, preventing her from getting within a mile radius of him.
Even the way he looked at her made her want to run away.
Or run towards him in need.
She shut the intrusive thoughts from her head, instead swiping on her coat, to leave her apartment, for fear of contamination.
"Leaving so early, Miss?" the bellhop asked, sending her a warm, concerned smile. She rubbed her eyes.
For a moment, it had been the man from her dream, and she almost knocked over a vase on the table. The bellhop reached forward to catch her, but she snatched her arm away in fear. The bellhop stood straight, worried that she might reprimand him for reaching past his physical barriers.
"Y-Yes. Sorry. I mean- I'm going to go." she changed her mind, flustered. She shut herself in the elevator, away from human interaction.
The elevator doors opened with a ding, and she stepped out, avoiding interaction with the person at the front desk. She stepped out onto the city streets, and for once, she couldn't hear his own thoughts, the noises of car horns and bright flashing lights overwhelming her senses.
She stuck her hands into her pockets, burying herself into a mountain within herself, barricaded from other intrusive thoughts that might poke their way into her mind.
"Miss!"
She was pulled back by a warm hand, not at all like the one she had touched in her nightmare which guided her back to safety as a car sped right past her just as she was going to step onto the road.
The hand belonged to a man, and she shrugged it off of her, for fear that if another person touched her, she would attack the one who merely brushed her shoulder.
She looked up, finding that the city was once again calling her attention to it. She opened the door, stepping inside to escape from the cold.
"Excuse me."
She tensed, the voice finding its way to her ears. In itself, it was cold and unwelcoming, and as she listened to it, she could only hear the melody of her name on his tongue disgust filled her senses. She turned away from him, wanting to escape from the confines of her own imagination.
She was sure that this man had come from Heaven Hell to mess around with whatever sanity she had left. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and she scowled at the feeling that was now working its way up to her fingertips.
The man now seemed more irritated when she didn't respond to his comment.
"Excuse me," he said more forcefully.
She bit her tongue to prevent herself from snapping back in retaliation. Even after all the sleepless nights, she wanted to avoid a confrontation with a stranger.
But he kept prodding at her patience, and as soon, she was forced to look deep into those beautiful blue eyes.
"I was here first." she retorted, though she stared at a spot above his forehead, despite her frame being considerably smaller than his.
"I didn't think minors were allowed in bars."
Though his tone wasn't malicious, she could tell that he wanted to do at least a little damage to her pride.
Luckily, she didn't take it to heart.
But she stared him down, even with the height difference, and he cracked a smile at her intentions.
"If this is your way of intimidating me, let's just say it's not working." he teased, and she went red at his implications.
She coughed out her drink and handed it to the bartender, who looked disgusted.
His eyes were the color of the ocean, and she could imagine herself drowning in the angry waves that were his pupils blue, and she knew that she had absolutely no intention of finding them attractive.
"You smell sweet," he sniffed the air between them, and grinned. She could almost see a flicker of a sharp tooth hidden between his lips. How badly she wanted him to lean in closer was almost overwhelmingly terrifyingly tempting horrific. She shook herself out of her thoughts and got up to leave, only to find that she was drawn in by his charisma, wanting to be closer to him at all costs.
She froze halfway between the door and the bar stool.
"Difficult times, eh?" he sipped his drink, twirling around in his bar stool to find her frozen, still as a statue, shaking as she clutched her purse. He moved in front of her, bending down to reach her height.
Please, come closer, get away, she pleaded, though the words would not come out of her mouth. Her mouth tightened into a firm line, and she shook her head, not daring to look at him. She bit her lip so hard that a drop of blood fell between her lips.
His eyes narrowed in on the speck of blood between her lips, and she could almost swear that his pupils had contorted into slits.
For a moment, she was incredibly excited terrified.
He bent down, softly pressing his lips to hers, and she almost pushed forward back, if it wasn't for the fear holding her back.
Eventually, she closed her eyes, melting into the kiss, and as he pulled away, she looked at him in anticipation, as if she was expecting more.
But he chuckled as he looked at her small, petite frame staring back up at him with large, googly eyes.
"Soon, my butterfly," he whispered, still smiling, a fang peeking through, "soon."
He suddenly disappeared, leaving her dazed.
She blinked, turning around, finding no one else in sight. She left the bar, in shock. The blinking lights that had previously attracted her were now flickering and barely working.
She sighed as she closed her eyes, the image of the man who had invaded her dreams was no longer protruding into her mind.
---
At the bar, the man sat, his eyes softened as he gazed at a picture of a woman, her eyes colored purple and black hair framing her face, looking at him as he painted her.
Even though it was over a thousand years ago, he could still remember her twinkling laughter and sharp comebacks. He sighed.
"Something wrong, sir?"
"No." he tucked the photo away, as the bartender felt inclined to look.
"Another one, then?" he lifted the pitcher, and he raised his glass.
"Perhaps fifteen. This is going to be a long night," he commented, raising his glass in cheers before holding his shaky hand out for another.
