Heka is very naughty. Currently she has two stories that she hasn't finished yet, and here she is, starting a new one. However, Heka promises that after her O Levels, she will be on a writing spree and finish up all her wonderful Dark X Riku stories, and finally be A Great Member of the Secret Society of the Dark X Riku Clan!

Shigure: There isn't such a Clan anyway.

Heka: You lie!

Dark: Ooohh there's a Secret Clan dedicated to ME! And Riku!

Shigure: You should NOT have said that.

Heka: Why?

Shigure: He'll be mooning about it for weeks…

(Another A.U. I think I'll be gravitating to them for now…)

Most love stories begin with a protagonist, usually down on his or her luck. Most love stories then have the protagonist meeting, by accident, the love of his or her life, who would amazingly pull the person right out of the deep dark hole that he or she had been in, and smile charmingly, and everything would be wonderful from then on.

Most love stories bank on that, knowing that the beloved public loves them.

Unfortunately, this love story, banks on that catch, knowing that the beloved public loves them to bits. This love story, as we all now know, involves two startlingly different characters who unwittingly complement each other so well that they, sadly, do not see it.

This love story hopes to change that concept.

Title: The Perfect Birthday

(Was supposed to be a songfic, based on Lifehouse's 'You and Me' but it blew up into a whole story and thus deserved its own space!)

Chapter 1: Screw It

Twenty-three years old Riku Harada believed that she was a strong woman. Riku Harada believed that she was tough and she could easily make any guy older or younger than her, cry with fear after thirty minutes of meeting with her in her office. Riku Harada also believed that she was the only person who could stand up to her twin sister, Risa's, nonsensical blabber and stop her from doing incredibly stupid things.

Twenty-three years old Riku Harada was also currently being dragged, blindfolded, to the newest bar and club by her deplorable twin sister and her annoying little friends in her uncomfortable business suit. Riku Harada felt disappointed with herself. Today wasn't exactly a good day. She had frowned so hard today during a business meeting that she felt that her eyebrows would never be the same again, and now after work when she thought she could truly relax and forget her problems in her little apartment… her sister had to turn up and ambush her with this completely idiotic idea.

What did she ever do to deserve this…?

'Risa… tell me again…' she started. Risa, her twin sister, immediately shushed her up, giggling mischievously.

'It's your birthday Riku! Don't spoil your surprise!'

'I know what my surprise is. You're bringing me to that new club called DNA or something, and making me drink myself drunk and then I'll embarrass myself in front of everybody by dancing to weird songs, and then you'll have pictures to prove it the next day, to blackmail me with,' Riku muttered dryly, still resisting the pull of the four women.

Risa laughed coyly. 'That was LAST year! And it was Halloween! And it wasn't a club! It was a hotel! And I don't have the pictures! I burnt them a long time ago!' Hopefully she hadn't lost that precious shoebox of hers, well hidden in the depths of her huge cupboard.

Hikaru Ayumi, one of the twins' good friends since middle school, tossed her black curls chuckled darkly, strengthening her grip on Riku's arm nonetheless. 'Nonsense. We'll do none of that this year. It's eight pm and you're twenty three and you stay at home on Friday nights! This means you don't have a life. We're going to give you one tonight!'

Riku's alarm bells started ringing frantically. They were ringing, humming more likely, just now but now…

'Risa, Risa! What do you mean!' she yelped, digging her heels into the concrete, begging to what God that was up there, that he would allow her heels to stick to the pavement. Please…

Her heel got stuck in the crumbling concrete. Thank you! She thought gratefully, digging her heels in harder, just in case.

'Risa… Risa,' Riku began hopefully, her caramel hair slipping over the loosely tied blindfold as she bent down to touch her blessed heel. 'I can't go, my heel's stuck…'

Risa pushed her perfect brown hair back, never releasing her iron grip on her sister's lithe arm. Her eyes twinkling almost supernaturally, she smiled sinisterly at her twin. Even though she was blindfolded, the slight pause made Riku's Evil Sister Alarm Bell start to ring madly. She had this really bad feeling about what was coming up…

'Don't be such a wet blanket darling!' she smiled. As Riku was still bent down, blissfully minding her shoe, silently thanking all Gods that were present, Risa winked at all her other girlfriends, Eirotte Senes, Hikaru, and Rukia Inoue. All three smiled equally evil smiles, and as one, tugged hard at the hunched form that was Risa's reluctant sister.

Crack.

Damn! Riku thought frantically as she felt herself being slowly but inexplicitly dragged towards the dreaded club of Doom. Panicking, Riku appealed to the most sensible of the quartet.

'Eirotte! Please! Don't let them do this to me!' Riku pleaded anxiously, feeling the mess of hands around her before she finally located a hand with a leather bead bracelet on it. Eirotte was sensible but she had the kookiest taste, going for natural, leather items and dream catchers. Riku latched onto her hand, knowing that the bespectacled girl with beautiful brown curls would not leave her co-worker in distress.

This time however, Riku wasn't so lucky. Eirotte shook her head cheerfully. Riku couldn't see it but the words which came from Eirotte's mouth proved that Eirotte wasn't all sugar and everything nice.

'Nonsense, Riku! This is for your own good! We've all seen, especially your sister, how you've been working your bones off your hands… this will be good for you! Please listen to your sister then, and come along with us!' She added, forever the peace maker.

Riku growled. 'Thanks, Eirotte… To think I treat you like my own sister… traitor…' She was now hobbling along awkwardly, her blasted heel having deserted her for the loving concrete a few metres behind. Damn all…

Risa sniggered. 'Don't worry Eirotte, Riku will thank us after this… she'll find the perfect guy and then get happily married like me, and she'll thank me on bended knee for finding that guy for her!'

However, behind her laughter, Risa was solemn. She knew that Riku needed this break. She had heard from Eirotte that Riku's own design company, the H&H Design Company, had not been doing very well recently. A greenhorn in the business world, Riku was undoubtedly beginning to feel the stress of being an entrepreneur, after a few months. Unable to think of anything to which would help her in her business, Risa had decided, after being blessedly married to her darling Satoshi Hiwatari, that her sister needed, no demanded a break.

'Heh. Hiwatari doesn't seem like the sort that you'd be happily married to…' Riku hissed, still trying hard to dig her remaining heel in whatever cement she could get her shoes into. Risa smiled, blushing slightly.

'Oh you'll never understand,' she laughed, tightening her grip, 'you single woman! You'll never understand how it'd be like, to wake up every morning and see the man you love right next to you… okay I'll stop.' She added, seeing her friends' disgruntled faces and Riku's gagging antics.

'Still,' Risa commandeered, steering the conversation back to much safer ground, 'Riku's tired and she needs a night for a break!'

And tonight would be that night, no matter what weak plan Riku came up with.

-/-

Riku, of course, wasn't thinking of her failing company, her immediate thoughts being on the fact that the rest of her peaceful Friday night would be spent with the Four Horse Women from Hell- For Your Own Good, Sheer Evil, Cold Logic and Insanity. She was going to die…

And she was going to die quickly, for Risa announced happily, 'We're almost there!'

Thinking quickly, Riku pretended to stumble, which wasn't that hard- walking on uneven shoes had that unpleasant effect. Her friends barrelled into her, all having such tight grips on her hands. In the ensuing screaming and screeching mess Riku broke free and kicked her shoes away, pulling down her blindfold and scrambling up, probably making the world record for sprinting in black stockings.

However, Risa was prepared for this. Nodding at Rukia, the second-most athletic girl within the group of them, she watched with pride as the petite girl with ebony hair broke into a run in her new Nike sport shoes and made a flying tackle on the fleeting image that was Riku.

'Aaarrggghhhh!'

Riku wanted to cry. She was so close! She was this close to freedom… and then Rukia had to tackle her from the back, perhaps injuring her spine forever, and squashing her onto the cold pavement, bruising her chin.

'Damn you, Rukia! Damn you!' she yelled for the world to hear as they sprawled painfully on the ground, waiting for her sister, Hikaru and Eirotte to catch up. Rukia knew her orders- Do NOT Let Go Once In Contact With Target. Repeat: Do not Let Go Of Target.

Riku was on the verge of tears by the time the other women caught up. At least Eirotte had the decency to help her up and offer her tissue for her scrapped chin while her stupid sister praised Rukia for her magnificent catch. Hikaru checked Riku once over, and pronounced her fit to be dragged. Again.

Thus once again, Riku Harada was being dragged, blindfolded, by her deplorable sister and her irritating friends towards the newest club which graced the south side of Japan. This time however, she was slightly bruised, looking slightly worst for the wear and out of breath but still with enough breath left to curse ten thousand deaths upon her 'friends' who were bringing her to her doom.

'You guys have a grip like iron!' she snarled weakly in a bid to look fierce, after noticing that her wrists felt dreadfully raw where the other girls had grabbed her. Eirotte merely nodded but Riku did not see.

'Yes,' she said absent-mindedly. 'It was required…' No point telling Riku about the weeks of practice that they had to go through under Risa's tough regime to prepare for Riku's Birthday Surprise. The weight lifting, the wall climbing, just to improve their grips…

'And Rukia, where'd you learn to tackle like that…' Riku continued weakly, squirming rather uncomfortably now, knowing that her chances of escape were probably lower than the chances that a baby deer would escape a tiger's death bite.

The short girl replied simply, 'I've been… practising.'

'Okaaaaay,' Riku nodded. She really didn't want to know more.

Her thoughts were brought up short when Risa announced again, 'We're here!'

She was going to die….

-/Finished for now…/-

Shigure: Now say what you've done wrong.

Heka: Heka admits that she has stolen some names… from other anime. She has stolen Eirotte and Senes from Scrapped Princess, and Rukia and Inoue from Bleach. Heka also admits using the word 'Nike' in her story and thus claims that nothing here belongs to her, except the idea that Riku is an entrepreneur, and allergic to men in general.

Dark: Not to me, she isn't.

Riku: Oh yes, I am. I get hideously bad-tempered around you…

Heka: While Riku and Dark sort their differences…

Shigure: In more than one way…

Dark, Riku: Hey!

Heka: Please review? This idea came to her at night and thus is generally considered a very bad idea.