Risa-Riku- 19. You have the date that you'll meet your soulmate tattooed somewhere on your body.
Risa's soulmate mark is at the base of her left ear, disappearing into her hairline. It's a precisely-scripted date and time, to the second, capturing the moment she met her soulmate. It is also, of course, her birthday because as a pair of platonic soulmate twins, she and Riku wouldn't have any other date.
She loves her sister, would probably fight an army for her, but a tiny part of her that's a romantic is a little disappointed to have her as a soulmate. It meant she wasn't going to have any great, romantic, sweep-her-off-her-feet soulmate to look forward to. No tension of counting down the hours because she'd been born already with a soulmate at her side. She won't have any of the heart-pounding drama her other classmates seem to have as they try to guess where and how they'll meet their significant other, or who it was if their day finally happened.
"It means you'll never be alone," their mother told them once, cupping their faces in each of her hands. "You'll always have each other to rely on. That's very lucky, you know?"
…And yes, they did have each other. But some days Risa feels like being soulmates just meant people saw them as even more of a matched pair and failed to look at them and see their individuality.
Riku, of course, doesn't seem to be bothered by any of this. "Risa, would you really want to get tangled in all the drama that everyone else is going through?" she asks time and again whenever Risa's feeling sad about missing out on an epic romance. "Besides, just because we don't have romantic soulmates doesn't mean you can't find someone to date." And because it's Riku, she always adds, "Though I don't know why you're so stuck on wanting to."
Risa loves her sister, but she can be a little bit of a stick in the mud. They're teenage girls, of course she wants to have a whirlwind romance.
But, since life isn't going to give her one built in, she supposes she's going to have to make one for herself. Can't have people thinking she's someone who'd just passively sit by and wait for something to fall into her lap. She's not that kind of girl. When Risa sees the news story of Dark, well… What better romance to get caught up in than falling for a mysterious and handsome thief? No offense to Niwa—he's sweet—but she wants a little more adventure in life than a boy that seems to let life act on him more often than not than the other way around. Risa's sure she'll be able to catch Dark's attention.
And if she can't? Well, like her mother said, at least she's never alone. Risa knows that even if she grumbles about it, Riku will be there to hug her through it if her heart gets broken.