Casual Encounters (Durarara!!) *Izaya/OC*

08. Twisted Arrangements

Ritchie fell back into a routine lifestyle. It was fairly similar to the last one she'd followed, spending most of her time with Izaya - only now it often ended up with them making out and then occasionally leading up to sex.

She sometimes wondered if the attraction was as mutual as she'd thought. Whereas Izaya was generally quite compliant with their physical activities she always seemed to be the one who was instigating them. She felt like this should have bothered her but it didn't. She was getting what she wanted out of the deal. And Izaya didn't seem to have any complaints either.

Their newest 'arrangement' came with a few grievances. Some of the smaller ones being that Izaya was constantly trying to hold her hand and now seemed to think he had the right to keep messing with her hair. This annoyed Ritchie because she knew they were little things he had no interest in. He had some other motive for every move he made and Ritchie was pretty sure that his primary purpose was just to infuriate her further.

A bigger annoyance came about when Sei invited Ritchie out to a nightclub with a group of her friends. Ritchie had happily agreed to it - the last time she'd been out, not including the club she worked at, had been on the bar crawl. She'd concluded that this was far too long ago. Izaya had been taking up too much of her time.

So far she'd had three and a half different guys try to dance with her (the one only half counted because he was so drunk he'd then tried it on with another guy immediately afterwards). This had been awkward to deal with.

She wasn't the most sensitive of girls but she still didn't agree with cheating. Although her relationship with Izaya was hardly an emotional one it was still official whichever way you looked at it. And grinding with some random guys definitely counted as cheating in her opinion.

But it was hard to give these guys a reason to get rid of them in front of Sei - especially since the first two had been really cute - when she still hadn't told her friend a thing about her new boyfriend. She knew that she wouldn't approve. The only thing she'd ever told her about Izaya was from when they'd first met, at which Sei had firmly told her to stay away from him.

Yet funnily enough Sei seemed to be her saviour tonight. Every time some guy had tried dancing with her Sei had either forced her way into the middle or had pointedly dragged her off to the bar.

It was almost as if she knew Ritchie wasn't looking to pull anyone. Ritchie was grateful and didn't question it. If she did she was sure that she'd still end up having to explain why she didn't want any new dance partners.

While they were finishing off their next drinks at the bar Sei was busy texting someone on her phone. "Do you fancy moving onto Pulse after here? Reita's out with some of his friends; he said they could meet us there if we like."

"Sure," agreed Ritchie. Reita was Sei's boyfriend and a hilariously bad dancer. "Sounds like a laugh!"

However, after moving onto the next club and meeting up with Reita's group everything suddenly became very clear. Sei, Reita and most of his group abruptly made excuses and disappeared off to either the smoking area or the bathrooms, leaving Ritchie alone at the bar with one of Reita's friends.

"So you're Ritchie, right?" he asked. "I'm Hanabusa."

Of course, Ritchie thought to herself. Sei was setting her up. That explained why she'd been unwilling to let any other guys near her tonight. She'd already had this planned out. Fantastic... It wasn't like Ritchie could hold it against her friend or this Hanabusa guy either. As far as they knew she was still available.

Annoyingly Sei had gotten Ritchie's type down to a tee. The guy was tall and quite lean with unkempt black hair, dark eyes and a smile that had undoubtedly broken a few hearts already. If Sei had introduced them sooner then Ritchie would have been perfectly happy with the situation.