Author's Note (July 9, 2014): I finally did it! The story is all finished, after many years of on-and-off writing! It came to 175 Word pages, and if printed as your average paperback, would fill up about 300 pages. So grab some snacks, sit back, relax, and enjoy a heart-warming, action-filled story that explores the saying "be careful what you wish for" with the help of some iconic DNAngel and Fruits Basket characters.

My goal for this story was to challenge myself to complete one, with a coherent storyline - not necessarily to blow anyone away with fantastic content (although I certainly did try). So please keep that in mind as you leave kind, constructive reviews. :) Also, trust me when I say that the story gets better. To help you understand, I came up with a dumb, sickeningly Mary-Sue-ish version of the story at twelve years of age, when I was in the throes of DNAngel and Fruits Basket fandoms: girl makes wish, wish comes true, kk gg fin. At fifteen, I decided to take that simple idea and turn it into something more serious that fans could both relate to and learn from, beginning with the chapter below. Through the years, I twisted the story into something deeper, and I just recently finished the story as I approach twenty (and my third year of college). As much as I'd love to go back and edit the first few chapters for grammar and stylistic issues, I've decided against it, because they're like a diary of my past writing style. Each chapter gets progressively longer, darker, and more well-written, and it's fun to leaf through the story and watch that happen. I hope you'll agree.

Also, I should probably say ahead of time (derp) that there is a significant SPOILER WARNING for this story. As it progresses, the spoilers increase - so I recommend you finish Furuba and DNAngel, and read their manga, too, before continuing.

Enjoy, and please review!

CHAPTER 1

A devil disguised in an angel's cloak…

An angel from the depths of darkness…

Slowly opening my eyes, I found myself in need of squinting. Sunlight was pouring into my bedroom and I could barely see. Usually the sun was past that point in the sky when I woke up. After sitting up in bed and pushing my tangled hair aside, I gained sight and tried to decipher the positions of the hands on my clock through the glare. Did it really read 7:30? What happened, I wondered? I never got up this early, but I felt wide awake, and…what would I do with all this extra time?

It was summer vacation, and the weather couldn't have been any more humid: it was one of those days where if you dared to step out into the sun, you'd shrivel up within minutes. The plans I thought up for the rest of the day involved the littlest of movement indoors, perhaps a quiet hobby such as reading, because the heat outside was hardly bearable for any sort of activity. There wasn't anyone in my neighborhood willing to spend time with me, anyway. The girl around my age who lived nearby wasn't really the best of neighbors I could've asked for; barely any other houses edged the dense forest that surrounded my own; and, just a day ago, my mother left on a trip with my brother to scout out colleges for him to apply to, so I was sure to be on my own for at least the next week. Mom trusted me to be able to fare well, because that was kind of the way I liked to be: I was a perfectionist with housekeeping, I knew how to cook, and I didn't mind the intense quiet. Or at least I thought I didn't.

After eating breakfast, I settled in my sunny room, deciding to draw for a while before moving on to some house-cleaning. I looked out of my window as I thought of what to sketch, which proved to be a slow process. The simple landscaping did nothing to help my envisioning the creative work I so desired. A handful of indigo-colored irises were planted below my window, the very tops of their petals seen swaying above the very bottom edge of its frame; a few decorative stones were laid out here and there, and the grass was smooth and neat before it reached the trees. I admired the perfection and neatness, but that neatness could sometimes be depressingly much. The forest had a forgotten, lonely feel about it - the trees looked like identical melancholy soldiers that stood rigid in wait for orders that wouldn't come even a century later.

I didn't like to look into the depths of that forest, let alone physically venture into it, because it was too familiar, too similar to myself. I stood in wait like they did, my acting skills utilized to keep up normal public appearances, for the excitement of life and love that was supposedly everybody's natural right. When I looked at those ancient, natural trees, looking as sad as they did - in that perfectly natural, God-planted forest - how was I supposed to believe that I would find it? I knew it childish to say I "wanted" those things, and I knew that I would just have to contentedly keep on keeping on until, by some chance, it came. I was fine with that, because I had enough to stay occupied during the wait – but who said occupation was interesting? Really, if I could describe my life in one long word, it would be booorrrriiiing.

Sigh...What to think of...What to look at...What to draw?

Lacking ideas, I scanned my room for anything to help me (in the areas that the not-so-great outdoors could not), and found a particular item hanging in isolation in a corner of my room. With a disgusted sigh, I slipped it over my head: my superstitious inspiration-necklace, which my grandfather had given to me several years earlier, consisting of a leather cord strung with large wooden beads, Southwestern Indian markings, and little wooden rings that jingled in their own kind of music. He said it had the power to "draw forth inspiration and potential of the ancient natives from deep within you for the creation of legendary masterpieces" or something ridiculous, and I knew he was just making it up, because it never worked like that. Nothing worked liked that. I wore the "inspiration" necklace for a few drawings in the past, and they turned out well, but they weren't anything I couldn't do without it. Only for the sake of my grandfather, I now wore that necklace anyway. Maybe if the drawing turned out, I could give him a call and tell him how the necklace..."worked". I could add that to my mental list of things to do, and I would be prepared to cross it off the moment I knew the drawing would be beyond repair.

At long last, I sat down on my bed with a sharpened pencil, a large eraser and my sketch pad, with the oversized beads dangling about my neck and distracting me with noise each time they swayed. My poor sketchbook didn't have any recent drawings in it, so I waited with my eyes shut in a comical meditation pose (if I was going to wear that necklace in the first place, why not live up the charade?) for some silly 'legendary masterpiece' sort of inspiration to come forth and show itself. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I set pencil to paper and drew the beginning lines of the much-loved shape I finally saw in my mind.

I became conscious of my work on the paper and found my pencil sketching a 'legendary' picture indeed: a fictional character from a manga I liked. Whenever I had nothing to think of, he was the one I thought about. Whenever I had no one to listen to, whenever I felt down, whenever I wanted to write, whenever I wanted to draw…he was my foolproof backup.

Dark was his name. Dark, mysterious, exciting, intriguing...Everything I wasn't. I couldn't get over the fact that this character of whose personality I knew more about than my own wasn't a real person. It proved something all too pitiful about me.

I wanted so desperately to know someone like him, someone so bold and interesting! His ways were far from stereotypical or predictable, far from boring, far from me. A tall, handsome fellow, donning a head of daring, spiky, dark-purple hair, he held the title of immortal 'phantom thief' – a Kaitou, if you will – and he flew the night skies on huge black wings. Although the fact that he was a thief made me question my recent interest in the character, he didn't actually steal just anything. He was self-disciplined. Noble, even. That was a big plus.

I was completely absorbed in the drawing while thinking about these things, astonished that it was going so well. Often, my drawings never turned out the way I wanted them to and I'd simply give up. Or, I'd force myself to be content with something that didn't meet my expectations. Such good drawings weren't characteristic of my skill - what was going on? With every stroke of the pencil, even those careless, unintended ones, he gained a stroke of my highest ideal. I wanted to stop before I fell too far into amazement, but I couldn't. It was Dark. He was unfolding on that page, and I was the one unfolding him. Completing him. It was what I wanted for once.

After I finished some brief shading, there he was, standing in that way he always did, in the way I envisioned him in my mind. The resemblance to the official artwork was so eerie – just how did I accomplish this? How did this work come from my own mind and hand? Only one possibility came to my mind: the necklace...worked. I didn't have to cross off that mental reminder after all.

I backed my perspective up a little and simply admired the drawing as a whole, not as my own accomplishment. Dark...I honestly and foolishly wanted then and there for a "Dark" to come along in my life. I needed someone like him, and I knew it – I needed someone to save me from drowning in monotony! That carefree confidence, that determination... The only thing we had in common was the love of art.

I then studied the picture in disbelief, thinking of what could be tweaked for a few minutes, trying to find flaws, as was my habit with most of my drawings. I flipped through the rest of the sketches in the book while I thought, and found the three other drawings that were drawn when I wore that special necklace. And…well, all three pictures were of Dark. Each grew progressively accurate, but appeared to me as the obvious work of an amateur. This fourth drawing, however, achieved the status of that which could only be drawn by Yukiru Sugisaki herself.

If I ever want to draw another picture of him, that necklace is officially a no-brainer, I thought.

Because I could find nothing to want to change in the picture, I closed the sketchbook and put it away, thinking that if I hid it for a while and came back, I would be able to find at least something wrong with it. There was no way that a completely ridiculous superstition could work, but there was no way I could've drawn that myself! Absolutely no way!

I took the necklace off and hung it back in the dusty corner from whence it came, in the hopes that I would forget the impossible incident.

I grew to be bored in a content sort of way as I adjusted to being all alone in the house. It would take some time before I'd stop expecting my mom to call me to do chores, or my brother to run upstairs and tell me about his recent achievements on the internet.

The house was small, but with me being the only one there, the house seemed so much larger. I walked into the living room as I searched around for an activity, and laid eyes on my upright piano. I knew how to play it, so I seated myself in front of it for the sake of the summer practice I so neglected.

Looking through my large collection of sheet music, I had located a beautiful piece of music from the anime remake of the manga Dark belonged to. My fingers moved along without me consciously paying attention, because my mind was elsewhere.

Get over Dark already. You're so pathetic! He's fake, a figment of someone's imagination… Stop wanting things you can't and won't get. He's just not real, you fool!

I lost count of how many times I had to tell myself that, but this time - so suddenly - I saw myself from a different angle. Those words were transforming me into the exact type of person I didn't want to be: a total bore. I didn't believe in or hope for anything because of those words. Putting on that necklace earlier was equally as foolish in my eyes, but at least the strange belief got me somewhere. I inexplicably drew the best drawing of my lifetime. Even if that superstition itself didn't work, a simple belief was enough. That little fact instilled a strange kind of hope in me and caused me to rethink those classic lines that I regularly told myself. Maybe a dream like Dark was okay to have? Didn't that one quote go, "Dreams aren't dreams if they can actually come true"?

My thoughts then floored the brakes and did a U-turn - maybe it wasn't alright, because the only thing awaiting the end of a good dream was a harsh reality. Dreamers wait for reality to end, for a dream to replace it, based only on the same hope I'd felt a moment ago. All of that hope, only to be crushed by the weight of waiting for something that simply wouldn't happen. Maybe if I didn't dream like that, I wouldn't be crushed.

No, I said to my thoughts in disagreement with myself. The weight of a predictable, tedious lifestyle had already crushed me. Something needed to change.

I noticed by then that the music had stopped. I tried to clear my mind and restart the song, but I couldn't do it. I wasn't focused. All of that disagreeing with myself was mind-consuming.

So, I walked around the house again, looking for something else to do – something to take my mind off of my own character flaws – and came across the computer in the basement. I never really spent much time on it, but I pressed the power button anyway. First I checked my email. Nothing. Then I went to see which of my "friends" were logged in to the instant messaging service I used, but it turned out that nobody was. There was no one to talk to. With my head leaning on my hand, I let myself dream up the idea of a real-life Dark randomly knocking on my door and making my day.

Right before I logged off to go find something else to do, a message popped up on the screen from someone I didn't know, with the screen name "Lena_girl". I wondered if I shouldn't respond to the stranger, but I was reminded of my inner struggle and just responded anyway. It might be interesting.

"OMG HELLO!" she typed.

"Hey, uhh, do I know you?" I typed back, pleased with my decision.

"Well, no, but I gotta tell you something!"

I waited for her to say whatever it was. The pencil icon in the corner of the IM screen didn't move for a few minutes, indicating that she wasn't typing anything. I wanted her to just spit it out, and I thought she would have, as hyper as she seemed.

"Hello?" I prodded.

"Oh, right! Be prepared and don't freak out too much, Alyssa, okay?"

She logged off immediately.

How did she know my name?

That night I couldn't sleep. All day long I had been wondering what she meant by being prepared. Did she actually know about something that was going to happen? Was she a stalker? Or was she someone I knew who was planning to surprise me, but lied about not knowing me? Yes, that sounded more likely. How else could she have known my name? I was definitely over-thinking this, but I couldn't turn my brain off. Such was my curse.

I lay in bed, staring at my ceiling, anxiously pondering possibilities. After a little while, I turned my attention to the window, hoping the hazy, dream-like moon and swaying flowers would help me relax.

That was when a tiny twinkling star caught my eye. Realizing it was the first star I saw that night, a weary thought came to my mind: The theme of the day was letting my imagination run wild, right?

I walked over to the sketch book I previously put away, and took out the drawing of Dark. Once again, I found no flaw. I sat the book on my lap and looked at him fondly for a minute before I glanced back out the window again.

"Star light, star bright..." I sighed and shook my head, but continued. "First star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, have the wish…I wish tonight…"

Feeling rather pathetic, I closed my eyes and made the wish that Dark would become a real person. This was the only wish I'd ever felt even infinitesimally confident in. After witnessing a stupid superstition bringing him to life on paper, anything was possible.

Oh, who am I kiddi- believe it just for the heck of it…don't turn into a stern, boring old fart some day…have some fun! You wanted something interesting, right?

Of course, I had to wish just one more thing: that the meaning of what that Lena person said would become clear. I forgot if the limit on stars was one wish or not, but even if I couldn't have the second one, the first one was entirely good enough for me!

What was that? I thought, after opening my eyes. A dark shadow ran past my window. Was it...could it be…?

No, it was too small to be a person. Actually, the shadow resembled a small animal.

I got up to look outside. Indeed, it was a cat. I couldn't make out precisely what color it was, because it was so black outside save the small amount of moonlight and a few stars, but it might've been a tan color. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, its coat revealed a rustier hue. The cat darted around to look at me as it heard my window squeak open, and then it scampered around the corner of the house and out of sight. Maybe it belonged to the owners of the house on the hill that was quite a ways out. They were cat-lovers.

I heard an unusual gust of air and a loud shuffling sound, as if something was being dragged across the grass. The noise broke through the still night and scared a few birds into the air, one of which was an especially eye-catching silver color. I didn't really care to notice, because I was finally tired. I felt like I finally resolved the Dark issue with myself.

The humid summer night made the window stick. After I attempted to close it as far as I could, I went back to bed and dreamed, without any doubts or entangled thoughts, of an encounter with a particular phantom thief.

Little did I know that something was watching me.