Hi! I'm back for yet another Serena and Darien fic in the first season. 
Sailor Moon is not mine. The happy-fagat-football-touchdown-dance belongs 
to Jason and Stuart. God help them on their quest to find Toby! 

"The Game of Love"
~~~~Part 1~~~~


by  Sailor Tampa
SailorTMPA@aol.com


".......and on the eighth day.....God created Darien...." <3<3<3



"No Andrew!" Darien said with finality in his voice as he slammed his cup 
of coffee down on the countertop.
"Why not, Darien?" Andrew whined. "You never do anything fun!" This is your 
chance!"
Darien growled in frustration. If he knew his friend, he'd keep bothering 
Darien till he cracked. But this was something he really didn't want to 
do. A local radio station was holding some kind of contest:first prize, 
500$ cash. Darien needed the money desperately, but the thought of 
humiliating himself in front of the whole city didn't seem worth it.
"Pleeeaaaasssse Darien?" Andrew drawled annoyingly.
A sudden vision of Darien's landlord kicking him out onto the street 
flashed through Darien's mind. His rent *was* due in a few days....
"Allright." Darien agreed finally.
"Yes!" Andrew proclaimed in triumph while doing the 
happy-football-touchdown-dance.
Darien put his head in his hands and sighed. He didn't have a clue what 
he'd have to do win this cash, other than make a complete idiot of himself, 
and wondered if it was worth it. <Well, I guess it is unless I want to end 
up sleeping on a park bench!> He thought. He then glanced over and saw 
that Andrew was still dancing around like an imbisil and decided to leave.

"What a day!" he muttered as he stepped outside of the arcade. 
Suddenly, something smashed into him, causing him to lose his balance and 
fall backwards,the object that hit him coming down with him. Darien's head 
was spinning for a moment until he focused and realized that it was a 
person lying on top of him. He heard the person groan and push up on his 
chest with their palms to get partially up, although they were still on 
top of him. He looked up and saw a long clump of blonde hair leading up to
 a.....meatball?
"Meatball Head?" Darien asked.
She hadn't even opened her eyes before she started feverishly apoligizing.
 She stopped in mid "I'm sorry" and saw the person she had slammed into...
and was still lying on top of.
"Darien!?" she gasped.
Her head shadowed the sunlight, causing her to look as if she was 
glowing....also causing her to look breathtakingly beautiful. Darien had
 never looked at her for more than 30 seconds. He always thought she was
 pretty....but now he noticed just *how* pretty she really was.
"Wow..." he breathed, his eyes scanning over her lovely face.
Just at that exact second, Andrew came out of the arcade....and looked down
 to see Serena sitting on top of Darien. His eyes widened and a grin took 
over his lips.
"Woah, Darien!" he exclaimed playfully. Serena and Darien slowly turned 
their heads to glare at Andrew.
"Hey, Serena, I thought you guys hated each other?" he said, barely able 
to keep his grin from growing any larger. "I....guess...not!" he said as 
he thrusted his pelvis back and forth like Ace Ventura.
Serena turned bright red and quickly scrambled off  Darien.
"Uh, gotta go, bye!" she blurted out as she ran away.
Darien got up off the ground, his face also a shade of red from 
embarassment *and* anger. He scoffed and pushed Andrew backwards so he hit
the wall. 
"You stupid punk!" Darien yelled and and stalked away angrily. 
Andrew just stood there, still smiling.
"What'd I say?" he shrugged.
	*	*	*
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this..." Darien muttered as he and 
Andrew made their way to the park where the contest was taking place.
"Well, there's no turning back now!" Andrew said cheerfully as he slapped 
Darien on the arm. Darien groaned in misery. <this sucks....>he thought. 
They started up a small hill to where the events were taking place. As they 
neared the top, they saw a large stage with a "KFLA Radio" banner strewn 
across it, loud decorations everywhere and TONS of people. 
"Oh, geez....I hope all these people aren't contestants!" Andrew said, 
shaking his head. "There must be at least 200 of 'em!"
Darien suddenly lost his nerve and stopped walking just before they reached 
the sign-up table. 
"I can't, Andrew." he said. 
Andrew halted his steps and turned around. "And why not?" he asked, putting 
his hands on his hips. 
"Look," Darien started. "I'm not going to make an ass out of myself just to
 win some dumb prize money!" he shouted. Andrew raised his eyebrows and 
started walking towards Darien.
"Oh yes you are." he mumbled determindly and grabbed Darien's arm in a 
death grip, dragging him literally kicking and screaming to the 
registration table. 
"Name?" the middle-aged woman asked, barely glancing at either of them. 
"Andrew Furuhata." Andrew answered while still struggling with Darien. 
"And you?" she said unenthusiastically pointing her pen at Darien. 
"I'm--sor-ry..." he said as Andrew grabbed his head and tried to push him 
forward. "I'm-not-" he tried saying until Andrew finally flung him forward 
so hard his stomach crashed into the front of the table. "Darien Chiba." he 
squeaked out, all of his oxygen having left his body already. The woman 
didn't take notice and scribbled down their names quickly. 
"Go stand over there." she muttered and motioned behind her. Darien and 
Andrew looked towards where she had pointed and saw a line of about 20 guys 
formed by a flimsy cardboard wall.
"Let's go!" Andrew said giddily and grabbed Darien's arm.
They walked to the end of the line and waited for a few minutes. 
"How long is this going to take?!" Darien mumbled in frustration. "I just 
want to get this over with!"
"Yeah, yeah...don't pee your pants..." Andrew shot back sarcastically. All 
of sudden, a loud voice boomed across the park.
 "Attention! The games will now begin!" The audience started to cheer 
loudly while Andrew jumped up and down like a little kid. Darien turned his
head slowly to stare at his friend, a couple of the others joining him. 
"Ok, here are the rules!" the voice said. "This nice sturdy cardboard wall 
here, seperates the guys and the girls. One guy will be paired with one
girl according to where they stand in line. For example, the first guy in 
line is paired with the first girl in line, and so on. When paired, the 
partners will each have to participate in a series of events in which they 
will have to obtain points. The pair with the most points at the end of the
games, will either have the choice of splitting the 500$ prize money, or 
take our special surprise!!! Everybody ready?" 
A loud "yes" filtered across the park as the announcer nodded. "Let's go!"
"Finally, this line moves!" Darien shouted angrily as he moved up. One by 
one the guys were paired off. A guy in front of Andrew got someone that 
Darien recognized as Lita, one of Serena's friends. He shrugged thinking 
it was nothing special.  Andrew rubbed his hands together greadily. "Let's 
see what fox *I* get teamed up with!" he said.
<Rita's probably going to nail his ass to a wall when this is over...> 
Darien thought as he rolled his eyes. Andrew walked around the corner, 
smiling broadly and then his shoulders slumped as he saw who his partner 
was. 
"Oh. Hi, Raye." he said unenthusiastically as she latched onto his arm and 
dragged him away. Darien smiled. <Gee, I feel *so* sorry for him...> he 
thought sarcastically. Then, he had another thought. <Wait a second....if 
that guy in front of Andrew got Lita, he got Raye, then that only leaves-->
He walked around the corner and saw her standing there reflecting his own 
expression--shock. 
"YOU!?" Serena and Darien both cried in unison while pointing in each others
faces. 
"Yes, you two!" the announcer shouted, extremely annoyed. He grabbed each of
their arms and threw them forward, causing them to bump into one another 
quite painfully. "Now go!" he shouted as he pushed them again. "Your holding 
up the contest!" They both muttered something and slowly walked to the first
game. Darien rubbed his chest where Serena's forehead had smashed into, and
glanced over at her. <Now I'll never win the contest...> he thought 
angrily.  He rolled his blue eyes and then looked away with a frown across 
his lips. Serena side-glanced over at Darien who seemed pretty angry at the 
moment, and massaged her forehead. She squinted her eyes as the sharp pain 
started to subside. <Man, he's got a *hard* chest!> she thought and then 
blushed, realizing that meant he probably looked pretty good under that 
green jacket. Biting her bottom lip, she looked up at his face again, still 
hard as stone with a frown gracing across his strong profile. Darien felt 
her gaze upon him and slowly moved his eyes to the side to see why exactly 
she was staring at him. When he peered at her through the corner of his 
eye, she quickly blushed and turned away. Although Darien found it to be 
endlessly annoying to have someone staring at you for no reason, he couldn't 
help but smile at her innocent blush and curious eyes when she was looking
at him. They finally reached the first game and were asked to have a seat 
across from each other, a barrier seperating the table. Both were confused 
as to what they were going to be doing, but Darien suspected it was going 
to be something wild and weird knowing this radio station.  Serena fidgeted 
nervously with her hands and kept her eyes on the white tablecloth in front 
of her.<Why am I so nervous?> she thought. <I mean, after all, I don't need
to win this contest...it's just for fun.....> Her thoughts were interupted 
when the announcer's voice boomed through the park. 
"Ok, everybody, here's our first game, the Loooove test!" He said, putting 
special emphasis on the word "love". "All you have to do is answer the 
questions about your partner....and if your correct, your the winner of the 
first game in round number 1!!!" he finished with a grin. The assistants 
were already busy handing out the questionaires. As soon as they were all 
passed out, everyone started to fill them out. 
"Ok...let's see here...." Serena muttered while chewing on her pencil. 
"What is your partner's favorite color?" <Hmm....I'd say green because of 
that jacket he always wears...or, could it be black, like his hair....> she 
mused. "Oh well. Black it is!" Serena shrugged and scribbled it down. 
<Man, I would've thought they would've done sonething weirder than this!> 
Darien thought, looking down at the sheet of paper on the table. He picked 
up his pen and sighed. <Favorite color? Let's see....what could be Meatball 
Head's favorite color....> He remembered back to all the times he had run
into her; surprising himself because he recalled them all. <Well, when she 
wasn't wearing her school uniform, she almost always had pink on....pink! 
That has to be it!> he concluded in his mind and wrote it in the empty space
beside the question. "Favorite food?" Darien said a little surprised. 
"Everything...." he muttered sarcastically under his breath. He thought 
back to a few times when he saw her with an ice cream cone, and that she 
seemed to enjoy them immensley. "Good enough." he shrugged and filled it 
in. "Food?" Serena mumbled. She stuck her pencil in her mouth again and 
mulled over the question. <What on earth could be Darien's favorite food?> 
she furrowed her brow and tried to think of what kind of foods Darien might 
like. <Pizza? No....Steak? Uh-uh.....maybe something sweet like chocolate...
Hey! Chocolate!> They continued to answer  many other simple questions until 
they both arrived at the last one simotaniously. 
"Who is the most important person in *your* life?" they read at the same 
time in their heads. <I thought these were supposed to be about our 
partners?> Darien gasped inwardly. Serena looked toward the sky in 
concentration.
 "Hmm....Luna? My friends? My family?" she said aloud. "This one's tough!" 
Darien tried to think of the people in his life. There was Andrew, a few 
aquaintences at the University and.....
"Serena..." Darien breathed softly, realizing that the few friends he had 
weren't as important to him as his Meatball Head, Serena. He hadn't really 
noticed it till now that she had become a major part of his life these past 
few months. Exchanging insults and running into each other had become a 
routine in his daily schedule that , on the outside he had been furious and 
annoyed with, but secretly enjoyed. And whether he wanted to admit it or 
not, she always made him smile. Unconciously he wrote her name down on the 
paper and put his pen down. 
"Ok! Times up!" the announcer said, just as the papers were starting to be 
picked up.
	*	*	*
It was a long and boring process while they read off *every* paper to see 
how many answeres matched. Finally, the last papers were being read, Serena 
and Darien's. "Allright," the announcer said while glancing around the 
paper for the male contestant's name. 
"...Darien, what is your favorite food?"
"Well, I do like lots of different kinds of food but," he paused and decided 
on his favorite. "I guess I'd have to say chocolate." 
Serena gasped when she heard that she had actually guessed right. The 
announcer looked at the paper and then smiled. 
"We have a match!" he enthused through his microphone, triggering numerous 
applause from the crowd. 
"Ok, now....uh...what's your name dear?" he whispered to Serena. She told 
him quietly and he continued. 
"Ok, Serena, what is your favorite food?" 
"Ice cream!" she announced without thinking. Darien's mouth dropped open. 
<I was actually right?!> he thought in disbelief. 
"And we have a match!" Mr. announcer bellowed. They continued on down the 
list, getting every question about each other right, to their own shock. 
"And the last question...." the announcer said with a deep voice and a smirk 
on his face. "Darien, who do you think is the most important person in 
Serena's life?" He stuck the microphone under Darien's nose and waited for 
his response. Darien glanced over at Serena who was also waiting anxiously 
for his answer. He licked his lips and opened his mouth to speak the words 
that came to him. 
"Well," he started softly. "I don't think Serena has just *one* person 
that's most important in her life. Everyone, even a stranger on the street 
is just as important to her as her oldest, dearest friend or her family...."
he said truthfully. Darien didn't know where this speech was coming from, 
but he was powerless to stop it. 
 "She's loving, and caring and even takes time out to exchange a little 
verbal abuse with me everyday, even though she could just ignore me. But 
she won't....and for that I'm grateful....as everyone else should be." He 
turned to look at Serena who had of a mix between shock and disbelief on 
her soft features. A quick half smile curled his lips before he nodded that 
he was finished. The announcer slowly moved the microphone towards Serena. 
"Darien...." she whispered softly, for it was all she *could* say. His 
words had shocked her to the core. She never thought 'Darien the jerk' would
ever say anything that sweet....especially to her! Of all people, her! She 
swallowed hard and made a mental note to thank him for his kind words 
later.
	*	*	*
After the Love test reading was completed, Serena decided she needed a 
break. She quickly ran to the Crown Parlor Cafe and into the ladies' room. 
She fumbled with the faucet handle and splashed some cool water on her 
face. She thought she was shocked when Darien made that wonderful speech
about her, and then he announced she was the most important thing in his 
life!<What in the world is going on?!> she thought, putting her hand to her 
forehead.<Could.....could I have been wrong about Darien all this time?>
	*	*	*

Allright, that's all for now! Oh, and Thanx to Jade for the great idea for 
the first game!^_~