Working Title: So how about if you and I...?
Series: Kingdom Hearts
Character/Pairing: Zemyx
Genre Humour/Romance
Rating: T
Word Count: 3650
Description: Written to the fanfic cliché of faux dating.
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts © Disney and Square Enix

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“…What?”

Axel’s eye twitched, as though he were tired of explaining himself. And maybe he was—Axel, in all his 23 years of life, had never once shown the least bit of interest in any of that mushy romance stuff, and he’d certainly never—

“’ve got a girlfriend,” he repeated.

--certainly never done that.

Okay, first, it wasn’t that Demyx was jealous of Axel, no way. It was just that, with the loss of Axel into the dark, terrifying status of In a Relationship, almost the entirety of Demyx’s group of friends was now paired off—Axel with Larxene, Sora with Kairi, Riku with Namine, Roxas with Xion. This wasn’t quite how Demyx would have paired them up, what with his admittedly rather bent sexuality and tendency to remove the “b” from “bromance,” but everyone seemed happy enough in their respective partners.

Axel was now studying Demyx’s face with something like concern, and Demyx realized that he could be taking this better. After all, how must Axel be interpreting his reaction? It must seem as though Demyx were jealous, and since Axel, like the rest of their friends, had no idea as to the realities of Demyx’s orientation, he probably thought that—

Demyx felt his heart almost stop in horror.

“Axel, I know what you’re thinking and I do not like Larxene.” Better make that clear now, before Axel could make it a topic of conversation and thus cause Demyx to vomit up his perhaps overzealous lunch.

“It’s not that I’m not happy for you and everything,” he continued, “it’s just that, I mean, now that everyone’s, you know, together… I’ll sort of be all alone when we all go hang out and stuff.”

Just sitting there, watching everyone make cutesy faces at their respective partners while feeding each other some sugary confection or another and giggling. Ugh.

Axel smirked easily, relaxing a little. “Aw, Demmykins, there’s no need to miss me. I’ll still be sitting right next to you, just like always.”

Yeah, only your mind will be floating up in the clouds on some plane inaccessible to us single bastards, Demyx thought, but he knew that while yesterday’s Axel would have understood exactly what he meant, the Axel of today would have no idea what he was talking about. So Demyx just gave a weak smile in response.

“Besides,” Axel went on, his smirk growing slightly sadistic, “this’ll be the perfect opportunity for you to make a new friend, and I know how much you love to do that. Why don’t you spend some time with Zexion, seeing how you’re both in the same boat now. ”

Oh yes, Zexion. The only other member of their group of friends who was still single, and it did not require a great deal of imagination to wonder why that might be. Zexion was, in a word, snarky. He meandered through life with his nose firmly buried in a book—a different one each day—and only seemed to acknowledge the existence of his “friends” when he happened to be in need of a portable bookshelf, at which point he found them to be invaluable.

Zexion was also drop-dead gorgeous, but Demyx kept that observation deeply buried as a rule, and only allowed it to service when he was alone in the showers and positive that no one would be able to hear him.

“Zexion doesn’t care about not having anyone to hang out with,” Demyx hissed, “because he never looks up from his books anyway.”

Axel rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Demyx. Have you even tried to talk to him before?”

“Yes. And he didn’t even glance at me until I accidently spilled some milk on his textbook, and then he went through the roof and yelled at me for a solid hour about the proper respect due to other people’s property.”

That had hurt, too, especially when Demyx had had two tickets in his pocket to the local re-enactment of Twelfth Night. He’d ended up giving the tickets away to Roxas and Xion, to celebrate their first-ever date and tried not to think about the first-ever date he’d been imagining when he’d bought them.

“Well, try again. He probably doesn’t even remember that.”

Axel’s smirk hadn’t fled from his lips, but Demyx could tell from his tone that he was starting to get irritated, so he dropped the topic with a bright, “Yeah, I think I will. Congratulations, by the way. Where are you going for your first date? That kitten-themed café doesn’t exactly seem like Lark’s style.”

“Yeah,” replied Axel absently. “Yeah, everyone’s going to that new place Kairi found. Some kind of cutesy buffet with a flat rate for 90 minutes of all-you-can-eat desserts.”

Demyx burst out laughing. “It sounds awesome and everything, but will Larxene be into that?”

“Why not?” asked Axel, shrugging. “Everyone loves cake, right?”

--

They traveled to the restaurant as a group, and Demyx awkwardly took the seat next to Zexion on the train and tried in vain to start up a conversation. Zexion was completely engrossed in his newest book, which, as Demyx discovered upon taking a closer look, was The Anatomy of Mustela Putorius Furo. When Demyx, glancing at the picture on the cover, commented on how cute ferrets were, Zexion just gave him a very long look that made him feel like the stupidest person alive and then returned to the book in front of him.

By the time they arrived at the restaurant and were standing in line to enter, Demyx had resigned himself to an afternoon of misery and solitude. He was wishing he’d brought along a book himself to keep occupied when Zexion’s voice cut through his reverie.

“Excuse me?”

It was a lot easier to appreciate the smooth texture of Zexion’s voice when Demyx was reasonably sure that, for once, the person Zexion was pissed off at was not Demyx.

“I said,” replied the girl at the counter, staring at them with distaste, “that’ll be 30 munny, please.”

“You just charged my friends 15 munny.”

“And?”

“And so why am I being charged twice as much?”

“Read the sign. ‘Price: 30 munny per person. Special Couples’ Discount: Everyone on a date pays 30 munny per couple!’”

Demyx’s eyes drifted to the pastel pink sign leaning in the corner, which did indeed bear the announced message scrawled across it in a curly purple script.

He glanced back at Zexion and was amused to discover the other man’s face to be blotched with an almost identical shade of purple.

It did not match his hair. At all.

“Surely you’re joking,” said Zexion carefully.

The girl just rolled her eyes and gestured toward the sign again.

Zexion twitched violently and opened his mouth to respond, but Demyx, hearing the grumbling of the people queuing behind them, decided forestall the coming verbal slaughter with what he felt was a very gentle and well-placed, “I’ll cover the charge for both of us, if you don’t have enough.”

Zexion turned a bloodshot eye on him, and Demyx belatedly realised that, rather than ending the massacre, he’d only changed the target. But all Zexion did was snarl, “I can pay for myself,” before tossing the munny at the receptionist and storming into the restaurant after their friends, not bothering to stop for the ticket the girl was attempting to shove at him.

Demyx smiled at her brightly, apologizing as he took Zexion’s ticket and purchased his own, trying to smooth things over with small talk. The girl just stared at him blankly and waved him inside. He sighed and finally entered, feeling useless and ignored.

The restaurant was small and bright, lined with cushy, neon-coloured booths, one of which was teeming with his friends, who had already acquired their first serving of assorted sweets. Zexion was sitting at one end, scowling into his tea. There was no plate in front of him, but, surprisingly, neither was there a book.

Axel would kill him if he quit trying to befriend Zexion now, nevermind the fact that the slate-haired boy looked ready to tear the limbs off of anyone who tried to talk to him. Demyx swung his bag down beside him and asked, “Anything you’d like from the buffet?” When his only answer was a withering glare, he simply shrugged and went to grab a plate and stack it high with every desert available.

After all, if he was going to pay through the roof for this place, he might as well take advantage of it.

He grabbed a coke on his way back, and when he sat down beside a still-bookless Zexion, the other man’s eyes bulged.

“Are you actually capable of eating all of that?”

Demyx took a large gulp of his soda to congratulate himself on finally getting Zexion to address him without first being incensed, then grinned and winked in response. “Sure!” he said. “Unless you’d like some…?”

Amazingly, Zexion blushed and shook his head sharply before turning back to his tea.

Encouraged by this, Demyx leaned closer and asked, “Are you sure?”

Zexion hesitated in his response, his visible blue eye rotating between Demyx and the pile of desserts. He seemed about to acquiesce when a disruption drew their attention further down the table, where Kairi was feeding Sora a piece of cake, causing laughter and wolf whistles to break out throughout the group.

Zexion’s lips tightened until they were a solid white line, and he returned to glaring at his cup of tea without bothering to acknowledge Demyx’s former question.

For the rest of the afternoon, although Zexion’s book never made a reappearance, all of Demyx’s attempts at conversation were shot down as ruthlessly as ever. However, for the first time, it occurred to Demyx that maybe Zexion wasn’t quite as indifferent to being a perpetual third-wheel as he had previously supposed.

--

When Demyx slouched into the cafeteria the next morning before his first class, he could tell even before settling down at their usual table that Zexion’s mood was just as dour as it had been the previous day, and so he forewent his usual latte in favour of an espresso before he collapsed into the seat next to Zexion, who, despite having an open book laid out in front of him, did not appear to be reading; instead, he sat scowling down at the pages before him.

“Hey, Demyx!” Riku was leaning over the table, flashing Demyx his trademark smirky grin, but Demyx couldn’t help but notice the way it caused Zexion’s scowl to deepen. “You know that dessert buffet place?”

Yes, they’d just gone yesterday. Demyx’s memory wasn’t that bad, thanks very much. Demyx suppressed his irritation and merely nodded and smiled, frustrated that Zexon’s bad mood was getting to him.

“We were all thinking of going back there again today. After your ten o’clock class, you’re free ‘til four, right?”

Demyx was admitting to the truth of this statement when Zexion interrupted. “He has no classes, but he can’t go, because I’ll be spending all afternoon tutoring him in biology.”

Riku blinked at this, but his surprise was nothing next to that displayed by Zexion, who appeared to be mortified by his outburst. He bit his lip, eyeing Demyx nervously.

Demyx just shrugged and nodded again, causing Zexion to start. What had he been expecting? Did he think Demyx would shoot him down and call him a liar in front of all their friends? “Yeah, Zexion said he’d help me figure out what’s going on before midterms. Maybe next time?”

Anyway, this was pretty convenient. Demyx wasn’t particularly eager to return to the buffet and pay a huge sum of money to sit there awkwardly and be ignored by his friends, and if Zexion felt the same way and wanted to spend the time with Demyx instead, then all for the better.

And Demyx really did need help in biology.

--

“…So, have you got anything to drink?”

“…”

Okay, note to self: apparently normal diversions from awkward silences did not work with Zexion. Really, he’d already known that, but it had been Zexion who’d stepped up to invite Demyx to his dorm, after all. He’d been expecting some type of bonding, or at least a companionable exchange of conversation/biology notes.

So far, their only exchange had been the glare Zexion had shot at Demyx when he’d plopped himself down on the other man’s dorm-issued twin bed. The only chair in the room had been immediately claimed by Zexion, so Demyx wasn’t sure what Zexion had expected him to do. Was he supposed to just stand there, awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot while trying to ignore the pressing issue of his backpack slowing compressing his vertebrae into a solid column of pain?

“Here.”

Demyx blinked at the object Zexion was holding steadily out to him. When had Zexion even gotten up?

When Demyx’s expression remained blank, Zexion rolled his eyes and shoved the small, white carton into Demyx’s limp hands. “It’s milk,” Zexion stated. “I know you like milk.”

Demyx finally shook himself out of his stupor. “Uh, yeah, but… why?”

“You said you wanted a drink.”

“…Oh. Oh! Thanks.”

Zexion was now scowling into his laptop screen. The computer still wasn’t turned on, so Demyx could only assume that the man’s irritation was still directed toward him. How to smooth this over, when he wasn’t even certain what had gotten it all ruffled in the first place? “I just, uh… I mean, I thought you just weren’t getting me anything, so I was surprised when… uh…”—somehow this seemed to be headed in the wrong direction—“butyeahIlovemilkthanks.” He deftly opened the carton and took a quick swill to prove his point.

This only seemed to irritate Zexion further. Dammit, what was he doing wrong? Was Zexion really this moody with everyone?

…Or did he just hate Demyx?

The thought put in wrench in Demyx’s heart before he remembered that he didn’t care, because he totally didn’t like that jerkface Zexion anyway. So whatever.

Besides, surely Zexion must want his company at least a little, or he wouldn’t have invited Demyx over, right?

So how to win Zexion over?

“Should we break out the texts?” Yes, that was good. Try to sound responsible and academically-inclined. A bookworm like Zexion should eat that up.

Unfortunately, Zexion just looked confused. After a few moments of blank stares, Demyx was forced to elaborate. “You know, our bio books? We were going to study?”

“…Oh. Alright.”

No enthusiasm at all? What made this guy tick?

Zexion began clearing off space on his crowded desk for room to study, and in his sorting, he absent-mindedly set several books down next to Demyx on the bed. Demyx looked as his little carton of milk, and then the books lying directly beside him. Déjà vu, much? He very, very carefully scooted away from them, as though they were vipers poised to attack if he moved too quickly.

Oddly enough, it was his slow, deliberate movements that drew Zexion’s attention. The other man looked irritated as he snatched the books back up, but there was also a bit of confusion and—maybe, maybe—a little bit of hurt, as well.

Demyx quickly moved to explain, the steadily increasing awkwardness driving his anxiety through the roof. “I just didn’t want a repeat of last time.”

Now Zexion just looked confused. Did he not remember? Axel had said he probably wouldn’t, but Demyx had never really considered the idea that an event which had been so monumental to him had been so forgettable to Zexion. He should be glad Zexion had forgotten about it, not upset.

“You know, when I, uh… spilled milk on your textbook…”

To his surprise, Zexion turned bright red. “I… am sorry for the way I… acted that day. I was feeling a little stressed with… various things, and I may have… overreacted.”

An hour lecture for a few drops of milk that didn’t even leave a stain? Yeah, maybe a little bit of an overreaction.

Still—Zexion, blushing and apologizing?

Best. Day. Ever.

“It’s okay. I should have been more careful with your stuff. I’m sorry, too.”

Zexion smiled tentatively, and the sight of this previously-unheard of expression made Demyx glow in response and speak without thinking. “And I’m really glad you got me out of going back to that buffet place. Thanks for inviting me here.”

Post note to self: Don’t ruin a pleasant moment by bring up current grievances, even if they’re a common topic.

Zexion’s small smile immediately disappeared, to be replaced with the much-more-familiar scowl. He flopped down on the bed where his books had been just a moment ago, once again incensed. “The nerve of those people! Where do they get off, charging twice the amount—”

Demyx was starting to think this was more about the price and less about the abandonment.

“—Just because we’re not part of a relationship—”

With any luck, this one wouldn’t take a full hour.

“—This company is just another way to commercialize romance, like some sort of year-round Valentine’s Day—”

“Oh, that sounds like fun!” interrupted Demyx brightly, having already lost track of the rant.

Zexion’s eye twitched and his jaw worked. It would seem that the idea of a year-round Valentine’s Day had been meant to repel. Oops.

“Well, it does,” he muttered, flushing.

Silence returned, and while it wasn’t as awkward as it had been before, it was still a far cry from the sweet moment when Zexion had given that shy smile. Why oh why had Demyx not just sat there and focused on immortalizing the moment?

“If it’s paying the extra money the bothers you, why don’t you just get a girlfriend?” asked Demyx woodenly, trying to remind himself that he really didn’t care. At all. No jealousy here.

Fortunately, the very idea seemed to infuriate Zexion. Demyx never thought he’d be happy to make Zexion mad at him, but…

“Maybe there’s no one I’m interested in engaging in a romantic relationship. Maybe I don’t want to emulate those idiots Axel and Larxene, who decided to date someone they can barely tolerate just because they felt embarrassed at not yet having a significant other. Maybe I think that a relationship should be based on more than mutual mortification. Maybe this isn’t about me not having a significant other; maybe it’s about the fact that I shouldn’t need a significant other just to hang out with my friends.”

Or maybe a common grievance is enough to bond over.

“’s not like we’d be able to hang out with them anyway, unfair prices and girlfriend requirements aside. I mean, they don’t notice anything but their girlfriends, and our girl friends—I mean, our friends who are girls—they don’t notice anything but their boyfriends, so what does it matter where we go or what we pay or who we bring? In the end, we’ll either be stuck with just ourselves, or stuck with whatever girl we bring, and we’ll still be cut off from our friends just the same.”

Zexion gave him an empathetic look, but said, “It’s not that bad, once you get used to the sickly-sweet nothings that continuously pass over your head.” At this, he smirked, setting off a series of fireworks somewhere in the region of Demyx’s stomach. “At least we can still converse with our friends, as long as we use short, simple sentences and elaborate hand gestures.”

Demyx snorted, finally beginning to relax. “Speak for yourself. I tried to ask Rox to pass me the salt the other day, and you would have thought I’d been speaking Greek or something. He just stared at me until I reached over him and grabbed it myself. It’s been driving Axel up the wall.”

“Indeed. Regardless, I’m used to my friends being morons—they’ve been that way for as long as I can remember. What I’m not used to, what I’m not willing to put up with, is the indignity and injustice of being required to pay double the standard price for no good reason.”

“Well, technically we were paying the standard price, and they were actually paying the special dea—butyeahtotallyunfairsorry.”

Zexion harrumphed. He shifted position on the bed, causing their legs and elbows to knock together and leaving tingly spots all down Demyx’s side that had nothing to do with pain.

He peered at Zexion out of the corner of his eye, feeling a blush starting to rise as he began to realize just how closely they were sitting. He’d been talking, right? What about? Friends, couples, discounts, couple discounts…

“And, uh… It sucks because… I mean, how would they know who’s really dating and who’s not? Two people go in, how should the dudes at the restaurant know if they’re really together? So I bet lots of people cheat to get the reduced price…”

Zexion’s eyes flickered toward him and then away. He seemed to have gone very still, suddenly. The clouds outside shifted, causing light to come streaming into the room, where it all seemed to gather in Zexion’s hair like a halo.

Demyx couldn’t look away.

“It’s too bad… it’s too bad we’re not a couple. That’d sort of fix all our problems…”

Zexion was staring back at him openly now, but Demyx was too caught up in the perfection of the image to pay attention to the words coming out of his own mouth.

Zexion’s lips parted, but it took an eternity for Demyx to realize that their movements were forming words, and then another eternity for his brain to process the sounds entering in through his ears.

“So why don’t we pretend to be one?”

“…What?”

Zexion’s chin went up, and his visible eye turned defiant. “Why don’t we pretend to be a couple?”







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