Disclaimer: Square-Enix owns Kingdom Hearts. Not me. Not Circle-Enix. Not Betty Crocker. You get the point.

A/N: This is one of my favorite chapters, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. =D

Sorry it took me a little while to update. I was being lazy....

.oOo. Chapter Four ~ Meatball Surprise .oOo.

Just as Sora had predicted, Italia was huge and vastly romantic. Riku had conned him into going to the worst place imaginable considering he was trying to make Kairi hate him, not fall for him! The music was slow and ballad-like. There were flowers and landscape pictures on the walls. The lights were dimmed, giving the place an even more romantic mood. There were couples everywhere. Sora knew this must be one of the best places to impress a girl…and it pissed him off. Riku had tricked him into this mess, and he was so going to get a mouthful about it later.

Sora not only felt angry; he was also very embarrassed. He knew he looked out-of-place. He hadn't dressed up for the occasion at all (wore a regular shirt and jeans, didn't do anything special with his hair), while everyone else there seemed like they'd spent some considerable time to look their best. He stuck out like an awkward sore thumb.

He found Kairi sitting at a table already, reading the menu. She looked cuter than she had on the day she was introduced on the show, making Sora feel even more awkward. She was wearing a white dress with a lilac-colored pattern going down the side. She had put her hair up in a loose bun. She sure fit in with everyone else. Well, she was in for a rude awakening when she'd see Sora.

"Hi," he said offhandedly, plopping down in the chair across from Kairi.

Kairi tore her eyes away from the menu and looked at Sora a while before responding. "Hi," she said with a kind smile.

"Sorry I'm a little late," Sora said, not sounding sorry at all. And he wasn't. He had intentionally showed up late just to give Kairi another reason to kick him off the show.

"Oh, it's okay." Kairi glanced back down at her menu.

There was a long silence. Sora looked at his menu, too, to distract himself from the fact that he was eating at a fancy restaurant with a girl. Even if it was just a setup and he had no feelings towards her, it was still immensely uncomfortable.

A minute passed in silence. Then the waiter showed up, a tall, black-haired man with a thick accent. "Are you ready to order?" he asked, pulling out a notepad and a pen.

"Um, I am. Are you ready, Sora?"

"Eh…sure." Truthfully, he hadn't even read a thing on the menu. How could he concentrate at all given the circumstances he was in? He supposed he'd just order spaghetti. All Italian restaurants had that, right? "I'll take some spaghetti," Sora said, intentionally disallowing Kairi to order first. He also had to break the "ladies first" rule if he was going to tick her off enough to kick him off Get a Girlfriend.

"And to drink?"

"Um…water." Honestly, he couldn't care less what they gave him. Whatever it was, how did they expect him to eat it at a time like this? He was so nervous about where he was and what he was doing that he had no appetite whatsoever.

"And for the lady?"

"Ah, I'll take an order of garlic pizza. And a lemonade."

The waiter bowed his head and hurriedly walked away to fulfill more orders.

"Garlic pizza?" Sora said, trying not to laugh. "I thought you'd order calamari or something like that."

Kairi laughed nervously. "I'm not into Italian food much. But I love pizza. Everyone loves that."

There was another long, awkward silence. Kairi looked around the place, while Sora pretended to take interest in their dessert menu. So she didn't like Italian? Another score! Now she'd feel even more uncomfortable and kick him off for sure. She was just being polite to him, but he was almost certain that she disliked him. After all, he'd done everything in his power to make himself the worst possible boyfriend for her. If she didn't hate him by now, she had to be seriously daft.

The food came. Sora's plate of spaghetti was huge, and it was topped with three meatballs twice the size of his mouth. Maybe he should have specified that he'd wanted a small plate? This was going to be expensive… Kairi's pizza looked (and smelled) delicious. Sora was envious of her, regretting his order. He wished now that he would have read the menu a little bit.

"Mmm, this looks good," Kairi said. I know, dang it, Sora thought. "Your spaghetti looks pretty good, too."

"Yeah," Sora mumbled, trying not to drool as he eyed her meal.

She proceeded to eat a piece of the small pizza. Sora just looked as his plate of food. He really was too tense to eat. How could anyone expect him to eat in a fancy, romantic place like this? It was a total appetite wrecker.

Kairi must have noticed that he hadn't touched his food yet, because she asked, "Aren't you hungry?"

Sora picked up his fork to pretend he had been eating. He knew he wasn't fooling her, though. "Oh, uh, yeah. I'm just…taking in my surroundings a little bit first." Wow, that was lame. Even if he had wanted to, there was no way in hell he could impress her.

"Oh. Okay. Well, you should eat it before it gets cold," Kairi said, taking another bite of her pizza. "Anyway, um…no, nevermind."

Sora's curiosity came out. "No, what did you want to say?"

"Well…uh, I hope it's not rude for me to ask this, but why did you decide to go on this reality show anyway? I'm just wondering."

Sora wondered, should he blatantly tell her the truth or cover it up with a lie? Before he thought it through completely, he heard himself utter, "Riku made me do it. I don't even want a girlfriend."

OH, CRAP. Had he really said that?! Kairi was probably going to kill him now or something! Well, maybe it wasn't so bad. Not that the truth was out, maybe she'd do him a favor and eliminate him off the show quickly...? Or maybe she was a sadist, and she'd prolong his suffering. Even worse, she might start to cry. Or she'd be raving mad. Sora mentally slapped himself for being so blunt, albeit unintentionally.

Kairi gaped at him in disbelief. "Really?" A few seconds later, she burst out in a fit of laughter.

Sora stared. This was not the reaction he was expecting.

"Are you—serious?" she said between giggles. "That's—ah, ha!—I never expected anyone to be so honest…hahaha!"

"You're not…mad?" Sora was puzzled immensely. Girls confounded him, especially this one.

"Mad? No, that's hilarious," Kairi said, calming down. "And it explains your lack of enthusiasm—your outfit and stuff"--Sora blushed with embarrassment. He'd been that obvious?--"So then, how did you and Riku get onto the show anyway?"

So Sora told her the whole story—how they'd tried to win the blitzball tickets, how they'd won first prize instead, how Riku had betrayed him and forced him onto the show, everything. Kairi got a kick out of it, occasionally laughing.

"That is…so funny," she said. "I never expected…that is…oh, that's so funny, Sora. I can't believe that happened to you."

"Me, neither," Sora said, chuckling. He could scarcely believe he was having a decent conversation with a creature that had no Y chromosomes.

His stomach growled quietly. Now that most of the tension was gone, it seemed like his appetite was coming back a little bit. He tried to stick his fork into the giant meatball, but it proved difficult. He was used to eating with chopsticks, so this was a complicated task. He missed the meatball and tried again. This time he managed to stab it properly, but now he couldn't pull it off of his fork.

"Do you need help?" Kairi asked.

"No," Sora said stubbornly. "I can—oops."

The meatball flung off of his fork and soared through the air. Sora and Kairi both watched as it landed—plop!—right on a man's head. Kairi gasped and Sora's face turned white. He tried to turn around before the man figured out it was his fault, but it was too late. The man stood up and stared at him angrily, wiping the meatball off of his shiny, bald head and wiping his sauce-covered hands.

I am so dead, Sora thought, cursing his avid clumsiness. The man was huge. He had a big build and had to be at least six feet tall. And unfortunately, he didn't look happy. Obviously, he hadn't found the meatball situation funny in the least. He walked toward their table, his face red and his knuckles clenched. A small, frail woman, apparently his date, followed behind him, a worried expression on her face.

"Now, honey," she said calmly, "they're just children. I doubt they meant to—"

"Silence, woman. It's time to teach them a lesson," the man said gruffly.

A nervous laugh escaped Sora's throat. The situation wasn't funny at all, though. He was going to die, here and now, in a stupid fancy restaurant with a stupid girl! Why him??

"Did you do this?" the man demanded, pointing at his oversized head, which was still covered in a layer of meatball sauce. Well, at least it smelled nice.

"Um…yes?" Sora said quietly. "B-but it was an acciden—"

"You little punk! You think you're funny?! I am going to—"

"Please, sir," Kairi reasoned, "it was an accident. If you like, we'll clean up the mess for you in order to apologize." Thank you for defending me, Kairi, Sora thought. He could barely find his own voice. He normally wasn't such a wimp, but the situation had thoroughly caught him off guard.

The man cursed loudly. By now, plenty of eyes in the restaurant were on their table. Sora sighed. Only someone like him could bring chaos to a fancy-schmansy restaurant like this.

"Honey, please," the woman pleaded. "Just let it go. They didn't mean to."

The man stared at Sora spitefully for a few more seconds before breaking the eye contact. Finally he growled, "Fine. But you youngsters really need to shape up. I can't believe how—" He mumbled inaudibly about the depleting morals of today's society.

Sora heaved a sigh of relief. But the relief was short-lived.

...for just as the large man turned to walk back to his table, Sora's clumsiness took another swing at him. The waiter came to their table to make sure everything was alright (they'd made quite a ruckus), but his entrance surprised the already-spooked brunette. Sora jumped, accidently sending his entire plate of food flying this time. And of course, it somehow missed hitting him completely. So where did it land? Right on the large man's back.

That did it. Sora knew he was a dead man walking.

The burly man turned around and lunged at him, taking a swing at his skull. Sora knew there was no reasoning with him now. He skirted the man's punch and ran to another table, clambering underneath it hastily. The protection didn't last long. The man ran after him and flung the table sideways, making Sora give out a yell. The couple that had been sitting at the table was now soaked in alcohol and pasta.

"Sorry," Sora called out to them as he ran to another table for defense. He was in such a hurry, though, that he ran into a chair and tripped over it, bringing down another plate of food—right in his own face this time. The man was quickly approaching him, about to knock the daylights out of him, when—

"FOOD FIGHT!" someone screeched above all the confusion. Seconds later, the pasta was flying. Italia was transformed into a mess of noodles, pork, olive oil, and other unidentifiable cuisine. Sora couldn't believe that one accidental meatball mess had spurred all this.

Seizing his chance to get away, he dodged flying food and ran back to his original table, where Kairi was partaking in the fight by flinging her pizza at an elderly couple nearby. She was laughing excitedly, apparently not caring that her dress was probably now ruined and her hair was now a sty. Sora was confused. Wasn't she supposed to throw a fit over that? Wasn't that what all girls did? He didn't have much time to wonder about Kairi's odd behavior, though; some waiters were heading their way, probably about to punish them severely for starting the chaos.

"C'mon," Sora ordered, grabbing Kairi's wrist. "We've overstayed our welcome. Let's get out of here."

Kairi, too, noticed the waiters and nodded. "Agreed."

And with that, they escaped the restaurant and didn't stop running until they were a safe distance from Italia and out of breath. (A/N: They didn't even pay for their meal. Shame on them! XD)

"That was so much fun!" Kairi wheezed.

"I didn't do it on purpose. I hate being such a klutz!" Sora admitted.

"I think it's cute," Kairi said with a giggle, pulling a strand of spaghetti from Sora's hair.

Huh? Cute? She thought that was cute? Kairi was one strange girl. She was even odder than the other girls he knew. Was she defective or something?

"Well, I think our date is over now," Sora said apologetically. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay." Kairi shrugged. "Maybe we'd better go now, though. We don't want those waiters to find us. We sure do stick out with how messy we are." As she spoke, she brushed a piece of half-eaten pepperoni off her shoulder.

"Yeah," Sora said with a nod.

"Well…" Kairi smiled and winked. "Goodbye then."

And with that, she walked away. Sora stood there a few more moments, trying to absorb everything that had happened. It had been one bizarre day, that was for sure. One spaghetti-filled, bizarre day.

So would Kairi kick him off the show now? He'd been even worse on the date than he'd expected. Strangely, though, she hadn't seemed to mind. In fact, she almost seemed as though she'd liked it.

One thing is for sure, Sora thought as he stood there covered in food and pop. That girl is really different.

A/N: Wow, this chapter's a little longer than the others. Actually, the chapters seem to get longer as I go. Haha. I hope that doesn't bother anyone.

Please let me know what you think! Reviews appreciated, even the bad ones!

Preview: "And the Loser Is..." is the name of chapter five. Who lost the first challenge? Who will have to say good-bye? With the way their date went, Sora may just be getting his wish...to be eliminated.