A/N: Ugh. Once again, I feel sluggish in updating. But part of that wasn't my fault. -glares at this site's staff- For some reason, it wouldn't let me load anything into my Documents here for awhile.

But I'm back now--like it or not!

I didn't go as much in-depth with the festival as I had planned, but at least this chapter is longer than my other two. Heh... I get sidetracked easily, you know. :3

Anyways, I really hope all of you are enjoying this. I'm still getting a few ideas from the manga Ultra Cute. Like the whole "Project Destiny" thing which you'll have to read to find out about.

xD Demy was put into this again. He's such a luffable idiot, so I enjoy having him in here now.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything truly Kingdom Hearts related. Nor do I own any part of Ultra Cute--the manga which inspired me since it has a pairing in it so like Larxene and Axel.

Seventh period. Last period of the day. Just five more minutes left and it would be time to go. But Arlene wasn't sure she could make it, all the same.

It was art class. She hated art. Or rather, she didn't hate it… but hated the fact that it was her only other class with Ale, aside from history. So determined was she to keep her distance from him, that she'd been inching her chair in the opposite direction from him ever since class had started.

Finally, someone noticed her chair-scooting antics. "Uh… Arlene? You're about five tables over from where you should be."

Arlene glanced up, scowling. Ramiual—he got on her last nerves. Almost more so than Demy. His clothing usually consisted of blues and greens, but for some reason, she could always picture pink being his color, though he never wore it. That was one reason she disliked him—she HATED pink.

"Whatever," she snapped back. "I'm staying here." Her decision was apparent, and Ramiual knew better than to pester her about it again. Everyone knew it wasn't wise to get Arlene mad.

The boy next to him didn't follow Ramiual's caution. "As if." Braig crossed his arms gazing at Arlene. "Just why do you want to stay over here anyways?"

Arlene said nothing, but instead went back to scribbling on her drawing for class. Not that she really enjoyed drawing; she just wanted to pass.

"Afraid you'll get another water balloon dropped on you if you sit too near?"

Crap. She knew that voice. Don't look at him, don't look at him, don't look at him. She repeated the thought to herself over and over again.

Ale leaned over her shoulder. The smirk he bore on his face was quickly becoming his trademark. "I wouldn't have too much worry of that happening again," he told her. He leaned in to talk with her some more, knowing quite well that he was annoying her, but the bell rang.

Arlene gratefully sprang up from her chair. This time, she packed her rucksack much more rapidly than she had the previous day. No Demy, no Ale, no ANYONE was going to have a chance to intercept her before she got home.

She was just about to round the corner when—WHAM! She ran straight into Braig, nearly falling backwards with the force. "Ugh… Braig, do you stuff your shirt with bricks or something?" She was annoyed by now. Turning backwards, she paled as she saw Demy approaching her. She was not going to let him pester her about that dumb festival again.

Braig was laughing by this time. 'Course, if Demy had been wanting to pester him about something, well… he knew he'd probably be in just as much of a hurry as Arlene to get out of there.

"Move, Braig!" It wasn't a question. It was a do-it-now-or-I'll-murder-you kind of command. Without even waiting for the "As if" comment that she knew was coming, she shoved him aside and went downstairs.

One way or another, she finally managed to reach home without any more interruptions. The minutes ticked by slowly. There was no way that she could possibly go to the festival. To heck with the fact she'd told Demy she would. What did Demy matter anyways?

The only thing that bothered her was the slip of paper he'd handed her. All it had printed on it was a simple number. Or really a Roman numeral. Either way, what was so important about it?

"…" Fine. She'd go to that dumb festival. Had to be better than sitting around and telling herself how she would not be going.

---

Ale was alone in the house. Again. He almost always was—not like he cared. And just to be careful, he'd bathed the minute he'd gotten home. He'd done so rather quickly. There was no way he was going to crack his head open again and be caught in the doorway with nothing more than a towel.

He fingered the slip of paper again and again. Demy had said he'd need it later in the festival, hadn't he?

Ale looked out the window, surprised to see the sun lowering in the sky a bit. It was about time for him to get going then. He slipped the paper into his pocket and headed out through the front door.

When he finally reached the school, he raised his eyebrows. There, not too far away from him, was Arlene. He couldn't help but snort when he realized she was… chasing Demy. He managed to catch a few words of what she was saying.

"DEMY, YOU WORTHLESS IDIOT! YOU INVITED ME BECAUSE YOU WANTED ME TO COME TO A STUPID CONCERT OF YOURS!"

Ale crossed his arms, walking up to the two. Arlene narrowed her eyes upon seeing him and she shot a glare back at Demy. "Oh, you are beyond dead now. You're telling me you invited him?" In that instant, the red-head was reminded of a vicious dog. Arlene sure seemed ready enough to start jumping down Demy's throat.

Ale didn't look too worried about Arlene's complete lack of enthusiasm to see him. Instead, he ruffled a hand through his crimson hair. "Demy, who on Earth would actually stop to hear you perform at a festival?"

Demy let out a whine. "Lots of people!" he pouted. It was a fact that he got indignant when people criticized his music. "See? Look over there!" The brunette pointed a finger to a small crowd of people waiting around a stage. They didn't look particularly excited, but they didn't seem to hate the idea of the concert either.

Ale smirked. Okay, so Demy was a good musician. Annoying as heck, but a good musician nonetheless.

During Ale and Demy's conversation, Arlene had tried to slip away unnoticed, but Ale grabbed her by the wrist. A smile slowly made its way up his flawless face. "You and I are both here… why not stick around long enough to have a good time?" The question was phrased in a near-whisper as he pulled her in closer.

She struggled to escape from his grip, but her efforts remained fruitless. She turned to face him, staring at him. Electric blue locked with bright turquoise as they stood there for a moment in silence.

"Because I could never have a good time with you." She spat her answer at him as though he were some disgusting kind of thing.

To her disappointment, her comment did not wipe the infuriating smirk off his face. In fact, the smirk clung to his face even tighter. It clung just like a bug sticks to the windshield after going SPLAT! "Really? Then why don't you just stay for the festival… with me. And if you don't have a good time, I won't bug you. Ever again."

Arlene's eyes practically lit up with the proposition. What could one night hurt if in exchange she was going to get a lifetime free from her biggest pain in the butt? "You've got yourself a deal," she told him, her glowering expression replaced by a sneer of confidence.

Ale snickered before turning back to Demy. "For this festival supposedly being so fun, I don't really see much else besides your concert here," he remarked.

The brunette shrugged. "That's because this isn't the full festival. You'll need to keep walking a little more to get where the other stuff is." He gave the two an ecstatic look of triumph before walking off to the stage. The only thing that interested Demy more than humorous situations was his music.

Ale and Arlene did keep walking, neither one striking up much conversation to the other. When they reached the rest of the festival, both of them stopped dead in their tracks. There were all sorts of rides and, as Demy had promised, foods. Events were going on everywhere; it seemed as though the fair had come to town again.

"So this is where the money for school fieldtrips really goes…" The red-head shook his head slightly, before dragging the scowling blonde beside him onwards.

---

Arlene was grinning. The grin was true—it was of the ear-to-ear sort. She was completely and utterly overjoyed.

Why the dramatic change in behavior? Because the festival was drawing to an end and all she would have to do was look at Ale and tell him that she'd had a horrible time. And then he'd never pester her again.

A little nagging voice in her head spoke up, much to her displeasure. Did you really have such an awful time? it questioned. The voice had reason to question so. They'd gone on nearly every ride thatwas availableand Ale had bought her dinner there—he'd even shown his miraculous precision at the bottle toss game and won her a stuffed plushie of a Pikachu. Though when he'd said the Pikachu resembled her, she'd thrown it onto the ground, stomped on it multiple times, and kicked it to who knows where.

If she'd done all this with someone else—even Demy—she'd have had to admit that it had been a pretty good night. But her stubbornness came through. Yes. Of course it was an appalling time, she snapped back at the voice.

Finally, most everyone else was starting to leave. She and Ale walked to the borderline of where the stands stopped. The turquoise-eyed boy turned to face her. "Well?" No elaborate questioning, no probing for the answer he wanted. Just a simple 'yes' or 'no' kind of question. That surprised Arlene.

"No," she told him, her eyebrows arched in positive delight.

Ale simply shrugged. "Okay. You win."

That surprised Arlene even more. Why in the world had he tried his hardest to wear on her nerves if he didn't seem too upset now that he'd lost the privilege to do so?

"… Bye," she told him simply, trying her best to keep her snarl plastered on her face.

Both of them turned in opposite directions and began to walk away from the festival. She was still furiously going over his reactions, trying to find any sense in them whatsoever. He was making it seem as though she had proposed the idea and that he'd been hoping all along that she wouldn't have a good time.

But if that was the case, why had he tried so hard to make her happy anyways?

Arlene was still in deep thought when a voice coming from speakers placed throughout the festival interrupted her.

"Hey all you folks out there! Don't think that the festival's over just yet, because there's one more event we have planned for you!" The voice paused for effect before being certain that they'd gotten most people's attention. "It's called 'Project Destiny'! Most of you should have received a slip of paper with a Roman numeral on it. Well, just look for a sign with the numeral identical to yours. Someone else should have a slip of paper matching to yours. If they show up, they might just be your soul mate—but only destiny will decide if they show up or not!" With that the announcement was promptly over, leaving people toclaw and scrambleto find their matching numeral.

Arlene had a sinking feeling. So that was why Demy had given her the slip of paper. Suddenly, her face grew hot. If that little twerp had kept the other piece of paper for himself—GAH! She promptly began searching for a sign that matched her slip of paper, eager to hit Demy upside the head so hard, he was knocked to Timbuktu.

Much to her surprise, he wasn't at the spot where her sign was set up, which happened to be a small grove of trees off to the side from where the brunette's concert was set up. She crossed her arms, starting to grow a bit chilly as she waited for him to show up so she could blow up at him.

"Number XIII?"

Her head whipped around to where she'd heard the voice. She knew that voice… "Yes," she responded finally.

The familiar red-haired boy with the eyes resembling turquoise orbs stepped out from the shadows of some of the other trees. "Well, what do you know?" he mused.

The blonde simply stared at him, unsure of whether to growl for him to get lost or just remain silent until he simply went away.

"Nice to meet you… soul mate." Without warning, he took a step closer to her—and suddenly they were embracing again, much as they had during history.

And once again, the cynical, sarcastic girl found that she couldn't bring herself to pull away.

Suddenly, it seemed Demy had decided to put on an encore performance for that particular moment. Not a big surprise that the little twerp had been spying on them, having been aware of Project Destiny the entire time.The music was perfectly audible to the two of them.

"This is easy as lovers go, so don't complicate it by hesitating..."

The kiss lasted even longer than their first one. When he finally pulled his lips away from hers, she stared up at him with a look of complete disbelief. Though Arlene was willing herself with all her might to loathe him for daring to do such a thing, she was finding that it was increasingly difficult to do so.

Ale looked her right in the eye, the corners of his mouth twitching until he was smiling again. "How about now?"

Arlene looked away from him. Instead she looked at the ground, knowing she was the one who had lost instead. The festival hadn't actually been over back when she'd given her answer—this was technically the end of it.

She could always say 'No' again. His offer was still the same.

But just as the blonde had been unable to pull away from his kiss, she couldn't bring her lips to form the word.

"…Yes." That was her answer. The moment the word had left her lips, she knew that he'd be pestering her even more so now, rather than leave her alone for all eternity.

But that little nagging voice in the back of her head was convinced that that wasn't such a bad thing.

A/N: Eh. Got bored, so I decided to put in a little line from the chorus of "As Lovers Go". x3 Fit well enough though.

Heh heh. More Larxel moments. -looks proud-

:D About that Pikachu plushie... well, you've gotta admit it looks like her. Ahahaha. Pika Lar Lar... -snorts- So priceless.

Hopefully you'll notice that I added two more Organization members in for a little bit. Braig was Xigbar. Yes I do know how old Xigbar is in Kingdom Hearts II, but shush--I can pretend he got held back quite a few years, so is in the same classes that the rest of them are. Ramiual was Marluxia. xD Wasn't that hard to guess that when you read about the pink though, I'm sure.

But don't make fun of Marluxia too much. Just because it's hard to tell if he's a boy or a girl doesn't mean he's gay. Peh. I really can't picture him paired with anyone, be it girl or guy. So he's pretty much all alone. O-o Unless he secretly molests his flowers. Bleh. I have no idea how that would be possible, but oh well.

Anyways, enough with my sick talk. xD Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I've got a few more ideas planned for upcoming chapters, but if you have any ideas of your own, just put it in your review!

Speaking of reviews, I'd like five again this time. :3 This method seems to be working well--once again, I got nearly double the amount of reviews I asked for. So work with me here.Yeah... spare thirty seconds of your time for the little white box that's so easy to click.

Read, review, be happy--it just might shut me up.