AN: Last rewritten chapter, woot! Enjoy and tell me what you think.


Chapter Five
the Candyman Smells Like Incense and Peppermints

"Uuuuugrrghhhehegg, damnit. Stupid alarm clock…" More incoherent grumbles and curses rose from under the tangled blue blanket, a hand reaching out and slapping the alarm repeatedly until the thing finally stopped its incessant beeping. Pushing back the covers, Demyx swung his legs over the side of the bed, slipping his bare feet into fuzzy rainbow slippers, rubbing his eyes. He walked to the bathroom, blushing when he remembered the dream he had had last night, where a certain blue-haired boy had made quite an entrance, but he pushed such thoughts out of his head as he slipped off his clothes and stepped into the shower. He blow dried his hair and shaped it into its usual Mohawk-y self, and shuffled back to his room in a towel to get dressed. When he had put on a pair of jeans and t-shirt, he proceeded downstairs, where his mom was making coffee.

"Good morning, honey. How'd you sleep? You sounded like you where flipping around all night." The blonde blushed furiously, thankful his mom was facing the other way, and muttered something about itchy crumbs left in his bed from Axel the day before. Glancing at the clock, he decided to go wait outside for Axel to show up, that way he wouldn't have to try to sidestep any more questions from his mom.

Axel's beat up car pulled up along the sidewalk and the blonde slid in. The redhead had dark circles under his eyes, and looked like he hadn't slept well either. Both were quiet as they drove towards the school, which was extremely unusual, especially for the blonde.

"So, what's wrong with you?" Axel's question was punctuated with an enormous yawn.

"Just didn't sleep last night." Axel could tell the other was being evasive, and stared at him, questioningly.

"It's nothing, Ax. Just… boy trouble."

"And you didn't tell me?! Is he cute? What's his name? Are you guys dating?" Demyx's head hit the window of the car door with a loud crack as Axel didn't slow down to take a turn.

Demyx gripped his throbbing head in both hands and answered, "because you freak out and I only met him yesterday, I think he's cute, Zexion, and definitely not. Yet, anyway." Axel's apologetic look was stopped in its tracks, and an incredulous, and angry, one took its place.

"Zexion. You mean that emo kid with the blue hair? Oh my fucking God no, Dem. He's a fucking emo! And… and you can't. He is bad news. I refuse to let you date him."

"He's fine, mom, and there's nothing wrong with him. I'm sure he's really nice anyway. What's your problem with emos all of the sudden now anyway? Jeez, Ax, being a little hypocritical?"

"I don't dress emo, I dress…eclectic, thank you."

"So then what's your problem with emos?"

"I don't have a problem with them; I have a problem with them dating you! Especially him. I swear, Dem, if you start wearing emo clothes and guyliner I will hunt this kid down and ….and eat off his legs!"

Demyx started laughing hysterically at that, and couldn't talk for another two minutes. After he had got his breathing back to normal, he said, "Eat off his legs? What the hell is that Axel? You're such a queer."

Axel looked comically proud when he answered, "Yes I am!"

"I wasn't talking about that kind of queer, but yes, yes you are."

"Well, at any rate, we'll talk about this later, Dem. Just don't do anything stupid. He's not one to mess around with."

They lapsed back into silence as the school got closer.



"He's coming over after school today, so I won't need a ride home. I think we're walking."

"What?!"The redhead shrieked as he failed to stop at yet another stop sign, "No! Since when do you just bring boys home? What will your mother think?"

"He's coming over to do math, dad, so mom won't mind, and she won't fuss more than she usually does. We're just doing homework Ax, so calm down. Quit acting like my parents or I'll eat your legs."

And he seemed to, until Axel pulled into his parking space, looking incredibly nervous.

"What's wrong with you?" Demyx knew something was wrong, but Axel was prone to overreacting, so it was probably something little.

"Um, I uh, kissed Roxas." Okay, maybe not so little. Although Axel had been known to jump anything he thought was hot or cute in the past, but the blonde expected him to move at least a little slower with this Roxas kid after Axel explained the situation with Roxas to him over the phone.

"Good God and you're yelling at me for moving fast. How did he react?"

"He just blushed, which was fucking cute as hell, and wouldn't talk to me until I got him home, and then he said he'd wait for me in the morning." The redhead turned the car off, ignoring the spluttering of the engine, before looking at Demyx with another uncharacteristically nervous look on his face.

"So go! He's probably waiting!"

"Walk in with me?" Axel looked scared now.

"Yeah, okay." They got out of the car and Axel put on his best cool confident look and swaggered towards the building, just in case Roxas was watching from the doors or anything. There has to be something about this kid, Axel never acts like this. He's really nervous about Roxas's reaction, Demyx thought to himself.

Demyx left the redhead waiting at the front entrance and walked to his locker. When he got there he saw blonde hair poking out from the locker next to his.

"Roxas? Dude, Axel is waiting for you at the entrance." The shorter blonde looked up, and the taller could see the dark circles ringing his eyes. No one gets any sleep around here, he thought to himself.

"Is he?" Roxas looked incredibly scared.

"Yeah, and he looks just as nervous as you, so calm down. Better go before he goes to his locker. Go get him, lovebird, go!" Demyx grinned, shooing him off, and Roxas sped off down the hallway, yanking his bag over his shoulder. Demyx closed his locker door, subdued and nervous himself at the prospect of having to face Zexion during math, and spend the entire day with him.

oOoOoOoOo

The day passed, normal in every way except for the leaden rock that apparently planted itself in Demyx's stomach. He walked into math, trying to look cool, but not entirely sure he was succeeding, and sat down in his desk. The one next to his was empty, and butterflies seemed to be fluttering around with the rock. He fiddled with his bag and papers, trying not to stare at the door Zexion would be walking through, trying to look nonchalant. Thirty seconds to the bell, and he still wasn't sitting in his seat. Oh no, thought Demyx, looking very upset. What if he's not here today? What if he skipped so he wouldn't have to talk to me or come over? I wonder if I scared him off. Oh God, I messed up again. The bell rang and still no Zexion.

The blonde went through the rest of the day, lost in thought, which was extremely unusual for him. Usually the talkative, smiling one, he wouldn't even answer Axel's questions. He didn't even realize how nervous and unsmiling Axel was himself. And he forgot to ask Axel if he could have a ride home, so when the last bell rang, he began walking home by himself. Seeing a couple of Zexion's friends smoking on the corner, he figured he'd ask them if they knew where the blue haired boy was, so he walked up to the black and makeup clad teens.



"Hey um, you guys are friends with Zexion, right?" A kid with several piercings and tight black and red clothes answered.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." The rest of the group laughed like it was some inside joke.

"Well, do you know where he was today?"

"Hell no, he always skips. I don't keep tabs on that fucking candyman."

"Oh, never mind then." The blonde walked away, confused. What's a candyman? I'll ask Axel later.

He kept walking with his hands in his pockets, looking at the cracked sidewalk below him and not paying any attention to the cars speeding by next to him. He didn't even hear the footsteps next to him until he realized there was a shadow next to his. He stopped abruptly, and whoever was following ran right into him with a loud, "Oof!" and the scent of incense and something minty assailed his senses.

"Zexion?!"

"We're supposed to go to your house, right?" He stood there expressionless, like nothing was out of the ordinary, in tight black skinny jeans, an equally tight black shirt with colorful graffiti down the side, and a black and white striped jacket. His hair was perfect, as usual, not a blue strand out of place.

"W-where were you today? You weren't in math." It was quite a feat that the blonde could even get that much of an intelligent sentence out of his open mouth without breaking his wide eyed stare.

"I know." Demyx wasn't quite lost enough to catch that the smaller boy didn't answer his question. He started walking before the blonde could ask it again though, so he just followed, and it took Demyx a while to realize that Zexion apparently knew the way to his house.

"Zexion?" Demyx took the answering silence as a cue to ask his question. "How do you know the way to my house?" Silence. "Have you been to my house before?" More silence. "Are you going to answer any of my questions?"

"No." Demyx thought that might have been a joke, but with Zexion, you just couldn't tell, but Demyx laughed anyways.

When they walked in the door, the blonde's mother was taking a nap, so they just grabbed some bottles of tea and sat at the kitchen table to do math. It was awkward at first, and even Demyx was having a hard time making conversation. Zexion was even more difficult than a distracted Axel; he had no facial expressions whatsoever. Even his dark cerulean eyes seemed dead. Once in a while the blonde would catch the ghost of a smile on his face, or a twinkle in his eye, but it was always gone before he could really see it. Demyx attempted to be his usual happy self, but he couldn't help but wonder, what the hell happened to him that made him like this?

They were in the middle of factoring a problem that was stumping both of them when Mrs. Keyes came yawning into the kitchen, completely unsurprised that her son had brought someone home, but glad that it was someone other than Axel. Despite her son's friendly nature, she had noticed that he hardly ever brought friends over unless he was friends with them for quite a while. There had been maybe four kids in the past ten years, not counting Axel, and it made her happy that he had brought two new people over in the past two days. The blonde wasn't unpopular; he got invited to all the parties and everything, and was in a lot of clubs after school. He just 



had a bit of a hard time making really good friends, and Demyx, although he was unconscious of it, only brought people he really liked over.

She immediately started baking, even though Zexion declined cookies, saying he had to go soon. Before the first batch had even finished he got up to leave, and Demyx walked him to the door.

"So, are you coming again tomorrow?" Demyx asked hopefully.

"Yes." The blue haired boy looked at Demyx, and for the first time the blonde saw real emotion in his eyes, though only for a second. He looked confused and scared and unsure, and something else that brought a blush to Demyx's 

cheeks and made that rock that had finally gone away reappear. But it was only there for a second, and he was out the door, and Demyx closed it softly behind him.

"Honey, did your friend leave?"

"Yeah, he left."

oOoOoOoOo

Later that night Demyx turned on his laptop, hoping Axel was on so he could talk to him. Before he even got a chance to check, a window popped up on his screen with a well known incredibly annoying ding, and it was Axel.

AkuVIII: the emo didn't jump you or anything, right?
DemIX: no he didn't, calm down
AkuVIII: what'd you guts do?
AkuVIII: guys hahaha
DemIX: nothing, just math
AkuVIII: suuuuure
DemIX: no really!
AkuVIII: whatever.
DemIX: hey ax?
AkuVIII: yeah
DemIX: what's a candyman?
AkuVIII: who've you been talking to?
DemIX: no one, it's just a question
AkuVIII: it's a dealer, someone who sells drugs.
DemIX: I gotta go, ill talk to you later.
DemIX signed off at 11:05:25 PM.
DemIX is offline and will receive your IMs when signing back in.

"Shit," Demyx whispered to himself as he closed the laptop.


AN: So this is the last rewritten chapter. Not much to say about it, I didn't add much at all to this one and it's pretty short. I hope you think it was worth it to rewrite them, and I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as possible.

Review and let me know what you think. :)
-demyxxxkun