Another quick update, I must say. Dont worry, I wont keep you all waiting for too long. This is where things get REALLY interesting, so pay attention if you havent been! Ill update soon.

I do not own Kingdom Hearts, as you all know.

PLUM WINGS & A MIDNIGHT DIRGE - EMPLOYED

I didnt want to be where I was. In a counseling office with someone who doesnt know me and with someone who is a brother to me and with a third someone who wants me. It felt like a nightmare, only I couldnt wake up from it. It was only the third day of being at the stupid school...and I was already in a bad situation. And when Zexion left the room and left me with the counselor woman, things just got worse. The door clicked shut and the questions poured in.

"Demyx," My name, right off the bat. Not the nicest of greetings to give someone like me in a mood like this... "Tell me what happened." I sighed.

"I was in my room, and Xigbar was gone. Zexion was in his room down the way, so I was by myself for a while. Then when Xigbar came back in, he took one look at me, and came at me."

"What did he do, Demyx?"

"Nothing, really. He just..." I stopped, not really wanting to tell this person I didnt even know. I sighed again. "He gave me this wierd look...like he was lucky that we were alone. He came up onto my bed and backed me into a corner, and he kept on coming closer. I guess he was really wanted me or somethin'..." I was looking at the floor most of the time, but I looked up when she wrote something down.

"Did you want that?" She finally asked.

"No," I said quickly, she almost didnt have time to finish her question, that's how fast it was.

"I see. You can go. Thank you," I did as she said, and when I left I was told to sit down away from Xigbar, which I was more than thankful for. Zexion stopped me before he went in the room, though.

"Demyx," His voice was worried, I could tell, but I didnt say anything to him. I just sat down, and he went inside the room and shut the door behind him. I only looked at him once.

Waiting for something to happen felt like an eternity, partly because I knew Xigbar was only a little ways away from me, and it made me uneasy. I kinda spaced out the whole time, though. Either that or my brain ended up blacking out the waiting experience, because Zexion came out of the room in a minute or two and Xigbar went in past him. Zexion sat down next to me, and even though he didnt say anything out loud, the hug he gave me said everything that I needed to hear.

"Thank you, Zexion..." I whispered.

"Demyx, Zexion, come inside, please." I didn't hear her request so much as I heard Zexion rising from his chair, when he lent me a hand to get up. I took it mindlessly, following him into the room. We had to sit with me on one side of Zexy, and with Xigbar on the other, so there were no real chances of anything too bad. Again, I mostly stared at the floor.

"So, Ive questioned each of you, and Ive come to have my suspicions. But Im still going to have to talk this over with some others, so, until we have a final decision, Demyx is going to be staying in Zexion's dorm. This could take as long as a week to figure out...so, I recommend you go by the dorm and pack some clothes and things for yourself." She was talking to me, at the last part, and after that we were all taken back to the dorm I was supposed to be sharing with Xigbar. Zexion helped me pack some things I would need, and we were walking by ourselves to Zexion's dorm in a minute or two later. I didn't really feel like talking all that much, so the rest of the day was quiet, apart from a few sighs and things I made.

When it was time for bed, Zexion shut the lights off and I was content on the floor like I normally was. But I couldn't fall asleep like I normally could. I dont have any idea how late I was up, but it wasnt like I had classes the next morning. So I guess it doesnt really matter.

"Demyx," Zexion said my name like he knew I was awake. "I apoligize for having to put you through all of this. But it's to keep you safe. I will not allow you to go back to that room with him, do you understand?" I didnt have anything to say. Or, I didnt know what to say. I got on my knees and shuffled over to Zexy's bed, giving him a hug.

"Thank you," I held on to him for a long time, and I don't remember laying back on the floor to sleep.

It was a whole week before we were allowed to go back to our classes, and we had lots of homework to turn in to our teachers. They would come by to drop off assignments, but they never took the old ones away. Neither of us could find out why. I dunno about Zexion, but it didnt really bug me all that much afterwards. And of course, when we went back everyone was asking us where we were for such a long time. Even the people we didn't know were asking. I had someone with really short blonde hair complete with a beard and mustache come up to me and ask me where I was.

"Uh, 'ya know, family emergency..." That was my only excuse. The bearded man just raised an eyebrow and pulled out a deck of cards, looking at me one more time, and then walking away. He was kinda wierd. Later I found out his name was Luxord, and that he and Zexion had a class together. He was trying to find out what had gone on, I guess. Lots of people were. In the end, they all turned out to be in the same crowd, and over time, we all became decent friends. Oh, yeah, and I was moved from Xigbar's dorm and into Zexion's, so I didn't have to deal with him anymore.

Around halfway through the year, all kinds of interesting things started happening. Axel introduced us to his roomate after the long time. He was small and blonde, and he always had bedhead hair. He wasn't too bad in the looks department, either. His name was Roxas, and he and Axel were like two peas in a pod. You couldnt get those two away from each other. It was funny, it reminded me of Zexy and myself.

But besides that, I got myself a job in Twilight Town at the train station. I had to work almost every day after school was out until halfway through the nightshift, then I came back to the school to do my homework and then it was bedtime, so my day was always full of things to do. But I wasn't really complaining. After all, I had munny, awesome friends, and most of all, I had Zexion. Life couldnt have been better! That is, until I got my boss to give Zexion a job with me.

"How on earth did you manage to convince me to do this?" Zexion was the one who took records of everyone who got a train ticket, he kept the tabs on everything; when we clocked in and out, how many tickets had been sold that day and where they were going, what time the train for that ticket would leave, and he kept constant check to make sure people were doing their jobs right. I guess you could say he was the busiest of us all.

"Aw, don't complain," I said, handing someone their ticket. "Thank you, have a nice ride!" I turned back to Zexy. "At least you have a job, right? You're making munny!" I laughed, but he only smirked and continued doing whatever it was he was doing.

"Demyx," He said after a few minutes. "What time does that clock read?" He pointed to the clock that was hung on the wall in front of me, not looking up from his work.

"It's 5:32 on the twelve hour clock, and 17:32 on the twenty-four hour one." He sighed.

"It's nearly rush hour," He said with grief. It was the most tiring part of the day for the both of us, the only ticket-taker (me) and the only writer-down-er-er (Zexy). "I say we take a quik break. Put up the sign, would you?" I nodded, and reached under the desk in front of me to pull out a "Back in 5" sign and stuck it in front of the window. I ran after Zexion, who was already out of the room. We stood outside the station for a few minutes, watching the sunset the whole time.

"I don't think Ill ever get tired of watching this." I said, without really realizing it.

"You think so?"

"Mhm."

"I see."

"Hey, Zexion?"

"Hm?"

"Are you alright?" He turned to look at me, with that "what are you talking about" face.

"Of course. What makes you think otherwise?"

"Well," I shrugged. "I dunno. You just seemed to be acting kinda funny after the whole "Xigbar" thing."

"Oh? I havent noticed. I apologize, but Im fine." With that he rose and went back inside. Our five minutes must have been up, but when we went back, there was no one waiting for a ticket. It wasn't for another fifteen minutes or so until the regular around of people came through to get their tickets to return home.

"One adult for the train back to Sunset Hill, please."

"Sunset Hill? Alright, here you go, sir. Zexion, one adult, Sunset Hill at...uh..." I looked at the clock. "At 18:03! Hello, ma'am. For Sunset Hill? Here you are. Zexion, one more, the same! Hi, sir. Three for Uptown Sunset? Here you all are, enjoy the ride. Zexion, three adults for Uptown Sunset at 18:04!" The night continued the same as it did every other night, rushing from 18:00 to somewhere around 20:20. Then things settled down, and we got back to a comfortable pace.

When it was time to start getting ready for us to leave so the other nightshift workers could come in, Zexion always collected his papers five minutes before the due worker came to replace him. He would tell me to accept no further tickets until the other worker came to take records in his place, and then he disappeared into a small, closet-sized room that had a big file cabinet, and he put the papers where they needed to be.

"Hey, wait, Zexion!" The door closed behind him, cutting off my words. I couldnt find one of my papers for school, so I thought it might have gotten mixed up in Zexion's records of the night. I sighed, stretching. I walked over to the door and opened it.

"Demyx, I think that something of-" I ran so hard into Zexion that I tripped over his feet and we both fell into the closet, with me on top of him. There was no room for me to really move out of the way, being that the room was so small, but then again I didnt even know the position I was in until my head cleared, I had hit it on a stool on my way to the floor, and I guess it blacked me out for a second or two. But when I opened my eyes I was staring two inches from Zexion's face. His eyes were wide and mine probably were too, and when I felt my face get red and hot I scrammbled up off of him as quickly as I could, with him following my every move. Standing, he wiped himself of the dirt as if it never happened, and picked up the paper he held before we had fell.

"Demyx," He started again, me rubbing my head. "I think that something of your's got mixed in with my records. Please, keep your things away from the records. I dont like when things get mixed."

"Sorry..." He stared at me for a second or two more, but not in the eye. I don't think he was really looking at my face, because a second later I felt something sliding down my forehead, and when I touched it my finger came back with blood on it.

"Ah!" I looked around for something to wipe it off on, but there was nothing but paper, then Zexion held a box of tissues up to me, and I grabbed a few of the tissues and wiped it up as best as I could without a mirror, and like it was planned the other workers came in and told us to leave.

"One moment, if you'd be so kind," Zexion then took out a few tissues by himself and put them over where the wound was on my forehead. "Hold it there. When you need more, tell me and Ill have this box ready for you. Now, let's get walking. We can get you a bandage when we pass the liquor store on the way out of town."

"Th-thank you, again, Zexy."

"It's nothing. Let's go." I used up most of the tissues by the time we got back to the school.

"Owwww!"

"Hold still."

"Owwie that hurtss! Ow, ow oww!"

"That is the smallest head wound I have ever seen to produce so much blood."

"How big is it?"

"You can barely call this a scratch."

"Oww!"

"There. You big baby." Zexion put the bandaid on my forehead after he disinfected it, which really hurt, but right afterwards we needed to get our homework done and then go to bed. It was only two hours before the new day started, and we had a lot of stuff to do still. I didnt get everything done, though.

"Oh, man. Im gonna have to do this in class tomorrow..."

"Stop your whining and get changed, we have to sleep."

"Heyy..." I looked up at him from the spot I was sitting in. He had been ruder than he usually was to me, and I wasn't having a lot of fun with it. But I didnt ask anything until after he shut the lights off.

"Zexion?"

"What is it, Demyx?"

"Are you sure you're okay?" I heard him rustle around a bit and then turn on the lamp at his side. He looked me dead in the eye.

"Yes."

"Then why have you been so wierd lately?" I was looking right back at him the same way he was looking at me, which I think surprised him a bit, because he didn't answer me right off the bat like usual.

"What do you mean?"

"Ever since that thingy happened with Xigbar, you've changed. I don't know what it is, but first it just seemed like it would be a temporary thing. But more and more often you've been really mean to me. I don't like it, Zexy." He said nothing but,

"Don't call me that." And it caught me off guard. He turned around so that his back was to me.

"What?"

"I said don't call me that."

"But...Ive always called you Zexy,"

"Well, now you won't."

"See?" I sat up on my bed, looking at his back. "There! That's what Im talking about! You just said something really mean to me, and you just blew me off like I wasn't anything at all! There's something wrong with you," He reached behind himself and shut off the lamp. "and you're not telling me what it is, Zexion!" He was quiet for a long time. So long, that I was tired of waiting for an answer from him and laid back down on my pillow. But I didn't want to sleep yet, I wanted to see if he was going to answer.

And Ill stay up all night if I have to.

He didn't answer me for a few hours, and when I could barely manage to stay awake any longer, he said,

"You remember when you asked which school I was going to attend this year? Maybe it would have been best if I had never told you."