The king sat in his throne, slouch apparent with his chin resting against his hand. He would describe his current situation as dying of boredom, though there wasn't much he was able to do about it. After all, nothing was going on in his kingdom, and he doubted anything too terrible was going on throughout the rest of the planet, as he was sure he'd have heard about it by now. Incidents had a way of making themselves known in his kingdom fairly quick, as if Dreamland was a magnet for such things. Thinking about it, he supposed that that statement was likely true, seeing as no other area of Popstar suffered from as much strangeness. What little the other areas did experience always ended up concerning the residents of Dreamland in some way or another.

Sighing, he figured this particular train of thought would get him nowhere; it merely served to further his boredom, in fact. After all, he knew that he would be one of the first people to know if anything at all was occurring that could use his assistance. Clearly, nothing was going on if he hadn't heard of it yet, so what was the point in mulling over the fact? What he needed in that very moment was a way to alleviate his boredom through other means.

As it stood, nothing was bound to happen in any upcoming times. The whole incident with the Haltmann Works Company had just wrapped up not too long ago, and there was always a good period of peace after every instance of terror was resolved. Knowing this, he could only rely on finding other means of excitement, but what was he to do? All of his waddle dees were set and completing all the possible tasks he could think of. Castle Dedede no longer needed any repairs from Haltmann's attack, and as far as he knew, Dreamland's economy and overall situation were good. Nothing else needed to be done that was currently being taken care of, and not a bit of what did still need to be accomplished needed any supervision on his part.

What did people usually do when they knew there was nothing better to do? Sure, he had more free time many years ago and did whatever he wanted, but that was long before he had made any attempt at bettering himself, both as a king and as a person. What he constituted as "fun" back then was stealing from Dreamland's civilians and causing the waddle dees who worked for him as much torment as he possibly could.

Had it truly been so long since then? He honestly couldn't remember any recent instances where he had actual time to waste. Worrying so much about the wellbeing of his kingdom and its citizens drained what little time he used to have to himself, not that he was complaining. Who wanted free time when it was so ungodly boring?

Muttering silently under his breath, he barely noticed as the doors to his throne room opened and shut, a soft pattering of footsteps approaching where he sat. For a moment he thought about ignoring whoever it was and sending them away, but it occurred to him that this was an opportunity to do something. Even if it was something as simple as giving a waddle dee more orders, that was fine by him. By that point, he was bored enough that he'd gladly do just about anything.

"Your majesty, I finished all of the administrative work you gave me for this week," the waddle dee began, continuing on into some sort of ramble. Dedede only payed minor attention to their words.

It took a few moments, though it finally occurred to him that there was only one waddle dee whom he trusted enough to give administrative work to, that being Bandana Dee. He perked up ever so slightly, glad at the new distraction. Bandana Dee was much better than just any random waddle dee barging in to talk to him.

"Bandana! Glad to see you!" he boasted loudly, interrupting the waddle dee midsentence.

Bandana Dee silenced himself, confused at Dedede's sudden outburst.

"Um, me too?" he questioned, still thrown off.

Dedede stood from his throne and flung himself before Bandana Dee, causing the waddle dee to step back in caution. The king had been known to trip and barrel into people in his excitement before, and he was not ready to experience such a thing himself.

"You're just the guy I was looking for!" Dedede exclaimed, only to further Bandana Dee's confusion. "Tell me the good news! What's there to do out there?"

"Um, excuse me?" Bandana Dee continued to question. 'What was there to do?' What did his king mean by that? "I-I mean," he corrected himself, "as far as I know, everything's being taken care of!" Was this what he wanted? "I just wanted to tell you about the administrative work!"

"Oh," Dedede deflated slightly at that. "And how goes that?"

Bandana Dee suppressed a sigh. He should have figured that the king hadn't listened to a single word he'd said earlier.

"I finished all of the work on my end. I wanted to apologize for being a bit late, since there was more work than usual concerning our relations with Floralia, but…" he trailed off. His king had just sat back down in his throne and had clearly gone back to paying no attention to him. What was up with him today?

"My king?" he asked, tempted to wave a paw in front of Dedede's face. "Is something wrong?"

No response on Dedede's end. Well, he hated being so informal with his king when it came to reports, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"King Dedede!" he shouted, startling said king immediately. Finally getting his attention, Bandana Dee continued. "Are you doing okay? I haven't seen you so distracted before."

It almost appeared as though Dedede was attempting to comprehend the waddle dee's question, though he eventually sighed and put his head in his hands.

"I'm bored, Bandana!" he conceded.

Well, that was certainly not what he had been expecting, but he couldn't say he was completely surprised.

"I thought you were here to take some orders or tell me there was something to be done out there, but no! You're just done with the administrative work of all things!"

"Ah, yes, my king," Bandana mumbled, paw behind his head, "as I said before, I wanted to apologize for being so late with it."

Dedede grumbled at that. "Like you even need to worry! Meta Knight hasn't even finished his end of the work yet." He peeked up at the waddle dee, frown firmly set on his face. "Are you positive there's absolutely nothing that needs to be done? I'm dying here!"

"Well, dying is a strong word, my king. You can't really die from boredom!"

"Like I care!" the king retorted, causing the waddle dee to laugh lightly.

Bandana stopped to ponder the situation. As far as he knew, none of the other waddle dees in the castle—nor the rest of Dreamland, for that matter—had anything to report to him, so he doubted anything was really going on at the moment. It was likely that Meta Knight had a lot to get done if he hadn't finished his part of the administrative work yet, but Bandana Dee highly doubted that anything the puffball was working on would appeal to his king. Work on the Halberd probably? That didn't particularly scream Dedede's name.

Coming up with no solutions to Dedede's boredom, Bandana Dee decided that he needed some more information on the overall situation.

"So, what exactly are you looking for? Work wise, I mean?" he suggested. "I can't think of anything that needs to be done, and I doubt Meta Knight will let you anywhere near the Halberd."

"Yeah, as if I want to be working on that thing in the first place!" Dedede responded, confirming Bandana Dee's suspicions. "I'm just looking for something to do, Bandana!" He gestured wildly as he continued to work himself up. "I just don't have free time like this anymore!"

Well, that certainly was an interesting situation, and one only his king would find himself in, of course. After all, who complained about having too much free time? Bandana Dee knew he wouldn't. In fact, some free time sounded like a pleasant surprise to him! With nothing else for him to be doing besides supervising over waddle dees in the area, he was done with all of his work for a while, similar to Dedede. Perhaps they could do something together; something fun to keep their minds off all of the work they'd accomplished in recent times.

It only took Bandana Dee a few more moments to come up with a solution. "How about we go on vacation?"

It didn't register with the king at first, but once it did, he looked positively flabbergasted.

"A vacation?" he questioned.

"Yeah!" Bandana Dee responded. "You have free time; I have free time. I'm sure we can force Meta Knight to have free time. I propose a vacation! Just between you and your top men! That would definitely stop you from being so bored!"

The king put a hand to his chin, rubbing it absently in thought.

"A vacation?" he questioned once again, as though he had no idea what such a thing was. Finally, he looked up, peering at the waddle dee standing before him. "I guess I've never really been on a proper vacation." He paused, momentarily in thought, before continuing. "And I guess I haven't had much time to spend with my favorite pet knight and waddle dee lately, either!"

With that, he jumped from his throne once more, Bandana Dee taking the obligatory few steps back to avoid any imminent collisions.

"Bandana, we're going on vacation!" he exclaimed, looking triumphant.

Bandana Dee nodded his head in agreement, glad that his king was going along with his idea so easily. It would be fun with just the three of them hanging out! Perhaps he would see if Kirby could come along, too. The four of them together always had the most interesting times, as frustrating as it could be after a while. First though, there were some minor issues to get out of the way.

"So, my king, where are we going for vacation? Maybe Secret Sea or Orange Ocean? Although maybe Meta Knight wouldn't be very happy vacationing there. We could try Onion Ocean, though! That place is always really nice out this time of year!" Bandana Dee rambled on, his thoughts racing with possibilities.

"No way!" Dedede interrupted Bandana Dee in the middle of his spiel. "Why would we ever vacation in Dreamland? The point of a vacation is to get away and do absolutely nothing somewhere else! We need to think outside the box here!"

"Okay," Bandana Dee agreed, "so where else should we go? The southern hemisphere is pretty nice right now, I think."

"Southern hemisphere of Popstar?" Dedede questioned, looking skeptical. "Come on, Bandana, I told you to think outside the box! We're not having our vacation on Popstar!"

An awfully bold statement coming from someone who mere moments ago could barely fathom the idea of a vacation. Still, who was he to question the orders of the great king? Vacationing on a different planet didn't sound all too bad anyways, so at least he could admit that Dedede had a point.

"That's really outside of the box, my king, but I can't say I'm complaining!" He did a small hop of excitement, almost mirroring the king's own mirth at that point. "Ah, but I don't know any other planets that well besides ours. Are there any good ones for vacationing?"

"Of course, Bandana! There's how many planets and dimensions out there? We just gotta look into it a little bit and we'll find the perfect planet in no time!"

"We, huh?" Bandana Dee would have smirked if he could. "You mean me, right?"

"Well, yeah! Do I look like the kinda guy who looks that stuff up?" the king scoffed. "Hurry up and get to it, then! I'm not dealing with this any longer!"

"Yes, my great king!" he jumped in place, ready to head out and do some research on planets. "I'll pick out the best planet possible for our vacation!"

Running towards the throne room's exit, Bandana Dee suddenly stopped himself in his tracks. Turning back around, he saw Dedede sitting back in his throne looking proud of himself. There was unfortunately still one more issue he needed to take care of before he left to find the perfect vacation spot.

"Just one more thing, my king," he started, trotting back to the throne.

Dedede rolled his eyes, only half paying attention once again.

"Since we're vacationing on a different planet, are we taking the Halberd? 'Cause I mean, we might need permission to park that thing? It's kinda big after all."

"Yeah, yeah, Meta Knight's ship," Dedede waved off, answering none of his waddle dee's concerns.

Honestly, Bandana Dee felt that there was no reasoning with the king when he was in a mood like this. It was difficult for other waddle dees to get his attention on a regular basis, but the king rarely was distracted enough to ignore his top waddle dee. A different time would definitely be better for discussing such things. Once he had a location picked out for their vacation, he was certain that Dedede would be much more interested in whatever he had to say.

So away he went, mind already racing with possibilities for research. He'd first check the castle's resources, but if that got him nowhere, there were plenty of places around Dreamland he could visit for assistance. It was also likely that he'd be able to get some of the other waddle dees to help him out. The more people doing the research, the better! Even if the vacation did not involve any of them, Bandana was sure that the other waddle dees would be more than willing to help out their king in his endeavors.

This was so exciting! Bandana Dee couldn't wait to go on a vacation. With how hectic Dreamland and the surrounding planets tended to be, there was rarely enough free time for something like this. Similar to his king, Bandana Dee knew that he had never been on a vacation in his life, and the fact that this opportunity was arising for him now was something he'd have never thought would happen.

With these thoughts in mind, Bandana Dee ran off, eager to find the perfect location for their trip as quickly as possible.

A/N: I'm taking a break from uploading my angsty Undertale fic in order to do something more lighthearted. This is just something I wrote in my free time for the heck of it. Don't expect too much out of it, haha.