Author Notes: It's Chapter Four! I'm sorry! I know it's been a month, but at least it hasn't been two... or three... or ELEVEN! I just haven't really felt that up to writing lately... But here I am, ready and kicking with chapter four of EBOM!

Just a little fact for you; I've used a different font for each of these chapters. The first was written in euroference (downloadable at ), second was in Skia, third in Trebuchet and now this one is in Helvectica. It's awesome... :)

Listened To: To many separate songs to list, but bands were: Breaking Benjamin, Rammstein, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Three Days Grace and Placebo. Personally, I'd recommend listening to Post Blue by Placebo, Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin and Gone Forever by Three Days Grace, even while not reading this. They're three damn good songs. And Damn Regret by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Yup, yup.

Ded: I suggest you go back and read the first three chapters, if you haven't got the point by now. This is the last time I'm putting this up here.

Disclaimer: The day Kingdom Hearts is mine is the day the world ends. But, sadly, the day the world ends is not the day Kingdom Hearts is mine TT-TT

Also, just thought I'd let you know. I don't hate Nams. Really, I don't. But Zexi does :)

Also also, we're back in Zexion's head. I don't like writing outside it, coz a lot of the humour comes from what he's thinking :P

X-x-Panic! At The Cafeteria-x-X

It was a week and two days before I was discharged from the hospital. Half of that week and two days was spent drugged out of my mind, the other half trying to remember what the hell happened in the first half. Seemed that all that morphine (or whatever the hell it was) made me forget what happened. Which wasn't very good. For all I knew, I might've confessed my undying love for Demyx! And that would've been bad. Very, very bad.

Anyway, I was taken home on Tuesday, sometime around lunch, thus the reason there was no Demyx. Mom made it clear that he wasn't to stay during school and become truant, or she'd kick his ass from here to Timbuktu. Which, according to the dictionary, was some sort of trade center. Huh. Funny that.

"Zexion! Did you hear what I just said?"

I jumped. "Huh, what?"

Mom sighed. "Zexion, I asked you if you wanted to go to school today. I mean, I know it's almost lunch, but you can take it! You've missed a week of school; that can't've been very good for your education. I mean, I know Demyx has been bringing over notes and stuff, but it's just not enough! I mean-"

"Yes, Mom, I'll go to school today," I cut her off. The way she said it made me sound like some truant whore that ditches school to go get stoned with the woodland fairies at The Firecats gay strip club, or something. Geez, Mom, you know I'm better than that! Much better! In fact, I'm a truant whore that ditches school to go get stoned with the woodland fairies behind the tractor shed at The Firecats gay strip club. Nothing similar about the two! Nope, none at all! Ahuh, I'm completely, totally, absolutely... Failing.

Mom shut herself up, making a face as though she could hear my thoughts. Well, she'd better not be able to! Who knows what the hell goes on in there - apart from me, that is. And even I'm not too sure what I'm thinking half the time. And don't worry mom, I was kidding about the whole being a truant whore that ditches school to go get stoned with the woodland fairies business. Just a little joke I like to think of as funny...

"Shall I text Dem-Dem and tell him you're coming to school today?" Mom asked innocently. Psht, I can see right through you and your scheming mind, woman! You could put Axel to shame. Then again... perhaps not.

I played it cool, taking a little time to "think it through" and then shook my head. "Naaaah... It can be our little surprise, mother-dearest. In other words... Don't you fucking dare."

Mom laughed. "Alright, Zexi-dearest, no need to get all... swear-y and stereotypical teenager on me."

Ah, mothers. The light at the end of the horrendously long and slimy tunnel that we all know is an approaching train just grinning at the thought of being able to run you down and splatter your guts all over the dark and slimy walls. And then have the ability to laugh at you afterwards, take you home, clean you up, and still not have you hate them. Damnit. I really wanted a reason to be able to hit her in the head with that metal baseball bat... Kidding, Mom! Kidding!

Judging by her lack-of-throwing-a-no-longer-injured-Zexion-out-of-moving-car reaction, I'm guessing that she can't actually read my mind. Not that it'd matter too much, we were pretty close to the school, anyway. I mean, sure, it'd hurt a lot... But I haven't seen Demmy in over sixteen hours! The hospital visiting hours end at six. So I'm in a bit of a Demmy-withdrawel at the moment. But shh, don't tell anyone!

We pulled up by the school. Well, 'pulled up' is a bit of a, er, misnomer. See, Mom's a bit of a crazy driver. So she decided make an entrance with a Bang! So she, uhm, started careering down the street and knocked over multiple orange cones while doing so. And then, well, I'm not too good at describing the things that cars do, but somehow we managed to be semi-flying through the air and the next thing I knew, I was doing roly-polies on the ground, the car some ten meters away from me and the passenger door hanging open. Mom's head popped(1) out of the car and she threw a bag at me, wished me good luck, blew me a kiss, shut the door and drove off. What a loving, caring, supportive Mom. Chyah, totally.

Grumbling slightly, I grabbed my bag and swung it over my shoulder, casually making my way towards the English block which, if I was right, had pretty much just started. I heard a cough and there was dear ol' Cloud, leaning against a wall and staring at me. Which was really kind of creepy. But then, he was the principal! Oh, yes. Cloud Strife, Roxas' dear, straight-as-a-metal-ruler brother happened to be principal of Twilight Town High School. Don't know why he does it, though. If I were him, the moment I got out of school, I'd've heading somewhere else, like... Hollow Bastian... Or Atlantica. I've always wanted to go to Atlantica. Demyx says there's mer-people.

He coughed again. Getting the point, I hurried along like the good little boy I am to my class. Hopefully he wouldn't sue Mom for breaking and entering, or something. But then again, if he did, he could sue those damn tomatoes while he was at it. Then they'd have no choice to go and live like bums! Yay! Or was it the tomatoes that were meant to do the suing... Oh, my god, I'm confused.

My footsteps echoed off the walls as I walked down the corridor. It was kind of creepy, really, with no kids high on Marijuana screaming down the hall, with all the hungover kids screaming at them for making too much noise. And then we can't forget those just plain hyper and crazy people cartwheeling through the cliques of 'populars', 'goths' and 'emos'. And just in case you were wondering, yes I have been requested to become a member. Several times, in fact. But I politely refused them. Each time. With a fist to the face. Normally ending up with me sprawled across the floor. Not much fun, really.

I suppose I should have been feeling some amount of dread as I approached the door of my English classroom. Surprisingly, I didn't. I suppose the fact that Dem's not in my English class might have helped. But then, Naminé was in there... Along with Marly, Riku, Sora, Hayner and Roxas... Oh whoop. Well, at least there was no Axel to set normally non-combustible things on fire.

Coughing, I pushed the door open and instantly felt about twenty pairs of eyes focused solely on me. Like being on stage, with everyone watching you, just waiting for you to make a mistake and fall flat on your face... And I wasn't too sure what to do.

"Zexi!" Marly squealed, jumped out of his seat, rushed over to where I stood and gave me a big hug. "Demy's missed you," he whispered into my ear. Then he stood back and said aloud, "How are you?! It feels like an age since I last saw you! Metaphorically, of course. And I just know that everyone here's missed your energy and enthusiasm so much! Oh, wait," he laughed. "My bad, that's me. Well, they missed having someone to copy notes from!"

There was a cough from the front of the class. We both turned to see Mr. Xehanort, The English Teacher (complete with Capital Letters), standing by the blackboard, arms crossed, tapping his foot on the ground. "When you two are quite finished, would you please return to your seats so I may resume the lesson?" Neither of us moved. "Marluxia, sit down. Zexion, welcome back and sit the fricken heck down."

Marluxia sighed dramatically, sitting down in his seat next to the window and some random named Bill. My seat was next to Riku who, I noticed, had stuck an earphone down the sleeve of his jacket and was listening to it. "Oi, Riku," I whispered once Mr. Xehanort's back was turned. "Whatcha listening to?"

Riku grumbled. "Slipknot. Now leave me alone; I'm trying to 'concentrate'." Ah, my brother. Emo as ever. I snorted, watching him write something down as Mr. Xehanort glared over at us. No doubt he thought it was me doing all the talking. Which was totally not true! I only did half of it! But then, Mr. Xehanort was like that. Unfair little bastard. But wait, I can do one better: Unfair little pedophilic bastard! (2)

The rest of the lesson passed by in a considerable amount of peace. Mainly it was Mr. Xehanort ranting on and on about things that I mainly already knew, then him setting homework, then us trying to flatten him as we raced out the door for interval. "Yay food!" cried The Horde as they rushed to the cafeteria in pursuit of food. Honestly, I never understood what was so good about food. Obviously Apple Juice is much better!

"Zex, you coming?" Asked Marluxia, a curious expression on his face. "Or were you planning on just staying there and collecting dust like a puppy dying a horrible, painful death?"

I shook my head, picked up my bag and followed after them. Not much else to do, really, unless getting burned out by Mr. Xehanort was high on your list of priorities. And, trust me on this, it definitely wasn't on mine. Came close enough once, not going anywhere near again any time soon.

"Well, oh dear brother of mine," Riku began, slinging an arm over my shoulder. "How does it feel to finally be free from that white prison of a hospital? Is there anything in your near future that you can see? What will you do if you meet Saïx again? But, more importantly, who-"

"What's with the 20-questions? You writing my biography, or something? Well, I'm sorry to say, but they've made some sort of law against wannabe-emos writing famous peoples biographies. Sorry, Riku," I cut him off, sliding out from underneath his arm and replacing me with Sora. "Here's another candidate for you, Riku. Now go off and make out in the closet, or something."

I laughed, watching as Sora went bright red and spluttered, speechless for once in his life. Hah! I should do that more often. The peace is great. Plus, I get to watch as Riku flounders trying to think of something smart to do. Oh, he thinks that I don't know about his 'little crush'. Sorry, bro, but I'm family. I'm a Kael! And, well, you know those Kaels. Too damn nosy for their own good. Insert-Impressive-Snort-Here.

In no time at all, it seemed, we were already getting lost in the crowds of people in the cafeteria. Somewhere along the way to our much-loved table we acquired Axel the Pedo-Leech who, to Roxas' great annoyance, attached himself to his arm. No change there, then. Sorry, Roxy, but the only way to get him to go would be to kill him, or something. And even then he'd probably still haunt you! Haha, Roxy. Looks like you're stuck forever.

One moment I was happily walking along, completely vertical, blissfully unaware that in the next moment, I'd be on the ground, completely not-vertical and with a very slightly heavy Demyx-thing on top of me, probably trying to hug me to death, or something. Because that is what happened. As we neared our table, Demyx's eyes met mine and he squealed, practically flying across the room and tackle glomping me, ending up with both of us on the ground. If I wasn't mistaken, then I'd think that dear ol' Dem-Dem was in love with me, too. But, because I'm not that egotistical and stupid, I managed to convince myself he wasn't. He was in love with Naminé, damnit. The bitch. Lawl.

"Zexi!" He squealed. "Katie said you wouldn't be getting out until Friday! Oh, Zexi, I missed you!"

Roxas laughed, swinging past us (along with Pedo-Leech) to dump himself down on his seat (Or, well, he tried. Course, Pedo-Leech got there before him, resulting in Axel becoming his new seat). "C'mon, guys," he started, whacking Axel on the head 'for no reason'. "No man-love until Music, at least. And no, you cannot have any 'Roxy Booty' today, Axel," he added as Axel tried to grope his butt. He failed, of course. When Roxas says no, he means no.

A mocking laugh rang out across the Cafeteria. Of course, you get a lot of mocking laughs in this place, what with half the student population residing inside it most times, but that laugh... Well, needless to say, we'd heard a lot of that laugh in our years at Twilight High. That laugh belonged to none other that the most hated, despicable, horriblest of all horrible peeps: Hayner Pyne. Of course, wherever Hayner Pyne went, his entourage of Ollete Joan and Pence Mikiri went with him. Not that Olette and Pence were bad people. No, Hayner was the rotten egg in this batch.

"Look who's back! Mr. McEmo-Pants and his gay lover!" Hayner laughed, causing Demmy to jump up in embarrassment, his whole face turning a bright shade of red. Aww, how cute! Wait- Zexion, stop thinking these things and get back in the game! Now's definitely not the time to start drooling over a completely, absolutely straight Demmy! But, the plus side of it all was that it obviously wasn't only me that wanted those damn tomatoes to hurry up and sue.

Roxas glared at him, detaching himself from Pedo-Leech to stand authoritatively. "Lay off, Pyne. Just because you're an It-Reject with no friends except two mindless idiots that grovel at your feet like dogs. Don't you have anything better to do, or do you get a boner from attacking us with your useless insults?" He spat, hate rolling off him in waves. Big, humungous tidal waves of doom they may have been, but they were still waves nonetheless.

Olette frowned, looking maybe even slightly pretty, had I been one to go for total bitches with no loyalty. "We are not mindless idiots, Roxas. You know that. Or, well, you did, anyway. What happened to us? That bitch-" cue glare at Naminé "-mind washed you! Roxas, come back to us..."

This might need a little explaining. You see, at one point, Roxas, Hayner, Pence and Olette had been the bestest buddies there could ever be in the history of all bestest buddies. And then Axel came along, and something inside Roxas' heart just clung to him (even though he'd never admit it). Eventually, Roxas started hanging out with Axel more than his other buddies, and his other buddies, well, they got pretty pissed. So they gave lil ol' Roxy a choice: Them, or the creepy newbie that he barely knew. Well, the choice he made was pretty obvious. And then he came and hung out with us, and 'They' have been bugging us ever since. But everyone knows that, at one point, Hayner was totally gay for our Roxy. He sure did screw that one up!

Roxas laughed bitterly. "Yeah, totally. I'm definitely going back to a group of mafia-wannabes with nothing better to do than pick on the 'weak and powerless'. C'mon, Hayner, I thought you were better than this."

Hayner almost growled, although I think a little house cat would look more threatening. "Well, at least I have enough self-preservation instincts not to keep company with a suicidal pyromaniac," he spat - obviously talking about Axel - as if it were the most horrible of all insults. Axel was probably just basking in it all; Suicidal Pyromaniac - there was one he hadn't heard before! Note sarcasm.

Aforementioned pyromaniac in question laughed, standing and slinging his arm over Roxy's shoulders. "So you're still jealous - is that it? You still jerking off to innocent lil Roxy's name in the middle of the night? Where the wild things are! Well, in this case, only one wild thing."

Hayner turned a furious shade of red - obviously Axel had struck the bulls-eye: Pyne was still totally gay for Roxy. He scrabbled for the closest thing to him, which happened to be Bill's chicken-and-mayonnaise bun thing, and threw it straight at Axel's head, splattering mayonnaise all over his face. 'Course, that's not what it looked like... But that's enough of my dirty thoughts for the day.

"Oh, so it's a food fight you want, is it, pal? Well, it's a food fight you'll get!" Axel announced, instinctively picking up his tray of food and hiffing it at Hayner. This didn't go through too well for his two 'buddies', and so they retaliated, throwing whatever their hands could grab. In the space of about a minute or so, We - Axel, Roxas, Marluxia, Riku, Sora, Naminé, Demyx and I - were on a full-out food-fight with Them - Hayner, Pence and Olette. Minus Nams, her being all goody-two-shoes and can't-throw-for-shit. Personally, I was only throwing things because, well, I hadn't had this much fun since, er, probably a coupla years ago.

Within another ten minutes, the whole cafeteria had been caught in the swing and there was a global food-fight going on. There was no "Us" or "Them" anymore; it was all-on-all, whoever got hit got hit, no biggie. No one could see who was throwing what, anyway.

The smart kids got out of the cafe before anything funky could happen, the dumb ones staying out to see the food-fight to the end. Of course, most of those participating were only in it because they either thought they were "Defying the norm" or were just plain confused. It wasn't long before Cloud came along to split everyone up, and him being a part inverted magnet and all, people knew to run before he got to them. Except for the idiot newbies that thought to swear at him a coupla times. Poor buggers had a principal detention after school (which was pretty much just like a normal one, only they had to do it with Cloud).

"C'mon guys, let's run," Axel whispered, picking up Roxy as we all "exited" the room. Roxy being Roxy, he struggled against Axel, but to no avail. He only managed to turn around enough to watch Cloud glare at him as they left. Any old bugger could see that he was in trouble once they got home. Would hate to be him.

We caught Larxene, Xiggy and Kairi as we left, explaining to their confused faces that we'd explain later. Of course, they'd've had see all the people covered in food fleeing from the perimeter, so I think that might've cleared it up a little. We, ourselves, escaped pretty lightly; only Axel seemed to have suffered considerably with mayonnaise smothered all over his face and tomato sauce dripping down his chin and neck.

Larxene snorted. "Axel, you look like you've been having hot, sweaty, off-aim buttsecks with someone. You might want to do something about that."

Axel grinned. "Only my Roxy."

"Only who's Roxy?" Roxas growled, smacking Axel upside the head. "And let me go, you Pedo-Leech. I'm not some sort of disabled idiot you can carry around to your liking."

Riku laughed, leading us outside and under our tree, which happened to be our backup spot incase the cafeteria flooded, or something of the equivalent. Some kids already happened to be there, so Riku kicked them out. Of course, he did it with grace and tact... By swearing at them until they ran off, kicking them a coupla times on the way. Ah, my brother. I must be rubbing off on him. Finally . Now all he needs to do is openly admit he's gay, instead of keeping inside the closet.

That lunch passed as most lunchtimes were inclined to pass; with a lot of rude jokes and lack of eating of food and climbing of trees and watching as people almost fell out of said trees and laughing when someone did fall out. Of course, we made sure they were fine, first. The most injuries anyone sustained was a bruise and some scratches. The worst anyone had gotten was a stick halfway imbedded in their arm, which looked pretty sore and gruesome, but wasn't really when it got all cleaned up. The stick was nice and straight and the end with all the pointy bits wasn't then end in him. So, all we had to do was yank it out.

"Hey, hey Zexi," Demyx laughed, probably high on the same stuff Sora was on, if the twin bouncing was anything to go by. "Zexi, Zexi, Zexi. Haha, you have a funneh name!"

Xiggy laughed. "Like you can talk, dear ol' Demmy of ours."

Demyx giggled, and there was no doubt he was absolutely positively high on, like, crack or marijuana or something. It was actually pretty funny, watching him and Sora run around terrorizing the school population in general. "Xiggy's a PIRATE!" He laughed, mock-swiping at Xigbar's eyepatch. How he'd been allowed to keep it was beyond me. Maybe he'd shown whatever's under there to someone official and traumatized them for life, or something. Hah. I would've liked to see Cloud in a dead faint on the floor.

Sora stopped and looked at Xigbar too. "You're right! Xiggy's a PIRATE! Where's yur booty, Xiggy? Can you say ''arr, me hearies!" for us?"

Xigbar smiled. "Arr, me hearties," he said weakly and monotonously, but there was a spark in his eye that told me that he was only playing with him. Xiggy was our very awesome pirate who, though he was getting 'old' and wasn't really a pirate, was as good as family when it came to Demyx and Sora. He liked to make them happy... He also liked to play a lot of jokes on them. His mood changed a lot, though it was normally stuck on 'happy' or 'horny'. Though, really, there wasn't much difference between the two.

"Sora, Xiggy's got some buried treasure over there by the water fountain," Kairi announced, smiling. "But you'll have to dig deep for it; I hear Xiggy buried it real deep."

Excited, Sora ran over and started to dig madly - or, at least, he tried to dig. Him not having a shovel and all might have hindered him a little.

We laughed, Sora and his escapades our in-house entertainment for the day. But, really, when wasn't he? Have to admit, though, it was pretty funny. Demmy joined me not long after in my sitting-against-a-tree exercise. My heart skittered and jumped at how close he was. Ah, my poor heart. Probably doomed to die before I was twenty.

Demyx smiled, no longer high but still hyper. "Zexi, Zexi, come to band practice after school with me?" He whispered as the others were distracted.

I froze. Good mood: Gone.

--IX-VI--

End Notes: And there we go. Crappy end to the chapter, I know, but at least it's done and ready and all. Be glad it didn't take two months for this to get up here! Um, um, um, I had something really important to say, but I've forgotten. Damn it. Oh well.

Also, I haven't proofread it or had it beta'd, so if there are any mistakes, tell me, and I'll fix it.

Footnotes:

(1) - It's the 'pooped' thing again! Why do they all love to poop?!

(2) - My spellcheck tells me that 'pedophilic' is not a word. Instead, it gives me the options of 'pedophiliac' and 'pedophilia'. But I do not want nouns, I want an adjective, and this is what I deem as an adjective. So deal, oh spellcheck of mine.

And, as most desperate authors at the end of each chapter say...

Review!