Because I know I can still make something silly out of the Organization after 358/2 Days, right? :D

The Unseen Days

Chapter 1: Cooking Lessons

Day 81

For most of the day, all the members of the Organization are on our own for meals. Except dinner, because then Xemnas likes us to all get together and eat. Xigbar calls it "family time." Larxene used to call it "a huge pain in the-"(with the last word cut off because Axel put a hand over her mouth to stop her talking. This isn't the smartest thing to do, by the way. Axel has the scars to prove it).

So anyway, every day, it falls to one of us to make dinner (but Xigbar always just orders pizza). And today, I got the most unusual mission…

Roxas strolled into the Grey Area, yawning and stretching his arms high above his head, sighing in contentment as the kinks worked out of the muscles. Wonder what Saix'll send me out to do today… He thought, ruffling his hair and wincing when his gloved fingers brushed a fresh bruise on the back of his head. Hope it's not another giant Heartless… Roxas grimaced as he remembered the monster from yesterday. It had been absolutely enormous, and there were tentacles everywhere. And for some reason, Axel wouldn't stop smirking at the word "tentacles" when Roxas told him about it later at the clock tower over ice cream (well, until he told Axel how it had grabbed Xion, where upon his smile had faded instantly, to be replaced with a look of quiet horror).

"Morning," Roxas called to the others in the Grey Area. Two of the four Nobodies present, Luxord and Xigbar, both returned the greeting in their own ways (a disinterested "Good morning" and an enthusiastic "Mornin' tiger!" respectively, before they went back to their game of Go Fish), while Xion looked up from her book and gave Roxas a cheery wave. Roxas smiled and waved back, feeling that familiar little clench in the heart he didn't have as he remembered her missing Keyblade; the reason why they had to do all their missions together. Saix, whose scarred, scowling face usually brought these thoughts up (if he ever found out about her…), stood by the window, clipboard in hand as per usual, looking as disapproving as ever.

"Number XIII…" Saix drawled, with no preamble, consulting his clipboard as Roxas approached him. "You are to report to the kitchen at four o' clock sharp this afternoon. You are…" the Luna Diviner's lip curled downward in a frown, "On dinner duty tonight." He growled. This didn't surprise Roxas, as it was common knowledge that Saix detested the Organization's "family time"

The mission itselfsurprised him, though. Roxas hadn't been expecting something so… normal, after all the missions that involved smacking Heartless around. That was, after all, the reason they kept him and Xion around, right? "Er…" Roxas stammered, bewildered, "what… am I supposed to do, exactly?"

Saix sighed impatiently, "Just make something edible and make sure there's enough for all of us. And before you say anything, Axel will be supervising, and you will be with Number XIV." He added before Roxas could protest.

Over on the couch, Xigbar looked up from his game of Go Fish. "Tiger and Poppet are making dinner?" He asked no one in particular.

Luxord's didn't look up from his cards. "It seems so," he murmured, eyes flicking through his hand.

"With Axel?"

"Indeed," The Gambler of Fate paused, "…fifty munny says they blow up the kitchen." He bet.

"You're on. Hey, got any twos?"

"Go fish,"

At four o' clock that afternoon, just as Saix had ordered them, the two younger members of Organization XIII went down to the kitchen. Hidden deep within the bowels of the Castle That Never Was, it was the only room that looked truly out of place. Whereas the rest of the castle put an emphasis on shades of whites and grays with little periwinkle accents, and sharp edges and arches all culminating in a sort of futuristic gothic look, the kitchen looked… normal. It was normal, from the smooth white tiles on the floor to the wooden kitchen island to the white-washed cabinets that lined the walls. The only things that really looked like they would fit in with the rest of the scheme were a refrigerator that was plated with chrome, and a black stove (which had rounded edges instead of the sharp ones required of the rest of the castle, so it might not have counted).

But Xion and Roxas, knowing about as much about architecture and interior design as your average teenager (that is to say, nothing at all) didn't take much notice of this; they just rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Or, at least, they tried to. They knew about as much about cooking as they did about architecture and the like.

"I see leftovers," Roxas commented as he searched through the big fridge, "Lots and lots of leftovers."

"I found a package of Oreos," Xion called from across the room as she rummaged through the cupboards, "Unopened, too. How's Xigbar not found these yet?"

"They'd have to be hidden inside a box of Cheerios. He wouldn't touch them, then."

"Hang on… they were. Huh, they must be Vexen's, then."

Roxas smiled devilishly, "Well, they're fair game now!"

Xion returned the grin and hid the little cream-filled bits of deliciousness back inside their bland disguise. "After dinner, then," She said.

Roxas went back to searching the fridge. Some of this stuff looked like it hadn't been touched for ages; several of the plastic containers (though at this point Roxas was beginning to suspect they were made of something stronger than plastic, if they had to contain what had surely become radioactive substances by now) were covered in a fuzzy green mold. He dared not open any of them; for fear that whatever was inside them would overpower the unholy amounts of baking soda in the fridge, which must've been drowning out any smell to begin with.

Roxas gave the fridge up as a bad job, shutting the doors before one of those containers could mutate into some slimy thing and make an attempt on his life, and looked instead in one of the cabinets. As soon as he pulled it open, he was reminded of Agrabah – it was the smell, for sure. It was the smell of spices, hot and exotic. Hm. Spice cabinet. Zexion would've hated this, Roxas noted, remembering the Cloaked Schemer's sensitive sense of smell as he rummaged through containers of cinnamon and cumin and loads of things he couldn't remember the names of.

Xion, on the other hand, had managed to locate the canned soup stores, and couldn't help but wonder if somebody in the castle was planning ahead for an apocalypse. "If all else fails," she said to herself, "we can always just have soup." Just then, her searching was interrupted by Roxas shouting, "Hey, I think I found something!"

Number XIV moved briskly across the room to join her friend. The Key of Destiny was holding up two little packets he had apparently found in the spice cabinet, both labeled "taco seasoning." "Do you remember that one day when Xemnas made Mexican food?" He asked.

Xion tilted her head to the side, trying to remember. "Yeah…" She said, and then made a face, "That was a weird night."

"Well, as long as we don't decide to add his 'secret ingredient,' we should be fine." Roxas said, grinning, handing one packet over to Xion and flipping his over. "Directions, then… it says to cook one pound of ground beef until brown…"

Xion looked up. "But where would we find ground beef?" She wondered aloud.

"I dunno…" Roxas answered, fingering his packet of spices absentmindedly… then seizing the corner and tearing it open. "Doesn't look like there's any in here…" He said, peering inside. Then, in a lapse of judgment that would come back to bite him in a second, Roxas tipped up the open packet to get a better look… and got a literal eyeful of whatever seasoning was packaged inside.

Axel appeared in the kitchen doorway a few minutes later, to the sight of his two friends desperately trying to flush God-only-knew what out of Roxas's eyes. "What happened here?" Axel asked, quite seriously at first… but he quickly had to suppress a snort as Roxas emerged from the kitchen sink, with his face wet, hair dripping, his eyes bloodshot, and a very grumpy look on his face; he looked a bit like a cat that had just been forced into taking a bath.

"Taco seasoning," Roxas growled, "is painful."

Axel stared at the younger Nobody until it dawned on him what had happened. "How'd you get taco seasoning in your eyes, Roxas?" Axel asked, trying to keep that exasperated "big brother" tone out of his voice, which he had found himself slipping into more and more after Roxas had started getting curious about the world.

"Don't ask," Roxas answered grouchily, stomping away from the sink, "but I'm not going near that stuff ever again."

"Alright, alright…" Axel said, holding up his hands in a gesture to show he meant no harm. He then turned to Xion, glad that she could be the level-headed one in times like these. "What happened?" Axel asked her in a low voice, so the brooding Roxas wouldn't overhear.

"We were trying to find ground beef." Xion answered, shrugging. "I guess it wasn't in the packet…"

Axel's face said "hello" to his palm. "I swear," He groaned, "you two are a handful sometimes…"

Axel strode over to the refrigerator, throwing the double doors open wide and looking through the contents. "So you were trying to make tacos?" He called across the kitchen.

"Yeah," Xion answered, bounding over to Axel and ducking under his arm to help him search. "We got stuck when we tried to find ground beef, though. Is there any in here?"

"Yes," Said Axel, patiently. "See, meat goes bad if you leave it out, so we put it in the fridge and keep it cold."

"It wouldn't be a problem for Vexen, though, would it?"

"Yes, well, Vexen is no longer with us," Xion couldn't help but guess there was more to that statement that Axel wasn't telling her, "so we make due with what we have."

"…I thought the fridge was for keeping those… leftovers." The way she said it, you'd think leftovers was the name of some kind of horrible giant Heartless.

"That too," Axel answered, "But we need HazMat suits to dispose of them, and the last time I saw one of those lying around was before me and the Castle Oblivion team left..."

As he rambled on about the disposal of various hazardous materials, Axel rapidly searched through the fridge's inner drawers and hidey-holes, until he pulled out a squishy tube, bound in brightly color plastic with little ties on either end.

"For future reference, Xion," Axel announced, holding his find in front of her, "this is what ground beef looks like before it's cooked. Got it memorized?"

Xion tilted her head to the side, determined to commit the image to memory as Axel had suggested, but puzzled at the same time. "Is it always so… colorful?"

"No, that's just the packaging. Hey, Roxas!" Axel called. The still-dripping Nobody looked up at the sound of his name. "C'mere, I'm gonna show the both of you how to cook this. Don't give me that look; the taco seasoning doesn't get involved until afterwards."

Roxas walked over, and both he and Xion watched as Axel demonstrated the first steps to making tacos.

"Now, remember kids," Axel instructed them, while sawing into the plastic wrap on the meat with one of the sharp points of his chakrams, "I am a professional chakram user. Do not try this at home. Got it memorized?" Once he'd cut a long slit in the plastic, Axel took a step back. "Now, which one of you wants to try getting it out of the tube?"

"I'll do it!" Xion volunteered, as she stepped in front of the stove, bouncing on her heels.

"Alright," Axel told her, "You're going to bend the tube so the ends touch and the cut's on the top side – and squeeze it all out."

"…it looks like brains," Xion noted, as she worked the pink, raw meat out of its container.

"Or that stuff that came out when I hit that tentacle monster Heartless." Roxas added.

Axel raised an eye brow. "One of these days," he told Roxas, very seriously, "You have to tell me exactly what happened when you fought that Heartless."

"Alright, but only if you tell me why you're freaking out about it." Roxas answered.

Axel thought it over for a moment.

"Agreed. But first I have to find a copy of Legend of the Overfiend. And a few gallons of mind-bleach."

"Guys?" Xion reminded them, pointing towards the lump of raw hamburger meat, sitting in the pan and still shaped like the plastic tube it had come out of. "We still have dinner to make."

"Right, right…" Axel put his mind back to teaching his friends how to cook. "Xion, try and find some more meat in the fridge. Roxas, you're going to have to chop it up so we can cook it evenly…"

"Is this gonna take much longer?" Roxas complained, watching the skillet on the lit stove, with its two tubes worth of ground up meat simmering away and slowly turning from the color of Marluxia's hair to a well-done brown.

"You asked that about two minutes ago." Axel noted, watching right along with Roxas and getting more than a little bored himself. This was the part he hated the most about cooking.

"It is taking a long time," Xion agreed, from her position by the cupboard, where she was working her way through the puzzles on the back of a Lucky Charms box. "Everyone else is probably wondering when it's gonna be done..."

Axel stood up abruptly, tugging on the ends of his gloves, "Alright then," he mused loudly, "if it's taking this long on four hundred degrees..." Axel gave his fingers a dangerous flex, causing the flames on the stove to flare high and bright, "then it should take no time at all on Axel degrees!"

Xion had quickly realized what Axel was about to do, "Axel, no!" She shouted, "The gas is still on-!"

KA-BOOM.

Fortunately, and most improbably, not one of the intrepid trio was hurt. Roxas, however, would be missing an eyebrow for a few weeks.

Unfortunately, the entire kitchen was a charred mess. The only thing that survived were the Oreos Xion has attempted to smuggle out in her pockets – Xigbar caught her eating them while he was ordering pizza and, in a rare display of his authority as the second member of the Organization, confiscated them immediately.

On the bright side, the leftovers were incinerated, saving some poor soul the trouble of having to dispose of them. Axel, however, was banned from the kitchen for life.

So Axel's not allowed in the kitchen anymore, Demyx is going to be on clean-up duty for the next week or so, and Xigbar now owes Luxord fifty munny.

I really wonder if there ever is a dull day around here. When we're not on potentially life-threatening missions, everyone does the weirdest things, and I can't figure out why. That brings me to another interesting story, which Axel keeps insisting never actually happened. It was before I started coming to the clock tower with Xion, during this huge storm…