Title: Attendance is Mandatory

Author: Akane Arihyoshi

Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. I wish I did, God, how I wish I did. I would be the happiest little yaoi fangirl there ever was. Sadly, I share this dream with about 5 million other fangirls, so it's very doubtful that I'll get very far in my quest for the ownership of the holy grail of video games. Please don't sue me. All you'd get anyways is a piece of string and about .73. Is it worth it? The answer is probably yes, but for my own sake I'll shut up now.

Demyx stared at the floor in front of him. He could have sworn he had cleaned it an hour ago. And yet, there it was, innocently looking back up at him with dirt splotches all over it. He sighed. What did luck have against him? This would not go over well with her.

As if on cue, a woman descended from the upper level of the building. Her graceful movements immediately placed her in one's mind as one who was accustomed to wealth. The only thing about her that was less than beautiful, Demyx mused, was her voice. In his opinion, anyway. Sadly, no one really listened to his opinion. So the obvious cure to her sad imperfection, a muzzle, was quite overlooked. The woman compensated by using her voice more often, and Demyx discovered that sometimes, practice makes thing much, much worse. Now, for instance.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE FLOOR?!" shrieked Larxene (for that was the dreadful woman's name), "I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO TAKE CARE OF IT!"

What a wonderful mood she was in today. "I did!" Demyx insisted, "Over an hour ago. I don't know what happened. I left for two minutes to do something else, and I came back and it was like this!"

"So why isn't it done? You've just been staring at it this whole time?! Get to work, you stupid boy!" the woman yelled. Her voice really was horrible, gone scratchy from years of abuse and overuse. She glared angrily for another moment, then turned and stalked back up the staircase.

Sometimes Demyx thought that the long, cloak-like black dress Larxene always wore was a lot like her soul. Black, and shady. Sighing, he began his work on the floor, cleaning the wood for the second time that day.

If only that woman was his real mother. Well, no, that was a horrible thing to wish for. She was cruel and mean, with no thought for anyone but herself. No one in their right mind would wish to be related to someone like that. However the fact remained that she treated her own daughters a lot better than she did Demyx.

The girls were horrible too. Naminé had inherited her mother's blond hair and good looks, and she was just as horribly selfish and mean as her mother was. She was, however, mostly silent, a major improvement in Demyx's opinion.

Kairi was hardly different, except for her brown hair, and her tendency to talk until your ears bled. Therefore, if Demyx had to pick a favorite, he would have chosen Naminé. At least she knew when to shut up.

Besides, he would pick having his real mother back any day.

It wasn't as if he had never known his own mother or father, not at all. Those types of stories are sad and annoying, since the entire story is usually mostly made up of a young child whining about having to steal for food, when everyone who reads the story wonders why the little kid hasn't been booted to an orphanage. (The author wishes to assure the reader that these stories are indeed sad and heart-warming, however much they ignore common sense and logic.)

No, he had known his mother and father very well, better than most children even bother to try to know their parents. Well, his mother anyway. His father was hardly around enough for Demyx to really have a chance to get to know him. But Demyx loved his mother very much.

At this time, the author of this lovely story wishes to speed things along so that the back-story doesn't get in the way, by quickly explaining to readers that Demyx's mother had died when Demyx was 16, leaving him very sad, very weepy, and very lacking in ownership of things with monetary value. To those of you with a vocabulary that leaves much to be desired, just know that that means Demyx was in deep trouble.

After the death of his lovely wife, Demyx's father realized he was in deep trouble as well, since, at the author's attempt to make this story politically correct, Demyx's mother had been making twice as much money at the time of her death as her husband had been. He quickly remarried to an absolutely horrible woman that was at least twenty years younger than him, because that's what most fairy-tale fathers tend to do after the love of their life dies, and the author lacks the imagination needed to come up with a better plot.

In precisely one month after his marriage to his second wife, he died in his sleep. Demyx's father being a relatively young man, the author's opinion on the matter is that he finally realized that he had married a monster, and didn't want to have to deal with it. In keeping with the political correctness of this story, the author is in no way suggesting that all men are lazy and inclined to dump their problems on their 16 year old sons. Just Demyx's father, because Demyx was a very unlucky little boy.

But the author digresses.

Returning to present-day Demyx, two years after our shortened story takes place, we find him finishing up his version of the story of how his mother died, which is long and tedious and made the author cry. We also find him scrubbing the same exact spot on the floor, which, after an hour of continual scrubbing, has become quite clean. The rest of the floor remains, sadly, rather dirty.

After finishing the story silently in his head, and after looking around the room and realizing that only about one square foot of the entire floor was entirely clean, Demyx was left with a feeling of being rather depressed, because he was tired, and he had just wasted an entire hour. Generally people don't tend to enjoy wasting time.

Once more, Demyx's step-mother descended the staircase to the lower level of the house. It took a few moments of staring at her, but after a while Demyx noticed that she was actually dressed in a dress that was very similar to her usual attire, but which was at the same time quite a bit more formal. Her blond hair was styled strangely, with two small sections of her blonde hair pulled high on the top of her head, giving off the impression that she had antennae, like a bug. Overall, it wasn't a bad look.

"We're leaving." she said shortly, turning her gaze on Demyx for hardly a second, before regarding the floor with distaste. "I thought I told you to take care of this."

"You did. Where to?" said Demyx, silently thanking the gods of luck for gracing him with their presence.

"The Prince's ball. He's apparently come of age."

"How lovely for him."

"You won't be coming."

"I hardly want to."

"You'll be here, doing housework."

"Obviously. And here I thought I could have a party of my own."

"Your sisters are coming with me."

"Is that supposed to be a bad thing?"

The woman paused, before calling sharply towards the stairs, "Naminé! Kairi! Hurry up."

The two girls, dressed in attire similar to their mother's, descended from the top floor with great difficulty, as both of them had tried to go down the stairs at the same time. With the width of their skirts, only oneof them going down the stairs was a sight to see; the both of them trying was merely impossible. The was much bickering to be heard until their mother unleashed the fist of fury upon them. The author will not go into details, as she wants to keep the story's rating down, but it should be known that there was complete silence in the house after, until finally the stepmother and her two daughters had taken their leave.

It took all of five seconds for Demyxto realize that he had the house to himself. It took another five seconds for Demyx to reach the couch, and three more for him to flop himself down in preparation for a nap.

But that would have been too easy.

It took approximately another ten seconds for Demyx to realize that he wasn't the only person in the room. Another .01 second to scream.

And it took him nearly a full two minutes to realize that the other person was a man.

This guy was seriously something else. His hair was pink and curly, and he was dressed in a blackish clock, similar to what Larxene wore normally. Perhaps the oddest thing about him was the pair of large pink wings attached to his back, that made him look feminine and abnormal.

"So." began the newcomer in a bored voice. He pulled what seemed to be a note card out of his pocket, and began reading the words off in a slightly annoyed and hurried fashion. "My name is Marluxia, and I'll be your fairy-godfather for this evening. My job is to help your biggest hopes and dreams come true, and-" he stopped, and looked closer at the note card. His face looked truly pained as he read the rest of the card, before turning back to Demyx. "There's no way I'm reading the rest of that. My job is simply to get you to the ball, where you can meet the man of your dreams and have a happily ever after. Blah blah blah, you know the drill. Boy meets girl, girl runs away for some odd reason, boy finds shoe of girl, boy goes around asking people who do not fit description of original girl to try on a shoe that is obviously too tiny for their grotesque feet, and boy finds girl after wasting days trying to find girl. The traditional love story, and let me tell you, it gets old after the first three times."

Demyx stared at Marluxia for a moment. "That would be great and all, but I'm not a girl."

"I knew that." replied Marluxia, "I'm probably here for a sister of yours or something. Got anyone here named…"-he looked at his note card again- "Demyx? 'Cause she's who I'm here for."

"Yeah, Demyx is here."

"Great, where is she?"

"You're looking at her. And she doesn't want to go to the ball, thanks."

A frown crossed Marluxia's face. He stared at Demyx for a second, before going into full-blown hysterics. "WHY?!" he sobbed. He fell to his knees in obvious mental pain. "There are so many perfectly willing young girls out there, girls who would LOVE to see me! Cinderella, for instance! I was higher rank, but that stupid bibbity boo lady got her! WHY?! My godchild doesn't even want to GO to the ball! WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME, LUXORD?! (Because the gambler of fate sounds like the kind of person who would run a fairy godmother association, totally on a whim.)" and with that, he fell silent, except for the occasional sob.

Naturally, this slightly unnerved Demyx. All the poor boy had wanted to do was take a nap, but this alien being had suddenly showed up and insisted he go to the ball of some rich twit whose father happened to run the country. Demyx gave it up as having inhaled too many cleaning fumes, and flopped back on the couch (Because he got up when the weird guy came. Got it?). Suddenly Marluxia spoke up again.

"What are you doing?" he said, looking bewildered.

"Taking a nap. Everyone's out of the house for once, and no silly hallucinations are gonna ruin my afternoon. Good day, winged sir." Demyx replied, closing his eyes.

"But no no! That won't do," said the fairy, "I've got to get you to the ball, and it won't be very fun for you if you're sleeping."

After opening his eyes and silently contemplating whether or not this guy was barking mad (Which, Demyx thought, he probably was, considering the pink sparkly wings), Demyxshook his head at the older man. "Are you deaf?" he asked, his voice portraying just exactly how utterly miffed he was. "I won't be going! I'm going to stay here and take a nice long nap, and after that I think I'll sneak into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. None of my plans tonight involve going to the overly large party of a spoiled brat, no matter what you call it or how much it would mean to you if I went."

Instead of the expected expression of either rage or horror, Demyx was very surprised to find Marluxia smiling. "I suppose you actually think I care about your plans? How tragic." And with that, he grabbed Demyx's arm and dragged him away.

A/N: Yes, I've written something for Kingdom Hearts! And the fans I don't have are all cheering. So it was really fun to write. REALLY fun. It was a pure crack idea. I was reading Coin Operated Boy by freaky-hanyou, and I was just so mad that the fairy wasn't Marluxia...and so I wanted to write a fanfiction with Marluxia as the fairy-godmother, and a Kingdom Hearts/Cinderella crossover was born. I recommend all of freaky-hanyou's work, by the way. Good author.

Reviewing is good for the human soul. But seriously people, being a budding young author and all (ha!) I would love it if you guys would drop a line and briefly (or not so briefly) tell me how I did.