A warning to the masses.

This story is long, it's sad, and it's also wickedly confusing at some points. I, the author, have to keep my wild imagination in check at times.

There will be sex, there will be blood, there will be a very vague rape scene.

They'll be love and broken hearts.

Hide your children, cus this is about to get messy.

-Jae

Chapter 1

"Hey! Have you even been listening?" Roxas glanced up from his hands. No, he hadn't. Shuffling nervously, he attempted to make good with the tempered woman beside him.

"Yeah, I have, on and off..." He sighed. Why even bother pretending to be a good friend? He guessed it was because everyone else around him attempted to cover his or her true nature up. When in Rome, he would think.

"God, Roxas, it's not like your hands are even that important. Geez. Now, as I was saying..." Roxas inwardly grimaced. It was just another boring discussion on the circus coming to Hollow Bastion. He didn't get the excitement – what was so thrilling about seeing a bunch of people running around in sparkly outfits and bending their bodies like pretzels? It was almost depressing to think that counted as entertainment.

"You're doing it again!"

"I'm doing what again?"

"Spacing out, duh!"

"Sorry, Olette," Roxas mumbled, trying his hardest not to punch the pretty girl in the face. For all of Olette's glossy brown hair and flawless skin, she could be a bitch to deal with sometimes. Or maybe she was just a bitch? She tried to act all caring and motherly, but at times she just came out sounding plastic.

"Well, whatever! Come on, we have to meet the guys." Waving her hands about in sudden urgency, Olette gripped Roxas' hand and began dragging him through the grim streets of Hollow Bastion. As they slipped past sketchy merchants and foggy alleyways, the city's inner chamber was revealed to them with all the sticky heat of boxed in walls, graffiti covered poles and unreliable street food. It's not that Roxas truly hated the city itself – there were ideal homes, convenient shopping, and loads of jobs available – but the people there were the worst. And he had to live with them, all their fake ideals and fantasies. To him, the city was just a crowd of people's mismatched lives shoved into one large holding box until they got over whatever was plaguing them and moved onto happier, more carefree lives in a nice town somewhere. For Roxas, the glorious metropolis of Hollow Bastion with its shining pipes and golden trim was just a fancy prison.

"We're here!" Olette screeched in delight, skipping up to a large grey brick building. "Oh, my God, I'm so excited to get the guys and finally see this circus!" She flapped her arms in glee and danced a little. Olette had been planning and scheming to get her band of boys to the circus for weeks now, slowly prodding and pushing Hayner, Pence and Roxas closer to caving into her idea. The boys had been reluctant at first, but slowly and surely they gave in. Roxas was the last to fall, reluctant to agree before the others had lost. So, as Olette continued with her cutesy look again, Roxas could do nothing but sigh remorsefully and watch his friend act like a bubble gum princess. If it were anyone else watching, it might have been endearing. However, her captive audience only consisted of Roxas and watching Olette just made Roxas want to hang himself.

"Hey, guys!" a voice called from farther away, snapping Olette out of her song and dance and Roxas from his musings. "Hope you didn't wait long!" A boy with a chubby frame and sloppy greased up hair ran towards them, a huge camera clutched in his hands. A brawny looking blonde kid trailed from behind, looking pissed. "If it wasn't for Mr. Gaylord over here having to have his hair perfectly gelled, we would have been here way earlier," the brunette continued, adopting his 'this is all a joke!' voice.

"Oh, Pence, stop with all the kidding around!" Olette giggled. "I mean, really, I know you and Hayner are the best of friends!"

Roxas eyes his friends sceptically behind a fake grin of hello. Pence had always been kind of passive aggressive.

"Yeah, man!" Hayner cried, slapping Pence on the back. "Don't be stupid!" And Hayner had always been kind of dumb.

Roxas rolled his eyes; this was going to be a long day.

OOO

As they walked along the city street, Roxas listened to the 'banter' between his friends. The laughs and smiles all appeared so false, so ready to change on him at any given moment. But Roxas would never let it happen. He put on his own mask, his own 'joking' remarks, and faced them with the same eerie cheeriness that his friends gave him. Behind every smile, every word, he could taste poison. He could feel their malicious intent hidden under the surface of everything they muttered. It was like that for everyone in the city. Like a curse hung thick in the air around the walls, heavy with ordinate copper pipes corroded with time. Roxas often wondered that, as the city deteriorated, were the people also following suit? In this place, were people born with a toxin?

Maybe, because he was born somewhere else, he wasn't affected by it. Maybe it made him safe. He glanced casually at one of the many fountains in the city, trash drifting about its base, water murky. This place was once beautiful, Roxas thought sadly. But it fell, as all cities fall, into the grubby and greedy hands of its people. Roxas tuned to face his friends, the people of the city, and just like every other time he felt unrest. He wanted out. Unfortunately, he was trapped.

He looked to the dimming skyline, wondering if someone else out there had it worse than him.

OOO

"It'll all be over soon, it'll all be over soon..."

In the dark, a boy whispered to himself as he felt the heavy thud of footsteps on the floor that he lay upon. He reached out, stretching his fingers over the concrete of the floor and slowly scraping his palm against the rough surface. He'd endure any pain to take his mind off what was about to happen again and again and again.

He felt a dull pain and it dawned on him – it was happening again, he was being touched again by those hands. The hands he could feel even when he was alone. He let a tear slip out as his cheek was forced against the floor with each soft rock of his body.

"I-it'll-"

"Shut up," he keeper grunted, while he swept his arm and lazily across the floor until he found a sock, stuffing it into the boy's mouth. The boy froze, concentrating on breathing through his nostrils to save himself from suffocation. The man's hands began to wander along his skin's surface, petting almost tenderly.

"I'm not good enough for you, eh?" his captor said, running his hand over the boy's limp form. "I'm not enough? Well, fuck you!" The rocking grew harder, heavy pants and gasps the only sound outside of wet slapping filling the air.

It'll all be over soon, it'll all be over soon, the boy thought frantically. Tears escaped from his eyes, sliding down the side of his face and hitting the floor with distinct plops. One hysterical sob threatened to break through the muffle of the sock. Eventually, the rocking slowed and the boy was thrown to the side, weeping through his makeshift gag. It was over.

"Heh, pathetic," the man said, throwing his hair over his shoulder. As he turned to go, he stopped before gazing at the boy's crumpled form and smirking maliciously. "It'll never be over. You're mine for life."

The boy had stopped caring to listen, though, and didn't even feel the pain as he was tugged from the ground by the shackles that were clasped tightly on his bony wrists. He slumped further down to the floor like a loose puppet; the world was nothing to him but a dark basement, icy concrete and the slow trail of blood trickling down his legs.

For hours he lay in the dark, waiting for the throbbing to stop and the world to slow. If only he could move... If only he could just end it. But, no; the man fed him, kept him alive, just so he could tear out another piece of his soul. Maybe it really would never be over. It wasn't like he remembered anything but this dark basement and his own thoughts, but even those slipped away each time the man fed him. Something was in his food, something to keep him weak.

He stood on trembling legs and felt the walls around him. They were smooth and unmarred, a stark contrast to his own bruised flesh. He gazed with envy at the walls and their flawless complexion. He was so dirty, so dented now. He wished he could melt into the wall's pristine surface and just be an insignificant smear. Something inside himself, though, wouldn't let him die. His enduring soul was clinging to life in his captivity. How long had it been? Months? Years, even? He should be dead. His mind was dying, but his body was kept animated by his own damned nature.

Who am I?

He didn't feel old. In fact, he felt young; his body was lean, his hair thick and his lips full. It seemed like being held in captivity had only changed his hygiene, not his appearance. His will was broken, but his flesh was yet to yield.

He sat up and tried to remember, tried to think of what he was besides a mere boy. Was he something he shouldn't be? Was he something wrong? No, no. He felt right. Maybe he was dead. Was he in hell? He searched, begged the blank slate that was his mind for answers, and for once something came.

Green grass, lush and thick.

Soft wind.

Someone's blissful laughter.

A hand running nimbly through his hair...

A great sadness.

His eyes fluttered open, returning to the present. But what was it he had remembered? Tilting his head back to rest on the damned perfect wall, it soon donned on him that he still had the makeshift gag shoved in his mouth. He tugged it out gingerly and, now free of the restraint, began to sing.

"The vampire flees across the mountains of Romania,
Holding a lifeless form close to its chest.
White doves, scared to follow, in reverence,
And fae sing their sorrow."

What it meant, the boy chained to the wall did not know... Why did he know this song? Was it important to him? Remembering was becoming harder and harder, his consciousness fading quickly, and yet the boy did not want to forget.

"I'll write it down then," he mumbled to himself and, dragging his fingertip across the cement-covered floor, he used a trail of his own blood to write down the only thing he could remember.

S... O... R... A...

OOO

"Oh, hey, we're here!" Pence said, bobbing his head agreeably. "I think something's wrong, though..."

Before Roxas was a towering white tent, gold trimming along the entrance flaps and shining golden poles holding the flowing fabric sturdy in the slight breeze. It was... magnificent. Roxas held his breath in, and resisted the sudden urge to reach out and touch the shimmering white fabric. Craning his neck forward, he let a small amount of childlike wonder slip into his face; this wasn't what he was expecting. Nodding, Roxas could only blindly reassure himself that looks could be deceiving.

"Oh!" A petite girl with dozens of honey blonde braids among her hair skittered towards them out of the golden ticket booth situated outside of the entrance. Worry was creasing her heart shaped face. "Um, we had to postpone today's show... There were some issues with setting up the tent." She shifted, darting her eyes about nervously and tugging at her blue headband. "Sorry for your inconvenience!"

Roxas cheered internally. He was going to get out of this after all! To the others it just appeared as though his eyes were glazed over in disappointment, not juvenile glee. They didn't even notice his slight smirk.

"But we pre-ordered tickets!" Olette cried, hands on hips and becoming angrier by the second. "You better give us a damn fine refund if you're going to treat us like this!"

"Oh, um, well..." the girl stuttered. "I'll go get someone more prominent for you to speak with!" she squeaked and rocked herself back into the safety of the huge shimmering tent looming behind her, leaving the golden ticket booth all but abandoned.

The minutes ticked by, and Olette became increasingly more annoyed with each passing second. She flipped her hair around and swore a bit under her breath as she paced in front of the huge circus entrance.

"You know, I only said what I did for our own good, guys," she bit out. "I was just looking out for the group."

"We know you were, Olly," Pence said, showing his distaste for the situation by using Olette's long hated nickname.

"Aw, thanks, Pence!" Olette gushed, fake cheeriness returning. Olette always greedily accepted her compliments, fake or otherwise.

Hayner grunted next to Roxas, lolling his head to the side to see if he was as ready to leave as Roxas was. Roxas slid his eyes to meet the other boy's, giving him an imploring look. Hayner rose.

"Come on, guys. Let's just get out of here. The show can't be that good."

"No!" Olette cried, wheeling around. "I went and put myself out on a limb for you. You are not going anywhere until the bimbo comes back!" The group stared, and Roxas did his best not to smirk at the girl's slip up of personas. Today was turning out to be okay. Until, of course, the group was disrupted from their inner squabbling by a tall shadow that was cast over their huddle.

"Now, Miss. Rikku told me you had an inquiry about tickets?" The newcomer smiled, flipping his long pink hair behind himself. Roxas stared at the tall man before him, taking in the floppy layers of, well... pink. In addition to his outlandish hair, he had the most piercing blue eyes, and skin so pale and clear it looked to be a doll's. Roxas could only sum up the man's appearance as being... other worldly. Combined with the man's thin frame under his charcoal suit, Roxas had to wonder if the circus was feeding him.

"Oh, well..." Olette had begun to speak again in a way akin to stuttering; stuttering when Olette was in uber-bitch mode was something almost unheard of to Roxas. Immediately, he whipped his head to the side to make sure it was really his friend talking.

"W-we bought tickets for your show-" Her sentence was never finished, as one slender white finger had been placed upon her lips.

"Say no more!" the man said dramatically, throwing his spare arm into the air for effect. "I shall arrange for you to have front row seats at our next performance on the morrow!" His sweeping eyes connected with hers. "It is my promise." And with that the tall man bent down, placed a delicate kiss on her hand, and promptly swept himself away in steady, fast strides towards the tent.

"Ri-kku!" he sang out, "I need four front row seats for these lovely customers!" And with a twirl he was gone, disappearing, like the blonde before him, into the enveloping folds of the tent in a dramatic flourish.

It was only after the flowery man's presence had disappeared that Roxas returned to looking at his friends. Pence and Hayner were dumfounded, and Olette looked like someone had just asked her to be the queen, all smiles and rosy blush. Roxas looked about in wonder. What had just happened to them? Were they just visited by an angel, or a prostitute? Before he had a chance to wonder about it any further, the aforementioned Rikku popped back out of the tent, skipping joyously towards them as if she had a new lease on life.

"Here you are, Miss and Sirs!" she chirped. "I hope to see you front and centre tomorrow night!" And with that she pivoted, and with one leap hopped onto the top of the golden ticket booth. Roxas' eyebrows shot up. Did she just jump six feet? he wondered mutely. He turned to his friends to ask them if what he just saw was real, but realized all too soon that they were already heading back into the bowels of the city. Roxas scurried, trying to catch up, but not before turning around one more time to see Rikku, grinning like a maniac on top of the ticket booth, give him a wink.

"Maybe the show will be more interesting than I thought," he murmured to himself, before picking up his pace again and crying, "Hey, guys! Wait up!"

OOO

Fidgeting nervously, Roxas stared at a tawny brick building. He knew that very soon he'd have to pick up his balls and walk up the icy metal stairs, through the perfectly beige lobby and finally into the wrought iron elevator that always made him sick. Not many things in the city of Hollow Bastion were iron. Copper was the preferred metal to be worked with, from piping to street poles to bar signs. The city was at least a hundred and fifty years old, so Roxas could only figure that was the reason for the gothic style buildings.

He had only been in the city for five years. He had been found abandoned at a bus stop at only thirteen years old, and Roxas often wondered what his life had been like before Hollow Bastion. Had he truly been so insignificant that someone could just leave him alone to die? He shuddered, pulling himself out of the darker thoughts he'd been stewing in and tried to pull himself back to the present day. Every once in a while he would slip into a deep pondering of his past, and his therapist had told him he should try and snap out of it as soon as possible. Sometimes, though, Roxas didn't listen and instead welcomed the thoughts that left him stuck staring numbly at the steps to his apartment as he was now.

"Boy! You're doing it again!" the doorman cried from above him. "Snap out of it, now, and come on inside where it's cooler."

Whipping his head up, Roxas hurried up the steps quicker than normal and in doing so tripped and fell hard on his knee.

"Shit," he cussed quietly, looking for blood. He was greeted with a thin purpling bruise next to a pink scar he had on his knee from a bike accident two years ago. He hated that scar, and everyone was going to see it more than ever now that it was surrounded by the colouring skin.

Something in the universe must have been telling him not to go into the cool serenity of the lobby. He sighed, getting up anyway and leaving the smog and humidity of mid August behind him.

Regretting passing the doorman wordlessly, Roxas turned around and gave the man a quick wave and smile, which the man dutifully returned. He could lie and smile until he was blue in the face, but Roxas could never look down on someone doing their job.

And so he headed through the damned beige lobby and shuffled towards the wrought iron elevator. And up, up, up he went, holding down his queasy feeling as he neared the place he disliked the most: home.

"Oh, there you are, sweetie!" cried an exuberant voice. "It's nice to see you back early for once! So, how was the show?"

"It got cancelled."

"Oh! Well, then, what were you doing all day?" The worry and mistrust laced into the woman's voice was, for the most part, genuine (the mistrust surely so). Roxas could easily tell, however, that the woman before him was being paid for her concern. As a foster child, the Hollow Bastion Regional Justice System, Sector 3, put Roxas under the care of this woman. HBRJ paid the foster home's hosts quite nicely for their participation in the program. To Gloria Bakes, housing Roxas was both a money grab and a way to get her mother off her back. Roxas had discovered both things shortly after beginning his stay in her home.

Keeping him sheltered, fed and out of trouble was the least she could do to earn her monthly cheque.

"I went shopping," he said after a long pause. "I needed new shoes; you know how the black ones had holes in them?"

"Ah, right."

And so began to the nightly ritual of Roxas being quizzed on his needs and wants so Gloria could please the HBRJ. At least I get the essential stuff, he mused, only slightly paying attention to Gloria's 'good parenting'.

But Roxas had a secret buried deep in his heart that he would only admit in his darkest hours. He had everything he needed but the most essential thing of all: love. And this secret is what kept him up that night, staring at the blue walls of his room. He forced himself to only think about the exact shade of cerulean that decorated his walls, how they perfectly matched the new shoes that Gloria had insisted they go out and buy shortly after their conversation.

"I want to make sure you have everything you need," she had explained. Oh, how Roxas knew. The only thing that Roxas saw, though, as he picked up his new, rubber-scented Chucks, was the gaping empty hole where something he wasn't thinking about was supposed to be.

Fuck, he thought bitterly. It was times like these he could almost, just almost, remember. So Roxas curled up in his bed, surrounded by shallow memories of the past five years, clutched his new shoes, and cried.

OOO

The world was a dark and stinky place to Roxas, sitting on a bench of torn up wood in a place quite unfamiliar to him. He glanced around, looking from dismal towers to the gritty street below him. He felt like he had just woken up, could feel nothing but the biting air of a harsh oncoming winter. Roxas could only sit quietly for a long time, looking at his breath steam and swirl in the air in front of him. Looking down to see himself in a lightweight shirt and shorts, he realised just why he was so cold. His small, prepubescent frame curled in on itself, trying to keep as warm as possible.

He blinked at the strangers walking past him on the street. Was he supposed to know where he was? Was he supposed to be going somewhere? He looked at the sign adjacent to the bench and took in the garish letters.

'36 Loop - Colonial at Chartrand Cres'

Was he supposed to know that street? He didn't know. He got up on unsteady feet and walked about the bench, feeling the need to take action and fix his current predicament but not knowing how. A loud rumble of oncoming traffic startled him from his circling, and he looked up to see a large white bus with a brilliant orange stripe painted on the side roll up next to him. The door opened, revealing a man behind a large electronic tower eyeing him expectantly.

"Well, are you gunna get on, kid?" the guy asked in a gruff voice.

"I... Um..."

"Well?" repeated the man. Roxas shifted, unsure whether to trust this burly stranger. Deciding he could easily run from the man's grasp if he had to, Roxas ventured onto the bus before him.

"Where's your ticket?" the driver asked, irritation growing apparent in his voice. "You gunna give me a ticket or what?"

"Pardon?" Roxas said, panic picking up as the doors squealed shut and the bus started again, ripping him away from the only place he had familiarized himself with.

"Oh, I get it. You got cash, right? Well, fork it over!"

"Um..."

"Come on, kid!"

"Where am I?"

The bus driver cringed – he had a very long day ahead of him after his shift.

In the next couple of hours that Roxas spent with the bus driver (Rupert, he discovered) he realized that he truly knew absolutely nothing about anything. He barely understood what cash was.

He sat in the chair next to Rupert and talked with him for hours. He discovered he was in a city called Hollow Bastion. He was probably somebody's amber alert, Rupert said, but he couldn't let him go until 'the end of his shift'. Roxas sat there, silent for the most part, and looked out of the window numbly. He could do nothing but take in the never ending loop of scenery as Rupert ran the bus around the track. Roxas passed Colonial at Chartrand Cres many times, each time wondering how he had come to sit on the beaten bench.

Eventually, Rupert took Roxas to the police station, into the warm air and stifling questions presented to him by curious officers.

"What's your name?" ...Roxas.

"Do you really not remember?" ...Yes.

"Are you a runaway?" He didn't know.

"Where are you from, son?" He didn't know.

"Can you tell us why you were on the bench?" Again, he didn't know.

There were so many things he didn't know. The police looked at him, looked at his soft white shirt and brown shorts, and knew he was from somewhere far away. They took him in, hooked him up to lie detectors and asked him their questions again and again, but they could only decide that he was an amnesia victim. The only concern was that there were no new reports on lost children – and no old reports on lost children, for that matter – that matched his age and description.

The case of Roxas Doe would be one that they could never solve.

So they packed him up and sent him away to Gloria Bakes, a woman who always had glowing reviews for her foster care.

Roxas still did not remember, but slowly he grew to make new memories. Gloria introduced him to her mother, who had cooed and coddled him before Gloria ripped him away, ending Roxas' first and last experience with familial love.

Roxas learned about what Hollow Bastion was, what songs were popular, what stores to shop at, what 'cash' and 'bros' and 'omg' were. What Roxas learned the most about, though, were the people of the city. They were all raging, pathological liars. Roxas just wanted to know why people acted the way they did, why they wore their stupid masks of love and bravado. Why was it absolutely necessary he wore one too? He didn't want friends if he had to be this way! But, try as he might, being blunt did not bode him well in this city.

One day, after being taken for sarcastic when telling a sales woman she looked lovely, Roxas just gave up. He fell to the seat of Gloria's car helplessly and stared at the ceiling in deep thought. If they wanted to play the lying game, then so be it. He'd be the fakest person they'd ever meet.

OOO

"Your eyes are all puffy," Olette said, plopping herself on his kitchen stool after strolling into his apartment uninvited the next morning. Roxas twitched, unwilling to state that he'd cried himself to sleep the night before.

"I was chopping onions for an omelette earlier," he said easily, faking a rowdy grin for his friend who stupidly bought his story.

"Oh! Chef Roxas!" she quipped. "How about you make me one of those stellar omelettes, eh?"

Roxas cringed. He'd walked right into that one – Olette had always been a food whore.

"Ran out of eggs, sorry."

"Damn," she sighed, allowing Roxas to breath in relief of not having to cook for the girl. "Well, at least we get to go to the circus today," she continued. "I mean, finally. I swear, after yesterday's incident it better be a great show."

"Yeah..."

"Oh, come on! You're not backing out of it now!" Olette said, looking him straight in the eyes. "I'll drag you if I have to."

Roxas believed her.

"We have, like, an hour to get there. Maybe we should hurry up," Olette said, standing up abruptly and waltzing out into the hallway of Roxas' building. "Well? Are you coming?"

"Yeah," Roxas called unenthusiastically.

"Then off to the circus we go!" she sang.

As they made their way through the twisting streets of Hollow Bastion, Roxas dragged behind and sighed as he looked ahead. His other friends were waiting for them patiently at Collegeway and Rathburn. He wished they had been late, he wished Olette had broken her ankle getting up his apartment steps, he wished anything could have happened that allowed him to be free from the circus visit.

Unfortunately for Roxas' wishes, when the small group approached the circus ground for the second time in 24 hours, they were greeted with a much different sight than they had been the day before.

The place was... alive.

People chatted, the smell of popcorn drifted through the air, and Rikku was firmly situated in her ticket booth, selling ticket after ticket to literally hundreds of patrons.

"Hallo, guys! Good to see you came back!" she cheered, waving off Olette's hands holding the tickets and making the other girl flinch. "No need to show me those, sweet cheeks, I know for sure you got 'em!" Olette looked offended, but straightened her back and marched away to the entrance of the big top, the view of towering seating fixtures before her.

"Come on, guys!" she barked, smirking as the men before her fell in line, Roxas being the last.

"'Bye," he said to Rikku, twisting his head around to run in behind his friends who had already situated themselves in the stands.

Pence and Hayner had surrounded Olette in the very front row of the stands, dead centre to the polished platform in front of them. He squinted at the seat numbers until he found the one corresponding to his ticket and, picking himself passed a very lavishly decorated couple, he plunked himself into the seat next to Hayner's.

"Hey, man," he murmured, fixating his vision on the shining silver platform almost directly in front of him. Hayner responded with a grunt. Roxas willed himself to calm down, almost simmer, as the lights eventually dimmed and the show began.

"Hello, my dear patrons, and welcome to Kingdom Hearts – a show that is incomparable to any other!" A tall man walked out to the centre of the platform, eyeing the crowd slyly. Roxas blinked at him, seeing his own fare features in an entirely different way. The man's own blond hair was slicked back tight to his skull, blue eyes narrowed in cunning. The man smirked. "My name is Luxord, and I shall be your ringmaster for the night! I hope you enjoy the show..."

And, with that, a slender golden rope dropped beside him from the enormous tent's rafters. Grabbing on, Luxord was pulled out of view, giving the crowd one last saucy wink as he disappeared.

Immediately after the platform was emptied, the room went black. The crowd stirred, unable to decide whether this new development was acceptable. Roxas heard a whisper of, "Boring..." behind him and nodded in silent agreement.

"Ladies and gentlemen: the trapeze sisters!" Luxord's voice boomed about the room and, as his words made their final vibrations, two blinding spot lights lit up the tent. On either side of the room, far above the floor, two blonde women appeared – one was tall and extremely curvaceous while the other was short and thin. They looked at each other, smiling, and dove down to the floor, Roxas' first thought was their doom. Only a moment later, he gave a sigh of relief when he realized they had their hands firmly gripping trapeze bars.

And so the show went on, Roxas looking on with mild interest as girls and boys alike came out in shimmering gold and silver outfits. People did flips, stretches and magic tricks, but over halfway into the show the only thing that had remotely caught his interest was when Rikku had pranced out onto the stage.

With her braids now clustered with an assortment of colourful beads, a new shining silver headband and a tight silver bikini top, she almost didn't look like the girl he had seen earlier. The flamboyant couple Roxas had stepped over earlier also sprang to life beside him, jumping over the barrier to join the act and scaring the crap out of him. She had done a magic show, the two dark haired people acting as both her assistants and her guinea pigs. Roxas was kind of impressed, but only because he had actually met the girl beforehand and she had appeared to vapid to pull off such feats.

He was sure there was nothing noticeable about the circus group, nothing that made the show 'incomparable to any other'. Roxas' face had increasingly been growing more sour with each passing act until suddenly the lights flickered on and he thought he could finally, finally, be done with this silly circus. To his surprise, however, it wasn't over.

"And now," Luxord's ever present voice boomed. "We have an elemental illusionist! This person had talent so great he had to be hunted down from the four corners of the earth, his element learned after centuries of practice from his predecessors!"

Heh, so dramatic, Roxas thought to himself, completely at ease with the fact that he knew nothing could be as spectacular as this man proclaimed it to be.

But Roxas was proved utterly wrong.

A man walked onto the platform looking completely different than any of the other performers. He wore nothing but a blue pair of swim shorts, his fair hair spiked up at a perfect 90-degree angle. His smile was wild and care-free. He just stood there for a moment, casting his wonderful grin at the crowd. Then he drew his arms up and summoned tidal waves to crash and rush up either side of him.

Roxas could feel the rush of the water's currents from his front row seat and he was awed. He could do nothing but sit there and watch the man swim, command and dance with the water, glued to the way the heavy dub step temp in the background made the liquid jump and twitch with each bass roll.

How could this be real? he thought in awe, a genuine smile forming on his lips as he watched the man with increasing wonder. It all ended eventually, but Roxas was left with a distinct feeling of joy from the performance. It was... beautiful.

They must have left the best act for last, as a string of performers walked onto the stage to take their final bows. To Roxas, the magicians, acrobats and contortionists had nothing great about them. He only had eyes for the waterman. They had never announced his name, Roxas realized.

Luxord was the last to arrive on the silvery stage to announce that the show was truly over and that everyone could leave. As he walked away sadly, Roxas wondered if he truly had hated the entire show. Maybe, just maybe, he should have looked at it with an open mind. But no, he had waited until the last, most spectacular act to realize how truly amazing this circus just might be.

He wished he could somehow approach these people and tell them just how wonderful he thought the show was. But instead he turned, face red, and ran to catch up with his friends. It wasn't until much later it struck Roxas – the man from the water act was looking directly at him with his glowing smile at the end of the show.

OOO

"Roxas! You're back!" Gloria cried, getting up from her perch on a stool in the apartment's kitchen.

She had been waiting for him. Roxas gulped; this couldn't end well in his eyes. He walked into the kitchen as slowly as he dared, dropping his keys on the counter with a clack.

"I need to talk to you, sweetie. Come and sit down." She readjusted herself on her own stool, as if to make a statement that he should follow. He sat cautiously, and glanced up to his guardian with an expectant look on his face.

"Yes, Gloria?" he asked politely. What could she want now?

"As you and I both know, your birthday's coming up in the next couple of months."

"Yes, in November."

"Well, sweetie, you'll be turning eighteen."

"...And?"

"And you'll be a legal adult then. I think it'd be in your best interest if you moved out after that, hon. I raised you to be a responsible adult these past five years. I think it's time you go out and look for a job and be on your own after that, for your own sake."

"O-okay."

Gloria smiled at this and indicated with a wave that she was done talking. The clack of her heels echoing in the hallway as she walked away were hardly heard by Roxas. He rose, walked out of the kitchen and slumped onto his bed as it hit him.

Eighteen. A legal adult.

Gloria's cheques would stop coming once her foster child no longer needed protection under the law. Gloria was getting rid of him. She'd soon have her clutches in some new, younger child that she could ignore and keep to replace him.

Having no idea what was to become of him, Roxas lay on his bed for a long time and tried not to think of anything in particular. The only comforting thought about the whole situation to him at the moment was that he would not be going to bed crying. However, he had much, much bigger problems before him.

In three months he'd be homeless.