Summary: It seems that leaving the old behind for the new is becoming a regular thing. After Roxas is forced to move out of the suburbs and into the city, forgetting about that first story house is the least of his transitions. The people of the city seem to be quite interesting, and none of them catch Roxas' interest more than Axel, a teacher at Radiant Garden Private School, but what kinds of changes will he have to make to pursue this interest...

Pairings: Axel/Roxas, Riku/Sora, and maybe more...

Contents: Some strong language, boy love, alcohol, cross-dressing and all those fun things!

Chapter One: City Calls

My life was that of a typical teenage boy. I was born into a family struggling to pay the bills in a ditch effort to cling on to the middle class. My house was in suburban territory. Y'know, comfortable but boring as hell. I got through school. Barely at least. My grades were not phenomenal, but I passed. I didn't stick out too much so I wasn't too popular, but I also avoided being overly bullied. I did have my friends, and although everything was pretty much normal, it was all comfortable and... nice.

THEN, my father got his promotion. He was a local cop; he was well liked, liked his job, and did it well. Not like there was too much to do up there. Something about him must've caught the eye of someone up north one day, because before I knew it, I was being told to pack my bags. That's right... we were moving. Well, long story short, good-old-dad wouldn't take no for an answer, so I got pulled up by my roots out of my three hundred student school, my B average, and the safety of my settled position among my friends in the school hierarchy.

This is where I start my story, pouting like an overruled teen does in the passenger seat of a car heading in exactly the direction I do not want to go.

"Do we really have to go, dad?" I say with an exasperated sigh.

"Wow, are you really trying to ask me that every two miles, or is that just coincidence?" Is his response.

"A city job, dad?" I say, ignoring his question, "Do you know what city cops have to go through?"

"Yeah, they make more money," he laughs annoyingly, "Plus, I'm gonna be a lieutenant!" Man, I hate it when people laugh when I'm pissed.

"Do you watch the news, dad? The city's full of crime. You'll be shot in a gunfight in no time!"

"They pull that stuff out of their butts just so they can get people to watch." he snickers, sure of himself, "I'll be fine, son. It's a great opportunity!"

I exaggerate another sigh incase he hadn't heard the first one. Unfortunately, unless I can manage to sigh hard enough to blow us back home, we're city bound as we pass under the welcoming sign and buildings fill the sky in front of us. Goodbye comfortable suburbia.

The police force had actually assisted in getting my dad and I an apartment in the city before we even got there. The place really isn't half bad, but as I walk in with a pissed off attitude, it looks like hell to me. I throw my coat on the floor and it falls in a checkered mass by my dad's feet. I had left all the bags for him to carry, just because I feel like punishing him. I flop down into a chair at a table a little ways into the place. The sound of an exhausted man dropping the bags down in a corner is followed by the words:

"Come on. It isn't all that bad, huh Roxas?" Oh yeah... that's my name.

"Hell yeah, it's that bad!" I snap with all the fury built by hours of riding in a car, "I'm like, hundreds of miles away from all the friends I'll never see again, in a fucking upscale apartment. How the hell do you plan to pay for this anyway?" I stand up and pace to further illustrate my words. "What the hell floor are we on anyway? I think I'm vertically further off the ground then I could've been from my friends at any time back home. At least this way the fall will kill me!" I slump back into the chair with a huff and my dad shakes his head with a sigh.

"You'll get used to it, Roxas, and you'll make friends at your new school too." I scoff at his words as he picks up my coat and hangs it by the door. "I'll give you two weeks to get used to the new environment before I put you in school as well. Fair enough?"

"Pfft..." It's my pissed agreement noise. I'm still mad, but two weeks isn't a bad deal. Knowing dad, that's probably the longest he can spare before the truancy officers get on our case, so I won't bother haggling for more time. He really is making an effort to make this easier for me. He better be after dragging me this far.

I decide to take my dad up on his offer for me to 'get used to my new environment', and leave the apartment for a tour of the city. My dad gave me some money for a taxi in case I get lost, along with both the phone number and address of our new place. He's a little paranoid sometimes, seriously. I walk a block or two, doing my best to ignore the height of the buildings, and eventually happen upon a park with a number of people. Crossing the street almost kills me. City people really don't drive well, do they?

The point of me being in this park, if anything, is not to familiarize myself with the city, but to find some good, safe, school-going friends to cling to during my remaining years. Most of the people around are either really old, in a stroller, or the one pushing the stroller. This isn't really what I'm looking for. But wait. On a bench just across the lawn, there's a boy about my age, apparently having an angry stare-down with a pigeon. His hair's messy, his pants are just a bit too short to be pants, but too long to be shorts, and his shoes look about two sizes too big. Despite this, he's kind of an attractive guy, which is weird with someone who has these qualities. He looks nerdy but kinda cool at the same time... and heck, he can pull off having a stare-down with a frickin' bird without looking like a fool. He'll do.

After my assessment, I stroll up and drop myself down in the seat next to the kid. The pigeon takes notice of me, seems to make some kind of rude gesture, and bobs its way off to a different bench to the right.

"Bird watching?" I joke. Always start with a joke.

"Naw." The boy responds without looking at me as though I had been there beside him the whole time. He leans back and flips his arms up behind his head to continue talking. "I was complaining about all the old people in the park, but then he started arguing that he liked the old people. Said they feed him. They just remind me of getting old, but he took offense when I told him." He finishes off with a shrug and looks to me for the first time. Brown hair and blue eyes, huh? What the hell is he talking about, anyway? Did he start with a joke too?

"I guess pigeons don't have to worry about getting old." I say, humoring him, "They just have to avoid angry busses, bratty kids and hungry cats."

"I guess." He considers, "I hate bratty kids."

"Name's Roxas." That's always a cool way to introduce yourself, right?

"Sky." He says promptly, "In Japanese."

"What?" ...What?

"My name means sky in Japanese." He twinkles. Why the hell does he know that? He doesn't look Japanese, anyway... now... let me think... sky in Japanese.

"Asuka?" I blurt out, epically missing the gender of the name. That's a nice slip.

"Close. It's Sora." How is that close? Besides... doesn't that mean to fly or something?

"Cool." I suppose, but I still don't know why this kid has a Japanese name, "Hey. You mind if I hang out for a bit?"

"Sure. Why don't you come get some grub with me?"

"So you're new to the city, huh?" Sora walks in an amusing way as he's talking to me: hands linked behind his head and feat clunking around in his oversized shoes.

"Relatively." It's been about an hour, right? "I just wanted to hang out a bit, learn some stuff, maybe get a tour..." I might be ahead of myself. This kids probably got things to do.

"Sure. I dropped my homework on the way to the park, so I have some free time." Or maybe he doesn't have things to do.

"We could backtrack and look for it if you want. I wouldn't mind learning my way to school."

"I dropped it," he repeats, and then gives me a rather serious stare, "off a bridge... into the water."

"Oh." I eye him for a minute, just a little freaked, I'm not gonna lie.

"I half considered cement shoes, but I haven't met homework that could swim since that Custer paper in fifth grade." I guess he's not the type of friend to copy homework from.

I follow the clomping of Sora's bigfoot shoes down a few streets, over a bridge (on which he stops for a moment to apparently make sure his homework didn't cling to the side), across an area with a lot of stores, and finally into a Chinese food restaurant. I can't tell whether the place is shabby, or just made to look shabby. Everything about it feels like stepping into some old shanghai samurai town from one of those lame subtitled films my dad used to rent. Some cute Japanese girl comes to take our order. I wonder what her name is? I guess they're not required to wear name-tags on their kimonos. It figures that she asks me what I'd like to eat first. Don't these people give you time to look at the menu? Sheesh...

"I'll get whatever he's having." I say coolly, but doesn't the frickin' kid go on to order lobster. The waitress has our menus and is gone before I can say anything. Since I doubt this kid is paying for my lunch, I'm screwed as far as money goes. I guess I'll have to make sure I find my way back home, cuz I sure in hell won't have enough for a taxi after this. Who orders lobster in a Chinese food place anyway? Well... I guess I haven't been in too many since there was a shortage of 'em back in my last home, but who orders lobster when they're going out for some 'grub'? I decide not to mention the likely existence of a number of seafood places on the off chance that they're scarce in the city, and instead say: "So... What's school here like?"

"'Sallright..." Is his response. Is that even a word? "A school is a school is a school, y'know?" I don't really, but somehow it's a little comforting knowing that it might be similar to my last school back in the suburbs. Silence ensues for a bit. Sora's eyes flicker from person to person, car to car, and sign to sign while he stares out the window. Anything that moves seems to get his undivided attention... as long as it's out there."I like being inside." He finally says. I swear he's just trying to keep me guessing here. I mean... I meet him in the park, his eyes are locked on everything happening outdoors, and now he says he likes being inside? Is he a walking contradiction? Does he just like everything and feels as though he has to tell me?

"Why?" I ask against my better judgment.

"Because I wish I was outside." He says, not breaking his attention from a particularly enthralling plastic bag caught in the wind. That doesn't help... Thankfully, my efforts to persist in understanding the not understandable are interrupted by the arrival of our food. I guess lobster is a safe meal for someone who never eats oriental. "So you've never been to school yet, huh?" Sora asks from his side of the table and... oh my god, he's actually not looking outside anymore. I was beginning to wonder if I was wearing some sort of suburban fashion, unbearable to the eyes of city folk.

"Nope, not yet." I respond, realizing that they didn't give us a bowl to crack the lobster over. Wait... did they shell this for us? I look back at Sora to clarify, "Well, I used to go back where I came from, but now that I've moved here, my dad's given me a few weeks to get used to the change in scenery first."

"So you've been here for less than a week, huh?" Damn his ability to put two and two together. What's this sauce they put the lobster in, anyway? He continues when I don't: "How long have you been here for?"

"About an hour and a half." Might as well come out and say it. I'm a newbie, green as grass, a little city virgin. Be gentle?

"Sweet!" He says. Apparently he likes virgins, "Sounds like you got a few weeks left to your few weeks."

After we eat, my wallets about as empty as I figured it'd be. I even paid the tip, being the frickin' gentleman that I am. I mean, why not? I wouldn't have had enough for a cab either way.

"Which way did we come from?" I hope that Sora even knows as we stand on the sidewalk just outside the restaurant.

"That way." He says, looking instead of pointing, "Why? You walking home?"

"Don't have the money for a cab." I say, cursing his brilliant deduction skills.

"Why don't you take the bus? Come on, I'll pay." There's a public bus? I knew this kid would have his uses.

Riding the bus home with a potential psychopath would be more unpleasant if I weren't so grateful that I don't have to walk the distance. I was tired enough from the car ride into the city, and now that lobster had to go and settle down in just the right part of my stomach to make me want to take a nap.

"Sup, Hayner?" I hear Sora exclaim from somewhere next to me. I'm confused for just a moment until I realize that another kid about our age had joined us in the back of the bus. There are more kids about my age in this city? Who would've thought.

"Who's the kid?" The boy, apparently Hayner, decides that just because I'm sitting next to Sora, I'm with him. He also apparently decides that I'm incapable of introducing myself.

"That's Roxas." Sora agrees with Hayner's decision, "He's new around here."

"Hey! Put 'er there, Rox!" Hayner outstretches his arm. What he just said, I don't know, and was that last part supposed to be my name? He's still standing there with his hand out. He's got the same sort of psychotic glint in his brown eyes as Sora does in his blues. I know the blonde crew cut like hair and camo-shorts must say something about him... I'm just not sure what.

"Roxas." I say, feeling comfort in my name. Just shake the hand and smile.

I must've turned invisible after shaking the boys hand, because after that point, Sora and him were lost in conversation. School seems to be the topic. Nothing too interesting, but at the expense of sounding like Sora, that interests me. Maybe the public school system isn't that different than the one back home... well... my old home, anyway. Maybe I'll just slide right in and sink comfortably into my own pocket of the school-going food chain. Maybe I'll... Who's that? A man just stepped onto the bus dawning a black suit with a tie, and all the grace and sleek of one of those male models you see once in a while on TV. That's not the interesting part though. Up from the fancy wear, the guy's hair is a brushed back mess of bright red spikes, their roots framing a face bearing two reverse tear drop tattoos under each of his cool green eyes. I'm just good at observing these things, but talk about a walking contradiction. Yet these clashes work for him, and he didn't even fumble his quarters when paying for the bus. Now he's interesting.

"Oh... That's Axel." Hayner answers me. Apparently I said that 'who's that' part out loud, "He's actually a teacher, but he's been frequenting the bus lately." A teacher, huh?

"What does he teach?" I do a bad job of hiding my interest.

"A bunch of stuff." Hayner continues, although he almost looks annoyed to be broken from his last conversation, "But not at our school. He teaches at Radiant Garden Private School. He'd get eaten alive for wearing that to one of our classrooms." I consider for a moment how much of a shame it'd be to lose this interesting individual to the cannibalistic nature these school people seemed to have, and then quickly make a note of the school's name in my head.

After bidding farewell to Sora and his friend, who surprisingly didn't follow me into my own home, I am reminded that I have a father.

"You've been out a while." He says, cupping his hands on his hips and smiling at me. He doesn't smile that way unless he's hoping I've forgiven him for something, "Did you decide that you might actually end up surviving this experience?" I consider for a moment.

"Yes." I say with malicious intent. I plan on using his vulnerability, "Under one condition."

"Go ahead..." My father resigns himself with a sigh.

"I get to choose what school I go to!"

"What, like a private school?" He begins to argue and then retreats from my manipulative pout, "Yeah, sure. Why not. I just want you to be happy here."

"Thanks dad!" I shoot him an appreciative thumbs up and my signature smile before fleeing to my room. I hear him say 'yeah' or something as I close the door. My new room isn't too bad, really, and hey... it has a computer. Before even unpacking my bags, I set myself up on the internet and type Radiant Garden Private School into the search bar. It's funny how a single guy can get me so excited about a school. It's random, but just like me I suppose. My excitement is suddenly stabbed to death and left at the side of the road. I guess that's a bit brutal, but I read something I don't really like as soon as I hit the school's main page. This could be a problem...