Author Notes:

The first two chapters might be a bit tedious, but everything gets really fun after that. Way more dialogue and the romance progresses.

Please enjoy :)

~cream pudding

Chapter 1

The Daily Grind

Summary:

Roxas' existence is pretty rubbish.


He had lived in this city for almost five months. He was getting used to the early and long commute from his tiny apartment, at one end of the vast city, to where his work's office building stood, at the other end of the subway line.

It was always the same old routine.

He would wake to the tiny and desperately pained blaring of his phone, as it screeched at him to 'get the fuck up'. And he did. He would rise, throw off his multitude of covers and hastily throw on a thick woolly bathrobe over his heavy fleece pajamas, before stumbling and stalking into the bathroom down the hall. His goal was always the same; a hot shower.

Roxas was always atrociously cold. Never more so than when he woke from his deep slumber.

No matter the season, the chill never left his bones. Hands like icicles, numb toes, his skin frosty to the touch. The way the hairs on his arms always stood on end - so desperate to trap any pockets of lukewarm air against his skin - proved a constant reminder of how screwed up his body was.

But Roxas just took it, for this was Roxas' normalcy. He got used to living his life as if encased in a fridge. His friends sometimes appreciated it on hot summer days. They would use him like an ice pack. So Roxas could at least concede that he was useful in some ways.

Nothing had ever helped. His parents had taken him to specialists, had his blood tested, gotten all his levels checked, made sure he ate well. The doctors called it 'poor circulation'. His veins too thin and small. His heart too cool and calm.

'Cool and calm' - Ha! What a joke that was. Roxas had one of the worst tempers of all the people he knew, but anyway...

By all other accounts Roxas was fine though. There was nothing medically wrong with him.

Since medical science found nothing abnormal, Roxas was happy to draw his own conclusions. He always enjoyed blaming his brother.

"You stole all the warmth from me in the womb".

But Ventus, his identical twin, always just grinned back at him and claimed it as being his 'birthright' on accounts of having been born first. Those thirteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds in delay were possibly the most irritating minutes in Roxas' life. Far too many of their brotherly arguments seemed to come down to who was first and who had been unfortunate enough to be last. Not second. No. But last.

Despite everything Roxas did miss his brother. They were close. They had shared their entire lives together after all. Even before they were ever truly alive. But life had also changed Roxas and how he felt about people. He would never admit to the world how much he actually missed Ventus sometimes.

Ventus was a high achiever who had always attempted to pull Roxas along with him. Ventus had always shared the warmth that he exuded with Roxas, and Roxas had always drunk it up greedily. Even if he couldn't go along with the rest of the things his brother wanted both of them to do.

Despite feeling slightly colder than average without Ventus, Roxas had made the choice to leave his parents and his brother behind. He had made the choice to try and make something of himself somewhere far away from his family. He was sick of living in his brother's shadow. He was sick of the way his parents demeaned Roxas without ever purposefully doing so. His parents always had the same high hopes for both their children. That bothered Roxas, because he was not Ventus, and he was so sick of people not seeing that.

Roxas' daily routine took him out onto the dirty streets of downtown Radiant Gardens. Roxas had chosen this city without doing much research. He liked the name, but found it to have been exceptionally deceptive. There was nothing 'Radiant' about this place. Not even the gardens were much to speak of. It was a gray city, full of miserable buildings and people, just like himself. So perhaps it was fitting that Roxas should have ended up here.

Roxas would walk the two blocks to the steaming sewer vents, also known as the subway line. He would push through the turnstiles and wait for the first train of the day to pull in, hop aboard and zone out existence as its arduous journey through rat infested tunnels began.

He always caught the same train, and he always sat in exactly the same spot; eighth carriage from the front, seat thirteen. Right next to one of three doors on the right side of the car.

The subway train would wearily lurch forward with a chug and a creak, painfully groaning to life. The carriage always swayed into motion, causing Roxas' shoulder to gently bump into the dividing wall panel on his left. Roxas sometimes wondered if one day there would be a dent left in the plastic divider, which he always rocked into. It would surely be molded into the perfect shape of Roxas' shoulder one day.

Roxas had come from a relatively small town, when compared to the sprawl and magnitude of Radiant Gardens. Trains there were quiet, cozy and a maximum of only ever five cars long. It had been somewhat of an adjustment, to say the least, when he arrived in this bigger city. This was a place where the subway maps looked like someone had unraveled a dozen spools of multicolored cotton thread and thrown them into a heap, whist shouting 'Voila! We call this City Planning!'.

The trains were long, with seats lining the walls facing inwards, to maximize the standing space for commuters. Roxas always considered himself lucky to be working and living at each end of the one line. It meant he never needed to change trains. He always got his pick of the seats and he was able to avoid being amongst the sardine crush of those peak time commuters who had to stand.

It was important to focus on the few positives in life, or what was the point of it all, really?

Typically by the fourth station, and ten minutes into his daily commute, the train would be packed. A throng of people making their way to wherever it was they were going crammed together, with no concept of personal space.

Roxas sometimes had his feet stood on. He sometimes would be squashed against the plastic divider, as more people than could ever naturally fit on the hard plastic and pathetically badly stuffed seats, would try to squeeze on and sit down. But that was part of Roxas' life. He at least always had a seat and never had to fight anyone for it.

Other than the jostling of bodies against his own, Roxas never took much notice of other people. neither did he pay too close attention to the passage of days - weeks, or even the months.

Everything blurred and melded into one. He purely knew it was a weekday by the fact that his phones alarm would sound off. Otherwise he'd never know that it was time once more to adorn his favorite blue and lime green, thick, insulated hoodie, over whatever shirt happened to be clean. He would wrap his favorite belt around his favorite weather worn and ratty jeans, and slide on his own comfortable sneakers.

The lack of care given to Roxas' attire was the only benefit (aside the steady paycheck) that Roxas could recognize in his job, which he fastidiously attended every day of the week.

Roxas always wore the same clothes. No matter the weather. Rain, hail, snow, sleet, shine. It never mattered to Roxas. He was always cold, even on the hottest of days, so his hoodie was a welcome friend, and always on hand. He'd sit on the subway, hood pulled over his head, and headphones firmly clasped over the top, listening to his favorite bands or whatever podcast he was currently into.

The world was drowned out and Roxas could become lost in his own fantasies.


Roxas had gotten into a weird habit of staring at people's shoes. He began imagining where these shoes had been and what they said about the person wearing them. Roxas had built up an impressive archive in his head of the shoes he saw. He started being able to discern the 'regulars', like himself on the commuter train, though at this hour most people were 'regulars' really. For who in their right mind would be on a train at six in the morning? Everyone was going off to their sad, pathetic lives, slaving away for a meager wage, to just return home to unfulfilling existences. Or maybe Roxas was just projecting his own internal resentments onto the world. But he enjoyed placing his own shit on others. If he had to suffer he didn't like the thought that he had to suffer alone.

Roxas enjoyed making up ridiculous stories about some of the shoes he saw. In the morning it was usually quite banal, with little to no variety. The business men and women came out to start their day. Shoes all slick, dark, and glistening with polish. Perhaps their partners had cleaned the shoes for them every day when they returned home. A mark of pride or indentured servitude. Roxas could never make up his mind which it would be.

The shoes would always be in pristine condition at the start of the day, but then on the return journey that sheen would disappear. Scuffs might surface, to just be cleaned up again the next day.

But there was one particular pair of black business shoes which, no matter what the weather was like outside, would always enter the train by stop ten, looking particularly glossy. Then they would step off again at stop twenty. These shoes would return by the end of the day and still look immaculate.

Roxas knew it was the same person. He never looked up or around himself. His eyes were always glued onto his lap or on the floor, but he could tell people apart by just looking at their shoes. The way they stood, walked and fidgeted. But also by the socks they wore. And these particular business shoes were always accompanied by a nervous tap of the toes, and striking red socks, peeking through the gap between where the shoe ended and the business trousers began.

Roxas gave names to the shoes he enjoyed watching the most. This was Mr. Business, and Roxas didn't think he would ever like who Mr. Business was.

'Who even keeps their shoes so clean?', Roxas would wonder with mild irritation on days when things just didn't go right. Sometimes Roxas would wonder if Mr. Business kept his shoes to an almost mirroresque perfect polish sheen so he could look up women's skirts. It wouldn't surprise Roxas if that were the case. Roxas bet Mr. Business was a dirty pervert.

Roxas felt far more amicable towards Scuffles, who also had business shoes but they looked old, worn and comfortable. He thought 'Now there's someone who can't be told what to do. He probably doesn't even care what people think of him. He goes to work every day and continues taking pride in his job, and doesn't let anyone talk shit about him. Maybe the shoes are a symbol of his years of toil and hard labor. A proud reflection on his life and dedication.'

Roxas knew that he over romanticized most of his fellow commuters but it was one of his favorite ways to spend his day.

The evening commute home was always more interesting though. The city seemed to come alive when the sun settled down. The business commuters were still amongst the crowd. Mr. Business and Scuffles had homes they needed to get to after all. But more interesting platforms, stilettos, combat boots, sneakers, gladiators, ballerina flats, clogs, ugg boots and even the ever ridiculous crocs would come out and mingle with the usual crowd of overworked, overtired salary men and women. Everyone of which slaved away invisibly to keep this city's heart beating.

Roxas had the most fun with the evening crowd. He imagined what wild lives these shoes had led. Maybe traipsing through the deep jungles, or scaling high cliffs. Maybe one had even stood atop an active volcano, throwing all caution to the sulfuric wind.

Sometimes Roxas even wondered if the shoes could fall in love.

He began wondering that while observing how, over the months, Cute Ballet Flats gradually drifted and danced over from one side of Roxas' field of limited vision, to the other, where Loafers always stood.

Loafers seemed like a pretty chill dude. Always surrounded by some pumps and sneakers. So it was nice to see Cute Ballet Flats make the move to sidle in towards the other.

He didn't know if it was the spring drifting to summer but something seemed to hang in the air between these two. Roxas imagined what whirlwind romance they might have. He watched them flitter around each other for weeks on end. It was like a drama on the television, or some strange elaborate mating ritual. Whatever the case it provided Roxas with enough entertainment to get him through some of the most tedious parts of his hour long commute.

He would always eagerly 'tune in tomorrow' to discover if they had gotten to the next level in their soleful relationship.

Sometimes Roxas made himself laugh with the stupid shit he came up with in his head.

So that was how Roxas enjoyed spending two solid hours of his day. It made an awful journey bearable. He sadly could not say that he had the same reprieve from the other eight hours he had to spend at the mind numbing ordeal he called work. It was something that had to be suffered through and something to endure and cringe-worthily be tolerated every day.

But the monotony of his working hours filled up his day nicely - as much as Roxas hated it. Whilst he was at work he at least was around other human beings, which was nice. He listened to the office banter, never partaking, but ever aware of its existence. He thought if he had to listen to silence for eight hours straight he would go insane. Roxas wasn't permitted to wear his headphones at work - some lame bullshit excuse of 'disrupting productivity', so he reveled in the noises of office life happening around himself.

The sound at work was infinitely better than what he was faced with upon his return home.

Oppressive silence engulfed him when he returned to his shabby apartment. It was almost too much to bear some days. Whenever he came back home he felt the weight of his isolation at its heaviest. It crashed like a wave and drowned him.

He lived in a shoebox full of lonely, sad, gray people like himself. The walls of his apartment were more akin to some thin, mildly reinforced cardboard than any actual plasterboard. He supposed it should be a blessing that the walls truly were so thin, for late at night he could hear his neighbors undecipherable whispers and sobs through the wall.

Roxas would stare up at the ceiling and just listen to the sound seeping through the pathetic barrier. At first it had been unsettling, but over time it became a sickening comfort. At least he knew there was another human being nearby.

He supposed his neighbor was fond of wallowing in misery late at night, for that was the only time he ever heard anything from that side of the apartment.

Late at night, when Roxas needed to give his ears a rest from his headphones, he would listen endearingly to the soft sounds to his left. They were far more pleasant to focus on than the insect like noises emanating from above and to the right.

Sounds of slithers, scrapes and gnawing permeated from those directions. Sometimes weird thumping would shake him awake at night, followed by scratching and dragging sounds.

At least he knew that someone was alive in the apartment on the left. For all Roxas knew there were dead bodies in the other apartments, being gnawed and burrowed through by whatever wildlife managed to survive in this shithole of a city.

Roxas truly lamented the fact that he had to take his headphones off. He hated that he wasn't able to sleep with them on. He had even tried earbuds at one point but that just woke him in the middle of the night as his ears ached uncomfortably.

He wanted to drown out the unsettling sounds of his home. He wanted to drown out the quiet humming and clattering of the trains. He longed to deaden the mindless chatter of the city. He would even have loved to be able to drown out the incessant noise of his co-workers, no matter how comforting their presence sometimes was. But mainly he needed the noise to drown out the deeply disturbing isolation of his existence.

So Roxas tried to live an enriching inner life. He continued to watch the shoes that entered in and out of his limited view, framed by his hood.

He watched petite pumps and staunch boots. He watched the uniformity of the black business garb wash in, and slowly trickle out again like the tide, as the train sailed through the central business district and back out into the suburban wastelands.

Roxas drifted through life, and his reality, rocking with the sway of the tracks. He jostled to the tired old click clack of wheels on rails, which would never deviate from the path they were on.

The humdrum of daily life raged on with oppressive monotony.


It must have been nearing summer, judging by people's footwear. Roxas was always too cold, so he never knew what season it was. He found it laughable that he could only tell based on what the women chose to wear. Footwear became more bare - Sandals, flip flops, cute bows on cute pumps. Bare legs became more abundant as skirts, dresses and shorts were adorned.

Whereas the men's clothes never changed. The corporate world's mindless drones never changed out of their standard issue uniforms. But Roxas couldn't really chastise them, for he himself wore his own uniform of hoodie, old jeans and sneakers, and never wanted to change out of his comfortable clothes.

So this in the end surely meant that the weather was theoretically heating up, and Roxas also secretly harbored hope with each passing summer that this would be the year that the chill would be driven from Roxas' very core.

One day during summer something of vague interest happened.

Roxas actually felt marginally warm. He might even have ventured so far as to go with slightly toasty. And that had been before he ever stepped foot onto his usual train car, to sit in his usual spot.

The air conditioning unit on the train had broke down on one of the hottest days in recorded history for the city. The train was packed to the brim, as it usually was, and the air became even more acrid than the norm. The sour scent of too many men in their cheap polyester business shirts, stiffly starched collars and neatly ironed and pleated pants, wafted through the air.

Every time the doors opened to swallow up more people into the overly crowded train carriage, it pulled in the slightly fresher air from outside. But that never lasted longer than ten seconds before the doors closed and the offensive smell wafted back to Roxas' somewhat delicate nose.

At first the mellow warmth was welcoming, but as the train crowded and filled - as the smell of a day's worth of stress sweat, and anxiety induced pheromones rose to almost suffocating levels, Roxas felt himself becoming ever so slightly uncomfortable.

Roxas lifted his headphones and pulled his hood off before steadfastly returning the headphones to fill the crushing emptiness his ears had been accosted with for a brief moment.

It felt strange to feel the breeze around his neck. He could feel it tugging at every strand of his unruly hair, ruffling and tickling.

The shoes in front of Roxas shuffled backwards and forwards. Letting people get on and off at each station. Roxas saw his usual crowd - Loafers and Cute Ballet Flats were close together but facing away from each other. Scuffles had managed to land himself a seat across from Roxas. Comando seemed to be hitting on some poor girl, if the way he was nudging her sandals was anything to go by.

Another stop and people engaged in their polite shuffle dance of making way for those getting on or off. Roxas knew this was Mr. Business' work stop, and he would be getting on after a hard day at the office. His shoes would be immaculate and he would go stand off to the side near the door so he could hurtle back out and get off at the entertainment district, as was his pattern on a Friday night.

Roxas chuckled at himself at how well he knew the habits of some of these shoes.

The train came to a grinding halt, causing the forest of legs in front of Roxas to sway. His shoulder once again hit the side of the plastic divider. The shuffle and dance began. Roxas caught sight of Mr. Business, his shoes so bright they almost shone with a light all their own. People crowded in, pushing and squeezing. Someone tried to sit down on the packed seats, forcing everyone else to squeeze down the line. Roxas was firmly pressed against the divider. It was just another day.

With the mildly interesting difference that once the doors were closed and the train began moving again, feet began to shuffle. It was one of the highest breaches of subway etiquette. Once you got on, and the doors were closed you just didn't move. There was no space so you made do with wherever you had landed when you arrived onboard.

But Roxas wasn't at all surprised when he saw who had caused the offense. Mr. Business had squeezed through the throng and had, for some reason, decided to stop right in front of Roxas, where he seemed to still and settle.

The train continued to lurch merrily along the dark corridors of Radiant Gardens underworld. The heat inside the car began turning humid with everyone's collective exhales. It was an altogether unpleasant experience. But the smell seemed to have been placated somewhat as a more pleasant scent drifted to Roxas' nose.

Roxas figured it was the strong cologne of Mr. Business, who seemed to be trying really hard to not let the other passengers push him directly into Roxas' face. Roxas appreciated that. He had his face too close to people's nether reaches on too many occasions and was still no more comfortable with it.

Roxas was sad to see Mr. Business go when he did get off at the entertainment district. The unpleasant smell came back, and continued to linger until Roxas was two stops away from his home.