There had never been a person so eloquent, so beautiful, so intriguing to the young emperor. When the kid had his trap shut anyway. Because- Jesus, what came out of that boys mouth sometimes… What kind of world was he living in? What kind of world was he looking at through those green eyes?

"Your card is was the king of spades." The young man announced to the crowd with a smile so sincere. Something not common for his character.

The crowd of children applauded and cheered in awe. The street magician bowed playfully.

"Wow! Mr. Magician you're amazing!" The young girl clapped joyfully. Her golden braids bouncing with her jumpy movements.

The magician smiled at her, "Not as amazing as my favorite assistant." He turned to the children encircling him. The kids that sat on the dirt road in a half circle enjoying the street performance were a mix of street kids and the children of the parents shopping in the vending streets of Rome.

"I have to take my leave now, I'll see you all next Sunday yes?" He announced with a half-smile and the crowd moaned in protest.

After many long and stalled (on the kids part) farewells, Fran began to collect his things to head back home. He picked up his fedora eyeing the contents. Tips had been good today. They were rare, no one other than the children usually cared for his tricks, but on occasion a passerby would be impressed and throw some change in his hat. Which he was always grateful for as he had been saving up for school.

Performing was a hobby, art was a passion. He thought as he began his long walk back home. He recently achieved a long awaited goal of his. Getting into the art school of his dreams- not even his dreams, a year ago it he would have thought it infinitely impossible. A friend of his grandmother's had offered him a sponsorship and Fran nearly fainted. Although that would have been embarrassing and is glad that he was able to keep composure.

When he was performing he was an entirely different person. It was relaxing and a great opportunity to act like himself for once. He had been raised in a small town, all his neighbors were elderly folk. As a result Fran had been raised to be very well mannered, and as some thought, a bit too serious.

He sighed thinking, he would miss everyone once he started school, but he smiled knowing that everyone was rooting for him.

"We're only allowed to leave campus every other weekend, unless you're awesome and know all the right people." The eccentric boy jabbed a thumb at himself. "Then you can find a way around the rules."

A friend's grandson had been showing Fran around his new campus all morning. He was the kind of person who didn't really think with his head, but more or less with his pride. He was rather cocky, not that Fran cared enough to do anything about it.

He wouldn't start school till Monday, but he decided to move in Saturday in order to find his classes and get used to the area.

"Hey are you doing anything tonight?" The punky kid asked cooly. "Me and a couple of friends were invited to this party at the emperor's place, kinda promised the emperor I'd go. You can tag along."

God, if Fran heard this guy use the word emperor one more time he was going to hang himself. Chika (the friend's grandson) wanted to make sure Fran and anyone within hearing radius knew that he was friends with the emperor; it had been like this all morning.

"I don't know, parties aren't really my thing." Fran had absolutely no interest in going to this party.

"Are you sure? It's not really a party… it's more like a small celebration you know?"

`Small celebration' had been the words Chika had used to describe this.

Fran had known that was probably not going to be the case as soon as he heard the location. A celebration for the emperor was not ever a small celebration.

But this, this was just insane. This party was massive, chaotic, and Fran was just not exciting enough for it.

Chika disappeared seconds into the party with those friends of his. Fran decided to wander around in search for the impossible; the quiet.

Ignoring the excessive amount of intoxicated and rather er- horny guests, the palace was beautiful. Fran admired the architecture and tasteful art pieces that decorated the palace as he found his way around.

Fran had never seen the emperor. He had heard of him but had never laid eyes on him. He obviously had great taste in art. The sculpture he was admiring was perfect, craved by a god. The engraving indicated that it was foreign the artist had signed his name in characters that looked of Asian origin.

He couldn't stop admiring the piece. The seeming angel, his wings were melting as he descended from the heavens.

"Icarus."

The voice startled the young man. He thought he was finally alone in this study or library he had found. He had been wrong in thinking that he was alone. He turned to see the stranger walking up behind him.

"Beautiful isn't it?"

"Yes, I know." Fran studied the stranger. "And yes it is."

The man was tall lean and blond. He seemed rather care free but it was obvious he knew one or two things about mythology so Fran could assume he was well learnt. One thing rather strange about the man was his hair, it was obscuring his eyes. He had expected him to push his hair back and introduce himself but it didn't happen.

"Not enjoying the celebration are we?" The blond asked curiously.

"For one, I'm not really sure what or who we're celebrating, but it's not a matter of enjoyment." Fran answered honestly. "I simply have no interest in drinking my stupor and acting like a buffoon amidst the rest of my peers."

What? The blond hadn't expected, well to be honest, such a thought out answer. He smiled with a hint of mischief and said, leering over the younger (he assumed younger anyway). "Well then maybe I can help you with that?"

Was he being hit on? Fran backed away. "Ah, sorry to disappoint, but I think I would die from intoxication before I were anywhere near drunk enough for that to happen."

Again… what? The blond stared at Fran for a second before exploding in laughter.

"Is there something I'm not understanding?" Fran asked with a puzzled expression.

"Oh no," The other man said regaining his cool composure, still very amused. "That's just not the response I normally get."

"Ah is that so? Reasonable. By the time anyone would be drunk enough to go to bed with you, they probably wouldn't be able to form a coherent sentence."

This kid. The blond wasn't sure if he was impressed by this insult.

"I don't know about you but this is getting really weird for me." The green haired one continued before a response was made. "So I'll be taking my leave."

He left the room. The blond found himself rather annoyed.

"What an asshole."

"Calc 4? You're kidding this is an art school!" A certain blond caught Chika's obnoxiously loud conversation with a familiar green haired youth.

The kid said something the blond didn't catch before waving at Chika and walking away.

"Is that that bum you brought to the party?" A friend of Chika's asked boredly.

"Yeah god help the kid, cursed to be the king of boring for the rest of eternity." Chika sighed.

"Chika." The blond called out.

He snapped his head in the blond's direction immediately. "Yes your highness?"

"You know that kid?" He asked sharply, as he motioned to the green hair in the distance.

"Yeah, did you run into him at the party? I'm sorry man, I wouldn't have brought him if I knew he was going to be a total kill joy-"

"What's his name?"

"Uh? Um.. Fran." Chika said with his usual dumbfounded face. For once he had been useful.

"What else can you tell me about him?"

"Calc 4? Really?" A purple haired young man said with a very slight tone of surprise in his voice.

"Yeah is it really that weird?" Fran asked as they walked down the corridor eyeing the massive windows on his left. The school building was beautiful.

"No, actually I'm in that class, so it's cool that you are too. It's just not many fine arts majors are in that class." Mammon, Fran's roommate was a better tour guide than Chika had been. He was a lot more interesting to converse with as well.

"Ah I like numbers, I thought I would take the class for fun." Fran said as if it were completely obvious.

"Calc 4? For fun?" Mammon gave him a look of disbelief. "Wow, with all due respect, you're incredibly weird, I think it's cool though."

"Small world." An all too familiar voice intercepted the conversation, resulting in Fran's mind coming to a complete halt.

He turned around only to confirm his suspicions.

"Well this is fantastic." Fran said with a candid expression. Although only god knows if he was being sarcastic.

"I guess I'll wait for you in class then." Mammon dismissed himself.

"So your name is Fran?" The blond stranger asked with a smirk. "You can call me Bel." He introduced.

"Nice to meet you- I'm sorry, I feel obligated to tell you that you have a girl's name." Fran said with no attempt to hide his bitter tone.

Bel scoffed, "You're one to talk-" He stopped himself; he was going to be nice. "Moving on, I was going to ask for us to start anew."

"Yes, you're off to a great start already, because you going to the same school and knowing my name already doesn't come off as entirely creepy." Was the young man mocking Bel?

Seriously what was with this kid? Bel was mildly annoyed.

"Alright, I'm not going to deny the school part because that is rather weird, but your name was given to me by that obnoxious friend of yours."

"Chika?"

Bel shrugged, "I guess."

Consideration crossed the boy's blank expression.

"Nope, still creepy." Fran began to walk away.

"Wait!"

Fran stopped and turned back with a look of question.

He had his attention but Bel wasn't sure what else to say. As a result they stood there for an awkward second.

Crap, Bel greatly disliked awkward.

"Creep." Fran said finally resuming to walk away.

Bel almost let him too. "No!" He said suddenly striding over to the boy. "Just, no. Who do you think you are? Why do you think you just go on and be rude to everyone?" He snapped accusingly.

What? "Wait-" Fran asked suddenly trying to understand. "Me? Rude? I wasn't rude until you tried to hit on me remember?"

"That wasn't-" Bel reconsidered. "Well maybe- but you shouldn't take life so seriously! You- you- prick." The blond was in danger of losing his composure.

"I'm leaving." The younger announced, admittedly a bit offended, not that anyone would notice.

What. A. Jerk.

"What's up with you?" Mammon asked as Fran took a seat next to him with a look of obvious discomfort.

"Nothing, just that guy is kind of a dick." Fran had calmed down but that wasn't going to keep him from stating his honest opinion.

"That guy? You know who that guy was?" Mammon asked with incredulity.

Fran shrugged with little interest. "I think he mentioned his name was Bel."

"Yes Fran. Bel. As in Belphegor. As in the EMPEROR." Mammon stated the obvious.

Fran did the math. "Oh of course..." He cursed the irony.

"I wouldn't associate with him much if I were you." Mammon had brought up the Emperor again as they walked out of class.

"Trust me, I don't plan to." Fran recalled his schedule was free for the next hour. What would he do?

"Oh but believe me he can be persistent." His roommate continued to explain.

"Yeah I can't emphasize how much I'm not interested in talking about this." Fran really wasn't in the mood.

"Suit yourself." Mammon really could care less.

After spending an hour in the library, Fran had forgotten the source of his irritation earlier.

Regretfully he was reminded of it the second he stepped into his painting class.

"Frantinous?" The professor called from behind the roll sheet with a cool tone.

"Yes?" Fran had been in his own little world for the first half of the roll call.

"Did I pronounce it right?" The dark professor asked curiously.

"Yes, but I would prefer if you used Fran instead."

"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer Frog?" The slick comment came from a certain blond sitting across the classroom. Some of his classmates snickered.

"I'm sure you know that I have no tolerance for you Mister Belphegor," The teacher noted with a mischievous look, "Heir to the throne or not I will not hesitate to fail you… again."

More snickers were scattered throughout the room.

Bel's smirk fell to a frown; he withdrew from the conversation immediately to sulk in his chair.

Antinous was a young lover to Roman emperor Hadrian some time in the 100's not a lot is known of the actual affair other than it was rather scandolous. Not because it was boy x boy since back then it was perfectly normal to have multiple male lovers, but because only okay if you came back home to your wife every night. The story is rather tragic, I don't know if I want to take this story in that direction yet.

About the time frame, obviously some time later than 100 AD, I wouldn't be able to say exactly when, use your imagination :)

My apologies for the grammar errors.