Blaine Anderberry just wanted class to end.  World History 101 had to be the most content packed class in the whole of New York University and yet it had proven to also be the most boring with a professor that droned on in the worst monotonous voice about events in sequential order with no flare or passion.  What the man lacked in teaching quality though, he made up for in neck beard that crawled out overtop of a too tight turtle neck and curled around the top.  The man always wore turtlenecks and Blaine was sure they were the same brand and style but just in different colours.  

His fellow students were amazed at how well Blaine did in the class, heck, in all of his classes, but it couldn't be said it was because he was good at paying attention to professors who had long ago lost whatever edge they had when they were hired and signed to tenure.  No, Blaine was just good at studying and getting a feel for how professors graded and tested.

It was why he spent the next three hours following his last class of the day in cavernous library, sometimes alone with his books, and sometimes surrounded by classmates who were more inclined to joke about something funny one of their professors had said or some move they had seen on the weekend.  

His parents had told him to expect New York to be big and exciting with lots of things that could distract him from his studies.  Blaine knew part of why they had said that was because they had hoped that they could keep him closer to home, but the other part was because New York was big and exciting - but while there were lots of things that could have distracted him, he had never been more routined in his life.

6 a.m. Wake up, go for a run.

7 a.m. Shower, get ready.

8 a.m. Eat breakfast, watch the news.

8:30 a.m. Leave to catch Express A to the university.

9 a.m. Classes until…

12 p.m. Lunch

1.p.m. More classes.

3 p.m. Classes done.  Go to the library.

6 p.m. Light supper.

6:30 p.m. Hit the gym.

8:30 p.m. Clean up and go home.

Blaine was almost disappointed that his life wasn't more exciting.  His older sister Rachel had come to New York the year before and was already cast in a Broadway musical after only a year of study at NYADA.  She had friends in and out all the time, both from high school and from the city, had dated, lived with, and dumped a boyfriend she discovered was prostituting himself for money, and even had a pregnancy scare.  

Blaine's first year was somewhat less exciting.

That being said though, there was safety and comfort in his routine.  He knew what to expect.  Even the background players were the same in his routine.  

There was that girl in Economics who always poked her pencil through her hoop earrings.  The guy whose nails were bitten down to shreds who always sat in the corner of the cafeteria.  The angry looking Asian man who scooped up the rice day in and day out behind the serving glass, and of course, there was that pink haired boy that was always standing out by his apartment when he walked home from the subway each night.

The first few times Blaine had noticed him, he had been awestruck by the boy.  Tight black jeans, torn in the knees wrapped his legs up leaving little to the imagination.  Military style boots that nearly reached his knees and had an impossible number of buckles.  Leather vest, also in black of course, that hugged his toned body perfectly.  He had small hoops all down the cartilage of his left ear, in his eyebrow, and one around his lower lip that Blaine had at first mistaken for an odd looking tooth in the limited light of the night.  Both ears were pierced in the lobes not once, but twice and he always wore differently coloured studs.  The top of his hair was coloured in bright pink, but the sides were left chestnut in what Blaine assumed was his natural colouring.  There was a peak of a tattoo out of the back of his vest, but Blaine had never seen it completely so wasn't sure what it could have been.  Finally, his eyes.  Of all the things to strike Blaine about the boy it had been his eyes.  Fiercely blue and accented all around the edge by eyeliner to make them pop out all the more.

Rachel had to pull Blaine sharply to get him to stop staring and then warned him against adopting any of the homeless in New York like he used to take in dogs and cats when he was younger.

Blaine hadn't thought the man looked homeless… just… out of place.

They lived in a ritzy area though, so anything that wasn't suit and tie looked out of place.  

The shock of the boy wore off though once Blaine got used to seeing him there every evening.  At first Blaine had tried to nod politely, like he would have with any neighbour he might have passed, but found himself ignored.  Then Blaine had seen the boy leaning into car windows talking with people in the cars and assumed that the boy was dealing some kind of drugs.  That was when Blaine stopped nodding politely and just kept walking.

The truth of the matter though, as Blaine pieced together after several weeks, was that the boy was dealing - just not drugs.  When Blaine had seen the boy limp out of cars that had driven away hastily and then count his cash when he thought no one was paying him any attention, Blaine realized the boy was dealing sex.

Now Blaine wasn't completely naive.  He knew prostitution existed and he anticipated he might see it in New York, but once he figured out for himself why that boy stood night after night in a rich part of the city in one of three outfits he seemed to alternate through, it had made Blaine sick.

Still, Blaine walked past him every night in what had eventually settled into a habit of mutual ignorance of one another.  He didn't look to the boy, the boy didn't look to him.  The most that ever happened was Blaine had to walk through a cloud of the boy's second hand smoke and held his breath in an effort to avoid the carcinogens floating in the air.

He didn't say or do anything when it got cold outside and the boy was out there in the same get up, he didn't say or do anything when the boy looked like he was passed out against the wall, and he didn't do or say anything when he passed by the boy and could hear his stomach growling.

Blaine had become a true New Yorker.