A/N: If people like this, I will continue it. It's going to be a story about a group of people who meet up in San Francisco & become friends or maybe more than that.

The plot & story belong to Prongs

A Chance for Happiness

Chapter 1

The Boy from Hawaii

Mike was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in the year of 1978. His father was serving on a military base on the islands, and his mother worked at a local travel agency in town. Mike doesn't remember a whole lot about his childhood, but he does recall the endless oceans that surrounded his home state. As a boy of about age four, his favorite hobby was to run along the coast so fast that his parents had to huff and puff to keep up with him. Even though he was quite young, Mike recognized the unique cultural identity of the native Hawaiians, and he respected them for their differences. By the time Mike had seven healthy years behind him, his father retired from the army, and his parents picked up and moved to Chicago.

Mike's father taught ROTC at the University of Chicago while his mother worked as a secretary at a local law firm. Mike's earliest memories of Chicago are of O'Hare Airport and the extensive amount of pushy travelers mowing him down to catch their connecting flight to New York, London, or some other gigantic metropolis. Mike immediately disliked the Windy City, and he felt very uncomfortable being surrounded by men scurrying around in business suits with cell phones glued to their ears, and brief cases growing out as third limbs. Mike's mother wouldn't let him wander around the city like he did in Honolulu. She said it wasn't safe for a young boy to be alone in a place as big as Chicago, so during the summer, Mike sat at home bored and growing angrier by the day. Where was the endless ocean? Why did he have to be in this bustling city, anyway? He didn't fit in...

When Mike was eight, his mother and father had another child, and Mike faded into the woodwork. His parents doted on their new son, and Mike wandered around the city on summer days without being missed. School years came and went without anything good or bad happening. Mike constantly dreamed of Hawaii and the place resting between Honolulu and Chicago: San Francisco, California. When Mike was sixteen, he took a trip to California with several of his school friends, and he fell in love with the City by the Bay. He felt more at home in northern California than he had felt in Hawaii-he felt connected to the people and places, and he couldn't imagine any other final destination. Mike's new goal became to live in San Francisco after high school in Chicago had come to an end.

At the age of seventeen, Mike had come to the most definite conclusion that he was indeed homosexual. He had fought and denied his feelings for several years because he knew that his parents would not approve of his life-style. So, he hid his feelings and grew increasingly sad and depressed as the days wore on. Finally, one spring day in April, Mike broke the news to his parents who at the time were enthralled with their younger son's science fair project. Mike's parents were furious, and he felt like any love they had ever had for him was entirely demolished now and forever. They ignored him, and he lived like a stranger in his own home. A home that he was not welcome in. A city that he did not comprehend or identify with. A dream that he could not let go of.

On the day of Mike's high school graduation, he was ecstatic. He had worked hard and saved up enough money to move to a small, shabby apartment in San Francisco. His parents were more than happy to see him go. They had not shared more than five words since he announced to them that he was gay. Mike's parents did not go to his graduation. They were not home when he returned and slept in his bed for the last time ever. They were sound asleep the next morning when he left the house and took a taxi to O'Hare International Airport. Nobody knows where they were when Mike arrived in his new home and kissed the ground.

Who knows where they are at this very second...

A/N: I know that this chapter was short. The next three will be this way b/c I am introducing the main characters. After that, the chapters should be much longer.