Disclaimer: Don't own anything!

Author's Note: It feels good to be writing again. School is officially out for the summer and I am officially a senior. A scary, but liberating thought.

-/-/-/-

Remember when you thought boys had cooties...when friends were new, dreams were un-shattered and worries few...when recess was too short and life was too long...decisions came easily without need to belong...when storks delivered the babies and passions weren't so strong...friendships were un-broken...right was right, and wrong was wrong...when bad things didn't happen...when only skinned knees brought tears and the night light in it's socket quieted all our fears...when farewell meant just for summer and real friends didn't part...the fun went on forever and never left a broken heart.

-Anonymous

-/-/-/-

This time, Kratos got to take Noishe with them as they traveled back to military school. Yuan was currently holding the bowl in his hands, inspecting the fish with a dubious eye.

"You sure he's a normal fish?" He asked, poking at the glass. The slick silver-green fish didn't swim away like others did. He swam right up to it, watching Yuan with unblinking eyes.

"My father said that he's called a proto—a protozoan." Kratos stumbled over the word, eventually having to say it in small pieces to get it right.

"A what?"

Kratos repeated it more slowly. "I did some research. Apparently, they live a real long time and they evolve every so often."

"Evolve? Like how some of the human scientists think that people came from monkeys?" Yuan has read through Kratos' textbooks on more than one occasion, particularly on study nights. He found the lessons there very different than the things that the old men said and taught back in his home village.

"Yeah, like that. They say that a protozoan goes through like five evolutions in its life and their final evolution is into a person who can become a hero to protect the world."

"Sounds like an adventure book. What're the other evolutions?"

"Well, apparently, they start off as a kind of bacteria. Then they become a fish, then a bird, a wolf-dog thing and then a person."

"So…you're tellin' me that this here fish," Yuan held up the bowl to demonstrate. "Is gonna become a bird?"

"Yeah."

"That's one thing that I'm going to have to see before I believe it. No offense, Noishe." He added hurriedly.

"I thought that half-elves were good at believing in things they couldn't see?" It wasn't mean or spiteful when Kratos said it. It was simply curious.

Yuan grinned at him. "Well, after spending so much time with you, I don't think I'm a very good half-elf anymore."

And the fact that Yuan could say it like it's a good thing said more to Kratos about him than anything that had happened in the past two years.

-/-/-/-

He wasn't sure when it happened. Perhaps it happened slowly, or it happened overnight, but there was a morning when Kratos dashed into the room, his hair still wet from the shower, calling Yuan.

Yuan had the afternoon shift today, so he was using his time wisely by sleeping in. And he tried to ignore Kratos, he really did, but against his will, his body turned itself over and his eyes cracked open to look at his best friend.
"Whazgoin' on?"

"Yuan, look!"

Dutifully, Yuan followed Kratos' fingers to where they're pointing downwards at…his shoes? His pants? "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Look at the pant hems, Yuan." Kratos said patiently. He knew that Yuan was generally a morning person, but a week of night shifts had him beat.

"They're too short. So what?" Kratos waited for it, knowing that Yuan would understand in a few seconds. And he saw the moment it happened because Yuan's eyes went wide and he was flinging the blankets back and studying Kratos like he'd never seen him before. "You're taller." He said accusingly.

"Yup." Kratos said proudly.

Yuan circled him, still studying. "And when did that happen?"

Kratos laughed, a loud, joyous sound. "As if I know? I just noticed it today."

Yuan stood up straight in front of him, measuring the difference in height between them. Where, after this summer with his growth spurts, Yuan had been a good eight inches taller than him, the gap had shrunk to four inches. He tilted his head, slanted eyes narrowed.

"Something about your face changed."

"What?"

Yuan tugged Kratos over to the mirror hanging on the back of the door. "There. Can't you see it?"

Kratos glanced between Yuan and his reflection, unable to find anything changed. "No, I don't. Point to it."

"It's not something specific. It's just…different."

Kratos didn't entirely believe him—he saw his own face every day. If something had changed, wouldn't he have noticed it by now?—but he didn't argue anymore because Yuan seemed so sure.

"Hey, Kratos, you know what this means?" Kratos looked at him questioningly. "Means you need a new uniform." A larger one, one closer to the one his father had originally given him.

-/-/-/-

The first time it happened, Kratos had been very confused, but he'd let it go as a one time occurrence. But it kept happening.

"They keep staring at me. And giggling and whispering." Kratos said to Yuan one night over some dinner they swiped from the kitchens. It isn't real dinner. Just a few bread rolls and strips of meat, but it's enough to whet their appetites.

As second year students, they're allowed to leave the school twice a month to go to the village nearby. As Yuan was technically Kratos' personal slave, he came along as well.

"Who?"

"The girls. Haven't you seen them?"

"I have, but I didn't think anything of it. Why?"

"It's weird."

"You think so?"

Kratos stared at him. "Why aren't you more creeped out by this?"

Yuan shrugged. Perhaps it was because he'd grown up with women doing that all the time. Not about him, of course. The whispers had all been about Dehua and Kail. There had been no giggling, but girls were strange. What could Yuan say?

"I can ask Alina. She's a girl. Maybe she can explain it."

"Hopefully."

-/-/-/-

Alina hugged him when she saw him for the first time since the previous school year. Yuan had frozen automatically because not many people hugged him, but he eventually relaxed into the embrace.

They did different duties this year and she studied him as he must have studied Kratos. His hair had grown out over the summer, his skin was browner and he looked leaner, his shoulders broader. But there was still something offsetting about the chubbiness that remained in his cheeks and the arms and legs that seemed too long for his body.

They're on kitchen duty today, scrubbing pots and pans and making sure that tonight's leftovers don't go bad.

"Can I ask you something?"

"'Course ya can."

"Kratos has been talking about a lot of girls staring at him and giggling. What's that mean?" Alina stared at him. "What?"

"You really don't know?"
"Should I?"

Alina shook her head. "You're hopeless."

"What? What is it?"

"It means they like you."

"In what way?" He asked shrewdly.

Well, he was at least smart enough to know there was a distinction there. "Romantically."

"You're joking. Kratos?"

Alina chuckled. "'S not so crazy."

Yuan's look was disbelieving. "It kind of is."

"Why?"

"It's Kratos." As if that explained it all. Perhaps to Yuan, it did.

-/-/-/-

When Yuan explained it to him, Kratos had stared at him. "Seriously?"

"Mmhm."

"But it's me."

"That's what I said."

"I don't get it."

"Neither do I."

A pause before they both said at the same time, "Girls are weird."