Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: Had a chat with my brother on college today, so that's where the inspiration for this came from. Can't say I'm psyched, even remotely, to go to college or, hell, grow up any more than I already have. It's kinda scary.

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Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.

~Virginia Satir, The New Peoplemaking, 1988

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Their window was open, letting the chilly night breezes of autumn whisper in. Yuan was on his stomach, reading one of Kratos' textbooks. It was how they stayed on par with each other and Kratos envied how easily Yuan grasped the concepts of math and abstract numbers when Kratos had been the one to teach him his numbers in the first place.

"Hey, Yuan?" The half-elf grunted in acknowledgment of the human sitting at the desk doing his homework. "Do you—I mean…"

Yuan looked over at him, eyes trained on the back of Kratos' skull. There were very few things that they weren't willing to talk about with each other. If Kratos was hesitating, that meant it was serious. "What is it?"

"Do you sometimes feel like…you don't want to be a kid anymore? Like you just want to get away from here where you won't have to listen to anyone?" Those kinds of thoughts had been entering Kratos' mind more and more as he grew older and he wondered if it was just him, if anyone else felt the same.

Yuan sat up, crossing his legs. "All the time."

"Yeah, but..." Kratos sighed, not looking over, but shifting in his chair, absently watching Noishe swim around in his bowl. "D'you ever, at the same time, wish that you could stay a kid forever and not have to worry about grown-up things? I mean, doesn't not knowing the future ever make you afraid? Like you won't be able to handle it and then there's no way back to times like these?"

Yuan hummed in thought, wrapping his arms around his knees. "…I can't say I've thought about it a lot. Being a kid, for me, before I met you, was…well…it wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd ever want to do it forever. It would be great to have control of my own life."

"So you don't ever want to be a kid forever?"

"You didn't let me finish. That was before I met you. I think that—if you stayed a kid too—I'd do it. Forever can't be all bad with you there, know what I mean?"

Kratos looked over at him, a smile on his face. "Yeah, I know what you mean."