Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: I took the Drug and Alcohol course—four hours of sitting and listening to someone talk—and am now on the way to getting a driver's license!

-/-/-/-

"When you think about it, this is a pretty incredible time. I mean, growing up—that's something you only get to experience once in your life and then it's gone. And in some ways, maybe that's a good thing, but in others…I don't know. Sometimes I want to take these moments that are right on the edge, right on the line in between and bottle them up so I can keep them forever. We'll never be in this place again. It's just a matter of how you're going to go on from here."

-Sora (Boys, by Casey V.)

-/-/-/-

Yuan awoke to the rustling of paper. Automatically, he turned over, waiting to hear the familiar grumbling of Kratos telling him to get back on his own side. When the grumbles didn't come, Yuan cracked open his eyes, surprised to see an empty other half of the bed.

"Kratos?"

"'m here."

Yuan lifted himself up onto his elbows, peering at Kratos in the early morning gloom. It would rain today, almost certainly. And that would mean extra kitchen duty, for laundry could not be done on such days. And there would most certainly be more cleaning to be done, what with students tromping inside with muddy boots.

Kratos was sitting at his desk, a thin collection of papers in his hands. Yuan would have said he was reading, but the red-brown eyes weren't moving at all, just staring at some point on the page.

"Wha's the news then?" Kratos held it up so that Yuan could see it. "'Group of humans speaking out against use of 'child soldiers'. General Aurion questioned.'" Yuan frowned at him. "I thought that the general public wasn't supposed to know about the military going-ons."

"They're not. Someone in the human military is a traitor then, because there's no way that a normal group of humans found out about this."

Yuan studied him. It had been a year since Kratos' father had come to the school and made the announcement. Neither of them was stupid—they knew that, most likely, in the next school year, that Kratos was going to get 'volunteered' soon because his fifteenth birthday was this summer. Somehow, Kratos had managed not to think about it—or at least, make it not obvious that he was thinking about it—but Yuan knew him too well.

"Did you even go to sleep last night?" Yuan asked, seeing the look in Kratos' eyes and the tiredness that seemed to be weighing him down.

Kratos shook his head. "I couldn't. I keep thinking about whether these humans are right about what they're saying about my father."

Yuan took the newspaper from Kratos' hands, skimming the article. "Wow, they really don't hold anything back do they? And these're other humans too."

"That's what has me thinking. These aren't the half-elves that he's fighting against saying those things. It's the people that're supposed to be on his side. It makes me wonder if the humans are right at all."

Yuan sat on the edge of the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. "…Don't you have a history class?"

"Yeah."

"Don't they teach you why this war began?"

Kratos shook his head. "They never mention the war unless something from like, a hundred years ago relates to it. Like, 'this invasion allowed us to gain advantage in this battle of ten years ago.' It's like everyone's trying to pretend that there isn't a war going on out there."

"That sounds a little stupid if you ask me." Yuan said. "I mean, everyone knows about it. It's not a secret."

Kratos looked back at him. "Did they talk about it in your village?"

"The war?" Kratos nodded. "Well, yeah. They talked about it a lot." Yuan drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "They talked about all the people that had been drafted or joined voluntarily, about when they would come back and who they would be marrying and their future children and whatnot. They'd search whatever newspapers we got for their pictures."'

Yuan didn't tell Kratos about the kitchen walls plastered with photographs and clippings that they cut out even though no one knew how to read. He wasn't sure how to explain the fact that he'd never met the boys he was supposed to call brother, that he knew them more as storybook characters.

A knock came at their doors and Yuan immediately scrambled for the floor, grabbing the thin blanket they put on the floor when company came, not that that was very often.

Alina's head poked in the door and she eased herself inside, shutting the door quietly. "Mornin'."

Kratos-and-Yuan blinked at her, puzzled. She never visited them in the dorm room. "Good morning?"

"Came ta get you, Yuan. Cook says you better be in the kitchen in three minutes, elsewise, she'll tan your hide ten different shades of purple."

Yuan winced in reflex. Knowing the cook, she wouldn't have hesitated to go through with her threat. "Lemme get dressed and I'll be right there."

Alina nodded and slipped back out of the room. Yuan searched for clean clothes—they never had very much time to do their own laundry—while Kratos reread the article.

"It doesn't make sense."

"What?"

"Why would you bother even trying to cover up something that everyone knows about?"

Yuan shrugged. "Dunno. But it doesn't do any good to worry about it." He ruffled Kratos' hair. "Try and get some sleep today."

"In class?"

"Of course. What else is arithmetic good for anyway?" Kratos found himself laughing, unable to help it. Yuan grinned in triumph.

The laughter faded quickly though. "…What if they're right?"

"Who?"

"The half-elves, these humans," Kratos gestured at the newspaper. "What if they're right about my father?"

Yuan's eyes went to the floor. It had never been a surprise to him that Sandor Aurion was capable of the things that those rebel humans were accusing him of, but, to Kratos, his father was more or less the center of his world.

"I think you'd have to find a way to deal with it." Yuan said finally. "Find a way to own up and work past it."

Kratos stared at him, perhaps a little uncomprehendingly. "Who told you that?"

Yuan stuffed his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet a little. "I remember my dad saying that once. Me 'n my brother, Zaren, broke something in the market and we were pretending it wasn't us, y'know? My dad looked at us and said that a boy fights or runs from his problems where a man owns up to his actions."

Kratos hummed quietly in thought before he saw the small clock on the desk. "You have a minute and a half to get to the kitchens."

Yuan cursed and started running.