"Tenk," Ananias monotonously called out as he lightly flicked the entrance flap of Tenk's personal tent to further alert the male Manakete that he was there, "you alright in there?" It had been a while since the last time the two of them had spoken to one another, and ever since the strange way the male Manakete had ended their previous conversation, after giving Tenk some possibly much needed space, Ananias finally decided to confront his friend on his strange behavior.

He heard a familiar-sounding exasperated and weary sigh from the inside. "Go away," the male Manakete half-heartedly called out.

"I would," Ananias said, "but based on what happened the last time we spoke with each other, I'm somewhat more inclined not to." He paused before adding, "Sorry if that's not what you really want right now, but, you know, after all of the maniacal laughing and all, I just thought that maybe I'd put my foot down on this one and see if we could work something out, you know?"

Ananias heard another exasperated sigh before hearing footsteps growing louder and louder until he saw his nihilistic friend open his tent flap to allow him to enter, an annoyed and disapproving look clearly on his face as he did so. "Yes, that does seem like the type of move you'd make now, doesn't it?" he asked sarcastically.

Ananias raised an eyebrow in surprise. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tenk scowled. "A man who lives to serve suddenly has the gall to disobey an order directed towards him. I must say, I never would've thought that an Anna could so very easily practice an act of complete insubordination."

Ananias frowned. "What order?" he asked.

"The order to leave me be!" Tenk exclaimed.

Ananias thought about it for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Well, I felt like it was more of a sulk, if anything."

Tenk let out a growl of frustration before asking, "Well fine, then what about the part about an Anna so easily refusing to grant one's request then, well?!"

Ananias once again shrugged his shoulders with the same amount of emotion that he always did. "Well, yeah, Annas are born to make their customers happy and all, but sometimes what a customer wants isn't what they need, yeah? It's like making a child drink his or her medicine. They may not like it, but they need it, you know?"

Tenk let out a small gasp of surprise before recomposing himself and giving Ananias a smarmy, little smile. "Yes, well, while I do appreciate your concern, I am fairly confident that I am not in need of any 'medicine'."

A brief pause. "It's a simile," Ananias gently corrected.

"I know what a simile is!" Tenk cried. The sudden outburst had attracted a good amount of attention from those just passing by, and yet, despite all of the concerned and fearful looks he received; neither of those came from the red-clad trickster from the future. Well, he probably was concerned, but with his face and his usual tone of voice, you could never really tell.

"What's gotten into you all of a sudden?" Ananias nonchalantly asked.

"Oh, why do you care?!" Tenk cried, waving off Ananias and all of the concern he was showing him.

Ananias simply crossed his arms before answering, "Because we're friends, right?"

Upon hearing those words, Tenk became eerily still, his face crestfallen. Ananias raised a surprised eyebrow at Tenk's sudden and complete change of behavior. Apparently, whatever he had said had unintentionally struck a cord with the male Manakete. Whether it was a good or a bad thing was something that he was about to find out.

Tenk let out a heavy sigh. "What's the point?" he mused quietly.

Ananias raised an eyebrow in both surprise and confusion. "Are you asking about what the point of life is, or what the point of friendship is?" he asked, wanting to make sure that if he was going to answer Tenk's question, he was going to know exactly what his friend was asking him.

Tenk rolled his eyes as he heaved an exasperated groan. "Both!" he answered, admittedly louder than he probably should have.

After leaning back a bit and raising a surprised eyebrow from Tenk's suddenly worsened attitude, Ananias quickly recomposed himself and said, "Well, isn't the point of everything to make us feel as happy and fulfilled as we possibly can?"

Tenk once again let out a groan to signify his annoyance towards Ananias' answer. "But for how long?" he asked quietly, giving Ananias a sad and pleading look as he clenched his fists to properly convey just how important the answer to this particular question was for him.

Ananias rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly before answering, "For as long as we can, right?"

"…And what if we can't?" Tenk asked.

Ananias gave the Manakete a look of confusion. "Then we can't?" Ananias answered uncertainly, averting his eyes to the side before returning them back towards Tenk in a slight showing of just how strangely he felt this conversation was going.

Tenk frowned firmly before pointing an accusing finger at his red-clad friend. "And that," he said, giving the air between the two a couple of rough jabs, "is exactly my point." He then turned away from his friend, placed his hands on his hips, heaved a sad sigh, and shook his head sorrowfully before looking up thoughtfully and musing, "It's such a shame too. Out of the few friends I still have, you are the only one who seems to take all of my cynical musing seriously."

Ananias pondered over his friend's words for a moment before saying, "Well, I wouldn't call it taking them seriously."

Tenk chuckled sadly as he nodded his head. "Yes, I supposed that wasn't the best way to put it." He then thought for a moment before saying, "What I meant to say was that you are the only person to listen to my cynical musings and actually attempt to argue with them in a logical manner and not with flimsy idealistic ones."

Ananias thought about it for a moment before nodding his head, nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders, and saying, "I guess."

Tenk gave Ananias a small, sad smile. "But your lifespan, it's just so much shorter compared to that of a Manakete. All of yours are." He shook his head dismally. "I doubt I'd even physically look like a teenager before all of you leave my life for good." Unshed tears appeared at the edges of his eyes. "And then I'll be all alone."

"Well, yeah, but like, for a moment, right?" Ananias asked as gently as he could, though he knew that his usual tone of voice was probably betraying him in this regard. "I mean, we've been over this before already, right? When friends die, all we have to do to fill in the void is to make new ones."

Tenk gave his friend an incredulous chuckle before smiling up at him and asking, "My friend, have you met me?" He shook his head gloomily. "What chance does someone like me have of making any new friends? I'm terrible!"

"But not too terrible," Ananias said, earning him a surprised gasp from his younger-looking friend. "A man who admits to being terrible can't be all that bad. Especially someone who values his friends as much as you seem to." He walked up to Tenk and gave the shorter boy a comforting, but still very nonchalant pat on the shoulder. "Just stop being so negative all the time and stop thinking so much about everything and you'll do just fine. People seem to favor positivity and simplicity."

Tenk stared at his friend in awe for a moment before letting out a genuinely surprised and content chuckle and saying, with amusedly raised eyebrows, "Like a certain friend of mine?"

Ananias shrugged. "Don't know who you're talking about."

Tenk smirked. "Of course you wouldn't," he said. They chuckled between themselves for a bit before Tenk asked, "Then what job do you suggest I take before I meet these so-called new friends, hmm?"

Ananias shrugged. "You could always be a historian. Should be easy for someone of your kind."

Tenk furrowed his brow. "What a boring idea! I would have thought that a son of Anna would be much more creative than that!"

Ananias sighed before suggesting, "Fine. How about you take up acting then, huh? You'd make the perfect child actor."

Tenk frowned disapprovingly at the idea his dull friend was suggesting to him. "And play the role of a kid all my life? I think not! That would no doubt get just as boring as if I were to choose to be a historian, if not worse due to the fact that a grown man would be forced to act unlike his actual age!" He shooed the idea off, closed his eyes self-importantly, and shook his head to show his disgust. "Next!"

Ananias sighed. "Well, look who's suddenly back to normal," he muttered.

Author's Note: Well looks like things have gone back to normal (or, at least, as normal as things can get between these two). Speaking of things turning back to normal, sorry about the lack of updates recently. Moving blues and all. Hopefully this ending was worth the wait! Well, that takes care of all of Ananias' supports with Tenk. Hope you all liked Tenk just as much as you like Ananias! Next supports will be Ananias interacting with his father. For the sake of simplicity, we'll just make Male Robin the father by default. After all, no matter who a child's father is, the supports between them remain practically the same, with a few changes here and there, so if you want to imagine Anna being married to someone else, just use the Ananias x Father supports as a base and change the speech patterns and add an occasional sentence every once in a while, yeah? Let's hope we can get back to updating more regularly with this story. See you next support!