Age is a funny thing. It comes so quickly yet takes its time to get there.

Pinocchio had lived life in this world now for many years, making him sixteen as the new year came.

He was in secondary school now, still with his best friend Candlewick, as the two prepared for graduation at the end of that school year.

But with age also came over things... emotions and feelings so very new to the boys. One emotion some could never mistake being romantic love.

The desire for a female companion.

You never really realize that you want it until you see the person, until you meet the person who your thoughts would think about endlessly... yes, that time was coming soon to the two boys, but not just yet.

Not yet had that girl come.

"So what do you want to work as when you're finished school?" The elderly teacher asked his class as he tapped his long stick to the board on the wall to gain his students' attention.

"Pinocchio?" He asked first and looked at the young man near the front of the room. Pinocchio had changed quite a bit in the last few years...

He was breathing air now, having gained lungs, and even though his skin was still hardwood, underneath was firm bone, making the puppet in some ways more fragile, and in other ways so much stronger. He had also a head of brown wavy hair... but people, his peers, still saw him as a wonder of nature. Not yet fully man, except of course, to Candlewick who had seen his friend's changes over the years he had spent with him.

To Candlewick, Pinocchio had always been human in his eyes... since military camp, the puppet was more human than most people he knew.

"I want to be a carpenter like my father!" Pinocchio said back to the elderly man, and the teacher only smiled slowly back at this.

"Very good... wood on wood... it's in your nature, I suppose,"

There were some small chuckles in the back of the classroom, but not in a mean or rude way. Just a natural amused laugh.

"And you, Candlewick?"

"Me...?"

"Yes,"

"Oh... I... I want to-"

"Come along, boy," The teacher asked, becoming a bit impatient. Candlewick gulped and finally finished his words.

"I want to be a father,"

There was a minuscule half-second of silence, before the boys in the room all burst out with laughter.

"Well, um..." The teacher said back, and only looked at Candlewick, amazed at his answer, "To be a proper father, you need a good job for this family you presumably want as well?"

Candlewick held still, as the laughter began to die down and he looked at the old man, nodding his head, "I know that sir, and I will have a good job... but I know that being a father is what I want most to be,"

Candlewick's father was always there, but never with him... and over the years he had had a real father in Gepetto. That man had shown him the love a parent can have for their child, a love that was unconditional and powerful and strong.

He wanted to be a father like Gepetto and not one like the father he had lost.

Soon the bell was chiming and the teenage students packed away their books into their backpacks. Pinocchio came over in a hurried step to his best friend, the half-puppet always having that skip in his step.

"Why do you want to be a dad, Candlewick?" He asked him, half curious and half in just plain wonder.

"It's just something in my heart that I feel I am meant to be," He replied back and shrugged his shoulders as a response.

"But don't you need a mother, to be a father?"

Candlewick only laughed at his friend's confused words and nodded his head gently back at Pinocchio.

"And I know, I will meet her one day... as they say,"

Pinocchio listened closely as his friend continued his words.

"You only have to meet the right one once,"

"What is... the one?"

Candlewick only laughed amused at his friend, "I don't know... but I'll know I when I meet her."

"And I will know the one as well?"

"When you meet her, yes, I guess."

Pinocchio began to grin widely in eagerness, parting ways with Candlewick at the fork in the road and he came skipping home nearly to his papa, but as he pushed open the door... something about the house felt off.

It was deafly quiet. The only sound being a gentle breeze through the open window. Usually, his papa was working away on something... sometimes a clock, sometimes a chair or piece of wooden furniture.

But no. His father wasn't here.

"Papa?" He called out confused, till he heard the tiny chirping of a cricket.

"Pinocchio!"

He looked to the tabletop at the corner of the room, seeing Sebastian hopping there to quickly catch his attention.

"Sebastian!" He called back, rushing over to the cricket and Sebastian jumped onto his shoulder, saying to him fast.

"Your father is upstairs, Pinocchio... but he isn't okay,"

"What do you mean, Sebastian?" He asked, not noticing the worry and panic in the cricket's words.

"Just... please understand one thing," Sebastian said quickly as Pinocchio had a puzzled expression on his face now, "Gepetto was very old... and old age often causes one to..."

"-to?!" Pinocchio peeped back, his heart suddenly thudding hard in his chest and before Sebastian had a chance to speak once more, the teenage boy puppet rushed up the stairs and rammed open the bedroom door, seeing the room was dark from the closed blinds... and his papa was in bed sleeping.

But it was an eternal sleep.

"They die, Pinocchio..." Sebastian told him silently, and Pinocchio approached his lifeless father, seeing him lay there, as still as a statue.

And as dead as one too.

...

He reached his hand over to his father quietly, touching his frozen hand and pulled back for a second from the cold touch, but Pinocchio touched Gepetto's chest. An emptiness was in the man... his heart no longer beating. His eyes forever shut.

"N-no..." His son whispered in pain, falling to his knees as he held his father's hands again and wept at his side, "No... papa... please don't leave me!"

"He will never leave your heart, Pinocchio,"

"He can't be dead!" The teenage boy yelled then, as tears ran down his cheeks and he shoved his father to wake him up, "NO! Please! I need you! I need you to come back here! Papa... p-please..."

The sudden inner pain that came upon the boy puppet was so hurting, he let go of his deceased father and touched his own chest in agony.

"My heart!" He wept then, pressing his hands to his own half-wooden chest, feeling the pain within it, "Am I to die right now too?!"

"Pinocchio!" Sebastian cried to him, desperate to explain, "You are feeling grief, pain from sad emotions!"

"I-I don't like this pain!" He yelled back and stood up, running out of the room and to the edge of the village as he yelled to the people.

"HE'S DEAD! MY FATHER IS DEAD!"

The village people stopped what they were doing immediately and rushed over to him, very bewildered and confused, but they followed the boy puppet to his home, and soon the news had swept the whole parish.

Candlewick couldn't understand the pain he was feeling as he worked at home, putting out the wet clothes on the line, but when he heard of the death, he froze up, a drenched cloth slipping from his hands to the cement ground.

He rushed to Gepetto's home, seeing many people outside it as there was no room any longer inside from the crowds.

Candlewick didn't understand what was wrong with himself, as he began to pant and breathe heavy distorted breaths he began to truly process what was happening here.

Pinocchio's father was dead.

His own father was dead too.

But unlike Candlewick's father... Gepetto had died of different means.

He soon heard of the cause of death. His heart had just stopped working in his sleep.

A peaceful death, as good as one gets when in old age.

But it still left all those behind in pain and sorrow.

Grief... grief would be what Pinocchio would be feeling but Candlewick couldn't get into the cottage to see his friend and comfort him.

Finally, he found a free space to get past the crowds of people, squeezing in and searching in the packed small house for him.

He soon found the priest at the bedside of the dead man, blessing Gepetto's body with holy water before doing the sign of the cross above him.

"Where is Pinocchio?!" He asked in a desperate yell and the priest turned to him, not understanding what he meant, "Gepetto's son! Where is he?!"

"Candlewick..."

He glanced his eyes to the window sill when he heard his name come from a little blue bug. A cricket.

"He has gone... let me on your shoulder and I'll take you to him."

Candlewick nodded his head quickly and Sebastian hopped onto his shoulder, pointing him out of the cottage and down to the docks that were a good distance away.

When he reached the harbour, Candlewick's breath fell short, seeing Pinocchio sitting at the edge of the wooden pier.

The young man fell silent in himself, as he slowly approached Pinocchio... and slipped down to beside him, Candlewick's own legs now dangling over the water from below as well.

"I'm sorry, Pinocchio..."

The half-human puppet teenage boy only looked on ahead, his gaze looking at nothing but thin dead air.

"I don't understand..."

Candlewick became quiet as his half-wooden friend began to speak.

"What?" He asked him quickly.

"I'm not injured... but I am in so much pain... is this, what being human is? Forever pain...?"

Candlewick remained silent then and put his arm timidly around Pinocchio's weak drooping shoulders.

"I don't know..." He said weakly back, and the two looked on to the sea, "But... pain is good sometimes... because..." Pinocchio closed his eyes as he inhaled a deep aching breath, "Because it shows you they mattered... that YOU will miss them..."

"But I don't want to miss him... will he be gone... forever?"

Candlewick didn't know how to answer that exactly and finally uttered out the fearful words.

"I... I don't know..."

The two of them were at the funeral four days later. Gepetto was covered over by the lid of his wooden coffin, and Pinocchio rested his hand on it, wishing he could hear his father breathe through the wood.

It wasn't less than two weeks later that he had gathered up his things and was standing before Candlewick's home.

His mother had agreed to the arrangement, to allow Pinocchio to live with them till he came of age to inherit his father's cottage.

His new home was smaller than his last, and Sebastian had come with him, Spazzatura the monkey going his own way in life.

Pinocchio was sharing Candlewick's room, the second bed being pushed against the wall on the other side.

He lay in that bed that night... just staring his wooden eyes up to the ceiling as Candlewick slept peacefully away on the other end of the room.

Pinocchio was scrunching his quilt in his hands... and felt something prick him on his finger.

He held it to his eyes and saw a drop of blood draw from the tip of his wood.

He was becoming more and more human with every second that passed.

And he knew sadly what that meant... one day he WOULD reunite with Gepetto... that day being the day of his own death.

Because he knew death would come for him soon... how soon, exactly?

When he least expected it.

And would he reunite and see his father again...?

That night, he almost knew it for certainty.

But when he closed his eyes and woke the next dawn... he was no more certain... but he prayed for it in his heart.

And he hoped.