"You DO like me!" "I don't think 'like' is the right word." "You tolerate me." "Maybe." one on one

"Oh… sorry. Should I say… uh… thank you?"

"Probably. I don't know."

"Well, I'm not good at sappy stuff. I usually just try to say what I mean. Everything else is kinda confusing."

"Whatever. It's fine. I'm sure the sentiment is there."

Lin nodded a bit, looking back out the window. "I feel like I didn't learn much at school. I tried my best to pay attention, you know? But I just… forgot most of it."

“That’s alright. Mostly you just need to be able to do addition.”

"Mm. Well, I can do addition alright, so I should be okay. It's weird to think about the fact that I'm technically an adult."

"Yeah. Time is just a weird concept in general."

Lin nodded a bit. "Mhmm. It feels like only yesterday or something that I ran away from home, but it's been like… six years."

"Really? To me it's interesting that we've been alive longer than one and a half decades."

"Yeah, that too. I feel so old, but also like an overgrown, helpless baby. Is that normal?"

"I would say no. Probably not."

"Ah. I guess you don't feel that way, then?"

"More like an alien. Like people are clearly telling me what to do, and I just don't understand them."

"Mm. I guess that makes sense." He hummed softly to himself and looked over at Orion. "We can do whatever we want now, though. Our parents can't stop us."

"Been a long time coming if you ask me," Orion said blithely.

"Well, my parents haven't been able to stop me from doing anything since I was twelve, but y'know. Apparently most people's parents do that a lot."

"Ugh, you have no idea. It's the worst. I wasn't allowed to date anybody."

"Why not?" Lin asked, confused. "What do they care?"

"I don't know. They thought I was going to get pregnant or something."

Lin still seemed pretty confused. "Why would you get pregnant? I mean, I'm assuming you didn't want kids."

"Exactly. And it wasn't like I was planning to have sex anyway."

"Right, yeah. I don't think my parents would be too concerned about that with me. Sex isn't exactly something I'm interested in."

"My parents also hated that I was bi, so that was probably a factor."

"Well, you can't get pregnant anyway if you're with a girl. I would think they would prefer that."

"I thought that too, but they think it's a sin and I was rejecting God."

"Ah. My parents didn't speak much on religion, honestly. I haven't considered it much."

"It sucks to be forced into something."

Lin nodded a bit. "I'm sure. I mean, I've been forced into other stuff, obviously, but religion wasn't their primary goal or anything. We didn't really talk about it."

“That’s one decent thing about your childhood.”