The A to Z of Friends
#007 - Graph

Growth wasn't linear. Kira knew that.

He stagnated at Earth schools. He blossomed at the Lunar Prep, with Athrun and other Coordinator children around. He stagnated again back on Earth, and found some sort of happy medium at Orb.

He might have been happy there, forever. He might not have been. He never did get the chance to know but, looking back, there was a sense of ennui amongst those university days, he thought. There was a lot of time consuming work, but it wasn't stimulating. It was like a vacation that had gone on too long, after those days of working with Athrun on things well beyond them, and going toe to toe on all manner of games.

And then the war happened, and he accelerated again. Too fast; he knew that, looking back. He had no formal combat training. No knowledge of military politics or spatial awareness or looking at the broader picture. He didn't know how to lose people. How to handle grief and his own failures and keep on moving forward. He didn't know how to put his friendship with Athrun aside. He didn't know if he was still friends with Athrun, after everything. He didn't even know what, beyond the friends that were with him, he was fighting for.

But he learnt even those, in the end. He didn't die along the way like so many others did, and he kept on learning as he went. It was a jagged knife of trials: rough and stilted and he broke and stagnated many times along the way, but he kept growing.

And that line, imperfect as it was, met Athrun's time and time again. Athrun who was growing on a very different path to his… and, sometimes, not so different.

And even now, at the end of two wars, they step away from each other, still friends and still growing.