Hi... I didn't expect to be back so soon but this just wouldn't leave me alone. I'll explain myself at the end of the story.

What's Your Age Again?

Energy buzzed in the dark common room. Everyone was too excited to sit still and stop snickering despite constant pleas to hush up. The constant shuffling as well as the fact that they'd been sitting in the dark for close to half an hour had left some of them irritated rather than giggling madly in anticipation for mischief.

"Damn that Vidocq! What hell's taking him so long?"

"Maybe Galileo finally jumped his bones."

"Don't even joke about that!"

"Shh! Shh! Shh! I think I hear them coming!"

Just outside the main entrance there were voices – the low-pitched mumble of a young man and the high-pitched squeak of a little girl – and if one listened closely they could even hear their carpet-muffled footsteps. The room held their breaths, watching the light under the door and when the shadows of four feet stopped in front of it they knew it was almost time.

"Please, Vidocq! Justs a little hint!" the little girl squeaked.

"It wouldn't be a surprise if you knew what to expect." You could practically hear the smirk in his words.

The door slid open and the lights were switched on, lighting up so suddenly that the common room's occupants were all momentarily blinded but that didn't stop the E-gene holders from the first and second platoon and the support team from vibrantly screaming: "SURPRISE!"

Galileo gaped at the room, blinking her good eye while the other was still covered by a leather eye patch. They'd hung streamers and balloons from the ceiling tiles along with a big, hand-painted banner with the words 'Welcome Back Galileo' and on the coffee table in front of the lounges was a rectangular cake garnished with cherries and chocolate and words painted by a professional: 'Congratulations on your recovery'. Galileo's stunned expression quickly morphed into one of delight and her eyes shone with tears of joy.

"You did this for mes?"

"Of course!" Sio replied on behalf of the whole group. "We're celebrating the fact that you've recovered enough to return to active duty."

"Aw~!" Galileo cooed, shifting the cakebox she was holding into one arm so that she could cup her cheek bashfully. "I'm so happys! Vidocq and everyone put ons a party just for mes!"

The room groaned quietly and stared at her incredulously. How she could put Vidocq above everyone else was quite beyond them but was probably connected to how she thought every good idea was probably Vidocq's.

"It wasn't just Vidocq, you know!" Hunter snapped, jumping out of his seat in exasperation. "It's not like we're only here because he asked us! We came here because we wanted to surprise you! And besides, Vidocq…" he turned to the blond tactician angrily. "Why did you even agree to be here? I thought you hated doing nice things for other people."

"I don't hate it," Vidocq sniffed, crossing his arms tightly. "I just don't have anything more important to do. Ever since the Stone Forest operation the EIOs have been floundering, having to make do with their current genetic stock and unable to make sophisticated changes to their strategies for landfall. It's quite easy to pick them off in this current state so we can afford to spend some time in leisure."

Galileo blushed and giggled. "And I thought I was the one going to do the surprisings."

"Eh?" Sio muttered as everyone else in the room turned sly eyes towards the silverette sitting in an armchair with Jess sharing his arm rest. It seemed she was missing something that everyone else had caught on to.

Adam, on the other hand, was squinting into the middle distance and rubbing a light-induced headache from his temple. "Damn, who thought this was a good idea? Why couldn't we have sat in here with the lights on? It's not as if she could see us through the door," he grumbled, stopping when he realised that everyone was now staring at him instead. "What?"

"Come on, did you think we'd just forget?" Geronimo said haughtily, regarding him smugly out of the corner of one eye.

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," Adam scoffed. "Are you delirious?"

Cyx rose to her feet, heckles raised. "Are you talking down to the princess, jerk?"

"Hey, hey, we're having a celebration, not a fight club." Mahesh got between the two of them, hands up peaceably.

"Um, can someone tell me," Sio piped up, drawing a little bit of the room's attention (most of it was still directed towards the tension burning between Jack and Cyx), "what's going on? I thought this was just for Galileo."

"We all remembereds, yes we dids," Galileo chirped, skipping into the common room and placing the cakebox on the end of the table right in front of Adam. She unfolded the box, revealing the tantalising round sponge cake topped with whipped cream, fluffy icing and strawberries.

"Happy Birthday, Adam!" the other E-gene holders shouted at him, getting a disgruntled glare in response.

Sio glanced around at all of the others in shock, glancing at Adam most frequently. "Eh?! It's his birthday? Adam, it's your birthday? Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"We thought he would tell you," Jess said apologetically.

"It's not important," Adam huffed. "You didn't need to go this far for me."

"Don't be sillys! We only dids the least we coulds," Galileo said, taking two candles out of her pockets and placing them in the middle of the cake while Vidocq got out a packet of matches to light them. Sio stared at the candle numbers and then screamed in shock. The others turned to look at her bemusedly.

"What's your problem now?" Capa muttered, leaning his face on his knuckles.

"Th-th-that can't be right!" she stuttered, pointing at the cake. "One of those is upside down!"

Adam and Vidocq looked at her in disbelief. "Clearly they're not," the blond said. The candles were already lit and the wicks were burning proudly above the numbers 1 and 9.

"What?! This whole time you were eighteen?"

"… Yes?" Adam answered, stunned by her revelation. "How old did you think I was?"

"I thought you were the same age as me. Or similar, at least."

"Three years age difference isn't a lot," Adam said.

"Buts it is at her age," Galileo pointed out.

"Why is it such a big deal for you anyway?" Geronimo asked, crossing her legs and reclining in her armchair across the room. She gasped and sniggered daintily behind her hand. "Don't tell me… that time you two left together at the hospital you were actually going off to do that?"

"Nothing like that happened!" Adam yelled at her, getting up and shaking his fist but the only reason he didn't get any further was because of Jess holding him back.

Gaudí gasped, jaw dropping in distress. He turned to Sio and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her with tears in his eyes. "Sio, you didn't, did you?" he wailed but before giving her time to answer he jumped over to Adam and grabbed him by the tie, pulling it tight enough to choke. "Adam, you jerk! Tell me you didn't do that to Sio!"

Adam made some incomprehensible choking noises while most of the others were just laughing out loud at his expense, save for Sio and Galileo who were blushing like mad and Vidocq who was smirking.

"Oh my, what a subtle attack," Mahesh chuckled, sidling up to his teammate and waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Not like you at all, hack-n-slasher."

"So you like them young, huh?" Cyx goaded. "I never pegged you as a cradle-robber."

"Nothing of that nature happened!" Sio cried, waving her arms about.

"Really, Sio?" Gaudí sobbed, letting go of Adam's tie. The silverette loosened it, taking a big breath. "You're such a pervert, Adam."

"That's rich coming from you, brat."

"Don't talk down at me just because I'm short!"

"Well, Sio is the youngest of us," Jess interjected, "so it's not really nice to be looking at her that way."

Sio spluttered a string of half-formed words, backing up until she was scrambling over the couch and tripping backwards over the back of it. "I'm the youngest!" she screamed, making everyone flinch. She gripped the back of the couch tightly and stared everyone down like a crouching predator. "How can that be? Explain yourselves! Aren't you, like, twelve?"

She pointed at Gaudí whose expression went absolutely distraught at the accusation. This time even Vidocq was openly cackling at the poor boy's expense. Geronimo and Cyx were falling over themselves laughing as the tears streamed down his face. Sio's eye twitched.

"T-twelve?" he whimpered. "That's s-so mean, Sio. I didn't ask to be late, that's how nature made me."

"Poor Gaudí got so much harassment from his peers at home since he was the only prepubescent seventeen-year-old," Geronimo gossiped. Gaudí's face fell further in mortification. "And even now that he's grown a year older he hasn't shown much improvement."

"All that means is that it's bound to happen any second now!" Gaudí cried, voice suddenly dipping several tones lower and then squeaking at the end. His teammates were once again unable to keep themselves upright from laughing but he ignored them, standing reverently still and in awe of himself. "It's happening!"

"This is great!" Cyx guffawed. "I haven't been able to mess with a boy for this since middle school. It's like being a teen again!"

"But you're still a teenager, aren't you?" Sio asked. Cyx regarded her confusedly but the girl seemed genuinely convinced. "You might have graduated already but…" she trailed off, unsure of what to make of Cyx's nonplussed expression. Suddenly she grinned.

"It flatters me to think that I look so young but I'm already twenty-six. I'm a full-grown woman."

"I'll say," Capa purred, stroking the lens of his camera affectionately.

"Urgh, rude," Geronimo muttered. "I can't believe you use that camera to take lewd pictures of high school girls. You're such a pervert."

"You seem to take it in stride when you've got a teammate looking at those photos," he retorted.

"Gaudí's basically the equivalent of a seventh grader, you can't expect him to know much better," she replied snobbishly, chuckling when the boy went red-faced and riled up.

"Yeah, laugh it up now but by this time next year I'll have grown two feet and you'll have to look up at me for once! I think when that happens I'll start making you call me Prince."

"Ooh~! Are you coming on to me? I think it's a little early for such a baby prince to be making the moves on a princess."

"But Geronimo, you can't be much older than Gaudí," Sio said.

Geronimo giggled. "Flattery will get you anywhere, Nobunagun. If you must know, I'm actually twenty-five."

"No way…"

On the other side of the room, Galileo exclaimed: "Oh no's! The candles are meltings! Quick, make a wish and blow thems out!"

Adam sighed and rested his elbows on his knees, pretending to think about it. "I wish Sio would stop being a weirdo and freaking out over things that don't matter." He blew them out.

"No! It doesn't work whens you tell us!"

"How do you know that was my real wish anyway?"

"Who are you calling a weirdo?" Sio snapped, glaring at him angrily. "This is a big deal! How old is everyone around here? Don't tell me you're all older than I thought!"

"I remember you thought I's was an elementary school girl," Galileo said bitterly, shooting Sio a dirty look. "I'm already twenty-ones! I cans even drink alcohol ins the USA."

"Ge-get out," Sio squeaked, slacked-limbed with shock. "You… you can't possibly be… but then Jess and Mahesh…?"

Jess smiled sheepishly. "Would it shock you to know that I'm actually twenty-eight?"

"Actually, I'd like to know how old you thought I was," Mahesh said. "In your mind was I an age you would have 'considered', so to speak?"

"T-t-t-twenty-eight? I thought… maybe twenty? Twenty-five at the very most." Sio turned to Mahesh, staring at him like he'd suddenly grown another head and several pairs of arms right in front of her. "So you're not seventeen?"

"Aaha! If only I could be that old again! That was eight years ago." Mahesh laughed as Sio slid over the back of the couch as if she was boneless, lying awkwardly on the cushions with her arms dangling over the front. "This is really shocking you, isn't it? I wonder what's keeping us all looking so young."

"Maybe it's something in the EIOs," Hunter suggested, turning Sio over so that she wasn't lying so awkwardly. The anatomist in him couldn't stand it. "Some enzyme or alien protein that reverses aging when it comes in contact with human skin."

"Gross!" Cyx gagged. "It better not be that."

"Hey, how old do you think I am?" Hunter grinned, pointing at himself.

"Uh…" Sio mumbled, looking up at him, vision slightly askew from her upside down position. "I don't know… thirty-three?"

This time it was Hunter who spluttered and Galileo clutched her belly laughing. "Thirty-three?! I'm only twenty-seven!"

"Heys, heys! What abouts Vidocq?" Galileo said, pointing enthusiastically at her crush. Vidocq had so far just been standing there with his arms folded, watching the spectacle unfold with amusement.

"Vidocq? Well…" Sio righted herself and sat down on the couch properly, looking at the tactician. She hadn't had many opportunities to see him in good lighting but even now it didn't really colour her opinion much differently. "I guess… twenty-two?"

His eyebrows rose, impressed. "Not far off, actually. It'll be my twenty-fourth birthday in a couple of months." He looked down at the table. "Does anyone actually want to eat these cakes? I'm going to start cutting them anyway."

"Make sures you give the first and biggest piece to the birthday boy!" Galileo reminded him.

Adam rolled his eyes but when Vidocq starting cutting the sponge cake and dividing up the 'biggest piece' he did firmly ask for one "bigger than that". Meanwhile, Hunter had his head tipped back, crying in dismay that their newbie thought him so old while thinking Vidocq was younger than he really was.

"You haven't tried guessing Capa's age yet," Jess added. "What do you think?"

"Pssh!" the wheelchair-bound man scoffed. "I don't need an opinion from a high school girl to know that I'm old. I was already old when I joined DOGOO."

"Is that so?" Sio asked.

"It is."

"Aside from you, Gaudí is the most recent E-gene holder recruited," Geronimo said. "DOGOO doesn't make a habit of recruiting youngsters. What, did you think you were in one of those anime?"

Sio huffed indignantly. "I know fantasy from reality, thank you very much!"

"Could have fooled me," Adam piped up, holding a common room plate with a huge slice of cake and taking chunks out of it with his fingers.

Sio was about to yell at him but was cut off by Gaudí exclaiming that he wanted a huge piece of cake too. All of a sudden everyone was surging towards baked treats and quickly forgetting the previous conversation over arguments and indecisiveness about which cake was better and teasing Gaudí for his sudden puberty ("The chocolate one? Are you sure? Junk food gives teens acne during puberty, you know. Maybe I should just eat your cake, that'll be better for you.") She sat rigidly for a minute, pouting. A slight headache formed while she was trying to process what she'd just learned. Nobody here was as old as she'd thought they were (although Vidocq came close). She almost missed out on a slice of cake too but a plate with a chocolate slice that had a ripe cherry on top was placed in her lap before she even had to move. She looked up and Adam nodded, giving her a small smile.

The party ended up being prolonged for hours until an officer came and ordered them to clean up because they were closing all of the facilities for the night. After the clean-up operation Sio detoured to the kitchen for a cup of tea, surprised to find Adam already there, casually leaning against the counter while the kettle boiled. The rest of the group exempted him from cleaning up since it was his birthday (must have been a foreigner thing) so he'd gone ahead but apparently he'd had the same idea she did.

"Tea?" he offered, picking up the fully boiled kettle and pouring it into his cup.

Sio mumbled an affirmative and got herself a cup and bag of green tea. They stood there in awkward silence while their tea steeped until Sio finally plucked up the courage to speak up:

"So… nineteen years old…"

"Yep," Adam answered blandly, automatically.

"I just thought… you just looked younger, okay?"

"It's not a big deal." Adam sighed exasperatedly, going to the fridge for the milk carton once he was satisfied with the steep.

"Okay, you said that before. Although, if you're nineteen then I guess you haven't actually been in DOGOO that long, huh? I mean, Gaudí was only recruited a year ago."

"I've been in DOGOO a while, longer than him," Adam answered tersely, putting the milk away and stirring his black tea until it was uniformly milky. "Since I was sixteen. So don't worry; you still hold the crown for being the youngest E-gene holder ever recruited."

"That doesn't matter to me," Sio huffed. "I just… I didn't expect everyone to be so much older than me, especially Gaudí and Galileo. I feel so small now that I realise that everyone I was treating like my peers were actually my seniors. I'm not good at dealing with people my own age! How am I going to deal with adults?"

"Well, you've been doing fine so far. Just don't change what you're doing and everything will be okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He patted her on the head affectionately. Then, as if it was an afterthought, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. She blushed at the close contact and took a shy sip of her tea.

"Wait a minute," she thought after taking a mouthful of tea. Suddenly it was hard to swallow it down. "Adam's nineteen… that means I'm pursuing a relationship with an older guy?!"

They quietly drank tea together while Sio thought long and hard about the implications of that.

A/N: Anime, Mahesh. Anime and it's inability to subtley portray aging is what's keeping you looking so young. And whoa, Geronimo, who gave you permission to toe the fourth wall like that?

This came to my mind because there were a few throw-away lines in the anime that I think were implying something along these lines. In an early episode Iyo expresses concern over the fact that Sio is such a young E-gene holder and the alien says nothing to that, not even anything along the lines of "Well, you're taking Gaudi and Galileo in stride, so what's your problem?" Also, Galileo got offended when Sio called her an 'elementary school girl' but then didn't divulge her actual age. I don't know if this is explored or revealed in the manga because I can only find 7 translated chapters but the anime's throw-away lines basically amounted to this: the idea that all of the E-gene holders are just adults who are eccentric to the point that they act like teens/children.

In the manga, Trilobite scanlators (the group whose translation I read. They do really quality work but they haven't released anything in months and nothing beyond the 7th chapter) wrote a note about a verbal tic that Galileo has where she adds and extra -su at the end of sentences. The sub of the anime I have doesn't portray that (though if you're good at listening to Japanese I think you can discern it when she speaks) but Trilobite did and the way they chose to do it was by adding an extra -s to one or more words in her sentences, especially where it didn't make sense for there to be an added -s and I choose to adopt that as an English equivalent because it looks and sounds cutesy. :3

And before I forget, culture note: birthdays aren't a massive deal in Japan the way they are in the west, which why Sio is a bit confused that Adam got to skip his share of the work due to his birthday. The celebration of a birthday is a pretty low-key event, not like the big (and sometimes wild) parties we throw in the west and it's not a cause to allow someone to skip out on ordinary tasks or duties like what we sometimes allow. Japan does use birthdates for official things like birth certificates and ID because it's the international norm but culturally the year you were born is more important than the date. So, say you turned 20 this year in November, you would have been considered 20 years old at the beginning of the year.

As for the ages, I literally pulled them out of my arse. All numbers are randomly assigned... except for Gaudi because he had a reason for his age.