"Apparently not you!"

"I believe the only obvious drawback, if you like baking, is that you have to get up early in the morning."

Trouble shrugs. "And that's a drawback?"

"Lots of people hate getting up early."

"Lots of people hate a bunch of things I don't."

"Then perhaps your calling in life is operating a cute little bakery. Perhaps with someone handling the business side, I suppose, I don't know if you go in for that part."

He shrugs. "Business? What business? I just wanna bake tasty things."

"Yes, exactly. So you'd need help, to run a bakery, or you'd wind up getting arrested for something like a health code violation or tax issues."

He laughs. "Won't that be fun."

"Do you even have preferences? About anything?"

"Sure," he says. "I like stuff. I like stuff all the time. I'm standing here 'cause I want to bake you a cake, that's a preference, right?"

"Would you be meaningfully disappointed if I told you you were not invited to make me cake, though?"

Trouble shrugs. "I'd be sad. I'd go do something else. I'd get over it. Is that 'meaningfully disappointed'?"

"I guess I'll count it."

"Between what and what?"

"I mean - what difference does it make, to you, whether I get disappointed by stuff or not?"

"I'm just curious."

Trouble laughs. "Okay."

"Knowing more about how people work is useful, anyway, for figuring out how I work - whether it's unusual, whether I should be suspicious that I'm assigning too much unusualness to myself, that sort of thing. Although information about you probably won't help with that in particular, I'm guessing."

"I am a pretty fucking unusual person," he agrees, grinning brightly. "Glad you noticed."

"It'd be hard to miss."

"Figuring out how I am, period."