"Heh."

"I guess if you're actually old and married I can be less careful about not exposing you to things I think it's a bad idea to expose underage people too but I don't really want to explain the change of heart."

"...How innocent do you think an actual sixteen-year-old would be?"

"I'm not suggesting I should refrain from cracking dirty jokes around you but I do think it would have been meaningful that I tend to spend the night in the other person's room when I'm doing that if you were really sixteen."

She snorts. "I'm pretty sure the operative difference between sixteen and eighteen on that level is the law, and legally I'm sixteen."

"I'd say maybe I should look up exactly what the age of consent is in California and how it interacts with age difference and stuff but I'm not exactly hanging out with any other sixteen-year-olds and you're straight even if you weren't married."

"Yes, because that's the only reason I don't want to sleep with you," she snorts.

"I didn't say that! But because of those facts, the question of whether you'd want to if they weren't true is irrelevant."

"Fair enough, I guess."

"Don't worry, I'm not about to come down with Nice Guy syndrome or anything like that."

"Good. That would be prohibitively awkward, and then I'd have to get a different roommate next year and hope she reacted as well to the periodic freezing episodes as you do."

"And that would be tragic."

"Well, it would be inconvenient."

A few days later Idaia vanishes for the weekend.

"So, I'm guessing that was, like, a weekend hunting trip or something," Daphne says at lunch on Monday.

"How'd you guess?"

"Every communal freezer in the dorm being suddenly filled with frozen meat. I didn't know you hunted."

Idaia glances around, determines that no one is visibly paying attention to them, lowers her voice, and says "My husband taught me. I'm nowhere near as good as he was, but--good enough."

"You realize like at least half of that's gonna get stolen, right?"

"I don't care as long as it's getting eaten and not wasted. Wild pigs are a horrifically destructive invasive species, and I enjoy hunting; I can go out and bag another one when this one's gone."

"So I should put out some word of mouth that anyone who wants some can have some?"

"Why not."

"Sweet."

"No, probably savory," Idaia deadpans.