"Oh, that sounds fun! For an afternoon or a sleepover or...?"

"For the afternoon the first time, Mom says."

"Okay! What day?"

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that works!"

So the next day after school Onis catches a ride home in Bright's truck instead of taking the train!

Onis lives in a twelve-story apartment building with a pool in the basement and fenced ball courts on the roof. They can go up to the third floor where her place is; it's a standard three bedroom unit. Onis's older sister is home but her room has a DO NOT DISTURB sign and muffled noises coming from it under some heavy-beat music; Onis's father's in the kitchen getting stew stewing, and her mother's in the living room answering email when they arrive.

Hi Onis's family! (Are they going to Onis's room then?)

Yup! Onis's parents wave and smile as they pass but, presumably because Onis is deaf, don't say hi out loud.

Onis's room has lots of posters of dancers on the walls; for some reason all the dancers are female. She clears a space of toys and books for dancing; her closet door is mirrored, conveniently.

She asks about who a few of the dancers are, and helps clear the space.

Onis can name them all, though she does it on her pocket everything since spelling them in sign would take longer. The last one she follows up with "- and I don't really like that style, but she's pretty, and my mom thinks if there's enough pretty girl posters in my room I might grow up sideways."

"Does it work like that? Won't you also see pretty boys sometimes too?"

"I don't know if it works like that... probably if it worked like that most people would be trying to grow up not sideways... anyway it would be fine if I liked both since then I could still marry a girl."

"Why's it important that you could marry a girl?"

"Because then she can have the kids. If I only like boys I have to do something complicated or expensive."

"Huh. Why can't you adopt? I haven't heard about Amentan orphanages but I know humans have lots of orphans..."

"...why do they have lots of orphans? Do they die a lot?"

"Uh, sometimes there's a consumption outbreak and lots of people die, yeah, though I think also people abandon kids? And most humans don't like adopting."

"I don't think most Amentans like adopting either? But enough of them that there aren't orphans around. Why would you have a kid if you were gonna abandon them?"

"Lots of humans have trouble picking when they're gonna have a kid? And sometimes the kid's sick, or the mom was gonna marry the dad but then the dad skipped town and now the mom can't afford to pay for the baby's food or it's not socially acceptable to have a kid and be a single mom unless the dad, like, died, instead of just leaving... I think a lot of orphan kids had poor parents, in general?"

"...poor people can have kids in Voa but poor people in Voa aren't like... bad. So they don't have kids they're going to abandon."

"Humans also have way less social services stuff, so if you're destitute it's a lot harder to get by? And abandoning a kid's less bad than the kid starving..."

"I mean, if you can't afford a kid you're supposed to wait until you can some year."

"I think most humans try? But choosing's hard, and birth control's not really common?"

"Wow," says Onis, taking that in with a furrowed brow. "...anyway, I can't plan to adopt a kid but if I'm sideways my wife can have one, you can get free gametes from Soft Spring if that's all you need."

She nods. "Yeah, that makes sense."