[ When people hear of adoption - and the temporary parentless past it implies - they usually apologize. It's to make themselves feel better, Kim has always thought. Why make their discomfort the others' burden? An orphan himself, he merely nods. If she was adopted by kind people, which is never a guarantee, then it's a blessing. Whatever her past, he doubts it's pleasant for her to speak of. If her words didn't betray it, her bearing would, that determinedly sunny disposition dimming, though it doesn't vanish entirely.

She has a good point about how only the wealthy can afford to expand. He's never thought about it quite that way even though he's lived it, dwelling among the only expansion the wealthy had chosen to do in the GRIH: blocks of warehouses and industry in a line of enormous concrete buildings, interspersed with the places where people actually lived, many still marred by artillery fire and bombs, streets pockmarked by potholes. ] You have a good point there. On both points. You deal with what is in front of you, even if it's difficult -- and I am sorry that your situation is so difficult.

[ It's less looking towards tomorrow, more getting through the day, but he likes to think the sentiment remains. Expressing his condolences only seems right, considering the life-or-death scenario she has painted; he dislikes emotional discussion, but he's not so monstrous as to ignore everything she said completely. ]

I'm sure that's the only way anyone has managed to get through their first days here. [ His eyes flit over to the street ahead of them. It seems she's slowing enough that they'll get to her source in no time. ] Shall we?