[Depressing though Minegishi may find the thought, Liem absolutely does come from a world and a country where the overwhelmingly vast majority of the population really had little more thrilling to do with their time than chat or sing or whittle wood or spin thread while doing some form of menial labour. He meets the incredulous line of questioning with a blink and a mild look, as though he’s not entirely sure the question is a serious one. Because of course some people enjoy building things; isn’t that obvious? Maybe not everyone—evidently not Minegishi—but does anyone enjoy it? Yes, without any doubt at all.

Case in point, perhaps; Liem is perfectly happy scrubbing these pans now that his class is over, and he would have been perfectly content to do so even if Minegishi had never shown up and he’d had to do it alone. It would have been a nice interlude after the busy period of the class itself—but probably if he voiced that opinion, that would only make him seem like more of an unrelatable alien.]

Well, work doesn’t need to be thrilling to be worth doing. I spent a lot of my time as an acolyte doing scribing work—which was incredibly repetitive, I’ll grant you, but someone needed to do it. And even when it was dull, it was nice to know I’d done a good job.

[Maybe that’d been his own way of coping with his situation, though. He certainly wasn’t able to find any kind of solace in his social life, so finding pride in his work was one of the only pleasures he’d had. Minegishi makes his father’s business sound more like a chain around his ankle—like something he couldn’t change and didn’t want to dwell on.

Liem stacks another pan up to dry, pausing for a moment to lean against the counter.]

So, what’s important to you, then? Now that you have the freedom to decide what’s worth doing.