Scene with Saku and Jimmy

‘It must have been hard for your mum.’
‘What?’ Saku shifted on their cot. It creaked slightly.
‘Being sold into servitude, basically.’
Saku frowned. ‘She wasn’t, really. She wanted to come. She and my dad fell in love when he went on a business trip to Japan. Dad got special dispensation for interracial procreation and everything.’
‘Think he would have if she hadn’t been a ten?’
‘Maybe not . . . but he had to get special dispensation for that, too. Since he was just an eight. Men can marry down if they want. Women usually can’t, but I guess since she was a foreigner and hadn’t been assessed yet . . .’
‘Did you get shit for it, growing up?’
‘Nope,’ said Saku. ‘I was super popular. Everyone thought I was pretty. Everyone said I was gonna be a ten. Everyone wanted to be my friend . . .’ They trailed off, sadly.
Jimmy looked at them through the crack in the wall. Saku was beautiful. Their cascading black hair, though unwashed, nevertheless retained its sheen. Their large, almond-shaped, brown eyes shone in the low light. ‘You would have been,’ he said finally. ‘A ten.’
Saku nodded slowly. ‘I was gonna be the wife of someone important. Live in the lap of luxury, just like my mum. I went to the Gynaesthetician, sure that I would be a ten. I was so confident, I wasn’t nervous at all. Then he examined me and . . . Just like that. No ten. No nothing. I was stripped of everything I believed in when he discovered that I didn’t have a womb. I didn’t know I didn’t have a womb. No one had examined me before. I’d barely been sick a day in my life. I was supposed to be perfect.’
‘That must have been really difficult for you.’
‘They took me away that same day,’ said Saku. ‘They called my parents, asked if they wanted to say goodbye . . . Dad said no. They must have been so disappointed.’
‘Who cares about them? If they didn’t even want to see you, fuck ’em.’
Saku giggled. A brief silence followed.
‘I was a four,’ Jimmy said at last. ‘My parents were sevens. I knew I wasn’t pretty but . . . it was still a blow.’
They were silent for a moment longer, then Saku spoke. ‘You may not be pretty . . . but you are beautiful.’
Jimmy scoffed. ‘That makes no sense.’
‘You befriended me when no one else would have. You saw the new kid and your instinct was to look out for me. You’re gentle and you’re kind. That’s beautiful. That makes you beautiful. To me, anyway.’ Jimmy felt himself blush. ‘I guess I saw some of myself in you, in a way.’
‘’Cause we’re both freaks?’
Jimmy laughed. ‘Yeah. And we have other things in common too. I don’t have a womb either. They took it.’