During the night, Shami would prepare the game meat that she managed to hunt which always made Tanatswa wonder how she even managed to ascertain that, primarily because he didn’t think hunting was common knowledge. Shami would open the stomach of what looked like a mish mash of a beever and a raccoon, remove its entrails and pour some juicy fruits on top of it to flavour it. She would start a fire and hang the meat on top by piking it with a wooden stack and then roast it until it was just right. Tanatswa glanced at her and then asked, “Is this another one of your tricks or you learned how to do this using the custom goal mechanic?”

“You know, if most of your survival skills came from always asking that ‘thing’ on how to do things then it reflects poorly on how you lived in your past life.” she said, with a snarky tone. Tanatswa took offence at her remark and she noticed him frowning. She then teased him by saying, “Man you can’t seem to take a joke. Are all big guys as sensitive as you where you come from?”

“I wasn’t big in my past life.” he said, salivating on his seething annoyance.

“Is that so? Hmm, well without dilly dallying on your question, I already knew how to hunt, it’s a family thing.” she said, dismantling the meat from its position.

“I thought you said architecture was in your blood, how come you know how to make building plans as well as hunt down random game?” he asked, slightly curious to hear her response.

“Well most people have been turned into sissies due to the modern age of civilization and white collar jobs. We are growing our own livestock for the butcher and no one really hunts, unless you are part of some licensed hunting club or something. At least I was lucky enough to pick a lot of things from my dad who taught me the ins and outs.” she said, breaking up the meat into half.

“So you went hunting with your dad? Like where? And how? I thought most girls preferred doing stuff like shopping, makeup and maybe playing with dolls when they were kids?” he asked, stunned by her backstory.

“Well that’s correct, most girls would do girly things but I wasn’t the girly type. I liked to do stuff that boys liked, also, being able to hunt and prepare traps is pretty cool especially when you master the art.” she said, handing him his meat.

“You gotta be kidding me, you enjoyed hunting? Holy shit, so you’re like a tomboy. No wonder why you seem so comfortable doing male based labour.” he said, almost in denial of her tale.

“Male based labour? Hmm, you think stuff like construction work is only for men? I hope you’re not one of those gender roles guys because, well, their level of conservatism and insistence on women doing boring shit is rather obnoxious.” she said, looking at him with rather sharp eyes that seemed to be waiting for him to slip up.

“I don’t really care about gender roles, I think people should do whatever they want, but apart from these equality wars, there is definitely shit that happens on the ground that can’t be ignored. It’s more likely for a guy to do construction work or generally stuff that would get you down and dirty. I don’t have the exact statistics, but from my observations, guys mostly do those kinds of jobs.” he said, with an articulation that was meant to convince her.

“Hold your horses Rambo, I agree, geez. Did you think I would pull the feminist card and argue with you? No one’s got time for that, what I want to hear from you is how you find tonight’s diner.” she said, egging him on to eat the meat. Tanatswa caved in to her demands and took a bite. The meat tasted tender and the flavouring really helped to make it linger in his tongue. As if he was zapped with a sudden burst of energy, he grinned as he looked at her and gave her the thumbs up. Shami smiled and then said, “Well he likes it.”

“This tastes good, I mean how did you manage to make it taste so good? I mean, it’s not like there is chicken here or beef that you could pull off a standard recipe to get going with. So like, how?”

“I bet you’d like to know. Hmm, well, if I am being completely honest I experimented on the meat several times before I could get it right and since there is no supermarket where I can easily get soup powder, pepper, garnish or flavourings, I had to figure out what works.” she said, taking a bite and chewing vigorously.

“I thought tomboys were not good at cooking?” he asked, intentionally trying to peeve her.

“Well that’s just a stereotype or rather misinformation. Girls who can’t cook are just lazy asses who like having their maids do all the work for them or butlers, if they are fancy.” she said, as she chewed her food.

“Isn’t that also a stereotype, maybe the girl cooks sometimes in her spare time if she is from such a background.” he replied, trying to challenge her.

“You know what, we shouldn’t argue about people who are still alive, after all we are dead.” she said, with her eyes wide, as if she had planned to say such a thing. They both burst into laughter and marvelled at how dark that joke was. They then looked at each other after the laughter calmed down, both getting glimpses of their fine features from the highlights that came from the flames of the bonfire. They smiled back at each other and giggled and then Shami exchanged some rather sensual looks at him at which he slightly smiled back awkwardly. The two of them were with awkward silence and Shami was hoping that this would be the part that has Tanatswa move in and kiss her or something, but instead, Tanatswa diverted from the prospect and began a new conversation.

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“So’ so far I know that you were a tomboy, hunter, architecture student as well as a loud and outspoken lady. Hmm, so is there more to you than the things I have listed? What were your hobbies, likes, music tastes and so forth?” he asked, partly curious and happy to have avoided the almost possible intimate moment.

“Well,” she said, slightly frustrated that he didn’t act on the moment, “Hobbies, well I guess I was into a lot of socially driven and adrenaline based activities like travelling, conventions, watching live sports events at stadiums or just sports in general with my dad and sometimes gaming.”

“You had me on gaming, okay so we have one thing in common.” he said, chuckling a bit.

“Wait only gaming, you look like you’d be into sports or are you the stereotypical tech guy?” she said, slightly surprised by his preference.

“Well let’s just say that the only sports events I would actively follow apart from the fifa world cup would be League of Legends tournaments and Heroes of the storm.” he said, doubtful that she would even have any idea of what he was talking about.

“Dude, that’s fucken hilarious, esports, that desktop gaming stuff that people would make millions from, okay you now confirmed the stereotypical tech guy.” she said, laughing out loud.

“Wait, you know what that is? Esports?” he asked almost astounded by the fact that she knew.

“Of course dummy, how can I take an interest in gaming and not know that. Like one of the guys in the arts department at my university was scouted by some team, called, I think, Team Liquid was what it was called.” she said, looking at both directions as if to tap into her memory.

“Wow, you actually had people who played professionally learning at your school. Damn, which university was it?”

“The university of Pretoria, yeah it was a wealth of unique experiences. So I am guessing the next question is on my musical tastes,ahem, so I basically didn’t really fuss about following any artists but I mostly liked everything indie; so indie rock, indie pop and sometimes generic pop songs and that trap music stuff that kids were going crazy over.” she said, as she took another bite.

“Trap, like lil yatchy and lil pump, hmm. So those are your tastes, alright.” he said, slightly impressed and at the same time disappointed.

“That alright seemed not so convincing as if you think my musical taste is shit.” she said, giving him the eye.

“Well I didn’t say anything, besides you are entitled to like whatever you like.” he said, placating her.

“Well just give me a gist of the kind of stuff you like, I am guessing it’s probably some electronic music or rock.” she said, looking closely at him with much scrutiny.

“Yeah, you got it right, I do like EDM and metal music, both genres are good for keeping you up late at night when pulling off an all nighter, so yeah, you guessed it.” he said, finishing his meat.

“Well let’s skip that stuff since we clearly don’t have any access to any of the music we are gonna mention. Hmm, I am actually curious about your love life, like I know we are dead and all, but, tell me, what kind of girls did you date when you were still alive?”.

“Um,” said Tanatswa whose heart raced at that moment. He wasn’t prepared for this topic and definitely didn’t want to expose the fact that he had never had a girlfriend or worse, that he died a virgin. He didn’t like lying or pretenses, but for the sake of his pride, he quickly made up a tall tale.

“So, well, I didn’t date much but the last girlfriend I had was called Vanessa. She was fine, liked playing video games and reading books.” he said, feigning a stoic face.

“So you were into nerdy girls?” she asked, curious to find out about his taste in women.

“Yeah, nerdy girls. We had a really happy relationship.” he said, now feigning a smile.

“Were you two still together by the team you committed suicide or you had broken up?” she asked, hoping that his relationship had long past ended before his death.

“Um, we parted ways way before that. It ended up being a long distance thing and we couldn’t keep it up so it ended.” he said, now feigning sadness.

“Wow, that’s so sad, did you try to like, visit her or something?” she asked, kind of moved by his story.

“Well at that point there was no way we could retry, she ended up moving on with someone else in England.” he said, looking at Shami’s face to judge the level of believability of his lies.

“Well, if she ain’t the patient type I guess you gotta move on then,” she said, lingering on some impure thoughts to try to get Tanatswa into a situation that she could seduce him in, “so, would you want to move on, here in Goshem?”

“Excuse me?” he asked, slightly thrown off by the transition of their conversation.

“I mean, there are probably going to be girls among the 1000 who we will be interested in you so, would you want to take another swing at love here, I mean love after life sounds like it has a good ring to it?” she asked, looking at him intently with sensual eyes.

“Nah, I think I would need some time to think about it, you know what I should probably sleep early for tomorrow’s training, so thanks for the food, I will head out first.’ he said, quickly making his escape from situation. Shami was furious. She wondered why he was avoiding her obvious invitations. Was she the one being weird or was it too early for them to be sharing bodily fluids due to their current circumstances.

As she pondered as to why this conversation had not transitioned to hot blooded sex and orgasms, Tanatswa was also going through his own mental hurdles. Despite the awesome body he had, he was still inexperienced and not familiar with how he would even approach fucking her. He had noticed the her hints, but he was afraid he might say something weird or fuck up, and then have to cohabit with another human being who thought he was trash because he sucked wooing women He decided to sit this one out with a nap and oh boy, Shami began planning for some retribution for tomorrow’s training.