"I...no. No, it's not rude, not to me." It was, certainly, not the rudest he'd ever gotten.

He was quiet a moment, then shrugged. "I've known since there was a way of knowing. Does that make sense? Like, when you're very young, you don't really know much of anything. But very soon after that, you start to figure things. I was still young, just learning that girls and boys were very different."