Irys turned around with a double take, clearly startled but once her eyes met Markus's she smiled broadly, placing a hand to her chest. She tapped the side of the headphones, before speaking to him.

"Hey you, how's it going?"

Markus felt that warm feeling again. He would probably never say it out loud, but he liked that feeling, actually missing it even.

"Hey, things are fine. I happened to see you sitting here and remembered what you said about not making myself a stranger." he returned her smile.

"That's right." she paused, "I was kind of talking more about dropping me a phone call but this is nice. I like seeing you again."

"Really? Good because I was actually a bit excited to see you sitting here." he admitted and quickly wondered if he was making himself seem to eager.

That thought evaporated from his mind when he saw her smile widened to the point he wondered if her face hurt from the stretching. All Markus could think in that moment how pretty she looked.

"Do you have some time to join me? If you're not busy with anything at the moment?" her hand went to touch the spot on the bench next to her that was vacant.

"Oh no, I'm not busy at all."

He walked around to the other side of the bench and sat next to her. When he sat down, there was a bit of space between the two of them, but Irys quickly scooted over until their thighs lightly grazed one another. Markus was a bit surprised at her moving to be in such close quarters to him, but at the same time he would be lying if he didn't feel a sense of giddy excitement at it.

"So Mr. Markus, what have you been up to since our last meeting? Getting around better these days when it comes to your street art hunting?" she lightly chuckled.

Markus almost forgotten that she was under the impression that he was some art student. He wondered if he was going to elaborate on the lie or reveal to her that he wasn't really studying anything.

"Well, getting around better? Yes, but art hunting, no. I think I'm going to leave that alone for the time being."

"Ah I see," she took the headphones off her head and draped them around her neck.

"So, um, what were you listening to? You seemed really into it until I showed up and threw off your jams." he chuckled, inwardly cringing at the slang term he used.

"My jams, huh?" she laughed lightly, "Um, I was actually rediscovering some music I hadn't listened to in a while. Does the name Laz Harp sound familiar?"

Markus most certainly knew of Laz Harp. He was one of the few modern artists that Carl listened to. Laz was by no means a huge name in music, but he was a huge talent. Though he never really achieved mainstream success, he had a very solid, strong, and loyal following. Carl said that he liked his sound, describing it as "a young guy playing with an old spirit." It was hard to pinpoint the genre that Laz did, but he admitted that from what he heard he did seem to compose melodies and sounds that felt beyond his young age.

"Yeah I've heard of him. I can't play it like I'm a huge fan, but my father listened to him."

Irys raised her eyebrows at that, "Speaking of which, how is your father? I remember you saying something about you were actively taking care of him. Got to get some more time to yourself today?"

"Uh," again Markus was stuck between elaborating on his lie or attempting to steer her perception of him closer to the truth. He may not have been comfortable coming completely clean but he wasn't so comfortable with lying either. "To be honest, I don't really know. I actually haven't spoken to my father recently. The day you saw me, that was kind of following the last time I spoke to him."

Irys's already wide eyes, widened even more as her lips became pressed tight against her face, "I...am...so sorry." she gasped, "I didn't mean to...I just thought...I was making small talk…" she stammered over herself, clearly mortified.

"Oh no, please don't apologize. There was no way you could've known." he tried to assure her, feeling bad that he had done to this to her. Even trying to give her his best smile he could muster.

"I know," she snorted, "But it doesn't make me feel any less like shit for bringing up something like that up, unintentional or not."

Looking for a way to steer the moment into less awkward territory, Markus motioned to her headphones, "Mind if I listen?"

"Sure, not at all." she said, her tone sounding more than a bit relieved.

She flipped the earpiece nearest to him around, motioning for him to lean his ear to it. The closer he leaned towards her, the more he felt his heart start to pound in his chest, quickening the pulsing of the blue blood in his artificial veins. He couldn't understand why being in such a close proximity to her made him feel so nervous. Obviously the closeness was welcomed, even initiated by her, so clearly he didn't have to worry about her not liking him being so close. So why did he feel so anxious? His pondering soon was drowned out by the music that began playing into the earpiece. It was a simple but beautiful song that began. It was low, with just a singular guitar playing against an almost eerily quiet background. Soon it was joined by the singing voice of a woman. Her voice started off melodic and high before drifting into a deeper, more throaty tone but even between the changing of pitches, there was a noticeable rasp to her voice that couldn't be shaken off no matter where her tone or note went during the song.

Markus became enthralled by the song they were listening to. Although the woman seemed to be the lead voice on the track, there was a male voice that provided the backup vocals during parts of the song, particularly the bridge. He had heard enough of Carl's music to match the voice of the male singer to Laz. However, the song that he was listening to wasn't something that had been in Carl's collection and he had never heard the female singer before. As if to answer his question for him before he could ask it aloud, Irys began singing very softly along with the song, as she had her earpiece over her ear listening as well. Her eyes were closed as she slightly swayed head with the rhythm of the guitar. The moment Irys's singing synced up with the singer on the song, Markus quickly realized that the woman singing on the song was her too. Once the song ended, Markus sat up, away from her and the headphones. When he had sat up, Irys opened her eyes and met his gaze. There was a bit of silence between them before Irys broke it by speaking.

"My full name is Irys Harp, Harp being my married name."

Markus went through all of the information he had subconsciously gathered about Laz Harp through Carl's fan ship and just in passing. From what he knew or could at least remember, Carl hadn't really spoken of Laz's personal life, just that he really liked his music. He did remember when Laz had passed away. Carl had been upset, mourning his passing as a loss for the world of art and music. He recalled reading about his passing in an article in one of the magazines he had found during one of his runs for Carl. It mentioned that Laz was married and had recently had children but the widow had declined to say more about their identities as they wanted to mourn in private and most of the public interest surrounding his death only focused on him, not the family he had left behind.

"I'm sorry you lost him." Markus answered sincerely once he pieced it together.

Irys waved off his apology with a smile, "Consider us even. Now we both know a sad tidbit about each other."

Markus let out a small snort, "That was just to get even with me?"

"Not to get even, but make things even. I would feel uncomfortable knowing something personal about you but you not know something about me."

"I never really listened to his music before. I knew he was really good, just not something I experienced for myself. You two sounded amazing together. You 'sing pretty' like your daughters said." he let out a small laugh.

Irys chuckled with a big grin of her own, "You're teasing me, stop it."

Markus waited until their eyes met before stating sincerely, "You have a very beautiful voice."

Irys's smile disappeared and she seemed to be struggling to look him in the eye. Markus wasn't sure but he thought he noticed a deep redding of her face, particularly in the area of her cheeks.

She cleared her throat, "It wasn't always easy for me to listen to this, you know. I actually couldn't bring myself to do it until maybe a few weeks ago. Before it used to make me drink myself into a depressed stupor but I'll save you that sob story for another time. That's if you decide to stick around with me for the long run."

Markus felt surprised with the openness that Irys was communicating with him. He couldn't help but find himself comparing his conversation with her versus his conversations with North. Not that she had spoken to him much after their small blow-up following the mission to the warehouse. When he spoke with her though, it felt extremely guarded with her. Asking her anything about herself was treading dangerous territory and she appeared to thrive off of people thinking of talking to her that way. However, it seemed with Irys, the only one here who was being guarded was him, and that was simply because he couldn't seem to find a good way to slip into their conversation that he wasn't a human yet. Her honesty was almost refreshing, even if he felt a tad uncomfortable with knowing something so intimate about her so quickly.

Just then a loud buzzing noise came from between them. Irys reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her cell phone. Looking at the screen, her face slightly twisted into an annoyed grimace.

"It's my break alarm." she said to him while shaking her head.

"Break alarm?"

"It's basically letting me know that I got about five minutes to get back to my job. I kind of can't risk another run in or my ass will be on the line. Boss has been riding me a bit lately."

She stood to her feet, simultaneously draping her headphones back around her neck. At the thought of her leaving, Markus suddenly felt a small sense of panic rise in him. He didn't want their moment to end so soon. There was no telling when he would be able to talk with someone the way that he was speaking with her, or feel the way that he does when he's around her. He only gotten a taste and he was dying to get more of it, like he was some small child who had gotten their first taste of sweets.

"Wait…" he stood to his feet as well, noticing that he all but towered over her, but she didn't shrink away from him. "Where do you work?"

"A small diner, not too far from here." she pointed into a vague direction with her hand.

"When do you get off?" he asked eagerly.

"Uh, I think I have another hour and fifteen left in my shift. That's if the next cook after me actually gets his ass in on time."

"Maybe, I can wait for you to get off? So we can talk some more?" his voice faded off towards the end, not knowing how she was going to take him asking that of her.

Her expression was blank at first with just a small furrowing of her eyebrows, but finally it relaxed into an easy smile, "Yeah, that would be okay. If anything, are you hungry? You can come in and eat, kill some time while you wait for me. Otto isn't too fond of loitering but if you look the part he won't have a reason to bother you."

"Oh, I'm not…I don't..." although he started the sentence, he caught himself before he finished.

He wanted to say that he wasn't hungry because he didn't have to eat. It may not have been the perfect moment to tell her he was an android but it would've made sense to say something about it finally, but he didn't and he couldn't place why.

"What?" she asked furrowing her brow again.

"I don't um…I don't really know how to say this but I…"

"You don't have money?" she asked, clearly trying to finish his statement for him.

Without another thought to it, Markus just grabbed on to the life line she had unknowingly thrown him, "Yes," he let out a deep sigh, "I don't have any money."

"Oh…" Irys replied, her eyes becoming wide and mortified again in almost the exact same way they did when she felt she had brought up a touchy subject regarding his father earlier in their conversation.

Markus instantly felt like shit. Not only was he continuing to lie to her, but he managed to make her feel foolish with his lies twice now.

"That's fine. It'll be on me." she assured, motioning him to follow her as she began walking without him.

He hesitated for a second before quickly falling in step beside her.