The walk to the diner with Irys was a short and relatively one sided. Irys was instructing him to just go into the diner, take a seat at an empty table, and she would send the waitress over with a cup of coffee and she would take his order for him. She would tell the waitress that he's her guest and that she'll pay for whatever he wants. The whole time that she was telling him this, he couldn't ignore the question in the back of his mind where even though he was deeply appreciative of her willingness do to do this for him, someone she hardly knew, would she have extended this fountain of kindness to him if she knew who he really was. He figured he would push those thoughts deep into the back of his mind as they entered.

Irys made her way to the back of the diner, stripping off her coat as she went and he quickly found an empty table situated in the back near the window. Shortly after he sat down, just as Irys had told him a waitress came over to him with a mug, napkins, and a pot of coffee. She was young, possibly in her late teens, blonde and pretty. She carried a nervous air about her when she approached. Her name tag read 'Tess'.

"Here you go. Freshly brewed so it's still hot." she said, carefully pouring a cup until it reached the very top, thick billows of steam wafting upwards, "Irys said that she'll be footing your bill and told me to encourage you to choose whatever you want."

Markus felt his gaze go towards the back of the diner, behind the counter where he thought he might catch a glimpse of her through the small window into the kitchen but he didn't see anything. This was awkward for him to say the least. He didn't eat and the last thing he wanted to do was order food that was more than likely going to go to waste. He never knew exactly how his body would react if he tried to feign eating and he didn't know if it was something he could risk to keep up appearances.

"I think I'll be good on the coffee for right now." he said slowly, but not enough that it would have came off unnatural.

The waitress, Tess, smiled and walked away with her coffee pot. Markus let out a relieved breath. Hopefully Irys wouldn't insist and send the waitress back over or anything like that. He just sat there, staring at his piping hot coffee mug and wondered if he should chance taking a sip, just to sate his own sense of curiosity. In an attempt to make it so that androids could blend in more with humans, highly advanced models like himself were designed to mimic human functions such as sleeping, which is something that he could do but eating never crossed his mind to check if he could mimic that as well. He lifted the mug to his lips, taking a moderate sip. He was water resistant but extreme temperatures could impact his body negatively such as freezing or scalding water. While it was hot like Tess has warned him, it didn't seem to harm any of his functions after his sip. So he chanced another, longer sip. He didn't have tastebuds, so he couldn't tell if the coffee was good or not, but he felt the heat of it as he drank it and enjoyed the warmth he felt inwardly as he did so. The feeling being similar to how one of Irys's smiles made him feel. So he took another quick sip and set the mug back on the table.

After his experiment with the coffee was done, Markus took some time to look around the diner. It was very standard, if not a bit outdated perhaps. There were other patrons here and there, so it was safe for him to assume that business wasn't particularly booming but it didn't appear as though they were hurting for customers either as it seemed that for every customer that left, another shortly filled their spot. He didn't know how much time had passed without incident. However, he felt snatched away from the bubble of his existence that he comfortably fell into when he heard the angered shouting of a man. His eyes fell to behind the counter where a beefy bodied, middle aged man with dark, swarthy looks was staring daggers into a patron that stood silently on the other side of it. The man was human, but the patron was an android as Markus's gaze instantly fell to it's uniform but he couldn't see the LED on the temple as he was sitting on the side it was facing away from.

"Didn't you hear me you stupid machine?!" the man growled at the android, "I said get the HELL out of HERE!"

In spite of the man's clear rage, the android stood still and blank faced, staring back at him. Everyone in the diner was silent during the exchange. They all stared but nobody made a move to interject anything into the situation unfolding. That was until Markus saw Irys finally emerge from the back of the diner where the kitchen was located beyond a pair of swinging doors. She looked between the two men nervously before approaching the man behind the counter with caution.

"Hey Otto, what's wrong? What's going on here, huh?" she said in a low and shaky but soothing tone.

"Don't you see that contraption on the other side of the counter there? Having the nerve to come in here and asking for an order." the man, Otto, replied heatedly, his tone seething.

"Like, um, like he came in and ordered or…?" Irys stuttered.

"No, something about picking up an order," Otto sneered at her.

"Well Otto, if he's here to pick up an order, what's the problem? We have pick up service, right?" she nervously rubbed her hands in the apron that she was wearing.

Otto whipped his large frame around to face her, eyes almost bulging out of his skull, "That isn't the point. The point is, you know my policy and stance on these damned things coming in here." he said through gritted teeth. "This is my establishment and I can do with it what I damn well please and you know that I have a strict policy of not serving these damn machines, walking around pretending that they are humans, trying to replace us."

Irys breathed in deeply to the point you could visibly see her shoulders rise and fall with it, "And that is correct sir, and you are well within your rights as the owner of this business to run it how you see fit, but if I could just say something here?"

Otto only grunted as his response.

"Isn't it safe to say that he's obviously here to pickup an order for someone else? I mean, you know they don't eat, right? I know you don't hire them and I know policy clearly says we don't serve them, but we're not really serving them. We're serving their owners, who are people like you and me."

As Irys went on with her explanation, Markus could see Otto's face, so twisted with outrage, begin to slightly soften.

"Between you and me," she continued but trying to make her voice even more muted that it already was, "We can't really afford to lose any paying, human customers. Whatever we won't do, somebody else is going to and we can't risk have our customers running into the arms of our competition can we?"she adjusted the hair net that now adorned her head as she spoke but Markus figured it was just something to do with her hands because it never seemed to be in need of readjusting anyway.

Otto looked from Irys to the android, making an audible noise of disgust as he turned back to face Irys, "Fine, but you serve that thing. I'll just pretend that damn thing never walked through my doors."

He stormed off into the kitchen, pushing the doors open furiously. Irys quickly walked over to the small window that was placed between the kitchen and front of the diner and grabbed the bag of food that had been placed on the small ledge. She placed it in front of the android, pushing it towards him as she has asked him with a small and nervous smile if it was the correct order. The android opened the bag and inspected the contents inside before he assured her that the order was correct, returning her smile. Markus saw though, that his smile was different. It wasn't the same generic, polite smile that androids are specifically designed to give when speaking with humans. The smile was genuine, it was a mixture of relief and gratitude. A part of him wondered if the LED on his temple was changing colors. Once the android collected the order and walked out of the diner, the tension eased quickly. Irys turned to him and feigned wiping sweat off of her brow before she disappeared back into the kitchen.

As he waited for Irys to re-emerge Markus thought about the incident that just happened. Irys had stood up for the android and it was more than worth noting that she had referred to the android as "he" and when speaking about androids as a whole, she said "they". Maybe he was reaching, but he took this as a sign that perhaps Irys wasn't one of those android hating humans that North seemed to believe were the only kind of human that existed. Possibly he could tell her that he was one himself and he wouldn't have to keep up this charade any longer. Which would be a great relief as he was starting to wonder how long he would be able to keep this up. It never occurred to him until now that if he was going to continue whatever it was that he was developing with Irys, that keeping up his ruse of being human was going to be a hard one in deed.

Finally after some more time has passed, Irys emerged from the kitchen with her coat and slid into the seat across from him in the booth.

"Tess told me that you only seemed to want the coffee and nothing else?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I wasn't very hungry. But the coffee was nice and hot." he smiled back at her.

"Did you want some more? I was gonna grab a cup myself for the road." she offered.

"No, I'm fine."

She had made a motion to Tess who brought over another mug of coffee and setting it down in front of her.

Markus took that moment to study Irys's face more closely. The sunlight faded quickly into night outside causing the lighting of the diner to brighten up gradually along with it, casting everything in it a warm yet yellowing hue. He noticed that her face was fuller than he remembered it and almost perfectly round. Her features were wide set and he noticed that her eyes turned up slightly at the corners. Her mouth was wide with her lips being just as perfect and beautiful as he recalled. Her nose was broad, coupled with her mane of tangly, curly hair, he would describe her features as being almost leonine.

"You said you wanted to talk some more." she had said after emptying a few sugar packs into her cup and taking a long sip, "Did you want to talk here or would you be comfortable if I invited you over to my home?"

It was only then that Markus started to care about the time. He had been gone for a few hours and wondered if the others would notice his presence or even care that he had been gone this long. If he went back to her place, there wasn't really any way to know how long he would be there, if he was willing to go. Yet if he was being completely honest with himself, he knew that he wasn't going to turn down Irys's invite. He wanted their encounter to carry on for as long as he was allowed. He was thoroughly intrigued by her and he felt as if he wanted to get his fill of her and her presence before they part ways.

"Well, we can talk here some until you finished your coffee."

Irys nodded and took another sip, "Can I be honest about something?"

"Sure."

"I don't think that you weren't hungry and that's why you didn't get anything to eat. I think that you just didn't want to feel like you were taking advantage of my kindness."

"Oh…" Markus drawled out.

Yes, a part of him did feel guilty that she was more than willing to pay to feed him, but it was only because he felt that kind act was going to a waste on him. He didn't stop to think if he was coming across as being opportunistic or not.

"You said that you used to be a caregiver for your father to the point you didn't really do anything else. I've noticed that people who spend so much time taking care of others, they find it hard to accept someone trying to, in a way, take care of them. So I just want you to know that I'm not offended you didn't take my offer."

Markus was taken aback. He secretly admired the way that Irys could form her own narrative from his actions, seeming to always paint him as some nice guy who was trying to keep his noble intentions secret from her. Unknowing to her, it actually helped him keep up his act of passing as human but he was growing to hate himself for not letting her know that she was just making it easier to lie to her. That's when he realized that maybe now was the best time to try to steer the conversation towards him telling her the truth. Yet before he could get his thoughts together on how to approach it, Irys had finished her coffee and motioning for him to follow her out of the diner.