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I do not have money to purchase a dinner, and I cannot ask Alexander for such a favor. I am not certain that I should accept such a favor if he offers it. On one hand food...food would be delicious. He had not thought about food until now, but now that he was thinking about it he remembered that he was hungry and who knew what sorts of fare they might find.

But to take advantage of the zomboil's kindness? He could not do it. If he offered, if he offered he would accept, he had carried the zomboil all the way to the maul after all. But if he did not Yin simply would not pick anything out and could hunt back at the dorms. So his answer was tactful. "I shall be pleased to accompany you as you go to acquire food." There, now the zomboil would not feel responsible to feed him as he had mentioned nothing about him eating.

And so the pair of boils ventured out of the store. As they had not passed anything that had resembled food Yin felt it was safe to keep going in the same direction. Thankfully the crowd had thinned slightly while they had been shopping, though it was still fairly busy.

((Hey Alex~ There may be something there that wasn't there before~ /slain forever)) ((7,259 words as of this post))

There seemed to be a store for everything. Yin did not really concentrate on signs, they took too long to decipher and he did not want to stop in the middle of the walk to try to puzzle them out. But there was a shop for books. A shop for shoes. A shop for...leather and metal things? With scandalous mannequins that caused him to quickly turn to look at the other side of the maul. And at another shoe store. How many shoes could one need? Alexander found no need for shoes, and he barely had a covering on his own.

But then there was a shop he was interested in, and he had just figured out the last word was closet, Out of the Closet, when Alexander broke the silence, drawing the attention back to himself. "Hm? Oh food? We eat meat." That answer seemed painfully inadequate, but it was the simple truth.

He cocked his head to the side thinking of what else he could say. "This is not particularly about mantodae staples, but since I have been at the school I have eaten primarily rats." He grimaced in remembrance. "Just...normal rats for now. No more giant ones. I eat in the cafeteria about once a day however. I wish that my room would support a fire, it would be much nicer to cook the rats, but raw rats are alright."

Yin was surprised when Alex halted, not actually noticing until he realized that the hand he was holding had stopped moving. He turned back toward the other boil in confusion, strangely hurt by the look the boil was giving him. "I am a decent hunter," he mumbled, but the zomboil just kept going with his lecture. Yin began to glance from side to side, hoping that no one was paying attention to the outburst, feeling painfully inadequate and fairly embarrassed.

And now he was telling him that because he was a friend it was almost like he was part of his family, which was a bit ridiculous but still sent a warm feeling spreading through the mantodae even though his hand should have been cold. And insisting that he let him buy him dinner. There. Someone was staring at them.

"Okay, I shall let you purchase dinner for me," he said quickly as soon as the zomboil let him get a word in edgewise. "Can we please just go now?" Being the center of attention was not exactly what he wanted in life. If it would shut Alexander up than he would agree to it now and worry about adding it to his tab later.

Restaurants Yin knew. Fast food? Not so much. Was fast food the same as vending stalls? Yin had once had his mentor purchase a rat-on-a-stick for him from a vending stall when Yin had gone on an errand with him, but other than that Yin had not had money to purchase anything. Most boils did not until they reached adulthood.

He mulled over it until the food court was in sight, nose being assaulted by various scents. Many were the scents of meat, of food, and those as usual were particularly strong, but then they were mixed with things, the results meaning that some smelled good, others strange, and some like he wanted absolutely nothing to do with them.

He frowned slightly. "Are not restaurants more expensive than the vendors? A basic meal would suffice for me." But Alexander seemed to be hinting strongly at going to the restaurant so he hurried to assure him that that was fine with him as well. "It is your option Alexander, as you are the one expending money on the meal. I am sure I can find something to eat no matter where we go."

((Way to act like a rich b*****d Alex :/ ))

Yin trailed slightly after Alexander as he tried to figure out where they were headed to until it was obvious and then sped up just enough that he reached the doors a half pace ahead of the boil to open them for him, but there was no way for him to open the second set of doors in time and the zomboil had already pushed them open for himself.

Greeting them was a female with a rather admirable set of teeth which she revealed in a wide smile. Teeth like that could take a boil's head right off, Yin reflected nervously, fingers twitching now that Alexander had pulled his hand away. He no longer had to fear getting lost but it was a comforting feeling when faced with that horrifying grin. Did she just glance at his neck?

He made sure that Alexander stayed between him and the ghoul, which was not very brave in the least but those teeth...those teeth. Then she was gesturing for them to sit and Alexander took one seat, leaving him to go around the ghoul and sit on the other side. And she was waiting. She was waiting on him to be seated. He skirted around her, carefully not to accidentally brush her unless it set her off. This was ridiculous, he should not be frightened of this ghoul. So he sat down, thinking that all would be well and good until she asked if she could get them anything.

Yin was not accustomed to waiters, but all that he had seen were male. And now there was a female asking to bring him something. She worked here of course, and it was her job, but it made him uneasy. Very uneasy. He waited for Alexander to answer, figuring that he could just tell her to bring him the same thing. It would not be too much trouble to get one more of something that she was already getting.

But then the zomboil ordered nothing and he was now the one under her full scrutiny. And his mouth was completely dry. He was forced to clear his throat before he could croak out his own "no, thank you Miss." He then promptly busied himself by grabbing the menu to look at it, staring at it while he waited for her to leave before slowly realizing that the words made no sense. Because they were upside down. Flipping it around he opened it, hoping that looking at it would be a good distraction for both him and Alexander.

There were so many options. He stared at the top of the left page, mouth moving silently as he began to work out the first word. Ap...pet...iz...er...Ap-pet-iz-er? It has pet in it, perhaps these are minipet dishes?

The weremantis stored away the information for later, planning on requesting a glass of water from their waiter as soon as possible. For some reason there was a lump in his throat and he could barely swallow. He had not been thirsty until the subject was brought up, but now he craved liquid refreshment.

By the time the zomboil asked Yin if he knew what he wanted he was reading his fifth menu item, had the beginnings of a headache, and had more questions than he had answers.Things like "poppers" which contained "jal-ap-e-nos" stuffed with "chee-se" and were breaded literally seemed like foreign objects to him. Apparently there was also a hell version of them made with some sort of ghost pepper. It really just made no sense.

At least the spinach dish had been easy to pass by.

So the answer was...he had no idea what he wanted. He had so little of an idea that he could not even fake knowing what he wanted. and he was still in to top third of the first page of the menu. "What are you getting?" he asked, voice slightly high as he tried not to reveal how much he was mentally panicking. Just...turn the question on the other boil. It was a good plan.

Since Alexander was not answering Yin looked up at the server, grateful that it was a boil. "May I please have a glass of water?"

The waiter shot him a look that seemed to say quite clearly "are you kidding me?" but jotted it down. "Do you want anything else?"

As a matter of fact he did. But he had no idea of just what that was. At the last second a genius idea struck him. "What would you recommend for a meat eater?"

The waiter tried not to roll his eyes. "We have steak, ribs, and if you are feeling adventurous we have a bone-in surprise. You never know what kind of meat you are going to get or how it will be seasoned or cooked but it will be meat and on a bone." This was all said in a bored drawl.

"I shall try the surprise," Yin answered after a moment of thought. Who knew what he even liked, he might as well just go for something on the list, and steak was a prime cut of meat and likely expensive. He then all but shoved the menu at the waiter as if it had personally offended him.

Yin had never eaten with the zomboil and when he began looking around, seemingly interested in anything but Yin, the mantodae began to wonder if perhaps zombies did not talk during meal times. So he kept his mouth shut, first glancing around and then staring down at Alexander's finger drumming the table, his own tapping a light rhythm on his knee.

The waiter brought water and Yin thanked him, but not before he noticed the ice. Mantodae rarely had ice of any form, it was exceedingly rare and had little use. He tended to avoid putting it in his drinks, preferring not to consume too many cold things. He almost pointed it out to Alexander, who might have some interesting things to say about ice seeing as how cold he always was, but the boil seemed slightly out of sorts.

That was confirmed when he said a rather nasty comment about the waiter.

Was it because he spoke during the mealtime? Yin did not know but he also did not want to find out the hard way that he was not supposed to talk. Instead he reached out for his glass, taking a sip of the chilling water and then another one before setting the glass down, the light clink the glass made making the silence even more awkward than it had been.