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The ear-piercing shrieks and howls of little kiddies prancing about. Half-eaten waffles, empty, foamy milkshake glasses all around. Somewhere, the cash register chimed. Somewhere, the cashier behind it, overbearingly cheered, "Have a nice day!"

Beset on all sides by utter chaos, no one at all noticed the little \'What the fuck\' that slipped quietly between the gaps on my lips. I fell backward onto the rock-solid seat, I thought maybe a healthy dose of concussion could help me process everything better.

Sadly, all that amounted up to was just giving myself a concussion.

Can\'t say I didn\'t see this coming. I did. I just didn\'t want to have to see it all in the first place. I intentionally had been ignoring it this whole time… y\'know, maybe if I didn\'t acknowledge it, maybe it\'ll never happen.

Now I see how naive clinging onto frugal hope was of me. I\'ve been making deals day in, day out ever since I came to this godforsaken town. Should have already known that there\'s no such thing as walking away scot-free.

Especially from a deal with a demon.

I kept composed, slowly spoke, "So, uh… I sincerely hope you don\'t mean to do it here. I mean, public restrooms aren\'t exactly well-known for their romantic vibes." 

"Obviously I don\'t mean now," She huffed, furrowed lines forming on her forehead. "I just… this is just your heads up. We\'re going to have to do it. Soon too."

"Well, seems one of us is in a rush..."

"Rush?" She batted her eyes, all deranged-like, then, with a shake of the head, began slowly stirring her drink. "Sir, you\'re the one here that\'s overdue, way overdue. The fact that I\'m only telling you this now is already a miracle in and of itself."

That\'s… that\'s a good point actually. If I\'m recalling the stipulations of the deal just right, then she was right, alright. I really was stretching the definition of \'belated\' here.

But, call me inconsiderate, but I feel, personally, that I was only half to blame here.

"I was the one bedridden for almost two weeks," I said, offering up that little food for thought. "If it was really that urgent all you had to do was come up to my bedroom and that would have been that… not like I could have gone anywhere anyhow." 

Irene looked up, a piercing dagger-like stare. "If you\'re really insinuating what I think you\'re insinuating, then - ugh, yuck, disgusting… that\'s disgusting."

"Drunk you would have been wiggling her eyebrows right now at me, hearing me say that to her."

"You notice something?" She said in a hurried aggressive whisper. "I\'m not drunk right now!"

"Just wondering aloud," I said, hands in the air.

"Well, then, stop wondering!" She demanded at once, slamming once on the table. "Let me explain it. Your mind\'s clearly too repugnant to let wander freely. Order a waffle, get a drink. It\'s on me so long as you just shut up."

A chocolate milkshake and a plate swirling and steaming the sweety fragrance of berry waffles later, I was a munching, slurping audience to her recollection of the past few days recent. 

Turns out that behind the scenes, as I was stumbling about trying to relearn my baby steps again, Irene had been plotting and scheming those days away with little break times in-between. 

When her police duty comes to an end, immediately she puts on her detective cap and begins searching from dusk till dawn, high and low for the one that got away. Jay. 

It seems I wasn\'t the only one keeping an ear and eye out for anything amiss in the normalcy from day to day. She\'s seen his magic in action once before, knew exactly how it felt. So now she was going around the place hoping to see if she could find that feeling again.

She even took the hunt one step further, and enlisted Amelia\'s help in her search - making her branch out of the state and even beyond. According to her, Amelia went ahead and did everything asked of her without a single word of complaint either. 

Which, I mean, sure, I guess I could see her doing that. Kinda...

It looks as if the Matriarch has a bone to pick with Jay, too. Putting her in an eternal sleep was one thing… but also her sister too? 

You just poke awake the wrong sleeping bear, Jay.

Really, I\'d almost pity him if I didn\'t want to have a go at bashing his skull in myself too.

"Good to know… but, what does any of that have to do with…" I flip-flopped a finger between us, "Uh, me and you?"

Irene leaned into her arm, turning a weary stare out towards the murky window. "Well, when I\'m doing any of that, you see. Then I\'m in my room thinking of ways to wriggle our way out of the pact between us."

I stopped chewing, started staring. "Hang on - that\'s death, that\'s me dead. You said if I tried to loophole it, I\'d just die."

"Correct, you will just die," She said, speaking about my death like it was an everyday-monday thing. "Which is why, you\'re weren\'t the one doing the loopholing."

Ahh, now she was talking sense… now I got the context, the clarity, the missing pieces slotting in right.

My messages left unread. My voicemails going unheard. Why seemed more aloof and distant as of late.

Loopholing, huh?

"I… I thought I had an idea going," She said, blowing wistfully away against the glass panel. "Maybe if I minimized, limit my exposure to you, maybe somehow the pact won\'t take into effect."

Limiting exposure… all a sudden I\'m radioactive and volatile it seems.

"So for the past week, I tested out that theory, and so far, it looked to be turning out great."

"Until it wasn\'t," I said.

She nodded her head, pressing her cheek further into her fist. "Until it wasn\'t..."

"Maybe you missed a step," I said, pointing my fork at her. "Tried wearing a hazmat suit?"

"Not funny."

"It\'s a little funny."

She raised her head, revealing a frightening expression that could surely kill millions in a blink.

"Right," Heard her sentiments loud and clear. "Not funny."

Irene dropped the face, and by God\'s good grace, I got to live to see another day.

"By the way, how did you realize that avoiding me didn\'t work out anyway?" I asked.

Innocent enough question to ask about, right? Hell, I thought so, at least. 

Tell me why it wasn\'t. Someone tell me where I went wrong. Someone explain to me the fuck she was suddenly fidgeting. 

Please explain the tremble in her gaze.

"I, uh… I..." She bit on her lip, swallowing air. "It\'s - I - It\'s from a dream. I had a dream last night..."

"A… dream?" 

She nodded, scooting herself even closer to the window. "A dream, yes."

"Okay..." 

I continued to stare at her, thinking it must have been a pretty bizarre dream if she\'s -

Then it clicked.

"Oh!" Suddenly, I was looking away too. "Okay."

"Mmm."

I smacked my lips, trying to take this as best I could. "So, like, me and you?"

"Ugh, you\'re actually going to try and make me say it."

"Wha - wha - like… actually doing it? You actually dreamed of us actually doing it? How - once, twice? How many times?"

That\'s when she slammed her metaphoric foot down by slamming her hand on the table once more, glowing significantly red in the face. "Can you please just shut up?!"

Her voice willed so much command and force, that not only did immediately do as she said, but half the establishment also went along and complied with her demand as well. 

For a brief moment, it was a quiet enough atmosphere that you could almost hear the gazes themselves as they slowly shifted one by one towards the direction of the two odd bickering couple at the corner table.

But what does the fuming Succubus care for stares? Irene simply raised her own eyes towards the masses. That one look from her - and everybody was back doing as they were previously. 

Cashier with his forced smile. Kids with their piercing laugh. Like nothing even happened.

I tell you, this girl could be having a staring contest with the abyss, and she\'ll win by default \'cause her opponent ended up getting cold feet. Which, yeah, can empathize with that.

Didn\'t have time to marvel at her excellent crowd control, however. I leaned in closer, keeping my voice hushed. "It\'s just a dream though, isn\'t it? People dream those things all the time. I do too. Doesn\'t mean anything."

She leaned in too, spoke back just as vehement, "It does to a Succubus. I don\'t get those kinds of dreams, I never had! I\'m the one that gives those kinds of dreams!" 

"First time for everything?"

"You don\'t get it!" She hissed through gritted teeth. "The fact that I\'m even dreaming about you that way means bad things. Means you\'re running out of free days. Means you\'re gonna end up - "

"Dying, right," I closed my eyes, dragging a palm across my face. "What the hell else is new?"

"Now you get it."

"I\'ve always got it," I told her, funneling out a heavy breath. "Still, you could tell with just a dream? That\'s some peculiar foresight."

"The dream wasn\'t what set me off..." She said, muttering again, fidgeting again.

"What?" 

"Dreams can be stimulating…" She was blinking fast now. "Succubi dreams can be especially so."

"Oh shit." 

She pillared her elbow, hiding her lips behind her fist. "I just changed my sheets too."

Why the hell was she so brazen with this information? Was it really necessary to tell me any of this? Do I even want to know any of this?!

Don\'t answer that question.

"You mean to say you actually cam - !"

Her arm shot across the table, pulled at my collar - and in a blink, I was close enough to feel the heat of her flustered breath, see the bright red filling up her cheeks…

"You finish that sentence," She growled, my face reflecting back in her hazel eyes. "I\'ll make sure you walk out of here knowing the true meaning of police brutality."

With that said, she let me go free, and I collapsed backward onto my seat, clearing my throat, doing my best this time not to let my imagination run too wild. "Well, uh… what can I say, I\'m flattered, I guess?" 

"It won\'t be long until you yourself start experiencing the repercussions of not fulfilling your end - and unlike my experiences, yours won\'t be as pleasurable… trust me."

"You really need to get laid, don\'t you?"

Irene just glared, lifted her cup. "I blame you."

"Me?"

"Yes," She affirmed. "Who else did I fall in love with?"

I gaped at her, slack-jawed. "How is it my fault you fell in love with me?"

"Because you were you, you\'re always you!" She drew the cup away from her lips, her eyes staring wide. "You always have that look on your face. You always say the things the way you say them. With that stupid voice, with that stupid tone, and with that stupid stare - I hate that stare!" 

Both hands this time, trembled violently the table between us.

"Because I love it! I love everything about it so much I can\'t help myself! I love your voice, I love your tone, I love that you\'re you," She looked up at me, at the stare that she hated. "And it\'s stupid, it doesn\'t make any sense to me… but… that\'s, that\'s just how it with us, with me. I\'m just a stupid girl that fell in love. Fuck, I\'m hopeless."

I kept still, I kept quiet… half-finished waffles, half-drunk milkshake to the side… I wasn\'t feeling hungry anymore. I didn\'t even know what to feel at all anymore.

"And you\'re the only one I\'ve ever met that can ever make me feel this way…"

"What way?" I asked.

She stared. "Stupid."

"Irene, you are still you, right?" I asked her. "This is you talking right now. This is you saying these things… not the other… not like when you\'re drunk and…"

Irene reached out again - for a moment I thought she might be aiming for my neck again and I froze, but she wasn\'t. 

I felt a warmth on my hand - her warmth on my hand. 

"It\'s always been me, you idiot," She said, her palm over mine, touching… clutching. "Right now… back then."

"Right…" I swallowed. "Anyway, um… I actually wanted to talk about Ria for a bit… so…"

"Oh," Irene drew her hand away, clearing her throat also. "Yeah, almost forgot."

"So anyway, I - "

"Are you free tomorrow evening?" She suddenly interjected.

"Uh… tomorrow as in… Saturday evening?"

Her eyes fell unamused. "Obviously."

"Why are you asking?" 

"I booked a restaurant on impulse when I woke up this morning," She explained, squirming in place once again. "I wasn\'t thinking straight and… you can guess the rest - anyway I - I can\'t really cancel it… and I already placed a deposit… and… yeah…"

I couldn\'t believe my ears. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

"I just don\'t want to waste my money, restaurant\'s expensive, and..." The succubus was getting a little hot around her ears. "By the end of it… maybe… hopefully maybe…"

A little too hot, it seems.

"Yes! Alright!" She slumped forward, her voice the epitome of reluctance, as she slowly spoke, "Will you go out on a date with me?"