Chapter 152. Convincing Irene. (4/6)

“Prepared for what?”

“I’m probably going to be super in love with you now because of all this. Are you prepared for that?” She pouted when she said that.

“Hah. Is that all? If I wasn’t prepared would I be having you sign this contract?”

“I might end up paying you night visits every night now. I might not even be able to fall asleep without you nearby because I’ll want to always be cuddled up next to you.”

“That would be… a bit troubling… but I guess I’ll have to deal with it.”

“I might want to have a lot of sex. You might lose out on a lot of sleep because of that.”

“Please hold back a bit.”

“I’m going to age faster than you and become a wrinkly old lady.”

“Did you not know? When you sign a contract with a devil, you stop aging in their eyes, and your youthful appearance is forever locked in place.”

“Where do I sign again?” What the heck? She suddenly looked way too eager to sign. Hey, don’t seriously go and trust my word. It was lip service damn it.

“Right here.” I still pointed it out for her immediately though.

She wrote Irene Sorayuki on the line in a flash.

The instant she did, my body hunched forward on its own. My heart throbbed violently. An intense contraction followed by a heart-burning sensation.

“Ran! What’s wrong!” Irene cried out worriedly when she noticed my strange condition.

I seriously thought I was about to die for a moment, but it soon calmed down.

There was sweat on my forehead.

What the hell was that about?

Was that… a mini heart attack?

Ugh… I felt like throwing up and there was a sour taste at the back of my mouth.

Was it all the eggs I ate this morning?

Shit, a man should not eat so many eggs all at once. That was way too close for comfort.

“Sorry, Irene. I think all the fried eggs I ate this morning almost came back from the dead. I ate way too many. That was close, I almost threw them back up this late into the day.”

“What the hell? Don’t scare me like that. Haaaaah. Did you want the contract back?”

“No, the contract is yours to keep. Just think of it as the devil equivalent of a wedding ring.”

“A cheapskate as always I see.”

“By the way, I brought breakfast from the hotel home for you. It’s in the fridge. Oh yeah, I also snatched up all the free stuff I could from the hotel room, and… hehe, I even stole one of the pillows and towels from the room while I was at it.”

“You did what!”

“That pillow is some god-tier stuff. You’ll understand when you try it. Oh, but we’re sharing it if you do like it. I’m not giving it up, you got that?”

“Hahahaha! What the heck? Are these supposed to serve as your betrothal gifts and the feast your present to your wife or something?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s very devil-like and fitting, don’t you think? A stolen pillow and towel suits a fiendish devil like me quite well.”

“Devil my ass, you’re just a petty thief at this point.”

“I’d say it’s grand larceny. I also stole your soul while I was at it after all.”

“True, true~ How dare you steal that?”

The two of us joked around a bit more and Irene gradually returned to her usual self. Her shoulders were more relaxed than before. They didn’t look anywhere near as tense as they did in the past. It seemed a great weight had been lifted off her back once I’d broken down her last line of defense.

“We should probably get back home. We’ve been sitting around here for so long that it’s already 10:00 PM.” Irene suddenly said that.

“Yeah, let’s go back. You’ve got to give Alicia written consent to work when we get back.”

“Consent to work? Is that what my daughter’s important matters were?”

“Of course, why do you think I made contact with you first in this manner?”

“I see. That does make sense. So she went behind her mother’s back for an interview and now that she has the chance of being hired she planned to use that to try and pressure me into giving consent? Is that the gist of it?”

“It’s your daughter’s rebellious phase, shouldn’t you be happy to see her growing up?”

“It’s definitely because of you, isn’t it?”

“Not at all. She wanted to help her mother somehow. I simply spit some cold hard facts in her face about how she couldn’t and she made the decision on her own to grow a backbone to apply for a job.”

“Where did she apply?”

“That…”

“Is it something sketchy?”

“No… it’s not sketchy at all…”

“Then what is it?”

“A… convenience store worker.” 

Irene’s eyes shot up a bit surprised and asked, “This one?”

“Yeah… this one.”

“That girl’s reason better not be that she just wanted to have more time with you. Is she taking work lightly?”

“No… she’s even more simple-minded than that. It was just the first job she bumped into right after she talked to me. When she was leaving the convenience store on her way out right after our talk, she saw the listing on the door. It was… fate… is probably what she thought. Right when she decided to find a job she saw that listing. My co-worker likes your daughter quite a bit and jumped at the opportunity to work together with her. She even acted as a referral and provided a recommendation to the owner.”

“So that’s what happened. Haaaaaah. That girl, will she really be okay? She should consider more carefully what job would meet her own needs. Will she be able to keep her grades up with such an approach, did she even consider that when she jumped at the first opportunity presented to her?”

“I don’t know. I was pretty troubled too when it happened. The interview was also a mess today because of how nervous and inexperienced she was when put into that sort of situation. She might be a social butterfly, but her lack of experience when under pressure was all but too visible. Somehow, things look like they worked out though.”

“You sound like you saw the whole thing first hand.”

“I did. I was dragged in on the Owner’s whim because my girlfriend was being interviewed. I was then forced to stay for Alicia’s because of a small incident that happened before the interview.”

“It sounds like you had it rough.”

“I did. I did. Very rough, so much so I want to cry even now. The Owner’s the worst.”

“You, cry? Don’t make me laugh. I can’t see you crying even if the world ended. When was the last time you even cried?”

I wouldn’t call a single tear crying. I seriously tried to remember when I last cried but I couldn’t remember a single time. For at least twenty-five years I’m sure I never cried during that period of my last life. But I honestly couldn’t remember ever crying as a child either. 

Have I ever actually cried before? My mother said even as a baby I never cried. When my own mother died, I didn’t even cry then. I just locked up those sorts of feelings because I knew crying wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t benefit me in any way to cry. My mother worked hard to keep me alive, if I broke down there, cried, and despaired I might not have been able to get back up. All the work she put in to keep me alive might end up being for naught. Thus, I kept walking forward without ever looking back.

I only now realized just how rare that single tear I shed was that one time.

“See? You can’t even remember.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever cried in my entire life.”

“You surely did when you were a baby.”

“My mother said I never cried once when I was a baby.”

“Not even when she died?”

“No. Not even then. If I broke down at that time, I might not have been able to get up and I’d just throw away all the hard work my mother put in to keep me alive. I probably don’t even know how to cry.”

Without saying a word, Irene suddenly leaned in close to me over on my seat and wrapped her arms around my head.