It was now 6pm, just one hour short of his date and he was debating if he should try to go ahead and get a little nap, or if he should try to stay awake and drink some more coffee.

In the end he decided he to stay awake and make himself some coffee.

Jenny and he had decided to meet at the restaurant because she still had a last-minute appointment at the beauty salon.

Something about her wanting to look good while they have a `fancy’ meal, or at least as fancy as one could expect from a student.

But that wasn’t too bad; in fact, it was kind of good for him. He still had some time to collect himself, calm down and relax.

The last few hours went really well, no more panic attacks, no more checking his surrounding and he even managed to sleep for half an hour, without waking up feeling completely exhausted.

If the rest of the day, especially the date, continued like that than he was positive that the date would end on a positive note and could, or more like will, result in some sexy time.

Man, how he missed to have some sex. It has been at least two or three weeks (or to be more accurate 18 days, but who counts?) since they last did it, and he was getting kind of the urge to release himself. But because they are living together and/or he is most of the day busy learning, he hadn’t had the time for some alone-time.

Normally he would try to do it when she was at work and he had the flat for himself, but after she came back from work one day, because she forgot something, and he was sitting in front of his laptop doing the deed, he learned to hold himself back and never did it again in the flat.

Her silence, her stare and the enthusiastic moaning of the porn actress were things he would never forget.

In hindsight he would have to admit that it was, and still is, one funny story, one he would do his damnedest to never let happen again.

She would still bring it up from time to time, not because she was mad or anything, but simply because she liked to tease him.

These were some good memories.

Anyways, he still had some time left before he had to go and leave the flat. But because he hated to rush, he decided to empty his coffee and starts to go in a leisurely tempo to the bus stop.

Because it was winter, the sun had already set and now the streets were illuminated by the street lights.

He liked the combination of the cold winter night, and the street lights, it always felt kind of melancholic to him.

So, he walked in a leisurely pace down the streets, not seeing many people, in an excellent mood, while listening to some music on his smartphone.

This day turned out to be better than I first thought it would be. He thought to himself, while exhaling. Winter is really the best season of the year; the cold really helps one to think.

After about 5 minutes he arrived at the bus stop, leaned against a street light and took out his phone to look at some news (which meant looking at headlines) and at some memes (which meant looking at a meme and checking the comment section and trying to proof some guy wrong) and waited for the bus to arrive.

And he didn’t wait for too long, a few minutes later and he was already sitting in the bus and on his way to his destination.

Arriving at the restaurant he looked at his watch, realized he was 15 minutes before they appointed time, and again took out his phone.

Every few seconds he would look up from his phone, but not out of fear, but out of anticipation.

It was long overdue that he did something with Jenny again, and he couldn’t help but smile at the thought to finally have a nice, relaxing evening with her.

The only thing that made him worry was the fact that he was still sleep deprived and not in top condition, but he had to grit his teeth and hold out.

He wasn’t going to let the evening go to waste just because of his lack of sleep and some stress caused hallucination.

That, more than anything, was something he didn’t want to happen. He knew how much she worked herself to the bone lately, and he also knew that she could use something to distract her and help her relax.

And he was her to provide that for her, because that was one of his jobs, as her boyfriend and, maybe even more important, friend in general.

Memories of the time she was also still just a student come back to him.

He had only just started university, was all fresh and ready to live the student lifestyle, while she was nearly finished with hers. While he had managed to get used to it after some weeks, she was already stressed beyond anything he had ever seen. Every time they talked, she would tell him of her sleepless nights, her status on her project, which most of the time was about either redoing some part of it or doing some stupid work for the Prof, or the trouble she had with keeping up with the lectures.

All this resulted in her having nearly having a mental breakdown. And he hated to see her suffer so much, but back then he still hadn’t had the courage to ask her out, and so he felt like he was in no position to help her.

But now things were different. Now he was her boyfriend and he was in a position to help her. And he took his role serious.

It was now 7:05pm, late as usual, and he finally spotted her walking leisure towards him.

She had donned her long grey overcoat, a simple black shirt underneath, blue jeans and on her wrist was a way too small purse.

She had her hair tied up into a bun and when she raised her hand to greet him he could see she also had her nails done. Which she hadn’t done in the last few weeks, reason being that her nails would be ruined anyways at the end of the day, or so she said.

And if he looked just a little bit more, he was sure that he could make out the tinniest hint of makeup on her face.

All in all, she looked gorgeous and he counted himself lucky to have her in his life.

“Good evening my good sir, did I make you wait long?” she asked, in her usual playful tone, while giving the sleights hint of a bow.

“Not at all my good lady, I arrived shortly before you. Oh, and a good evening to you m’lady.” He replied, tipping an invisible hat and smiling.

“If only you had a fedora, and the greeting would have been perfect.”

“I will think about that for the next time. Now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be so much out of place to wear a fedora in a restaurant, or?”

“No, no it would definitely look out of place, especially on your head. Don’t take it the wrong way darling, but you are just not made for the power of the fedora. That power is only reserved for the mightiest of incels.”

“What a shame, I think that a fedora would look quite good on me. Besides isn’t it your fault that I can’t be an incel, with being my girlfriend and all?”

“Yes, and what a horrible sin I committed with that, dragging you from the forums of reddit and 4chan away into the outside world.”

“All jokes aside, I wasn’t that bad… right?”

Silence

“Anyway” Steve continued after a few seconds of awkward, at least for him awkward she was having a blast. “… We have a reservation for 7:15pm, so I think we can already enter and take our seats.”

“Sounds good, I am already freezing.”

“Yeah, it is colder than the last few nights. Oh yeah, before I forget.”

“Yeah?”

“You look absolute gorgeous and I really appreciate the effort you put into it.”

“… Look at that, you finally know how to make a decent compliment, I am so proud.” She started to blush.

“I try my best.” He said with a smile on his face.

“And it pays off, thanks.”

“Always.”

“… Maybe you get to have sex tonight.”

“I am counting on that.”

She laughed a little bit which only made her light blush all the more apparent.

After their little exchange at the front of the restaurant, they both went inside. Taking of the jackets, they headed to the counter and were promptly guided to their table. They had, like he promised, a table by the windows which meant that they had a perfect view of the winter night, the street lights and the people walking around.

And as if on cue, it started to snow just shortly after they sat down, which made the night even more beautiful.

Sitting down, they both grabbed the menu and started to look for something to order. They had a little back and forth on what they want and, no longer than 5 minutes later, had decided what to order.

She decided to order pasta agilo e olio and for the drink a gin tonic, while he decided to go with the trusty rump steak and a beer, an Augustiner Bräu.

While they waited for the waiter to come and take, they order, Steve looked out of the window and left his mind to wander. It didn’t look like the snowfall would get any stronger anytime, but it also looked like it wouldn’t stop anytime soon either.

He always liked the snow it was so calm and relaxing watching the snow fall from the sky. Watching the snowflakes dance in the air, carried by the wind, and finally reaching earth, had something. It calmed him down made him even feel a little melancholic, if that was the right word to describe it. The snowflakes represented life in the most beautiful, yet unrealistic, way possible, or so he liked to think. The way they danced in the air, intertwined with each other, starting out at different points, uncertain where they want to go, getting influenced by things beyond their power and ever changing yet always staying a snowflake, until they reached the end of their journey and become turn into water, in a way die. It was the perfect analogy for the human life, or so he thought.

A human, just like a snowflake, starts out with different conditions, gets thrown into life, learns to interact with other people and has to change and adopt to certain things in order to life and in the end you die.

This may seem like a pretty dark train of thoughts, but to Steve it was a very beautiful and reassuring thought. Knowing that sometimes things are just beyond your control, that sometimes you aren’t responsible for what happened, and you still get to go on, was really reassuring in its own way.

Sadly, life wasn’t that easy, and he knew it, but alone the thought that he was just a small piece with no real influence helped him out finding his way, and in some way even helped him surviving in the world.

As pessimistic as that may sound, he was quite happy with that knowledge and would always try to think along these lines.

That no matter what you do or happens to you, in the grant scheme of things, it means nothing.

Besides with all the stress that he had the last few days, it couldn’t hurt to think about the mysteries of the universe to calm down a little bit.

Just before he could drift off into another train of thoughts he was interrupted by his better half.

“Thinking about complicated matters again?” she asked watching him with a small smile on her face.

“Nah, not really. Just everyday stuff. What about you? Why have you been so silent? Something bothering you?” he said, eyes finally peeled away from the window to look at her.

“You worried me a little bit lately, truth be told.”

“Me? Why? Did you find out I have been sleeping with you sister and/or Greg? If so, I am so sorry, won’t happen again.”

She only rolled her eyes “No, I didn’t find out that you slept with my not existing sister, nor you total hetero best friend, although that wouldn’t be completely unthinkable with you guys.”

“Guys, as in plural?”

“Your whole group basically, yes. I was really surprised when I learned that they all have, or had, a girlfriend. I mean, the way you guys interact with each other is quite suspicious, so much that I would believe it right away if you told me that you are all, or at least some of you, not entirely hetero.”

Yeah, we do kinda come across that way, don’t we?”

“Yes, yes you do.”

“Meh, who cares? It's how it is and we have our fun, no harm done.”

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. What I meant was your behaviour the last few days. I meant your constant rolling around at night, sweating like a bull and waking up. Then there are also the bags under your eyes and also that you have barley eaten. What is going on? Do you need something, some help?” she asked, browns frowned and voice filled with concern.

“Nah, I am ok,” he said in a playful tone, trying to smile as natural as he could, “just had some stress related nightmare that kept me up, but that should be over.”

She eyes him suspiciously, “Is that true?”

“Yeah, no lair here. Everything is a-okay.”

“If you say so. But if there is something…”

“I can come to you,” he cut her off, “I know, and that’s what I love about you. But you really don’t have to worry about me. Trust me. I even managed to catch a bit of sleep before I made my way to the restaurant.”

“Alright, I will trust you. But if anything is wrong, you tell me.”

“I will. Thanks.”

They both sat in silence at the table, until dinner arrived. The moment the plates and glasses where set on the table they both decided it was enough with the awkward silence and they started to talk again.

This time however, they didn’t talk about depressing or worrying topics they just talked about some silly stuff. About how the weather is too cold, about some funny or interesting memes they found or about games they wanted to play this year.

Two hours and a few drinks later they decided to pay and leave. When the bill arrived, Steve decided that he didn’t want to see how much he had to pay, and just paid without looking. His future self may hate him for that, but for now he was okay with that.

Besides, fuck future Steve, what did he know? Future Steve should just chill out and live and not work himself to the bone.

What a loser that guy was. Steve would never turn out like him.

And with that new? resolve he and Jenny left the restaurant and walked home.

Normally they would take the bus to get home, but because they both drank a little bit too much, they decided to walk to sober up a bit. No point going home and, in the worst case, vomiting all over the place.

He just had that experience not too long ago, and he didn’t want to clean up yet again.

On the way home they met very few people, which was not all so strange considered that it was nearly 10pm on a very cold Friday night.

Everyone was either at home or inside a bar or restaurant, somewhere warm, and enjoyed the time far away from the coldness of the outside world.

Normally he and his friends would also be among the people to sit inside and drink right about now.

But he he thought walking drunk in the cold with your girlfriend isn’t too bad either.

Sure, Jenny may complain about the cold from time to time, and he had to pee really badly, but that still couldn’t sour his mood.

In fact, nothing could.

Today was, in his eyes at least, a good day.

Maybe it started bad, and one could argue that he wasted more than half of it, but that didn’t bother him at all.

It wasn’t too bad to, from time to time, waste a day or two. Sometimes that was exactly what one needed to catch one's breath.

-

--

---

It was running.

After some time adjusting to the situation, it had decided to finally go out and find something to eat.

And he found something.

At first it was hesitant on wherever it should hunt or not. The last time it killed and ate two legged ones he had to run and hide for an entire warm circle.

It nearly starved to death back then.

But now it didn’t care.

It was hungry, and he would eat something.

And he already found his first prey.

Or to be precise, his second one, for his first one was still out there.

He never lets its prey escape.

Play with it, sure, but never escape.