It took a few blocks away from the main strip before they arrived. Posters were plastered on the windows advertising dice sets, playbooks, card games along with any other nerdish hobby. Next to it sat an all pets welcome sign with sharpied words adding, "If they don't disturb patrons." Shaliver half expected her to mockingly give him a face but just enters the store without a word. He is greeted with vanilla scented candles that he adored from Fatemore Supermarket. But it was not only that he had found recognizable.

It had been quite some time since he had seen furniture of this style. The way it curves and the symbols embedded had him reminiscing on his earlier life. Then came of interesting devices he had caught while glancing into store windows years ago. Music making machines that used a needle, lamps whose shades were just as intricate as their base, action figures he once saw children playing with when the shows were still popular. He wondered if their sound functions still worked. And if they were the ones that swore.

Birch paid no mind to it as she made a beeline to her target. As expected, the hobby side of the shop was dead aside for one person. He was sat at the counter with his head nearly falling off his leaning hand. Slamming on the counter he sputters to life.

"Eh- what? SorryMaamNoRefundfor-," he stops his gibberish when he notices the neon green eyes.

"Heh. Sup Birch. Can't say your dice have come in yet but it should be here eventually. If that isn't it then how can I help you?"

She pulls out the chocolate bar from her pocket on to the counter. The man blanks. His eyes travel one second at the candy, then to Birch. Eventually he settles on her, "You're not hungry?"

She sighs, "No I want you to figure out what's in it. Whatever it is has everyone hooked, and not in a normal way." This quickly catches his attention and he sticks it in some spare tupperware. From what she assumed was his eaten lunch.

Better not cross contaminate it.

"Well you came to the right guy. Thankfully I don't only specialize in magical protections. With a bit of potion crafting I can figure out the contents. However I can't exactly get this done fast since all my supplies are at home. I'll call you when I've got this analyzed."

"What is the estimated time for it to be done?"

"I don't know. Depends on how busy college and work is. But I'll try to in the next two weeks."

Birch winced at the number, as did Shaliver. To which the man finally took notice.

"Is that a cat?"

"No," he hissed.

The man flinched a bit but soon was just humbly chuckling, "Apologies. As we haven't met, I'll introduce myself. Names Hans, pleasure to meet you."

Birch looked around the vacant store before giving Shaliver the nudge. He sighed but begrudgingly extended his tail to the man. The end of his tail does its thing and forms the shape of an open palm. Fascinated, Hans takes the imitation hand while inspecting it closer.

Just looking at his transitioning expressions he was ecstatic and confounded by the anomaly of anatomy. No sooner was it in his hand than it was swiped away by Shaliver. To which he wipes the end on her grey stained jeans.

She swore he mentioned something about disgusting sweat.

"Well we can leave that work to you, so time to head home. Keep an eye out for those dice for me!" She finger guns.

As the two left Hans was left back to his own thoughts. And the hope that whatever situation she had found herself in, it won't be more than she can handle. Well that's what the stickers are for. A thought that could only keep him soothed in passing.

It was hard for Birch to sleep. But when was there ever a time it wasn't. Shaliver had run off to do his own thing in the cover of the evening overcast. Meanwhile she was occupied rather than with her fanfiction, instead was scouring for this Cassius guy. He wasn't wrong about his media presence. Checking brought up multiple accounts with followers in the millions. Most of them were of himself posing in promiscuous ways in front of different products. With the background consisting of high end views of sunsets or on beds surrounded by candles.

In spite of questioning why people liked this, she instead looked in comments for clues of his surprisingly unnoted business ventures. Scanning over the many posts from different platforms had not even a single note of Bitty Bites. However when viewing older pictures the guy's face seems more naturally beautiful. Standard model hot boy types with abs as fine toned as their wavy hair. Yet his eyes seemed just as inhuman as before.

Comments on his older posts had different things to say.

Nancy_Cutieeee;p: OMG! Look at those eyes!!!! If they were candy I could never get enough of them!!!

>DanFenBob: *Clap* *Clap* *Clap* Reminds me of a good dark coffee if you ask me. *sip sip*

BrooklynABabes2259: That close up is so gorgeous! Please post more!

Pizzasucksbutt: Hot. Wish I had a body like that. Teach me <3 please

CrossStarLovers: You are an angel. God's perfection in human form! Bless you and may God be with you. Join the faith at @CrossStarLovers and get in touch with the lord.

Most comments followed a similar pattern but sadly weren't just bots bought for ego stroking. They might as well call you Narcissus.

Nothing else of interest came after that so she decided to finally sleep. At three in the morning. A habit she should try to break in the near future.

School's going to suck tomorrow.

And indeed it did. Week one was not fun as everyone was eating the new candy bar. People kept trying to shove it down her throat but she adamantly refused. Something that she was not the only one doing. Certain store owners, her parents, and her favorite waitress had been against even nibbling on them. The Arcade went as far as to ban them, which had the effect of slowing down business exponentially. A pattern that followed every food related store in the area. Meanwhile other stores would advertise selling it to raise sales. Usually these stores were just as hooked on them as the customer base.

Getting the police force involved did nothing, in spite of the fact the man had no license or right to sell unlabeled products. It was when she saw the pile of Bitty Bites on their desks that she realized how hopeless their help was. Another sad development was seeing her friends joining the candy craze. With Cassius sadly being one of Presely's types plus her love of chocolate; disaster was inevitable. As for Lou, when she saw his smile touching the bottom of his even larger eye bags she knew.

But what really brought her down was when she was picking up her house's Halloween candy.