Happy ever after doesn't happily end... at least not without its caveats - a valuable lesson I came to learn perhaps too quickly.
Whereas fairytales can get away with their happy ending with a flip of a page, reality, on the other hand, was no book, there was no end - here, life just goes on.
And so what really is the caveat of after ever after?
The aftermath.
See, the happy climax of the unlikely pair professing their heartfelt emotions to one another through the aid of some boys in the backstreet from an era long forgotten was good while it lasted.
But being as we live and die in such a cynical universe, we all know that nothing ever lasts.
In the end - the music becomes faded, the lyrics depleted, and the passion burns and is then extinguished... as Irene inevitably returned to her senses.