A scream that I've never heard before escaped from the back of my throat as I fell on my knees during the process. It was only so natural to if you see something so unnatural happening right before your eyes.

         It was enough of a scream to startle Ludwig (or was he actually?), and to the staff outside of the mirror house. In a matter of seconds, there were more people than just the two standing in front of the mirror.

         "What's the matter?" a middle aged man walked in gruffly. He wore the very unflattering Playland uniform. He gave a menacing eye to Ludwig, who was still at a loss for words. He didn't notice that Ludwig wasn't in the mirror. "Was this boy harassing you?" he asked me instead. A part of me was surprised that the man saw Ludwig as well, that I wasn't just imagining him being here with me this whole time.

         "No!" I said and leapt onto my feet. Pain from the sudden weight on the palms of my feet made me bite my lip for a second. Then, avoiding to look to the mirror beside me, I  explained, "I just thought . . . I was going to faint."

          The man wasn't amused. "Keep your jokes to yourself," he snapped, and stalked back to his post.

         That's when I glanced back at the mirror. My legs unbuckled, feeling loose and wobbly. Beethoven still wasn't there. But he was clearly standing right beside me. What was he? A vampire? A ghost? Or was it just some sort of crazy hallucination I was witnessing?

         Ludwig however looked so humanly sincere as he clamped his hand on my shoulder. A long strand of his dark hair fell over his eye. It would've looked nice if he had gelled it. "Kiara?"

         "I. . .I. . ." I didn't know what was right, and what was supposed to be right anymore. "I think I'm gonna go throw up," I lied, making a dash out of the mirror house. Ludwig was running after me, and I didn't mind, as long as I wasn't looking back to the mirrors that surrounded us as we made our way out of the mirror house.

         "I think I'm going to be sickly too," Ludwig said from behind as we approached the bathroom stalls. I didn't even bother to correct his grammar.  It made sense for him to be feeling sick though; it was his first time ever to come to Playland. He continued to trail behind me.

         I stopped him just at the nick of time. "Hold up," I said, pushing his chest back with the palm of my hands. "You can't follow me in here."

         "Why not?"

         "It's the girl's bathroom," I explained, pointing to the sign on the door with the ladies symbol.

         A woman with her kid squeezed by us as I was standing right in front of the entrance. She gave us a dirty look, as if we were horny teenagers or something.          "Come on," I said, nudging him to the entrance to the men's bathroom which was on the opposite wall to the women's. "You use that one. There's probably a line up in there, so stand there, and you'll know what to do. You can throw up in one of the toilets."

         He nodded obediently, staring at me for a long second before entering the bathroom, following a burly man that was coming in, too.

         I never thought I'd have to explain to someone how to use a public restroom.  Or maybe he did know how to use one, but he didn't say anything. They probably have one in Germany. . .

         I couldn't think of a single place in Germany where they'd have toilets for the general public to use. At the castle? Or were there even any castles in Germany? I hardly knew anything about the place my blood and heritage belonged to.

  Idiot, he's not a caveman. He probably has used a bathroom somewhere. Why are you even stressing over this?

         Not exactly feeling sick, but not completely sane either, I walked into the women's bathroom and lined up for the sake of lining up. The putrid, metallic smell of the room made me feel more nauseous than necessary. I tried to concentrate on my surroundings. The big woman in front of me was breathing heavily, her thighs moving constantly in its spot as if she couldn't wait to use the bathroom. Not a pleasant sight, either.

         After hearing countless flushes and watching women coming out of the stalls, privacy was mine. Standing as far away as possible from the toilet which the lady forgot to flush, I whipped out my phone out of instinct. Now what? I pressed the home button on my screen over and over, seeing that I had gotten two text messages, both people probably just wanting to talk about how their summer vacations are. I stuffed my phone back in the pocket of my denim shorts. There was no time to talk to friends, when there was Ludwig to worry about.

         "Maybe I'll just tell him what I saw," I found myself saying aloud to myself, where nobody could see me. He'll understand. This whole situation was crazy enough, wasn't it?

                    There was a knock on my stall door, and I froze. "Yoohoo, anybody in there?" a perky female voice asked as I flung open the door.

         "I'm done," I said to her, and walked past.

         "Darling, you forgot to flush the toilet!" she called.

         I didn't even wash my hands. The place was so crowded with women that I was starting to get a headache. "That wasn't me!" I yelled back, not looking back.

         Ludwig was already done, the complexion of his face a little lighter than before. "How was it?" I asked. It was strange to ask someone about how their bathroom experiences were.

         "Good." That was a strange answer, and he had a strange, distant face on him.

          "Did you, uh . . ."

         "Yes, yes, I did actually," he said curtly.

         "Yeah," I said, "Not 'yes'. Say 'yeah'."

         "Yeah."

         I shifted my weight back and forth from the heels of my foot to the very tips of my toes, arms overlapping behind my back. "So. . . are you still up for a couple more rides, before this place gets too busy? We can even get mini donuts. Money's on me."

         "Mini donuts? What are those?"

         My hand reached to tug his that were slightly damp from cleansing his hands. "You've never had one? Man, you've been missing out on a lot of things."          The talk about the mirror got put on hold. One was because I was scared. Too scared to go back to another mirror and confirm what I actually saw, and what Ludwig sees through the mirror, too. Another was because Ludwig didn't know. Just like he didn't know he was going to go deaf. Why was it my place to tell him?

         The last reason was that mini donuts had become the number one priority instead now.

         I thrusted the bag of sugar and yeast right under Ludwig's nose. Six pieces had costed an outrageous ten dollars, but hey, it wasn't really my money that we were using, so I floated with it. besides, Ludwig didn't need to know that. "Here, you need to try one.."

         Looking at the brown lumps disdainfully, Ludwig shook his head at me. "Those look too foul for me to taste."

         "You ate french fries for god's sake," I said, taking a donut with two fingers from the bag. Instead of eating it though, I stuffed it into Ludwig's mouth that was open to protest.

         His eyes widened at first in panic, but he soon reached out for another one. Considering skipping breakfast and rushing straight to Playland this morning, he and I were both hungry.

         Only when I popped a mini donut in my mouth did he admit, "They're not as good as those potatoes I had yesterday."

         "They're called french fries," I said.

         "Why? They're not even French!"

         I let out a easy breath of laughter. "That's not how it works. They're just french fries. Like how french toast is french toast. And french bread."          Eyeing the sudden swarm of people occupying the areas around me, and noticing the lengthy lineups, I felt my chest tighten. Many people in one place wasn't my type of scene. "How about we get out of here?"

         "Why?" he said, and despite being a boy, pouting. He had already eaten most of the donuts, only one more left over for me.

         "I just don't like it," I said cautiously, looking around me again. Like I said, I didn't fancy large masses of people. "We've been on most of the rides anyways."

         "I want to go on that one, though," he pointed to the ride where you sit on the swings and it spins you around in the air. I like that one, too.

         "One more, and that's it then."

         "Two more!"

         "If you're trying to bargain with me, that wasn't very effective."

         He just blinked, unable to comprehend my words. Tugging my hand afterwards, he said, "Come on, let's go!"

         Rolling my eyes, I let him pull me towards the ride. It looked newly renovated compared to a couple years ago, the swings looking more classy and having a modern yellowish colour. We showed our hands to the staff as he let us in. Most of the seats were filled up, but the balding man guided us to two empty seats that were thankfully side by side so that we can sit beside each other.          "You kids are lucky," he said, winking specifically at Ludwig. He should really wear a cap to cover his splotchy scalp.

         I tried not to roll my eyes again. It wasn't the end of the world if I didn't sit beside Ludwig.

         As he climbed into his seat, and being the idiot he was, he seemed to interpret the man's words as friendliness. "Yeah! She wants to go home right after this ride. She's not very fun."

         Rude.

         While fighting the urge to not punch Ludwig, I shook my head to the man who tried to help me into my seat next. I didn't get why he needed to help us get settled. I just needed buckle myself in, didn't I?

         Mr. Balding gave Ludwig a final wink. Why did he do that? "Well, I suppose she wants to do other things with you."

         I stared at the back of his red uniform as he walked away to operate the ride, taking time to process what he just said. "What the actual fuck?" I finally said after we were halfway to the very top of the ride, the man's statement making sense now.  I was yelling like a crazy maniac, unheard though. "I don't want to do "other things" with him!"

         Startled, Ludwig jerked his head towards me. But then, before he could ask me anything, we were going higher and higher, which seemed to excite Ludwig more.

         As innocent Ludwig had the time of his life beside me as we spun around in circles, I just kind of did that thing where you rest your chin in your elbow and look really bored and pissed off. Like one of those party poopers that nobody wanted to be associated with.

         On the way out of the ride, I stalked a fast distance away from Ludwig and to the exit, snapping to the man, "I have a boyfriend!". And the boyfriend wasn't Ludwig. Jeez.

         Well, it was a sort of boyfriend. He was gone for the summer and we barely held contact with each other, but I he still counted as my boyfriend. Lenny. Fumingly, I continued to defend myself in my head.

         It's okay, Kiara, there's probably something wrong with that man anyways. I mean, look! He didn't even give me a reaction. He just wanted to mess with you.

         "What?" Ludwig said, annoyed himself now with my attitude.          "Nothing." The man's words still in my head, I kept myself at least a foot away from him. I was leading him out of the amusement park. "Ludwig . . . do you have a girlfriend?" I asked once the loud music from the park was beginning to fade away.

         He tipped his head to one side cutely. "Girlfriend?"

         "Someone you're seeing, er, romantically?"

         His eyes looked to the clouds, looking sort of dreamy. "Well, there's a lot of beautiful girls in Germany."

         I kicked the air because there were no rocks to kick. "Oh."  I guessed American girls weren't cute. I was about to say obnoxiously "well I have a boyfriend", but he continued on.

         "But no, there's not anybody I'm seeing at the moment, but my father . . ." he scowled. I've never seen him pull a nasty face like that.

         "What about your father?" I pressed.

         He stuffed his hands in his pockets, not budging. "Nothing."

         We were both quiet, walking along the path to the bus stop. There was a rowdy family behind us who had left Playland as well, and one of the kids were wailing because they wanted to stay longer. Other than that, all was quiet between us. The sidewalk became wider, so the distance from me to him was probably two feet now. When I snuck a glance at him, he was staring at the sky as if he was still in his dreamy phase from earlier. Perhaps he was imagining the past.

         It was obvious he wanted to go back in time. But we both just couldn't answer the question of how. Going to Playland seemed to help though, but only while we were there. Now he was starting to crawl back into his shell; he was thinking about going to the past again.

         I wanted to see a happy Ludwig rather than a depressed one.

         So I just had to distract him even more with even more happy things.          "Ludwig have you heard of movies?"

         To say Ludwig was amazed was an understatement. He looked like he was ready to bow down to the Lord. I suppose I'd be in awe too if I've never seen a television screen before. The cable was on because I hadn't set up the DVD player yet, and Ellen Degeneres was on the screen interviewing a celebrity that I didn't really know.

         "But, what, how—" he seemed to be unable to find the right word, "How does this even work?"

         "I'm not a scientist so I don't know," I said, putting down a bowl of popcorn a bit too aggressively that some fell on the table.

         "Is that food?"

         "Yup," I said, "but be careful, it's hot." Turning my back to him, I opened the cabinet to rummage through the generous amount of movies my family had. What should we watch? A romantic comedy? Or a superhero movie? Horror?

         "Definitely not horror," I muttered to myself with a shudder. Those were for my younger brother and sister.

           At the same time, Ludwig said loudly, "The potato things are better than this."

         "We're not at McDonalds," I said, "I can't just magically make you fries. And it's called popcorn, what you're eating."

         Distracted with Ludwig again, I just fished out the next random DVD to touch my hand. Looking at the cover, I whistled. "Looks like we're watching Cinderella."

         "What's that?"

         "It's a movie." Falling into a spot beside Ludwig on the cream, leather couch, the unneeded copyright infringement messages began to roll. "Hopefully you'll like it." Even if it's a Disney princess story.

         Beside me, Ludwig was silent during the course of the movie. He was being rather analytical, as if he was trying to figure out the technology behind the movie and the animation.

         As Cinderella and Prince Charming danced on the ballroom floor, a supposed happy moment of the movie, Ludwig still held the same intent expression. "Are you even paying attention to the story?"

         His whole body did a little jump. "There's so many things I don't understand . . ."

         "Shouldn't it look familiar? The royal castle and everything?"

         "I am," he said hotly, eyes blazing. "But this is so inaccurate. This whole story is inaccurate. There's no possibility this can happen at a ball. The logic behind this story is just . . . ridiculous."

         "Well, it's a fairy tale, Mr. Smartass," I said, "Nothing makes sense, except that Cinderella gets a happy ending."

         The two had finished dancing, and the midnight bell was ringing. "Watch, this is an important part," I said as Cinderella was leaving behind her slipper.          "Okay," Ludwig groaned from beside me as we got to the part where they were testing every girl's foot to fit the slipper. "This never happens. What was his name? Prince Charming? He can't even recognize the girl he danced with! That can't be love."

         "They were wearing a mask at the ball, remember?" I reminded him.          "If you wore a mask to the ball, I'd still recognize you." His dark eyes were serious, unblinking as he stared at me.

         I didn't say anything. My gaze fixed back to the screen in front of us. The movie was almost at an end. But I couldn't concentrate on the story anymore, not even at the climax where the evil stepmom was trying to hide Cinderella. My heart was pounding too hard, and I bet Ludwig could hear it and feel it because my head was so close to leaning on his shoulder, only to be supported by the headrest on the couch.

         "That's Cinderella," I finally said as the end credits rolled, "I'm guessing you didn't really like it."

         "I didn't at first," he admitted, "but you're right. It's a fairy tale and at least Ella got her happy ending."

         "It's Cinderella," I corrected him. He just shrugged, which was a gesture that he had learned from me. He was getting used to modern behaviour.

         I pretended to stretch so that I could create a little more distance from him. "So . . . do you want to watch another movie?"

         "Yes!"

         "You can pick this time," I waved him over to the cabinet.

         I brought a thin blanket for Ludwig and I to share as the second movie, the first Spiderman movie, began to play. This time I let my head lean on his shoulder. It was more comfortable anyways.

          It's scary how fast we're able to forget what we're really supposed to do. For now though, everything was good.                    

          Yes, I thought as I shifted a little closer to him. I didn't really like Spiderman but I liked sitting close to him. Seemingly good.

a/n: if you liked this chapter make sure to vote!! i really love this one because their eating and being cute and doing all the things i'd want to do with my boyfriend if i ever have a boyfriend. and also, thank you for 1.5K followers and 15k reads, I really love you guys and i hope you guys continue to support this story! this is dedicated to my best friend and to people who have kept me company while I was cursed with the chickenpox.

btw if you guys know anyone that makes some really good minimalist covers, let me know because i want to request one for a new story. :)

see you guys later

-norika