Unexpected Souvenir

Germany Mochi

Studying abroad was something you never though you'd get the chance to do, but here you are in the amazing city of Berlin as a student at on of its universities. You love it here, and don't really want to leave when you're done with school, but the only reason your parents agreed to you studying abroad is because you promised you'd come back. It's a decision you regret, but if you hadn't agreed, then you wouldn't be in the largest city in all of Germany.

Berlin is actually a city-state, but those kinds of details aren't important to you right now. You're currently standing in the corner of the women's bathroom at the library trying to figure out what this rectangular white thing sitting there is. You had come out of one of the stalls and washed your hands when this thing attracted your attention. Who leaves something weird stuff like this in a bathroom?

At first you had been afraid it was a bomb or something. Maybe some weird political group is trying to attack your university's library to send some sort of anti-education message. You had created a whole plot in your head about how you'd defuse the bomb just in time and be the hero. Everyone would know you as "the cool girl that saved the library".

That thought was quickly replaced by the idea that saving a library doesn't really make you look cool. After that you didn't know what to think. The thing is just sitting there. It hasn't moved or done anything since you've started staring at it. You give it a quick jab, and yelp when you find out how hard it it. It's like a block of cement. You shake your hand to try to lessen the pain, and as you do so, the weird block makes a grunting sound.

This catches your attention, and you crouch even closer to the white object. You poke it again, lightly for the sake of your finger, and the thing grunts again. Another poke, another grunt. You grin mischievously and begin to tickle the white thing. At first nothing happens, but soon the thing starts to shake. A few more grunts come from the object before it starts laughing uncontrollably.

"Stoppen! Bitte aufhören! (Stop! Please stop!)"

You jump up in surprise at the sound of a deep male voice. The white thing turns around and glares at you with black eyes. You're frozen in place by how shocked you are to hear the thing talk, and have a face.

"Bitte lassen Sie mich allein, (Please leave me alone)" he says. You decide it has to be a boy with a voice like that.

The two of you stare at each other for a while. Before he can react, you glomp onto the block on the floor. "Du bist so nett! (You are so cute!)" you coo at the white thing.

He freezes at your sudden touch, and begins to blush bright red. He mumbles something you don't quite catch the first time. You relax your hold on the ridged block and look at him quizzically.

"Was hast du gesagt? (What did you say?)"

The thing doesn't say anything. He just stares ahead blankly like his brain just got fried. That might actually be the case because he falls forward flat on his face, which causes you to panic, and when you get overly excited you tend to babble in English.

"Ah! He just fell over! What do I do? Maybe I'll pick him up!" You try it, but come to find he's really, really heavy. "Holy crap, he must weigh a ton! Does he eat barbells for breakfast?"

You stop to imagine the white thing balancing a solid steel barbell on his flat top and doing some weird exercise with it. Then he puts it down and takes a big bite out of it. You giggle slightly at the image. You would've kept imagining the thing eating more and more barbells, except you remember it's still lying face down on the bathroom floor.

"Ahhhhh! What am I supposed to do? Can he even breathe like that? Oh no! If I don't flip him over soon, he'll suffocate! Don't worry! I'll figure something out!"