I didn’t want this moment to pass, and luckily it wouldn’t as quickly, given how many stairs we had to go down.

So I stayed in the little dark space between his hoodie and neck.

The slight up and down made me drowsy, ready to doze off at any moment, but it would be such a shame to miss the puppy’s first trembling steps toward my outstretched hand.

I again had the urge to ask, the need to know, the want to make it all right again, and the fear of separation when we would arrive at the end of the staircase.

But I stopped myself, remaining in my position of reaching out my hand without stepping forward.

Today was our first date; no need to overdo it.

Up and down, descending downward, step for step, slowly but surely, to our date at a horror movie location, and we eventually arrived downstairs.

The heartbeat I felt continuously distanced itself when I was placed in the wheelchair in the lobby.

I let out a sigh and bent forward to place my plaster on the leg... shelf—I don’t know what the hell that thing is called.

Anyway, looking up and seeing Henry staring down at me, I grinned.

"So? First date starts now?"

Or had it started upstairs already?

His lips formed a small curve.

"Yes."

"Alright." My grin widened seeing him finally show a bit of emotion.

I looked around at the bunch of cartoon characters, a bunch of paper princesses and princes in the lobby with the five elevators—so absolutely unmatching to the restaurant above.

There was a clear separation from the children’s world to the adults’ world above, meaning we had now entered the children’s domain.

Spotting the glass entrance door, I pointed at it.

"Here we go."

Henry positioned himself behind the wheelchair, like a dutiful deckhand assisting his captain on the way to the adventure.

The restaurant lay amidst a long, wide street with few attractions like these houses for kids, where you would have to crawl through, and at each end of the street were round fountains and incoming lanes with vendors—where usually vendors would be.

I pointed to our left, and my wheelchair wheeled to where I pointed, like magic.

I already saw that to the left and right of the fountain were a few booths, every one of them with roller shutters closed tightly. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Can you open that roller shutter thingy?" I looked at the empty fountain, full of green leaves from the big maple trees and other greenery between the booths and wedged in between amusement park attractions.

Henry stepped out from behind the wheelchair and just pulled at the roller shutter above the metal counter.

The roller shutter went up, and it was a machine, a plastic fishpond that would move, and one had to get some fake fish out of it. Without electricity, it wouldn’t be fun.

I turned my head and found that in this street, there were only booths like this.

Henry had followed my gaze; I raised my eyebrows with a smile.

"Open them all up, would you?" I smirked.

Henry acted swiftly, turned around, and moved between booths along the street, using little or much force before they opened one after another.

Just a few minutes later, he came back, rolling me forward, and this time it felt much more like a date, as there was a bunch of stuff to see.

A few games I didn’t know, then we came to the can booth.

"Perfect." I pointed at it and was wheeled to the right.

"You know that’s rigged, right?" I pointed at the cans.

"I know." Henry leaned forward and grabbed a bunch of balls filled with sand from under the counter, then came back to place them all on my lap.

"Alright. You left, I right." I gave back one ball and looked at the two sets of stacked cans in the form of a big triangle.

"One, two..." I stayed seated and raised my arm with the ball.

"Three," I threw, and Henry threw too.

The result was that we both somehow struck the left side; from Henry’s side of 12 cans, only the lowest row was left, which probably weighed more than the above.

While my little triangle was left unscattered.

"Damn it!" I gathered the balls and jumped up to put them on the wheelchair.

"Thank you~" Henry hummed.

"That was enough to make you cocky?" I chuckled and placed my plastered foot on the ground, treating it as an annoying shoe.

I threw one of the balls again while standing and knocked off more cans than in his row.

"Heh," I laughed.

"We both don’t stand a chance against me, it seems."

"Mhm, a can master..." Henry murmured.

"Heard you." I took another ball and threw it at his stomach, naturally not with the least bit of strength.

But Henry wasn’t prepared, so he was struck.

He looked at the ball that had fallen to his feet, then at me.

"Yeah, I struck you. What are you going to do about it?" I raised my arms.

He bent down, took the ball, and threw it in my direction. It hit the wheelchair, which rolled back quite a bit before falling over.

My hands rose again in disbelief, asking silently if he wanted to fight it out.

"You are mobbing your crippled boyfriend on your first date? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

This time he genuinely chuckled, an expression that had seemed to have vanished for such a damn long time.

Feeling my heart flutter, I tried to play it cool, not showing that the puppy did something especially noteworthy—so that he’d be able to easily do it again and again.

Henry pointed at his stomach.

"You assaulted me first," the smile was still there.

"Yeah, yeah... someone passed you the ball, so you threw it over their wheelchair." I walked back to the wheelchair, albeit with a light limp because the plaster was way thicker than my shoe.

Henry went back to humming, but I was hyped up.

I took a few balls and passed them over this time for real before throwing mine against my last row of cans.

They weren’t easy, and I didn’t use as much strength as not to burst the sandballs.

Henry followed suit, but in the end, I won nonetheless.

"I: one, you: none," I chuckled.

"At least for now..." He went back and got the wheelchair, and I let myself fall into it while we looked through the other booths.

Next was a little arrow-shooting miniature game, which ended in a draw.

At the next booth, there were some balls you would have to throw into the openings of a machine that would constantly rotate.

"Let’s throw from there." I pointed at the booth across from it so that the difficulty level would increase even without the rotating.

I was wheeled back, but I stood up just like with the arrows; nobody can sit while throwing or shooting.

Henry won this time, making the whole thing a 2:2 tie.

I don’t know if I imagined it, but he seemed to gain some smugness.

When we passed the next booth, which would only work with machines, I spotted a fat black puppy plushie.

"Get me that one, please." I pointed at it, and Henry froze for a long moment.

Then he jumped over the counter and retrieved it to give it to me.

I placed it on my lap, wanting to gift it to him, but on the other side, I needed the plushie more than he did—and given it looked just like him and sleeping alone was annoying, I kept it for myself.

We passed two more booths and ended up at a souvenir booth.

I saw the typical hairbands with ears on them.

"There, you choose one for me, and I will choose one for you."

Henry stepped forward and looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"Not ’too gay’?"

"It is," I nodded but continued to look for a good one for him.

In the end, I saw a red one with undefined pointed ears that could be interpreted as puppy or wolf-like.

"The red one."

Henry went to get it very precisely and fiddled with it for some time, with his back to me.

"You don’t like it? It’s red and puppy-like."

Eventually, he placed the hairband above his pulled-up hood, which was an interesting choice.

And what did I get back for choosing one that he would like?

Fucking pink big mouse ears.

I turned around to see if there was really nobody here before sighing endlessly and placing the pink monstrosity on my head.

Henry chuckled, and suddenly I found the ears not as outrageous.

I snapped one of the ears on my head.

"Handsome?"

"Mhm..." He touched his own ears before coming back to wheel me forward.

The booths to our right ended, and there was a waterslide, which was essentially a few trunk-like wagons that would drive downwards into water, only splashing people, not really drenching them.

"That one next." The trunk wagons were on top, and if we were lucky, they would move downwards even without electricity.

Henry directly teleported upwards and pushed one of the eight wagons down.

It really worked.

Perfect.

He first teleported down to destroy the lock on the entry and then came back to wheel me to the entrance booth.

"Given this is our date, I will pay for it," I said, placing my hand on the counter of the booth as if I really had put a few coins on it, hearing a rewarding chuckle from behind me.

Then Henry carried me up the stairs; this time, I didn’t hide in the hoodie but watched the view while listening and feeling his heartbeat—the damn ears wouldn’t have fit anyways.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for a date—not too hot, not too windy.

I was eventually placed into a trunk wagon, and given that there were no real seats but just a bench that led from the back to the front for everyone to straddle, my plastered leg had as much space as I wanted it to have.

Soon I felt Henry push; there were a few meters before it would go down.

I turned back.

"You’ll jump in before it goes down, right?"

"Why? Scared?" The unsettling smile was back, but it had a bit of mischievousness.

I slid further back and grabbed his wrist.

"Jump or get yanked in."

When we arrived at the edge, Henry teleported away.

"HENRY!"

The next moment, he appeared inside the wagon—in front of me, as there was no space left behind me.

I lunged at him to make sure he didn’t pull that stunt on me again while it went down.

"Fuck you!"

Hearing him laugh, with my arms around his neck, I didn’t mind the bad idea of boarding something that would go down anymore, despite my traumatic experiences with heights.

I felt the wind brush against me, watched the water coming closer, smelled Henry’s distinct scent, felt the vibration of his laughter against my chest, and grinned.

See, this is what you call a first date.