Once again, thanks for reading and the comments! They really mean a lot to me ^^

As soon as they stepped out into the room, Charlie noticed that this place was very reminiscent of the Inventing Room, with a multitude of strange machines hissing and steaming fumes and fogs of all colors into the air. Only this room was lit significantly brighter, and it was much tidier. The air gave off a very clean, crisp smell that was reminiscent to peppermint drops.

They approached one of the white tables on which a small tray sat, and within the tray were rows of round marbles the size of a small penny. On each marble was a wide smiling face engraved onto its glossy surface.

"Whitey-Smileys!" Mr. Wonka cried. "They make your dental braces invisible for up to three hours. You'll have braceless teeth for the really important day outs and not be laughed at!"

"That's brilliant!" exclaimed Charlie. "But people don't really laugh at you for wearing braces, do they?" His mother had been talking about getting them for him a few months back, and Charlie was feeling rather nervous about the whole affair. He didn't think his teeth were that bad... Then again, if there was ever such thing as perfect teeth, Willy Wonka had them, which most likely caused Mrs. Bucket's sudden interest in orthodontics in the first place.

"Oh, my dear boy, of course they do!" said Mr. Wonka. "All because your head is locked in some beastly metal cage for months and months. You'll be a laughing stock for them all!"

"But they've made new braces," the boy protested. "They're smaller now, so that you only have metal bits on your teeth without all the other stuff."

Mr. Wonka shuddered at the word 'metal'. "It's still ghastly business, Charlie. I would stay far away from dentists in general; you never know what they're up to. But for those poor souls who already have, these candies will be their easiest escape route from a life of embarrassment and ruin! Except, uh, they'll have to suffer for a bit longer, because these ten little guys are the only ones left that are made. They're not quite ready to be sold on the market yet, you see."

"Why not?" asked Charlie, picking one of them up for closer examination.

"Because instead of just the braces, they turn your entire body invisible," said Mr. Wonka, sighing. "Fourteen Oompa-Loompas have tried it so far, and the results were always the same. I just don't get why!"

"Invisibility!" Charlie exclaimed. "Is it safe to eat right now, Mr. Wonka?"

Mr. Wonka gave him a funny look. "Of course it's safe, you silly goose! Here, why don't I show you." He plucked the candy out of Charlie's fingers, and waved over the nearest Oompa-Loompa, who was monitoring the temperature gauge on the big oven built into one of the walls. The small man bowed, then took the Whitey-Smiley from the chocolatier and popped it into his mouth.

The effect was immediate. Without a sound, the Oompa-Loompa simply disappeared into nothingness before their very eyes.

"He's gone!" Charlie cried, looking around wildly. "Where did he go?"

"He's still right in front of us!" Mr. Wonka said. "We just can't see him. Hold out your hand, Charlie."

The boy did so tentatively, and he jumped when he felt a tiny, warm hand closing around his outstretched finger. "You can still run into things, and people can still run into you. Whitey-Smileys don't turn you into ghosts, they only make you look like one!" Soon after, there was a faint pop, and the Oompa-Loompa slowly faded back into view. It was a surreal sight. "Thankfully the effect only lasts about ten seconds, but you see why I don't plan on putting them out there just yet. Quite a nasty shock it'd be for everyone, if entire children went popping off into thin air without warning, heh!"

"It's amazing!" Charlie shouted, buzzing with exhilaration. "It's fantastic! It's absolutely mind-boggling! Oh please, may I try a piece too?"

"Whatever for, my dear boy? I've just shown you what it does."

"I think being invisible would be very exciting," Charlie answered with a grin. "Can we play Hide-and-Seek with them, Mr. Wonka? Just one round, I promise!"

"Now, Charlie," Mr. Wonka admonished with an exaggerated frown, although his eyes were twinkling with mischief until finally, he burst into laughter. "Fine, fine! But just once, 'kay?"

With that, the most intense game of Hide-and-Seek commenced in the very room they were in. Both Charlie and Wonka took turns becoming invisible. It was a peculiar feeling that overcame him as soon as the rapidly melting candy hit his tongue; he began to feel pleasantly warm and tingly from head to toe, until he looked down and no longer saw his hands or feet where they should've been.

"I can't believe it," Charlie breathed, rubbing at his invisible arms. It definitely took a while to get used to such a queer and shocking spectacle. As a result, throughout the game Charlie gave himself away quite a few times, and Mr. Wonka had easily found him by tracking the unseeable force that knocked over stray tools and trays.

Fortunately, the boy was very adaptable, and quickly learned how to mask his breathing and reduce the sound of his footsteps to the point where the chocolatier could barely detect him at all during his ten seconds of invisibility. As he was about to run behind the huge, metal water tanks, Charlie was struck with a sudden idea.

Stifling his giggles, he quickly tiptoed up to Wonka's turned back, and pounced with a mighty shout.

"YE-OWW!" Mr. Wonka yelled, whipping around and leaping impressively high into the air as he was tickled fiercely from behind by invisible hands. Charlie popped into sight again, howling with laughter. "Charlie, for goodness sake! I thought you were a terrible, wicked hornswoggler coming to flatten me down with vengeance!"

"I'm sorry!" Charlie gasped, tears in his eyes as he doubled over again. "I just—your face! It was so funny!"

Mr. Wonka huffed and pouted, but quickly gave in to the boy's contagious cheer and grinned sheepishly. "That was really fun," he admitted, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Hey, maybe I could put them out like this! I'll just change the name a little bit—"

"Oh, I hope we didn't use up all of them!" Charlie sobered quickly as he remembered how there was only a little batch remaining.

"Eh, there's probably a couple left," said Mr. Wonka off-handedly, shrugging. "Hey, how bad d'you think it will get if people were able to buy one of these at any candy shop in the world?"

"As long you don't stay invisible for very long, I think it'll be fine," Charlie replied with a shrug of his own. He understood why Wonka would be hesitant to release such a powerful product to the public. There were all sorts of wicked people in the world, and he knew that the Whitey-Smileys could potentially be used by those with less than savory intentions. "To be honest, I did think of something like this a while back, as well. A candy that's able to hide you from everyone in plain sight."

Mr. Wonka, who had been staring pensively at the wall, suddenly whipped around at this. "What?!" he spluttered, grabbing the boy's thin shoulders. "Why on earth did you not tell me, Charlie!"

"I... I thought it would be silly," Charlie confessed, taken aback at this rather violent outburst. "You're always coming up with such wonderful things... mine could hardly be of any worth compared to all of that."

To his great surprise, Mr. Wonka looked positively horrified at this statement. "Nuh-uh! None of that kerfunkel!" he exclaimed, shaking his head firmly. "That sort of thinking will get you absolutely nowhere!"

"I'm sorry," the boy began to say automatically, but Mr. Wonka's grip on his shoulders tightened ever so slightly.

"Charlie, listen to me," Wonka began earnestly, his eyes brighter and more sincere than ever before. "You have all the mind-blowing, creative potential that I could never, ever dream of possessing my whole life. If you have an idea, you must share it! Otherwise, we could miss the chance of inventing something whiffling and wonderful! From now on, if you think of something—anything!—then you run straight to me and we can talk about it, 'kay?"

"Okay," Charlie murmured, still slightly dazed at the passion he could feel radiating off the chocolatier. He could tell Mr. Wonka meant every single word, which astonished him even more.

Did the man truly think he was capable of such valuable creations? Charlie, despite growing much closer to him than ever before, had still continued to draw a line between his and Wonka's ideas, labelling the difference as the inventions of a genius mind and a mere child's wishful thinking. But here they were with said genius still holding tightly onto the boy's shoulders, claiming with such certainty and resolution that he was just as extraordinary. It was a difficult notion to grasp, and it left Charlie with a light, fuzzy feeling in his tummy. "I promise I will."

Mr. Wonka beamed. Before he had a chance to say anything however, an Oompa-Loompa appeared almost out of nowhere and tugged his employer's trouser leg for his attention. The man crouched to listen as the tiny worker whispered something very fast into his ear.

Even now, it was still quite a mystery as to what language the Oompa-Loompa was using in cases like these. To the boy's knowledge, Oompa-Loompish mostly consisted of signage and barely of audible, spoken words. Though he'd lived here for almost two years, he had yet to have a one-on-one conversation with any of the small workers so far, as he only ever saw them during the private factory tours and they were always busy with their tasks to chat much.

"Jokes", Mr. Wonka had told him when he asked something he'd always wondered. "Most of the time when they talk to each other, they're telling jokes. And when they're not joking, they're talking about cocoa beans and chocolate. Whatever it is, it's always a merry topic."

But now, whatever this Oompa-Loompa had to say apparently wasn't so merry. Charlie, who was watching the current exchange, noticed immediately how Wonka's expression gradually shifted and wore down until his smile had melted into something much more grave. At this point, the boy even saw a crease beginning to form between the dark brows.

It was not the same kind of frown he'd see Wonka regularly make. Normally, it would be a big frown, accompanied by wide eyes and energetic gestures and speeches. This however, was all silence and a serious sort of expression that looked entirely foreign on the chocolatier's face. Despite himself, Charlie felt a tiny spark of worry ignite in his chest.

When the Oompa-Loompa had finished speaking, Wonka did not rise. He did not spring back up immediately to inform Charlie of whatever it was that he'd been told, like every other time. In fact, still bent low to accommodate the height difference, it was as if he'd forgotten about his child companion at all. One might have thought that he was experiencing a flashback again, but Charlie knew this was not quite the case. The man was watching the ground as if it were a volatile experiment, and he was waiting for something to go KA-BOOM at any minute.

Thankfully, this silence did not last very long. No more than a few moments later, as if shaken out of his queer stupor by some unknown force, Mr. Wonka blinked and turned to the Oompa-Loompa again. "Okay, I'll be right over." The little worker bowed, and marched off just as quickly as he'd appeared.

It was only then that Wonka finally turned his attention to his heir. He straightened up with a huge smile that was so spectacularly fake, even the poor boy felt his own cheeks ache from simply looking at it.

"I, ehm... looks like we'll have to cut this day short, Charlie." His eyes kept darting nervously around the room, never quite meeting the boy's gaze. "Something important just came up, you see—too important to be ignored, eh-heh. I really mustn't keep it waiting, y'know?"

"That's all right," Charlie replied immediately, keeping his voice light and chipper in an attempt to keep Mr. Wonka at as much ease as possible. Concern overrode disappointment, but he held himself back from asking any questions. It was evident that the chocolatier did not plan on sharing anything as of yet, and he trusted his mentor to do so at the right time. "Oh, Mr. Wonka!" he called, as the man was already beginning to shuffle away.

"Yeah?"

Charlie hesitated, uncertain if it the request was being made in bad timing or not. "Will you be coming to dinner this evening?" he asked rather timidly. He'd only just remembered to ask, and he was already berating himself for being so forgetful.

To his relief, Mr. Wonka's lips twitched into a small, genuine smile. "Sure, Charlie," he agreed after a minimal pause, seemingly arriving to some internal decision as he nodded once. "I'll be there."

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