Kiku Honda was probably the closest thing Ludwig had on 'best friend'. They knew each other when Kiku was sent to Germany for postgraduate study. His German wasn't that well, but his English was adequate. As someone with best English from the whole program, Ludwig ended up accompanying him. Even though until now Ludwig couldn't tell what was going on on Kiku's mind, he was comfortable with him. They graduated their master degree together and ended up being friends until now, when they were sent to London for research.

"Ohayou, Rudwig-san," Kiku greeted Ludwig, with his familiar nodding gesture and a small smile.

"Guten morgen, Kiku," he returned the Japanese greeting and smile. It was their thing to greet each other using their native language.

The strange pair—Ludwig, tall, muscular, and pale, towering fifteen centimetres or about six inches over Kiku, small, slender, and dark-haired—enjoyed full English breakfasts with baked beans and fried bread before leaving for college. Kiku went straight to the machinery department while Ludwig went straight to his first class to teach.

The German professor was already expecting his students to display some confusion when he stepped in, carrying a stack of books and a heavy, iron-based prototype easily in a go. Some of the students looked like they were already halfway thinking that Ludwig walking into the wrong class. He didn't blame them. Looks can be deceiving.

The rest of the day flowed away quickly. Ludwig was introduced to Kiku's friend from machinery department, Wang Yao, during lunch. The Chinese man brought them to a wonderful Chinese restaurant two blocks away from college. Ludwig was happy to make another acquaintance in London. Wang Yao, who insisted to be called 'just Yao', had the same aura with Kiku, despite him being at least twice as cheerful. Yao had small ponytail and his iPhone was covered with cute panda cover. When he left, Kiku told Ludwig that Yao was 'surprisingly old' despite his youthful-looking face and joyful attitude.

When Ludwig was allowed to go home after supervising a small robot-making class that finished at two in the afternoon, the blue-eyed male wasn't sure whether he enjoyed the day so far. At least, there was nothing unplanned happened. His brain was still working out his new routine, but he was glad he had come to this city. London seemed like wonderful place to live and Ludwig felt that he was lucky to be given chance to stay there.

Ludwig took his time to go food shopping. Sure, the English breakfast was great—though the black pudding made him miss wurst—and he couldn't wait to try more dish on the restaurant Yao brought them this afternoon, but Ludwig knew that eating out all the time wasn't exactly healthy. Not for his body, nor his wallet. Carrying two big bags of grocery, Ludwig made his way back to his flat. The tall man was in the middle of thinking about what would he cook for dinner when he passed a couple of angry looking men on the corridor. They looked like they just left from a door in the ground floor.

Now that he realised it, there was another flat below him. He hadn't yet greeted the resident and he knew he had to. They would be neighbours for the next twelve months. Ludwig thought of making his special sausage and brought it for the neighbour at dinnertime. But before he could think about it any further, Ludwig saw that the door on the ground floor was opened. He set down his grocery bags and shouted to opened door.

"Excuse me…? I think you forgot to close your door," he peered a little through the crack, but the door only swinged wider. Ludwig quickly connected the dots; the group of irritated men, the unlocked door, the silence…

He shouted another, "Excuse me!" before walking inside to a quiet flat.

The flat was a complete mess—at least to Ludwig's standard—and it seemed like whoever lived here was some kind of painter. Beside obvious brushes, palettes, canvases, and paints in bottles and tubes all over the place, the blond man could see clothes strewn all over the place. He threw his gaze around to find that the owner of this flat—presumably a male, judging from his underwear that peeked underneath strewn clothes—was somehow was very fond of shoes with Velcro. Probably someone who can't tie their shoes or something… Ludwig thought as he took another step towards the living room.

"Hello…?"

His voice echoed through the large room. The window on the living room was closed, hence the silence and the absence of sound of London traffic rumbling outside. Ludwig was started to get worried that he would find a bloody dead body. The living room was also a mess. The most peculiar thing there was perhaps a miniature gondola large enough to fit a Saint Bernard, followed by a large, rusty anchor and a big crate labelled 'tomato'. Ludwig was sure he came to residence of some kind of weird painter as he examined the label on the wooden crate. The box apparently used to carry tomatoes from Emilia-Romagna. Maybe he should look on another room. Ludwig patted the box gently before turning out, only to find the presumably nonliving thing responding by moving and making creaking noise.

"What?" he almost jumped in surprise.

There was another creak followed by a high-pitched voice, "I'm a tomato fairy!" coming from inside the box.

Ludwig felt a strange urge to laugh. Was a child occupying this space? Or was it just a very delusional artist?

"Do you live here?" he decided to act like everything was normal. "I just want to let you know that your door is open."

"W-what are you talking about? I'm a tomato fairy!" the voice squealed and continued babbled about him being not living there because fairy didn't live in place like London. Ludwig felt like the conversation would go nowhere if they kept talking like this, so he started to try opening the crate. "V-ve! What are you doing? Take your hands off the crate!"

The lid was surprisingly heavy and in tact that at the moment Ludwig was able to pull it out, the force threw him away, making him lying next to dirty black shirt that still had dark tie on and at least half dozen of empty olive oil bottles.

A person emerged from inside the crates, crying and begging loudly as he did, "Please don't ask more money from me! I do not have it! I do not have it and I'm so sorry! I will pay the rent soon! And the paint! Also the canvas! I'm so sorry! Please don't kill me! Also I'm sorry I'm not actually tomato fairy! I'm so scared! Please spare me!"

Ludwig stared at him in shock and awe. A grown man with auburn hair was crying in front of him, his pleading voice had Italian accent and his fingers were entwined in front of his chest like he was praying.

He stopped for an awkward second where he gazed at Ludwig before wailing again, "Now they send me an assassin after me! A German assassin! Are you going to strangle me to death? O dio mio, I just owe them a couple of thousand pounds! Why must this happen to me? Mr Assassin, please don't kill me! I'm too young to die! Still, if you have to kill me because that's your job, let me eat some pasta first! Please!"