My special boy (HAOBIN) (ZB1) 🎀

🎀

One winter afternoon, Zhang Hao was in a supermarket buying food to restock his empty refrigerator.

This was his weekly shopping at his go-to store, ever since he had moved out to live on his own, he hadn't gone anywhere else, and he didn't need to. Zhang Hao was about to grab the last box of cereal when a hand darted between him and the shelf to snatch it.

—Hey! —he was ready to argue and realized the guy was a classmate from medical school, but when he saw that he did not react, he began to follow him through the aisles.

The Korean guy was wearing an oversized dark gray hoodie, with the hood up.

He finally tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned around...

—Mother of pastries...—he thought, staring at his classmate's face. Realizing he had spoken out loud, he quickly covered his mouth but was surprised when his classmate showed no reaction, still looking him straight in the eye.

The handsome boy lowered his gaze to Zhang's lips, leaving him confused.

—S-something wrong? —the Chinese asked him about that action.

—I'm sorry, I'm deaf and I don't have my hearing aids on. I need to read your lips to understand you. —that made the black-haired man's mouth drop open, since he had never come across someone like that before.

—I was going to grab that cereal box first. —he tried to speak slowly and clearly.

—Oh, sorry about that. —he took it out of his cart and handed it to the Chinese man —Anything else? —Hao denied and they went in opposite directions.

Zhang was stunned. All the deaf people he'd seen in movies communicated with sign language, but the young man he had just spoken to could talk. It made sense when he thought about it; he was deaf, not mute.

He finished shopping and as he left the place he noticed that the boy from before was crossing the road when a few meters to the right a car was coming at full speed without seeming to want to stop.

—Stop! —he shouted, then mentally slapped himself, remembering the boy was deaf. He was crossing quietly but the car was speeding up.... —The driver must be insane.

He dropped his shopping bags on the ground to run to his companion. He pulled him to the edge of the asphalt when a second later the car sped by, people passing by applauded his act.

They almost fell to the pavement by that action and the deaf man was confused. Zhang Hao grabbed his shoulders and the Korean looked at his lips.

—You almost got hit! You need to look both ways, especially if you don't have your hearing aids on and can't hear the cars!

—I looked before crossing, it's not my fault! —then they hugged each other —Thank you for saving me. —half a minute later they let go of each other and looked at each other again —Now that I see you up close.... don't we do the same career?

—Yes, I noticed it before. I didn't know you were deaf, I never saw your hearing aids in class.

—They are not very big so they go unnoticed.

—Do you want to meet up sometime? —Hao was not afraid of success, he obviously found the Korean man attractive and with a good personality.

—Could you repeat that? —he asked gently.

—Do you want to meet up sometime? —he nodded as he understood him.