mute ; junhao

ONE

It was on a Saturday night when Junhui went home from his best friend. A few minutes ago the sun was still shining, but meanwhile it was raining and the Chinese man was already soaking wet, and he had to walk home for another quarter of an hour. He didn't have an umbrella with him, at least he wouldn't have needed it a few minutes ago. Suddenly the dark sky brightened up and a loud bang was heard, a thunderstorm came up and the rain became stronger and stronger.

In this weather he didn't want to walk fifteen minutes more, so he ran to the next café and entered it.

He took off his completely wet jacket and hung it on the clothes rack. His hair dripped slightly and his shoes left wet marks as he walked across the café to the last seat that was still free, for it wasn't just him who had the idea of fleeing to the dry.

There was already a boy sitting at the table who seemed to be about as old as he himself, but he was so absorbed in a magazine that he probably wouldn't notice Junhui.
So he pulled the chair back a little, sat down and looked briefly at his counterpart. Minutes went by and the rain didn't let up and it slowly got too boring for him because the boy before him had still not noticed him or just ignored him. "Are you waiting for the rain to stop, too?" he asked the other.  The person addressed raised his head and looked at Junhui, looking at him from dark eyes, but didn't answer and just looked down at his magazine again.

"Hello?" he tried to draw attention to himself again and sighed softly when again no answer came. "What's your name?" he continued, supporting his head in his hands.

This time the boy showed a reaction, rummaged around in his trouser pocket and pulled out a small note he gave to Junhui. The note said Minghao in curved script. A little irritated, the taller boy looked at the note until he understood that it was the name that stood there.

"Minghao...Is that your name?"

The smaller one nodded and put his magazine in his bag, which hung over the chair behind him. Then Minghao got up, grabbed his bag and wanted to go, but Junhui didn't let him go so easily.

He also got up, took his jacket off the clothes stand and followed him out of the café.

Minghao already had a slight advantage, but the bigger one caught up quickly. "Why don't you talk to me?  Junhui was really curious and kept asking, hoping that he would get an answer soon.

But unfortunately he was disappointed, because the smaller one only looked at him from the side and remained silent before he looked straight ahead again.

"Come on...talk to me," he continued, he would not give up. Nothing was said, but you could see in Minghao's eyes that he was a little annoyed by his companion and would like to get rid of him, but Junhui didn't let this irritate him, he continued to drill cheerfully.

"Maybe you can't talk at all? Or do you just not want to?  I won't do anything to you."

Annoyed, the younger one twisted his eyes and let all the questions pass over him, but still didn't answer for what he had his reasons.

For five minutes the two walked quietly side by side until Minghao turned right, but Junhui had to go straight on. This boy was a riddle he wanted to solve, a closed book and he was sure that he would see him again, because what was the saying:
You always meet twice in your life.

And none of them could know that their second encounter would be soon.