Love is deaf • Meanie

The Stranger With Cat-like Eyes.

Silent rain hit Wonwoo's cold cheeks as he stood frozen in place, unable to move. He was in one of those panicked situations where you're so flustered and surprised your body knows no better than to tense up and paralyze itself.

He could feel cars rush passed on the road behind him splashing beads of icy water at his ankles when ploughing through a puddle. Out of the corner of his eyes blinding lights of various multi-coloured advertisements flashed obnoxiously through the dark rain. The winter water that fell from the sky slid down his forehead and off the end of his nose, plastering his soggy caramel bangs to his skin in the process.

Everything surrounding Wonwoo was typically familiar: the busy pedestrians that walked with bowed heads and umbrellas, the tedious traffic lights that seems to take a lifetime to change from red to green and of course the lonely silence that trapped Wonwoo inside his own head leaving him with only the sight of the rumbling taxi cabs and chatting citizens, not the sound.

Except one thing was seriously out of place. This being the very reason he was cemented to the spot as if the cold weather had turned him into a frosty ice sculpture.

A sizeable young man stood moments away from Wonwoo with his arm outstretched. His featured were softly pointed. With eyes that were narrow but kind and came to sharp points at either edge giving him a cat-like appearance, a nose in perfect proportion to his face that slowly curved downwards and finished with an edge and ears that pointed up as if they belonged to a fictional vampire the man looked like a damn model. His flat cut eyebrows and raven bangs that reached his eyes and covered the majority of his forehead were close to perfect as well as his melanin gold skin that took away Wonwoo's breath momentarily.

In his hand he held a leather wallet that belonged to the back pocket of Wonwoo's black skinny jeans. The young man wore a worried yet confused expression on his face and gestured for Wonwoo to take back his wallet by holding it up closer to his face, even so Wonwoo remained paralyzed.

Only seconds ago Wonwoo had been pushing through the lifeless crowds of the city pathways on his way home from the supermarket after having a one sided argument with a self-checkout machine and eventually leaving his groceries behind. He was absorbed in his own soundless world as he walked.

Wonwoo was deaf. An inner ear infection he had developed at the age of 6 had lead to an incurable case of deafness or "Sensorineural hearing loss" as the doctor had explained to his mother as he was too young to understand at the time why he could no longer hear the cartoons on TV or his mummy's comforting voice. 15 years had passed and Wonwoo had not since heard the slightest of sounds. As if a pair of invisible hands were constantly covering his ears he often felt trapped and restrained without his hearing. Although at times it can be quite handy and peaceful to be deaf Wonwoo wishes more than anything to be normal once again.

As he travelled through the sea of colourful umbrella's under a grey sky that one afternoon Wonwoo failed to notice his wallet slip out of the back pocket of his jeans and into a dirty puddle on the gravel pathway. Of course, he never heard the subtle splash of water as the black, leather surface hit the floor or the old woman who kindly called after him as he strolled away. Nor did he hear the growing footsteps of a tall young man running after him. However, there was one thing that Wonwoo did hear and after 15 years of unwelcomed silence and involuntary ignorance just two sentences changed his entire life.

"Excuse me, Sir. You dropped this." A low husky voice of a stranger echoed in Wonwoo's ears causing him to jump abruptly.

This sudden cornucopia of vowels and consonants that rushed through Wonwoo's senses terrified him yet left him a statue of complete and utter shock.

"Sir?" The strangers cat-like eyes held an aura of concern. Again the voice rattled in Wonwoo's skull sending enormous shock-waves of anxiety through his chest yet the rain still stayed silent and so did the hustle of the crowd. The contrast was scary.