17:25

The café looked exactly how it had the weeks and months before. Minho had already forgotten about yesterday's interruption - falling back into his routine, entering the door and looking for his latte. He stopped in the door frame. His drink was not on the table. Halmoni wasn’t behind the counter either.

He was restless.

He couldn’t go back out.

He couldn’t enter.

Minho just stood there, his eyes moving around nervously, unable to focus on anything for more than a second.

“Hey” A voice said from his side, making Minho blink forcefully, as he tried to control his facial expressions.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Minho’s shoulders were cramped as he tried his best to answer the young man’s question.

“Where… -  is Halmoni?” He managed to utter after a few tries. By now the blond male was staring him down.

“OHHH DUDE so you are the disabled autistic boy? Holy , I didn’t think someone like that would look as fine as you do?! What the hell!” the smaller male exclaimed, making Minho shudder several times while he tried to remember what they taught him in his social skill classes: Make eye-contact they said. If you can’t, look at their nose and it will seem as if you were looking at them. That way they won’t think you are strange.

Minho tried his best to lift his head to face another person’s and like every single other time he couldn’t lift his face high enough to see even a glimpse of the face.

“Just... My latte… please.” He mumbled while his eyes tried to focus on the other person but did nothing but nervously move around.

The other male said something Minho didn’t quite catch so he just nodded with his head held low and then, without another word walked over to his usual seat taking out his books, believing that their conversation was over.

It wasn’t long until the tall male was completely lost in his books, reading passionately, following up on the reading of the day before. Unlike on a normal day, his mind was pulled back into the real and messy world several times.

His latte came late, it was too sweet, he had to sent it back and get a new one who then had too much milk in it for it to still properly taste like coffee. 

Every single time, he had to interact with the strange male whose dialect clearly identified him as a citizen of Seoul. What did this person want in this little town anyway? The question soon disappeared inside the confusion in his mind when the other male tried to start a conversation with him.

“My Halmoni told me that you come here every day. Why is that?”

Minho just shrugged. This whole situation was wrong it gave him the incredible desire to go back to his safe place, leave this café and travel into his mind.

“I guess your disability makes it hard to speak? How does that work?”

17:35

When Taemin didn’t get the tiniest response from the handsome male who was sitting at the table, he decided to go back to the counter where he had been reading a music magazine his parents have forbid him to buy.

The boy confused him. He had never met anyone with a disability. Even less a person with autism. It hadn’t been very common around the area he grew up in. And if there was one, that person definitely wasn't anywhere near his league. His friends and him belonged to the top notch of their school, not leaving space for freaks like that.

Interacting with someone like that guy was harder than he had thought. The term autism didn’t really mean anything to him when his Halmoni told him about the man sitting at the small table in the corner. He had pretended to know how to interact with an autistic person because he was embarrassed about not being familiar with it at all. But after seeing the taller male’s reaction to his questions he wished he had at least done a little research and listened to his Grandmother’s instructions as for how he wanted his coffee.

Originally he had hated his parents for sending him to this hell hole, hated them for taking him away from his crew in Seoul, for taking him away from everything that defined his being. As much as he loved his Halmoni, he couldn’t think of anything worse than spending more than a weekend in this place where you could barely see people on the streets after 8pm. But he had to admit that the new variable in this ty situation definitely made it more interesting than he had expected it to be.

Taemin didn’t quite know what about the other male he found fascinating, he just catched himself watching the taller male read, being fascinated by his facial expressions while he was concentrating on their content. Somehow the taller looked completely normal. Taemin couldn’t make out anything that was off with him in these moments.

Taemin couldn't quite grasp why it was so hard for the other to communicate. 

Instead of reading about american rock music, he spent the rest of the evening watching the man in the corner, thinking about how to approach him.

But every time he tried talking to him, the taller would back away, seemingly shutting himself out completely, not reacting to anything Taemin said while his whole body looked like he was in pain.

A week passed slowly and Taemin did his homework on autism whenever the tall male entered the café at exactly the same time every day. There were many different kinds of autism he noticed while he was spending time at the small library of the town, reading through the one book they had about that topic.

At his grandmother's place he asked about how exactly the taller wanted his coffee and soon enough mastered the latte exactly how he wanted it. A proud feeling went through Taemin's whole body when he saw the tall male taking the first sip of the coffee without looking unhappy with it like the last few times he had tried to make the latte after his grandmother’s recipe.

When one day, the taller didn’t send back the first latte, he even high-fived himself behind the counter, not quite believing that he actually had been able to get it done properly for the first time after over 8 tries.

18:00

Minho had given up wondering where Halmoni went. He wasn’t sad, he knew that he should be – but he wasn’t, not really.

He didn’t know what being sad felt like. It wasn’t something he could detect. His books often talked about despair and love, hate and other feelings. Sometimes he wished that he could feel these kinds of emotions the same way as  all the people around him did. But usually these thoughts didn’t stay around for long.

He felt comfortable the way it was. And the Seoul-boy had finally managed to get the latte right on the first try. Maybe this was going to work out anyway.

There wasn’t much interaction between the two anymore. The blonde male never invaded his private space anymore after their first encounter and that was good enough for Minho, he was glad.

That was until one day, there was a note underneath his latte. The writing was horrible, and at first, Minho put it aside, having no intention to read it.

But it didn’t let him concentrate, made it impossible to leave the real world. All he could think about was that he had been taught not to be rude to strangers and somehow,he thought, this could be rude.

So with a calm hand he reached for the small paper, reading what was written on it in way too irregular characters.

Hi, my name is Taemin. Enjoy your coffee!

Minho felt strange when he read the note over and over. Why did Taemin tell him his name? Did it matter?

17:45

Taemin was closely watching the male in the back and smiled when the latter finally picked up the piece of paper Taemin had put under his coffee.

When he first arrived and had just put it aside not even reading it, Taemin’s heart dropped. He put so much thought into how to approach the tall male, and after doing it, the latter didn’t even read the small note.

But now, after 20 dreading minutes he finally reached for the note, his black hair falling in front of his eyes, hiding them completely.

What confused Taemin was, that after taking it in his hands, the other didn’t put it down after reading it. He just kept staring at it as if he read it over and over – which did not make any sense as the content of the note was as basic as it could ever be.

Not once did he autistic male look up, so Taemin decided to clean everything behind the counter for the fourth time.

The next time he looked over, the name-less male was reading in his books again, the note he wrote earlier was back, placed nicely  underneath the cup of coffee which was almost empty. This meant that he would be leaving soon.

It fascinated Taemin how the other was able to come and leave at exactly the same time every day. He was like a clockwork and always finished the drink right on time.

Disappointment spread through Taemin when the taller left the café exactly as he always did after packing his books in his back, walking out of the small place with his head hung low. Only slightly bowing his head even further down when he left as his own way of saying goodbye – that was at least how Taemin interpreted it.

Maybe this wasn’t going to work out… His time here would be over soon anyway. Only two more weeks to go and he could go back to Seoul, hanging out with his friends again. He had called one of them, but he was just about to leave the house to meet up with the crew, so they didn't have time to talk. At least they seemed to be having fun.

Yes, he was looking forward to go back. So he shouldn’t be disappointed about the non-responsiveness of the taller male. So why did he feel so discouraged. It wasn’t like him at all? Was he too used to people wanting to be his friend by all means? Was it because it was new to him that someone didn’t show the slightest interest in him?

With a deep breath he walked over to clean the table to finish up everything and then lock the place down. It had become a routine for him to wait until the tall male left and then cleaning up the café before leaving for his grandmother’s place where she was usually waiting for him with a wonderful dinner already set on the table.

He was about to throw the note in the bin when he noticed writing that definitely wasn’t his. The writing was beautiful. Perfectly cursive and completely regular - In beautiful characters there was only a name.

  Choi Minho

A/N

Hello everyone I finally post this chapter! I hope you don't expect too much from this story. It is only for me to write something without the pressure of it having to be perfect ( I usually feel a lot of pressure when writing my stories).

So this is more like a draft/drabble ~ and who knows maybe it will be a good base for a serious one-shot. ;)

It would mean the world to see you guys in the comments eventhough this is isn't as thought through as my other stories.

Have a great weekend!! 

xx

R