“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone. It’s not warm when she’s away. Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,” Baekhyun sang toting a plastic bag with the remains of the sandwich he’d eaten earlier that day.

Days off were rare for the EXO boys, and since one happened to be upon him, Baekhyun took the opportunity to done a simple jeans and hoodie disguise and roam free for as long as he had. He was in a carefree mood that day, having just come back from a short trip to a nearby arcade and bought a simple sandwich lunch from a convenience store. His happy spirits were bursting by now, and all he could do was sing, Billy Withers being on his mind as he was choosing a song.

The young boy rounded a corner of the street, cautiously pulling on the side of his hood to hide his face and pausing his song anytime he came in contact with anyone who might recognize him. At this time of day, most young girls would be in school, so the amount of fans he ran into was not very much, to his contentment. But even with the seeming lack of fans, a few hairs on the back of his head stood on end when he suddenly had a strange sensation of being watched. He tossed the plastic bag into a trash bin and turned around.

Everyone still seemed busy. Men and women walked back in forth in all directions, each with their own business in mind. No one seemed suspicious at all. Still not quite sure of what to do, Baekhyun merely shrugged the feeling off and continued his walk.

“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,” he continued singing to himself. The sound of his own voice raised in song was enough to calm him down. Music always had a way of soothing his soul in times of stress. And in happy times, singing made him even more glad.

As he walked past a street vendor selling hotdogs, he suddenly had the acute sense of being observed yet again. Unnerved, he ceased his singing, stopped in his tracks and turned around a second time.

Again, nothing.

Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows at the sea of people, all rushing past him with places to be. But there was no one he could rightly suspect. He looked down at the street, further than the immediate scene and then looked up at the buildings.

No one.

Cautious and a little freaked, Baekhyun turned and continued on his way. He started up the song again, in a lower voice this time, and shifted his eyes from right to left hoping to catch the culprit. His sense had never been wrong. He wasn’t stupid; he was in idol, after all, and as such, he was quite aware when he was being watched. He’d felt the heat of a thousand pairs of eyes on him as he performed on stage, he could definitely sense when even just one spectator had caught him.

The feeling of being watched came again, though not as strong as before. It was still evident however, as an extra precaution, Baekhyun stopped his singing, turned around completely and began walking backwards. Whoever was spying on him would be caught eventually. He doubted it was a fan; it was much too early for that. Most likely another EXO boy, or an old friend, perhaps. He took another step backward, and another and another. His backward strides were clumsy and not very well planned but he dared not turn and walk forward properly. Whoever it was, they had to show up soon.

All around him the hustle and bustle of busy Seoul blew up and storm of noises: chatter here and there, old ladies’ gossip, business men on their handheld phones, barking stray dogs, vendors selling food, shop owners chasing out ditching students, the hiss of bus doors opening and closing and the ear-blasting, the patter of a girl’s feet as she ran, unmistakable noise of a large white commercial truck speeding toward him on the right side, and approaching fast.

Baekhyun turned his head and in a split second he realized that he had backtracked into the middle of the busy street and the truck speeding toward him was going to slam his fragile body against its, his bones would break, his cranium would split, the lights would go out, and he would die.

Just mere seconds ago he was happy as daisy, singing Billy Withers songs, and swinging his sandwich bag. And now he was in the middle of the street, awaiting his doom at the grill of a truck.

An entire lifetime flashed before his very eyes, as blinding as the alpine white paint, and when he opened his mouth, he didn’t sing. Instead, one loud, clear, terrified scream roared out of him.

This was the end.

As quick as lightning, the solidness hit his body like a meteorite to earth, but instead of alpine white, Baekhyun was seeing blue, and something strong latched itself around his waist and hit his chest, stealing the wind from his very lungs. His body gave out from underneath him, but instead of dying at the front of the truck, the solid thing that rammed into him was from another direction. The strong latches around his waist, pressed him solidly against the blue thing and his face was buried in a blur of black.

And the loud, blaring horn of the truck whizzed by, leaving him untouched. Baekhyun had his breath stolen from him a second time when he felt his back hit the hard black asphalt, his body still secured to the blue thing that had run into him and knocked him out of the speeding truck’s pathway.

A silver Sedan honked its own horn and skidded to an abrupt halt in front of him. The blue thing unlatches its limbs from around his chest and he sprawled out on the ground, his eyes wide as he stared at the Sedan.

“Get out of the ing road!” the driver yelled at him. Baekhyun was stunned and registered none of the driver’s curses. But the blue thing suddenly sprang up, taking the form of a human, and once again wrapped its arms around him, pulled him to stand up, and then dragged him back to the safety of the sidewalk.

Once away from the traffic, Baekhyun, shameless and uncaring, sprawled out over the sidewalk. He pressed his hands to his chest and let out one more terrified scream. He almost died. He almost died. Baekhyun was standing in the middle of the street looking at the alpine white paint of a commercial truck that was speeding toward him, beckoning him to the afterlife with its loud horn.

“Oh my god,” he said again and again, breathless. “I… I almost died. Oh my god, I was almost dead!” He pushed himself up and proper himself up on his elbows, running one hand through his hair. “My life flashed before my eyes! I saw myself as a three year old again! That was a truck! I was almost hit by a truck! Oh my god! I’m alive! Ha!”

He took a hand and touched his face, his shoulders, his chest and found himself to be whole and healthy, aside from an aching in his shoulder blades from having hit the asphalt with such force. Whoever had pushed him out the way, at the expense of a few aching shoulders, was definitely strong.

Remembering that he had been rescued, he turned to face the blue thing who had had pushed him from the truck’s path. Instead, he saw a girl sitting beside him in a blue cashmere sweater, catching her breath along with him. She cupped a hand around to keep herself from crying and he could imagine how scared she had been as well.

“Are you alright?” he said, switching the focus from him to her. She turned around and looked at Baekhyun with wide eyes. Suddenly she reached out and touched his shoulder, staring intently at it as though searching for injuries. Baekhyun shrugged her hand away.

“I’m fine,” he said. “What about you? You okay?”

She met his eyes again and after a short stare and registering his words, she nodded quickly.

“Whew,” Baekhyun said, running his hand through his hair again. “Quite an experience,” he said. “That was you? You pushed me out of the way?”

She nodded quickly again.

“Daebak. Thank you. Thank you! So much, really, I owe you big time. I seriously could have died! Thank God you were around, we seriously could have gotten hurt, the both of us. Are you hurt anywhere? If you are, let me take you to a doctor or someplace. Your hands!”

Baekhyun looked down at the back of her hands and saw the red bloody gashes that resulted from skidding on the asphalt. Baekhyun reached out to grab them, but she pulled them from his reach and shook her head.

“They could get infected!” he warned. “You need to have them patched up. There’s blood on them!”

She shook her head again, and Baekhyun wondered why she didn’t just outwardly refuse him. He guessed she might have been traumatized as much as he was.

“That was a crazy thing to do, throw yourself at me like that with a truck speeding on,” he said with a nervous laugh, but then thought of another question.

“Yah!” he said. “How did you know to do that? Were you the one following me?”

The girl stared after him a while and then slowly nodded her head with a blush.

“Why don’t you say anything?” he asked. “Speak up, say something. Are you sure you’re okay? Answer me, come on. Say something.”

Baekhyun stared at her intently, waiting for her to speak up, but instead she turned her face downward as he helped her to stand up. The girl bit her lip and then looked up at Baekhyun. She raised her hands and began to move them, making wide and frantic gestures. Baekhyun raised his eyebrows at her.

“Yah, what are you doing?” he said, grabbing one of her wrists. But she jerked it free and did the gestures again and again. Baekhyun had a look of confusion and bemusement on his face as he watched her, and for moment he thought she was trying to do a dance of some sort. It was only when she paused in her movements and pointed at her ear that realization dawned on him.

She couldn’t speak.

She was deaf.

“Oh,” he said, and she nodded slowly. Baekhyun swallowed something in his throat and just stared into her face hoping for some kind of an answer, and she stared back, perhaps hoping for an answer as well. With the silence growing thick, Baekhyun summoned up a small ounce of courage and lifted his hand and made the only sign language gesture he knew.

“I… only learned my name,” he said, and then scratched his head. God, the girl probably couldn’t even hear him. He ran a hand through his hair again, feeling frustrated for not being able to talk to her.

“How’s this gunna work?” he said to himself. “Umm,” he used a finger to point to her injured hands. “Hands,” he said and she looked down at her hands. “Go,” he said, using his thumb to point behind him. “See,” he cupped his hands around his eyes like binoculars. “Doctor,” he said, and he paused, trying to figure out some sort of movement to describe a doctor and finding none.

The girl shook her head and laughed to herself, and Baekhyun happily realized that it was the first sound he heard come out of her. She lifted one hand again and placed it on her chest, over her heart, and then pointed to her ear, and then pointed to him. Baekhyun raised an eyebrow.

“Can…You can hear me?” he asked cautiously, and she nodded excitedly. “You can? Why didn’t you say so? Wait, wait… you just told me you were deaf, though.”

The girl closed her eyes, feeling as frustrated as Baekhyun and she searched frantically for something. Finally, she borrowed a crayon and a napkin from a nearby street vendor and started writing. Baekhyun waited patiently until he she finally gave the napkin to him with writing on it.

I am deaf, it read. I can’t hear anything and haven’t been able to for years. But for some reason… I can hear you.

“What?” Baekhyun said, not quite grasping the concept. “So… you’re deaf. But you can hear me? How does that even work?”

She grabbed the crayon and wrote again.

I don’t know, she wrote. Some partially deaf people can still hear certain noises, but I thought I was completely deaf. I don’t hear anything or anyone else, but I can hear your voice. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but it is.

Baekhyun looked at her incredulously. “You’re not making this up, right?”

Of course not.

“So you followed me because you could hear me,” he said. “That’s… creepy of you, I’ll admit, but I guess I sort of understand now.”

The girl went back to grab another napkin. Sorry, she wrote. I didn’t want to scare you. I was just happy to be able to hear and I wanted to keep listening. You have a nice voice.

Baekhyun read what she wrote and scoffed at the ending. “You just say that because you haven’t heard anyone else,” he smiled. “Thank you. For the compliment and for saving me, too. I’m sorry about your… condition.”

Don’t be, she wrote. I’m fine. I’m glad you are safe, too. Please don’t worry about my hands. I will fix them later.

“You better,” he said. “Really, I owe you my life now or something. That was some really crazy thing you did back there, but if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here now.”

The girl smiled and she turned her face down to hide the blush that was creeping up to her face. Baekhyun smiled in return.

“Well,” he said. “It was nice meeting you and I’m definitely going to forget you. But, we should get going now. Again, thank you, really, for what you did. I will be extra careful crossing streets now--,” as he spoke, he noticed her shy smile slowly fading away, replaced by a look of hurt and Baekhyun stopped talking wondering what he had done to anger her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. She lifted her hands to sign something again, but remembered that he didn’t speak sign language. Exasperated, she pulled her phone and opened a notepad application, where she typed up her message and then handed it to him to read.

Can you stay with me a little bit?

Baekhyun looked up at her with wide eyes and wondered what she was asking. But putting himself into her position, he guessed that he too would want a favor like the one she was asking. He wondered what it was like to be deaf, to hear nothing, to not have the music he so heavily relied on. His whole life was music, his very essence was his voice, his singing. Baekhyun couldn’t imagine not having it.

The girl watched the thoughts passing across his face and with a sigh, she typed up another message on her phone and then showed it to him with a strong smile.

Nevermind, she wrote. You’re right, I have to go. Be safe!

Baekhyun raised one eyebrow at her and watched as she bowed and turned to walk the opposite direction. He watched her retreating form with a pang of guilt settling in his stomach, unable to be ride of the look of sadness on her face when she admitted defeat. He sighed to himself and checked his watch. It was nearing 4 PM and he had a schedule slotted for 5 PM. One hour wasn’t nearly enough to give her. He bit the inside of his cheek as he rushed up and tapped her shoulder.

“Wait a minute,” he said and she turned and faced him. “I… can’t stay for very long today and I have somewhere to be.”

The girl smiled gently and nodded in understanding.

“But,” Baekhyun continued. He looked into her face and wondered just how she was able to stand the agony of her deafness. Being alone in a quiet, too quiet, room was enough to drive him half to madness. One way or another he would have ended up singing a song or two just fill up the noiseless gap. He took pity on the girl, living alone in her silent world. His voice must be the first thing she’s heard in ages. What sort of hell was that?

“But,” he repeated. “If you’d like to meet up again some other day, I could meet you here. On some other day when I’m more free. My schedule is really sort of chaotic, honestly, but I’ll figure something out.”

She looked up and thought about his suggestion for a few seconds before facing him and nodding slightly.

“Sound good?” Baekhyun asked, laughing slightly at his little play on words. She took the notepad application on her phone again and typed out “OK”. Baekhyun smiled at her consent and promptly asked her to give him her phone number to be able to contact her, and after punching it in for him, they both said their temporary goodbyes and parted ways.

Baekhyun looked down at the number she had put on his phone and wondered just what he had gotten himself into. He’d been on dates with girls before, of course, but he doubted he was properly prepared for what he had just scheduled: not just a date with a girl he had met for a mere fifteen minutes, but one he hardly knew and who could barely talk.

He made a mental note to get on the internet later to learn a few phrases in sign language or buy a white board and erasable markers for the date. In the spur of the moment, he felt guilty at refusing to spend time with her after she had just risked her life to save his and after learning that his voice was the only one she could hear out of the millions of noises in all of Seoul and in the entire world. She couldn’t hear the cars whizzing by, blaring their horns, the drivers cursing at one another, the vendors selling their food, nor the dogs barking at each other, the piano in the nearby coffee shop, “Abracadabra” blasting from a nearby car, or the Italian opera playing in the neighboring bakery.

Only him.

He sighed and stared at the phone screen. Baekhyun widened his eyes realizing he hadn’t caught her name, and thus did not know what to save her phone number under. He felt uncomfortable saving her under the name “Deaf Girl”. With a shrug, he searched for something pertaining to the memory of the day that he’d remember. He thought for a moment of saving her under “Sunshine” in honor of the song he’d been singing but felt rather uncomfortable about one of the other boys looking through his phone and finding a person named “Sunshine” in his address book.

He leaned against the glass panes of the door leading to the bakery and allowed the vibrations of Boccelli songs against the walls press into his back.

Canto, he typed into the text box, and hitting save, picked up from where he left off: “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone”.