The Town in the Rain;

The summer rains of the nineties always lingered too long in the small town. Raindrops struck the rusted tin roofs, leaving dark blotches that looked like careless strokes of ink on white paper. Streetlights shimmered across puddles, quivering like memories dissolving in water.

That afternoon, Minho leaned on his old moss-green bicycle, the paint chipped, the leather seat cracked with time. He pedaled from one end of town to the other, one hand gripping the handlebar, the other tucked into the pocket of his loose jeans. The air was thick with the scent of wet soil and the faint tang of gasoline from the repair shop nearby. Beneath the brim of his dark cap, his sharp black eyes glimmered, reckless and alive, the sort of youth that left its mark on anyone who happened to glance his way.

Newt, on the other hand, seemed carved from another rhythm. Rarely on crowded streets, he preferred quiet paths shaded with trees, always carrying a few secondhand books tucked under his arm. Tall and slightly stooped, with rain-softened blond hair falling into his eyes, he moved as though he was trying not to disturb the silence. There was a gentleness about his gaze, touched with a kind of melancholy, as if he belonged to a different time altogether.

Two lives, two orbits, unlikely to collide, until a certain rain-drenched evening.

The little cassette shop’s neon sign flickered faintly-Cassette • Vinyl • Tapes-casting an unsteady glow onto the wet pavement. Minho ducked beneath the awning, not to buy but to listen. The shop always played music from old tape decks, voices from the eighties, fragile, imperfect, threaded with static like scratches across memory.

When the door opened, the rain spilled in with Newt. His white shirt was damp and clung to his shoulders, mud splashed across the hem. He shook his hair lightly, then lifted his head. His eyes met Minho’s.

A silence passed between them, filled only with the downpour outside and the wavering voice from the speakers.

“You look like you just swam across a river,” Minho teased, half a grin tugging at his lips.

“At least rivers don’t charge for shelter,” Newt replied, his accent soft, his smile easy.

Minho chuckled. It wasn’t the sort of answer he usually got.

They stood together among the shelves. Newt’s fingers drifted across the cases until they lingered on one with a pale blue cover. He turned it in his hand as though the paper sleeve could reveal something more than just track lists. Minho caught the band’s name, foreign, new, a little obscure.

“You listen to that stuff?” Minho asked.

“Not exactly. Sometimes music just… reminds you of things you thought you’d forgotten.”

The words lingered, strange and true.

For the first time, Minho looked closely at him, not the blur he’d glimpsed before near the bus stop, not just the quiet figure with books under his arm. Here, in the glow of neon and the patter of rain, Minho saw him clearly.

“Name?” he asked.

“Newt.”

“Minho.”

Two syllables each, exchanged in the hush of rain and static. A beginning.

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