He screamed as loudly as he could, but with his chest pressed against the door, far less came out than he had hoped.

It was still enough for the stranger.

“No, no, no! Don’t scream!”

For the first time, he actually looked panicked.

He tried to cover Hiroshi’s mouth with one hand.

Hiroshi bit him.

“Ow! You little…”

The stranger yanked his hand back and stared at his finger in disbelief.

Hiroshi was already drawing breath to call for help again.

Then something changed.

“I said be quiet.”

The playful ease vanished from the stranger’s voice. It suddenly sounded deeper, more forceful, and an unpleasant tingling sensation spread across Hiroshi’s skin.

The man snapped his fingers.

Hiroshi opened his mouth.

Nothing.

He tried again, drew in a breath and attempted to scream, but not a single sound left his lips. His mouth felt as though it had been sealed shut.

No matter what Hiroshi tried, he couldn’t make a sound.

All at once, an unnatural silence settled over the apartment. No scream, no protest, not even a startled noise broke through it. The only thing Hiroshi could hear was his own pulse pounding in his ears.

The stranger was still holding him against the door.

“Now you’re going to have to listen to me,” he said quietly.

Hiroshi barely dared to move. Cold sweat formed on his forehead as he tried once more to make some kind of sound.

Nothing.

It wasn’t as though his voice had failed him or his throat had closed up. His voice was simply gone.

And with that realization came a feeling that even all his carefully trained rationality could no longer suppress.

Fear.

The weight that suddenly seemed to press down on him didn’t come solely from the stranger behind him. Until now, Hiroshi had been able to convince himself that there was a reasonable explanation for everything. A scammer. A stalker. A burglar. Maybe a lunatic.

But humans couldn’t take another person’s voice away with a snap of their fingers.

The stranger finally released him and stepped back. With a heavy sigh, he ran a hand through his white hair.

“I hate it when I have to do things like that.”

If Hiroshi hadn’t been completely panicked, he might even have believed the almost pained note in his voice.

“Please,” the stranger said.

He grabbed Hiroshi by the shoulders and turned him around with apparent ease, leaving him with his back against the apartment door.

“Just listen to me.”

For a moment, he studied Hiroshi. Then he seemed to realize how the situation must look and took a noticeable step back, raising both hands in a placating gesture.

“I’ll give you your voice back as soon as you let me finish. All right?”

Hiroshi could only stare at him.

What exactly was he supposed to say to that?

The stranger seemed to take his silence as agreement and strode back into the living area. After a few steps, he turned around and nodded for Hiroshi to follow him.

Hiroshi stayed where he was.

His gaze darted toward the apartment door behind him.

Maybe he could still somehow…

Snap.

Hiroshi felt a strange pull beneath his feet.

Startled, he looked down and saw that the floor was moving.

No, not really. The wooden boards were still perfectly still, and yet Hiroshi was suddenly being pushed forward as though he were standing on an invisible conveyor belt.

His eyes widened.

He tried to resist, but his feet slid across the floor on their own. A few seconds later, he was carried all the way to his low table and, with a small jolt, deposited onto one of the floor cushions.

Hiroshi stared at his legs. Then at the floor and then at the stranger.

The man didn’t seem to find any of this remarkable.

Instead, he had already opened Hiroshi’s refrigerator and was leaning inside.

“What are you doing?” Hiroshi tried to demand.

Of course, nothing came out.

The stranger continued rummaging around until he finally emerged with the two cans of beer Hiroshi had bought for his evening.

He placed them on the table and sat down across from Hiroshi. Then he picked up one of the cans and examined it so critically that one might have thought Hiroshi had personally offended him.

“You don’t have any sake?”

Hiroshi slowly shook his head.

The stranger grimaced.

“Unbelievable. This stuff actually managed to catch on.”

With a quiet hiss, he opened the can anyway.

“But desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Hiroshi could only watch as the burglar, stalker, or whatever this man was by now took a sip of his Monday beer.

Under normal circumstances, that alone would have been reason enough to throw someone out of his apartment.

But the circumstances had long since stopped being normal.

The stranger set the can down and looked at him.

“All right. I’m going to give you your voice back now.”

Hiroshi instinctively sat up a little straighter.

“You stay calm and let me finish. No screaming, no kicking, and especially no more biting.”

He held up the finger Hiroshi had bitten and gave it an accusing look.

“You know now that I can take your voice away again whenever I want.”

Hiroshi swallowed.

At least that deep, almost threatening undertone had disappeared from the stranger’s voice. He sounded like he had before, relaxed and almost offensively casual.

Hiroshi forced himself to breathe more slowly.

In. Out. In. Out.

He had to stay calm. Panicking wouldn’t help him. Whatever was happening here, there had to be an explanation.

There had to be.

The stranger raised his hand.

Snap.

Hiroshi felt a faint tingling in his throat and instinctively, he opened his mouth.

“What the…”

He stopped.

His voice. It was back.

Hiroshi touched his throat and swallowed several times as his gaze slowly shifted toward the man sitting across from him.

This wasn’t a trick he could explain. The man hadn’t even touched him.

He had snapped his fingers.

And Hiroshi’s voice had returned.

For the first time since they had met, Hiroshi didn’t look at the stranger as though he were a scammer or a lunatic.

He looked at him as something he had no rational explanation for.

The white-haired man took another sip of Hiroshi’s beer, set the can down on the table, and leaned back.

“Good,” he said, satisfied. “Can we start over now?”

Authors Note

Well... maybe round two will go better. :') 

Thanks for reading! <3