Chapter Text
Oluwande met them early on in life, when he was barely seven. His family lived around the corner from a park, and he always loved the park. He admired the grass and the plants and the water in the creek, and the huge trees all around them. He had many siblings, so Olu found himself exploring parts of his town closer to home a lot on his own. His three older siblings were years older than him, and his younger twin sisters were just babies, so he spent a lot of time on his own whenever he could, away from the chaos at home. He loved his family and he knew they loved him as well, it just always felt like he didn’t quite fit like everyone else did, and he never understood why. So he spent many days in between school and dinner out at that park, heading back home when the sun began to set and the skies began to darken.
One day he saw them. They were just sitting and enjoying the sun as he was doing. A small kid, with long brown hair, eyes like chocolate chips sitting a ways away, an orange from the nearby orange groves in their hand as they peeled it. He usually kept to himself. Something in him always felt different than the kids his age, like they were playing a game he had never been taught. But he didn't mind it much. He didn't mind spending his time with himself. But he did want a friend, and they seemed like the right choice.
So he got himself up and walked over to them, stopped a few feet away, and sat down and crossed his legs as they had. They looked over at him for a few seconds, before turning back to their orange. He didn't mind the quiet, and he hoped they didn't mind sitting in silence together. But just in case, he spoke to the kid next to him anyway.
“Those trees over there are my favorite. The big orange trees. They can grow so big! And I love the oranges!” He said as he laid down in the grass. He didn’t offer anything more. Just some food for thought for the person next to him. He earned a small hum from the body next to him, and he took it as a win. And then they were there, right next to him on their stomach, orange now peeled in their hand. They put a slice in their mouth, and offered one to Oluwande. In the back of his mind he remembered his mother telling him not to accept things from strangers. But they didn't feel like strangers at that moment. The person next to him felt like a friend. So he nodded his head as he took the slice from their fingers, popping it in his mouth, the citrus sweet on his tongue.
So they ended up laying there for a while in silence. And for the first time in his life, he felt like he had a friend, without a single word spoken from them.