Interesting idea.

I assume the newer Simon is hearing impaired.

I’m not entirely sure who is who in the last paragraph, which is a shame, as it detracts from your build up, which had quickly and effectively laid out an environment and a collection of characters within it.

Ran out of characters.

New Simon is the only one who isn’t deaf, and his signing is a bit on the slow side. Old Simon flipped out because one of his friends asked the new kid about the hearing world.

I needed another 200 chars or so to make (at least a some of) this explicit. Hrm.