Chapter Text
The second time it happens, Hanbin catches a fleeting glimpse of the green-eyed monster toying with his heart.
Three months after the Boys Planet finale, ZeroBaseOne gets their third win with In Bloom on The Show Choice. It’s the biggest win margin out of the three so far, with their total score of 8480 blowing Mirae’s 3282 and Kiss of Life’s 1578 completely out of the water, and Hanbin is absolutely over the moon with joy when the confetti cannons on the edge of the stage explode with a burst of blue and yellow, the overhead lights ferociously strobing and flashing down on them while their group photo gets plastered on the overhead screen above the stage.
It’s been a great day so far. Hanbin had only needed to yell at Ricky twice that morning to get out of bed (a record, considering that the blonde always seemed to constantly be on a mission to become one with his sheets), won a nine-way game of rock-paper-scissors to be able to get his makeup done last, and had been able to fully hear the cheers of his beloved ZeRoses on stage while they performed their debut song, so really, clenching their third win had really been the cherry on top of the cake.
Naturally, as the leader of the group and therefore the head of the bunch, he then raises the mic to his lips and delivers the first thank-you speech after the majority of the cheering had calm down a little bit, happily smiling into the main camera as the well-practiced words tumbled out of his lips. He could sense his members happily embracing each other and bowing to the idols behind them as he went into a short rant thanking ZeRoses for all of their support for their debut and In Bloom , with Ricky and Jiwoong on the very left side of the line bowing profusely to the MCs while Gyuvin and Gunwook on the right turned around and started to greet the idols behind them.
Looking out at the sea of screaming fans crowded into the pit below the stage, Hanbin feels nothing but utter joy and excitement coursing through his veins as he quickly wraps up the finishing touches of his speech and thanks ZeRoses once more for their never ending support, before lowering the mic from his mouth, turning his neck to the side to face the man beside him.
Here’s a fact: out of all of the ZeroBaseOne members, Zhang Hao had always been the most susceptible to his emotions. It was just one of the many things that Hanbin loved the most about him, the way he seemed to always wear his emotions on full display across his facial features and in his body language whenever he felt just a little bit too much of them, no matter what emotion it may be.
Ever since their debut, it has usually been happiness. Hanbin doubted that there was a single person on their team (including himself) that was more excited than Zhang Hao himself to be debuting into the K-Pop industry as ZeroBaseOne, something that stemmed from the mix of just who the Chinese man was and how badly he had wanted to do so. On Boys Planet, Zhang Hao had simply only been a twenty-three year old foreign trainee on a majorly Sinophobic survival show, furiously trying to fight his way up the rankings without a single fallback plan in place in the case that he should fail, something that Hanbin could only imagine spurred him on to work harder than anyone else.
After all, he had quite literally given up his childhood dream of becoming a music teacher to run off to South Korea and become a trainee, barely miss the lineup for Tempest, and as the years flew by and his age became slowly and slowly less desirable for the stupidly young age requirements that agencies seemed to be looking for more and more, realized that Boys Planet might as well be his last chance to debut.
He had known very well that in the K-Pop industry, twenty-three was far out of the desirable age range for companies to debut idols in, and being mixed with the fact that YueHua simply didn’t have a debut group for him and the knowledge that Sinophobia was still severely prevalent amongst companies in the industry, saying that Boys Planet had been his final chance at making it big most likely wasn’t an overstatement.
So, eighty-one days after he had finished Boys Planet at the prestigious rank of P01 and had been made the first foreign center of an MNET Survival Show group, there was not a single person who had been anticipating ZeroBaseOne’s debut more than Zhang Hao himself, the man who had finally succeeded at running towards his dream on his last attempt. In his mind, the sheer and utter relief of making it combined with the excitement of their debut had only mixed in the single emotion of happiness, happiness that he wore on his body like a pair of clothes for the world to see, and happiness that he never failed to voice through his love for ZeRoses, whether it be in speeches, twitter posts, or on variety shows.
Right under happiness on the list of Zhang Hao’s most expressed emotions was anxiety. For while happiness had been the main emotion after debut, anxiety and nervousness had definitely been the most prevalent before April 20th, before the weight of the universe that had been sitting on his shoulders for months prior was finally lifted above his head on that fateful day, the day where all of his hard work had finally paid off in the form of winning the entire fucking show.
For two and a half months, Hanbin had watched Zhang Hao barely show any other emotion than simple apprehension on his face 24/7, the combined worry of his dreams and his future weighing down on him like a pair of hundred-pound weights shackled over his shoulders. Of course, there wasn’t a single boy out of the ninety-eight of them that didn’t feel at least a little bit of nervousness throughout the show, but it had seemed as if Zhang Hao had taken it to a whole new level, one that had taken up the majority of his days and had propelled him forward at the speed of light.
It was such nervousness that had led him to staying back in the practice rooms far into the darkness while all of this other teammates had turned in for the night, nervousness that had led him to work his limbs numb to the point where he could barely walk through the halls of Planet Camp without stumbling, and the nervousness that had driven him to seek out Hanbin’s comforting hands during elimination ceremonies and D-Days, needing his comfortable presence to keep himself grounded when his (and everyone else’s) future was on the line.
Between the two, Hanbin would always choose the former. Zhang Hao wore his happiness on his sleeve like a halo, a bright, beautiful halo that made him seem even more attractive than he already was, and made Hanbin fall in love with him over and over again every time he laid eyes upon it.
Also, happiness that was currently bringing tears to Zhang Hao’s eyes as he looked at Hanbin with red-rimmed eyeballs and a shaking grip around the mic in his hands, trembling by his side as he slowly brought it up to his lips when the younger man subtly nudged him to begin his speech.
Hanbin couldn’t help but stare at the Chinese man as he gave his speech, voice slightly wavering and cracking towards the end where he began to pour out his sentiments to the ZeRoses around the world. It took so much of his well-practiced self control to not reach up and just wipe off those beautiful diamond tears that were rolling down his smooth cheeks, escaping out of the corners of his eyes and skimming the corners of his cherry red lips on their trek down the length of his jawline.
He had long known that his Hao-hyung was a pretty crier, having seen such a sight over and over again during the duration of Boys Planet and on twitter for weeks and weeks on end after the finale, a talent that he wished he possessed himself. For while his face tended to get screwn up and blotchy when he cried, the Chinese man looked like a beautiful porcelain doll being adorned with a series of water-like diamonds whenever his tear glands bled, leaving behind a pair of cutely red eyes and a gently sniffling nose in their wake when the waterworks finally shut off. It was a weird thing to be jealous of, but it was Zhang Hao.
“-and thank you all, so much. I love you!”
Hanbin doesn’t dare to look to his side and instead stares straight into the camera in front of him as cheers erupt from the crowd again when Zhang Hao ends his speech and gives the audience a cheerful wave, simply letting his mind go into robot-idol mode to avoid the slowly-increasing urge to wipe the moisture from his hyung’s eyes. It’s what Hanbin had always done back during Boys Planet, on those stressful nights where Zhang Hao just needed the comforting touch of another on his back and the encouragement of lightly whispered words into the shell of his ear, where Hanbin, or vice versa, would then cradle the other man in his arms into the hours of the early morning as he dabbed away at crystal tears dripping down pale cheeks. It was like Zhang Hao was a reaction enzyme that just sped up Hanbin’s muscle memory practices whenever he was around, a side effect of being able to properly care for your soulmate that Hanbin enjoyed very much off-camera, but ended up turning into a serious problem on-camera.
No matter how much WAKEONE liked to push the Haobin agenda for fanservice and whatnot, Hanbin knew that there was a line that he couldn’t cross and a limit that he couldn’t trespass, a limit that excessive amounts of skinship and fond looks between the two of them would most definitely pass and him and Hao in a whole ton of trouble. He’d seen it before, two male group members being banned from interacting in front of the cameras because of excessive fanshipping and whatnot, and it was something that he wasn’t sure that he’d survive, if it came to it.
He was already having a mildly hard time keeping his hands and eyes off of his boyfriend on-camera during their debut schedules, something that he pinned down to his increasingly-spiking self control and urge to be around his other half at all times, so how in the world could he get through two and a half years of on-camera separation if he could barely do it for twelve hours?
Simple answer: he couldn’t, and therefore tried very hard to not let it get to that point. But jokes on him, prevention included the very important acts of not being attached to Zhang Hao at the hip and not showing excessive skinship when in the public eye, the two things that Hanbin was defaulted and wired to do the most in the world.
Oh well. All in a day’s work of dating your same-sex coworker who also happens to be in the same K-Pop group as you, and was right by your side during an entire trauma-inducing survival show. No biggie.
Hanbin stops clapping when Gunwook begins to speak and leans forward to look at his second maknae on the other end of the line, which unfortunately also means that he needs to slightly shift his stance and press into Zhang Hao’s space to do so. He can feel the other man’s body heat radiating off of his figure as he listens to Gunwook’s speech, ever-comforting and extremely distracting to Hanbin’s brain as he tries his best to decipher the second-youngest’s words from within his Zhang-Hao riddled mind, and failing spectacularly when he realizes that Gunwook has already finished his speech by the time Hanbin has finally ripped his attention away from Zhang Hao’s face.
Whoops.
He blanks out for a moment before Jiwoong subtly elbows him in the ribcage and brings him back to reality (reality that is not Zhang-Hao-Utopia, sadly), making him immediately snap back into Leader-Hanbin mode (again, sadly not Zhang-Hao’s-Soulmate mode) again to turn his attention back over to the MCs. Ahn Hyeongseop, dressed in a bubbly-sort of outfit that Hanbin would genuinely like to try for himself, proceeds to happily congratulate them again before keeping the crowd engaged for an encore stage, where the reigns are then taken by Kang Yeosang (Hanbin just knows that Gyuvin is going to have a field day over this fact later), who piggybacks his announcement with a few more procedure-notes. The three of them then take turns announcing some non-ZeroBaseOne related things that Hanbin blankly tunes out for the sake of mentally preparing himself for the encore stage, a preparation that is abruptly cut short by the familiar instrumental of In Bloom blaring out from the speakers.
Because he is a good idol, Hanbin immediately swivels around to start bowing towards the other people on the stage as they leave. He doesn’t have any lines until the first chorus starts, luckily, which allows him to truly take in the gravity of the situation for a bit until he has to ready his vocal cords to sing again.
So, Hanbin takes the time to bow to quite literally everyone and anyone he sees, a genuine smile etched across his face as he does so. He’s very much aware of Zhang Hao’s presence beside him when he reached an arm out to hug Hyeongseop, who excitedly tells him about how happy he is for them before absolutely beaming when he sees Zhang Hao, who is also bowing towards the MCs while simultaneously singing his opening lines at the same time.
That’s my talented center! Hanbin thinks.
Hanbin turns to bow at Yeosang as Zhang Hao and Hyeongseop embrace each other, two YueHua trainees who trained together for many long seasons and ending up debuting into two different groups, who are undoubtedly over the moon to see each other again. Hanbin had felt the same way when he had seen Matthew for the first time in years on the original shooting set of Boys Planet.
Someone calls his name from the left side of the stage, and Hanbin naturally whips his head around to seek out the source of the voice. But just as he rises from a bow to start heading over, Zhang Hao’s figure flies by his peripheral vision on the right towards the MCs, momentarily freezing him in his steps and nearly making a hazy Jiwoong smack right into him in his wake.
He watches as the Chinese man quickly drops into a series of quick bows and puts his arms around someone’s upper body, pulling them into a solid hug as the other person does the same and a pale hand sneaks onto his back. After his vision unblurs a bit, Hanbin recognizes the other person as Xiao Dejun, a Chinese member of NCT’s (NCT!) WayV subunit who he’s seen a lot during his NCT-MV binge-watching sessions. He admires Xiaojun’s vocal skills, had seen when his part in Action Figure blew up on the internet, and overall genuinely likes the man, just not so much in the present moment.
Okay, “not so much” may be an understatement. No, Hanbin is absolutely envious as he watches Xiaojun pat Zhang Hao on the back and tighten his grasp around the other man’s torso, the head of the mic in his fist slightly digging into the low of the younger man’s back as they hugged.
For while Hanbin did know that both Zhang Hao and Ricky had been added into the K-Pop Chinese-Line group chat (“Us Chinese K-Pop idols must help each other out, you know? This industry is absolutely crawling with Sinophobia,” Ricky had told him during practice one day), what he didn’t know was that Zhang Hao was such good friends with Xiaojun to the point where they hugged like that on music shows. Hyeongseop he understood, as it was the same way with Matthew and himself, but Xiaojun?
He felt his blood run warm as his tunnel vision was clouded over by a green glass pane, and in that moment, all Hanbin could think about was how Xiaojun could hug Zhang Hao like that in front of the cameras and how he, Zhang Hao’s very own boyfriend, couldn’t. And for the very first time in months , months since the finale of Boys Planet, months since Zhang Hao had pressed his lips to the base of his neck in front of an entire stadium of people and beyond, Hanbin finally caught a glimpse of the Green-Eyed monster toying with the marionette strings of his mind.
He didn’t like it one bit.
There was that feeling in his heart again, the one that wasn’t anger but not quite sadness either, the one that he had felt all those months ago when he had stepped away from Zhang Hao and Shen Xiaoting during the Boys Planet finale. It seeped through the veins of his heart and polluted his ribcage with a toxic smog that made his mind feel like it was seeing red, churning at his line of rational thought and smacking a pair of irrational-seeing contacts over his pupils to let him suffer the consequences of his own emotions.
How is Xiaojun, Xiao Dejun who I’m sure Zhang Hao has never seen in person in his life, allowed to hug him like that on stage, and I’m not?! He internally fumed. I’m his partner, for fucks sake!
After what felt like hours, seconds that looked like hours through the green lenses he was seeing through, Xiaojun’s hand gave him one last pat before retracting back under Zhang Hao’s arm and disappearing back behind his back. The two men exchanged a quick conversation once more before all 3 MCs left the stage and left the nine ZeroBaseOne members to sing their encore stage alone, leaving Zhang Hao to turn back around from where he had let go of Xiaojun and face his members again.
And just to Hanbin’s luck(?), the Chinese man’s eyes whipped around to fall directly in line with his own gaze, pools of chocolate brown boring into his with a hint of confusion swimming around in the mesmerizing swirls. Hanbin didn’t know what he looked like at the moment, still struggling within the chains of the green eyed monster, but he guessed that it couldn’t have been good, not judging by the way Zhang Hao was currently staring at him like he had randomly thrown his mic into the crowd or something.
So Hanbin did the only thing he could think of and turned away, quickly schooling his expression with the professionalism of a proper idol and turning back to the cameras with a charming smile, making sure that his whisker-dimples were on full display.
That was sure to distract them from whatever the hell had just happened, right? K-Pop fans love dimples.
Hanbin didn’t dare to look Zhang Hao straight in the eye again for the rest of the encore performance, something that was easier said than done considering that he had spent the last half a year being a Zhang Hao magnet. Even as he happily pranced around the stage and played around with his other seven members, the irking residue of the toxic fumes in the back of his mind never did quite seem to simmer down and leave him alone, always there, reminding him of his own emotions even when he had to sing his own lines.
But thankfully, Hanbin and ZeroBaseOne got through the entire encore stage without any hiccups in between, something that he was immensely proud of his members and his own professionalism for achieving. After waving one last heartfelt goodbye-thank-you to the ZeRoses in the crowd, the members were then quickly ushered off the stage and into the backstage waiting room, where they were met with a smattering of applause from the staff and makeup artists, from everyone crammed into that stuffy blackbox. And for the next couple of minutes, Hanbin found himself walking around the room and bowing to everyone who congratulated them for their win, genuinely thanking them for all of their support and help for allowing them to do so.
By the time all the chaos had settled down and the nine of them had finished filming their thank-you video for YouTube, Hanbin had almost completely forgotten about his interaction with the green-eyed monster earlier on stage, too high on the aftermath of the adrenaline of winning and seeing ZeRoses to remember it.
So, as Hanbin giddily climbed into the company van and took a seat next to Gyuvin in the back row, he failed to see the perplexed look Zhang Hao shot at his back before climbing into the other van himself.