Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The rooms on the lowest floor of Incheon International Airport fall somewhere in between a private sanctuary and a liminal space completely cut off from the rest of the world, existing in their own continuum until an airport employee gives them their gate assignments and sends them back to the main floor. Above their heads, the faint sound of hundreds of feet crossing the terminal fade in and out, blending with the hum of the engines of departing planes on the runway just outside. 

In a contrast from the clean grey of the terminal, the walls of the pilot’s hub were painted a white that had long taken a yellow tinge from years of use. Hanbin doubts the airline has ever taken initiative to remodel it, though the airport isn’t that old compared to some of the others he’d visited. Incheon International had only opened at the turn of the century, the furniture sleek and modern compared to some of the terminals abroad that seemed to be permanently trapped in the 1970s with their brown and orange patterned decor and square-tiled walls. 

The chatter of his colleagues fills the room. The steady buzz of coworkers catching up and regaling tales from their past shifts is a comforting white noise as Hanbin nurses an iced americano. The chill of winter has fully set in outside, having reaching the point in the year when the tarmac needed to be de-iced every morning when temperatures dropped below freezing overnight. The cold of January already promised to bite harder than December, and Hanbin was beginning to feel chewed up at the thought that he might not get to see the sun for weeks under the seemingly endless cloud cover. 

Still, within the insulated walls of the airport, the only reminder of the elements outside is the chill from his takeout cup, whose ice is melting faster than he’d like as the radiator pumps heat into the room. The light breeze from the vents makes the hair at the back of his neck prickle, just warm enough to be uncomfortable through all the layers of his uniform. He doesn’t want to go all the way upstairs to get another drink, but the free coffee the airline offers in the break room is often unappetizing after sitting in the warming container for who knows how long without being replaced. 

With the amount of time he spends in this room of the airport alone, it could practically be considered his second home. His first home, if he was honest with himself, which he’d told himself he would try to be in the new year. Only one week into January, however, and Hanbin has already begun to find the faults in his resolution. 

If he was honest with himself, the break room coffee was as bitter as the acidic feelings of annoyance gathering in the pit of his stomach at the scheduling he’d been given for the first few weeks of the year. After nearly a month of constant placement on prestigious long haul routes, jetting across the globe under the guidance of some of the airline’s most senior pilots, he had been placed on almost exclusively short-haul routes for the near future. 

Really, he should just be grateful for any opportunity for air time, but even he was beginning to lose his mind flying back and forth between Seoul and Tokyo four times a day. It felt like, as soon as the more senior pilots returned from their holiday vacations, Hanbin was banished back to the bottom of the barrel. The farthest he was scheduled to fly for the next two weeks was a mid-length route to Taipei from Busan– less than two thousand kilometers when he’d gotten used to routes that were more than eight. Though he understood that he shouldn’t expect special treatment just because he’d given up his holidays to continue working, he couldn’t stop the frustration from bubbling as he bid Jiwoong farewell when the other walked off to catch his own flight to Dubai.

“Sung! Gate’s open,” Captain Song claps Hanbin on the back to catch his attention. One stinging shoulder later, Hanbin completes the internal preflight checklist on his own while his captain performs a disappearing act and returns thirty minutes later with a coffee for himself. 

As the junior officer, Hanbin was of course the one required to do the walk-around inspection of the plane, a bitterly frozen five minute jaunt around the exterior of the aircraft to check for any visible damages during which Hanbin thought his fingers might freeze off if he spent a minute longer out in the frigid air. Despite the physical suffering, those five minutes would perhaps even be considered peaceful compared to the mental gymnastics Hanbin knew he  would have to face once he returned to the cockpit. Though Hanbin didn’t usually make a habit of speaking badly of his superiors, after spending most of the day with the man, Hanbin could admit that Song was not his favorite captain to work with. 

No, Hanbin promised himself that he would be more honest than that. 

Captain Song was his least favorite captain to work with by far, and Hanbin had met some pretty irritating captains. An annoying combination of incompetent and chatty, Captain Song was a curse of sorts when Hanbin was already getting to the end of his rope with this new grueling schedule, and it had only just begun. 

Though the route from Seoul to Tokyo required only two hours of flight time, Hanbin found the constant up and down even more exhausting than a single twelve hour flight. Even in the one hour breaks they had between flights, most of that time was spent undergoing preparations for the return, with barely enough time to squeeze in a meal if he was lucky. 

Worst of all, if Hanbin had to see another photo of Captain Song and his inappropriately young girlfriend at the country club golf course where the old man seemed to live any time he wasn’t at work, he was going to open the doors and walk right onto the tarmac before the jet bridge was even attached to the side of the plane. 

Of course, if Hanbin did that, he would fall five meters into the concrete below and be lucky if he only broke both of his legs. That would mean no more working for him, which would probably hurt Captain Song more, given that Hanbin’s injury would force the man to actually fly the plane for once, or at least recall the emergency protocol he’d learned at the academy– which Hanbin suspected must have been at least forty years ago. 

So maybe Hanbin was catastrophizing a little bit, but he felt he was owed a little drama after five years of never putting up a fuss. By the time he finally landed in Tokyo for the last time that evening, Hanbin had started to believe that tiredness had replaced the blood in his veins, lagging more than a few meters behind Captain Song on the jet bridge to avoid any further conversation. He felt a bit like a zombie, going through the motions to get to the hotel where he always stayed when he came to Tokyo. 

The thought of spending another night in a rigid hotel bed is as unappealing as flying another route with Captain Song. Even his apartment in Seoul seemed more attractive at the moment. There wasn’t anything particularly inviting about his lonely officetel on a normal day, but even the cold familiarity of his studio would be better than the sterility of a hotel room tonight. 

Collapsing into the armchair at the corner of the room, Hanbin feels his eyes drift shut. Maybe he might be able to pass out right in this chair, still in his uniform. He would probably regret it in the morning, the crick in his neck a physical reminder of his poor life decisions. At nearly thirty years old, Hanbin had spent enough uncomfortable nights on couches to know it was never worth it when the bed was right there. He was just so exhausted– even a few steps felt like a mile. 

A few seconds later, his phone buzzes with a recognizable notification, the sound belonging to an app he knows well. His eyes fly open. 

It’s Tuesday. Hanbin is not in Seoul, but he is in the same time zone. If he reaches out to pick up the phone, he’s certain that his lockscreen will confirm it to be 9 PM. 

He’d forgotten. In all his stress this week— deflecting Captain Song’s horribly offensive jokes, making the same announcements over and over again to the passengers when they landed in Tokyo, and avoiding the searching eyes of Jiwoong (who seemed to know something was wrong even if Hanbin hadn’t told him in words)-- he’d actually forgotten the one thing he had to look forward to since the new year began. 

It was Tuesday, yes, but more importantly, today was DJ ZZZhang’s first session since he’d rambled about his own love life on Christmas day. Although there technically should have been a broadcast on New Year’s Eve, Bloom in the Shade had opted to run the national holiday program instead of its usual sessions, much to Hanbin’s chagrin. He must have listened to the recording of the 25th’s broadcast a dozen times in the weeks since. At just shy of thirty minutes, it was ZZZhang’s shortest session yet, but somehow, the one where he had said the most. 

Though Hanbin knew that there had always been a man behind the persona, Christmas was the first time Hanbin felt like he had truly seen him as real. For once, ZZZhang had stepped off the pedestal (the one that Hanbin had admittedly put him on) and revealed himself to be just as ordinary and fallible as the rest of the young adults trying to navigate the world. Just like everyone else, he was grappling with a break-up, the expectations of his parents, and the internal struggle of being a twenty-something in a city that felt big enough to swallow him whole no matter how long he’d lived there. Alright, so maybe that last part was just Hanbin, but somehow, he felt that ZZZhang would agree. 

Scrambling to turn the broadcast on, he manages to catch the introductory chords of the song ZZZhang has decided to open the new year with. Unbuttoning his blazer with the intent of hanging it over the back of the chair so that it wasn’t wrinkled by morning, Hanbin fumbles with one of the brass knobs as the singer croons the opening line. 

Sleepless in Seoul by 10CM, Lee Suhyun

It’s not only the singer who is vocalizing his loneliness in the darkness of a Seoul night, Hanbin is confident in that. Because Hanbin knows this song, he’s heard it before. And he knows what 10CM sounds like, just like every other person in South Korea who’d been in a retail shop at any point in the last five years. There is a second voice singing along, and Hanbin knows exactly who it belongs to.

ZZZhang’s voice has joined in too, a bit smoother and softer than 10 CM’s signature nasally sound. Frozen, Hanbin attempts to burn every second of this experience into his mind for good. Toss out the timetable for the express train to the airport from his studio, the procedures he’d memorized to make a perfect landing, and all the technical knowledge he’d learned in flight school about how to read weather maps. He would leave all of it behind without a second glance if it meant he could recall these next few minutes with perfect clarity for the rest of his life. It should be no surprise that ZZZhang has a beautiful singing voice too, not when his voice was already so sweet and warm even when he was only giving comforting words to a caller about a job interview or a first date. 

As the DJ’s voice fills in the harmony between the two original singers, Hanbin wonders why the man ever bothered to speak normally at all. If Hanbin had a voice like that, he would only ever sing. In fact, maybe ZZZhang should rebrand his radio show right now. All those underground artists who guest hosted on the station, and Bloom in the Shade was hiding the real talent under all of their noses all along. Was ZZZhang secretly an artist himself? Was that the reason he could only dedicate one night a week to his broadcast, because he had his idol activities to handle during most days instead? Hanbin’s racing thoughts are an unwelcome distraction as the duet turned trio sings the final chorus together. 

There was no cure for insomnia, but Hanbin was sure this was the closest thing to it that he would ever find. 

“That was “Sleepless in Seoul,” by 10 CM and Lee Suhyun. I think I’ve listened to this song a hundred times already, but somehow, it never gets old. I love the way they’re singing to each other as much as to the listener, two lonely voices finding each other across Seoul entwined for as long as it takes to fall asleep.”

ZZZhang trails off and the broadcast goes silent for a few seconds. Hanbin checks the app, but the show still displays the little red “on air” dot that means there hasn’t been a technical issue that temporarily shut the stream down. Hanbin waits for the DJ to continue. 

“You could hear me singing, you say?” He sounds almost bashful. “Ahhh… I didn’t realize. I thought my microphone was off. This is an embarrassing start to the new year.” 

Despite the awkwardness that Hanbin was worried might permeate the host’s first session back, ZZZhang seems to have embraced the casualness that evolved out of the previous broadcast’s minor breakdown. The host and his listeners are closer than ever, now that the relationship between them had become a bit more reciprocal after ZZZhang started to reveal some of his own fears to them. 

“It’s the new year,” ZZZhang announces, then laughs a bit at the obviousness of his statement before he continues his introduction. “How many times have you already been wished it this week? Here’s one more anyways. Happy new year!”

ZZZhang giggles to himself, and Hanbin can’t help but feel his lips turn up into a small smile even though the DJ is right. Hanbin must have heard the phrase several hundred times a day since the first of January, especially given that the crew had taken to using it as their farewell greeting to passengers as they disembarked the plane. Still, one more sincere wish couldn’t hurt. Hanbin only wished he could convey his gratitude to the host as well. Maybe he could write something in the chat, but ZZZhang keeps talking and changing the subject, so Hanbin deletes the half-typed new year’s wish out of the chatbox and goes back to listening reverently to ZZZhang’s words. 

“I made a resolution on the 31st that I would take the first few days of the year as a fresh start. Not burying my past exactly, but replanting it so that new shoots can start to grow. A kind of fertilizer, I guess, to help me grow stronger. It feels a bit like a monumental task right now, but isn’t that the point of a New Year’s resolution? To push yourself out of your comfort zone so that you can improve a little bit too?” 

The familiar pattern of ZZZhang’s usual sessions seems to have returned, the host rambling a bit of an opening until he gets to the session’s eventual theme. Hanbin carefully drapes his jacket over the armchair, changing out of the rest of his uniform as he lets ZZZhang’s words settle over his weary heart. He imagines having the courage to speak to ZZZhang directly, to confess that he’d made a resolution too, one that he thought might push him far beyond his comforts as well. 

But Hanbin’s resolution was to be honest, not to have courage, and even the thought of calling in to the broadcast still felt out of reach. He might be able to confess his fears to himself, but to say them out loud to someone else had a knot beginning to form in his throat.

“Choosing the theme for the first session of the year felt like such a mighty task over the last few days. I wondered if the theme I chose might influence the direction of this show for the rest of the year. I thought that I should pick something simple, something non-offensive. 

“Then, I thought to myself, well that could be a mistake too. What kind of tone am I setting if I choose to give in to the fear of making a mistake from the very first broadcast of the year? And so, after talking to myself for far too long to be normal, I circled back to the original idea I had, and the fears that I knew I wanted to face this year too. 

“Tonight’s theme is one I’ve wanted to talk about for a while, as heavy as it can be. I want you to dust off the feelings you keep in the back of your closet, the ones tucked away with all the other coats you sometimes have to wear, but pretend don’t exist. This is DJ ZZZhang for 100.7 Bloom in the Shade FM, and tonight, let’s talk about loneliness .” 

Oh. Hanbin’s heart seems to weigh 10 kilos all of the sudden, with a density that makes his limbs feel like solid iron. It pins him in place on the bed for a few moments until he has the strength to reach for his phone to turn the volume up just a little more. An unconscious motion, his hand moves faster than his brain can register anything other than the pounding of his heart in his ears. 

Even the word alone was a burden. But, ZZZhang was right, it was sitting right there. Not even at the back of his coat closet, Hanbin’s loneliness was the first and only one to greet him whenever he crossed the threshold for his home for the night– whether it was a hotel room he was staying in for the first time or his officetel in Seoul. 

“It’s a taboo, I know. But someone had to be the first one to bring it up. No one wants to admit they feel lonely, yet I think it’s impossible to get through an entire lifetime without feeling it at all.” 

Even when describing something so impenetrable, ZZZhang is an expert storyteller. He spins the threads of once unutterable feelings into something real, until it becomes something impossible to ignore anymore. 

“It can be simple and wrapped in a single sentence, brushed off without a second glance even with the dust of the words left unsaid that it scatters behind. Or, it can be all encompassing, every step bogged down by the loneliness yanking at your feet, dragging you further down until you begin to forget what the surface looked like in the first place. It can be fleeting, it can be constant. It can be described in words, or only in the feelings that you never shared.” 

Hanbin refuses to let his eyes close for a single second despite the late hour and the fatigue sapping at his bones. For once, his body demands that he let sleep take over, but Hanbin refuses its call, too absorbed in picking apart every word that spills out of the host’s mouth. 

“I want to do something a little different tonight. Humor me. Will you let me be the first caller tonight? I have a story that I want to tell.” 

ZZZhang pauses for a few seconds, as if giving time for his audience to respond, or perhaps to gather his own thoughts and the things he wanted to say. Hanbin answers in his head, there was nothing that the DJ could offer that Hanbin wouldn’t accept with a smile and a ‘thank you,’ but another session getting to hear the inner thoughts of the DJ would be at the top of his list if he had one. He wouldn’t mind if ZZZhang never took another caller again, content to let the DJ share the same stories over and over again. The other man always managed to make them feel brand new, finding something new between the lines that Hanbin hadn’t noticed the first time.  

“It feels a bit strange to be talking about loneliness when I’m almost thirty years old.”

A hint. One that Hanbin had already known, but it strikes him nonetheless. Although Hanbin was aware they were close in age, he couldn’t help but imagine which of the two were older. Did ZZZhang’s wiseness reflect the years he’d spent living before Hanbin was born? Or by some coincidence, could they be the same age? Were they two lines that had started at the same point, occupying different spaces for most of their lives, destined to never cross? 

“When we were children, we were taught that we feel lonely because the other children don’t understand us, and so they leave us alone because we are different. As an adult, we learn it goes far beyond that, and loneliness should end when we manage to find the right group of friends that share the traits that originally made us different before. But what happens when you meet those friends, and everything should feel right, but in the end you still feel more alone and isolated than ever?” 

He waits a few more seconds, as if gathering his thoughts to arrange them more eloquently, though Hanbin is sure that already the DJ is more well-spoken than Hanbin had ever been in his life. 

“I want to tell you a story about a boy who had a dream. He was nineteen years old, and he left the only home he’d ever known to come to a country he’d never visited in his life. Getting there wasn’t easy, he spent months training for the exams he would need to pass to show that he was good enough just because he came from somewhere else.

“So he worked for weeks on his skills, just to prove himself to a country that already had decided to treat him differently before even meeting him. But that didn’t matter, because when he arrived, everything would be so much better than the way it was now. The future would make the pain of the present worthwhile. Finally, he passed the exams, and he was officially enrolled in university.” 

It’s hard to put a face to the boy ZZZhang describes when Hanbin can’t even put a face to the man he grew into. Though, perhaps his face doesn’t really matter, not when the story of this boy must reflect so many others as well. For lack of a better alternative, Hanbin begins to imagine himself trying to fill the boy’s shoes. They’re a little clunky, not exactly perfect around the toes, but somehow, they still fit. 

“He didn’t fully know what he wanted to do there, just that he was ready for something different— which is what he found when he finally arrived. Seoul was a big city, much bigger than the one he’d come from in China.”

Another hint, one that Hanbin had suspected, but never been able to confirm until now. Sure, it was possible that “ZZZhang” could be a play on the Korean name “Jang,” but the DJ spoke Hanbin’s native language with the air that betrayed how he had studied it intensively. Still, in all his sessions before, Hanbin had never heard ZZZhang speak in a language besides Korean, presuming that even if he was born elsewhere, he must have lived here since he was a child to have become so fluent. Hanbin wondered what the DJ sounded like when he spoke his native language. The only language Hanbin was confident in was Korean, though he’d learned enough English and Japanese to make announcements during the flight to passengers headed to those destinations. 

“He felt small, surrounded by strangers, in a place where not a single soul knew his name. Still, he hadn’t come so far just to give up at the first sign of struggle, and the boy began his classes in earnest. He studied hard and tried to make friends. Little by little, things started to get better.”

University had been hard enough for Hanbin, and he’d only moved two hours from Cheonan to Seoul. He couldn’t imagine how difficult it had been for a younger ZZZhang, who’d crossed a sea away from everyone he’d ever known in addition to everything else. 

“Yet, even with his new friends, he somehow felt lonelier than ever. He put on a smile when he was with them, pretended that there was nothing wrong, when on the inside he was farther away than ever. They did their best to understand, but it was hard when he was the only one trying to adapt to a new life and culture– one they had known their entire lives. The worst thing of all, despite being the one who chose to leave, he was more homesick than he had ever felt before. Maybe, he started to wonder, he hadn’t made the right choice in coming at all.” 

ZZZhang takes a deep breath. Despite the emotionally charged statement, his voice doesn’t break and his breathing doesn’t falter. 

“And throughout it all, no one noticed a thing, appeased by a fake smile and a promise that everything was okay. He felt like he was a boat, tethered to an island in the middle of an unknown sea. If he let go, there was nothing out there that he knew better than the island. Still, the rope had begun to fray.” 

Finding himself holding his breath for the next words to come out of ZZZhang’s mouth, it isn’t lost on Hanbin how much their situations seemed to mirror each other. Though Hanbin had not uprooted his whole life to attend university in another country, he did know deeply what it was like to be an outsider in a country that wasn’t his own. It was a predicament he faced every day, a stranger in every foreign street and a ghost in every hotel. 

Finally, ZZZhang breaks the barrier of speaking in the third person, acknowledging that the pain and emotions he’d been holding onto for so long belonged to him. “I realized then, that even the people who seem to be the most fine on the outside can be the loneliest on the inside.

“I wasn’t sleeping well, back then, which is how I got this gig in the first place. My friend was working for the college radio station at the time and told me they were looking for someone to fill the 9 PM slot. It was pretty late for a Tuesday night, and so no one wanted it for a while. He told me that barely anyone listened to the radio at that time anyway, they just needed someone to play music and fill the air time.” 

Hanbin tries to imagine it, a younger ZZZhang being given an opportunity by chance that to Hanbin felt more like fate. It seemed like destiny that Hanbin had stumbled across ZZZHang’s broadcast that day when he had been so close to giving up— when ZZZhang appeared out of nowhere to show him that he wasn’t alone at all. His show had been the most reliable part of his life over the past two years, and he didn’t know what kind of shell he would be if not for the warmth that each episode brought to his heart. 

The DJ had to know that, right? He had to know the impact he’d had on every one of his listeners, had to know that he would never be alone again as he felt in those days past of his youth. If no one else, he would always have Hanbin. He only wished there was some way he could convey that to the DJ, to thank him for everything he’d done even without knowing. 

“So I played music and chatted with the void. In the beginning, I didn’t know if anyone was listening at all. But then, I started asking if anyone wanted to call in and chat with me. For just one hour a week, we could be lonely together. I didn’t expect the broadcast to take off, but somehow it did. When I graduated the next year, I thought that would be the end of the show for good, but some of you actually lobbied for Bloom in the Shade to take me on. Coincidentally, no one wanted their 9 PM slot either. It felt a bit like destiny.” 

ZZZhang laughs at the memory, but Hanbin wants to insist that it was true. Bloom in the Shade wasn’t the most prestigious station, but it was much closer to what ZZZhang deserved than an amateur college station. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about loneliness since then. Sometimes, I imagine it’s a bit like being an astronaut, doomed to explore the world on their own because of how separated they are from everyone else. Their mission is to explore this unknown galaxy, and some planets leave them burned, but others leave them believing that there’s still good for them to find if they just keep searching. No matter what though, no matter how beautiful a planet can turn out to be, there comes a time when they have to return to their rocket and start all over again.”

Hanbin leans back into his pillows, engrossed in the story the ZZZhang is weaving. He doesn’t feel tired, not anymore. Not when he has never felt so raw, the barriers— of purposefully ignorance— peeled back all at once, bared to the world without any shield to protect him. 

“Because that’s their mission, right? They relay their discoveries back to the rest of humanity, even if they never get a chance to return to be with them again.”

It’s a somber thought, but ZZZhang blows past it, barely even letting the words sink in before he continues, “Maybe they started with a crew, maybe they lost them at some point during the journey, or maybe they never had anyone in the first place. It was always a solo mission. 

“The point is, now, he is alone. And he spent his whole life searching for these new planets, which should be considered this huge accomplishment. It was his duty, his purpose in life fulfilled. But then, at the end of it all, what does that leave for the astronaut? Will anyone remember the astronaut himself, or only the things that he did?” 

The story becomes more personal to ZZZhang as he describes it. The loneliness of the astronaut escapes its hypothetical metaphor, and his real worry about ending up alone and forgotten begins to seep through. Could it be that these feelings arose out of the DJ’s real job— the place where he spent his hours when he wasn’t on the air? He tried to imagine what kind of career could leave ZZZhang feeling as isolated as an astronaut. Or maybe, he stops himself, Hanbin was just projecting again. 

Words could only do so much, and Hanbin thought about his own work as a pilot and the praise he received from his superiors. Did they really appreciate him as a person or only what he had done as an employee of the company? 

Maybe Hanbin was that astronaut, soaring through the galaxy to discover new planets for so long he had begun to forget what home meant at all. Was home back on the earth that he’d left behind, in Cheonan with his parents? Or was it somewhere else, a place he had to keep searching for, even if there was no guarantee he would ever find it?

“Sorry, that was a bit of a dark note to leave off on,” ZZZhang audibly sighs. “Does anyone out there want to take over for a few minutes so we can all have a break from my ramblings?” 

Hanin’s fingers move before his brain fully registers the question, the implications of what he was about to do, hovering over the call button. Should he? He said he would be honest this year, and if he called in, he would finally get the chance to get his own feelings off his chest. Still, he can’t force himself to press the button, thumb quivering over the screen as his ever-present anxiety begins to take a hold of him. 

How was it when he finally found that he had so many words to say, he couldn’t get any of them out of his mouth at all? A sour taste sits at the back of his throat, which seems drier than ever. 

Somehow, his heart feels like it has risen all the way into his throat, beating loudly in his ears. If he opened his mouth, the organ might fall straight into his lap. 

No, not yet, his heart insists. If not now, then when? His brain tries to counter. He tries to beat down that choking feeling that he will be too much or too little at the same time. Hanbin doesn’t have time to go back and forth like this. If he waits too long, it will be too late. 

Frantically, he types a message into the live chat. ‘I’m an astronaut too,’ he writes, ‘but instead of flying across the galaxy, my domain is the sky.’ 

It was a cowardly move, there was no guarantee that ZZZhang was even reading the chat. Granted, the screen wasn’t scrolling as fast as it usually did during ZZZhang’s more popular sessions on love or relationships, but Hanbin’s message felt like shouting into the void. 

Across the universe, ZZZhang answers. 

“You’re an astronaut, but your domain is the sky…” 

He tries to puzzle through Hanbin’s inadvertently written riddle. “Ah!” He makes a noise of excitement. “You’re a pilot!” 

Hanbin’s heart continues to thud, though at least with the promise of not having to actually speak, it seems to have migrated back to where it belonged in his chest. He’d gotten it so quickly. Granted, it hadn’t been too difficult to figure it out, but still. A thousand kilometers away, it felt like ZZZhang had tuned right into his frequency with just three words. A tiny string, fragile and intangible, but present nonetheless. A comet, caught for just a few seconds in the orbit of the planet it had been hurtling towards for so long. An astronaut trying to decide if this planet was the one, or if he had made a mistake and needed to pull back before he burned to a crisp in the lower atmosphere. 

‘Yes,’ he writes back. Then, because he isn’t sure ZZZhang will recognize his username on the app. In fact, he isn’t actually sure what his username is to be entirely honest, so he writes a second message. ‘I am a pilot.’

Sucking in a deep breath, he writes one more message, trying to keep it short before he loses the DJ’s attention, before the connection between them is severed for good. 

‘I don’t know how to stop searching for planets either. My planets are my flights. It’s all I have done for the last five years. Who am I if not a pilot?’ 

His hand shakes as he presses send on the last message. Accepting the thought had been hard enough, writing it down had been even harder. Now, there would be no taking it back. The shadows in the back of his mind were finally brought into the harsh light, exposing all the cracks and weaknesses in the facade of the airline’s hardest working first officer. 

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but would you like to call in?” ZZZhang answers Hanbin’s message out loud. “It might be better if we could talk it out together. Both you and me.”

For a moment, Hanbin really considers it. He came this far already. Perched at the edge of the precipice, what was so scary about the waters below?

More than the courage he had to take the leap. 

Was it cowardly of him to be terrified of landing on sharp rocks hidden beneath the waves when he wasn’t sure if the rocks were even present at all? For all he knew, underneath the surface the water could be perfectly clear, deep and inviting, not painful at all. 

It was the fact that he could never know, would never know until he was too far down to take it back that paralyzed him. 

‘I’m sorry,’ Hanbin’s fingers shake as he sends his response. ‘I’m not ready yet.’ 

It doesn’t take ZZZhang half a second to respond. He must have been waiting, Hanbin realizes, the guilt setting in instantly. 

“I understand. Thank you for sending your message. I shouldn’t have asked you if you didn’t offer,” ZZZhang sounds almost a bit put out, but tries to remain cheerful as he makes a counter offer. “If you feel ready another day, please, feel free to call in. When it’s the right moment for you, not for me.” 

Now that the conversation is over, Hanbin’s heart begins to slow to a normal pace, no longer echoing as loudly in his ears as ZZZhang’s voice. Even in those first few moments, the guilt and fear already begins to be replaced by regret. If he had a second chance, Hanbin refused to let his fear immobilize him again. Next time, he would be braver. He promises himself, trying not to let the remorse eat at him when it was his own lack of courage that had cost him the opportunity 

“I guess I let the story get away from me,” ZZZhang admits. “But your words made me start to think about the scenario a little differently, I hope you don’t mind. 

“Maybe I’ve been thinking about it in the wrong way too. Well, not the wrong way exactly, but I think there’s a different way to phrase the situation that might make us both feel a little better.” 

Was ZZZhang still speaking to Hanbin? The words seemed directed towards him, but as the DJ continues to speak, Hanbin wonders if the words aren’t more for the host himself. 

“There are so many astronauts out there, all looking for the same things. Maybe, instead of searching for planets, our greatest accomplishment should be finding each other.” 

For the first time on this broadcast, it sounds like DJ ZZZhang is smiling through his words, the heaviness of the subject lifting for a brief moment, his optimism reaching Hanbin even across the sea in Tokyo. 

“With that, I think I have the perfect song to end tonight’s session. Instead of throwing everything out and searching for a new planet, let me bury my past here and wait for life to regrow stronger than before. Hopefully, it will be enough to help you find me. This is “Across the universe” by Yerin Baek. Sweet dreams.” 

Across the universe by Yerin Baek 

*

Hanbin sits at his usual table, half dozing off over his flight reports, having ditched his third coffee of the day when his left eye had begun twitching in what there was an equal chance of causation from either exhaustion or over-caffeination. He won’t risk the second to prevent the first. 

Jiwoong slides into the seat across from him, looking more energized than Hanbin has felt in weeks. “Hanbin!” He greets, enthusiastically setting his things on the table in front of him. When he gets no response from his colleague, he lowers his voice in apology, correctly reading the other first officer’s sour mood. 

“Wow. You look dead on your feet. Er– dead in your chair?” He corrects. 

“Thanks,” Hanbin deadpans. “Did you just get back from Dubai? You look like you got a tan.” 

It’s not a physical tan, but Hanbin can sense the glow of a successful flight radiating from his coworker. It had been drizzling off and on for the past few days, just enough of a nuisance that Hanbin had to take extra precautions in his routes, much to his annoyance. The average person might be surprised to find just how different the winds could be even in the scant distance between South Korea and Japan’s capital cities. 

“I did,” Jiwoong grins. “It’s another life out there in the desert. Nothing like here, I’ll tell you. And the facilities—”

Partially for his own sanity, and partially because Hanbin knows if he lets Jiwoong continue he’ll get stuck hearing about the nightlife in Dubai for the next hour, Hanbin interrupts. “Don’t let the bosses hear you say that. They’ll think you want to move out there permanently.” 

It’s an empty threat. Rarely did pilots transfer to another airline, not unless they wanted to start over at ground zero and throw away all the social credit they’d collected over the years at their current airline. Still, it was not unheard of for someone to switch to a competitor to get a better hub placement, though it was usually early on in their career or for personal reasons. 

“Nah, but seriously man. You’ve got to get out there. Or, anywhere actually.” He laughs, but his words come out entirely serious. “You should really take a vacation.” 

Though he hadn’t intended on confessing to the plan that had started to take shape in his mind over the past few days, Hanbin finds his mouth moving before he can stop himself. 

“I’ve been thinking about it, actually.” 

Jiwoong’s eyes widened, visible even from across the table, like he hadn’t actually expected Hanbin to take his idea seriously. The Hanbin that Jiwoong had talked to before Christmas never would have considered taking a vacation, he imagines that Jiwoong is thinking, but a few weeks later, he just might. 

It had been so long since he actually traveled with the intent of enjoying himself. Would it be strange to fly somewhere without being in the cockpit? Sure. Would it be even stranger not to work for more than two or three days at a time? Most definitely. But Hanbin had promised that he would start doing things for himself, being more selfish instead of accepting the punches that life threw his way until he was knocked down into the ground with nothing left in him to fight back. 

And, wasn’t taking a vacation the most selfish thing a pilot could do of all? 

“When are you thinking about going?” Jiwoong asks. 

“In two weeks?” It was the earliest he would be allowed to take time off, as he received his shift assignments about a week in advance. Two weeks would be cutting it close, but Hanbin thought if he waited any longer, he might chicken out. 

“Damn, you’ve actually been thinking about it,” Jiwoong nods. “Okay, I respect it. Where are you going to go?” 

Hanbin hadn’t actually thought that far in advance. As a pilot, he was allowed to fly anywhere for free on the airline, as long as he flew standby. It made his options both limitless and extremely limited, depending on his luck and the schedule for the day. He watched as fat raindrops slid down the wide glass windows across from him, blurring the sight of the planes racing down the runway ahead. Somewhere sunny, he hoped, at the very least. 

“Thailand, maybe?” He throws out randomly, remembering how much his parents had told him they enjoyed their own trip over the new year. 

Jiwoong nods approvingly, beginning to stand. “I’ll envy you the whole time you’re away, my friend.” 

“Actually,” Hanbin stops Jiwoong from getting up, “if you’re not busy, could you help me with something?” 

Jiwoong settles back into his seat, setting his folder and bag back onto the table, gesturing for Hanbin to go ahead. Showing his phone screen opened to the app that sent them their schedule, Hanbin asks, “How do I put in a request for time off on here?” 

Incredulously, Jiwoong navigates the app to the right page. “I really hope this vacation is approved,” he laughs in disbelief, “for your own good.” 

*

The flight scheduler is not happy with Hanbin’s request for vacation, but he can’t bring himself to be too mad about it, not when he sees that empty seven day block in his calendar. Seven days, all to himself. When was the last time he could say that he had that many days off in a row? 

A more cynical part of him questioned whether he would actually want that much time on his own. Another part, which was cynical in another way, suggested that it would be nothing new since he already spent most of his life alone anyway. Hanbin shut them both down before he could spiral too much more than he already had when he first put in the request. 

There was a difference between spending time alone by the nature of his job and taking time to relax on a vacation. If he wanted to be serious about figuring out who Sung Hanbin really was, untangling himself from the pilot title he had used as a shield for the last five years, he needed to be as far from work as possible. With each day that passed, Thailand was feeling less like a daydream and more like destiny. 

He’d gotten the notification that his request for time off had been approved on the subway— arguably his third home, after Incheon International Airport and his studio apartment— letting out an audible whoop of excitement at the notification. The office worker sitting next to him shot him a dirty look for the sudden noise. Bowing his head and whispering an apology, Hanbin pulled his headphones on, settling into his seat. 

In celebration, he queues another of his favorites among ZZZhang’s sessions, the first episode of January from the year before. He hadn’t been able to catch this one live, he remembered, having just boarded a flight from Hong Kong to Seoul at the time of the DJ’s usual session. There were only two pilots needed for the three and a half hour trip, so it had just been Hanbin and Captain Choi sitting in the cockpit together. 

By the time they were cruising at ten thousand meters over the Yellow Sea, the captain asked if there was any music or program that Hanbin wanted to hear to pass the journey more comfortably. Hanbin had been a bit surprised to hear the offer. While listening to music wasn’t strictly prohibited, it wasn’t very common in the case that the pilots needed to communicate with each other or there was a sudden message over air traffic control. But, Choi didn’t seem like a particularly chatty captain, and it was a late flight. Perhaps, listening to something made the man feel more awake. 

For a minute, Hanbin considered asking Choi if he could put on ZZZhang’s show. There were still about thirty minutes left in the broadcast, and here was the perfect opportunity fallen straight into his lap to hear it. Still, he thought better of it. He would hate to miss something important knowing how easily distracted he was when he became invested in ZZZhang’s callers and their stories. Then, there was the personal nature of the topics the DJ tended to talk about. Would the captain judge Hanbin for choosing to listen to what was effectively an advice helpline once a week? 

A smaller, more selfish part of him also wanted to keep ZZZhang’s broadcast as a secret for himself. It was completely irrational. There was no reason for him to be possessive over a man who didn’t know he existed, who would never know he existed, if he was honest with himself. Still, he couldn’t overcome the thought of sharing the broadcast with someone else, listening to it in public with a stranger when he’d only ever heard it in private before.

Hanbin put on a fake half smile and told the captain with conviction that he had a hard time focusing on the radio chatter if something else was playing. The captain shrugged in agreement, and they fell into silence for the rest of the flight. 

Later that night, when Hanbin had laid in his bed in Seoul and listened to the broadcast for the first time, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made the wrong choice declining the captain’s offer, mind stuck on the awkward silence that permeated the cabin the rest of the flight. Of course, he didn’t need to become best friends with every crew member he flew with. That wasn’t his job at all, and he knew that. Yet, Hanbin had never been able to shake the overwhelming desire to be liked, which led him to fixate on every possible mistake even hours after the interaction had ended. 

Then, ZZZhang had started speaking, and all of Hanbin’s worries about Captain Choi seemed to fade away with the notes of the first song he chose to play. Even one year later, on the subway home, the recording still has the same effect. 

Letter To Myself by Taeyeon 

“It’s a stereotype that January is a month of new beginnings, right? New year, new me. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?” ZZZhang’s crisp voice cuts through the final notes of the song, like he was excited to speak that he couldn’t even wait for the song to finish first. 

“I think it’s a bit of an excuse sometimes, people just saying they’re waiting for January so they can put the hard choices off for as long as possible. But now that January is finally here, we have to come to grips with the inconvenience of that convenient procrastination face to face. No more ignoring it, or pushing it off for later. I know it’s hard. I’m working on it too.”

Though it sounded a bit like he was trying to scold his listeners, Hanbin could hear in the DJ’s voice that he was scolding himself too. That was one of the things Hanbin liked most about him, that he never tried to pull some ‘holier-than-thou’ superiority over his listeners just because he was the one with the microphone in hand. Overcoming was a journey that they all set out on together. There was no punishing others for getting there faster or slower, only encouragement no matter how small the accomplishment. 

“That first song was ‘Letter To Myself,’ by Taeyeon, a little something upbeat to get us into the mindset of  ‘new beginnings,’ which I know is probably a bit of a cliche for the first session of the year, but bear with me.

“Making a new start means making trouble. Not just for yourself, when you start a new routine, but for others too. It’s not only your own expectations that you’re defying, it’s everyone else’s too. Still, no one ever started a revolution by taking the blows lying down. You have to make a little trouble to kickstart the spark to change.”

He laughs to himself a little bit, breaking the tension underlying the drama of his speech. “Okay, maybe I’m the one being a little dramatic now.

“I guess, I’ve just been thinking a lot about how we tend to make ourselves convenient for others. We bend over backwards so that we fit into the routine that everyone expects, even if it’s not the one that really suits us anymore. Maybe trouble isn’t really the right way to put it, but I think you all get what I mean. You have to make a change, even if it’s a disruption to the way things are usually done, because sometimes you have to put yourself first. In this new year, I want to ask, ‘What’s your fresh start? How are you unsettling your status quo?’” 

Hanin can practically hear the smile in the DJ’s voice. “Does anyone want to call in?” 

ZZZhang accepts the first caller, a student athlete trying to figure out how to balance their daily practices with the assignments that keep them up late into the night. By that point, Hanbin begins to tune the broadcast out, the steady rumble of the train a comforting lull, and he watches the sight of the Han River passing from behind the heads of the passengers on the other side of the car.

This time, he hadn’t really needed ZZZhang’s advice. He’d done plenty of unsettling with his vacation request already. Hanbin was sure when he came into work the next day, the other first officers would ask him why he wasn’t on the schedule. 

Not bending over backwards to fit himself into a routine that no longer suited him, Hanbin thought to himself with a smug smile, that was for sure. No longer would he accept the inconsistent schedules that the flight scheduler gave him with a blank check of acceptance and a smile. He was a person too, one who was unwilling to live his life at the whim of an airline that could raise him up to the most prestigious routes just as easily as they could stick him with the most infamously annoying captain of the bunch for several days straight. 

Finally, this would be the year that Hanbin began to win back control over his own life. It might be a revolution of only one person, but Hanbin knew that this was a blaze that couldn’t easily be put out, not when it had been waiting for so long to be lit by the right spark. 

*

Hanbin’s last scheduled shifts seem to drag on and on, especially with the promise of what was ahead. Part of Hanbin had begun to worry that he was putting too much stock into this whole vacation thing. Could seven days off really make up for five years of dedicating his heart and soul to this company’s every request? 

Still, it was too early to be that pessimistic, he hadn’t even left the country yet. It would be best to approach the whole thing with an open mind, he thought, or maybe that was ZZZhang’s advice in his head. He found it a bit weird to preface his actions or thoughts with a, ‘What would ZZZhang say about this?’ But in another way he found it rather centering, giving him a moment to step outside of his own head for a minute and try to think about things from an outside perspective. From up so high, his problems really seemed smaller than ever, and Hanbin regretted how long he spent lost in the maze of his worries when the answer was so clear from just a few feet up. 

Each time he reaches the conclusion that his worries really aren’t as serious as his mind wants him to believe, he feels a bit like a successful student, drawing on the wisdom of his teacher to avoid another unnecessary mental spiral. For once, he feels that he’s getting a good grade in ‘being honest with himself,’ something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve. 

Unfortunately, his tutor rewards him with a message of bad news the morning he was set to fly out on his vacation. Due to personal reasons, DJ ZZZhang had to delay his broadcast to another time slot this week, which would be determined based on the schedule of the other hosts. Otherwise, the DJ would only next be able to broadcast the following week. 

Hanbin could read between the lines, ZZZHang needed to convince one of the other DJs to trade time slots with him, otherwise he would lose his chance to be on the airwaves. He huffed out a breath of frustration, attracting a few awkward stares on the subway. In his two years of listening to the broadcast, DJ ZZZhang had never missed a session of his own accord. Whatever it was that was pulling him away from the recording booth had to be serious, but it felt like a bad omen that ZZZhang’s broadcast might be canceled on the first day of Hanbin’s self-proclaimed journey to self-discovery. This path, it seemed, he would have to walk alone. 

He arrives at the airport, dressed in plainclothes for once instead of his usual crisply ironed uniform.  Hanbin feels out of place in his simple hoodie, like at any moment a captain might clap him on the back and scold him to get himself together before they are called to their gate for pre-departure checks. For once, he is just one of the thousands of passengers passing through, waiting in line to speak to an agent just like anyone else checking in their bags. Only, technically, unlike all the ticketed passengers in line behind him, he doesn’t exactly know where he’s going yet. 

Though he’d become rather attached to the idea of Thailand in the last week, it wasn’t a guarantee that he could get a ticket for the last flight out tonight. The deal offered by the airline was simple, Hanbin was allowed to fly anywhere he wanted, as long as it was on standby. Essentially, as long as the flight wasn’t full or some unfortunate person missed their check in time, Hanbin could have the ticket for free. Otherwise, he would be out of luck, and he’d have to choose another flight and a new destination. Now, Hanbin was above actively preying on another person’s downfall, but it had been snowing when he made the short walk from his officetel to the subway. It was practically summer in Thailand right now, he couldn’t really imagine spending a week reinventing himself anywhere else. 

He flashes his ID to the agent, a young woman with her hair fixed smartly in a bun and soft features that contrasted the sharp line of her mouth from having to deal with impatient customers every day. Really, Hanbin was grateful that his job didn’t force him to interact with anyone beyond the other pilots in the cockpit if he didn’t want to. The airport was already an incredibly stressful place, a battlefield of delays and missed connections, he couldn’t imagine the stories she would be able to tell working on its front lines. 

“Do you have anything left for Thailand tonight?” Hanbin asks. 

It takes a few clicks of the keyboard before she replies, “Did you have a city in mind?” 

It takes him a few seconds to process the question. Honestly, he hadn’t even thought about it. Up until that moment, Thailand had been abstract, a sunny paradise that was an ocean away from all of his responsibilities back in Seoul. In all his daydreams of a poolside resort or night markets stretching as far as the eye could see, he hadn’t actually put any of his imaginings into specifics. 

“Bangkok?” He proposes, hopefully. 

It wasn’t unusual for pilots to be very flexible with their choice in vacation destinations. After all, it was a waste of time and money to book an entire holiday just to find that there were no standby seats available. Or worse, that the only seats left were in economy class, which was practically unthinkable when his employee status could get him into first class for free. 

While the agent types away on her keyboard, Hanbin tries not to let himself stress too much about what she is doing on the other side of the screen. He tries to distract himself, watching as a parent wheels his toddler around the waiting area using his motorized suitcase. A lilting voice passes behind him, one that sounds incredibly familiar, but out of place in this setting. He turns around, putting his back to the desk right away. Could it be? 

He deflates at the sight of dozens of passengers milling around the area, with several others striding with purpose towards the security checkpoint, perhaps trying to avoid being late or just unable to relax until they were safely seated at their gate with plenty of time to spare. 

It had almost sounded like ZZZhang’s voice speaking, though the thought seemed crazy even just stringing the words together in his head. Hanbin must be hallucinating in his disappointment that the broadcast was delayed tonight. If ZZZhang wouldn’t be there to keep him company in his phone, Hanbin’s brain had just decided to imagine him here as one of the hundred strangers in earshot. 

The agent taps on her desk to get his attention. “Excuse me, sir? Sung Gijang-nim.”

Hanbin whirls back around, bumping his knee into his suitcase, which rattles noisily against the counter. Internally, he winces, that would probably leave a bruise. Yes, the suitcase could withstand any amount of beating from inattentive workers loading and unloading it on the tarmac, but that also meant in a battle between its sharp corners and Hanbin’s fleshy calf, a clear (non-human) winner would emerge. 

“Yes, sorry. Is there anything left?” 

The bitter smile on her face tells Hanbin everything he doesn’t want to know. “The flight to Bangkok tonight is all booked up in first and business class, unfortunately. The jump seat might be available, if Thailand is the only destination you’re willing to consider?”

The thought of spending six hours on the uncomfortable folding chair beside the bathroom sent a shiver down Hanbin’s spine. Even an economy seat would be better than that. 

“What else is there?” 

It takes a few more clicks on the keyboard before she makes a second offer, “I have a first class seat to Vancouver, Canada, if you’re amenable to the change?”

Canada, Hanbin ponders it. Vancouver was probably freezing cold this time of year sitting on the edge of the northern Pacific Ocean. It was practically the opposite of Thailand in every way that it was possible for a place to be different. Still, Hanbin had packed his winter coat for the journey from his apartment to the airport, and he had packed a few warmer articles of clothing just in case. A good pilot always learned to plan with contingencies, and an unexpected redirection was always one of them. 

“I’ll take it,” he decides, not letting himself think about it any longer. If the universe wanted Hanbin to spend his seven days of vacation buried under the winter snow, who was he to deny it?

A bit surprised by his enthusiasm, the gate agent prints the ticket off, handing Hanbin back his ID and passport with a smile. 

“Enjoy your holiday,” she smiles, some of the tension finally leaving her face. “Sorry about Thailand.” 

Hanbin only shrugs, shocking even himself with his next words. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be.” 

Just getting the words out seems to lift some of the stress he didn’t realize he was carrying out of his chest, dissipating into the air. So what if Hanbin hadn’t been able to control every little thing that he wanted? The world hadn’t ended, it kept turning even with the wrench thrown into his plans. 

In fact, as he passes through the security checkpoint with ease, he finds himself even looking forward to Vancouver. Sure, it might not be the summer paradise he imagined, and he hadn’t really studied English since university, but Canada was far and it was brand new. It was out of his comfort zone, that much was certain, but wasn’t that also exactly what he had been looking for? 

At least, he tries to justify it to himself this way, beating back the tendrils of fear beginning to curl around the chambers of his heart and squeeze out any optimism he had left. A single, wayward thought manages to slip through his defenses. He didn’t know a single soul in Vancouver, what was he going to do there for seven days by himself? 

As if on autopilot, his body navigated itself to his favorite coffee shop in this terminal. It was a bit late for a coffee, but the ambiance of the tiny shop at the very corner of the crowded hallway was familiar and comforting. A bit removed from the other name-brand chains, Hanbin could usually count on getting a few moments of respite at one of the cafe tables before he had to jet off to whichever gate he’d been assigned to. If he didn’t have enough time to sit and enjoy his drink, he could at least waste a couple minutes pretending to stir sugar into the takeout cup before he had to return to his chatty coworkers. 

Don’t get him wrong, he never had a problem listening to First Officer Kim regale him with stories of his daughter’s first ballet recital. Nor would he pass up a chance to see the photographic proof of the bouquet of 100 roses the man had sent to the venue to make up for the fact that he’d been on a flight to Melbourne at the time and unable to attend. It was just, there were only so many videos of three year olds in tutus running uncoordinatedly around the stage he could sit through before they all started to look the same, and Hanbin began to wonder if the classes were actually a scam with the lack of organization. Or maybe he was just jealous that Kim had someone outside of the walls of this airport that he loved enough to sit through two hour long recital recordings for. 

He orders his standard americano from the barista, who seems to do a double take as he barely recognizes Hanbin without his uniform. 

“No uniform today?” The young man makes conversation, and Hanbin grins. 

“I’m on vacation, if you can believe it.” 

“Ah, lucky. I could use one of those too.” The barista slides the warm drink across the counter, double sleeved but with the lid open so he can add a packet of sugar if he wants to. Hanbin never did, but he still found it a bit funny that the barista had noticed his habit of lingering by the condiment table to avoid heading back to work. 

Hanbin thanks the man and accepts the cup, settling down at a table towards the outskirts of the tiled cafe floor so he can watch the passengers come and go. Carefully pressing the rim of the lid closed around the edge of the cup so it doesn’t spill, he hears an easily discernible voice rise above the crowd. 

“No, stop worrying! Everything is fine. I’m just going to the gate now. Yes, I checked in my bag earlier—” 

The sound gets quieter and quieter until Hanbin is practically craning his neck just to hear the end of the sentence. It couldn’t be, could it? He really had to be going crazy, the lack of sleep from packing all night must be getting to his head. But, the person sounded like it could be…

No. The physical force of his reaction nearly jogs the table, and Hanbin has to steady his cup before it tips over. He ought to nip the thought in the bud right there. 

First of all, the chance of DJ ZZZhang being in the airport, in the same terminal, outside the same coffee shop the very day Hanbin was flying out on his vacation was impossible. Not impossible, some tiny part of his brain insisted (the one that sounded a little too much like ZZZhang), just improbable. The radio host lived in Seoul, Hanbin was quite sure of that, so it wasn’t unreasonable to assume if he wanted to fly somewhere that he would use the Incheon airport. He also had delayed his broadcast that night, Hanbin connected the dots (You haven’t connected a thing, his brain reminds him), and being on board an aircraft ten kilometers in the air was certainly a valid reason as to why ZZZhang could not be on air at his usual time. 

Still, even if Hanbin chose to believe all the sheer number of coincidences that would have to align to make it true, what was he supposed to do about it? Chase the man down? There were thousands of people in this terminal alone, and he had no clue what ZZZhang looked like. Should he just ask every single one of them to speak until he identified which one was secretly the DJ? 

More than likely, it was just his brain playing tricks on him. Hanbin really had greater concerns to spend his time worrying about, like where he was going to sleep tomorrow night when he landed in Vancouver. At least he hadn’t booked a vacation package in Thailand in advance. 

With a sigh, he opens a booking website on his phone, letting his wandering thoughts about DJs and destiny be replaced with the advertisements for hotels in neighborhoods he had never even heard of. 

Eventually, he settles on a hotel that has a partnership with the airline, earning points for the hypothetical next vacation he might one day go on. It seems to be close to the city center, at least it appears to be on a map, and is part of a reputable chain, so Hanbin is confident he won’t be shocked to find the real place is nothing like the photos once he gets there. There are also several blog posts on Naver blogs promoting the place, the photos of the decadent restaurants and spa enough to win Hanbin over. Admittedly, the most exciting thing about the hotel to him is the large bay windows overlooking the harbor and wooded forest below. A city that seemed to have attuned itself with nature, rather than just demolished and rebuilt everything in its path like Seoul or Incheon, perhaps Vancouver really would be the perfect change of pace. 

Thankfully, he has the foresight to check the distance from the airport to the hotel, which is unfortunately farther than he’d expected. Should he rent a car? Though Hanbin didn’t have a vehicle of his own in Seoul, he’d gotten his license to help his mother transport ingredients to her cafe back when he was in university. It might be nice to drive for once, and he didn’t really have any plans for the week, so having a car might give him more freedom to explore the area. He toggles to the car rental website next, so absorbed in his planning that he almost misses the announcement that his flight was about to begin boarding. Tossing out his empty cup, he makes his way over to the gate where all the other passengers headed to Vancouver were waiting. 

“Now boarding first class passengers on Korean Air flight 075 with service to Vancouver.” The crackly voice of the gate agent brings Hanbin to attention, fetching his passport and boarding pass from his bag. There are a few people ahead of him: an older man in full business suit, two elderly ladies gossiping with each other, and another man about his age wearing a face mask glued to his cell phone, fingers flying at a speed Hanbin can barely comprehend. 

Hanbin never understood why people wore entire suits on overnight flights when there was no doubt the attire would be wrinkled by the time they arrived. At least in first class, the man would probably have the space to hang his jacket. That wouldn’t change the fact that it would be impossible to sleep without wrinkling his crisp black slacks and white button up shirt. It was probably just for the status of it all, Hanbin figured, a physical demonstration of just how much more important the man thought he was compared to everyone else. What did it really matter? In the end, they were all going to the same place. 

A couple fall into line behind him, whispering loudly to each other as Hanbin inches a bit more forward to avoid accidentally eavesdropping on their conversation. He hopes that his seat isn’t too close to theirs, not with the way it’s obvious that they will be all over each other the entire flight just from their whispers alone. 

The gate agent scans him in with a smile. Hanbin doesn’t recognize having worked with her before,  but perhaps his employee ID flashed on the screen when he scanned his boarding pass.

“Sung Gijang-nim,” she greets. “Have a safe flight.” 

It’s strange to be on the other side of it all, to be treated like just another passenger instead of boarding straight to the cockpit. When the flight attendants greet him with the usual script, pointing him to his seat, he feels a bit like an imposter. He wants to tell them that they don’t have to put out all the niceties for him, not when he’s one of them in disguise. At the same time, he doesn’t want to draw too much attention to himself either, in fear that they might think he was actually requesting further special treatment by pointing out his employment status. 

Fortunately, he’s saved from making the decision himself when Heeju is the one to offer him a glass of champagne to welcome him on board. 

“Hanbin Gijang-nim!” She brightens instantly, the platter of champagne flutes teetering slightly in her excitement.Straightening up in embarrassment, Heeju gives a cursory sweep to make sure none of the senior flight attendants caught her mistake. “I didn’t know you would be on this flight.” 

“I was on standby,” Hanbin explains. “It was a surprise for me too.” 

“Ohh,” Heeju nods. “What are you going to do in Vancouver?”

“I’m not really sure yet,” he admits. “It was a spur of the moment thing.” 

Heeju giggles, “I get it. I hope you brought your winter coat, there’s snow forecasted this week.” 

Seeing the way Hanbin’s expression must have blanched, she shakes her head, giggling. “Got you. I’m just teasing. But the weather out there is pretty unpredictable, so you never know.” 

Taking her advice seriously, Hanbin has never been so grateful that he’d chosen to wear his warmest coat to the airport, even if he thought he would have no need for it in Thailand. 

“Hey–” He remembers, “how is Minha?”

Heeju flushes, ducking to hide her rosy cheeks but it’s already too late. “It’s good. I mean, she’s good.”

“Yeah?” Hanbin probes, not wanting to pressure her if she doesn’t want to talk about it. 

“We went to the ice rink on Christmas,” Heeju tells him bashfully. Though she looks like she wants to say more, another passenger flags her down from the rows behind. 

“Sorry,” she apologizes. “I’m on the clock. Let’s catch up later?” 

Hanbin waves her off. There was nothing to apologize for. If anything, Hanbin should be the one asking for forgiveness for being the one to distract her from her job. 

Glad to be seated by the window, Hanbin sips his champagne as he watches a few ramp agents unload baggage from the jet parked one gate over. If it was possible, this one tastes even worse than the bottle he’d purchased on New Year’s Eve, though it was probably far more expensive. Still, drinking it in his hoodie in the comfortable first class cabin made him feel as sophisticated as the man in the business suit, so he chokes the bitter drink down without complaint. Though the first class cabin of the airline wasn’t the most modern of all across the global fleet of passenger jets, the soft blue and tan interior was distinctive and comfortable. The seats were configured in a 1-2-1 arrangement, not quite separated into their own pods, but with wall dividers keeping most of the other passengers out of Hanbin’s sight. 

Aside from the man seated directly across the aisle from him, who Hanbin recognizes as the texting man from the check-in line before. Though now, he’d taken off the mask. Hanbin feels bad to stare, but he can’t help but watch from the corner of his eye as the passenger downs his entire flute of champagne in one go before returning to typing something on his computer. When Minha taps the man on the shoulder to request he put the device away for takeoff, he does so without complaint, though Hanbin could feel the stress radiating from him even from across the aisle. 

When Hanbin had been standing next to the other passenger in line, he hadn’t noticed anything particularly odd about him. He was dressed quite normally, no suit to be seen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t on a business trip of some sort. Still, he didn’t strike Hanbin as fulfilling the other classic stereotypes of stereotypical businessmen. At least in his side profile, his features were quite delicate, brows and lips downturned in a frown at whatever had appeared on his screen. Without the laptop, Hanbin would have guessed he was some kind of model, with the way he seemed to make even a simple sweatshirt and winter overcoat look like it could have come right off the runway at fashion week. All this to beat around the fact that Hanbin thought he was strikingly pretty, and pretty things always made him curious.   

Hanbin knew it was wrong to speculate about a stranger, but it didn’t help that there wasn’t much by way of entertainment on the plane before it took off. He wasn’t nosy enough to spy on the other’s computer, but that wouldn’t stop his overactive imagination from filling in the blanks. 

Perhaps he really was a model, flying overseas for a shoot of some kind, dissatisfied with the terms of his contract and writing frustrated emails to his management before he arrived. Or maybe he could be the executive himself, having risen in the industry until he could represent himself, demanding better treatment for the artists that were so often ignored by the capitalistic-industry that treated them only as temporarily useful dolls, flying them around the world wherever they saw fit. 

Suddenly, the man turns to look directly over at Hanbin, their eyes meeting just for a brief moment before Hanbin looks away, pretending to be absorbed in the remote control for his personal entertainment display. Feeling the tips of his ears begin to heat, he resolves himself that there would be no more staring for the rest of the flight, as beautiful as his aisle mate might be. 

To distract himself, Hanbin lets the screen autoplay the first recommended movie by the airline, which is some kind of action thriller whose loud chase scenes are muffled by the constant hum of the plane’s engines. He tries to focus on the plight of the main character, a father trying to reunite with his daughter at the end of the world, but he can’t seem to get his brain to slow down enough to follow the generic plot. 

Should he apologize for staring? He wasn’t really staring, he made excuses in his head, he just happened to be looking in that direction when he had gotten lost in thought. Should he say that? No, that would be even weirder, right? The man had probably already forgotten that it had happened. It was only Hanbin that had gotten stuck on the interaction, his brain too wired on the adrenaline of finally getting to go on his vacation that he was overanalyzing everything even more than usual. 

At some point, Heeju passes around a dinner menu. Hanbin can’t remember what he ordered, just that she had nodded in approval. Part of him wished he was in the cockpit; he didn’t like that he could barely see the sky through the tiny passenger window. Hanbin wouldn’t consider himself to be a controlling person, but it was a bit weird to be flying on a plane where he didn’t have the controls— wouldn’t get them at any point in the next eleven hours. Was this what it was like to be a passenger, so mind-numbingly bored without anything to do on these transpacific flights? 

Heeju brings him his meal, which ends up being the western option of steak with steamed vegetables, much nicer than the economy class fare the pilots usually got to choose from during their breaks. The sound of metal cutlery clinking against porcelain filled the otherwise quiet cabin. To Hanbin’s surprise, he didn't hear any noise from his neighbor, though he had seen Heeju deliver him a plate out of the corner of his eye. 

It was not staring if he simply saw it out of his peripheral vision, he swore it.

What he did next, however, he would justify as just a little peek. Turning his head just barely to the left, as if he was examining the cut of steak on his plate, he catches a glimpse of the man across from him. Instead of digging into his meal right away as all the other passengers had done, he had his phone held over the small white plates, snapping photographs from every angle. The shutter sound is muted, barely audible over the sound of the buzzing engines and the other passengers eating and whispering to one another, but it still brings a small smile to Hanbin’s face. 

He looks away before he can get caught again. Cute. 

To Hanbin, there was nothing magical left about flying, not when he wasn’t in the cockpit. All the small quirks of air travel— from the tiny amenity kit which his neighbor had carefully examined each packaging of, the self serve snack bar which he’d helped himself to about halfway through the flight, to the tiny bottles of alcohol handed out by the flight attendants with dessert (which Hanbin had been silent about seeing him tuck into the front pocket of his laptop bag). After years working for the airline, all the little things had started to lose their sheen. It was a sweet reminder that for someone else, the things that Hanbin had begun to take for granted could be experienced as something entirely new. 

He wants to say something to his aisle mate, trying to work up the courage to even make a silly joke about his choice in movies and ask if he should watch it next for himself.  It didn’t even have to be something big, anything more than that would be weird, right? Or maybe, saying anything at all would be weird. They were strangers, and the life that Hanbin had imagined for him in his mind as a model, an executive, was just that, a fantasy and nothing more. The man surely hadn’t spared him a second thought, perhaps not even a first thought. 

Oh. He’s staring again. 

Hanbin should look away, but he finds himself caught up in the gaze of this stranger, whose head tilts slightly to the side after a moment as if in waiting. 

This is it, this is the excuse that he’d been waiting for. 

Something holds him back, the words caught in his throat. Hanbin coughs once, as if physically clearing the mental blockage, looking away towards his own window. The moment shattered like a pane of glass in front of him, and Hanbin had been the one who had knowingly thrown the rock. 

So much for being brave this year. So much for being honest. 

*

Hanbin pulls the screen window all the way open for the descent into the Vancouver International Airport. The waters of the Pacific Ocean churn below them, remaining unfrozen despite the sight of a thin layer of snow blanketing the wooded forests on the land ahead. Though they had departed from Incheon in the evening, it was barely noon in the coastal city in North America. 

Part of the magic of flying was that it was the closest humans had ever come to inventing time travel. Around him, the other passengers gently stir from their slumber, Hanbin’s aisle mate being one of them. After pulling the sleep mask from his eyes, leaving his dark hair in an endearingly messy sort-of bedhead, the man had gone right back to checking something on his phone. It seemed that whatever was waiting for him in Vancouver couldn’t even spare five minutes to enjoy the panoramic views of nature offered upon their landing. He didn’t fault him for it, Hanbin was probably the only person on the plane to enjoy the slightly turbulent landing, the cabin rocking back and forth as the plane pushed through the bitter winter winds to reach its destination. 

As the landing gear hits the tarmac with a familiar thunk, Hanbin exhales, letting his body readjust to the feeling of being on the ground once more. To his surprise, a few passengers begin to clap, quietly at first, then louder as he can hear those in economy class begin to join in as well. 

Hanbin’s aisle mate is one of the first to join, dropping his phone into his lap to participate. Finally, after what feels like far too awkward of a pause, Hanbin begins to clap as well. 

Though it didn’t happen after every flight, when Hanbin and his copilots received applause at their landings, he had always brushed it off, too focused on the task at hand and the procedures that needed to be completed before they could park at their gate and deplane. Getting to the ground was only the first part of the landing process. It felt a bit silly, if he was honest. Why should he be applauded for simply doing his job? 

But under that logic, why did people ever thank anyone at all? Why did they thank the firefighters who risked their lives to protect the places they held the most dear, or the doctors that operated to save a loved one’s life? Everyone was just doing their job, in a way. It must just be the humanness of them all then, that fueled the desire to express that outpouring of gratitude in whatever way was possible.

*

In the rapid process of disembarking the plane, each passenger understandably eager to deboard from the metal tube of recycled air they'd been trapped inside for the past eleven hours, Hanbin loses track of his aisle mate. Not that there was any semblance of connection remaining between them now that the flight had landed (not that there really was a connection to start with, besides what Hanbin had imagined in his mind). Just like the hundreds of other passengers who had been on the plane, it was time that they went their separate ways. Lines that had temporarily crossed returned to their regular positioning, never to be joined again.

Vancouver’s airport looks the same as any other, sterile but noisy at midday, as passengers are already lined up at their arrival gate for the next flight. Several escalators later, the line for customs seems to stretch endlessly. Eventually, Hanbin is able to step up to the tiny booth, where the bored agent asks for his passport, flipping through the pages and pages of stamps to find a blank page. When the agent asks him what his purpose for traveling to Canada was, Hanbin is all too happy to inform the man that he was on vacation for a week. A vacation that was finally about to begin, so long as Hanbin was allowed to step through the gate past this booth. The agent takes one look at Hanbin's casual state of dress, making a clicking noise with his tongue between his teeth.

"I hope you brought clothes a little warmer than that." The agent types something into his computer, and Hanbin isn't sure if the question is rhetorical or not. Nonetheless, he presses the heavy entry stamp onto the blank page. "Welcome to Canada."

A small crowd had already gathered around the baggage claim by the time Hanbin arrived. The carousels are gathered in an expansive room with a low roof, somehow evoking a claustrophobic atmosphere despite the square footage. Fortunately, Hanbin had only packed his usual suitcase for the trip, though he didn't envy the groupings of families with their strollers and carts at the ready.

So far, the Vancouver airport is no different than any other airport Hanbin had been to in North America, with exposed concrete support beams providing an inconvenient obstacle course for wheeling heavy carts of suitcases to the exit. There’s no magic to be found yet, though Hanbin hadn’t been able to catch much of a sight of the city yet. He’d have to make do with the trees that made a natural barrier at the end of the tarmac, dusted by a faint layer of snow until he could see more of the city itself once he finally managed to leave the airport. 

Unfortunately, the hold area has no windows and was probably underground if he had to guess from the cool temperature and exposed structural beams. It was no big deal, Hanbin would be able to see more than the drab walls of Vancouver International soon enough, if only they managed to unload his bag from the plane.

Around and around the carousel spun, travelers pulling their suitcases from the belt one by one, until the crowd had visibly thinned, leaving only about a half a dozen passengers from the Seoul flight still waiting. One of them is Hanbin's aisle mate, just a few feet away, easy to find now that there were so few people left. Off the plane, he looks more stressed than ever, foot tapping against the blue carpet in a nervous rhythm. Eyes following every tiny movement of the belt, the man stares with an eagle-eyed focus that would probably strike fear into any normal person's heart. Hanbin only becomes more curious.

A familiar black suitcase slides down the ramp onto the rotating carousel, and Hanbin steps forward to pull it onto solid ground. This is it. This should really be the end. He should take his bag and go straight to the arrival hall to find the booth for the car rental agency he’d booked with the day before. There is no reason for him to stay in this airport any longer. He's officially on vacation now.

But, as a stand-by passenger, Hanbin's bag would have been one of the last bags on and off the plane. However, Hanbin's aisle mate had been in first class, his suitcase should have been one of the first to be released.

The other man seems to have drawn the same conclusion, taking his phone out and trying to make a call. He makes a noise of frustration, holding the phone up towards the ceiling. There must not be any signal down here, Hanbin realizes with pity.

Across from them, the carousel slows to a stop, no bags left. 

His feet are moving before Hanbin can let his overthinking overcome his intentions again. Marching straight over to the man, Hanbin hopes he doesn't notice how his hand is shaking where he grips his suitcase's handle. 

The whole point of this trip was to take a risk, to do the things he would be too afraid to try in Seoul.

Summoning his courage, he looks up to meet the other man's gaze.

"Hi, do you need some help?" 

He stumbles through his greeting in Korean, then remembers that just because he had come in on a flight from Seoul, didn’t guarantee that he spoke the language. Oh God, what if he only spoke English? Could Hanbin really hold an entire conversation in the language he used only to give announcements and order food in foreign cities? No matter how many conversational English textbooks he bought, which lined the shelves of his officetel alongside books of poetry and the comics from his childhood, he’d never been able to get the language to stick.

The man looks confused, but not like he doesn't understand, so Hanbin decides to continue with the Korean until he is interrupted. "I noticed you might be having a problem with your bag, and I can take you to the help desk if you need help?"

The man isn't running away from him, which, Hanbin supposes is more than he might have done if confronted with this situation on the other side. A stranger randomly approaching him in an airport? Hanbin would be searching for the fastest way to exit the conversation as possible. 

"Sorry, I should have explained myself better." Hanbin realizes the man has no reason to trust him or anything that he was saying and fumbles in his pocket to pull out his ID badge. The light reflects on the unsmiling photo he had taken five years ago and never updated. Still, at least that way the man will know he isn’t a fake. "I'm a pilot for this airline."

After five seconds of staring, in which Hanbin tries to keep his head high instead of curling up in embarrassment like every neuron in his brain is begging him to do, the man finally nods. Holding in his breath of relief, Hanbin nods too. Internally, he wants to scream. What is he? Some kind of nodding bobble-head statue? Trying to shake the negative thoughts off, Hanbin gestures for the pair to walk down the hallway to the help desk for the airline.

Now that most of the other passengers had made their way out of the terminal, the baggage area was quiet, making the pervading awkward silence all the more obvious. Could the desk agent sense it, when she gestured the pair up to her desk? Would she laugh about it with her coworkers later, the gossip climbing back up the chain, whispered from the ground crew to flight attendants until eventually Hanbin would hear about it from another first officer back in Seoul?

All of these thoughts become secondary (forgotten, snapped out of existence) as soon as the first words leave the stranger's mouth.

"Hi, I just arrived on the flight from Seoul?" He starts uncertainly, as if trying to figure out what would be the most useful information to give the employee. "My bag never came onto the carousel, and the screen already changed to the next flight. If there's a delay, well, usually that would be no big deal but, it's just that—"

The man continues to babble about his concerns, but Hanbin's heart begins to thunder so loudly in his ears that he can barely make out the words coming from the other man’s mouth. It was a natural reaction, given how Hanbin never seemed to be able to control his heart rate when he heard that voice, especially not when it was so close to him. Close in a way that felt impossible, reality-bending, given that he'd only ever heard that voice coming from his phone before. 

Sitting beside him for the past eleven hours, to Hanbin's complete unknowing, had been DJ ZZZhang in the flesh. Something impossible that was inexplicably true, ZZZhang was right there. 

Hanbin stands frozen, staring at the name on the boarding pass that ZZZhang had produced for the desk agent to show which flight he had been on. Zhang Hao, that was DJ ZZZhang's real name, right in front of him. He has to hold back a laugh, disguised as a cough into his fist. Was it that simple all along?

Hoping that ZZZhang (Zhang Hao? His mind tries to replace the host’s mononym in his head, but it feels a bit strange to do so when they hadn't officially been introduced) doesn't notice his mistake, he tries to return to the conversation.

"The rings for my friend's wedding are inside the suitcase. And well, I'm the best man so for some reason they trusted me to bring them all the way here. Everything else in the bag is replaceable, but if I lose the rings they'll kill me."

But, was it not a kind of fate? Was that the reason that Hanbin had been so drawn to the man, even when ZZZhang hadn’t even spoken a word yet? Something in Hanbin's heart just knew intrinsically that there was a reason why Hanbin needed to talk to him, even if his brain hadn't quite caught up yet. 

Now he really sounded crazy.

How had he not figured it out on the plane? For eleven hours there had been but less than a meter of space separating them, and Hanbin hadn't had a clue. His self-proclaimed promise not to stare or eavesdrop had been his own downfall. If he had paid more attention he might have heard ZZZhang order his meal or speak to the flight attendants. Even Heeju had probably heard the man speak before him. 

But even if he had known, would he have been able to say anything, or would he have just let another opportunity pass him by because he was too terrified to say the wrong thing to a person who meant so much to him that he wasn't even sure how to convey it in words?

"I'm very sorry for any inconvenience caused by this," the agent replies once ZZZhang finishes his explanation. "Our airline has a strict policy regarding lost baggage that you can find on our website. You'll have to file a ticket, and someone from the department will get back to you as soon as they can."

ZZZhang seems crushed at her unhelpful response, discouraged as he goes to take his boarding pass back. Hanbin jumps to action, showing his badge for long enough that the agent can read his name and title before putting it away. He hates acting like his status as a pilot should get him any better treatment than any other paying customer, but being on the airline's payroll does afford him certain perks, not that he often uses them.

"Hi, sorry to interrupt, but as my—" 

He pauses, how could Hanbin even describe his relationship to the other man? ZZZhang wasn't a stranger to Hanbin (even if Hanbin was one to him), not when he listened to his broadcast each night to fall asleep. Not quite strangers, not quite… Well, why not? 

"Friend was explaining," Hanbin decides, not able to work up the courage to look over at ZZZhang to gauge his reaction. Was it weird to say that? He was probably overthinking it again. If ZZZhang asked, he could just make an excuse that it was to help him get his suitcase back. "This is a very time sensitive situation, is it possible for you to just run a search on the baggage tag to find where it is right now?"

Though the desk agent doesn't look particularly happy that Hanbin wants to go beyond the usual script, she nods. Hanbin had been stressed beyond measure at the thought that she would decline, that she would threaten Hanbin for trying to act like he was important enough to get around usual procedure, that Hanbin would have embarrassed himself in front of ZZZhang with nothing to show for it.

"Do you have the receipt that you received in Seoul?" She asks ZZZhang.

The radio host produces the slip, which she scans the barcode of. "It looks like your bag never left ICN," She admits.

Before ZZZhang can say anything, Hanbin interrupts, "So you'll have it put on the next flight over then? And you can ship it to wherever my friend is staying?"

A few keystrokes, then she replies, "Yes, of course. We can have it delivered by tomorrow morning at the earliest."

ZZZhang makes an audible noise of relief, "That's fine. That's perfect. Thank you so much."

"If you would just write down the address of where you want the bag sent," She slides a new baggage tag over, flipped over to the blank side.

"Yes, of course," ZZZhang pulls the paper over. "Oh, a pen. Sorry, do you have a—"

Already in motion, Hanbin scrambles to pull a pen out of his own bag. Though he'd cleared his work bag of any old flight reports (no need to see any of that on his vacation), there should be at least half a dozen pens floating around the bottom that he used to note unexpected weather patterns by color. Closing his fingers around one of them, he lays the pen down, which rattles noisily on the glass counter.

"You can borrow mine." Hanbin turns to ZZZhang, who is looking at him, expression half amused as he picks up the gold embossed pen with the airline's logo and Hanbin’s own name. 

Feeling the back of his neck flush, Hanbin realizes it was the expensive ballpoint that the company had gifted him to celebrate his five year anniversary with the airline a few months back. It had come in a wooden case, which Hanbin had quickly discarded in favor of throwing it in with the cheap pens he lifted from the various break rooms around the world. Though it didn't really carry any sentimental meaning for him, it was obvious that the pen was worth money, and here Hanbin was just throwing it onto the counter so a stranger could use it.

When he looks across to the agent, he sees that she was holding a pen of her own. This one, a much cheaper version that was mass distributed by the airline for daily use. Silently, she puts her pen down.

"Thank you," ZZZhang smiles at him, and it shouldn't be a surprise to him the way his heart swoops in his chest, doing flips at the praise even if it’s for something as small as lending a pen. 

ZZZhang scribbles down a familiar address on the tag, the same hotel that Hanbin had booked the day before in the Incheon departures terminal. Though the advertisement hadn’t mattered to him at the time, Hanbin did remember the website advertising that their venue was ideal for large gatherings. A wedding would certainly fall into the category. Maybe ZZZhang’s friends had seen the same blog posts and were won over just as Hanbin had been the day before. 

“We’ll do our best to have the bag delivered as soon as possible,” she promises. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” 

Shaking his head, ZZZhang thanks the agent politely, turning away from the counter, pocketing Hanbin’s pen. 

Like a moth to a flame, a soul drawn to the only person he knew on this continent, Hanbin follows. Just to get his pen back, he tells himself, nothing more. 

(Why does everything need an excuse, a part of his brain whispers traitorously, couldn’t Hanbin do something just because he wants to? For so long he had wanted to know ZZZhang as a person, and now here he is, right in front of him. The universe might as well be shoving it in his face at this point, giving him opportunities left and right even as Hanbin’s brain does its best to squander them with his overanalysis of every situation.) 

Away from the luggage counter, ZZZhang lets out a huff of breath, “Do you do this often?” 

“Huh?” Hanbin is struck dumb, all thoughts of the questions he wanted to ask wiped clean when ZZZhang addresses him first. 

“Help people like me get their bags back.” The corner of ZZZhang’s lips upturn into half a smile, like he finds the whole thing entertaining, far less stressed now that he has a guarantee that his bag will arrive the next day. “The patron saint of lost travelers, or something like that?”

“Or something like that,” Hanbin repeats, then wants to smack himself for his stupidity. Has he forgotten how to talk to humans that aren’t his coworkers? 

“I’m Hanbin,” He introduces, trying to regain the upper hand over his brain in the conversation by changing the subject. 

“Zhang Hao,” ZZZhang replies, the syllables rolling off his tongue, two sounds that mark the solution to one of Hanbin’s greatest mysteries— the man behind the microphone. “Should I call you Captain?” 

“I’m not a captain,” Hanbin corrects instantly, flushing as he realizes that might have come across as harsh. “I’m just a first officer.” 

“Hm,” ZZZhang makes a sound of understanding. This is the moment where Hanbin should tell him, should thank him for everything he’d done for him. He should confess to the fact that there really wasn’t need for an introduction, not when Hanbin listened to his voice every night, not when Hanbin was intimately familiar with the little facts of ZZZhang’s life that he shared with his audience each week. His hopes, his fears, his worries, his words that never failed to bring Hanbin a sense of comfort incomparable to anything else. 

The words die on his tongue as ZZZhang continues earnestly, “Well, thank you so much anyways. You saved my life, I swear.” 

“It was nothing,” Hanbin had never been good at accepting compliments, especially not when they came from someone he admired. In the end, Hanbin had barely done anything, just flashed his badge to save ZZZhang from having to spend hours on hold with the notoriously slow customer service line trying to find his suitcase.   

“If there’s anything I can do to repay you,” ZZZhang offers, unwilling to let it go. It’s the kind of stubbornness that Hanbin recognizes from the man’s broadcasts, the way knew how to press just the right buttons to get someone to open up for him even when they never intended to. It had worked on Hanbin, after all. “I was going to get a taxi into the city, if you need a ride?” 

Hanbin feels bad to decline, “I already rented a car.” 

He pauses. Should he? What did he have to lose when this interaction was more than he’d ever thought he would get– not when this might buy him a little more time to gather the courage to say the words he wanted to the host. “But if you don’t mind waiting, I could drive us both?”

“It won’t be inconvenient for you?” ZZZhang worries. 

Shaking his head, Hanbin admits, “I didn’t mean to snoop when you were writing earlier, but I think we’re staying at the same hotel.” He pulls out his phone to show the reservation, not wanting ZZZhang to think he was just making it up. 

“It’s this one right?” Hanbin points to the photo of the large glass tower on his email confirmation. “They have a partnership with the airline,” he explains lamely.  

ZZZhang nods, “Ah! It is. Wow, what a coincidence.” He laughs, a familiar sound, but Hanbin’s heart feels warmer nonetheless. If ZZZhang’s voice alone had been comforting, there was something about his physical presence that amplified the feeling by ten. Though Hanbin had initially thought that ZZZhang as a stranger was a cold beauty, the kind of pretty associated with an untouchable model or the kind to appreciate but never experience. As soon as he opened his mouth, Hanbin knew that wasn’t the case, not with the way he giggled in short bursts and his eyes curled into half moons when he smiled. 

(He was everything Hanbin had imagined, but better, because he was standing right here.) 

“If you wouldn’t mind?” 

“It would be my pleasure,” Hanbin has to calm himself if he wants a chance at surviving this car ride with his heart intact. 

“At least let me pay for gas?” 

Hanbin waves him off, “We can trade. I’ve been wondering since you first said it, how did you end up being the one to transport your friends’ wedding rings? And why would you risk putting them in a checked bag on a flight an entire ocean away?” 

Not even the slightest bit offended at the accusation, ZZZhang answers as they walk to the car rental. “Well, I didn’t actually know I had the rings until I was in line to board the flight back in Seoul. The groom, one of them that is, snuck the box into my bag because his fiancé wouldn’t stop trying to see them before the ceremony. If he had just given them to me like a normal person, this never would have happened.”

Hanbin laughs at the story, imagining that had been one of the reasons the DJ had been glued to the phone up until takeoff, panicked about the mission he’d been unknowingly given. Secretly, Hanbin is the slightest bit grateful for Hao’s friend’s for his bad decisions.  

The built-in GPS in Hanbin’s rental car, which ZZZhang programs for him upon the realization that his English is the stronger of the pair, informs them that the hotel is a mere 25 minute drive away. Hanbin wishes it were longer, finding the other man to be even more pleasant than he’d expected. Just as he was on his broadcasts, Zhang Hao was quite chatty, happy to share little anecdotes with Hanbin, despite the fact that they were mostly strangers. Still, it was easier than he expected to separate the two in his head. ZZZhang was always ready to interject with the perfect advice, while Zhang Hao was happy to tease and complain about his friends in a way that made it obvious just how much he loved them. Both were wise, but ZZZhang was more subdued than the energy Hao seemed to fill the car with every time Hanbin would tell a joke. 

“When was the last time you drove a car?” Hao asked, buckling himself into the passenger seat. Hanbin sits next, having put his suitcase in the trunk, closing the driver’s side door behind him. 

“Hm, maybe a couple years ago?” 

“What?” Hao sounds incredulous, “Is this a good idea?” 

“Don’t worry, I drive the jet on the runway all the time,” Hanbin assures. “It’s basically the same thing, trust me.” 

It was not the same at all, but Hao didn’t need to know that. For some reason, Hao trusts him anyway. 

In return for the story about the wedding rings, Hao asks Hanbin why he came to Vancouver and if he liked his job as a pilot. Somehow, Hanbin finds it easy to be honest. Though Vancouver hadn’t been his first choice, he explained, he was only able to find out his destination a few hours before because of the airline standby policy. Hao teases him that it must be rough to make his decision on where to go on vacation based on what route he could get a first class seat on, but Hanbin confesses that being a pilot isn’t as glamorous as he’d thought at all. 

The hours are long, and it could be lonely to spend almost every night in a hotel instead of his own bed. He leaves out the part that sometimes his own apartment can feel even lonelier. At least he knows in a hotel his crewmates are sleeping in the rooms beside him. Still, that feels like too much to share in a first conversation, even if it feels like he has known Hao for so much longer.

Their conversation is cut short as Hanbin pulls into the underground parking garage of the hotel. The elevator ride up to the lobby is quiet, not because the discussion between them had lulled, but because Hanbin wasn’t exactly sure how to say goodbye. Not just goodbye, because Hanbin had something else to say, something he was supposed to be practicing the entire car ride there. Only, he had gotten a bit distracted by Hao’s jokes and stories instead. 

“All checked in?” Hanbin asks, trying to be nonchalant as he leans against his suitcase. He had no reason to stay in the lobby after he had gotten his key, but couldn’t bring himself to leave either. Hao nods, flashing his own silver card. Outside, a thin dusting of snow was visible through the wide glass windows of the hotel. It hadn’t been actively snowing as they drove on the slightly icy roads, but thick gray clouds hung over the Vancouver harbor. Perhaps Heeju had been right about the storm warning after all. 

“Yeah, and I told them about my suitcase too,” Hao replies. “I hope it arrives by tomorrow.” 

“I’m sure it will,” Hanbin shouldn’t make any guarantees, but there were at least three flights from Seoul to Vancouver each day. The bag should have no reason not to be delivered by the next morning. 

Running out of things to say, reasons to loiter, Hanbin tries to push through the fear, beating his anxiety back long enough to even express a fraction of the things he wanted to voice to the DJ. 

“I just wanted to say,” Hanbin has to get out the words before Hao walks away from him forever, “thank you.” 

“For what?” Hao tilts his head a bit as he asks the question, resembling a puppy more than a man. 

All the steam seems to deflate out of Hanbin at once, like those seven words took all the courage he had. Scraping the bottom of his heart, there was nothing left. All the lines he’d imagined himself saying if he ever had the chance to meet ZZZhang vanished the second it came time to actually speak them. He felt like a fan meeting his idol, so stunned that he couldn’t speak a word. But ZZZhang wasn’t an idol, he was Hao, and now that Hanbin met him for real, it felt awkward to confess his admiration in the same way he thought he could before. 

“Uh—” He stutters, scrambling to think of anything appropriate to say. “Just, thanks for keeping me company on the way here.”

(And every night before it, even if he couldn't say it yet.) 

“It was nice to meet you,” He finishes, a bit lamely. It’s not nearly enough to express everything that Hanbin wanted to say, but it would have to do for now. 

Hao cracks a smile, not seeming to catch Hanbin’s trepidation and inner turmoil, “It was nice to meet you too,  Hanbin.” Then, more hopeful, Hao asks, “Maybe I’ll see you around?” 

“I hope so,” he replies, smiling instead of voicing his thoughts out loud.

When Hanbin landed in Canada, he had worried that he would spend the week in the country alone, not knowing a single soul. Yet somehow, by some stroke of luck (or fate), he would get to share this city with the soul who seemed to know him best of all.