Chapter Text
How did they fall in love again?
There are times that Zhang Hao dreaded how conflicted of a person he is.
Growing up he had always been showered with compliments, that nurtured him to be very confident, he wanted to express himself to the fullest, wanted to glow and burn on stage like a dashing young blaze.
But on the inside, he was also very fretful, always on edge, and would be easily very upset if he ended up delivering a less than perfect performance during self-reflections.
This is how Zhang Hao was during the rehearsal of the signal song duet dance. There were so many good ideas coming out of him during rehearsals, and he was trying to explain them to Sung Hanbin with his jumpy and not-exactly-comfortable Korean, being a worry wart over the possibility of Sung Hanbin not understanding what he was trying to say.
But Sung Hanbin said to a very conflicted Zhang Hao, "I understand, Zhang Hao hyung, thank you for working so hard for this."
That's how they ended up falling in love.
How did they fall in love again?
On the day of the very first Boys Planet live broadcast, their fellow trainees were waiting in line to introduce themselves to the Instagram live, one of the few treasured opportunities to showcase themselves again before the broadcast started.
Sung Hanbin was going over his PR in his head again, when he suddenly felt Zhang Hao's subtly shaking hand on his shoulder.
Sung Hanbin grinned and looked back to see Zhang Hao gazing at the trainee who’s up first, almost zoning out -- he seemed to be unaware that his hand was shaking with pre-broadcast nerves.
"Zhang Hao hyung, what are you gonna do for your PR?"
Zhang Hao recited his PR script to Sung Hanbin.
"Not gonna show a little talent?"
"Ah right… I’m not sure, is there even enough time?"
"I’ll teach you something real quick."
Sung Hanbin took out his airpods from his pocket and gave one to Zhang Hao, gently harmonizing along with it when the line "You are my starlight, you are my sunshine" started playing.
"These two lines should be easy enough – by the way, can you also do something with me?"
After their broadcast recording ended, Sung Hanbin downloaded and saved the insta live replay at home, as a rather precious record worth replaying over and over.
Sung Hanbin, in order to ease Zhang Hao out of his nerves, taught him his favorite song, and then gave him half of his own exclusive finger heart for them to complete it together.
That’s how they ended up falling in love.
How did they fall in love again?
During the signal song evaluation, Sung Hanbin was secretly worried that Zhang would end up passing out.
On top of putting his soul into practicing the signal song and choreo, he was also taking care of his G group little brothers that fell ill. When he wasn’t filming in front of the cameras, he always looked bothered with his brows locked into a knotted frown.
After the Group G evaluation and Signal Song Centre selection, Zhang Hao came to Sung Hanbin in hasty but jaunty steps. "Our staff-nim told me that Master Baek complimented me on the little trick I put into my dance!" Zhang Hao cheerily showed Sung Hanbin the small "Me plus you" thumbs up dance design.
"Do you want to do this trick together with me?"
Sung Hanbin smiled and shook his head: "If we end up doing it together, people won't know that it's your special little trick. We'll get to do it some time else."
Do you know why we’d be the ones dancing side by side?
It's because when you shine to your fullest next to me, I’ll be shining brighter too.
That’s how they ended up falling in love.
How did they fall in love again?
When all the trainees gathered in the theatre to watch the first broadcast, Sung Hanbin would always be subconsciously looking for Zhang Hao on screen. Sitting together with his fellow Chinese Yuehua trainees, Zhang Hao seemed to be a lot more talkative without the language barrier, despite being already relatively fluent with Korean.
And after looking at them chat in their mother tongue, Sung Hanbin was very grateful for the staff that added the translated Korean subtitles so he’d know what exactly they’re saying.
Sung Hanbin was sitting next to Sunmi sunbae throughout the whole broadcast, he had to stay very composed, even though he saw Zhang Hao on the screen cheering in awe after his performance, asking "why" “why” anxiously after he was awarded only three stars, Sung Hanbin could not bring himself to look at Zhang Hao who was one aisle and one row away as it would be way too obvious.
Sung Hanbin waited and waited, very patiently, and finally found an opportunity at the end when the ranking was announced. He quickly glanced to the back left and caught a very relieved Zhang Hao, after seeing both his own name at 7th and Hanbin’s name at 1st.
How I long to celebrate with you, upon see our names on the same screen, I am truly beyond happy.
That's how they ended up falling in love.
How did they fall in love again?
The day before the actual signal stage shooting, Zhang Hao was rather surprised to be gifted a cup of Ice Americano by Sung Hanbin.
“It’s from my mom’s café!” He said. Zhang Hao was feeling overwhelmingly flattered and took a big sip of gratitude, then started frowning uncontrollably over how bitter it was.
"Yup, bitter, but isn’t that kind of painful?" Sung Hanbin pointed to Zhang Hao's red, somewhat purple ears. "It’ll work better than the elastic band, trust me.”
Only now did Zhang Hao remember to touch his own ears—in order to reduce morning face swellings he tied an elastic band to his ears, haven’t taken it off since, and now that he’s had his ear strapped for so long his sensations have been numbed after the restricted circulation. If Sung Hanbin hadn’t reminded him of that, he would've almost forgot that his ears even existed.
(TMI: apparently tightening the ears can stimulate the muscles around the ears, relax the masseter muscles, and then achieve the effect of face-lifting)
"You’ll have a cup tomorrow too if you need." Sung Hanbin grabbed the small elastic band from Zhang Hao's hand before he left.
That's how they ended up falling in love.
How did they fall in love again?
Zhang Hao asked Sung Hanbin one day when they were away from the cameras: "What do you think would happen if neither of us make the debut lineup?"
"Did I tell you that if I weren’t going to be a trainee, I would probably be a dance teacher?"
"Oh wow -- I'd probably go back to being a music teacher on my end, too."
"That's wonderful."
"What's wonderful about it?" Zhang Hao frowned, "you do realize that you’ll probably never see me again."
"I'll have my students, you'll have your students, and they'll probably meet each other here on Boys Planet too."
"And then what?" Zhang Hao raised his eyebrows, curious as to what Hanbin has to say.
Sung Hanbin smiled gently. "I will definitely get my students to learn Chinese first, so that they'll be able to help your students -- I wouldn't want them having such a hard time like you guys."
That’s how they ended up falling in love.