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Hanbin is eight the first time he falls in love.
Well, kind of. Hanbin is eight the first time he ever enters a dance studio. His little sister has just turned four and is in her first year of dance classes. Hanbin’s mom has made it a pretty big deal – She checked both of them out of school early to go get his sister a new outfit and a pair of dance shoes, took them for a shared strawberry bingsu from the ajumma down the road from their school.
The thing is, they walk in the studio for his little sister, but the music is loud in the speakers, and the lights are dim in some rooms, brighter in others, and the dance instructor lets Hanbin sit in on a junior musical theater class and he’s… Well, he’s enamored. He watches the way the other kids dance and play around the room, and he feels every emotion he thinks they’re supposed to be making him feel. He’s always been a reader, even as young as he is, and he loves the way he gets immersed into a story, and the dancers in front of him paint just as descriptive of an image.
The teacher asks Hanbin if he’d like to learn the combination she’s teaching today, and he knows what a combination is because they do them in taekwondo, too, and he’s pretty good at that, so he figures (read: hopes) that he will be good at this, too.
Soon, Hanbin is enrolled in a few recreational dance classes, but his mom makes him stay in taekwondo, too, ushers him to and from his school functions and dance practice and taekwondo, but every day he spends in the studio is a day he feels closer to dance and farther away from much else. He’s eight years old, and he finds a home in a dance studio, comfort in the dim lights and a teacher who has believed in him from day one.
Two recreational dance classes turns into four, turns into eomma, please, I don't want to go to taekwondo anymore, can I please just take another dance class, turns into a weekend cover dance group with some of his middle school friends, turns into just one competition in Jeju, turns into being a dance major, turns into winning competitions with his group, winning competitions on his own, and soon, it's all Hanbin knows.
Hanbin is eight when he falls in love with dancing –– with the way his bare feet press into the dirty floor of a studio, ground him to the Earth, the way it feels like the mirrors welcome him home, the way that he can tell a story through movement, can make his mom cry with just a two minute performance. He is eight years old when he falls in love with dancing, and is seventeen when he realizes he will probably never love something else like he loves this.
-
Hanbin has just about forty five seconds to get his shit together before he walks out on stage in front of dozens of boys he's never met before. (and a few he has met a few times. And Matthew, who he has just cried after watching perform from his birds eye view backstage, which is why he is trying desperately to pat his makeup dry, a makeup noona somewhere to his left telling him he's got thirty seconds, and he's almost nervous, but––) He has no time for nerves now, just enough time to count down fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, until it's time to go on stage to perform a song he could do backwards in his sleep at this point. Five, four, three, the next five minutes could be his make or break. He tries to rationalize with himself. He knows he can dance, has never been more sure of himself, he's spent the better part of his life dancing, but ––
But being an idol didn't work for him before. He gave up once. Being a back-up dancer was fun, it was nice, but Hanbin wants to shine, and that's what he's here for. He sniffles one last time, wipes the last stray tear off of his cheek, and walks onto the stage, lights blinding, and he's hot, but he flies through his routine, charms the pants off the mentors, and then pretends like he and Lip J have not actively had beers together before, because that's what he's supposed to do, and then it's over.
The first few weeks of training go like this, and Hanbin is having fun, but every once in a while he'll remember this is a competition, and these people want the same thing he wants, just as bad. It's a little bit lonely, and maybe that's because Hanbin won't talk to anyone about it. Not even Matthew has heard his worries, because he can't stomach burdening anyone here, not when Matthew has left a group he was going to debut with to try to make it with Hanbin. He can't ruin this for him just because of his own silly anxieties.
It's just that the other trainees are good, and Hanbin is intimidated, a little bit, but he tries not to let it show.
It goes well for a while, until they reach the first evaluation, and he is partnered with Zhang Hao to be the dual center, the killing part, in the signal song. Zhang Hao, who if you ask Hanbin, is easily his biggest competition. It makes him even more nervous when the staff tells them they'll be filming a little bit of an acting piece together for the VCR footage.
They're standing in the dance practice room after hours with a handful of various staff members, and Hanbin's jaw goes slack. He can dance. He thinks maybe he can sing. He can make a friend of anyone he meets. He can cook (kind of. Don't ask Matthew if he agrees). He can read a very long book in twenty four hours. He knows the first thirty six numbers of pi. But one thing he decidedly cannot do yet is––
It's so stupid. But he cannot for the life of him look Zhang Hao in the eyes.
Truthfully, Zhang Hao can't look at him for long either. Hanbin assumes he's just shy like that, tries to rationalize that he is not like that with the other trainees by telling himself he mostly sees him with the Yuehua trainees anyway, but. But. Personally, on his own accord, Hanbin has what is unfortunately the biggest, worst, most chest constricting, middle school serious, gut wrenching crush he has ever had. In all twenty two years of his life. Probably a little ridiculous, considering he's known him for all of maybe three weeks at this point, but… Oh, well.
His heart beats ten fold when they remind them of the choreography to the signal song. For the first time, they see the center parts laid out in front of them, and Hanbin's stomach erupts with nerves -- fireworks and bubble guts feel the same, all the works cooking something fiercely while he fumbles over his thoughts. How is he going to ever look at Zhang Hao for longer than, like, three seconds at a time?
-
Easily, he realizes. It's a few days later and they have filmed the VCR, and are practicing the first performance (which is thankfully not going to be a live one), and they're crouched together on their moving platform and they've somehow speed run past the awkward in between phase, and Hao nuzzles his head on Hanbin's as they descend, and Hanbin actually giggles (when Matthew asks him about it later, he tells him that it was not a giggle, and was a very normal, chill laugh. Composed, even.) at the feeling of Hao's forehead on his cheek.
It quickly became easy to look Hao in the eyes. Easy enough that Hanbin finds it's all he really wants to do. After their first few meetings and practices together, he came to the realization that the other half to his whole had been hiding away from him in China for the majority of his life. They're the antithesis of opposites, and Hanbin had never even considered the possibility that he might see so much of himself in another person. Hao gets him in a way he's not sure anyone else has yet. Where Hanbin fell in love with dance, Zhang Hao fell in love with music. Found a solace in it, a second home.
Hanbin had mentioned wanting to be a teacher, if this doesn't work out; at that, Zhang Hao had smiled, shook his head, and muttered a quiet me, too. He wears dedication on his sleeve just like Hanbin does. He wants to debut so badly he aches with it, he told Hanbin once, to which he shared the sentiment. They both feel the need to keep a front for the other trainees, to be the strong pillars they can rely on, but at the end of the day –– Hanbin has come to realize he and Zhang Hao have found the same comfort in each other.
The first month or so goes by like that –– with Hanbin stuck to his side, learning everything he can about his hyung, sharing just as much back, keeping the playing field even. Where Zhang Hao asks Hanbin how to say something in Korean, how to pronounce this word or that word, Hanbin does the same. He asks Zhang Hao how to say I'm tired, or Do you want to snuggle, in Mandarin, because it's easier to be vulnerable in a language that is not his own. (Later, he asks Zhang Hao how to say I'm lucky I met you, and his hyung flushes pretty on his ears, but tells him how, and in Korean he says, We are pretty lucky, and they smile together.)
There is a shift in the air during the second mission. Finally, Hanbin gets to perform with Zhang Hao. One of the perks of being first place meant he got to pick where he wanted to go, and he would have gone wherever Hao went, but he's glad he chose Tomboy. It's a little different than what Hanbin has shown on the show so far, but a little closer to what he's the most comfortable doing off stage. It's weird though –– Trying to meld together Just Hanbin, who is a professional dancer without a care in the world about his image, not an idol-to-be, and Sung Hanbin, who has carried the position one title the entire length of the show so far, who is so careful with what parts of himself he shares with the world.
So, it's a little intimidating, to say the least. Trying to find that middle ground is tricky, and honestly frustrating. He feels like this should be easier, like he should be able to snap back into that personality, back into his personality, the one he has compartmentalized to the back of his brain for later, not now, you can be that again some day, he reminds himself late at night. But not now.
Unsurprisingly, after having tucked himself in the corner of the staircase where he thinks he might find some solace, he is joined by a few other trainees. None of them are the face he really wants to see, but he's grateful for them, anyway. Wumuti rubs him on the back, and Hanbin feels stupid for being so worked up, but a silent sob wrecks his system, and he can't remember who was here with them before, but they're gone now.
"Hanbinnie," Wumuti's frown is audible when he speaks. "What's got you so upset?" He can feel fingers tracing up and down his spine, comforting, barely there, but enough to tether him to planet Earth in that moment.
"The song choice, I––" He sucks in a deep breath, a hiccup, "I'm kind of scared."
Wumuti hums, understanding. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
No words really need to be said between them, Hanbin knows Wumuti understands. "Yeah. I feel like I don't know how to be… How to be like that here." Not that there's anything wrong with that, he feels the need to say, but. He doesn't. It makes him feel a little sick, he hasn't felt this way about himself since he was young, but. There will be so many eyes on him, and he's worked to make an image for himself, and he's done so well. He's so scared to show too much, to be too him, and then lose the support of… Well. Everyone. He knows there's a chance. Just because his parents love and support him being gay, doesn't mean all of the whole world would.
It doesn't even necessarily mean all of the trainees would. (Most of them would, though, he suspects, tries to remind himself in the darkest of moments. Most of them would understand. Most of them are braver than him, though.)
"You don't have to be like anything you don't want to be. Everyone loves you, I promise," he continues talking to Hanbin, voice soft and soothing in the late night hours, his whisper echoing with the acoustics of the empty stairwell, but Hanbin hears shuffling down the hallway and stiffens.
"Hey," Wumuti taps his back thrice, must feel the way Hanbin tenses. "S'just Zhang Hao. I had them go get him for you."
His eyes widen, almost comical, and he sputters. "You didn't––" His voice cracks, and he tries to clear his throat inconspicuously. "You didn't need to do that. He was probably asleep. I don't––"
"Bin-ah," His hyung's voice floats through the air like a sweet melody, immediately comforting him, immediately telling him to stop worrying. "I can take it from here. Thank you, Wumuti-hyung," he knows Zhang Hao is speaking to the other, now, and Wumuti pats on his back again, and tells him a quiet goodnight.
Hanbin never lifts his head from the place it rests on his knees, but he still feels Hao slide down next to him, and his shoulders relax when the other boy wraps an arm around his shoulder, tugs him in, and just kind of rocks them.
"You don't have to talk. I'm just here with you, whatever you need." He lets the words settle in his belly, lets them spread warmth and comfort through all of his limbs. He doesn't want to talk, really, not about this. He just wants to listen to Zhang Hao.
"Can you tell me a story?"
The taller boy hums, and his head is resting on Hanbin's, so he feels the vibration of it more than he hears it. "About what?"
He thinks hard about the question. There are so many things he wants to know about Zhang Hao, stories he wants to have the privilege of hearing. He can't decide on anything, really, and can't really tell him everything, so he settles. "About you."
It's vague, still, and Hao huffs out a laugh, and it tickles Hanbin's ear when the air puffs against it.
"A story about me…"
Hanbin hums noncommittally, and Hao shifts then around on the staircase until his back is against the wall. He pulls Hanbin with him, so he lays back, his hyung’s chest pressed flush against him. Zhang Hao wraps his arms around Hanbin’s waist, so Hanbin writes silly little things he’d never say out loud in sloppy handwriting on the top of his forearm with his fingertip. Things like I like the way your voice sounds when it’s just for me.
The sound of his hyung’s voice telling him stories about his life back home in China comforts him. For a while, he just listens, letting his voice calm him, but he's soon tuned back in to the story now, the cadence of Hao's voice is not unlike that of a lullaby, wrapping around Hanbin like cashmere, .
“So, I didn’t start playing violin at eight, but my cousin had been playing all our lives. I went to her recital and I swear I fell in love then. Maybe that’s silly. Do you know what I mean, though? My parents wanted me to focus on school more than the arts, but I’d play her violin in secret sometimes. I just loved it. I knew I was good at it, too.”
Hanbin’s breath stutters. He thinks back to being eight years old and in love with the dance studio. “I know what you mean,” he murmurs, a sleepy lilt to his voice that even he isn’t blind to.
But if Zhang Hao notices, he says nothing. Just starts to trace the hem of Hanbin’s shirt. He shivers at the touch, and the tips of his ears color pink — He hopes the other boy can’t feel the goosebumps taking shape on his skin, but he knows that might be a naive thought. Again, though, Zhang Hao says nothing about it.
“I didn’t really get to start pursuing dance or music until I was so much older, but all it did was confirm what I knew. I loved it. I didn’t consider being an idol until I met Rui, though. I showed up as a trainee pretty stupidly, to be honest. But I felt like I had a real friend in him…” He trails off, the tip of his finger dipping just below Hanbin’s shirt. It’s cold against his skin, and Hanbin fights another shiver.
“I still wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing coming here, though. I mostly wanted to support the kids. They were so excited when the company asked us about it. I couldn’t tell them no. So, I came too. I sort of felt like I had to be there like that for them. Like they needed someone older. Even though most of them trained longer than me.”
Hyung, Hanbin traced the syllables over Hao’s skin, connecting the characters by the freckles on his arms. Hao-ge, he knows his Chinese is messy, even when it’s invisible. But.
“And then I met you,” he hears the smile in Hao’s voice, and is immediately disappointed that he can’t see it. “So, I guess you could say I’m glad I came.”
Something warm settles low in his belly, and it's a feeling Hanbin is not unfamiliar with –– but is not one he has ever shared with someone else. It bubbles up, up, up, threatening to spill over. If he were just a little more lucid, if he didn't feel like everything he is working for was at risk, everything Zhang Hao is working for. He tucks the feeling back in the far corner of his mind, but holds it close to his heart. It's tender, he thinks, a voice quiet in the back of his mind. Love, he thinks, it could be love someday, probably, if he'll let it.
-
Things start to change pretty quick after that night in the stairwell. If they couldn't keep their hands off each other before then, it gets impossibly more difficult to stay apart. Whenever he can, Hanbin finds himself holding his hand, silently admiring how perfectly they fit together. He rubs his cheek on Zhang Hao's one day, repeats a phrase Ollie had taught him in Mandarin, and feels successful when the older boy gets flustered, his cheeks a pretty pink, and Hanbin thinks –– oh.
The color pink that his hyung flushes is so pretty, and he grows fond of seeing it. Of making it appear.
They're tired one night late after practice, aching and sore and full of ramen. Hair still wet from his shower, Hanbin falls face first into Zhang Hao's bed. (They are not roommates this round, but… There's so few trainees now, and he's lonely, and he just kind of wants to snuggle. Whatever.) It's not long before the other boy returns from his shower to find Hanbin laying on his stomach, face pressed into Zhang Hao's pillow. It smells like him. Hanbin smiles, and smiles again when he hears him enter the room and shut the door behind him.
Magically, they've got the room to themselves right now, and he begs his brain to stop feeling nervous because this is Zhang Hao, and he sees him every day, but the unmistakable feeling of butterflies in his stomach is not entirely unwelcome. He tries to give them space to flutter, but the air gets knocked out of chest when Zhang Hao joins him on the bed.
Or. Well, he just sits on Hanbin's back, his fingers immediately taking purchase on Hanbin's shoulders.
"Funny seeing you here," is how Zhang Hao greets him, presses his fingers into a knot on the back of Hanbin's neck.
The filter from Hanbin's brain to mouth is nowhere to be found, so he just murmurs into the pillow. "Missed you," he twists his head, hoping to catch sight of Zhang Hao, who must catch on to what Hanbin wants. He leans down, and he starts massaging his shoulders in earnest then.
"I saw you an hour ago," his tone is amused, a little fond, and Hanbin's insides flip flop, twist around, and he shrugs, embarrassed.
"Okay. And? I missed you. So, here I am. I don't hear you complaining." Once he starts going, he can't stop, and Zhang Hao just huffs a laugh out, and his teeth show for a brief moment, and Hanbin wishes he could take a picture, but he promises to himself to never forget the smile that he has decided is his and the way it looks when the other boy sends it in his direction.
"You're right," His fingers press masterfully into Hanbin's sore muscles, digs his palms into his neck, drags them down his harms slowly, "I'm not complaining. I like to have you in bed with me."
There has never been a brighter shade of red on another person's face, Hanbin thinks in that moment.
So, it's an accident when it starts. Hanbin spends most nights in Zhang Hao's bed, or vice versa, and they massage each other until the knots in their muscles are loose, until they're sleepy and flushed in the face, and they tuck together in the bed and fall asleep like that.
It's not a problem or anything, but Hanbin recognizes what's happening to him, the feelings clear as day. The butterflies have taken a permanent residence in his body, and he finds himself constantly beaming under Zhang Hao's gaze, feeling accomplished when he successfully makes the other boy blush. He recognizes the way he seeks him out when he's feeling uncertain or scared, or just lonely. He has only known a feeling like this one other time.
The first time Hanbin fell in love was when he was eight years old, in a dimly lit dance studio. He loved the way he looked in the mirror and could see his body moving, telling a story, doing exactly what he wanted it to do. He loved the way he could dance for hours and hours on end, on good days or bad. His longest, closest friend is dancing. His first love, he knows this, and had come to terms with never finding anything else in this life that understands him like dance does. Had grown comfortable with the idea that he would never understand anything or anyone else the way he understands dance, either.
But Hanbin is twenty two now, and he recognizes what is happening to him for just the second time in his life.
He's just one of what is now twenty eight other boys, and soon eighteen, and then hopefully nine. They're all here for the same reason. He came here to debut just like the rest of them, but he is not naive to the course his heart has taken.
He is not naive to the way his eyes instinctively search for Zhang Hao upon entering a room, to the way his body aches for him on the few nights he does try to sleep in a single, twin-sized bed that is only made for one but feels too empty when it's just him, to the way his shaking hands immediately still when a smaller hand holds his. He is not naive to the way his heart beats in overtime, a steady, quickening rhythm, to the way sitting on the edge of Zhang Hao's bed at the end of the day feels a little bit like going home.
They're pressed side to side in Hanbin's bed tonight, and tomorrow is the next elimination, and they're both nervous, although they know they're unlikely to go home this week. It never gets easier. Part of him worries that each elimination is going to be the one that takes him away from Zhang Hao, or that takes Zhang Hao away from him. He's realized, somewhere along the way that was once a dream of just debuting here has become a dream of debuting beside Hao. He doesn't want it otherwise. It's silly, he knows, and a little bit scary of a thought to have about someone you've only known for a few months. But in his heart knows it is right, and trusts that Zhang Hao is there with him.
Their hands are laced together under the sheets, and the boy next to him is already asleep, mouth open and snoring lightly. Hanbin is so endeared that it chokes him up.
He is twenty two the second time he falls in love. Zhang Hao holds his hand in front of everyone like he doesn't care what they think, and he blows him kisses on television, and massages his back almost nightly and never complains, lets Hanbin massage him too, lets him draw shapes into his skin late into the night. He is twenty two and thinks, what if, maybe, this whole time, he was wrong –– No, he knows he was wrong. He has loved dance for far longer than he's loved anything other than his parents and sister. Zhang Hao snores next to him, and his nose wrinkles, and Hanbin reaches up to trace his fingers around the shape of Hao's lips.
This, he knows, is love. It's the same safety and comfort he only has found once before. Zhang Hao cracks his eye open, then, and smiles something sleepy, and Hanbin wants to kiss him. Right here, and right now, on this bed made for one. He knows the cameras will capture it, though, and he swears to himself, the day they're off this show, whether or not the universe gifts them the privilege of debuting together, Hanbin will kiss him then.
Zhang Hao parts his mouth, and Hanbin's thumb catches. He drags the tip of the finger down to Zhang Hao's chin, holds him between his pointer finger and thumb, stroking his skin softly, mapping the feeling of him under his fingers. This, Hanbin knows unequivocally, is what it feels like to be in love. It feels like the first time all over again when he gets a toothy grin thrown in his direction before the other boy drifts back to sleep.