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Hao ungently shoves the bathroom door open in the middle of Taerae rinsing his face, and he does his best to pretend he doesn’t jump.
“Taerae-ah,” he announces, “I’m going out.”
“Okay?” Taerae’s bent down over the sink, his face and hands still wet, feeling just slightly embarrassed, and acutely aware of the puppy-eared headband he has on the top of his head.
“That’s an invitation,” Hao continues, looking very proud of himself. Then he turns around and walks away.
For the next few seconds, Taerae stands at a loss for words, dripping water down his shirt. When he finally snaps out of it and grabs his towel to wipe himself down, his cheeks are red and shiny in the mirror.
It’d just been him, Hao, and Hanbin left when they’d finished recording earlier. Late enough into the night, that when Taerae had peered out of the building’s windows, the street had been dim, all the shops closed, except for a singular bright 24 hour convenience store.
All of them hadn’t been talking. It had been the lethargy, from moving into their new dorms, practice, photoshoots, and being shuffled all around the country to film content — it had been, it is all a bit much. Taerae still has trouble wrapping his head around it sometimes, that he’s here and he’s finally debuting.
Standing in the carpark waiting for their manager, Taerae had been absently kicking at a stray piece of gravel when he'd noticed out of the corner of his eye, the bigger gap between him and Hao, compared to the one between Hao and Hanbin.
It’s expected though, he’d thought, looking at Hanbin’s hand tightly fisted on the ends of Hao’s hoodie. Ah, Taerae had smiled to himself, with a twisting in his stomach, that’s kind of sweet.
The car had pulled up in front of them, and on autopilot, he’d been about to open the front car door — leaving the back for his hyungs, of course, the respectful dongsaeng thing to do — but then suddenly he’d felt someone’s hand on his wrist, yanking him backwards and away. Vaguely he’d registered Hanbin making a sort of muffled oof! noise when they’d crashed into each other, Taerae tripping over his own two feet as a result of Hao’s vice-like grip on his arm.
The first thing about Hao that Taerae learns that day: Hao’s much stronger than he likes to act. He had landed on top of him, the two of them splayed horizontally across the back seat, legs tangled over each others'.
It was far from the first time Taerae had been made aware of his height difference with Hao, but in a position this, this, close, and in front of Hanbin no less, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head.
“Hyung,” Taerae had said, mortified, mouth somewhere dangerously close to Hao’s chest. For someone who gets cold easily, he’s so warm, Taerae had remembered thinking. He hadn’t been sure which hyung he’d been calling for, whether it’d been a question to Hao or some kind of apology to Hanbin.
There'd been a short pause before Hanbin closed the door, and Taerae had almost been able to see his shocked blinking, the ‘o’ of his mouth from behind them.
Hao had said nothing, only laughing a little before gently pushing him up and patting at his hair and shirt. It had done nothing to fix any of the messiness he'd created.
No one had said a word to each other the whole ride back.
There’s a playground area about a five minutes’ walk away from their dorm. They walk to it side by side, Hao pressing himself up close, so that their hands brush every now and then.
Taerae's thinking about the height difference thing again — he knows Hao is half a head taller than him, and he’s noticed before that his direct line of vision leads to just where Hao’s lips are. It’s not something he really likes letting himself dwell on.
They get there, and Hao takes a seat on a swing that’s clearly too low for his height, having to half-squat before his butt touches the seat. He beckons Taerae over to take the one next to him, leaving his hand out as a handlebar. Taerae laughs and takes it, lacing their fingers together, “very polite, hyung.”
Hao doesn’t let go of his hand even after Taerae is seated.
In spite of their height difference, Hao’s hand is noticeably smaller than his. The calluses on the tips of his left fingers make Taerae think of his own, both from years of loving a string instrument.
“Why are we here?” he asks.
"I just wanted to talk with you," Hao says. It’s casual, but Taerae’s fight or flight reflexes have been going off since the three hours ago when Hao had pulled him onto him in the car. There’s no way it’s just talking. There’s something up. Just, in the the same way him and Hanbin sometimes spend early mornings in the kitchen just eating breakfast.
“About?” Taerae asks, eyes not leaving their connected hands.
“Um.” It’s Hao’s turn to look slightly embarrassed, scuffing his shoes on the red rubber playground titles. It’s cute. “We fought. Kind of.”
Taerae doesn’t even need to ask who the ‘we’ he’s talking about is.
“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, though,” Hao says. “I really did just want to hang out, Taerae-ah.”
“Oh.” Taerae feels a bit bad now.
Hao kicks off, keeping his legs ramrod straight so he can actually swing in the kid-sized playset. Taerae doesn’t quite want to let go of his hand, so he joins him. He nearly tips himself over in his avail to speed up on his swing, making an undignified squawking noise as he tries not to fall over, and Hao laughs, little staccato notes in the night.
Eventually, they give up on trying to sync up, and settle for rocking themselves slowly, keeping their feet on the ground. One of Hao’s laces are undone, but Taerae doesn’t point it out, lest he decides he has to tie it back up.
“Let’s get to know each other better?” Hao starts. His hand is so warm. It should be uncomfortable, especially with the way the chain of the swing digs into Taerae’s right shoulder when he leans against it so he can sit upright and still hold hands with Hao without straining his arm, but it’s not. “What’s your favourite food?”
Taerae stares at him for a bit, the height of his nose bridge and the mole on his cheek. He takes a deep breath, feeling all over again like he’s holding his guitar in his uniform and auditioning, and starts. “There was this tteokbokki place outside my school…”
It turns into a long, long interview session. Taerae learns more things about Hao. He wanted blue hair in college, but it faded to an ugly green within a week. His favourite colour is blue, too, but Boys Planet conditioned him into liking pink things. He likes dogs more than cats.
“Just one last thing, though, hyung,” Taerae has to ask, before the curiosity kills him, “why me? Why am I the one here with you now?”
Hao pauses, turns to him, blinks. Then he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world, squeezing his hand, “because I like you?"
Taerae’s heart jumps. It’s not that kind of like, he knows, not the way he wants it to be. It’s different from the like he’s used to singing, the like in the romantic lyrics other people have written. But it’s, it’s. It’s something. It sounds like the start of something.
“Ah,” Taerae says. It comes out a little too loud in the quietness of the early morning, almost as loud as the rhythm of his own heartbeat in his ears, so the next part he whispers softly, just between the two of them.
“Then, I like you too.”