Chapter Text
hanbin still remembered the feeling of the final stage. it felt like heaven and hell entwined into one, there were thousands of smiling faces screaming his name and then 9 boys on stage who cried so hard they thought they might never stop and when it all ended he was empty.
it was so painful, the fact that he’d thrown everything he had to give into making this group the best that it could possibly be and now that was suddenly it. obviously he’d known that it was coming but knowing it and facing it were two entirely different things and hanbin had never been good at accepting things that he didn’t want.
none of them had slept on that last night, yujin had been the one to suggest it and like always no one could ever say no to him. he’d said something about spending every last second together until there were no seconds left to spend and although they still all sat together in the lounge of their dorm at midnight, the tick of the clock sounded more like a death knell.
hanbin wasn’t sure if he was the only one who felt it until he looked over to his left and saw hao staring back at him with the same expression. perhaps that was the worst part of it all for him, not being there to look after yujin felt awful, not being there for gyuvin to lay his worries on felt awful, not being there to help matthew when he was homesick felt awful but by far the worst feeling was the thought of not spending every day with hao.
hanbin had long since accepted that he was in love with their centre.
it was the simple things at first, how beautiful he looked when he glided the bow of his violin over the strings, how elegant but powerful his dance moves were, how heartfelt he was with every word he spoke but it soon became the intricate things too. now it was the way he silently left a zero cola on the dining table as a sign that he wanted hanbin to rest, it was the way that these days he never left the practice room until hanbin finished despite always wanting to get home early, it was the way he never questioned hanbin when he crawled into his bed at ungodly hours because he couldn’t sleep. he loved every single part of him.
maybe the worst part of it all would be that hao would never know.
it just seemed cruel, hanbin thought as he looked over at the older, to say this to him on their final night. he didn’t want to ruin hao’s memories of the group and especially of him, maybe it was selfish but hanbin had never gotten the chance to be selfish since being leader and even if he would have to live with this aching feeling forever he would do it so that hao was happy.
so he never spoke of it, not when they packed their things into boxes, not when they stood hand in hand staring at their empty living room, not when they shared a tearful last hug. hanbin never spoke a word of it when he received a text from hao saying he couldn’t handle everything anymore and was going to return to china to live out his life as a teacher, he never spoke a word of it as he turned up to the airport at 4:30am to hug hao goodbye.
then he found himself 3 years later having barely spoken a word to hao at all for years.
he knew how he was doing, hanbin was still in regular contact with yujin who, just like him, had downloaded wechat to stay in contact with hao. hanbin was thankful that the younger never asked questions when he would ask about how hao was doing, whether he was happy, whether he’d found someone.
it was those questions that plagued hanbin the most.
within the three years or so since he’d seen hao, hanbin’s feelings hadn’t diminished in the slightest. of course, he’d had people ask him out, being an idol was just like that; even when he was still with the group people would approach him or one of the other members in the hall at a music show and ask them on a date. a few members had said yes one or two times but hanbin had always let them down with the kindest rejection he could possibly muster up.
he’d asked again about hao that day, slipped it into conversation like an afterthought or a joke rather than something that had been eating him alive.
how is hao doing? has he suddenly got a marriage and three kids that i don’t know about?
even after reading over the message hanbin noticed how sad and desperate he sounded. he knew that after all their time together and despite his young age, yujin could probably see straight through him. he’d always been a smart kid who was very in tune with his own emotions and those of others and hanbin knew in his heart that yujin could probably tell what the intention of his messages were.
no came the response followed by hanbin’s monthly sigh of relief.
i’ll tell you if anything changes hyung
suddenly the relief vanished and hanbin just felt embarrassed. he expected a final blow of hyung please stand up but it (thankfully) never came.
—
the next reminder of hao came a few days later in the form of a news article hanbin spotted while scrolling through his timeline on the twitter account he wasn’t supposed to have. he stared at in confusion for a few minutes before his phone pinged with a message from matthew consisting of the link to the tweet and three question marks. before hanbin could reply his phone rang.
“hyung,” came yujin’s voice immediately down the phone, “did matthew hyung also send you that tweet? is it real?”
hanbin sighed deeply. how did a news company find out about a zerobaseone reunion before zerobaseone did?
“i don’t know,” he replied, “i heard a rumour from one of my staff that it was being considered but i have no idea whether that’s all that the news company have heard too or not.”
yujin went silent then before speaking up again, “i hope it’s true, i want us all to be together again.”
the simple words from their youngest member had hanbin feeling as though his heart was breaking into two, “me too,” he admitted honestly after a few seconds, “i’ll ask my manager and see if my company know anything okay?”
“okay hyung, please let me know because ricky hyung is asking me too because gyuvin hyung is asking him because matthew hyung sent him the tweet and-“
“it’s okay yujin i’ll let you all know.”
as soon as the call ended hanbin allowed himself to wonder whether hao was one of the seemingly millions of people also blowing up yujin’s phone.
—
it turned out that the rumours were actually true. hanbin’s manager hadn’t been able to confirm much that night but by the beginning of the next week hanbin was pulled into a meeting room and informed of a special stage at mama that they would all be performing in. to say he was ecstatic was an understatement, in the heat of the moment all of his nerves disappeared and hanbin was just desperate to be part of the group again, to re-establish himself not as sung hanbin but as sung hanbin, leader of zerobaseone.
it was only when he got added into a group chat by gyuvin that night that the reality of the situation really dawned upon him. of course, the first message he saw was a simple one from ricky to hao hyung, are you participating?
hanbin’s breath hitched as he waited for the reply. it came almost immediately.
of course i am
hanbin found that his monthly sigh of relief had come all too early.
-
the next few weeks were chaos. the group had met for the first time in nearly two whole years, it wasn’t perfect, hao and ricky were beamed in from china and paris respectively on video calls. ricky was attending paris fashion week for yves saint laurent while hao looked worn out from where he sat seemingly in a school office on his break. hanbin couldn’t help but stare at him and he was glad to be able to get away with it considering that the laptop was angled just so hao couldn’t see him. jiwoong, however, had definitely caught on to hanbin’s antics if their post meeting conversation was anything to go by.
“nothing has changed for you, has it?” jiwoong questioned as he poured himself a drink from the coffee machine just as he had everyday during the group’s existence. it felt so normal and soothing that hanbin almost wanted to cry.
“not at all,” he breathed out, knowing what he was admitting, knowing the weight of his words but still sharing them with jiwoong like they were the only thing he’d ever known at all.
“why didn’t you stay in contact with him?” jiwoong asked next and hanbin’s eyes widened a little at the question, “you did with everyone else so why not with hao?”
hanbin didn’t really know how to answer him mainly because he didn’t even know why himself. at first they’d texted every second of every day as though their lives depended on it. hanbin would send hao a practice room selfie while hao would reply with clips of him playing violin and questions to hanbin about how it sounded or if he knew which song he was playing. yet after around 6 months the gaps between their messages got longer and longer and hanbin felt like he was trying too hard to keep their conversation going, to find things left to say and maybe that was how it ended.
“we just stopped,” hanbin admitted and really that was it, no spectacular fight, no hard feelings just a soft, mutual ending.
“why?” jiwoong asked again, “he asks me about you all of the time you know? it’s always hi hyung how is hanbin doing, hi hyung is hanbin overworking himself he looked tired on stage today, hi hyung can you take hanbin out for a meal on my behalf.” the older began rambling and hanbin couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“he really does that?” hanbin asked and jiwoong nodded quickly, “i had no idea.”
“and he has no idea that you use yujin to check in on him,” jiwoong responded, “it would be so much easier if you’d just talk to each other instead.”
“i-“ hanbin began but lost his words, “i can’t just pop up out of nowhere.”
“why not?” jiwoong spoke back as if it was easy, “it will be much easier to get the awkwardness out of the way now than when we’re all trapped in a practice room in a week’s time.”
right hanbin thought. jiwoong had made a great point.
“okay, i’ll text him tonight.”
“promise?”
“promise.”
—
hanbin hated promises.
he was a people pleaser and that was one of his few flaws. it came in handy sometimes like when he was on boys planet and people pleasing was the most important thing for him to do or like when he went on variety shows or tried to get the regulars in his mom’s cafe to like him but this time, this time he hated it.
as a people pleaser, hanbin could never break a promise and because of that he had now typed out and deleted exactly 27 different messages to hao.
the first one had seemed great, a simple hao! we haven’t talked in so long, i hope you’re doing well! but then hanbin had wondered if that sounded like he was blaming hao and scrapped it. then had come the hi! i’m excited to finally see you again! but then hanbin had wondered if hao would instantly know that he was in love with him. then had come the nine different versions of long time no talk, long time no see until hanbin thought that it had been too long since he’d bashed his head on a wall and cried himself to sleep and that led to 9pm.
at 9pm hanbin was sat texting jiwoong lamenting about how he literally can’t do this, i’m gonna say something weird and he’ll hate me for the rest of eternity and that was when a text came. hanbin had almost dropped his phone when he saw it, the dolphin emoji listed at the top of his screen meant that it could only have been from one person.
hanbin! we haven’t talked in so long, i hope you’re doing well!
unbelievable.
a dam broke then and an hour later hanbin was grinning at his phone like a poor man who’d just won the lottery as hao told him all about the dog he’d just adopted and sent him pictures to prove it. the younger had forgotten the feeling of his heart racing as much as it was in that moment and he found himself getting high on the feeling. he never wanted to let hao leave his life again.
—
on the night before their first practice day hanbin found himself physically unable to sleep. he’d tossed and turned an infinite number of times, he’d counted hundreds of sheep, he’d listened to asmr and countless soft piano music, 99% will fall asleep videos and hanbin just hated being the 1% so badly.
it was 3:47am when he finally picked his phone up in defeat.
he didn’t do much at first, only scrolling through his twitter account and reading some of the reactions from the fans about the group reunion. it was, admittedly, odd to see people referring to themselves as zeroses again. he’d gotten so used to seeing fans of matthew’s solo works or yuehua’s new group or people who swore that one day hao would come back to the idol industry.
hanbin almost laughed aloud when he realised that he was thinking of hao yet again. after a while, he opened up wechat and found himself scrolling through the seemingly thousands of messages that they had sent to each other over the years. waking up in the morning and seeing the little dolphin emoji on his lock screen had fast become the only thing keeping hanbin going after the group had disbanded and when it all stopped the emptiness had felt as if it was swallowing him whole.
at 4:15am his phone pinged, hanbin jolted a little not realising that his eyes had shut and he was finally beginning to doze off. the notification, however, woke him up faster than anything he’d ever known in his life.
hanbin, why are you awake it’s so late
hao had messaged him. hao had messaged him.
i can’t sleep, i keep thinking about the reunion, is it the same for you?
hanbin waited for what felt like eternity for the reply but in reality it was only a few seconds.
yeah, same for me, do you want to call?
hanbin’s heart fell into his stomach. it was so odd that a few years ago hearing hao’s voice was a daily occurrence for him, he could wake up every morning and see hao’s face, he could walk into the living room and cuddle up next to the older or hold his hand or do his daily routine next to him so seamlessly it was like they’d never been apart.
yet now he hadn’t heard hao’s voice speaking directly to him in well over a year and even the thought of it was enough to send his dormant heart racing.
it took a whole minute of deep breathing and the most steely nerves he could muster for hanbin to finally text hao back.
sure! my voice might be a little croaky though, i had a lot of vocal practice today
the incoming call came almost instantly after he’d sent it.
“hi,” hao’s shaky voice erupted from his phone speaker like the first drops of rain after a drought.
“hi,” hanbin replied a little dazedly.
the older laughed a little then, softly and breathily and hanbin felt his cheeks flushing. he’d do anything to see hao’s face right now, his hair would be fluffy and messy, eyes a little red and cheeks flushed prettily. when hao was at his most natural he was at his most beautiful and hanbin kind of hated the fact that he’d robbed himself of that sight for so long.
“what’s got you all worried?” came the question that knocked hanbin from his stupor. he froze for a minute, half because he didn’t quite know how to explain himself and half because of how hao’s voice sounded so comforting.
hanbin felt like crying, he felt like every hardship he had faced since the group’s disbandment was rushing back to him, every setback, every injury, every night he spent awake worrying that hao might never ask him a question like that again. yet here he was, less than 24 hours away from seeing hao again and he’d just asked those words in that voice and hanbin felt his heart begin to soar.
“there’s so many things,” he answered as measuredly as he could and hao hummed from the other end of the line just to show that he was listening, that he heard hanbin and cared about whatever it was that he had to say, “i’m so excited but at the same time i’m scared to have it all back and then have it all leave again,” hanbin finally finished. i’m scared to have you back and then have you leave again.
“i get you,” hao replied instantly as if he already knew what hanbin was going to say, “i feel the same, no matter how much i just wanted to get away, there are points where i wonder what could have been if i’d stayed or if i’d tried a little bit harder or threw caution to the wind to try and get what i wanted.”
“what did you want?” hanbin couldn’t stop himself asking and hao fell quiet at this.
“too much,” the older settled on finally, “i wanted a few too many things.”
they sat in silence for a little after that, content to listen to the sound of each other’s breaths down the phone. it felt intimate and hanbin found himself wishing that he could fall asleep with hao by his side just for one more night, that he could head back to their dorms and hold the older close and tell him he did a good job and hug him when he got cold. god, he wanted hao to be next to him so badly.
“you should sleep hanbin,” hao’s voice came through the speaker again after a while, “we’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
“okay,” hanbin responded simply, his mind a little clearer.
they said their goodbyes then, hanbin tried to not let a tear fall from his eye as the call disconnected. he hadn’t quite realised just how much he’d missed hao. of course, not a day went by that he didn’t stare at pictures of them together, he had photos of hao hung up all around his house. no matter how long it had been, zerobaseone was still his everything, they were still his group and his family no matter what but hao, hao was more than everything.