Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

After a while, every airport Hanbin lands in begins to look the same. No matter where in the world the plane has arrived, whether in Asia, Europe, North or South America, each airport seems to follow the same rules for its layout. Smiling faces on advertisements proclaim his welcome to the city, when in reality, the drab gray walls that they’re affixed to on the jet bridge only seem to close in on him when compared to the unlimited freedom of the sky. 

Which contrasts the breathtaking visual as they descend onto the runway— breaking through the final layer of clouds and to reveal the asphalt of the tarmac below— that varies from place to place. Sometimes, the skyscrapers of the nearby city are the first to cut through the sky, concrete spires warning them of the metropolis sprawling below them. On other routes, the end of the cloud cover reveals rolling hills of green, suggestive of an endless summer and picturesque countryside as far as the eye can see. Seated in the nose of the plane, the cockpit provides a panoramic view of the Earth underneath them, which makes Hanbin feel like the brave leader of a legion— the first scout who spots the troops’ destination after a long journey or the pirate atop a crow’s nest declaring the first sight of land after days at sea.

Singapore is no different. With blue water so dark it nearly appears black, the lights of fishing boats dotting the coast of the island are the only sign of life until the city splays out beneath them as they rapidly approach the ground. Though there was certainly an argument to be made in favor of the stunning crystal blue of the sea during the day time, Hanbin always found the descent even more stunning at at sunset, the lights of the city beginning to flicker on while the sky was patterned in orange and pink, illuminating the way to Changi International Airport like a guide through the last vestiges of clouds in the troposphere. 

This was a landing that Hanbin had probably done a hundred times now, though he could do it a hundred more and it would still never get old. The feeling of hurtling towards the ground as the world reappears around him never failed to bring back that little spark of excitement and adrenaline he missed as soon as they landed on the ground. It was one of the reasons why Hanbin had wanted to be a pilot ever since he was little. 

With his little face pressed right up to the porthole every time his family would take a vacation, he was always more mesmerized by the sight of the clouds passing by than any of the toys or games his mother had packed to keep him quiet during the flight. Twenty years later, and some things still hadn’t changed, his love for flying being one of them. Only now, Hanbin got to sit in the pilot’s chair in the cockpit, unable to remain a casual observer of the sky when it was his responsibility to ensure the plane landed safely on the ground too. 

Then, almost as soon as the descent had begun, the landing gear made contact with the runway, and in just a few minutes they were parked safely in their gate. As the passengers began to quickly file out of the main doors with their baggage, stressed by the thought of catching their next flight or anticipating the adventures that waited for them just beyond the terminal gates, the other pilots chatted idly at the front of the plane. The captain, Hanbin’s senior, mentioned visiting a sister that evening who had moved to the city years ago. Hanbin smiled passively, the adrenaline bleeding out of him though they hadn’t even left the plane yet. The only place Hanbin planned to go for the night was his hotel room, even if it was barely seven pm on Singaporean time.

As magical as the landing could be, all sun-streaked skies and cloud formations that betrayed so little of the world passing by below, the airports on the other hand were soulless no matter how many he trekked through. Sure, cities would invest in decorations, showcasing local art and welcoming guests in their native languages. But in the end, they all came to resemble the same grey walls and grey floors, sapping out the last remnants of that ‘successful landing’ spark with each additional second Hanbin spent on the moving walkway to reach the exit. 

Even worse than the airports were the hotels. Most often in close proximity to the airport for convenience, they were designed to appeal to travelers looking for a bed for the night and not much else. The lobby was a revolving door of suitcases, with everyone only passing through on their way somewhere else. 

But that was the thing about airports and traveling, wasn’t it? Permanency was an unreachable mirage, not when he could never stay anywhere long enough to feel his roots start to cling to the soil. He was constantly being replanted over and over again. No pot was ever the perfect fit, not when it had been worn by someone else already and someone else before them. Still, these nights were only temporary, and what did it matter if something never felt right as long as it didn’t feel wrong? 

It was hard to complain when Hanbin had signed up for this. He traded stability for those few minutes of magic every take-off and landing and those hours spent steering the jet through a cloudless blue sky. Nearly ten years on, too late to give up, but too young to have the authority to ask questions, he wondered if he made the right choice every time he wandered a new airport. Then, ten hours later, he was back up in the air and those feelings of doubt were forgotten in the city they left behind as they rose up into the sky. 

With too much to focus on, the worries had to be pushed to the back of his mind, only bubbling up again as Hanbin waited for the shuttle to arrive that would ferry them to their hotel for the evening.

The other crew members chat quietly among themselves, a familiar tune of suitcase wheels rolling interspersed with the sound of heels clacking against the linoleum floor. Hanbin doesn’t always have the privilege of working with the same crew, he was only a first officer after all, but scanning for familiar faces, he was confident he’d worked with most of them before.

Seoul to Singapore isn’t anywhere near the shortest route the airline offers, more than six hours of flight time on a normal day, but it was nothing compared to some of the long haul routes Hanbin had begun to fly on recently. Those routes were reserved for the more senior crew, never for the employees who were just starting out, who weren’t used to everything that can go wrong when you’re in the sky for fourteen hours straight. Tonight, they seemed to have taken a mix of seasoned crew members as well as new hires. The latter were still visibly giddy, taking in every decoration and amenity that the hotel offered. Perhaps, it was even some of their first shifts with an overnight stay. Tonight, they were still green enough to see the whole thing as an adventure rather than an obligation. 

It’s been a long time since Hanbin found himself jealous of the new recruits. Somehow, he envied the ease with which they could sleep in a different bed every night without a sinking feeling surfacing that the longer they kept this up, the less likely it would be that they would ever grow roots anywhere. The hotel rooms they stayed in each night would be turned over in just a few hours the next morning, all traces of them stripped away with the sheets and the towels. Bleached, starched, and ready to be a blank slate for the next person passing through by that night. 

Thrown out of his thoughts, the front desk agent waves him to her counter. Finally, it was his turn to check in. 

The quality of the hotel they stayed in varied from city to city, but tonight, it seemed that the airline hadn’t opted to cut costs, putting them up in a tower of a building that probably provided views half as good as the ones they could see from the sky, which was high praise in Hanbin’s book. It was a bit of a waste of money in Hanbin’s opinion, given that they would barely be staying in the place for twelve hours, and most of that time would be spent asleep. But, the ‘glamorous’ lifestyle of constant travel was one of the selling points to work for this airline in the first place. 

Hanbin couldn’t fault them, there had been a time when the thrill of landing in a new place for just a single night (and all the possibilities that came with it) had appealed to him too. Now, the fatigue of a long day weighed on him, and his uniform was agitating against his skin. He felt like he was carrying all the stresses of the day in the little brass buttons of his blazer, which were begging him to find his way to his assigned room as soon as possible. No, Hanbin had no plans for his twelve hours in Singapore that involved leaving the temporary refuge of his stiff hotel sheets until the shuttle arrived the next morning to ferry them back to the airport. 

It was rapidly approaching 8 PM by the time the whole group was checked into their rooms, the crowd of uniformed crew members beginning to attract the eyes of other guests with their crisp collared shirts and standardized black suitcases loitering in the lobby.

Hanbin tapped his foot against the ceramic flooring, which was so polished it reflected the yellow lobby lights back at him. He couldn’t just take off on his own, as much as he wanted to. His coworkers might not be his best friends, but they were a team, one that was going to have to navigate a machine of fifty tons across the ocean back to Seoul the next day. It made it easier for everyone then, even if they weren’t friends, that they weren’t strangers either. 

One of the flight attendants twirls her keycard in one hand, suitcase balanced in the other. Perhaps a nervous habit, or a bid for attention, Hanbin figures it’s the latter when she begins to speak a few moments later.

“I heard from Sumin that this hotel has a pretty great bar on the rooftop,” Heeju opens nonchalantly, addressing the group like she’s making conversation, easing into it instead of diving right into what she really wants to say. Pausing to make sure that enough of the crew is listening to her, she finally continues.

“Should we check it out once we’re out of these uniforms?” 

A few murmurs of agreement follow from the rest of the group, whispers breaking out about the various plans each of them had for the evening. Hanbin pointedly avoids Heeju’s gaze when it passes over him, pretending to check a notification on his phone and watching the time tick ever onwards. Maybe she’ll get the silent message he’s trying to convey. He hopes so, at least, since she’s one of the newer recruits and hasn’t flown enough routes with Hanbin to know his usual habits after a long flight.

“Come on,” Heeju continues, trying to inspire a better reaction from the crew. “It’s the middle of December, where else are you going to be able to visit a rooftop bar during winter? It was storming in Seoul when we left!” 

Most of the crew seem swayed by her enthusiasm, so Hanbin doesn’t feel too bad about leaving them on their own to drink expensive liquor while enjoying a view of one of Asia’s most vibrant cities. He hopes getting the majority to agree will be enough for Heeju to drop the topic, but one of the other flight attendants addresses him directly. Minha has worked with the airline longer and knows Hanbin’s routine of pretending like he’ll join until he slips off to his room the second they take their eyes off of him. 

Still, Hanbin surely isn’t the only one on the crew who would like to catch up on sleep now that their shift is over. Not all of them were young enough to work the whole day and still have the energy to go out afterwards, even if Hanbin hadn’t been directly attending passengers the entire flight. 

“Come on Gijang-nim , just come have one drink with us? You never come hang out with us anymore,” Minha lets her voice drop into a slight whine, the kind that embarrasses Hanbin more than her. Teasing but pointed, Minha isn’t the type to take his rejections well. Though it has been months since he’d last agreed to one of her requests, she always made sure to yank the rejection out of him every time. Like eventually, it would be so painfully awkward that he would have no choice but to agree.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to make it out tonight,” Hanbin replies politely, to no one’s surprise. Though it’s half forced, he tries to keep a smile on his face, a good attitude when all he really wants to do now is try to get some rest. “I’m a bit tired, and we’ve got an early flight out tomorrow.”

Most of the remaining crew have started to move on from the conversation, fidgeting with their suitcases, anxious to get to their own rooms as well. Unfortunately, however, there’s nothing like gossip among a flight crew. Even as they pretend not to pay attention, Hanbin knows they’re following every word exchanged based on the way the previous chatter seems to fade to silence. 

“It’s not so early,” Minha argues, though it’s clear even she has started to give up on what is inevitably a lost cause. 

Despite his minor misgivings with the flight attendant on the days when she can be particularly pushy, there was a time when Hanbin had considered Minha to be a close friend. Hanbin was going on five years employed as a pilot with the company, and Minha had worked by his side for at least half of them. 

Back then, when Hanbin was still a trainee pilot and Minha was a rookie flight attendant, they would be the pair eager to just dump their bags as soon as possible to explore what their new home for the night had to offer no matter how exhausted they were from the shift before. Five years later, Minha was still going strong, her adventurous spirit only growing with time and the wider variety of places she could fly to with her senior status. It was only Hanbin who had begun to feel disenchanted by everything, enough that even Minha was beginning to give up on him. 

Was she disappointed in him too? He wouldn’t pretend that he was the most interesting character for gossip, but he wondered if the pitying looks some of the other crew members gave him weren’t a result of conversations held behind Hanbin’s back. 

Trying to turn the mood back around, he turns back to Heeju, who leans a bit awkwardly against her suitcase, not really involved in the conversation anymore, but too close to just walk away. 

“You’re a new crew member. Heeju, right?” He plucks her name out of the repository of coworkers that he does his best to keep straight in his head despite the ever growing number of them. People were always nicer to you when you knew their name, even if he never really got to know them beyond their initial introduction before the flight. “Is it your first time in Singapore?”

She nods, looking a bit surprised to be asked. Hanbin assumes it’s a ‘yes’ to both questions. 

“You should celebrate then, enjoy the city. I swear, I must have been here a hundred times, but this place always manages to surprise me somehow every time I visit. Minha is right, the flight isn’t that early that you can’t explore.”

“Maybe you could give me some recommendations?” Heeju rushes the words out, almost like she’s afraid she’ll lose the opportunity to say them if she waits even a second longer. “Or maybe,” she begins to say, gathering her courage, “since you’ve been here a hundred times, you could show me around?” 

The smile that Hanbin had been doing his best to make seem as natural as possible stretches uncomfortably, and the gears whir in his mind as to how exactly he’s going to get out of this one. He did walk right into it, though it wasn’t his intention at all to imply that he would be the one that could show Heeju around the city. 

Peeking down at his phone again to check the time, Hanbin tilts his head slightly. “I mean, if I’ve been here a hundred times, Minha must have been here twice that number at least. I wouldn’t want to volunteer her as a guide, but…” 

Hanbin nudges Minha barely, disguising the motion as a cough that bumps her shoulder. Minha, getting the message instantly like she always had when they used to use this tactic years before, lights up, smiling coyly as she brushes a strand of brown hair out of her face.

"Oh, two hundred times would have to be on the lower side. Are you hungry? I know a few places we could go to eat.” 

Heeju seems a bit confused by the sudden switch-up, but perks up nonetheless at the redirection. A high-five for Minha later, if he saw her without the present company. 

“Or do you like shopping?” Minha continues, on a roll now that she’s unleashed the flood. “Has anyone told you that you’re really pretty? But you wanted to get a drink, right? There’s the bar at the hotel, of course, but I know some other places too, if you would be interested in going together.” 

Internally, Hanbin winced. While he had always admired the way Minha never missed an opportunity once she took her shot, even he could admit she could be a bit chatty when she was nervous. Still, their mutual love for exploring new places wasn’t the only thing that had drawn the pair together all those years ago. Acting as each other’s wingman or woman was nothing out of the ordinary for them, even if they didn’t get the opportunity to do so as much anymore.

Heeju seems shyer too in the face of Minha’s blatant flirting, but not unreceptive to it. “I mean, if you wouldn’t mind?” 

“It would be my pleasure.” Minha turns to Hanbin, tipping her head in a way that even Hanbin can understand as the universal sign for ‘Now make an excuse to leave and scram.’

Hanbin puts on a fake disappointed expression, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “I wish I could join you, but I have to take a call from someone back home.” 

Heeju nods in sympathetic understanding, though she seems to have lost interest in him now that Minha has begun to list the places they just had to visit because Singapore has the best nightlife in all of Asia. 

Hanbin feels the hands on his shoulders before a voice rings in his ear teasingly. 

“Boyfriend duties call, huh?” 

With a playful shove, Hanbin extricates Gyuvin from his back. Another junior flight attendant, Gyuvin hadn’t quite gotten the message of Hanbin’s increasing desire for solitude, taking every opportunity to try to pull the pilot into activities and conversations no matter the distance Hanbin tried to put between them. It was sweet, and Hanbin knew Gyuvin thought he was just trying to include a friend, but Hanbin rarely had the energy to fend off unwanted social interactions as it was. Another problem, Gyuvin was the type to speak his mind without considering the later consequences of his words. 

“You have a boyfriend Gijang-nim?” Heeju’s eyes go wide. 

“No, no,” Hanbin shakes his head. At the same time Gyuvin answers, “A very demanding one. Every Tuesday at 9 PM he calls, and Hanbin has to answer.” 

“He sounds strict,” Heeju sounds genuinely concerned, but Hanbin doesn’t know how to get out of the conversation without admitting truths about himself he’d rather not announce to a lobby full of strangers. She checks her phone, gasping, “Oh no, Gijang-nim, it’s already 9:05 in Seoul. You’re late!” 

The disappointment on Hanbin’s face is real as he hears the time, and his reaction is sincere enough that it convinces both girls to shoo him away. 

“Go, go,” Heeju points him towards the elevator, “before you get in trouble. Just say that the check in was slow.” 

Hanbin won’t question a gift like this, even if he might just strangle Gyuvin later for re-starting the unavoidable controversy about whether or not Sung Hanbin, star first officer of the airline, actually had a demanding boyfriend or if it was just another one of his ploys to escape social gatherings with the crew. Waving goodbye, Hanbin finally manages to get in a deep breath as the elevator doors close, feeling some of the stress of the day start to melt away now that he’s out of view of his coworkers. Around them, Hanbin has to be on at all times, even when he’s not technically working. There are so many expectations to uphold, traditions that he represents, and he refuses to let them down no matter how crushing the pressure can be. 

The time, 8:06, blinks back at him punishingly as he reaches his floor. Despite his attempts to leave the lobby without getting sidetracked by conversation, he’d still failed. Now, he couldn’t even have this. Six minutes of his single hour of solace per week, just because he had lost track of time. Frustrated, he has to tap the key card against the lock of his room three times before it finally gives way to let him inside. Leaving his suitcase unceremoniously by the door, Hanbin strips out of his hat and jacket before collapsing onto the bed, exhaustion caving in on him all at once now that he’s out of sight of anyone that might see him falter. 

And finally, finally, he gets to press play on the broadcast he’d been waiting for all night.

The radio host’s voice filters through the stale air of the room like running a finger through a thick layer of dust on a familiar book he hadn’t visited in a while. At the sound of the man’s voice, the starched sheets underneath him become like thousand thread count silk and the whir of the room’s fan a gentle sea breeze that takes Hanbin’s mind somewhere where he can finally relax.

"I hope you enjoyed that first song,” DJ ZZZhang’s voice cuts through the last bars of a piano outro that Hanbin had missed in his rush to get to the room. “It’s been one of my favorites recently, and I’ve been counting down the days until I could share it with you.”

Disappointment curls in his stomach at the thought of the precious minutes lost trapped in a poorly timed conversation with his crew, but he can always listen to the recording later, even immediately after the broadcast ends if he’s still awake.  

Most weeks, he doesn’t get the chance to catch ZZZhang’s show when it airs live, more often than not 10,000 meters in the sky at the time the DJ holds his weekly broadcast. Despite his burgeoning popularity, ZZZhang has kept his time on the radio waves at a strict one hour session per week. Tuesdays at 9 PM KST belong to him alone, and Hanbin was a dedicated listener to the point that some of his coworkers had even begun to notice the pattern. With nearly two years worth of recorded shows saved to his phone, Hanbin finds himself listening to the radio host almost every night. By now, there are some broadcasts that he knows almost entirely by heart, from the order of the songs that ZZZhang plays, to the stories of the listeners that call in with their worries, and the whispered words of comfort that ZZZhang offers to an audience hanging onto his every word. 

In all Hanbin’s years of crossing time zones like they were mere stop lights in the road instead of imaginary borders in the sky, and as frequently as he spent the night in a country other than the one on the green passport tucked into the secret pocket of his suitcase, it was no wonder that he’d never been able to sleep well. 

When Hanbin would show up with dark circles under his eyes on the fourth day of his shift, the ice of a finished americano still rattling in its takeout cup, his seniors would merely clap him on the shoulder and insist that his body would adjust eventually. Either that, they said, or his shifts would exhaust him to the point that his internal clock would become insignificant compared to having a soft place to rest his head after he started flying on the day-long routes.

Even after five years, Hanbin’s body didn’t seem to have gotten the signal his tired brain had tried to pass down. It wouldn’t matter if the sheets of his hotel room actually had a thousand thread count, nothing seemed to be enough to combat the bouts of insomnia that would plague him late into the night. He’d tried a number of home remedies, oils to soothe his body and meditation to clear his mind. In a desperate bid to fall asleep, he’d even tried melatonin supplements that he’d purchased on a layover in the United States. Sleep aids were a prescription drug in South Korea, and going to a doctor meant admitting there was a problem in the first place. 

Admitting there was a problem meant there was a chance they wouldn’t let him fly. That—  more than the sleepless nights spent scrolling on his phone or staring at cracks in the paint on the hotel room ceilings—  would be the worst punishment of all. 

The supplement had worked, Hanbin had slept through the night, but would have missed the shuttle back to the airport the next morning if not for a colleague banging on his door when he noticed that Hanbin had missed breakfast. He’d downed a coffee before takeoff, but even then felt groggy and off his game all eleven hours back to Seoul from Los Angeles. After that, medicinal treatments were out too. 

For a while, Hanbin tried to make peace with the fact that he might never get another good night’s sleep again. That was until one of his late night scrolls searching for a calming playlist—  maybe something with rain, he had been getting into rain sounds lately—  when he stumbled across a radio host whose voice was a healing charm more potent than any medicine Hanbin could buy or home remedy he could test. 

Smooth like being tucked underneath a warm blanket, but playful like a sweet kiss good night, something about ZZZhang’s voice drew Hanbin in after just a few seconds of the preview that had auto-played when Hanbin’s original playlist had finished. Hanbin thought it was impossible to be so comforted by words alone, without a face or even a name beside his pseudonym to attach to the radio host. Still, something about the sincerity and the hope that seemed to seep out of every word of affirmation no matter how trivial or inconsequential the story pulled Hanbin in until he found himself sound asleep just fifteen minutes into the broadcast. 

The next morning, more rested than he’d felt in days (weeks, even), Hanbin searched back through his phone that had continued to autoplay other stations even after he’d fallen asleep until he found the man who’d finally put his mind to rest enough to sleep through the night. 

DJ ZZZhang, a guest host on Channel 100.7, an indie station that played a huge variety of artists from underground rappers to homemade bedroom pop remixes, had one broadcast slot per a week. No replays of his shows were available, much to Hanbin’s frustration, nor any social media that would point him in the direction of identifying the man that had managed to at least temporarily correct Hanbin’s sleep schedule. Faithfully recording every session for himself became a habit after he’d passed out halfway through ZZZhang’s next session a week later. Something about this man and his words was like an enchantment on Hanbin. Different from the swooping magic that Hanbin experienced when he was 10 kilometers up in the air, ZZZhang’s magic felt like peace, quieting his restless heart enough to relax for once. 

“The last leaves of autumn finally fell to the ground on my street today.” 

ZZZhang always had a habit of chatting for the first few minutes of the broadcast, waiting for the stragglers to come in before he got into the real subject for this week’s session. He shared tiny tid-bits about his life that made Hanbin feel like he knew the other man. Hanbin knew everything about the stray cat that the man would feed in the summer months and how much ZZZhang hoped she had a home for the winter. He knew ZZZhang’s favorite things to eat and the way he took his milk tea, even the strange fruit he loved that Hanbin had passed once in the grocery store, nearly fleeing the premises at the first sniff of the unassuming yellow fruit. Still, if they met in the street, Hanbin wouldn’t be able to recognize him at all. Unless, Hanbin heard his voice. Then, he would know instantly and without a doubt who it was in front of him.

“I suppose that means winter is coming at last,” ZZZhang muses, light in his tone even as he breaches a more serious topic, comfortable in his words like they come straight from his heart, not a script. “Every year it catches up to me before I’m ready, and I think ah, wow. You’re really getting old now. Seasons change in a blink of an eye until we’re all getting older, and suddenly your bones are creaking, and you find yourself waiting for spring to come again before winter has even really started.

“Sometimes, I wonder, am I afraid of winter, or am I afraid of change? I learned to love the vibrance of summer, the red-gold of autumn, and the blush of spring. But, in winter there’s no bloom to look forward to, not until it’s over and spring has finally come again. I’m DJ ZZZhang for 100.7 Bloom in the Shade FM, and the theme of tonight’s show is just as fleeting as the seasons that come and go. Tonight, I want to talk about Youth.” 

As ZZZhang’s voice settles over Hanbin, safe in a way that puts Hanbin at rest no matter how strained his heart had been from the rush of needling his way out of showing Heeju around and carefully patching over the rejection with the help of a friend who he wasn’t sure he still deserved at all. Then there was the mad dash to the elevator, heart in his ears at the thought that later, the whole crew would think he was running off to see a lover when the reality was so much more depressing. 

Hanbin had a “call” to take from a man back home, a man who didn’t know he existed. Yet even as ZZZhang’s broadcasts should have felt one-sided, with the solace Hanbin found in the DJ’s words, he sometimes felt like these sessions were still a conversation. One where ZZZhang saw straight into his heart and said exactly what he needed to hear. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve considered myself  to be part of the ‘youth’” ZZZhang jokes with his listeners, emphasizing the word “youth” like it’s some kind of slang that teens use instead of just a regular part of his vocabulary. “Though on the grand spectrum of life, I don’t think I would be considered old either. Maybe it’s because I’m stuck in that in between that I like to reminisce so much. We don’t know what awaits us in the future, so we can take some comfort in the past.

“It’s not that I’m unhappy now,” ZZZhang continues, voice washing over Hanbin as he feels his eyes begin to droop. “Or that I was happier then.” 

He does his best to stay awake, despite the best attempts of the spell that Hanbin is convinced ZZZhang must be able to cast over him that seems to lift everything heavy out of his body as he continues to speak. The flight to Singapore had been his third consecutive day on shift, and was fortunately his last night away before he would have a day off and could sleep in his own bed in Seoul. The drowsiness seems inescapable now, but he fights to keep his eyes open so he can keep listening.

“When you’re young, I think it’s easier to see the joys in life. If everything is new, then everything is still exciting. But even if it’s exciting, that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary too. Still, humor a man who wants to know what the kids are up to these days so he can pretend he hasn’t gotten older. Is there anyone who wants to call in?”

Most sessions, ZZZhang takes one or two callers in the middle segment of his broadcast. Usually, they have something to get off their chest, but despite being the host of the session, ZZZhang never seems to mind listening to their worries. There’s a kind of camaraderie among them all: ZZZhang, the callers, and the listeners. For this one hour, ZZZhang has created a safe space where no trouble is too small to be worth his time. After hearing their stories, ZZZhang is always able to counsel the caller into feeling at least a little better by the time the segment ends. He doesn’t just give specific advice to them, but speaks in a wider tone that betrays a wisdom and strength that uplifts and never judges. 

Though he’s thought about it many times, Hanbin has never been able to work up the courage to call in himself. Some nights, his finger has even hovered over the ‘request to join button' for a few seconds before he lost the confidence. If ZZZhang chose him, what would he even say? What problem did he have in his life worthy of the man’s advice? He barely interacted with anyone other than his coworkers, and even then there was a professional distance between them. His unpredictable schedule made it difficult to keep up his friendships in Seoul, but to raise the issue felt like greed when Hanbin had traded consistent hours for a chance to see the world. 

A beep in the broadcast informs Hanbin that ZZZhang has accepted someone’s call. 

“Hello?” A young voice joins the broadcast, his age obvious in just the first second after he begins to speak. Not only does he sound a bit quieter than ZZZhang, whose smooth voice is so distinctive that Hanbin thinks he could recognize it anywhere, but there’s an innocent tone to his words that make it clear he can’t be older than a high schooler. 

ZZZhang seemed to have a variety of listeners, if the wide range of age in callers was anything to go by. Most sounded like they were on the younger side, but Hanbin recalled a session where one of the callers had been a grandmother seeking advice on how to reconnect with her grandchildren now that they had moved out of their childhood home to go to college. Compared to the usual callers expressing their concerns about their jobs or love lives as young adults trying to navigate life in the big city of Seoul, it had been memorable to hear her voice scratchy with age and wisdom against ZZZhang’s softer, more melodic one. 

Although ZZZhang himself didn’t sound old by any means, it felt like a reversal of roles to hear the host give her advice when she seemed to be plenty perceptive in her life as well. When she admitted being embarrassed about having to call for guidance, ZZZhang insisted that, though she was likely fully capable of making the right decision on her own, it never hurt to hear the perspective of an outsider. It was never better to bottle those feelings inside and suffer alone. Besides, as she explained the issue to him, it was clear she had begun to understand the situation better herself, and ZZZhang was there to listen as much as he was there to give advice. 

“Welcome to the broadcast. Do you want to share your name?” ZZZhang asks. He never forced anyone to reveal any information they didn’t offer to him first. Half the time, his callers would end up with nicknames, not wanting their identity to be so publicly revealed or a recording to be discovered later. 

The boy pauses, answering after a few seconds. “You can call me Terry.”

“Nice to meet you Terry,” ZZZhang greets him, the warmth in his voice makes Hanbin imagine that somewhere in his studio, 5,000 miles away, the DJ is smiling too. 

“You dialed in so quickly,” the host almost takes on a teasing tone. It’s obvious that the caller is still anxious, even if he’d managed to work up the courage to call in, and ZZZhang is playfully trying to soothe his fears. 

“I was nervous you might choose someone else,” Terry admits, “that I wouldn’t be fast enough.” 

“Well, now I’m curious. How have you been lately, Terry?” 

Even if Terry isn’t the boy’s real name, Hanbin has noticed that ZZZhang always does his best to use the name given to him by the caller to address them. Maybe it’s a way to draw them out of their own head and back into the call. Not to break the illusion of the connection between them, but to remind them that for the next few minutes, he is their listener and they are the host telling their story. 

“Honestly,” Terry pauses again, as if gearing up for his response. “I’ve been feeling really strange lately, I guess? I just took the CSAT two weeks ago, and all of my friends seem to be on top of the world.” 

“But you don’t feel the same way?” 

“I know I shouldn’t be worried about it anymore. What’s done is done, but I just…” Terry trails off. 

“Take your time,” the DJ encourages. 

“What if it’s not enough? What if I did everything, but in the end, I still let everyone down?” Terry begins to explain. Now that he’s let some of the words out, it’s like the last string of discomfort has snapped and the flood of words that he’d clearly kept coiled tightly inside unravels all at once. 

“Or what if it is? And then, I get there in three months, and I hate it? What if it doesn’t match my expectations? Or what if I’m the one who fails to make it once I start? I’m only 18 years old, how can I be expected to know so much already?  Somehow, everyone else seems to have figured it out except for me. These nights, I can barely sleep, it’s all I can think about. I just want to make my family proud, but everything is changing so fast.”

His voice shrinks in on itself, “ I don’t know if I’m ready to grow up yet. I feel like I’ve just been running away from all of this for so long, pretending that I was just as excited for university as everyone else, but it’s all catching up with me too fast to keep up the pace.” 

Terry lets out a huff as he finishes speaking, a sigh that perhaps symbolizes more than just catching his breath, but the relief at finally getting everything off his chest. Even Hanbin feels a sense of respite, like Terry’s worries were beginning to weigh on his body too with an ache that someone so young could feel so much worry about a future that hadn’t even begun. Still, Hanbin understood that feeling of running all too well, wished that he could summon some comforting words when, internally, he felt the same way. If he was ZZZHang on the other line, could he really tell Terry that it would get better? The choices he made now would shape the rest of his life, as scary as it was, and there was no real way of knowing if you made the right one until it was far too late to change your mind.

Drawing in his own breath, he waits for ZZZhang to reply. 

“You said you feel like you’ve been running,” the DJ begins, Hanbin following his every word like he’s delivering these words directly to him, not just to Terry, but to every listener who had felt like this at some point in their life. 

“But running doesn’t always have to be ‘away’ from something else. No matter what’s behind you, there’s something waiting ahead as well, even if you don’t know exactly what that ‘something’ is yet. Being young is all about finding that destination.

“Running doesn’t mean always staying on the same path and never straying. In fact, you can never know a path is the wrong one until you try it. Maybe you’re right, Terry. Maybe college isn't the right path for you, but you’ll never know if you don't go there and find out for yourself. Who knows? You might love it! But even if you hate it, there’s plenty of opportunities to try something new. The beauty of being young is that you’re expected to make mistakes, and you have all the time you need to fix them.” 

Hanbin hopes that ZZZhang’s words bring Terry as much comfort as they do to him. He’s long out of flight school, even further out of university, and probably doesn’t have much else in common with this teenager besides being unable to sleep tonight, but the reminder that it’s okay not to know what exactly he’s running to yet even begins to soften the wrinkled worries that Hanbin keeps tightly squeezed in between the chambers of his heart. 

Though ZZZhang continues his broadcast, the rest of his conversation with Terry seems to fade into the background of Hanbin’s mind. There’s some kind of resolution involving joining a sports club when Terry starts university in the spring. His mind wanders.

Spring, Hanbin couldn’t wait to see the cherry blossoms bloom again. He hoped he wasn’t flying the entire season like he had last year, returning to Seoul only when the pink petals had showered onto the streets, leaving ribbons of pink in the drains and bare trees behind. It was a small thing in the scale of the whole year. Still, Hanbin was a romantic at heart, even if he didn’t have time to date. He’d always imagined he’d meet the one he loved in spring time, the season of new beginnings and rebirth. Of all the seasons, Hanbin always loved spring the most. Summer and autumn were golden, but fleeting. Winter was the season of hesitancy, blanketed by a snow that made it too scary to be the first one to reach out for fear of being frozen out. 

He tried to imagine what it would be like, to have someone to hold his hand as the cherry blossoms bloomed in bursts of pink around the city. Would they go to Namsan Tower together and leave a lock symbolic of their love that would last forever? Or, was he too naive to even imagine it? Was there any chance of forever when he’d seen the way his coworkers’ relationships all eventually began to crumble under the weight of the distance between them? He tried to imagine what ZZZhang would say about his fears, which devolves into him imagining his ideal type for that made-up person holding him as the breeze swirls the petals of the cherry blossoms around them in the kind of romantic scene that only a truly repressed person could come up with. 

Pushing away from that, slightly tragic, thought, Hanbin tries to envision what they would be like as a person. Kind, he hoped, but perhaps a bit sharper than he was. Someone that kept him grounded even as his heart yearned for the sky. Someone a little bit like DJ ZZZhang, his mind speaks traitorously, though that wasn’t where Hanbin had been going with this initially. Still, he does envy a bit the person who gets to call the man their partner. He knows the DJ must have someone, he’s too wise about love to not have experienced all the ups and downs of it himself. 

It’s not that Hanbin is in love with DJ ZZZhang, and he tells that to himself honestly. Just, if he had to describe the person he’d like to spend the spring with, he could be honest enough to describe someone a little bit like him.  

His eyes finally drift closed as ZZZhang closes the broadcast for the evening, not wanting to miss a word, but being too tired to truly focus much to his disappointment. 

“I want to share one last song with you before I have to wish you good night, one that reminds me to have hope for the future. This is ‘ To My Youth ,’ by BOL4. Sweet dreams.” 

Sweet dreams— the wish that only DJ ZZZhang has been able to grant him. Cuddling his cheek more comfortably into the pillow, Hanbin clicks his phone off and finally lets sleep overtake him. 

To My Youth by BOL4

*

Gyuvin sheepishly approaches Hanbin the next morning, already dressed in his uniform and tugging his suitcase behind him. A perpetual early riser, no matter how few hours of sleep he had gotten, Hanbin was usually the first one at breakfast if it was offered by the hotel. Though some hotel offerings were better than others— let’s just say he strongly preferred his mornings in hotels in Asia compared to what was usually given in North America— at least it provided him the opportunity to start to wake up a little and have a first look over the navigational details and weather reports for the upcoming flight. He never liked having to rush to the shuttle immediately after waking up and hated feeling like he wasn’t putting his best effort to ensure the safest and smoothest flight possible. Not only was the crew counting on him, but the passengers as well. 

So while the other flight attendants chatted with each other idly, gossiping about whatever drama had inevitably occurred the night before, Hanbin sat with his coffee, toast, and notebook at a table alone. Aside from the few hours of the evening he spent by himself in his room, listening to one of DJ ZZZhang’s sessions more often than not, Hanbin was always in work mode, making every effort to separate his personal life from his duties as a pilot. The other crew members didn’t really understand this, but they had long learned to accept Hanbin’s weird quirks as part of the reason he was so well liked among the senior captains. 

Unlike the other crew members, who tended to leave him his space, Gyuvin brought his plate right up to Hanbin’s table, brushing aside a few printed pages of predicted weather reports to set his orange juice down. 

“Good morning,” Gyuvin is cheery as usual, all energy despite the early hour and the likely limited sleep he’d gotten after socializing with the rest of the crew until late the night before. 

“You’re always working so hard,” Gyuvin compliments. At least, Hanbin hopes it’s one, but he doesn’t really get to process the words before the younger one begins speaking again. 

“It’s only a matter of time before they’ll make you a captain.” 

Captain, a buzzword that itself repeated itself in Hanbin’s mind every time he started to have doubts about whether the constant pressures of this job were worth it. It was motivation as much as it was the very source of the stress in the first place. With five years under his belt as a first officer, it was really only a matter of time before he was promoted. He had more than enough hours of flight time logged, and he had the work ethic, all he needed was the respect— arguably the hardest thing to earn of all.

Built up from an already hierarchical culture, the patriarchal structure of the company was undeniable when it came to promotions. Hard work was valued, but more so was age. Hanbin had no hope of promotion until the current captains retired, and there were still several other first officers who were waiting their turn to take up the fourth stripe themselves. All Hanbin could do was try to earn their respect with his efforts, as fruitless as it seemed sometimes, watching the older recruits ascend the ranks faster than him simply because of their age alone. 

Still, Hanbin accepts Gyuvin’s compliment with grace, even if the flight attendant doesn’t know everything he’d dredged up with just a single word. 

“I’ll do my best,” he replies politely. 

Gyuvin doesn’t take the short answer as a reason to stop talking, which Hanbin admires in some ways (and found quite inconvenient in others). It’s not like he didn’t have the whole shuttle ride to review these reports, though he didn’t enjoy the disruption to his usual routine. 

“And um,” Gyuvin falters as he tries to get the words out, more awkward than usual, “I’m sorry about last night.” 

The confusion on Hanbin’s face must be evident enough that Gyuvin continues automatically. “About the boyfriend comment. I didn’t mean it. It just came out, you know what it’s like, when something sounds like a great idea in your head but as soon as you actually say it you realize it was really inappropriate for the conversation and—” 

“I get it,” Hanbin tries to nod encouragingly, even though he really doesn’t understand at all. Even if he had intended to make a joke, Hanbin would never just let his mouth run like that without thinking about how others might react. Still, he gives a bit of leeway to the young flight attendant, who seemed to be making a genuine effort to apologize and was one of the most sincere of the new recruits lately. Unlike the flight attendants who took the job just to brag about the constant travel, Gyuvin seemed genuinely kind and interested in interacting with the passengers. 

“I know you were only teasing. It seems to be a running joke, huh?” 

“Not a joke…” Gyuvin tries to come up with a more polite phrasing. “It’s just, we all spend a lot of time together, and you… don’t. So people want to come up with an explanation as to why, even if it’s totally wrong. It is wrong, right?”

Hanbin nods in confirmation, “No boyfriend for me.” The, and there hasn’t been, not in a long time, goes unsaid. Like all young pilots, Hanbin had been romanced by the social status of the job his first few years as a pilot. In a different city every night, there was always someone new to meet who was impressed to learn how far he’d traveled just to be in their city for one night. His romances were both kindled and burnt out all in one night. Anything was possible as long as it was over before the sun rose in the morning. Now, those kinds of fleeting connections had lost their shine, but the kind of permanency he craved was unreachable under the demands of his flight schedule. 

An apprehensive pause, “A girlfriend?”

Shaking his head, Gyuvin’s expression turns from hopeful to vindicated, which conveys a sense of danger more than anything else, the first set of warning alarms triggered in the back of Hanbin’s mind. 

“Oh that’s great, actually! Would you be interested in going on a double date with my boyfriend and I then? We have this friend, I think he’s about your age and—” 

There it is. It always comes down to this, people trying to set him up with someone like they can feel the isolation radiating off of him and take it as a cry for help. 

Hanbin is perfectly fine like this, he doesn’t need to get into a relationship to be happy. In fact, he is happy (if he says it enough times, maybe he’ll start to believe it). Even a romantic can learn to enjoy their time alone, and Hanbin had seen the way the relationships of several of his coworkers had fallen apart based on sheer distance alone. It was hard to have a lover who spent twenty out of thirty days of the month away from home. He was better single than constantly chasing a few moments with a lover he would barely even have time to get to know. 

“It’s nothing about you, or your friend, but,” Hanbin stops Gyuvin halfway through his pitch, “I don’t think it’s a good time for me to date right now. My schedule is too unpredictable these days, I don’t remember the last time I spent more than two nights in a row in Seoul.” 

He hopes that the excuse will be enough. It’s not even a lie, Hanbin really doesn’t have time to go on dates, to develop a relationship with someone when the nights he spends in his own bed are so limited to begin with. To his surprise, Gyuvin looks almost concerned by Hanbin’s reasoning. 

“That’s crazy!” Hanbin holds back a wince at the younger’s sudden outburst. 

“You shouldn’t let them take advantage of you like that. How many days off do you get in a week? You’ve been here for so long. You should be able to request better hours than that! They just send you halfway around the world every week with no notice?” 

“It’s not so—” Hanbin tries to argue, but is cut off by the continuation of Gyuvin’s rant. 

“What’s the point in ‘seniority’ if the most senior first officer can’t even get reasonable hours?” He complains. “The airline never approves my requested days off— which upsets my boyfriend to no end, by the way. We were supposed to go to a wedding in January and I couldn’t even get one day, but you’ve been here so many more years than me! What hope is there for the future for the rest of us if not even you can get a decent schedule?” 

He huffs in annoyance, and Hanbin gets the feeling this tirade was a long time coming. In a lot of ways, he agreed. The company could be a bit unreasonable sometimes when it came to scheduling. At the same time, Hanbin had never complained, nor had he ever tried to request a specific day off, so he couldn’t relate to the second part of Gyuvin’s complaint. 

“Sorry about the wedding,” Hanbin gathers his papers. “Maybe you can get someone to trade shifts with you?”

Gyuvin just shrugs, “Possibly. It’s a long haul to Australia the week after New Years though, I doubt anyone will want it.” 

“Shuttle’s here!” One of the crew members shouts to attract the whole group’s attention. With practiced ease, everyone disposes of their plates and gathers their suitcases to make their way to the bus. Hanbin keeps the proud smile to himself when Minha waves to him from her seat beside Heeju as he makes his way to an empty row closer to the back. 

*

Fortunately, rush hour is nearly over by the time Hanbin gets on the metro from the airport back to the officetel he rents closer to central Seoul. Tucked into a corner of the car, the coach is full, but it isn’t packed to the brim either. With one hand on his suitcase handle, the other grasping the cool metal handrail, he lets an old broadcast of DJ ZZZhang accompany him on the journey. 

“Time is such a weird concept, isn’t it? Everything can feel exactly right one day, and then it’s all falling apart around you just a few days later. Then a few more days pass by, though it feels slower than a millennia, and all of the sudden, everything is alright again. It’s frustrating, but I think that’s part of what makes us human. As much as I wish I could say it, having regrets isn’t just something you can grow out of. You just get better at living through those ups and downs everyday, or at least, I hope so. I think I’m still learning too. Ah, I’ve been rambling far too long now.”

ZZZhang cuts himself off in the middle of his thought, and Hanbin holds back his disappointment. He’s listened to this session so many times, but still feels that twinge every time he gets to this point in the recording. ZZZhang spends so long each session consoling others, but as soon as he expresses any kind of worry about himself, he changes the subject.

“The last song for tonight is ‘ for lovers who hesitate ,’ by JANNABI. Sweet dreams.” 

for lovers who hesitate by JANNABI

As the soft sound of strings fill his ears, Hanbin observes the other riders around him, all in their own little bubbles after a long day of work or school. Two small children occupy the last seats in the row, their mother standing in front of them perhaps to corral them from becoming too rowdy in what might be their first ever trip on the subway. The older daughter plays with a doll as her younger sister watches, whispering to her as they pretend to make it dance along the seats.

A pair of boys sit beside them, middle school aged, if their uniforms are anything to go by. Both are fully absorbed in a game on their phones, probably enjoying what little break time they have before they have to attend late night hagwon classes. Maybe they’re already on their way there, hoping the stations pass slowly before they have to get off and return to the grueling world of math and literature. 

Across from Hanbin, a couple stands wrapped around each other under the guise of safety as the train comes to a sudden stop, causing the girl to nearly topple her boyfriend over. He whispers something in her ear, and Hanbin tries to imagine what he might be saying without reading his lips. Would it be something cheesy like “be careful?” Or perhaps it was something more flirtatious, like “don’t worry, as long as I’m here, I’ll always catch you.” 

Whatever he says, the girl giggles in response, tucking herself further into him like they haven’t merged halfway into one person already, wearing matching black jackets and pants. What was it like, he wondered, to be a part of a love that burned so fiercely they could barely even stand apart? Could that kind of love last, or would it burn itself out and leave only painful memories and matching sweaters behind?

As they laugh to themselves about a joke that only they will ever know, the couple is so entranced in each other they nearly miss the pair of friends trying to enter the car, dressed up like they plan to go out later that night. Even in the cold of early December, their skirts are short enough that they barely peek out from underneath their black puffer jackets. Either way, their legs are covered by knee length boots that betray a better sense of style than Hanbin could ever hope to have when he spends nearly half of his time living in his pilot’s uniform and most of the other half in pajamas. 

Perhaps they were celebrating tonight, he envisions. A Thursday night is as good as the weekend when the occasion calls for it. Hanbin hadn’t had a Thursday like that in a while, not since he’d lost touch with most of his friends from university, all of whom had set the foundations for a new life in the past few years that never seemed to have room for a pilot who could never promise to be a permanent part of their routine.

Entertained by this little game, he scans for someone else to observe, realizing with a start the only person he hasn’t considered yet is himself. So distanced from everyone else in his little corner, Hanbin had failed to notice that he was the only one in the car who was making the journey alone. It’s a strange thing to fixate on, plenty of people ride the subway by themselves every day. If Hanbin had arrived just an hour earlier during the peak of rush hour, he would have been squeezed between endless office workers riding on their own as well. 

Still, when the workers reached their homes, punching in the code to their apartment door would reveal their families, lovers, or even pets waiting for them on the other side. Hanbin’s officetel was barely a home, just another bed in which to toss and turn, only this time he had to change his own sheets and pay rent. 

The singer’s vocalizations begin to fade away, leaving nothing but the static signifying the end of the recording behind. Slowing to a stop, the automated voice announces that the train has arrived at Hanbin’s station. He avoids the giggling couple and marches towards the escalator with his suitcase wheels clacking behind him, unwilling to dwell on his thoughts any longer.

*

Even after returning from a few days off, Hanbin finds himself back in the familiar walls of Incheon International Airport feeling like he’d never even left at all. He’d slept fitfully the first night with no new broadcast to listen to and too much noise in his head to focus on one of the older ones he’d heard before. It was a hard pill to swallow, but he only had about a hundred sessions of ZZZhang’s radio show recorded, far too few to have any real variation in the ones he was able to listen to each night. And though he would never admit it, he had his favorites and his least favorites among the recorded sessions. 

He had the tendency to avoid any of the weeks when ZZZhang had talked about love, which he thought was understandable, given that his lack of opportunity in that field made the whole thing feel like rubbing salt into an old wound he’d forgotten about when the caller would give him a nasty reminder of his romance-less life. Though he didn’t mind listening to the sessions live when they came up, especially in the springtime, when every caller seemed to be having some kind of trouble with their lover, calling to complain even if it didn’t fit ZZZhang’s chosen theme for the week at all. He never found himself returning to those weeks if given the choice, particularly because those callers had the propensity to talk and talk about their problems, leaving very little time for ZZZhang to actually give them advice. 

Still, it was ZZZhang’s honey voice and charming jokes that were the reason Hanbin listened to the station in the first place. The sessions without a caller or where ZZZhang talked most, Hanbin had practically memorized by now. Unfortunately, this habit was beginning to cause a slight dilemma in his insomnia-addled brain. When Hanbin already knew every other word that was going to come out of his favorite DJ’s mouth, his brain refused to focus on the recording long enough to actually be able to fall asleep. 

Consequently, Hanbin was nursing his second iced americano sitting in the lowest level of the airport waiting for the captain of his next crew to clock in so they could review the flight plan and expected weather conditions before they made their way to the plane to do the pre-departure checklist. 

“Where are you headed off to?” Jiwoong bumps in the shoulder as he passes, pulling Hanbin’s attention from the documents and to the smiling face of his coworker and fellow first officer. Having started only a year before Hanbin, Jiwoong was the closest thing Hanbin had to a mentor when it came to learning the ropes needed to actually survive this job. Having the technical expertise was one thing, but Jiwoong was the one who explained to him the finer details, aka the way to survive the veritable gladiator ring that was being a pilot on a social level. In every aspect of this job, Jiwoong had taught him, there was some kind of hierarchy to be respected if Hanbin wanted to ever gain any respect for himself. In the air, they were a team. On the ground, all of them were fighting for the same things: the same routes, the same crews, and the same promotions. 

Jiwoong was more than just an ally, he was a friend. Well, the closest thing Hanbin had to a friend, even with the friendly competition between them. Despite the rapport they’d built over the last five years, at their core, they were still coworkers first. The other first officer wasn’t only asking where he was going to be polite, he was fishing, and he wanted his first catch of the day to be Hanbin’s schedule for the week. 

“Australia. Sydney,” Hanbin replies. 

“You’re flying with Captain Choi and Officer Park then?” Jiwoong confirms. Hanbin doesn’t question how he’d gotten this information, probably from gossip in the line for coffee. “It’s a good crew,” Jiwoong sounds almost wistful, but Hanbin knows better. 

“You don’t have to pretend, I know Captain Lee took you under his wing. You’ve been flying with him for weeks.” 

Jiwoong gives him a ‘well, what can I say’ smirk in return. 

“You taking any days off in Australia?” he asks. “It’s summer there right now. I still can’t really fathom how the seasons can be opposites. I mean scientifically, yeah. But it rained last night in Seoul, and in Sydney they can lounge in the sun. That just doesn’t seem fair.” 

“I’m not,” Hanbin shrugs. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d asked to have his days off anywhere besides Seoul. Not much for exploring these days, Hanbin must be the easiest of all the officers to schedule, accepting any route they threw at him with no special dates or occasions to plan around. 

Taking the answer in stride, Jiwoong nods knowingly. “Gotta rack up the hours before the holidays, right? Any special plans for Christmas next week?” 

Trying to remember, Hanbin has to pull out his phone to confirm his schedule. 

“London,” He grins. 

“Ooh, nice. Meeting someone there?” 

“Working.” 

The smile fades from Jiwoong’s face, “You mean you’re flying to London on Christmas?” 

“Looks like it.” 

“Damn, and here I was thinking you were going on vacation,” Jiwoong laughs. “I should’ve known better. Actually, come to think of it, I think you’ve worked every year on Christmas since I met you.” 

“I have,” Hanbin confirms, scratching his hand awkwardly because he doesn’t understand why Jiwoong would phrase it as a joke in the first place. 

His coworker’s eyes widened in shock. “You can’t be serious. You’ve never once asked for Christmas off in five years? Never had one person worth spending it with?”

Shaking his head, Hanbin tries to pass it off nonchalantly. Sensing that it might be a complicated subject, Jiwoong tries to make light of it. “You must be the flight scheduler’s favorite person in the whole world. They should get you a Christmas gift for making their life so much easier.” 

“Ha,” Hanbin genuinely laughs at one of Jiwoong’s jokes for once. “I wish.” 

In his shock at actually landing a joke with his younger coworker, Jiwoong nearly pushes the remains of Hanbin’s americano off the table. A group of their seniors shush them for the ruckus. Hanbin rolls his eyes at Jiwoong’s antics, but wishes the older a safe flight on his own journey to Thailand in a few hours.

*

As Jiwoong had proclaimed, Australia is already sunny by the time they land bright and early at the Sydney International Airport. Hanbin hates red eye flights as much as passengers detest booking them, especially because last night was a Tuesday, meaning he’d missed ZZZhang’s broadcast flying over the Pacific. Having hit his daily work limit with the ten hour flight from Seoul, Hanbin is “gifted” another hotel stay, and this time he doesn’t even bother trying to acclimate to the time zone when he knows he’ll just be leaving again that evening. 

He’d heard some of the crew chattering about how they’d managed to get a few days off in Australia to enjoy the sunshine before returning to Seoul, but the only thing Hanbin was interested in was passing out for the next ten hours until his alarm went off to inform him he needed to shuttle back to the airport. The sleep deprivation had begun to set in fast, and Hanbin deeply regretted the fact that he’d only slept a few hours the night before he attempted the red eye flight. Though, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Pulling the blackout curtains shut in his room, Hanbin at least manages to change his clothes this time before he sinks into the bed that feels more like a cradle than a mattress despite the amount of creaking and groaning the springs had made when he planted himself face first into the pillows. 

With the press of a button, a familiar voice trickles through the darkness of the room, the only source of light the faintest crack between the curtains letting a sliver of sunlight through the window. 

As a long time fan of the show, it’s become almost a guessing game for Hanbin to wonder when ZZZhang changes his broadcasting location whilst imagining why he might do so. Most evenings, Hanbin can quite easily tell that ZZZhang is broadcasting from a professional studio, likely one of the ones at the radio station on which his show airs. Some nights, however, like this one, the audio quality of ZZZhang’s voice is just a little fuzzier than usual, without all the precision and silence of a sound-proofed recording booth. In the recording of the session from the night before, Hanbin can clearly hear the rain in the background of the show before the DJ even mentions it. 

“It’s raining in Seoul tonight, has been all week, but most of you probably know that already— lived through it on your way home from work or school or wherever else you chose to spend your time today. Something about the rain always makes me feel heavy, no matter how tiny each drop is. But even all the little drops can add up, right? Dripping down your coat until the cuffs of your jeans and socks are completely soaked.”

ZZZhang laughs a little, but he sounds almost pensive talking about it, like the rain drops aren't the only thing weighing on his mind tonight. 

“Did you have jeon and makgeolli for dinner?” ZZZhang asks his listeners. “I’ve heard that’s the Korean tradition for rainy days. Personally, I’ve never had the chance to try it. But, I’m sure the rain will come again soon. Maybe next time I’ll order it, I’m not much of a cook myself.” 

Hanbin can’t help but fixate on ZZZhang’s words. It was a Korean tradition to eat pajeon and drink makgeolli when it rained, yes, but by mentioning that he’d only heard of it but never tried, was the DJ implying that he hadn’t called this country home his entire life? 

Not for the first time, Hanbin wonders about the person behind the ZZZhang persona who sits behind the microphone in the recording studio. The one who takes an hour out of his week, every week, to comfort people like Hanbin who struggle to sleep. 

Was the radio show ZZZhang’s only job? Surely not. It was possible that ZZZhang was secretly incredibly rich, that he only did the show as a source of entertainment rather than for income. Still, Hanbin doubted it. Maybe it was naive of him, but he felt that ZZZhang related too much to the struggles of the normal people that called in to be a rich chaebol heir with nothing better to do with his time. Yet, if ZZZhang was just a normal resident of Seoul— one who took the metro (as he frequently discussed) and worked like everyone else— then what had inspired him to start the broadcast in the first place? It was strange to imagine that someone so wise could be so young, or at least, Hanbin had assumed so despite having no conception of what the DJ actually looked like. 

Nonetheless, he found that the appearance of the man behind the microphone didn’t really matter to him at all. He could have passed DJ ZZZhang in the street a hundred times and never known, unless, of course, the man spoke to him. It was ZZZhang’s voice that was so haunting in Hanbin’s mind, so comforting even when he had to give tough advice that he knew the caller wouldn’t want to hear. ZZZhang was so honest, sometimes, it made Hanbin’s heart hurt to think there was someone out there who was just so good. 

It was one thing to do good, it was another thing entirely to be good. 

For all he tried, Hanbin wasn’t even sure he was able to say he was succeeding in achieving either one right now. 

“I have a special song for you all tonight .” ZZZhang reveals, taking a breath for dramatic effect. “You’ve probably been hearing the rain against my bedroom window all night, right? This time, it’ll be on purpose. Tonight, I’m closing us out with ‘Still With You’ by Jungkook. Sweet dreams.”

Still With You by Jungkook

*

Of all the places in the world to spend Christmas, London can’t be the worst. He can think of at least half a dozen holiday movies set in the city and imagines what it would be like to find love under the twinkling lights of the wide European boulevards. Though the city wasn’t having a white Christmas this year, it was cold enough that Hanbin had to throw on a scarf over his coat, resolved to at least try to enjoy himself a little bit during the holiday instead of just trying to pass out in his hotel room as per his usual routine. 

Nearly nine thousand kilometers from Seoul, Hanbin had never been given the chance to fly the direct route to London before, but with the holiday schedule and time-off requests, he’d been placed on the flight ahead of the more senior officers. Crossing essentially the entire span of the mainland Asian and European continents, it wasn’t a small achievement to have been chosen regardless of the circumstances. With nearly thirteen and a half hours spent in the air, four pilots were needed, though it was more for safety and time regulations than anything else. 

It was Hanbin’s first time working with all three of the other men, introducing himself to them before they had to complete the extensive pre-flight checklist that included pages and pages of reports which even Hanbin himself had barely been able to finish reading in time. After meeting the two other first officers, he wasn’t sure if either of them had actually tried to read them at all. 

One, a first officer somehow even younger than Hanbin, had arrived only a few minutes before they departed to the jet bridge. He introduced himself as Minsu Choi, the wings attached to the lapel of his blazer distractingly crooked, and complained the whole march through the terminal to the gate that his wife had just served him divorce papers a week before. Apparently, according to Hanbin’s eavesdropping (though half the terminal could likely hear the rant due to the volume at which he was speaking), she had been the pilot’s high school sweetheart, but even she couldn’t understand why her husband had to be away more than two thirds of the month, leaving her to raise their one year old daughter alone. 

The second pilot, a man who had to be nearly twice Hanbin’s age, was still a first officer despite surely having been offered a promotion plenty of times during his tenure. He’d introduced himself as Officer Byun and patted Minsu on the back consolingly. At least Minsu was still young, he informed the group that he’d been divorced three times, but was happily in the market for wife number four. With the way he had instantly begun to chat up the woman working as their gate agent as soon as they arrived, Hanbin had no doubt that it wouldn’t take him long to find her, even if she didn’t stay any longer than the last three. 

It was only the captain who seemed normal, though the bar was not particularly high after Hanbin had met the other two first officers. This was the downside, he supposed, of working the Christmas shift. The only other pilots willing to fly on a red eye to London on Christmas eve were the ones with no one to demand their presence at home. He tried not to think too hard about what it meant that he had included himself in that bunch, focusing instead on making his introduction to the captain, who had just arrived. 

“Good evening Captain Jung, I’m Sung Hanbin.” Hanbin had introduced himself first with a firm handshake and eye contact, hoping to set a good impression since he’d never flown with the man before. “Looking forward to working with you.” 

A shorter man with a surprising number of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, Captain Jung smiled in recognition of his name. 

“Hanbin-nim, I’ve heard good things about you from Captain Lee. Let’s have a safe flight tonight.” 

When it came time to board, the Captain directed Hanbin to the cockpit and their fellow pilots to the flight deck, even giving Hanbin the controls for take-off. Though some captains were notorious for passing off the bulk of the effort to their first officers, Hanbin was surprised at the amount of trust the captain was putting in him so soon after meeting him. Still, he was never going to turn down an opportunity that was put in front of him, especially not a chance to be the one behind the metaphorical wheel at take-off. There was nothing like the rush of adrenaline, the whir of the engines in his ears as the plane gathered speed, racing down the runway until finally the wheels lifted off the ground. 

Cruising at 10 kilometers in the air, he wonders if there’s a catch, a secret, second reason Hanbin had been rewarded with the controls when Byun, his senior, should have had first priority in choosing the hours he wanted to fly. Jung sits comfortably in the Captain’s chair at his side, seemingly absorbed in the sight of the clouds passing by below as the blue sky stretches for an eternity on all sides around them. 

Attaining the position of captain was no easy feat. It represented a lifetime of hard work and could be quantified most visibly in the moments lost— birthdays and holidays skipped or milestones forgotten— rather than by any physical show of that coveted fourth stripe on their sleeve. 

Still, most captains were quite chatty, Hanbin had noticed, if not eager to pass on their wisdom on flying, then at least willing to discuss the various conspiracy theories many of them had become fond of in their age. It wasn’t often that they had a captive audience who couldn’t escape the cockpit without relinquishing the controls of the plane. 

So, as Hanbin guides the 777 jet over mainland China, he waits for the other shoe to drop. Perhaps Jung was taking notes, preparing to point out every little mistake and every single improvement Hanbin could have made. There were always captains who liked to turn these opportunities into dream-crushing lessons, knocking an over-confident first officer down a few rungs to the subordinate position where they belonged, even as the captain made no attempt to expend any of his own effort to fly the plane himself. 

Despite the complexities of the social order of this job, which Hanbin found sometimes more difficult to navigate than even the worst turbulence of a winter storm, he still had no intention of giving up his goal of one day becoming a captain himself. That didn’t mean Captain Jung’s silence didn’t make him sweat, just a little bit. 

Finally, when they’d comfortably entered Russian airspace, Captain Jung looked away from the sky, turning his head away from the controls and towards Hanbin. 

“You’re a good pilot, Sung.” 

“Thank you, Captain.” Hanbin tries to hold back the audible sound of the relief in his voice. 

“You’re a young man, still. Quite handsome, even.” A beat of silence where Captain Jung looks back to the sky, almost wistful in the way he watches the clouds pass by. 

“I’ve heard all about Choi’s divorce and Byun’s bachelor lifestyle,” He barks out a short laugh, “but with you, it’s still a mystery. Shouldn’t a handsome boy like you have someone to go home to for Christmas?” 

It’s not uncommon for pilots to discuss their personal lives even in the cockpit, but Hanbin has never met a captain so forward before, especially not one he was introduced to for the first time only a few hours prior. 

Before Hanbin can stumble out an answer, something about being too busy— an excuse that no pilot would disagree with, Captain Jung continues. 

“I’ve heard of you, you know. Everyone knows you. So young but one of the hardest working, always with the route memorized even if he’s never flown it before. The only one who bothers to mark out troublesome weather patterns before reviewing with the captain, even suggesting alternative paths with permission. Always sits alone because he’s working even when he isn’t on the clock.”

Hanbin had always hoped that the senior pilots noticed his efforts, but to know that they talked about it with each other was more than he had ever dreamed of. 

“You’re an overachiever, Sung. It’s not my place to say it, but if I don’t, I’m not sure who will. In this industry, they will accept your dedication blindly. In fact, they will encourage it.” He takes a breath before continuing. “But don’t let yourself burn out working for a company who will only take advantage of you for their bottom line in the end.”

While Hanbin was expecting a lecture of some sort from Captain Jung, this was a different kind altogether. He’d never had a Captain outright imply that he should work less, not more (even if Hanbin consistently did more prep work than a majority of the captains at the airline).

“Thank you Sir, but I’m not—” 

“You might not think it now, but when you’re old like me, looking back at what you’ve won and lost, you’ll see it too. I used to be like you, you know? Can you believe it, an old man like me was young once?” 

His eyes crinkle at the reminder of his youth; Hanbin can see it out of the corner of his eye. He’s not technically allowed to look away from the sky or the control panel, but this feels like a conversation that should be had face-to-face, eye-to-eye. 

“My wife passed just a few months ago, and this is my first Christmas without her in thirty-five years.” Suddenly, the wistfulness at which Captain Jung watched the sky made all too much sense. 

“Cancer,” He reveals, even though he was under no obligation to tell Hanbin. “Now all I can think about are all the days with her I lost because I chose the sky instead.” 

“I’m sorry, Captain.” 

“Don’t be sorry. We’re pilots, as much as it feels like we can defeat nature when we’re flying a fifty ton metal tube 10,000 meters in the air, reality has a way of reminding us of our hubris anyway.” 

*

Hanbin sits on a bench in Hyde Park, breath coming out in short puffs in the frigid air as he sips a warm hot chocolate and watches the families ice skating under the twinkling golden lights decorating the park. A small girl goes skidding across the ice, arms flailing as she tries to keep her balance on the slippery ground. With ease, her father glides behind her, catching her under the arms before she can fall onto the hard ground. A small interaction among the hundreds of novice skaters circling the rink, Hanbin watches as they go round and round, hand in hand, until the girl manages to keep balance all on her own. 

When he was younger, Hanbin’s mother used to take him and his sister to the ice rink at city hall every weekend. One of those mothers that encouraged their children to try everything at least once, it became clear from the beginning that neither Hanbin or Areum had a career in figure skating. Perhaps ice hockey for Areum, with the way she barreled down the ice with surprising speed for an elementary schooler, but Hanbin was never graceful enough to do any more than skate in circles without falling over onto his face. Still, Hanbin remembered those afternoons fondly, the memory coming back so many years later. He missed her, it had been so long since he last called.  

Pulling his phone out, Hanbin checks the time in Seoul. It wasn’t too late, only ten pm. With a start, he realized that he’d missed ZZZhang’s broadcast again, though he justified to himself that he really only needed to listen to it to fall asleep, and it wasn’t like this morning would have been the day he finally worked up the courage to call in to the show himself. Swiping through his contacts, he calls his mother, hoping that she hasn't fallen asleep yet. 

“Hanbin-ah,” his mother’s familiar voice comes through his cell phone’s tiny speakers, soft and a bit tired, but warm as always. “Happy Christmas.” 

“Happy Christmas, Eomma,” Hanbin breathes his relief into the words. He’d waited longer than he should’ve to call her, his mother’s voice temporarily alleviating the loneliness that had begun to bury itself deep in his chest along with the winter chill. 

“Where are you today?” she asks. “Not in Seoul, I’m sure.” 

“London,” Hanbin replies. 

“So far away,” she hums a response. “Is it cold there? Are you out?” 

“I’m in the park,” Hanbin answers. “By the palace, you know, the one where the royal family lives.” 

He hears a rustling on the other side of the line. “Hanbin, did you see the King?” His sister’s voice breaks through the silence. The whole family must have gathered in Cheonan for the holiday, Hanbin realizes, a pang of regret passing through his heart at the thought. It had been so long since he’d been home, just one rushed day for Chuseok before he had to get back on the train to Seoul for his shift the next day. 

“Not yet,” Hanbin jokes. “I think he’s still having his Christmas lunch.” 

“Too bad.” 

“Hanbin-ah,” his mother interrupts again. “You always work so hard.” 

While Hanbin would usually take the phrase as praise, he couldn’t help but think back to what Captain Jung had been talking about on the plane earlier and the guilt he had for the moments he’d lost in order to put in that work. Would Hanbin one day regret it too, or was Captain Jung just one of the unlucky ones? (If he was honest with himself, he would recognize that many of the senior pilots would have a similar story, even if they weren’t as open about it as Captain Jung was. But it was just part of the trade, wasn’t it?) 

“My son has seen so much of the world, so lucky.” Hanbin’s mother continued. “We’re so proud of you. You’ll get that promotion in no time.” 

Though she can’t see his expression, Hanbin feels that the smile which hadn’t left his face since she picked up the phone must look more like a grimace. How could he admit these feelings of doubt when she sounded so excited for him. Hanbin was lucky, wasn’t he? He’d seen more of the world in the last five years than most people would in their entire lives. 

So why was he so unhappy? Maybe there was something wrong with him for being so ungrateful for the opportunities life had afforded him. Maybe he was the one who was greedy for expecting more. 

“Hanbin-ah? Are you still there?” 

“Sorry,” Hanbin comes back to the conversation. “I think the connection isn’t so good here. What did you say?” 

“Just that I, we, love you very much Hanbin-ah. Enjoy London, and call again soon!” 

“I will, I love you too. Sleep well Eomma, Areum-ah.” Hanbin bids his family farewell. The line cuts out, leaving Hanbin with a hot chocolate gone cold. He felt like a lonely island in the middle of a bustling city. Surrounded by couples and families, the glow of holiday cheer seems to extend its warmth temporarily to Hanbin, his to borrow for the afternoon, but never to own. 

*

The hotel rooms in Europe are always so much smaller than the ones in Asia or North America, the centuries-old cities unable to accommodate the demands of global travel, squeezing guests into postage-stamp sized rooms with barely enough space for a bed and a desk. 

Hanbin lays in bed wide awake, the tiny clock perched on the desk blinking red numbers back at him that declare it to be far too late for him to still be up. When he’d arrived at the hotel, tired from his afternoon and evening spent wandering the streets of London, admiring the elaborate Christmas lights strung across the narrow alleys and wide boulevards, he expected that he’d be able to fall asleep right away. Reality hadn’t been so kind, and now it was long past midnight, Hanbin unable to sleep a wink. Though he’d hoped to save ZZZhang’s Christmas broadcast for a night when he needed it more, he pulled up the familiar radio app on his phone anyway. 

Usually, Hanbin relied on the melodic intonation of the DJ’s voice to empty the rush of thoughts in his head. Tonight, Hanbin’s brain already felt as slow as sticky honey dripping from a spoon, but still sleep eluded him. Selecting the latest broadcast, dated for Christmas day, Hanbin lets his eyes fall shut as the opening lyric of the first song washes over him. Soft piano complemented by a gentle strum of the guitar, the heaviness over Hanbin’s heart seems to lighten, its beats quieting in his ears for once as his focus shifts to the words she sings.

Plant by Kim Sejeong

“That was ‘Plant,’ by Kim Sejeong.” DJ ZZZhang informs him as the last piano notes fade out. “It’s one that I’ve been listening to a lot these days. I think it’s so easy to forget the small things when life feels like it's so full of these big inescapable problems. You get so focused on the boulder ahead only to trip on the tiniest rock and come to find that it hurts just the same.” 

Maybe it’s a placebo, but all of Hanbin’s problems seem so much smaller, floating away from him at the sound of the DJ’s voice. They gather in a cloud on his ceiling, but he rolls over onto his side, for once able to not feel their weight on his heart or mind. ZZZhang doesn’t sound like a therapist, and maybe that’s why Hanbin likes him the most. He’d tried to listen to the podcasts, read the self help books, but he didn’t like the way the writer always seemed to clinically dissect problems, like if Hanbin tried hard enough, he could cut his feelings out of his body like they were a physical disease. 

With ZZZhang, the DJ understood that separation was impossible, not when those feelings were entangled so deep in the core of who he was. He sounded like a normal person who lived a normal life outside of his radio show, not like some kind of doctor who claimed to be an expert on the human psyche. His advice was drawn from his own experiences, his own mistakes, and maybe that’s how he could relate to everyone. He was trying to live his life just like them. 

“It’s Christmas, I know. I would be remiss not to acknowledge it,” ZZZhang doesn’t sound particularly jazzed about it, the words drawn out of him almost excruciatingly. “In Korea, Christmas is a holiday for lovers, so even if it’s a bit cliche, I thought it was fitting to make tonight’s session all about Love.

“We talk about love a lot on the show, the good, the bad— the ugly, so to speak. I guess today I’ve been really thinking about how today of all days, it feels a bit strange to be alone.” 

To be honest, Hanbin had tuned out a bit as soon as ZZZhang had said the word “love,” not ignoring the broadcast completely, but not interested in hearing any more perfect Christmas love stories after the day he’d had. His focus returns when ZZZhang mentions being alone, an experience he was intimately familiar with, though he was a bit surprised the DJ felt the same. 

“Being completely transparent with you all, I spent today alone. I don’t regret it, I guess. It’s not the first Christmas I’ve ever spent alone, but it’s the first one in a while. Or at least, it’s been a while since I haven’t been alone on purpose.” 

Any hope of falling asleep to the gentle tones of ZZZhang’s story fade the instant he reveals the smallest hint about his personal life. Hungry for any details he can get about the mysterious DJ, Hanbin sits straight up, going so far as to turn on the lamp beside the bed like the man himself might appear at the end of his bed if he imagines him hard enough.

“I’m not old, at least, I wouldn’t say I am. But I’m getting older, I guess. I think there’s a difference,”  ZZZhang begins to explain. “So like most not-young people, I’ve been thinking a lot about what my life will be like when I am old, who will be by my side and who won’t.

“My mother called this morning, and of course, as all mothers do to their sons when they’re in their late twenties and are alone on Christmas, and she asked me when I was planning on settling down and getting into a serious relationship. She lectured me about how it wasn’t good to spend so much time by myself and told me that having a boyfriend was important so there would be someone to take care of me when I get old. It’s a nice notion, isn’t it, that love is a promise to take care of each other?

“For the longest time, I thought love was that big boulder out there in the distance, and eventually, I would have to cross it. Now, I’m starting to think it’s just a lot of little stones that constantly trip you up when you’re not paying attention to them.” 

Though Hanbin can tell that ZZZhang is being entirely serious, he can’t help but laugh to himself a little bit at the metaphor. Perhaps the DJ is more bitter about love than he’d thought, despite all the other sessions where he’d encouraged his listeners to take a chance and confess. He’d never told them to be careful and hold themselves back for fear of getting hurt.

“Oh, someone asked if I’m going to take a caller tonight,” ZZZhang read out loud from the live chat. “Hm, I’m not sure yet. Am I talking too much? Should I play another song, are you bored of me already?”

Maybe Hanbin should have tried harder to listen to this session live. This was the most ZZZhang had spoken about himself ever in a single session, and if he moved on to his usual routine because of some complaining listener, Hanbin would be more than a little disappointed. If he’d listened live, he could have sent his own encouragement for ZZZhang to keep talking. 

He finds himself smiling at his phone at the petulance in the DJ’s voice, perhaps his true personality was revealing itself in this little deviation from his usual routine. 

“Okay, you’re saying to keep talking, so I’m going to keep talking,” ZZZhang decides, “Sorry if you really wanted to talk to me tonight. You can call next week, is that okay? Okay. As I was saying…

“So one of my best friends is getting married, and I’m happy for him. I really really am.” 

Unable to stop himself, Hanbin laughs a bit at how quickly the DJ changes the subject back to himself. The thought comes to him unbidden that this must be what it’s like to be friends with the man behind the microphone, having a casual conversation instead of just going through the usual structure of song-caller-song-caller. There was nothing wrong with ZZZhang’s normal sessions, but like this, Hanbin leans back into his pillows and imagines that ZZZhang is a friend that he’s catching up with after a long time away. 

“It’s just, the wedding is so far away. It’s a destination wedding because the other groom wants to get married in his hometown. He asked me to be the best man months ago, and of course I said yes, but now I’m a bit embarrassed to be going alone. I even set them up together, did you know? Well, there’s no way you could know, but still. I’m practically a matchmaker. ‘Always the groomsman, never the groom'— is that a thing that people say? They should, since that’s me.” 

He sighs dramatically. “They say love is all around, but when will it find me?” 

“Oh no, why did I say that?” ZZZhang seems to come to his senses after a brief pause. “You’ll think I’m such a loser now. Ah, this is why I never talk about myself. It’s ruining the illusion, right? I’m supposed to be the one advising you, not the other way around.

“I have a confession. I drank quite a bit before this, and now I’m just running my mouth because I’m alone on Christmas.” 

Hearing a faint rustling sound, Hanbin holds the phone close to his ear so he doesn’t miss a single second of what the DJ says next. What he hears is dismaying, to say the least. 

“I think I’m going to have to end the broadcast a bit early tonight, sorry everyone. I’ll queue the last song.” 

Hanbin sighed, he’d seen it coming, but still he wished that the man would continue. He’d listened to so many of their problems. Why would he worry about being judged by the same people who came back every week because he made them feel so comfortable in the first place? 

“This is ‘By My Side,’ by JUNNY,” ZZZHang introduces. “Some of you are probably tucked warm in your beds with your lovers by your side, but this last song is for everyone who spent the day without someone to hold. We’ll find love by next Christmas too,” He breaks, probably to put on the song since he’d announced he was ending the broadcast so unexpectedly and hadn’t had time to do so before. “Or hopefully, even sooner. Sweet dreams.” 

By My Side by JUNNY

As soon as the song ends, Hanbin rewinds the recording all the way back to the beginning just to hear the cute petulance in the DJ’s voice all over again. He falls asleep halfway through with the lamp still on. 

*

To his surprise, Hanbin wasn’t actually scheduled on a flight during New Year’s Eve, landing in Seoul from London in early afternoon with no shift on the final evening of the year. Internally, he was over the moon at the thought that being consistently scheduled on one of the airline’s longest flights was a positive sign that a promotion was in his future. Though he’d flown with a different crew than the one on Christmas, Captain Kim still allowed him the controls for a good portion of the flight, only sending Hanbin to the flight deck to rest at nearly the end of the trip. 

In celebration, Hanbin stops by a market near his officetel, hoping to pick up a bottle of champagne to ring in the new year and to commemorate another successful year as a first officer. His parents weren’t home, traveling on a surprise vacation to Thailand to enjoy the last nights of the year under a warm sun. Hanbin had provided the tickets, though the trip was his sister’s idea. He contemplated calling to ask if she had any plans, though he was confident she would be spending the evening with her college friends among whom Hanbin would be incredibly out of place at his age. 

Contemplating between two brands of champagne he’d never heard of, another customer comes up to his side, peering at the tower of bottles as well. 

“Any idea which of these is the best?” the man asks him, bringing Hanbin out of his thoughts and back to the mostly empty shop, bright lighting reflecting against the patterned linoleum floor, making the whole place feel bigger and emptier than it should have. 

Hanbin turns to the man, who stares at him expectantly. His voice sounds strangely familiar, but in a city of ten million faces, everyone starts to feel familiar when you’re exhausted and your brain is trying to make connections to things it already knows instead of forming original thoughts. 

“No idea,” Hanbin admits. 

“Hmm,” the man hums, then chooses the cheaper one. “No use spending so much money if I’m the only one that’s going to be drinking it.” 

Hanbin doesn’t know what possesses him to speak when the man’s words seem to be a clear close to their short conversation, but he interjects before the man can walk away. “Treating yourself well is just as important as the way you treat others. Tonight, we’re all celebrating something, right? Even if you’re alone, why not celebrate yourself?”

It’s something that ZZZhang would say— has probably said on a broadcast before— but it hits Hanbin then that he’s never actually internalized the advice to the point where he believed in it enough to pass it onto a stranger. He chooses the more expensive bottle, then hands a second to the other customer. 

The other man tilts his head, considering the words, but accepts the bottle after a few seconds. 

“You’re right. Thank you,” the man smiles, brighter than anything else in the store, and something in Hanbin’s heart swells at the thought of having done something good.

“Happy New Year,” Hanbin raises the bottle awkwardly. The other man returns the greeting, and Hanbin turns away from the register and speed walks towards the meat section, cringing at the action as soon as he walks out of the other man’s eye sight. He didn’t even need to buy anything else, he sighed to himself. Why did he have to be so awkward with other people all the time? 

*

Hanbin finds himself listening to his favorite one of ZZZhang’s sessions as the clock approaches midnight. One of the very first shows that Hanbin had ever heard live, the DJ had taken half a dozen callers compared to his usual one or two, skipping most of the time allotted for music to hear to the apparently long list of listeners who wanted to share their concerns in a week that was aptly themed around Moving On .

“I know it can seem difficult to realize it now when you’re stuck in the moment, but everything will pass eventually. At the same time, you can’t just wait and watch for it to happen. You’re not an extra in the movie of your own life, you’re the main actor, the director, and the writer all in one. It’s you who gets to choose when and at what speed it happens. If you’re ready now, that’s great. If not, you still have plenty of time.

“You just have to remember this. How is the universe supposed to know that you’re ready to move on and throw something new at you if you seem stuck in the past?” 

ZZZhang lets his message sink in for a few moments before he closes the broadcast for the night. “I’m sorry to cut the callers off here, but I have one last song I really want to play for you tonight, one that brings me a lot of comfort when I’m struggling too. This is ‘everythingoes (with NELL),’  by RM. Sweet dreams.” 

everythingoes (with NELL) by RM

Hanbin pops the bottle of champagne open at midnight exactly. Well, maybe ten or so seconds late, because he fails to get the cork out on the first try. It’s terrible, though he’s never liked the taste of alcohol very much. He hopes that stranger is enjoying it a lot more than he is, the bitter taste lingering on his tongue. Either way, this year will be better, he resolves to himself. Less fear, more flight. He was a pilot after all, wasn't he? If there was anything he was good at, it should be flying away and starting anew.

Everything goes eventually, just as ZZZhang promised, but it was up to Hanbin to make it so.