Chapter Text
They walk slowly, weighed down by the kind of pressure that can’t just be put down to the rain beginning to fall softly down around them. It lands in Hao’s hair, small beads clinging to the edges of his vision, dampening around the back of Hanbin’s neck and causing the sleeves of his shirt to stick tight to his wrists. They move in sync, so accustomed to each other’s rhythm after weeks, months, years, even when the ocean between them feels to large to be breached.
They don’t hold hands – it’s softer than that, the usual comfort that feels too distant right now. It’s the backs of their hands softly touching as they walk, each graze of fingers giving way to that gentle sadness that feels less like fate and more like inevitability.
Hanbin focuses on the rhythm of their shoes on the pavement, ignoring the way that his hair presses down against his forehead with the increasing ferocity of the rain. What had been a light drizzle has darkened into something more heavy. And yet neither of them make any sort of effort to speed up.
“When do you go?”
He looks to Hao as he poses the question, even though the other doesn’t return his gaze. His eyes are fixed solidly on his own feet, their passage along the pavement. The meaning behind Hanbin’s question hangs unsaid in the air, but still far too present. ‘When will you leave me?’ Desperate, quiet, but accepting in its own way. Realising that what they have had is beautiful, but fleeting. Something fate doesn’t want to last.
“Two days. Early morning flight.” Hao replies, and Hanbin looks away before he can second-guess the raindrops lining his cheeks. It feels less like an answer than a death sentence, putting a countdown clock onto their happiness. A ticking time bomb, one where every second is slowly slipping away from them. Everything they are, everything that they’ve built between the, everything that could have been now fading away into the haze of mist that the rain drags around them.
They fall back into silence again, unbroken. Even their footsteps are obscured by the drumming of the rain on the pavement around them. Hanbin has seen Hao in the rain so many times, such a beautiful sight that it makes his heart ache – windswept hair, a shirt that sticks tight to his skin, the wild look in his eyes when his skin is dripping with water. There’s something unrestrained about his expression, but he knows that if he were to meet his eyes now, he would be met with nothing but blank sorrow.
He wants to tell him that it will be okay. He wants to reassure him that everything that they’ve built doesn’t means nothing, that they can find a way to make it work, that Hao moving back to China doesn’t have to be the end. But the reassurances don’t reach his lips, falling flat on his tongue before they can properly form. He can’t bring himself to lie, not just to Hao, but to allow himself to hope. That would be the biggest betrayal of them all.
So he lets the silence sit. It’s like a living thing, growing and twisting between them, a void that neither of them know how to bridge.
They can’t keep walking forever. Eventually, the road will run out, the paths split, and they will be forced to walk in different directions. But neither of them are ready for that just yet. They can’t commit to something so final. To hold onto it, for just one more day, so that these precious final moments don’t fall between their fingers completely.
They don’t debate about where to eat dinner. They end up at the same place as always, one of the fast food restaurants that always smell of salt and too-strong disinfectant to disguise the lingering scent of disappointment. Hanbin slides into the booth in the seat opposite Hao, hands resting on the greasy table top. His fingers hover just inches from Hao’s, the contact that once would have been so instinctive now seeming impossible. The lights shine down too brightly, as if they can illuminate all the deepest darkest crevices of the cracks splintering between their joined hearts.
Hanbin makes the move first. Hand coming to rest softly on to of Hao’s, the movement conveying more than a thousand words. He looks up at the contact, and Hanbin’s heart lurches painfully at the sight of his red-rimmed eyes, cheeks raw and flushed from the effort of attempting to restrain his tears. His hair is still wet with rain, both of their clothes soaked through, and if it weren’t warm in the restaurant then they would both be shivering.
He looks so defeated, and Hanbin hates it. As if he’s already accepted the fact that he will give up, as if it’s already over. As if everything that they’ve built, every memory and smile and fleeting kiss under the stars were nothing but a breath in the wind.
“Don’t cry, Hao. Please.” Hanbin hates how his voice cracks, how fragile and fractured he sounds. As if his whole world is splintering away before his very eyes, and there’s nothing that he can do to piece it back together except slowly watching it fall apart.
Hao gives no reply to indicate that he’s even heard Hanbin’s words, but his hand shifts to gently latch onto his fingers. They link so naturally, just like thousands of times before, but this time feels horribly final. The beginning of the end of something that they don’t know how to say goodbye to.
He holds onto Hanbin’s hand as if it’s the lifeline anchoring him to the present, the one thing keeping him whole. Even if it can only ever be temporary, Hanbin would rather provide that comfort, would rather feel the warmth leaching out of his own body and into Hao’s through their joined fingers rather than watch him sit there, broken and cold.
His fingers shake ever so slightly, chilled from the rain, the delicate fingers that he has come to love so much. How many times has he watched them ghost over the strings of Hao’s violin, the rich and sweet music that has existed around them, the soundtrack to their love song? How many times has he softly kissed those knuckles when they have cracked from too many hours of practice, caressed away the indents of the strings from those soft fingertips?
Their food arrives, sits on the edge of the table, grows cold. Hanbin’s thumb strokes small, concentric circles against the base of Hao’s palm, a gesture which provides small comfort. A solidarity that somehow only makes it harder to break apart.
Eventually, once darkness has descended beyond the windows and the intermittent beeping of the counter has ceased to nothing more than a forlorn clock ticking away at the passage of time, once the crowd bustling around them has thinned and the chaos has settled into something more depressing and real, they move. Even as Hanbin stands, Hao moves with him, unwilling to let their hands become separated. It feels as if they lose that last physical connection, they will never be able to link back again so easily.
And so Hao clings on even tighter, because it can’t end just yet. He won’t let go until it’s over.
They pause outside the doorway, a thousand things unsaid. Maybe their joined hands will be enough. Maybe the universe will take pity on those tear-stained cheeks, and provide them with some sort of reprieve. And yet that feels too impossible.
“Come back to my place?” Hanbin suggests, though there’s an undertone that sounds far more like a plea. He can’t bear to be separated from Hao, not now, not when everything is so fragile and the entire world is teetering on the tip of a needle. He needs Hao more than he would like to admit, needs the real him, the solid warmth that means home. Just for tonight, he needs him.
That simple suggestion is enough. Hao nods stiffly, as if the very action pains him, and then the dam breaks. The stiffness falls away, this strange hollowness that has carved itself out between them caves in on itself. His head dips and he moves in one motion, chin coming to rest on Hanbin’s shoulder in that way that feels so achingly familiar, wrapping himself around Hanbin’s arm as if it will keep him whole.
He allows himself to exhale, feeling the comforting warmth of his breath tickling the side of his neck. He simply breathes, the sharp scent of old rain on the ground fading to something duller, something sweeter. The familiar scent of Hao, the small smells that he probably doesn’t even notice. Orange-scented shampoo and lavender hand cream, the cheap washing powder that labels itself as smelling like lilies but instead just smells like Hao. Every different layer just feels like falling into a dreamy sleep, comforting and relaxing in the way that only Hao can be. He is the one place that he knows he can truly be himself, the one person that he trusts with his soul in its entirety.
He feels so real in his arms like this, the pressing heat of his body immediate and grounding. And soft, too, not physically but emotionally. The knowledge that they are the only two people who they can allow themselves to be completely unguarded around, to let all their walls come crumbling down until it’s just their raw souls clutching at each other for comfort.
Hanbin’s apartment isn’t far, and yet the silence feels less oppressive now as they walk. Their joined hands provide a sort of strength that courses through them both, the kind of bond built from fragile threads of love and trust that have become so caught and intertwined that they can never be undone.
The rain has stopped now, and yet the air still carries that bite that threatens another shower. The pavement shines beneath their feet, puddles reflecting back a cruel reminder of everything that they stand to lose – each other, together, close, hands joined in the sort of way that resists separation under any circumstances.
Traffic rattles past on the main road, completely oblivious and uncaring. Cars and vehicles full of people with small, everyday worries filling up the space within, whilst out on the path two boys hold each other in a desperate attempt to keep something precious alive, something that’s fracturing beneath their fingers and that they are powerless to stop.
Hanbin holds open the door to the apartment block. It’s such a small gesture, one that speaks of a lifetime of love. The kind that never dies, even when stifled, a flame that can never be truly extinguished. It’s something he’s done a thousand times before, but never with a heart as heavy as this.
His apartment has always been their small sanctuary, a pause within four walls, safely buried away from the business and prying eyes of the world. From up here, the city stretches away into the distance, small lights that twinkle into insignificance and make them feel on top of the world. But not tonight. Tonight, the ride in the lift is silent, broken only by the bravery of joined hands, and the fact that their hearts refuse to give up beating. Not just yet.
He twists the key in the lock one-handed. This threshold has witnessed so many small moments, the tiny details of their relationship that have unfolded like small roads on an old map. Hanbin would love for the walls to be able to retell all of their secrets, the tiny snapshots of life that are now lost to memory, the insignificant moments that make them who they are.
Hao ringing the door at three in the morning with his university project in hand; the two of them tumbling through in a mix of desperate mouths and hot hands, unable to get through the door quick enough; Hanbin leaving late at night, armed with emergency snacks and a phone to his ear that echoes with the soft cadences of Hao’s trembling voice; Hao waiting patiently outside with a bunch of flowers barely concealed behind his back on Valentine’s day. It’s seen the good moments, the bad, the moments where they have shown up for each other without being asked and every late-night trip to the convenience store before a movie night where they know that they’ll both be asleep halfway through.
But this is the most silent that it’s ever felt. The walls that hold the secrets of their love – the whispered confessions at 2am, Hanbin holding Hao together when coursework pressure felt like it was swallowing him whole – and now the apartment stands silent, breath bated. To see whether it will all have been for nothing.
Hao enters first with the practiced ease of someone entering a house that’s not theirs, but calling it home anyway. His home has always been where Hanbin is, anyway. And yet, his shoulder stay stiffened with the kind of tension that can’t be put into words, the sort that comes from the very foundations of your world being pulled from under your feet with no warning.
He moves towards the window and the curtains that they had picked out together. Hanbin had wanted plain. Hao had told him to get pink and blue checkered ones. Hanbin had reminded him that they weren’t even shopping for Hao’s apartment. Hanbin had bought them anyway.
They stand shoulder to shoulder, gaining strength from the warmth transferred by simply being in each other’s presence, the gravity of each other’s orbit. Seoul stretches out beyond the edge of their vision, lights that twist and warp and bend. A thousand miles below, a million lives move by seamlessly, as if the very world isn’t ending in a small apartment above the city.
Hanbin tries to tell himself that they won’t let it be the end. That they can still all every day, that their relationship is more than that. But he knows the reality – China is a whole world away. He is busy at university. Hao will be busy with his degree. He loves Hao too much to lose him.
What he dreads is how inevitable it all is. They have known for months that Hao will be moving back, but they had it all planned. They would both finish university, and then move to China together to allow Hao to finish his degree. They would do it all together.
There had been a phone call last night. Simple and devastating. Hao’s father is ill, dangerously so, and the doctors haven’t got much hope any more. He’s not terribly close with his family, especially not his father, and yet some blood connections do still mean something, and with the loss of his father, their family will struggle. They need him.
Hanbin knows this, and yet a small, selfish part of him doesn’t want Hao to return for the sake of his family. He knows that he doesn’t want to leave. And he will be sacrificing everything for it.
He was never supposed to stay in Korea this long, after all. He still remembers it so clearly, the moment that he first laid eyes on Hao – that shy smile, the way his fingers had twitched at the edges of his new school blazer, still to long at the sleeves. The way that his Korean had been a broken, fragile thing, the language barrier that Hanbin had been determined to break. To everybody else, a new exchange student. But to Hanbin, he was something else entirely.
It had taken them time to start dating. They had started simple, hands held tight in the corridors as they navigated the bustling school corridors together, Hanbin walking Hao to class and then having to run to his own to ensure he wasn’t late, snacks exchanged and shared over lunch table, shy kisses stolen by the lockers once most of the students had headed home for the day and a secretive hush had descended over the school.
It had turned deeper. Late-night talks in convenience stores, steam from matching bowls of ramen curling into the chilled night air. Hanbin bringing Hao home to dinner for the first time, the way that his parents had shot them questioningly looks across the table as their knees bumped beneath the tablecloth.
And then they had gotten older, not wiser, their love maturing as they finished school and moved into college. Hao was supposed to return to China and yet he chose to continue his studies in Korea, just to remain with Hanbin. They had grown from awkward young boys trying to navigate the tangled paths of first love into young men, still just as confused but slightly more sure of each other.
And through it all, they had remained best friends, lovers, the second half of each other. Hanbin had thought that they would be inseparable. In all their many late-night talks under the stars, those soft sleep-hemmed conversations when the world feels too warm and too real, they had discussed their futures. They were always supposed to be together.
The past few years have been the best of Hanbin’s life. Having somebody that understands him so intensely, the kind of love that doesn’t need words – it’s more than he could ever have dreamed of. Hao is his match in every single way possible, and that’s something that he doesn’t think that he can bear to lose.
And so they stare out over the city together in an apartment that has watched them through thick and thin. Through every kiss, every argument, every tear and every drop of laughter. Every slow morning spent tangled in Hanbin’s bed, peppering gentle kisses on each other’s cheeks, every late-night breakdown over exam stress. They’ve been there for each other through everything, and that’s the sort of bond that can’t just be thrown away by distance. He hopes not, at least.
Hao turns to him, cheeks still glittering in the low light cast by the lamp in the corner. Another thing that he had insisted that Hanbin needed in his apartment, another thing that Hanbin had been unable to refuse him. “Hanbin...”
Their eyes meet. Hanbin’s steadfast ones, keeping back the grief that pounds against his chest, threatening to break through his ribs and shatter everything. Hao’s glistening ones, his distress spilling out over his lashes, raw and uncontained. Hanbin has always loved how very real and intense Hao’s emotions are, how he never feels the need to hide in his presence. Hanbin is hiding now, if only for the fact that if he were to release everything now, he would never let Hao leave. They would end up on the carpet, Hanbin clinging onto his sleeve and begging through thick tears. And he can’t let that happen, because he can’t do that to Hao.
He can’t let him see how much it truly is breaking him.
He takes a shaking breath, the kind that rattles in his chest with the weight of everything unsaid. “You can cry if you need to, Hao. You’re beautiful even when you cry.”
“I just...” his lips tremble with the force of trying not to shatter. “I don’t know what this will mean for us. And I can’t stand to lose you. God, I can’t lose you, Hanbin.”
And then Hao throws himself into Hanbin’s chest, fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt, tears soaking through against his skin. Hanbin holds him tight, arms anchored tight around him to keep him steady, even when the force of his sobs make it feel as if they could tear them both apart. He tries to be strong for Hao, to hold himself together when everything is disintegrating around them, but he can’t help the tears beginning to slip from his own eyes too.
They stand together, two halves of the same whole clinging together to stop the world from attempting to wash them away. The window frames them against the glittering city lights, two shadows that should never be separated and yet are being pulled apart against their will. Hao cries into Hanbin’s shirt as if the very world is collapsing, and Hanbin holds onto Hao as if it is the one thing keeping the world standing still.
Once Hao’s sobs have subsided into nothing more than silent trembling, once his cheeks have dried simply because his eyes have no more misery left to give, Hanbin disengages him from the front of his shirt lightly, keeping their fingers intertwined.
“It’s late.” He says. “We both need to sleep. It will do us good.”
“I don’t want to be away from you for even a moment.”
“Then I’ll hold you in your sleep and visit you in your dreams.”
Hanbin guides him towards his bedroom, their bedroom. Whilst it’s Hanbin’s apartment officially, Hao spends more time here than anywhere else in the city, and at some point the line had blurred between what was his and what was theirs. This place has always felt shared, and Hanbin’s bed feels empty in the nights where he rolls over and the sheets beside him are cold.
They climb in together, Hao burying himself in the soft sanctuary of Hanbin’s embrace once more, pressing his face in tight to his chest. The air feels heavy in his bedroom, as if it carries the weight of every night that they’ve spent in here, every touch and every kiss that has shaped their relationship.
The silence that falls between them is thick, weighted. It’s the sort of silence that takes shape and fills rooms, and doesn’t leave room to breathe. It echoes with the sounds of a life lived out here, a life carved out here, in their one sanctuary from the world.
Slow mornings peppered with kisses and sweet words. The sound of Hao singing in the shower, carrying throughout the apartment. Soft snoring from the couch after watching a show that neither of them have any interest in. The lilting melodies of Hao’s violin catching the air, fingers flitting delicately over the strings.
Every inch of Hao’s soul is built to sing, to be let out and heard by the wider world. The spirit of a bird, the fingers that can dart over strings like a second language that Hanbin has never learned how to read, but listens to with eyes closed and heart full. He can’t bear to think of Hao’s music being dulled, fading from this apartment over days, weeks, months, until it is nothing more than a distant memory of a boy that Hanbin used to love.
So he holds Hao a little tighter as the night grows longer, laying unbroken by the silent sobs echoing through the apartment.
Morning comes too soon. Bright light pouring through the large windows of Hanbin’s apartment, immediate and impossible to ignore. It shines brightly into his eyes, making the idea of sleep a hopeless wish. They hadn’t bothered to pull the curtains last night.
Neither of them have slept – not properly, in any case. Fitful and fleeting, wrapped in each other’s arms for comfort. This strange weight between them becoming too heavy to bear.
A day. That’s all the grace that they are allowed. A day to say goodbye to years.
Eventually there’s no more point in keeping up the pretence of sleep. It will shelter them from facing the truth, yes, but only for so long. Before the weight gets too heavy to bear, and they collapse under the shared burden. It won’t get easier.
“Tomorrow morning, you said?”
Hao turns to face Hanbin, eyes red-rimmed and sleepless. Devoid of their usual light, replaced instead by the sort of bone-deep ache that comes with goodbye. The tears have faded, replaced with the remnants of sorrow that cling to his features, red and raw and helpless. And Hanbin hates it. He wishes that he could cradle Hao into his chest and protect him from the world, in the way that he used to when they were still teenagers, young and inexperienced in love. When Hao had been a stranger in an unknown country.
But now they are older. Distinctly their own people, even if their souls have wrapped around each other tightly. Hao is no longer that trembling exchange student, so desperate for the comfort of anything that could feel like home. Now, he has found his home, and is being forced to return to a place that no longer holds that title in his heart.
“Five AM, from Incheon.” Hao whispers, his voice as hollow as his words.
“I’ll go with you.” Hanbin says in an instant. “But let’s not think about that now. Let’s enjoy these last few hours, and we’ll make sure that you’re ready to go. I’m not wasting a single moment with you.”
Hao nods, too numb to reply.
They get up slowly, unwilling to acknowledge the passage of time between them. Hanbin makes the bed in a desperate attempt to recreate a sense of normalcy. Hao lingers at his side, unwilling to leave him even for a moment.
In the kitchen, Hao kicks himself up to sit at the barstool beside the island with the practiced ease of a man who has done this a thousand times before. The countertop is wood, and he runs his fingertips over the graining, sanded smooth to allow for a sense of perfection. And yet knots still twist beneath it’s surface, even if they can’t be felt.
Usually, he would be sitting here prettily, batting his eyelids as Hanbin makes breakfast in an attempt to watch the familiar flush creeping over his cheeks, banging his feet against the footrest of the barstool, humming some half-remembered tune under his breath. And yet his usual melody has been dampened, sparked out of existence.
And yet they go through the same motions as every other time Hao has slept over. An easy routine, one that’s simpler than acknowledging the silence. The sort that pretends that it doesn’t feel the ache beneath the regular patterns.
Hanbin makes a simple breakfast for each of them, even though neither of them feel anything remotely close to hunger. They hadn’t eaten last night, either, but keeping up the pretence hurts less than showing that something is wrong. He stands at the burner, one hand on a frying pan and one hand hovering uncertainly at his hip, not quite sure whether to put it in his pocket or reach out and place it over Hao’s.
He settles on the latter, allowing his thumb to stroke soft circles onto the back of Hao’s hand, a small gesture that speaks volumes. All the emotions that he can’t quite put into words, but the quiet sort of solidarity that reminds Hao that Hanbin is not going to leave him behind.
Hao watches carefully, taking in every movement of Hanbin’s hand as he scrambles the eggs in the pan. He’s added just the right amount of salt, the perfect ratio that he knows Hao loves. He watches the way that his brow furrows slightly in concentration, the way his bottom lip shifts beneath his teeth as he tries to suppress the emotions churning within him. And yet his hand refuses to tremble on the handle of the spatula.
They’ve done this so many times. It’s never been this difficult to act normal. It’s a dance that they’ve perfected – morning sunlight streaming through the windows to catch at the edges of Hao’s sleep-tumbled hair, the sound of his laughter echoing through the apartment, the cup of coffee clutched between his hands with small trails of steam escaping into the morning.
Now that cup sits in front of him, ignored and slowly going cold.
Hanbin reaches up to the cupboard above the burner to retrieve two plates at the same time that the toaster pings – two slices of toast sliding onto two plates, two sets of scrambled eggs being ladled on top. Everything about them a pair.
They move towards the kitchen table together. The kitchen table with two chairs, even though only one person lives here. The kitchen table set with two placemats, its surface stained by the echo of hundreds of slow mornings, coffee rings and the little doodle that Hao had done of a small flower on the very corner of the wood.
Hanbin lays the places. As always, he gives the toast with more egg on it to Hao – another of their little rituals that they hardly even seem to notice, and yet suddenly feel so important. Hao slides into his seat silently, poking at the toast and eggs with his fork. He’s not hungry.
“We’re going down to the river today.” Hanbin says. “One last walk, okay? And then I’ll help you get ready.”
It goes unsaid. Get ready to leave. To leave behind this life that they have carved out for themselves, to leave behind everything that they have built up over the past few years. To leave behind their shared future, and the memories that run deep into their blood. To leave behind the love that they have cultured within this small apartment in the centre of Seoul, a home hundreds of miles from where Hao was raised. And yet this is home.
He nods, swallowing the regret that hangs thickly against his tongue. “One final day in the sun. Just us.”
The apartment settle back into silence, broken only by the scraping of cutlery against ceramic. Hao pushes the eggs and toast around his plate, appetite diminished. The smell of it turns his stomach, even though he knows that Hanbin has made it especially for him. His favourite. Their favourite.
He pushes the plate away, and Hanbin does so too. There’s no point wasting time on food that they’re not going to eat more than a few bites of. Hao collects both their dishes, feeling the weight of two plates. It’s small things like that which now hold such significance, when they have no right to.
They leave twenty minutes later, once they are both dressed and ready to leave. He’s determined to squeeze every ounce of happiness that he can from this day. If it’s going to be his last with Hanbin at his side, then they need to make it worth it. The sort of memories that stick, and remind them that everything is worth it.
Hanbin drives. Hao has been practicing for his license, though he supposes dully that that will have to be put on hold for now. Hao sits on his right-hand side, trying not to let the tears pricking his vision obscure his vision through the windscreen of the car.
Hanbin’s hand comes to rest lightly on his knee. The contact is grounding, the way his thumb strokes softly over the thin layer of fabric between his hand and Hao’s leg.
The road seems never-ending, the usual chaos of the Seoul traffic fading back into nothing more than background noise, drowned out by the chaos in his mind. It’s one continuous echo of screeching tyres, beeping lights, the hum that accompanies all living, breathing cities. Usually, it provides some sort of comfort, the familiarity of city noise that never changes, but now it gets into Hao’s head. It feels too loud, as if it’s pressing into the distance growing between him and Hanbin.
Hanbin’s car is old, second-hand, but they have come to laugh about its many shortcomings. It had been perfect for a young college student without much money in his pocket, a battered old thing that got from A to B without much fuss beyond a rattling engine and air conditioning that gave up twenty years ago.
The radio is blaring some tinny song from before either of them were born, the audio catching and crackling with static. Hao reaches forward to turn it up reflexively, if only to drown out the silence stretching between them.
He turns his attention to the view beyond the window as they roll slowly onto a bridge. He doesn’t know which one – Hanbin would know. Hanbin knows this city like the back of his hand, somehow, every road and bridge and stop sign, traffic light and crossing. Usually, Hao would ask.
The river winds out below them, silver in the morning light. A tourist boat carves out a wake from under the bridge as gulls swarm around its deck, reduced to nothing more than fluttering white specks from the height of the bridge. Hao leans his head into the cool glass, looking down at the faint rippling of the water. His breath creates a small mist against the glass, one that blurs his view and obscures the details of the water below, so he reaches a finger up to trace the outline of a heart into the condensation. It fades slowly.
The journey seems to go on for years, but he’s not complaining. He doesn’t want it to end. He doesn’t want to admit to the passage of time, to move on so quickly.
Hanbin parks the car at the side of the river. They’ve come here so many times in the past, so many walks along this stretch of the river, and yet it’s never felt as heavy as this. It’s still early in the morning, and whilst the roads are bustling with traffic, Yeouido park is peaceful, the silence less demanding than it had been back in Hanbin’s apartment. For the first time, Hao feels as if he can breathe.
Hanbin holds Hao’s door open for him, a tiny gesture that now only serves to make his heart ache with everything that he’s going to be missing. He offers a hand to help him out, and he takes it, feeling the warmth of Hanbin’s fingertips pressing against his own. That steadying pressure that makes him think of home.
Home has shifted. When he first moved here, a young boy alone in an unfamiliar city, the Korean in his mouth disjointed and unsure, he had ached for the simple familiarity of his own language. He remembers missing his bed more than anything, and the small things that he took for granted. The way that the morning sun had looked, streaming through the window of his childhood bedroom, the chirping of the birds on the roof. Small things that had ached once they were gone.
But he no longer misses them now. That is a different chapter of his life, and he has grown now. Become his own person, and forged his own life with the man beside him. Home has shifted from the comfort of homework in his first language spread onto a chipped wooden table, the familiarity of a schoolbag on his back as he rushes back from the bus-stop. Hao is not who he used to be, and he doesn’t want to return.
Now, home is the warmth of Hanbin’s hand slotting into his, the pattern that his fingertips tap out at the back of Hao’s hand to some obscure tune replaying in his mind. Probably one from the radio. Home is this city that took him in as a young exchange student, the city that he had to earn. Every battle and difficulty that he has fought to overcome, and conquered. Home has been earned, and giving that up feels impossible.
He’d always planned to return to China, at first within a few months and then stretching it, planning for the years ahead. Later, he had promised Hanbin that they would go there together, that he would show him all the bright things that he used to call home, before that part of his heart was claimed by another. But this feels forced. He’s not going because he wishes to return – he feels he has a duty to fulfil, to his father and to his family.
Maybe Hanbin understands. Maybe he doesn’t. And yet his hold on Hao’s hand never falters, never questioning. He might not understand why Hao feels the pressure to return, and yet he has accepted it. He’s too understanding for his own good.
“You’re thinking too loud.” Hanbin prompts, tugging Hao abruptly from his fast spiralling thoughts process.
“There’s a lot to think about.” Hao tips his head back to the sky to avoid Hanbin’s gaze, feeling the fresh river breeze gliding across his cheeks. The park is quiet at this time of day, save for the constant chirruping of insects in the trees. They’re everywhere in Seoul at this time of year, and incessant chorus that is impossible to escape. It’s a sound that Hao has come to associate closely with summer. The insects bring the heat with them.
Even now, too early to be called mid-morning, it’s warm enough for both of them to have not even contemplated bringing any sort of jacket with them. Hao’s shirt is short sleeved, one that he’s had since his days at school and now clings just a little tight at the shoulders, but it’s one that has seen him through the most difficult points in his life. In Hanbin’s apartment, there is a framed photo of him in this shirt from their trip to Jeju last year. He’s sitting on a rock beside the sea, mouth slightly smudged with the evidence of an ice cream clutched within his hand. He’s not looking at the camera, but pointing at some seabird that lays just out of frame. Hanbin loves that photo. Hao has begged him to take a better one.
The photographs that sit on Hao’s desk are far superior, in his opinion. There are two, both taken on the same day – their graduation. The first is of both of them, arms around each other and smiles wide. Hao is looking at the camera. Hanbin is looking at Hao.
The other is his favourite. It was taken a few hours after the first, when they had headed into Hongdae to celebrate. Hanbin had gotten drunk, and it came from a photo booth just outside a karaoke room where Hanbin had insisted on singing love ballad after love ballad. The memory still makes him smile now, the way Hanbin had taken his hand and spun him slowly to the rhythm of Replay by Shinee. Even now, he associates that song with their love story.
“At least share your thoughts with me.” Hanbin presses gently, accompanying the words with a reassuring squeeze of Hao’s hand. “Maybe it will help.”
“I’m thinking about that karaoke session after our graduation. The picture on my desk.” A small smile falters across Hao’s face, the first time in days. For just a moment, thinking back to their past shines a little light onto his hopes for the future.
Hanbin groans audibly, slapping his other palm into his face in embarrassment at the memory. “Why did you let me get that drunk.”
“It was great entertainment, actually. I’ve never heard anyone manage to sing BTS’s Just One Day and get every single lyric wrong before. It was impressive.”
Without realising it, his mood is lifting slightly. Hanbin seems to notice this, and he urges the conversation on with more of their happy memories together – or, more specifically, most embarrassing memories of each other.
“Hey, you can’t talk. My birthday last year?”
This time it’s Hao’s turn to groan. He doesn’t remember much from that night, but the evidence on Hanbin’s phone and his awful hangover the day after had been proof enough. He had woken up face-down on the couch, a toppled can beside him and the couch cushions sticky from the residue of whatever drink he had managed to spill.
“When you tripped trying to tie your shoelaces in PE class and landed on your face?”
“When you had the entire apartment block evacuated because you burnt your breakfast toast?”
“When you tried to get your earring out of my bathroom sink and flooded the whole room?”
“When you fell asleep in Home Economics and tipped the chair backwards?”
Hao reaches up to rub the back of his head. “God, that one was painful."
Hanbin reaches up to ruffle his hair affectionately. Some of the tense air gathering between the two of them has disappeared into the morning sunlight, burned away by the recollection of each other’s most embarrassing moments. Some of the cracks splintering between them falter, less sure of splitting their hearts apart.
The silence returns eventually, but it’s less immediate. Yes, everything is crashing down around them, but they have each other. Their love runs deeper than any separation ever could. It’s a deep, rooted thing, a flower that has learnt to bloom through hurricanes and storms, and will not wilt in a storm.
“If we’ve got this whole day,” Hao begins, “I want to spend all of it doing things that I associate with us.”
Hanbin nods, a slight movement in his peripherals. They’re still moving along the riverbank, with the city to their right and the Han on their left and then beyond that, the city rising once more. Seoul tower peeks out above the high-rises, watching closely. Hao has come to love that tower – you can see it from almost anywhere within the central city, and it feels like it has been a witness to the love that has blossomed and grown down here below it. One of the first dates that they went on, Hanbin had taken him up on the cable car to look at the view. They had shared their first kiss there, under the watchful eye of the tower and the city spreading out below them.
“A tour of us.” Hanbin says slowly, as if he’s contemplating the words in his mouth. “I like it.”
“The tower.” Hao thinks.
“That noodle place we always used to eat at-”
“The aquarium-”
“Karaoke in the evening.” Their eyes meet, and a wistful smile tugs at Hanbin’s lips. The slight breeze blowing from the river disturbs his hair just enough to make him look alive, beautiful. Hao doesn’t know what he must have done in some past life to deserve someone like Hanbin.
“I didn’t tell you earlier, but I’ve packed my things.” Hao tells him. They’ve come to a stop underneath one of the bridges, one where they’ve stopped before. Couples like to sit on benches at the sides of the path, and in good weather they line the steps descending down to the waterfront. There are a few more people milling around, but nobody is sitting here yet.
They go a few steps down, far enough off the path that they wont be disturbed. Hao leans his head on Hanbin’s shoulder, whose hand has sneaked around his back to settle comfortably at Hao’s waist.
Hao continues, “I didn’t want to do it with you – if you know what I mean. It would have felt too final. I’m not ready for that yet. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise.” He feels the soft press of Hanbin’s lips at the crown of his head, feather-light. The warmth of him is comforting against the breeze, despite the growing heat in the air. It makes him feel present, immediate. “It means that we’ve got the whole day for us.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
This time, Hao turns his head sideways. Hanbin’s face is inches from his, expression soft. He notices his eyes flickering down to his lips for a split second.
Hao closes the gap between them. Those last few crucial millimetres disappear as he presses their mouths together in something bittersweet. It’s not goodbye, he tells himself; not yet. Not yet.
Hanbin holds him so carefully. His right hand stays at Hao’s waist, guiding him slightly further in to balance them against the kiss, his left hand coming up to gentle cup his jaw. His thumb strokes over the soft skin of his cheek, the touch electric.
He’s going to miss this. Hanbin tastes of strawberries and something deeper, something that he can’t place but feels somehow familiar. Steadying in all the right ways. It’s surprisingly easy to let himself to be held like this, to memorise the way that the fit together. He will file away this moment in his mind for the days when life feels too heavy to bear alone. The pressure of Hanbin’s hand at his waist, and the heat of the space between them. He traces the outline of Hanbin’s lips with his own, committing every millimetre to memory.
It feels too personal to let go of. This is something that they’ve built by hand over the years, navigating every difficulty along the way, and he won’t let it be ripped away from them so easily. He won’t let them end like this. They can’t.
When they pull back, it’s with a hope kindled brightly in Hao’s heart. There’s too much here to be lost, and he won’t let it happen they are stronger than this.
“I won’t let it end.” He whispers, suddenly brave. Hanbin does that to him. When everything seems too dark to continue, Hanbin is the one to pass him the candle that will allow them to carry on together. When it feels like he’s standing on the edge of a never-ending precipice, it’s Hanbin’s hand that stretches out to guide him across.
To his surprise, Hanbin’s cheeks are wet. He hadn’t noticed him crying into the kiss, although that is the exact kind of devastating romantic that Hanbin is. It feels on brand, somehow – always strong when he needs to be, and yet soft in all the right places. He feels deeply, even if he doesn’t always show it, but Hao loves it when he does. So for him to cry into a kiss feels strangely intimate, that he is allowing himself to be tender.
Hao gently brushes the tears away with both of his hands, pouting slightly. Hanbin crying is reserved only for the truly private moments between them, when their hearts are bared to the light and he can’t contain it any longer. “Don’t cry.” He says, voice slightly softer now, losing the defiant edge of certainty that had defined it just now. “It’s not over, okay?”
“I know.” He replies, swallowing the sob before it can fully release. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not afraid. I don’t know how to go about my life without you by my side. And I know that that’s selfish, but-”
Hao shushes his words with another brief press of his lips, not as deep as before but enough to quieten him sufficiently. “It’s not selfish. I don’t know either, but we’ll work it out together. We’re a team. I know – I know that you seem to think that it’s your duty to protect me, and comfort me before yourself, but we’re equals. Let me do it this time. You deserve to cry, and feel worried. So don’t you dare apologise, because you have every right.”
This time, it’s Hanbin that closes the gap once more. The small space between them is eliminated, the river breeze whistling in the negative space between their bodies is forced to redirect as their lips connect again – one force, united against whatever life may throw at them. Hao knows that Hanbin’s hand will never fall from his, no matter how far apart fate is determined to drag them. There’s a kind of love that buries itself deep within souls, until it’s so far embedded that it becomes permanently intertwined with the person. Hao doesn’t think that his heart would survive if he and Hanbin were to separate permanently.
Eventually, when they pull apart, Hanbin stands, offering Hao his hand once more. He takes it gracefully, slender fingers fitting perfectly into the comforting warmth of Hanbin’s palm.
“If we leave it any later, then we won’t be able to do everything that we want today.”
Hanbin starts back towards the car, but Hao hesitates for a moment longer. He senses it, and turns back immediately, expression questioning.
“Can we... go by the metro? For old times’ sake?”
Hanbin’s face break into a soft smile, the kind that you can only manage when the world feels like it’s splintering away beneath your feet and the only thing anchoring you is the hand in yours. He tugs Hao forward, not insistently, just with that friendly kind of pressure that has always defined them.
“Anything for you, my love.”