Chapter Text
Anthony can't stop looking at Hanbon.
It's a real problem.
She's not even in the room at the moment. Anthony's alone at his desk, looking through the footage from their last video to be of help to their editor. It's not his job, but he can't help it. He's always been a perfectionist.
But it's not like he's actually been of much help. For the past half hour, all he can focus on in the video is Bon.
In the video, she comes towards the camera, her dark eyes wide with excitement, her smile so happy that it quickens Ant's heart just by looking at it. Which is awful, not to mention horribly embarrassing. She tells the camera, "Guys, I think this is the best video we've ever done. The CEO of YouTube can NOT ignore this one."
Coy giggles behind the camera. "Neal Mohan-"
Hanbon chimes in, "-Neal Mohan please. We have a really important question." She whips around, her newly dyed hair flying behind her. She grabs Anthony from his station watching Will check out, and directs him towards the camera.
In the present, Anthony feels his stomach drop. In the video, his eyes are glued onto Hanbon, a dumb smile stuck on his face. It barely matters what he even says in the footage; his stupid face is so obvious. He groans and drops his head in his hands.
A knock at his bedroom door. He jumps up and closes the window. "Anthony?" A horribly recognizable voice questions shyly from behind the door.
Anthony wills his heart to stop beating so fast and opens the door. Hanbon stands there, a tentative smile on her face. He blinks, trying to reset his brain to survive this interaction. "Bon?"
"Hiii!"
Anthony laughs. "What are you doing here?"
She shrugs. "I missed you."
She missed me.
...
Shut up.
"..Oh?" He asks, confused, but still smiling. Inside, he's praying that he's acting normal. Please, for the love of god, be normal.
"Yeah, it's boring without you guys on a Saturday."
Right. ‘You guys.’ Not just Anthony. Of course not. He wants to kick himself for the sense of disappointment that seeps into him after the distinction. He lets her lead him back into the living room.
Coy and Will are in the middle of a heated discussion. It surprises both Ant and Bon. Those two never have anything to fight about. Anthony's almost impressed... until they get close enough to actually hear the conversation.
"No, but if you think about our dynamic altogether, it's definitely me." Coy has his hands on his hips.
Will shakes his head. "Man, you can't take it just because you always ask for edits! I'm everybody's fan favorite. I am like definitely the one.. their, um, the that one."
"Come on. Think about Jonathan Bailey?" Coy spreads his hands like that proves a point. "I'm the heart throb. You can be like... the funny one, or something."
Anthony rolls his eyes. "What the fuck are you guys talking about?"
Hanbon crosses her arms next to him. "Yeah, that's stupid."
"Thank you, Bon-"
"Obviously I'm the heartthrob."
Anthony rears his head back and blinks in disbelief. "...Oh my god."
"And Coy's the diva. Will's the silly one. Come on, Anthony, back me up."
"I am not joining this conversation." He looks back at her ridiculously serious expression, something that might be her best impression of a gangster. To his ultimate despair, he can't bring himself to be annoyed. He hates the joy he gets out of adding, "Plus, I'm obviously the heart throb."
"Uh!" Hanbon scoffs. "You can't have my role!"
He shrugs and looks away, hiding his smile, saying, "Obviously mine." He's baiting her. Borderline flirting. But he doesn't need to think about that right now.
She laughs, trying to keep her serious face on. "Shut up! I'm everyone's favorite!" She swats at his arm.
"Ow!" Anthony ducks away from her and runs to the other side of the room. He grins and yells to her, "You're the silly one! You have to confront it eventually!"
"Get back here!"
She chases him in a circle around the couch, all the way towards the kitchen, before finally he lets her catch him, pretending he was slow enough for her to grab ahold of his shirt and pull him back. They're both laughing still, Hanbon struggling to keep control of him as he fights to turn around on her. His stomach is fluttering. Fluttering. God, he’s such an idiot. But he can't help it. How could he ever, with her?
He leans in and tells her, in a different voice, “We all know I'm the heart throb.”
Hanbon's been looking up at him with a defiant expression, but now something changes. Her eyes widen a bit, and the tips of her ears go red. She lets out another small laugh, but clearly it's forced.
Jesus Christ. He's so bad at hiding it that he scared her. What a world class idiot.
She shoves him as they walk back towards Coy and Will, who in all the chaos stationed themselves at the couch. Will looks unfazed, but Coy looks completely unamused with them. The room is suddenly silent. Anthony mentally kicks himself for the twentieth time.
It’s been weird like this the last couple weeks. Everything’s been weird: his interactions with the others, the atmosphere in every room he’s in, but especially him and Bon. Spurts of silly arguing, tackling each other and laughing, and then what feels like hours of awkward silence. Anthony prays that doesn't happen now. He doesn't think he can take another minute of that.
Everyone can feel it. See it, see him. No one wants to say anything. Especially not Anthony. he knows that all of this is his fault, that he'll be the one to fuck everything up. He tries to be optimistic. But that's always been Hanbon's area of expertise. Of fucking course it is.
Hanbon sits on the couch next to Coy, who smiles and wraps an arm around her shoulder. They start talking about… something. Anthony isn't really paying attention. He's perched himself on a stool in the kitchen, pretending to be working on something. But pretending to be busy doesn't exactly work when you can't tear your eyes away from your best-friend-turned-uncontrollable-attraction in the other side of the room. Hanbon's smiling at Coy as he tells a story, and Anthony thinks he might die from the light that fills the room. Or maybe it's just him that's suddenly bursting with warmth. This girl might actually be the personification of sunlight.
Unfortunately, Hanbon notices his expression. He tries to play it off, making a face at her and going back to his phone, but it doesn't work. She can obviously tell something's off with him. She goes quiet for a minute, then abruptly stands up.
“I'm going to go… work on my video idea!” She declares, but it's less like a motivated work announcement and more like she's being held at gunpoint. Her eyes flit to Anthony once and then straight to the door to the basement. When she leaves, it basically slams in his face.
Anthony sighs. It might be his imagination, but he could swear Will and Coy share a look. They sit in awkward silence for a bit, all on their phones or staring at the TV, before finally Will breaks and leaves to go to his room. Anthony stares at his phone, but he's not comprehending anything on the screen.
Coy leans back on the couch, closes his eyes like he's exhausted, and sighs. Almost a groan. “Are you okay?” Coy asks, but it comes out annoyed, which seems contradictory.
Anthony looks over from his spot in the kitchen. “What?”
Coy turns his palms up. “Are you okay.”
“I don't.. I mean, yeah?”
Coy runs his hands over his face. “I'm not stupid, Ant. Nobody here is. I'm just the only one tired of watching…” his hands go in a vague circle gesture in the air, “that.”
Shit. Anthony stands up on instinct, then feels weird for doing that. He sits on the couch next to Coy, feeling sort of like he's going to have to beg for forgiveness. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he says forcefully, like he can will it to be true.
Coy looks at him, unamused. “Really.”
Anthony blinks. Looks down. “Really.” Yeah, he's really bad at this.
Coy groans obnoxiously again. “It's just, like, exhausting watching you two. Watching just you, especially. Like.. wow.”
Anthony can feel himself blushing. This is awful. He closes his eyes in embarrassment and shakes his head slowly. “We’ve just been a little… off lately. I'll talk to her, we'll be fine by the next video.”
Coy snickers. “Right. The next video.” He looks up and grins to himself. “Wow, I thought I was bad at flirting.”
Anthony knocks his head against the wall. “It's not flirting! It's..” his hands come up like he’s grasping for something. “...Hanbon!” He feels utterly lost. Clearly, he's struggling, if he's opening up to anyone, let alone Coy about this. “We don't flirt. As a rule.”
Coy laughs. “Anthony, I think flirting is pretty much all you do.”
Anthony’s jaw drops unintentionally. “Excuse me?”
Coy laughs again, and Anthony has the distinct feeling that he's the only one on the outside of an inside joke. “Ant, you stare at her constantly. And she can't be around you for more than, like, a minute before either you're picking her up or she's tackling you to the ground.”
“Yeah, but it's been like that for forever.” Anthony waves his hand, satisfied with his argument. It takes a minute before he realizes Coy is staring at him, face frozen in a shocked half-smile, like he can't believe how ridiculous Anthony is being. Anthony's face drops. “Stop.”
“No, I just didn't realize you had the capacity to be this… obtuse.”
“Nothing's going on, okay?? Just leave it. I'll fix it.”
Coy shrugs but the grin doesn't leave his face. “Okay, but I won't be surprised when you two are the reason the channel ends.” He stands up and walks to his room, leaving Anthony to absorb his words.
Part of him knows Coy was only joking, but the rest of his brain is running with it. Is he right? Will he really be the reason this thing he cares about so much ends? If he messes this up with Hanbon, then the dynamic will be messed up, and none of the videos will be the same.
Every day comes with another reason why he's going to ruin everything.
Hanbon is having a crazy month. Bunch of Friends is doing amazing, better than usual, she's gotten recognized at least 3 times in the past couple months, and she's never felt more right about where she is in her life.
Well. Mostly. Youtube is great. Her friends are great. She loves them! But there’s a problem with them. Well, with one friend in particular. A certain curly-haired brunette with an addiction to meta glasses.
She doesn't know what it is that's making it so weird between them, and it's driving her insane!
Actually… if she's being honest… there's one more problem. Hanbon says she doesn't know what's making it so weird, but she does. It's her. Her inability to interact with Anthony has caused all this drama. Something about being around him lately has been so… suffocating.
After she leaves the room to ‘work on her video,’ she actually just ends up on the floor next to the downstairs couch, holding their giant duck plush, feeling like she's going to scream.
For someone who usually lives completely in the present, she's spent an awful lot of time replaying recent events in her head lately. She squeezes her eyes shut, cringing as she remembers how awkwardly she left the room. And, even earlier than that, she totally ruined their last video. She and Anthony are a good duo, but she could stand to talk to either of the other two members at least once.
It's so strange because it's never been like this with Anthony. He's one of her oldest friends. She's always been so in sync with him. And now… it's like there's suddenly an outside force pulling her out of that rhythm. A new sort of context. She just has no idea what the context is.
She's staring up at the ceiling when the inevitable happens. The door to the goffice opens, and she doesn't even have to look up to know it's Anthony. Her heart starts racing. Hanbon stifles a groan: why???
He nods at her and sits on the couch. “Having fun?”
“It's great down here.” she nods back.
He makes a face as he looks down at the ground. “Probably super dirty, too.”
She lays her arms out. “I am one with the Earth. Dirt doesn't bother me.”
Anthony laughs. “You are so weird.”
Hanbon smiles. “I know.” She props herself up and leans on the couch’s base. “How's the video editing coming?”
Anthony stutters, “I don't-” then looks down at her, squinting. “How do you know about that?”
“I know everything.” She closes her eyes haughtily, then peeks up at him. His giant blue eyes glimmer with amusement in the way they do when he's trying to keep it under wraps. “Because you always take over editing.”
“I don't take over.”
Hanbon keeps looking at him, one eyebrow slightly raised.
Anthony meets her eyes. For some reason, Hanbon feels her hair stand on end. “I just like to make sure it's good.”
Hanbon rolls her eyes affectionately. “Yeah.”
Anthony keeps looking at her, his gaze changing in a way she can't quite place but that makes her feel like running again. He sighs and slides down the couch to sit next to her. Their shoulders are touching, and Han gets equal amounts of comfort and nerves from that. She focuses on the comfort part. Anthony's looking at something on the ground now, but he leans into her the way he always does. Hanbon swallows. It's quiet again. Like it's been for at least a month. Suffocating.
He clears his throat. “So, how's that video idea coming?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“No, no, I heard Coy and Will talking about the salad eating challenge again. Anything you come up with that will absolutely be better than that.”
She bumps him with her shoulder. “Don't be mean.” He raises his eyebrows, a tiny grin on his face. Waiting. She relents. “Yeah that was kind of awful last time we tried to film.” Anthony raises his arms in a silent, Thank you! Hanbon shrugs. “Maybe we just need rules or something this time.”
“Don't give them any ideas.”
And it's just like that, sitting on the floor, in the middle of the day, in mostly silence, that Hanbon realizes she can't breathe. She can't do this anymore and she doesn't even know what “this” is. She hates it when she pops up again, just like she did not half an hour ago, and makes her escape. Anthony watches her, and it might be her imagination, but she could swear he looks a little pained.
She ignores it. She never used to ignore those things. “Let's go ask them, shall we?”
Anthony laughs, a little awkwardly. “Shall we?”
“That's just how geniuses talk, Anthony. Get on board.”
He shakes his head and follows her lead back upstairs, where they pretend everything is normal around the others, like Hanbon isn't about to scream, like she's not drowning.
And she pretends she doesn't notice Anthony's eyes on her.