Archive of Our Own

The practice room looked the way it always did, with bright lights beaming down and someone’s Americano left too long on the floor. It smelled of floor wax and dried sweat, musty and humid from hours of use. Hao had been in there since seven in the morning. It was now past eleven at night, and the Seoul skies outside were a deep black. Most of the other trainees had already retired for the night, back in the dorms or, for the fortunate ones, in their homes with their parents. He stood in front of the mirror and ran the choreography one more time: eight counts, pivot, hit, and eight counts, pivot, hit.

Hao was twenty-three years old, which was much older than the trainee system was designed for. He hadn't planned on being a trainee this late, however. The plan, for most of his life, had been to study hard enough to get into a good university and major in something that would make him good enough money. Hao had accomplished that, getting accepted into the geology department at a prestigious university, and he was set on a path to a predictable life. But he wasn't content, and after much deliberation, he decided to pursue his true passion: music.

Hao retook the gaokao and focused on studying for a music education degree, though somewhere along the way, his goals changed again. It wasn't like he'd woken up one morning and decided to blow up the plan again. It was more gradual than that, probably starting from when he was first scouted by a Yuehua talent recruiter in his first year of university. There developed a slow gravitational pull toward something he'd been watching from a distance his whole life: the stage and the electricity of an audience. He had felt versions of those playing the violin in front of crowds, and Hao had thought he was satisfied with that, but some part of him had decided that it wanted something grander and louder.

So Hao decided to audition and then flew to Korea from China with a suitcase and a dream. His path was much later than most, and he had spent his time at Yuehua Entertainment making up for it in the only way available: by working harder than everyone else, or at least as hard as it was possible to work, which in a building full of driven trainees was saying something. Hao’s mornings were spent with his language teacher learning Korean, afternoons in the vocal room where he was most confident, and evenings in the practice room running choreography until it stopped feeling like planned movements and started feeling like breathing. He ate when he remembered, and he slept when his body stopped cooperating.

This routine had compounded recently, as there was an enormous opportunity coming soon, something chatted about in the group chats of every trainee who had ever wanted to stand under a stage light. It was a survival program under Mnet called Boy's Planet, a sequel to Girl’s Planet 999 and the Produce series. Hao had been selected to participate as part of the batch of trainees that didn’t make it into the Tempest lineup, and he had been preparing tirelessly for it. Nine people would debut from the show, and Hao intended to be one of those nine. He was months from a program that could change everything, and so he practiced until his calves ached and then practiced some more.

He ran through the choreography one more time. And then one more after that. Somewhere around the fifteenth repetition, his body gave him a clear and non-negotiable signal that they were done for the night. He grabbed his water bottle, toweled off his face, and gathered his things with the last of his energy. Hao shouldered his bag, turned off the practice room light, and finally left for the night.

The walk back to the dorm was a blur of neon lights and the biting Seoul wind, but the cold felt almost good after the hours of stuffiness in the practice room. The dorm he shared with the other Yuehua trainees was a small lived-in space that smelled of too many people's laundry, someone's leftover ramen, and the staleness of a room that doesn't get enough sunlight, but it was what he now knew as home. Hao had immediately beelined for his bedroom, dropped his bag by the door, and moved toward his bed with the single-minded intention of a person whose body has been making requests for several hours.

There was something on his bed. It was a small, cream-colored bag, sitting upright against his pillow, like it had been placed there intentionally. The bag was covered in soft plush fabric, and on its flap was an embroidered cat face with little orange tabby markings on the forehead and cheeks and two small ears at the top corners. There were two small, brown faux-leather buckle straps at the front. It was the most impractical and endearing object he had encountered in months, exactly his style of fashion.

Hao’s first thought was that it belonged to one of the younger trainees, but they were teenagers going through the angst of puberty and would probably never be caught dead with such a possession like this. So it didn’t seem like something any of them would own. Hao picked the bag up for closer inspection. It was light with no tags or labels, nothing that told him where it came from or who it belonged to. He hesitated briefly before unclipping the front buckles and opening it.

Inside was a singular blue envelope that Hao turned over in his hands. Scribbled on the front of the letter in neat handwriting were two things: My First Letter, and below that, Sung Hanbin. Hao stood there in his practice clothes, tired enough to feel as though he were hallucinating, holding a small cat bag and a blue envelope addressed to someone he'd never heard of. He tried to figure out what the correct response to this situation was. Obviously, the sensible thing to do was to set it down and ask the other trainees about it in the morning. It seemed to be someone's private letter, and he had no business reading it. He should put it back, close the flap, leave it on the desk, and go to sleep. But Hao’s curiosity got the best of him, and he opened the envelope. Inside, he found a single folded sheet of paper, written in the same careful hand as the envelope. He unfolded it and started reading.

Hao read it twice before he folded it back along its crease, sliding it back into its envelope. He sat down on the edge of his bed, the small yellow bag resting in his lap, staring at nothing in particular, uncertain what he was feeling. It was clearly someone's private letter, something that was not intended for him. He had an uncomfortable sense of having looked through a window he wasn't meant to look through, but the window had been placed on his bed, which complicated the ethics of it somewhat.

The letter had been dated 2021, last year. Hao’s immediate assumption was that someone had written the wrong year by mistake. People did that all the time, especially in January, but it was nowhere near the beginning of the year. It was nearing the end of autumn, which made the mistake considerably harder to explain. Plus, the letter didn't feel like something that had been sitting unsent in a drawer for twelve months. It looked like it had been written just recently: the ink looked fresh, and the paper smelled like paper and not time.

His second verdict was that this was some sort of elaborate prank by the younger trainees, but they were all kind-hearted kids and would never pull something as intimate and personal as this. Someone had put real effort into this, which meant either one of the younger trainees was a significantly better writer than he'd given them credit for, or this was something else entirely.

Hao didn't know what something else looked like in this context. He was also too tired to think too deeply about it, so he put the envelope back into the bag and set the bag on his nightstand. Hao told himself he would forget about it by the time he woke up the next morning. This was not entirely true.

—

It was a few days later that he received a second letter.

Hao had a longer day than usual, with a full morning of individual evaluations that had gone fine, an afternoon of group practice that was less fine, and then three extra hours in the practice room afterward trying to compensate for it. He came back to the dorm later than he'd meant to, ate something he didn't taste, and lay on his bed feeling drained.

The small cat bag was still on his nightstand. He'd left it there undisturbed since it appeared, which wasn’t really a conscious decision he made. It had just stayed, and each morning he'd glanced at it on his way out, and each evening he'd glanced at it on his way in. Neither of those times had he done anything about it, partly out of laziness and partly out of uncertainty. What was he even to do about it anyway? Throw it away? Ask around? He wasn’t sure what the right answer was.

Hao didn’t know why he looked inside it that night. He hadn't touched it since the first night, much less even tried to reread the letter. Maybe he was so tired he started out of character, but he reached over and unclipped the buckles almost before he could decide against it and looked inside.

There was a new envelope inside.

Hao took it out. It was the same blue envelope with the same handwriting and name on the front: Sung Hanbin. He stared at it for a moment, longer than he'd done with the first one because that had been a surprise and this one wasn’t as much. This one meant that the first one hadn't been a fluke and that perhaps he should be expecting more letters now.

He opened it.

Hao put the letter down beside him and reflected on it for a long moment. He was twenty-three years old, and he knew the feeling. It wasn’t from anyone else but from himself, in his own quieter moments, when the math of his age and his progress and the distance still to go arranged itself into a daunting calculation.

Hao had come to Korea already past the age that most companies preferred to take on new trainees. Hao knew he was skilled, and his dance and vocal talents placed him at the top, but his age had always sat beside everything like a footnote. When the company formed Tempest, Hao had only just begun training with them. He hadn't even been close to being considered, which he had known. He had told himself it was fine, that it was expected and simply how the timing had worked out. Hao meant all of that, but watching it all happen, watching the lineup get announced made him feel a quiet devastation that he hadn’t been able to show anyone. And now, reading someone else's version of it in a letter, he had to confront that feeling again.

Hao stood up and searched his room for something to write on. He couldn’t find any lined paper, and all he found was a small pad of slightly creased post-it notes. It wasn’t as formal as the letters he had been receiving and not, by any measure, the appropriate response to two thoughtful letters written on nice letter paper, but it would have to do. Hao started writing after some consideration.

Hi,
This is gonna be weird but I found your letters. Your bag just appeared on my bed one day so I read them.
I’m sorry >.< But because I read your letter, I wanted to write to you too.

I’m a ‘00 liner so we’re similar in age, and I’m also a trainee! I started pretty late and am already the oldest left among the trainees. But I’m not giving up! It’s only the beginning! I’m entering a survival show soon and I’m going to win 1st place and make my debut.

So I just wanted to say that you can still do it, too!! Hwaiting!!

— Zhang Hao
November 8, 2022
P.S. your letters were both dated late 2021 so I’m sorry if this is really late >.<

Hao read it back once and immediately felt aware of how unhinged it sounded. The cutesy script and emoticons were perhaps not his finest moment as a person who liked to think of himself as an admirable hyung. The entire reply was short and written on three post-it notes stuck together, which wasn't exactly the format one would choose for emotional sincerity. He felt slightly ridiculous, but he stuck the post-its together as neatly as possible and slid them into the small cat bag before setting the bag back onto his nightstand.

Hao lay down and stared at the ceiling for a while. If this were an elaborate prank, one of the younger trainees was going to find the post-it notes and have the time of their life with it, and Hao was going to have to live with that. If it weren't and Sung Hanbin and his letters were real, then he may have entered into a sort of time loop, if that were even possible. Either way, he had already committed to it, so there was no point in lying awake and feeling embarrassed about the situation now.

Hao fell asleep faster than he expected that night.

Hao checked the bag the next morning with a little too much anticipation.

The post-it notes were gone. There were just the blue envelopes with Hanbin's letters in them and no signs of the post-its. Hao checked the nightstand, the bed, and the floor around it, just in case they had somehow fallen out. When he didn’t find anything, Hao stood there just staring at the empty interior of the small cat bag. If the post-it notes were gone, that meant that either Sung Hanbin or one of the younger trainees had found them. Hao really didn’t know which he preferred at that point.

He closed the flap of the bag, set it back on his nightstand, and got ready to go to practice. For the rest of the day, Hao thought about it, on and off. He didn’t know if what he was feeling was hope or dread, but he felt uneasy the remainder of the day, especially when he came back to the dorms that evening and found no new envelope. Hao went to sleep that night feeling more anxious than he had expected he would be.

The next morning, there was a new envelope in the bag.

He pulled it out of the bag and turned it over before almost throwing the envelope onto the floor. On the front of the envelope, in the same meticulous handwriting the previous letters had been written in, was his name.

To Zhang Hao-nim.

It was a small thing, just three words written by someone he’d never met before, but seeing it clearly written out made the whole thing feel suddenly and irrevocably real. Up until now, there had been a sort of an out still available to him. There was technically a probable explanation to everything that had happened: the bag appearing on his bed could be a prank, the letters props, and the missing post-it notes the cherry on top. He knew intuitively that none of those explanations actually held up, but the possibility had been there. It had been a comfortable fog between him and the strangeness of what was happening, and now his name on the envelope had completely dissipated the fog.

Whoever had written this had written it after reading his post-it notes. They read the name he'd signed for 2022, and then they'd taken that name and written it on an envelope in 2021, and somehow it had ended up here in 2022, in his hand, which meant the thing he'd sent had actually arrived, which meant this was real, which meant—

Hao sat down on the edge of his bed. He took a long, deep breath before opening the envelope.

Hao read the letter through three times and felt the knot in his stomach loosen slightly. This was the first time he was reading a letter that was directly addressed to him and not what felt like someone’s private diary entry. There was so much careful courtesy in it, and beneath all the formality was an unguarded warmth that couldn't quite be contained.

Maybe it knew you'd help me.

Hao read that line again, and his brows furrowed. He pressed his thumb into the crease of the paper, flattening it further. The thing was, Hao hadn't helped anyone. He'd written three post-it notes at midnight in his practice clothes because he was too tired to make a better decision. He'd apologized with an emoticon and talked about himself for most of the note. And yet, somehow, that had been enough for Sung Hanbin to write back on good stationery in his neatest hand with numbered points and a sincerely at the end.

Hao thought about the situation with the supposed time portal bag. He had expected—actually, he didn't know what he had expected. Maybe he had genuinely thought the date to be a typo or even a joke reveal, but it wasn’t. At least, that’s what Sung Hanbin was saying. Sung Hanbin, who also said that the answer was fine and that, actually, the answer was something to be grateful for: the answer was :)).

Hao folded the letter back along its crease and slid it back into its envelope. He located the pad of post-it notes and grabbed it before sitting down with a pen in hand.

Hi Hanbin-nim,
Please, just Hao is fine. The "-nim" feels a little too formal for all of this, especially when I was writing to you on post-it notes haha
I'm glad you're okay. I know how hard your situation must feel, and I'm relieved that some of the weight has eased, even if

the decision about what comes next is still sitting there unresolved. That kind of in-between is its own difficult place to be, and I don't think you need to rush out of it just because it's uncomfortable. I’m glad my notes were able to provide comfort to you. I know there were many times when

I’ve questioned what I should be doing and whether I should continue trying to debut, so I’m happy I was able to help a bit.
I want to thank you, too, because this thing with the letter doesn’t only go one way. Reading your letters did something for me, too. Your letters made

a small space in the middle of the daily, mindless training and practicing, which I didn't expect that from a stranger's handwriting. I'm grateful, too :))
About the bag, I’m completely lost on what’s happening with it, so maybe you’re right. Maybe it did know.

I don't have a better explanation, and at this point I don't really care to find one. I've decided, like you, that I'd rather spend this on writing to you than on trying to make sense of something that clearly isn't going to make sense, haha.

Thank you for the support about the show. I won't lie and say I'm not frightened, even if I appear to be confident to everyone. It’s all I can think about these days, to be honest, and I’m pretty stressed. But it helps to have sort of an anonymous being in my corner listening, even if they’re

writing from a year before me. I'd like to keep writing and become something like friends, too. I want to know more about you, as well. Tell me about yourself?

Sincerely,
Hao ^^
November 10, 2022

Hao reread what he had written, which was a mistake as he felt a flicker of self-consciousness at how much of himself he had put into the notes. He folded them together anyway and placed them into the bag, willing himself to be unashamed as he headed to the bathroom. After he got ready for the day, Hao couldn't resist peeking back inside the bag.

The post-it notes were gone.

He closed the flap and reopened it, checking inside again as if his eyes had played tricks on him. They weren’t; the post-it notes were really not there. Hao closed the flap and made himself eat something before practice for once. He didn't check the bag again when he left, but he thought about it approximately every twenty minutes for the rest of the day.

There was a new envelope when he got back.

As soon as he had gotten back to his dorms, the first thing Hao did was to rush into his bedroom to check the bag. Sure enough, there was another blue envelope, and on the front of it was his name again in the same handwriting. Hao sat down on his bed and opened it.

Hao finished reading and stayed as he was, the letter hanging loosely between his fingers.

Hyung. Just like that, two direct letters in and dropped straight into it without asking. There was no negotiation, and the way the rest of it followed was breezy and slightly bossy in a way that was kind of at odds with the carefulness of the last letter. Hao found that he didn’t mind at all. He never was one to be strict about the honorifics, preferring to treat older and younger people like he would his same-aged friends, so this was a welcome treat for Hao.

Hao read the second paragraph again. I keep waiting to wake up from this and find out it’s not real. Hao knew about that feeling. Every morning and evening when he checked the bag, Hao half-expected the letters to have stopped. Yet, there was a new blue envelope every time he looked inside, and at a certain point, this half-expectation had become more certain, and the bag check became more routine, like checking one’s phone for a new text message.

Hao quickly grabbed his pad of post-it notes and started writing.

Hi Hanbin-i,
Ok, let’s drop the formalities. You can call me hyung if I can call you Hanbin-i ^^
I'm from China. I came to Korea about a year ago, so I also started my kpop journey pretty late.
Something not about training: I cannot cook. At all.

I've accepted this about myself :((
Actually, I’m going to stop here and continue this later on proper letter paper. The post-its are starting to feel a little silly. I’ll buy some actual paper and write back! Wait for me!

— Hao ^^
November 10, 2022

Hao looked at what he'd scribbled and felt slightly apologetic about how little it comprised. Still, he didn’t want to divulge all this personal information on some old post-it notes, which were starting to feel less and less charming each exchange, though he kind of wished he had written something more interesting and less trivial than I cannot cook. Hao put the post-it notes in the bag anyway so as to not leave Hanbin hanging.

There was a stationery store that was a few minutes' walk from the Yuehua building, and Hao went during his lunch break the next day. He hadn't planned on this taking any real time, just a few minutes max, but soon he found out he was very wrong about that.

Hao stood in front of a wall of paper for longer than reasonably so. There were way too many options: a cream-colored stock with a faint texture to it, a plainer white one, one with a thin gold border, the list went on. He picked up a pack of the cream-colored ones and considered it. Would it be too much to get paper as high-quality as this? What would Hanbin think of him getting as serious about it as he was? Then again, Hanbin probably wouldn’t mind at all. After all, he accepted a random gift out of the blue from his friend, and he wrote on good stationary and placed his letters in colored envelopes for no other reason but just for the sake of it.

Hao was very much aware that this was an unreasonable amount of consideration to give to paper. He held the pack of paper and thought, Hanbin should get back as much as he has given. It wouldn’t be fair if I wrote back to him on some random printer paper when he’s putting so much effort into it on his end.

Hao took the pack of papers and bought it, along with a pack of pink envelopes—which he also spent way too much time deliberating over—and a pen that wrote more smoothly than the one he'd been using. He carried the small gift bag back to the Yuehua building tucked under his arm, handling it more preciously than if he had been gifted Hanwoo beef.

That night he sat at his desk with the new paper in front of him, blank, and discovered that having good paper made the situation feel more official and legitimate.

What followed over the next two weeks was a steady stream of letters exchanged between them. Hao started bringing the bag with him to training so that he’d be able to access it during the day. He’d check it between sets at the studio whenever he was taking a break, unable to suppress the small lift in his chest every time there was a new envelope inside. If there was nothing there yet, he'd feel a small deflation that was a bit excessive compared to what a piece of paper should bring.

He hadn’t told anyone about what was happening, as he had promised Hanbin. Hao had only said the bag was gifted by a friend when asked, which was, strictly speaking, not really a lie.

Hao knew implicitly that this had stopped being about the bizarreness of the letters situation a long time ago. At first he had written back because he empathized with Hanbin’s hardships and wanted to comfort him, and then it turned into a sort of little fun in the long, tired hours of his days. Hanbin had been something of a mysterious entity, someone that may or may not have existed in the past, and Hao had felt like he was playing a visual novel with Hanbin as a dateable character and himself as the self-insert main character. Yet, somewhere along the way as they exchanged more and more letters, he started to form an actual, authentic connection with him. Even though he only existed in paper form, Hanbin had become a real, living person that Hao constantly thought about.

It showed up in small, stupid ways at first. Once, Hao caught himself mid-conversation with Ricky, about to say Hanbin thinks before catching the sentence in his throat and rerouting it into some vague I heard somewhere that, thankfully, wasn’t questioned. He noticed he'd started associating certain songs with certain letters and that he’d narrate his day to an invisible audience sometimes, mid-practice, thinking I should tell Hanbin about this, before catching himself. It was sort of ridiculous, though that never stopped him from actually telling Hanbin about it later when he had a chance to write.

Hao fully realized his feelings on a random Tuesday afternoon, holding a letter from Hanbin that hadn't even said anything remarkable and finding that his chest was pounding in the same way it did with all the other boys he’s crushed on throughout his school years. It was a rhythm that he'd first experienced in middle school and had felt maybe four or five times since, showing up now over a letter about the cold weather.

He didn't write any of this down to Hanbin, however. He wasn't ready to communicate it yet, but the feeling was always there whenever he sent a reply. There were a few moments where he almost said it. Hao would get to the end of a letter and think about adding one more line, something short but direct, and then he'd fold the paper before he let himself do it. Saying it first, into letters that crossed a year and might not even land the way he intended them to, felt like handing someone something fragile without knowing if their hands were free to catch it. And so he waited.

This went on until Hao received a letter from Hanbin that broke the pattern of their conversations, leaving him no room to continue waiting.

Hao read this sitting on the floor of the practice room one night, everyone else gone home for the night. He read it at top speed, as if the words might disappear if he took too long, holding his breath the whole time. Unable to believe what he was seeing, Hao read it again slower, wondering if his desire had manifested itself into playing tricks on his eyes. The words on the letter remained the same. Hanbin really had confessed.

His first instinct was to grab his pen and write back immediately, to tell Hanbin that he feels the same way and they should start dating right away. They’d be an it couple, starting a never-before-done time-distance relationship. He decided to hold off on it, though, to fully process the moment and not let the adrenaline take over his thoughts. He walked the long way back to the dorms, rereading the letter over and over the whole way back, trying to figure out if the pounding in his chest was excitement or panic. He had been trying to be careful and patient, afraid to say anything because of the uncertainty he felt. And now Hanbin had gone ahead and said it all for him, that he felt the same way about Hao as Hao did for him.

When Hao got back to the dorms, he took out a piece of paper and started writing.

After that, the letters started coming in faster. It was like the confession made the two of them feel freer and more comfortable to express to each other anything they wanted.

Hanbin told Hao, in exhaustive and slightly unhinged detail, about the correct way to make a samgyeopsal wrap—the correct order of making it, the ideal ratio of meat and vegetables, and the correct sauce. It was a whole essay that Hao hadn't asked for and read twice anyway, delighted. Hao wrote back about his obsessive love of durians, explaining the different variations of the fruit, the way to find the best-tasting one, and his ranking of durian desserts.

They argued about whether pineapple belonged on pizza. Hao: yes, and anyone who disagreed had something wrong with their palate. Hanbin: no, but if he were served it, he’d pick the pineapple off the pizza and eat it with sauce. This was appalling to Hao, and so the debate went on for two letters, neither of them backing down, both of them clearly enjoying the argument itself more than either position they were defending.

Hao mentioned offhand once that he'd thought about trying to look Hanbin up again, just to see if the universe had changed its mind about any of it. Hanbin's reply came back fast, faster than any other reply, like he wanted to prevent any impulsiveness from Hao.

Please don't, hyung. It’s too risky, and I’m okay with not knowing. I like that the only Hao I have is the one in these letters, and when I finally get to meet the real one, I want to see you with my own eyes and not a screen.

Hao didn't try again.

The days kept moving faster like it knew Hao was counting down to something. Each day passed quicker than the last, and all the practice, letters, and sleep were never quite enough. Hao's last two weeks compressed further, the filming date drawing close enough now that he could almost feel it, a pressure in the air that had nothing to do with the temperature.

He kept writing to Hanbin, more and more each day. It was like some part of him understood that the letters were about to become a different kind of thing altogether and wanted to get as much down as possible before that happened.

The last letter from Hanbin arrived the evening before the first day of filming.

Hao had already packed everything he needed for the next morning; his suitcase was by the door and his training bag sitting by it. He was about to turn in early, knowing he'd need the sleep more than he'd want it, when he opened the cat bag one final time out of habit rather than expectation.

There was a new envelope.

He sat down on the edge of his bed with it, and a wave of uneasiness fell over him before he'd even opened the envelope. He had a feeling that whatever this letter said, it was going to be the last time he heard from Hanbin before everything changed.

Hao read the letter through once, and the room around him seemed to grow very quiet. He sat frozen on the edge of his bed, and for a long moment his mind could not process what he had read.

I'm going to apply.

He read that line multiple times, and it felt as if something in his chest were being lifted. He had spent a month quietly believing that he and Hanbin were bound for each other by something larger than either of them chose. He had never attempted to voice it out loud for fear that saying it would somehow cheapen it, like counting chickens before they hatch. Yet, reading Hanbin’s letter and seeing him address it so unapologetically, Hao felt the strange vertigo of hearing his own half-formed faith spoken back to him in someone else's voice, more certain than he had ever dared make it in his own head.

He thought about Matthew then, a man he had never met and likely never would’ve met in any normal scenario, and found that he was smiling faintly over Hanbin’s stubborn loyalty. There was something almost unbearably tender in it, that Hanbin was already building a future that included him as easily as he included the people already standing beside him. It was as if Hao were not a cryptic figure arriving through impossible means but simply a friend who had not yet caught up to the rest of his life. There was disbelief in him, of course, but burning just as strongly alongside it was hope.

Hao mulled over the filming tomorrow, about the performance he’d practiced over a thousand times with Ricky, Brian, and Ollie, and about the ninety-some strangers and tens of cameras perceiving him and his every move. He had thought of it every day for weeks now, so much that the fear and nervousness had long since worn smooth. Tonight, however, reading Hanbin’s letter, the fear was different; it lay next to something akin to courage, or the seeds of courage, at least.

Hao folded the letter back along its crease and slipped it back into its envelope. He carefully inserted it into the rubberbanded stack of envelopes he'd received from Hanbin previously and held the weight of it in both hands. One month. That was all it had taken for two people to find each other across a year that should not have been crossable and yet had been crossed nightly, letter by letter, like stepping stones laid one at a time across a river too wide to leap.

He placed the stack of envelopes into the cat bag and packed it into his training bag, zipped carefully into the inner pockets. Hao turned off the light and lay there for a while before sleep actually came, thinking about the sentence I'll know you when I see you, and finding that he believed it completely.

His alarm was already set. Tomorrow, the letters would stop being the only place Hanbin existed.

Hao woke up before his alarm rang that morning. He lay in the hush before dawn, beneath his thin blankets, and listened to the building and the city breathe around him.

He got up and prepared for the long day ahead of him. He forced himself to eat breakfast despite the queasiness in his stomach, telling himself his body would thank him when they were twelve hours into filming with no breaks or food to help. Before he stepped out and met up with the other Yuehua trainees, Hao looked into his training bag to make sure the small cream-colored bag with its embroidered cat's face was still in the inner pockets. It was there, filled with every single letter Hanbin had ever written, and so Hao was ready for the long day ahead.

The filming location was already alive with controlled chaos by the time the Yuehua trainees arrived. Their van let them out at the lot behind the building, and it was a churn of motion. Production staff in matching black jackets were moving hastily about, cables as thick as a log were everywhere on the concrete floor, and someone's walkie-talkie was crackling out incomprehensible instructions that nobody nearby seemed to be following.

"Yuehua, Yuehua, this way, follow that staff member, don't touch the—" A staff member with a headset and clipboard was waving them toward an entrance, her voice already thin from probably having said that same sentence hundreds of times that morning to however many different trainees. Gyuvin nearly walked straight into a rack of wardrobe garment bags being wheeled past at a dangerously high speed and was hauled back by the collar at the last second by Seungeon, who looked just as startled. The eight of them hurried into the building, maneuvering their rolling suitcases around the myriad of objects on the ground.

Following the staff member, they were led down a hallway to a gymnasium, where tens of trainees were already present, running through last-minute rehearsals of their performances. Most of them snapped their heads around to look at them as soon as they stepped through the doors, as if they were fresh meat that needed to be evaluated. The eight Yuehua trainees quickly found a spot along one of the walls, and they set their luggage and bags down. Just as they got situated, Rui came to their group, having found them from across the room.

"Zhang Hao." Rui clapped him on the shoulder as they parted from their hug. "Didn't think I'd see you looking this visibly nervous. I thought you were a good actor?"

"What are you talking about? I’m calm and composed," Hao said, which of course was not at all true. Rui's raised eyebrow suggested he knew it wasn't entirely true either, but he let it go with grace.

The group chatted with each other for a few minutes, and the whole while Hao kept glancing around the room at the unfamiliar faces of the other trainees. He didn't know what he was looking for exactly; after all, he didn’t have a face to search for. He only had the sense that somewhere in this enormous room there might be a boy he had never seen but knew as well as he did a best friend.

He didn’t find him. The room was too large, and the crowd was too dense. Plus, who knows? Maybe Hanbin wasn’t even here. He could’ve applied and not been able to make it in.

A staff member's voice cut through the noise before he could dwell on it further.

"We're ready to begin! When your company is called, please make your way to the backstage area in an orderly fashion."

The air in the room seemed to tighten as everyone realized that the moment they were waiting for had arrived. It was time to start, whether they were ready or not. Companies were called, and the trainees from the associated agency made their way to the front, where staff members were confirming their names and handing them name tags to stick to their clothes. It was a slow, tedious accounting of the ninety-some hopeful souls who had been gathered here for the show.

"Yuehua Entertainment."

The words landed in Hao like a drum beat. Beside him, Yujin straightened up, and Ollie was taking short, quick breaths. The group made their way to the front of the room to be checked in. Throughout the whole process, the thought at the front of his mind was whether Hanbin had heard the call and whether he was looking at them, trying to figure out which of the eight of them was Hao. Or it was likely Hanbin had already gone up earlier. He hadn’t heard Cube Entertainment be called, but Hanbin had told him he was considering switching agencies.

Once they all received their name tags, the group moved out of the room towards the backstage area, where they were split into their assigned K-Group and G-Group teams. The space behind the stage was much tighter than the gymnasium had been, with dark paneling and cameras pointing at them. A producer was arranging them and asking for some fighting words for the camera. The two groups said some performed nonsense, the kind of manufactured rivalry the show wanted, and that none of them fully meant it—it wouldn’t fool anyone with the way Yujin was bouncing on his feet, ignoring the banter.

"Alright," the producer called. "K-Group, G-Group, you'll be split at the doors. Line up and go through when I give the signal."

The eight of them grew quiet and focused. Hao stood at the front of G-Group as the oldest and leader of his team, and soon, the two groups were instructed to walk through the doors.

The doors opened onto an enormous hall. There was a wide stage area built to look like something out of a planetarium with numbered seats going up in staircases. The K-Group trainees took up the left side of the seats, which were lit up in blue, while the G-Group trainees took up the pink-lit right seats. In the center was a raised circular platform with a diamond-shaped seat for the number one trainee surrounded by eight other seats, making up the nine eventual winners of the show. The whole set was lit up with pink, blue, and purple neon lighting.

Hao had imagined this scene more times than he could count, lying awake in the dark, but none of that had truly prepared him for the actual moment of standing inside it. Seeing the whole set in person, the reality of the show suddenly hit Hao. After weeks of intense training, he really was finally here. This was no longer just a date circled on his calendar; it was real.

Hao reeled himself in. He was the leader of the Yuehua group and the one the others looked to first; he shouldn’t stand around gawking. Hao squared his shoulders, drew in a breath, and gave their introduction to the already seated trainees spread out before them.

As he’s done all throughout the morning since their arrival, his eyes swept across the seats. He found nothing but strangers, all of them staring blankly back at them.

The Yuehua trainees took their seats toward the top of the staircase in the same row on opposite sides of the circular platform. Hao settled into his seat next to Ricky. Now came the waiting. Trainees kept arriving in ones and twos and small groups, and company names and trainee faces were flashed on the screen at the front before the newest arrivals found their seats among the rest. Soon, a new company name flashed up on the screen: Studio GL1DE. Hao almost let it pass him by entirely when the screen flashed again and a picture and name popped up that was impossible to ignore.

Sung Hanbin.

The picture showed a handsome face, and then the boy himself walked through the entrance below the screen before Hao could even process it. He walked through with an easy, unhurried stride, back straight, shoulders loose, and chin level. Standing at the front of the stage, he was just close enough for Hao to see him clearly. Dark hair fell softly over his forehead, paired with bright eyes, a straight nose, a strong jaw, and a toothy smile. He was handsome in a pretty, boyish way, and he was exactly Hao's type.

Hao realized that he had stopped breathing at some normal rate several seconds ago and made himself correct it before anyone noticed. He kept his eyes forward and spine straight, making sure he stayed looking composed.

It's him, Hao thought. It's him. It's actually him.

He watched Hanbin walk toward the K-Group seating on the far lower side of the platform, furthest away from him. This meant that there were too many heads in between them for Hao to properly see him, so he made himself focus on the filming instead.

The Star Level Test began not long after, trainees called up by agency to perform their hard-practiced performances in front of the Star Masters and the other trainees, each of them choosing their own star rating beforehand with a handful of little adhesive stickers, some trainees plastering their name cards with far more stars than seemed wise.

It wasn’t before long that it was their turn, and Hao went up with the rest of Yuehua's G-Group lineup. He had a short interview beforehand, explaining to the Star Masters that he could play several instruments and had actually studied music at university before all this. A staffer wheeled out a violin for him—not an expensive one, he joked, though it cost more than he liked to admit—and the whole hall began murmuring in anticipation.

In the half second before he started playing, his eyes moved. Sung Hanbin was sitting on the far left edge from the third row up, close enough for Hao to see his face clearly. Hanbin was watching him intently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his expression focused.

Hao played for less than a minute, keeping his eyes mostly on the strings, but every few measures they lifted on their own and found the same, attentive face looking back at him each time. This went on the same for their group performance, and by the time they finished and received their stars, his hands were slightly shaking, and it had nothing to do with the stage.

Hours passed. Teams performed, and the masters debated star ratings in low voices at their table. Hao watched each new group file in with the same alert attention, but the hours grew long and his own eyelids grew heavier under the bright stage lights. He was worn out, having been awake and anxious since before the sun rose. The adrenaline that filled his body was mostly drained now that their group had performed, and sitting in a hard chair watched by cameras for the past few hours made his muscles sore and stiff.

Then, a name was called that made Hao's whole body wake up.

"Sung Hanbin."

Hao looked toward the stage.

Hanbin walked out and introduced himself, instantly charming everyone in the room. He had his short interview, and when asked about a special talent, he answered waacking and tutting. It was the same thing he had told Hao about in his letter weeks ago. One of the Star Masters, the waacking specialist Lip J, went onto the stage to have a dance battle with Hanbin. The music started, and Hao watched as closely as Hanbin had watched him. The man on the stage started dancing, and his arms and fingers were sharp, joints snapping into place like a different set of physics applied to him. It was exactly as striking as Hao had imagined it to be.

When the battle ended, the hall was loud with applause and cheers. Hanbin stood there, a grin breaking loose across his face, and then, before focusing back on the masters, his eyes found Hao.

You brought yours, it seemed to say. And now I've brought mine.

They had fulfilled their promise to each other.

By the time the last team had performed and the Star Masters had finished their final deliberations for the day, every person in the hall was weary to the bone. The ninety-eight trainees filed out toward the dorm wing where they'd be housed for the week of filming. Room assignments had been posted on a giant board by staff, roommates paired by some logic no one understood, and the halls filled with slow shuffling and the dull scraping of luggage wheels.

Hao quickly found his assigned room and picked a bunk bed, dropping his suitcase and bag at the foot of it, He fished out his cat bag and was gone before his roommate could even ask where he was headed. He had spent the entire day catching glimpses of a face across a distance, trading looks without properly being able to communicate anything, so he wasn’t going to lie down in an unfamiliar bunk that night without trying to close that distance.

He quickly found Hanbin in the hallways, who also held the cat bag in his hands and looked to be searching for him. Neither of them said anything for a moment.

"You brought it," Hao finally said quietly, aware of the two trainees passing behind Hanbin's shoulder and aware of the cameras in the hallway meant to capture these interactions.

"So did you," Hanbin said, and his voice, though a little rough with fatigue, was warm and gentle, just as his writing had been in all his letters.

A staff member rounded the corner further down the hall, and some shared instinct moved through them both at once. Hanbin tipped his head toward a door a few meters away that was labeled Laundry Room.

"In there," he said. "No cameras in the laundry room. I already checked."

Hao almost laughed at that because when did Hanbin even have time to scout out a blind spot, but he followed him inside.

The laundry room was small and dim, smelling of detergent and humidity. Hanbin swung the door shut behind him and turned around to face Hanbin. Again, like back in the hallway, they just stood there without speaking.

"Hi," Hanbin said finally, and it came out small.

"Hi," Hao said back and, not knowing how to continue, held up the cat bag to Hanbin as if it needed introducing.

Hanbin laughed at that—a short, breathless sound—and that seemed to break the awkwardness in the room.

"I kept thinking about what your voice would sound like," Hanbin said. “I’m glad to finally hear it now.”

“Oh? Do I sound like what you imagined?”

“Yes, you sound just as cute as your letters.”

Hao huffed, feeling his face warming. Of course Hanbin would be bold with his flirty behavior. He was always a bit cheeky in his letters, but now that he was seeing it in person, Hao didn’t have a paper to hide his face behind. He decided to change the topic.

"You were amazing today," Hao said. "The dancing was even cooler than I’d imagined, and you did amazingly in your performance. You should’ve gotten all-stars.”

“Thanks, hyung, but you’re one to talk,” Hanbin said. "I nearly forgot to breathe during your violin performance, and Kick It was so good, too! You absolutely deserve your all-stars.”

The two smiled at each other, and a comfortable quiet settled over the room as they studied each other's faces.

Hanbin broke the silence. “You know, I knew it was you when we were in that gymnasium.”

“What, how? I only knew it was you when you walked out in the beginning.”

“Yeah, you’ve told me before that eight Yuehua trainees were going to be participating, so I was on the lookout for groups of eight as soon as I got there. I was already in the gymnasium when you guys arrived, so when I counted that your team had eight people, I knew that was it. And somehow, I knew which one was you right away.” Hanbin rubbed the back of his neck, looking a little sheepish. “Matthew caught me staring in your direction multiple times, which was really embarrassing. He kept teasing me if I saw a Jaehyun sunbaenim lookalike.”

"Oh, the Canadian Matthew is your friend? I was wondering if it was the same guy as your letters during his segment."

“Yeah, he is. I kept deflecting from his questions, though, so I'm going to have to figure out how to explain that one later." Hanbin shifted the cat bag in his hands and looked down at it. "I still can't believe this is real.”

Hao smiled. “Me, neither. It’s still crazy to think that our letters were traveling back and forth in time and even crazier that we finally managed to meet up in the end.”

Hanbin nodded. “You probably got a letter from me last night, but the last letter I ever received from you was a year ago, so there were certain points where it got hard to believe it all actually happened. The year of silence made it feel like what had occurred was something I dreamt up, and I had finally woken up. But then I’d get out the bag and see the physical letters from you and reading them helped me keep believing."

Hao felt his chest tighten. Of course that would be the case. While everything transpired in a month for him and the last interaction was as fresh as the night before, Hanbin had started much further out than him and would’ve had to wait much longer. He had to stay put for a year, not knowing if everything would unfold as Hao had told him or if Boy’s Planet would even become a thing. It really was quite cruel that Hanbin had to endure all of it alone.

Hao could feel himself tearing up from the unfairness of it all and looked down at his feet. “Does that mean future me never wrote back after? I’m sorry I’ve left you waiting for so long, Hanbin-ah.”

Hanbin looked to panic and hurried to take Hao’s bag and place both of theirs on top of one of the dryers. He took Hao’s hands in his own warm ones.

“No, don’t cry, hyung. And don’t be sorry. I took no response from you to mean that we were able to meet in your timeline. I thought perhaps because of that, the bag fulfilled its purpose, and so there was no need to keep sending letters. That belief was able to keep me going and continue waiting.”

“Still, though. It must have been so lonely to just suddenly stop receiving letters. I’m really sorry, Hanbin.”

“It’s okay, hyung. I'm not telling you this so you feel bad about it. I just wanted to let you know that I've been waiting for this exact moment for a year now, and this has been a year’s worth of want for me.”

Hao blinked his tears away and stared straight into Hanbin’s eyes. "Then I'm not going to make you wait any longer than you’ve already had."

He closed the distance before either of them could say anything else.

The first touch of their lips was soft and gentle, the two of them still careful of the other’s reaction. When Hao leaned back, however, the look in Hanbin’s eyes was of complete vulnerability, like a year of restraint had come undone, and their lips met again, more confidently this time. They kissed each other slowly and deliberately, neither of them in a hurry knowing that they were together now and there was no time or paper separating them. Hanbin's hand came up to rest against Hao's jaw, his thumb slowly caressing along his cheek. Hao’s hand found the back of Hanbin’s neck, fingers curling into his soft hair. He could feel the other man’s pulse fluttering wildly beneath his fingertips, and he felt exactly the same, his heart pounding rapidly in his chest. This was better than anything he had imagined.

When they finally broke apart, neither of them moved very far. Hanbin's forehead rested against Hao's, both of them breathing a little unevenly.

"A year," Hao said softly, mostly to himself. "I owe you a year's worth of showing up, then. Not just tonight."

"You don't owe me anything, hyung," Hanbin replied. "You already showed up, ever since that first post-it note."

"Then I'll keep doing it. Every day of this show, however long it takes us. We’ll go through the whole thing together. Every single challenge, the elimination, all of it, side by side, in whatever seats they put us in. And when the final lineup gets called, we'll both be in it. I'm not doing this without you standing next to me until the very end."

Hanbin pulled back just far enough to look at him properly, his eyes fierce and hopeful. "We'll debut together. That's our new promise to each other."

“It’s a promise.”

Later, lying in an unfamiliar bottom bunk in the dark, Hao turned the whole day over slowly in his head. A month ago, his days had been filled with endless, grueling practice, each day melting into the next until it all became a blur. Then the cat bag had mysteriously appeared on his bed, and Hanbin along with it. None of it had made sense while it was happening, but looking back at it now, all of it made sense. Hanbin and his letters popped up in his life right when he needed them, and his days of rigorous practice, though still intense, became all the more bearable.

Hao pondered about the weeks ahead of them. This was a survival show, and he knew from his thorough research and study of preceding ones that the editing and viewer votes would decide most of what either of them could control, no matter how hard they worked or how much they wanted it. Either of them could be eliminated at any time and be separated from each other, so it was potentially foolish to make the promise they had. But if Hao had learned anything this past month, it was that some things were worth reaching for even without a guarantee. The reaching itself had value, and he would rather fail at something real than never risk it at all.

He thought about Hanbin down the hall, probably also still awake with his cat bag nearby. Whatever came next in these next few months, he knew that he had already gotten the one thing that mattered most. Hao and Hanbin had found one another. Against time, distance, and whatever other phenomenon was dividing them, they found each other. The rest, they would simply have to find out together.