Archive of Our Own

The left side of the mattress was already cold, the fitted sheet pulled taut over the corner where Hanbin’s knees usually tangled with his.

Hao didn't need to check the clock on the nightstand to know it was just past six in the morning. Hao stretched his arms over his head, spine popping against the headboard, and let his bare feet hit the hardwood. It's cold. He shoved his toes into the thick fleece slippers Hanbin had bought him after catching him shivering over the sink two weeks ago.

In the kitchen, the coffee maker was ticking through its final cooling cycle, and a single ceramic mug was sitting beside the drying rack with a silicone lid pressed over the top to trap the heat. Then propped against the salt cellar was a single white daisy, stem still beaded with condensation from the shop’s cooler, and a folded piece of paper.

Hao picked up the flower first. The petals were cool against his cheek, smelling faintly of clean dirt and river water. Hanbin had told him once that daisies weren't simple at all. They were sturdy loyal things that drank up light and survived the hardest frosts. They look like you, Hanbin had muttered then, wiping his brow with the back of a dirty wrist, ears burning pink under the shop lights. Quietly resilient and brighten up the whole room without trying.

Hao balanced the daisy across the lid of his coffee mug and unfolded the paper.

Hao read the third paragraph twice, his thumb tracing the confident indentation of the ink where Hanbin had crossed his As. The handwriting was neat and slightly slanted to the right from years of scribbling quick order tags for impatient customers who wanted anniversary bouquets in five minutes or less.

His chest tightened with a sweet pressure that made him let out a long breath through his nose.

"Who bites a thumb?" Hao murmured to the empty kitchen, smiling shyly.

He folded the letter along its original creases, took his coffee, and walked down the short hallway to the coat closet. On the top shelf, pushed back behind their winter parkas and Hanbin’s spare waterproof boots, sat a matte-black shoebox. Hao pulled it down with one hand, popped the lid, and dropped the paper inside.

The box was nearly full. Over two hundred pieces of paper lay layered like sediment. Some receipt backs, torn ledger sheets, yellow sticky notes, and thick stationery. It's a physical archive of Sung Hanbin’s relentless adoration to him.

Hao stared down at the pile, his coffee mug warming the palm of his hand.

Whenever Hanbin came home, smelling of green leaves and cold air, Hao would wrap his arms around Hanbin's shoulders, pull him down until their foreheads touched, and tell him I missed you, you work too hard, I love you, let me rub your back, and anything that equal to show his love through words. Hao was good with his mouth. He was good at closing the distance, at dragging Hanbin by the belt loops into the bedroom, at voicing every greedy affectionate thought that crossed his mind.

But looking at the shoebox, a realization settled behind his ribs. He had never given Hanbin something he could hold when Hao wasn't in the room. He had never put ink on paper for him like this.

It felt unbalanced. And Hao, who spent seven hours a day teaching kids about sharing and fairness, suddenly felt a profound need to level the playing field.

The classroom smelled of paper glue, fruit juice, and the slightly damp scent of eleven kindergarteners coming inside from the playground in November.

During quiet reading time, Hao sat at his low, kidney-shaped maple table. His knees practically brushing his chin because the chairs were designed for small children, not grown men who stood five-foot-nine. He had a sheet of pale yellow stationery in front of him that he borrowed from the school secretary's desk, and a black gel pen poised over the top line.

He had been staring at the blank paper for twenty-two minutes.

To Hanbin.

Too formal. It sounded like an invoice for wholesale fertilizer.

Dear Hanbin.

Worse.

Hey babe.

Hao actually cringed, his shoulders up around his ears. He looked out at the carpeted reading nook, where a boy named Yujin was currently trying to fit an entire wooden block into his mouth while his table-mate watched with solemn scientific curiosity.

"If you swallow that, your mom is going to yell at me, not you, Yujin," Hao threw out across the room. Yujin slowly removed the block, wiping a string of drool on his corduroy overalls.

Hao sighed, looking back down at the yellow paper. Why was this so hard? When Hanbin stood in front of him, the words spilled out of Hao effortlessly. But the permanence of the blank page was suffocating. If he wrote it down, it couldn't be softened by a laugh or a kiss against Hanbin’s jaw; it had to stand on its own feet.

He thought back to three springs ago. April. They weren't living together yet; they were barely even dating, just circling each other with that exhausting tension of two people who knew exactly what they wanted but were terrified of ruining the friendship. They had gone for a walk down by the Yeouido parkway after Hanbin’s shop closed. The cherry blossoms were peaking, shedding pale pink petals into the gutters.

Hanbin had stopped under a gnarled tree, his coat zipped to his chin, looking up at the branches. Cherry blossoms don't last long enough to be useful in arrangements, Hanbin had said, his breath fogging in the chill spring air. They drop the second you cut the branch. You have to just... come out here and stand underneath them while they're alive.

Then Hanbin had looked at him, his gaze dropping from Hao's eyes to his lips and staying there with an intentional heat that made Hao’s stomach flip over. That was the night Hanbin had backed him against the driver's side door of his delivery van and kissed him until Hao’s knees gave out, Hanbin’s hands sliding under Hao’s coat to grip his waist, holding him up, claiming the space entirely.

"Mr. Zhang? Why is your face pink?"

Hao blinked, his pen skidding across the yellow paper and leaving an ugly jagged black line across the center.

Yujin was standing at his elbow, clutching a battered copy of The Hungry Caterpillar against his chest. He was staring at his cheeks without a blink.

"I-It's warm in here," Hao lied smoothly, clicking the gel pen closed and flipping the ruined stationery face-down. "Why aren't you on the reading rug?"

"They smelled like feet so I moved," Yujin said pragmatically. He leaned his chin on the edge of the maple table, his eyes dropping to the flipped-over paper. "Are you doing homework?"

"No, I'm trying to write a letter," Hao said. He leaned back, stretching his long legs out to the side of the tiny desk to stop his calves from cramping. "To... someone important."

"Your mom?"

"Hmm, no. This one for Mr. Sung. The one who brought the pumpkins for Halloween, if you remember him."

Yujin's face illuminated with recognition. The kids loved Hanbin; he had come by the classroom last month in his work apron, effortlessly lifting three crates of mini-pumpkins off his shoulder, his laugh echoing off the linoleum while he let the kids feel the rough leaves and smell the fresh soil.

"I remember! The tall guy with the pretty hair who carried you around the playground?"

"H-He did not carry me around the playground!" Hao muttered defensively, though his ears burned because Hanbin had swung him up by the waist off the jungle gym drop-off when Hao had pretended his boots were stuck in the woodchips. "Anyway. I don't know how to start it. Everything I write sounds silly."

"Just tell him he's your favorite."

"It's more complicated than that, Yujin."

"Why?" He tilted his head. "When I like my puppy, I say you are a good boy and I like your floppy ears. When I like my friends, I give them my extra apple slices. If you like the pumpkin man, just tell him why you like looking at him. Adults make everything take so long."

Hao opened his mouth to give a pedagogical explanation about adult emotional complexity, but the words died in his throat.

Tell him why you like looking at him.

"Go read your book, Yujin," Hao said softly, nudging Yujin's shoulder with his fist. "And don't chew any toys carelessly."

Once he skipped back to the rug, Hao pulled out a fresh sheet of yellow stationery. He thought about Hanbin's hands, the faint calluses on his palms from stripping thorns, the weight of him when he pinned Hao to the mattress, the way his voice dropped when they were alone in the dark, telling Hao exactly what to do, exactly how good he looked.

Hao clicked the pen open. Without a greeting, he just started writing in his sprawling script, letting the ink bleed into the cheap paper. The ink flowed too fast, pooling slightly at the bottom of his downward loops because the yellow school stationery was cheap, highly absorbent pulp designed for mimeograph machines and PTA notices, not declarations of romance.

Hao didn't care. With Yujin's voice echoing in the back of his mind, the mental block simply dissolved, replaced by a flood of embarrassing truths that he usually kept buried behind his usual cocky affection.

It was humiliating, honestly. Four years of knowing each other, two years of sharing a lease and a single bathroom, and Sung Hanbin still had him in an absolute chokehold, occupying ninety percent of his brain space rent-free while Hao was supposed to be teaching children phonics and basic motor skills.

He wrote without drafting, his black gel pen scratching against the grain of the paper while eleven kids built precarious wooden towers on the alphabet rug behind him.

Hao signed his name with a sharp flick of his wrist.

He didn't dare to read it back. If he did, his pride would kick in, he would realize he sounded like a certified simp who had completely lost the plot over a florist with pretty eyes, and he would shred the yellow paper into the recycling bin.

Instead, he folded the sheet into precise thirds, pressing the creases down with his thumbnail until they were razor-thin. He slipped the folded paper into the breast pocket of his cardigans just as the afternoon dismissal buzzer let out a shrill rasp above the classroom door.

"Oh my god, Han Yujin! Spit out the Lego right now or I'm telling your mother!"

The bell above the glass door of In Bloom gave a brassy chime as Hao pushed his way inside, enveloped by the humid chill of the climate-controlled shop.

It smelled intensely of crushed green foliage, standing river water, and the medicinal bite of fresh eucalyptus bunches hanging from the exposed wooden rafters to dry. The floor was gray polished concrete, slick in spots from where buckets had been dragged out of the walk-in cooler, and the ambient temperature was at least five degrees colder than the November air on the sidewalk outside.

Sung Hanbin was standing behind the long stainless-steel prep counter, illuminated by the white track lights above.

He was wearing his dark green canvas work apron over a black long-sleeved thermal, the coarse straps cross-tied tightly over his lower back, accentuating the wide span of his shoulders and the narrow drop of his waist. A pair of spring-loaded pruning shears was gripped in his right hand, and he was methodically snapping the thick woody stems of white hydrangeas with a satisfying crunch-click, throwing the discarded greenery into a plastic bin at his feet.

He looked a little bit exhausted. There were faint shadows thumbed into the skin beneath his eyes, and his hair was pushed back from his forehead in a messy sweep.

When the bell chimed, Hanbin looked up, and the professional focus on his face completely vanished.

His eyes lit up, his posture shifting from tired florist to joyful boyfriend as he dropped the pruning shears onto the metal table with a loud clatter. He strode around the end of the counter, closing the distance between them with three long strides, and taking complete ownership of Hao’s personal space.

"You're out early," Hanbin greeted.

Before Hao could open his mouth to answer, Hanbin’s hands settled onto the curve of Hao’s hips, fingers digging slightly into the wool of his cardigan as he pulled Hao flush against his front. Even though they stood eye-to-eye, Hanbin always managed to feel larger and broader, which made it impossibly easy for Hao to just lean in and let himself be held.

Hanbin dipped his head, pressing a kiss to Hao’s mouth that tasted like lukewarm black coffee and peppermint chapstick.

Hao let his eyes slide shut, his hands coming up to rest on the canvas-covered muscle of Hanbin’s chest, opening his lips willingly to let Hanbin deepen the kiss. It was just a soft and quick one, a routine where Hanbin claimed everything in his reach and Hao gladly gave it to him.

"Yeah, hi," Hao said breathlessly against Hanbin’s lips when they finally parted, his fingers curling into the straps of Hanbin's apron. "The afternoon bus was on time for once. How was the wholesale market?"

"Ugh, brutal. The frost in Gyeonggi killed half the lavender crop, so everyone was fighting over the imported stems like stray dogs," Hanbin grunted. His eyes scanned Hao's face, lingering on the pink flush at the tips of the older man’s ears. "I told you to wear the scarf. Why aren't you wearing it?"

"It clashed with my cardigan," Hao lied, enjoying the slight disapproving narrowing of Hanbin's eyes. "Besides, I knew you'd warm me up when I got here. You always do."

Hanbin let out a laugh, his grip tightening on Hao’s waist as if he were preparing to drag Hao into the back cooler and lock the door.

The front bell chimed again.

A middle-aged man in a wrinkled suit stumbled into the shop, clutching a briefcase and looking around panicked, his wild-eyed showing the desperation of a husband who had forgotten a wedding anniversary.

Hanbin closed his eyes for a fraction of a second as he let out an exhale through his nose. He pressed one last kiss to the corner of Hao's mouth, before stepping back and throwing his professional florist smile back onto his face.

"Welcome in!" Hanbin said, turning toward the customer while his left hand lingered on Hao's lower back, giving it a quick squeeze before letting go. "Looking for an arrangement, sir? I have some fresh lilies in the cooler that just came in this afternoon."

While Hanbin guided the panicked suit toward the refrigerated glass display case, speaking in a calm tone advising about color palettes and vase life, Hao stepped casually behind the stainless-steel prep counter.

It was his territory as much as Hanbin’s. He knew where the clean rags were kept, he knew which drawer held the Band-Aids for thorn pricks, and he knew exactly where Hanbin kept his personal belongings during a shift.

Sitting on the low wooden stool beside the cash register was Hanbin’s battered canvas tote bag. The top zipper was pulled open, revealing the familiar black leather of Hanbin's wallet and a crumpled receipt from a gas station.

Hao’s heart suddenly did a frantic thud against his ribs, his throat going dry.

He glanced over his shoulder. Hanbin was currently pulling a massive bucket of white lilies out of the display cooler, his back turned, his broad shoulders flexing under the dark green apron as he lifted the heavy water-filled bucket.

Moving quickly, before his brain could rationalize the embarrassment away, Hao reached into the breast pocket of his cardigan, pulled out the folded yellow stationery, and thrust it deep into the canvas tote bag, wedging it securely between Hanbin’s leather wallet and his empty metal thermos.

He pulled his hand back just as Hanbin set the bucket onto the prep table with a sloshing sound.

"I need to prep this for the gentleman, Hao," Hanbin said over his shoulder, grabbing his pruning shears. "Give me ten minutes and we can go home together."

"Actually, I'm going to head home first," Hao replied. He cleared his throat, shoving his hands deep into his cardigan pockets so Hanbin wouldn't see his fingers trembling slightly. "The kimchi stew has been sitting in the fridge since last night. I need to get the rice cooker started and let the pork belly simmer on low, or the meat is going to be tough."

Hanbin paused, his shears hovering over a thick lily stem. He turned his head, his eyes fixing on Hao with a perceptive curiosity. "Really? You're leaving? Now?"

"Yeah. My feet are cold already," Hao said, flashing a smile that he knew Hanbin couldn't resist. He walked over to the end of the table, reached up on his tiptoes to press a fleeting open-mouthed kiss to the side of Hanbin's neck, right where his pulse was beating beneath his warm skin. "Don't work too late, Hanbin!"

Hanbin shivered slightly, he smiled at Hao upon receiving the kiss. "Okay, I'll be home by eight," he promised.

The brass bell above the door chimed a goodbye as Hao stepped out onto the sidewalk, trading the humid air of the shop for the biting November wind. He took the subway instead of waiting for the bus, his hands balled into nervous fists deep inside his cardigan pockets all the way down the stairs to the platform.

As the underground train rattled over the tracks toward home, his stomach did a flip with every stop; he had wedged the yellow paper right between Hanbin’s wallet and his metal thermos, meaning there was no way Hanbin would miss it when he reached for his transit card. By the time Hao unlocked the deadbolt to their apartment and kicked his boots off, his ears were stinging from the evening chill, but his pulse was still hammering hard against his ribs.

The apartment smelled of toasted sesame oil, pungent fermented cabbage, and rich fatty pork belly.

Hao already stood at the kitchen counter now, wearing his oversized gray sweatpants and a thin white t-shirt, chopping green onions on the wooden cutting board with a sharp chef's knife. The rice cooker on the counter was venting a plume of sweet-smelling steam into the warm air, and the cast-iron pot on the stove was simmering with a bubbling growl.

It was eight-ten in the evening.

The heavy brass deadbolt on the front door gave a loud clack, followed by the sound of the door squeaking open against the rubber weather-stripping.

"I'm home!" Hanbin's voice called out. It sounded subdued, slightly rough, and lacking the breezy exhaustion he usually brought back from the shop.

Hao didn't turn around. His heart leaped into his throat, hammering against his windpipe. He kept his eyes fixed on the green onions, slicing them into thin even rounds. 

He found it. Oh god, he definitely found it on the train. Act normal, Hao.

Behind him, he heard the heavy thud of Hanbin's work boots being kicked off onto the tile, followed by the padded sound of his socks stepping up onto the raised hardwood floor of the hallway.

There were no footsteps heading toward the bathroom to wash off the dirt and plant sap. Instead, the cadence of Hanbin’s stride crossed the living room rug, moving straight toward the kitchen.

The scent of cold river wind, damp earth, and crushed eucalyptus washed into the warm kitchen, utterly overwhelming the rich savory aroma of the kimchi stew.

A large hand clamped around Hao’s left wrist, stopping the chef's knife mid-chop.

Before Hao could say a word, Hanbin’s other hand gripped his hip, pulling him backward away from the counter and spinning him around until Hao was trapped squarely between the edge of the wooden cutting board and Hanbin’s chest.

Hanbin was still wearing his heavy winter coat, unzipped at the throat, shedding the chill of the November night air all over Hao's bare arms. His hair was wind-blown and messy, falling over his forehead, but his face was a complete disaster.

His jaw was clenched so hard the muscle in his cheek was twitching. His eyes were wide, liquid, and burning with an overwhelming intensity that stole the breath straight out of Hao’s lungs. And his ears, all the way down to the thick column of his neck, were flushed a violent scarlet.

In his right hand, gripped between two fingers was the bright yellow sheet of kindergarten stationery.

"You—" Hanbin rasped. His voice was wrecked, cracked down the middle. "You wrote this… to me?"

Hao swallowed hard. He leaned back against the counter, trying to summon a smirk, trying to channel his usual cocky older-boyfriend deflection, but the raw emotion radiating off Sung Hanbin made him stunned.

"Y-Yeah, sorry my handwriting is terrible," Hao whispered, his eyes dropping to the yellow paper before darting back up to Hanbin's gaze. "I had to steal the paper from the front office, I didn't have time to—"

Hanbin didn't let him finish.

He dropped the yellow paper onto the counter beside the cutting board, his hands flashing out to grip both of Hao’s wrists, pinning them flat against the polished wood on either side of his hips. Hanbin stepped in close, his thighs parting Hao's legs, his waist pressing flush against Hao’s center until there wasn't a millimeter of air left between them.

"You're always full of surprise," Hanbin repeated. "You think this is nothing for me, Zhang Hao? Look at me."

Hao looked at the adoration burning in Hanbin's eyes that had been awake since four in the morning just to build a life for the two of them.

"Hanbin-ah—"

Hanbin crushed their mouths together.

It was deep and possessive claiming that tasted of cold wind, salty tears. Hao realized Hanbin was crying, the tears slipping down his cheek to wet where their lips met. Hanbin’s tongue swept into his mouth, demanding everything, taking over Hao's breathing until his knees went weak, his lower back arching over the edge of the counter as he leaned all his weight into Hanbin’s frame.

Hanbin let go of his wrists, but only so his hands could slide up under the hem of Hao’s white shirt, his palms burning hot against the bare skin of Hao’s lower back, gripping his waist tightly, lifting him slightly onto the counter to press him even closer. A minute later, they parted ways, greedily catching breath but didn't back away too far from each other.

"I read it three times on the platform at the station," Hanbin murmured against Hao's lips. "I missed two trains, Hao. People were staring at me because I was standing in the freezing wind holding a piece of yellow paper like an idiot and shaking like a leaf."

"Oh, Hanbin. You're crying," Hao whispered, his hands coming up to frame Hanbin’s jaw, thumbs gently wiping away the dampness tracking down Hanbin's hot cheeks. "Sung Hanbin, you baby. It's just a letter, like how you write to me everytime."

"It's not just a letter," Hanbin growled, turning his head to press a kiss into the center of Hao's palm. "It's yours. It's the first physical letter you've ever given me that I can keep when you're not there. Do you have any idea how much I love you? Do you have any idea what you do to me? It means so much more than just a reply letter to me, Hao. I swear."

Hao smiled then, a smile that pushed his eyes into curved crescents. He slid his arms up around Hanbin's wide shoulders, burying his fingers in the wind-cooled hair at the back of his neck, pulling him to land a feathery kiss on Hanbin's cheeks.

"Thank you for reading it with your heart," Hao said. "The stew is getting cold, Hanbin. Let's eat first."

"I don't care about the stew," Hanbin muttered in pout, holding back his tears to stop it from dropping more. Then his arms wrapped around Hao's middle, lifting him off the counter and carrying him two steps toward the hallway before pausing.

“Hanbin, put me down!” Hao protested, but he held on tight to Hanbin's shoulders.

Hanbin didn't respond to it. He turned back, his long arm reaching out to snatch the folded yellow piece of school stationery off the wooden cutting board. He unzipped his winter coat with one hand, slid the paper into the interior breast pocket right over his heart, pressed flat against his chest, and zipped the jacket back up to his chin.

Then he turned his attention back to Hao, his eyes locking onto his face. “You'll pay for making me cry today,” he said.

Hao let his head fall against Hanbin’s shoulder, laughing at the sight of Hanbin's cute post-crying expression. It looks like he needs to buy a whole ream of yellow paper to make this man cry more often from now on.

Three weeks later, the left side of the mattress was still cold at six in the morning, but Hao didn't mind it.

The December frost had fully settled over Seoul, turning the windowpanes of their fifth-floor apartment into opaque sheets of white ice that blurred the city skyline into pastel smears. Hao shuffled into the kitchen wearing his thick fleece slippers and Hanbin’s oversized university hoodie, the sleeves swallowed all the way past his hands.

A fresh pot was already brewed beside the coffee maker today, keeping warm on the hot plate, and beside it sat a small brown paper bag from the artisan bakery three blocks down the street. Propped against the paper bag was a stem of pale blue hydrangea and a square of paper.

Before Hao could even reach for the note, the brass deadbolt of the front door clicked open.

Hanbin stepped inside, a blast of freezing winter air trailing in behind him. He was wearing his puffy black parka, cheeks scrubbed a bright pink from the wind, carrying two canvas grocery bags overflowing with green onions, soup soy sauce, and a carton of Jeju mandarins. His hair was mussed from his beanie, and the second his eyes landed on Hao standing by the coffee pot, his face broke into a wide eye-crinkling grin that brightened the hallway.

"Oh, look who’s conscious before noon on a Sunday!" Hanbin teased, kicking off his snow boots against the baseboard. "And you stole my favorite hoodie again, I see. I thought you said gray washed you out, Mr. Zhang?"

"I'm just doing you a favor by stretching it out so you can't wear it in public," Hao retorted, though he immediately padded across the living room rug to meet Hanbin halfway.

Hanbin dropped the grocery bags onto the dining table with a thud, then laughing a full-chested sound that made the corners of his eyes crinkle into happy little crescents. He reached out, hooked his hands under Hao’s armpits, and hoisted him up onto the edge of the dining table.

"Hey! Your hands are freezing!" Hao squawked, shrinking back as Hanbin pressed his wind-chilled knuckles against the warm skin of Hao’s neck just to hear him yelp.

"That's what you get for slandering my hoodie," Hanbin shot back with a grin.

He stepped into the space between Hao's dangling knees, his hands dropping from Hao’s neck to rest comfortably on the curve of his hips. Up close, Hanbin looked young, vibrant, and overflowing with a warm affection that felt like sitting in front of a hearth fire. Hao melted at the sight, a view of a man he fell in love with for years.

Hanbin leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of Hao's nose, then another to his left cheek, and finally a lingering one straight to his mouth.

"I bought the salted butter buns you like," Hanbin whispered against Hao's lips, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles through the cotton of the hoodie at Hao's waist. "The guy at the bakery tried to give me the plain ones because they were fresh out of the oven, but I told him, ‘No, sir. My boyfriend is a terror when he doesn't get his sodium fix!’ and I win."

"I'm going to leave a one-star review on your shop's page and say you sell wilted weeds!" Hao threatened, but there was no heat in it at all. He reached up, looping his arms comfortably around Hanbin’s neck. "Did you read today's prompt yet?"

Hanbin’s grin softened. He reached into the breast pocket of his parka and pulled out a folded piece of bright yellow kindergarten stationery. It is now a permanent fixture in their morning routine.

"I found it taped near my charged phone, you're unbelievable," Hanbin said. He rested his forehead against Hao’s, a soft laugh rumbling in his throat. "I read it again when I was lining up to the cashier, I almost cried in the middle of it, Hao. You're evil."

"You need to keep your tear ducts irrigated for eye health," Hao muttered, though his ears were burning a telltale scarlet under Hanbin's watchful gaze.

Sitting there on the edge of the table, wrapped in Hanbin’s oversized clothes, held securely by warm hands that never tired of carrying his weight, an overwhelming wave of clarity washed over Hao.

For twenty-six years of his life, he had thought of romance as something cinematic. It needed to be big with loud gestures, poetic declarations, or the exhausting push-and-pull of figuring out what another person wanted from him. It had always felt like work rather than a simple joyful feeling.

Then he had met Sung Hanbin.

Hanbin didn't make him guess. This man didn't play games, he didn't hold back his affection to keep the upper hand, and he didn't make loving Hao feel like a puzzle that needed solving. Hanbin just showed up. He bought extra mandarins because he knew Hao liked it; he let Hao steal his clothes; he joked and teased and filled their apartment with laughter; and he left paper trails of unconditional adoration every single morning.

Hanbin let him know what love is. 

The love that Hanbin taught him was just this warm, hilarious, and reliable boy holding him on a Sunday morning, making sure his bare feet didn't touch the cold floor, looking at him like he was the only thing that mattered in the entire city of Seoul.

Hao has been thoroughly loved by Hanbin since the first time they knew each other.

"What are you thinking about so hard?" Hanbin whispered, nudging his nose gently against Hao's cheek. "You have your teacher-face on. Are you grading my performance?"

"I'm thinking you're a solid B-minus boyfriend," Hao said deadpan, his arms tightening around Hanbin’s shoulders as he leaned down to bury his face in the crook of Hanbin's neck. "You'd be an A-plus if you toasted those butter buns instead of just holding me hostage on the dining table."

Hanbin let out a loud laugh, his hands gripping Hao’s waist firmly as he lifted him right back off the table and set him down onto his fleece slippers.

"Woah, B-minus?! I carried fifteen pounds of mandarins up the stairs because the elevator was servicing!" Hanbin protested, swatting playfully at Hao's rear as he nudged him toward the kitchen counter. "Go sit down before I revoke your pastry privileges, you menace. I'll toast the buns."

While Hanbin bustled around the kitchen, humming a catchy girl-group song under his breath as he sliced the salted butter buns and dropped them into the toaster, Hao leaned against the counter, picking up the piece of paper earlier waiting beside the blue hydrangea.

He unfolded it slowly, starting to read it accompanied with the warm scent of toasted bread and melting butter filling the kitchen, and smiled at the familiar slant of Hanbin's handwriting.

Hao read the last paragraph twice, his thumb tracing the ink where Hanbin had signed his nickname. His chest felt full, overflowing with warmth that pushed a soft laugh past his lips.

Across the room, Hanbin’s canvas tote bag was sitting on the hallway bench, open just wide enough to reveal the familiar black leather of his wallet inside.

Hao reached into the pocket of his hoodie, his fingers brushing against the spare sheet of bright yellow school stationery he had tucked in there before sleep last night, written in his messy hand while Hanbin was already snoring gently beside him.

While Hanbin was distracted arguing with the toaster settings, Hao walked quietly over to the bench, slipped the yellow folded square deep inside the tote bag where Hanbin would find it on his Monday morning market run, and walked back into the sunlit kitchen to claim his breakfast.