Chapter Text
Epilogue
“No, I don’t think a wardrobe might fit there,” Hanbin’s voice sounded a bit strained. Taerae frowned, looking up from his phone. He exchanged a glance with Gunwook, who was, clearly, listening in on Hanbin’s phone call, too. “I don’t know , Hao,” Hanbin was showing remarkable patience, in Taerae’s opinion. “It’s obvious that the flat will have to be smaller than our current ones, with half the people in it.” He took a deep breath, and he met Taerae’s eyes. He looked a bit desperate. “Baby, why don’t we go and take a look together when I’m back, which is, in, like, two days?”
Gunwook snorted. Taerae, too, had to look away or he would burst in super loud laughter. “No,” Hanbin said, again. “I get it, but,” Hao might have said something else on the other end. “We still lack the whole documentation, if she wants to sell this let her sell it,” he said, with a huge amount of self-control. “I know,” he repeated. “Let’s take a look together, alright?”
Taerae didn’t have to ask anything. Hanbin’s house hunting adventures had already become a recurring joke among them. “Do I look like someone who has any idea how wide a normal wardrobe is?” Hanbin asked, with a sigh.
“Well,” Taerae thought that if he ever had to ask this to someone, he would ask Hanbin. “Kind of.”
“It’s around one hundred and twenty centimeters,” Gunwook interjected. Both Hanbin and Taerae turned to look at him with frowns. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Taerae never had a boring day with them, huh.
*
Hao’s patience was wearing thin, he was going to get up and leave. This meeting could have been done an hour ago, but, no , the production had to find a thousand questions to ask him and Seungeon at the end of the first day of recording for their variety.
“Hao-ssi,” one of the PDs turned to him. “Is there something you’d like to change for tomorrow’s set-up?”
Yes , Hao thought, let’s get rid of this post-filming briefing. “I think everything went well today,” he said. His phone vibrated in his pants’ pocket. “Thank you for involving us and asking our opinions, too.” Wow, he was good at being fake, when he wanted to. The PD smiled, happy. Seungeon sighed lightly, on Hao’s side.
“I’m sorry,” Hao spoke into his phone as soon as he stepped out from the set. “I guess you’re done with all the apartments now. Any luck?”
“Not really,” Hanbin said on the other end. “But she promised me she would find more stuff and show us next week.”
Hao groaned softly. “Okay. I envy your trekking trip, you can take your mind off this nightmare for a while.”
“Come with,” Hanbin suggested, and Hao could imagine him smiling.
“Yeah, no,” Hao laughed. Seungeon threw him a weird glance. “Okay, anyway, I’m going home. Let’s meet there?”
*
“What do you actually bring to a housewarming party?” Gyuvin often wondered how it was that Taerae had ended up with someone as clueless as Junhyeon. What a fucking dumb question was it?
“Whatever you want?” Gyuvin replied, unhelpfully.
“Hyeon-ah,” Taerae re-emerged from behind a tall shelf in the store they were all in. Well, not all. Gyuvin, Quanrui, Seungeon. Which made sense. And then Taerae. And, by extension, Taerae’s boyfriend. (Not that Taerae ever told anyone that he and Junhyeon had actually started dating, he just started bringing him along. And, since everyone knew that they’d been hooking up and going out for, like, nine months now, it was kinda implied.) “Just buy them, like, an aroma diffuser.”
“What would they do with an aroma diffuser?” Junhyeon might be right this time. Useless idea.
“Get them chocolate,” Gyuvin said, tired. “And, hyung,” he turned to Taerae. “You can get them a nice bowl to offer chocolate to guests. So you match and it’s actually useful.”
Taerae frowned slightly. “I already bought them a vacuum cleaner along with Jiwoong hyung, Matthew and Gunwook,” he pointed out. “We’re not as unorganized as you are, buying house-warming presents on the day of the actual house-warming.”
Gyuvin turned to Seungeon and Quanrui. A fucking vacuum cleaner ? He found them looking right at him with similarly wide eyes. They still had no clue what they would show up with. But one thing was clear: they would look like idiots. “Well, at least our presents will be a surprise.”
“Okay,” Taerae said. Then he grabbed Junhyeon by the arm. “We’ll be late, just pick something.”
“What if they hate it, though?” Gyuvin had to find a solution and he should stop listening to Junhyeon’s dumb reasonings. Getting to be his friend had probably lowered his IQ by extension. “Wouldn’t it be better if I actually buy a plant like we originally said? It’ll die on its own and we’ll all laugh about it.” Scratch everything, Junhyeon was smart .
“You’re going to have to squeeze the plant in my car, because you couldn’t buy one earlier and have it sent,” Taerae commented. “But okay, get the plant.”
Hao’s face was carefully blank when he unwrapped their present. “Oh, wow,” he said. Hanbin curiously looked over his shoulder. “Our neighbors will hate me soon,” Hao said.
“But,” Gyuvin interjected, because he needed feedback. “Do you like it?”
“It’s a damn karaoke machine, why wouldn’t I like it?”
*
Hanbin tapped the door code in with his eyes half closed. He was too tired. Dance practice shouldn’t be this tiring. Maybe he was catching a cold. Maybe he was dying .
“I’m home,” he called, taking his shoes off. “I’m also wishing I was dead.”
Hao’s messy hair emerged from their bedroom door. “It’s one AM,” Hao muttered, paddling through the corridor — short, their flat was minuscule — rubbing his eyes. “Did they, like, kidnap you at your company?” Yeah, Hanbin thought so too. “Did you eat dinner?” Hanbin shook his head, as Hao scoffed. “I’ll heat you something, go get washed,” Hao ordered.
Hanbin was very grateful that he didn’t have to do anything except stepping into the shower, pushing his dirty clothes into the washing basket and getting in his ugly pajamas. He dried his hair roughly with a towel and stepped back into the kitchen with a yawn.
“Poor baby,” Hao yawned, too. “Eat up, then you’ll sleep.” Hanbin nodded.
“I’ll wash up the pan in the morning,” he promised.
Hao ran a hand through his hair. “I love you, but I’ll wait for you in bed,” Hao yawned again.
“Thanks for dinner,” Hanbin said, after him. Hao only hummed in reply.
*
Hao knew he was spoiled. Hanbin spoiled him. There was no other way to describe the thing, because why else could it be that he was spending yet another late evening sitting on the corner of their bed with Hanbin blow drying his hair, delicately running his fingers along his scalp and making sure it was all dry before they got under the covers.
Hao basked in his attention like a cat in the sun, absorbing it all with a lazy smile. Hanbin patted him on his head, turned the blow dryer off and kissed Hao’s cheek. “Done,” he said.
“One more,” Hao whined. Hanbin kissed him on the other cheek immediately. He smiled at him. “Again?”
“We need to sleep,” Hanbin pointed out. “You have that shooting at dawn tomorrow,” Hao groaned. He had to get up at five. A violation. A hate crime.
“When I’m rich and famous,” Hao said. “I won’t do schedules earlier than ten in the morning.”
Hanbin laughed quietly, and he unplugged the blow dryer from the wall. “Okay, rich and famous,” he teased. “We also still have to pay the water bill, by the way. Can you remind me to do that tomorrow?”
Hao pulled Hanbin by the hands, until he reached him on top of their mattress. “Okay,” he said. “I already paid for electricity, right?”
“Yeah?” Hanbin didn’t sound sure. “Jeez, we suck at this.” He laughed. Hao laughed, too.
“Eh,” he shrugged. “I’ll check tomorrow.”
*
Matthew enjoyed the idea that now, technically, he could move out of the dorm, too, if he so wanted. Did he want to? No. But it was a nice idea, nonetheless. At the same time, it kept taking him by surprise when he turned around looking for Hanbin at home, after seventeen hours cramped together practicing or recording or working in some way or other, and he wouldn’t find him. It kept taking him by surprise, too, when Hanbin got up after a movie night on a day off and went to put his shoes back on.
“Hyung,” he found himself saying. “It’s mega late, are you sure you don’t want to sleep here?” It wasn’t like they’d actually done away with his bed, as they’d threatened to do. Sometimes, Gunwook took it. But the rest of the time, it stayed there, empty and tidy, and a bit nostalgic to look at.
Hanbin stopped in his tracks. “But I don’t live here anymore,” he replied. “And-” He froze. “I was going to say it’s not nice to leave Hao with no forewarning, but Hao’s in Japan now?” Matthew laughed, as Hanbin sighed.
“Well, in that case,” Matthew left it hanging. He hoped Hanbin understood what he meant.
Gunwook passed through the living room with a weary air. “Hanbin hyung,” Gunwook said. “Can I sleep at your place tonight? Jiwoong hyung is giving me a headache.”
“If you hadn’t lost my favorite sweater,” Jiwoong yelled from his bedroom. Hanbin’s face was a mixture of horror and marvel.
“Huh,” Hanbin commented. “I think that everyone should sleep in their own bed,” he said. Matthew broke out in laughter. “Also, Wookie, we don’t have a guest room. So, sleeping at my place for you would entail sleeping on a couch that’s definitely too small for you.” He looked apologetic.
“What about Hao hyung’s-” Gunwook stopped mid-question. “I’m stupid, sometimes.” Hanbin’s laughter was wheezing.
“It’s late for everyone,” Matthew granted him this. “Let’s all go to sleep. Hanbin-ah,” he called to his best friend. “See you tomorrow at the company.”
“Of course,” Hanbin replied. “Sleep well.”
*
Quanrui had occupied Hao’s vacated room after he’d moved out. Which, in his opinion, should’ve meant he was free of Kim Gyuvin. Yeah. No. Gyuvin was on his bed, laying sprawled on it with a manhwa in his hands, lazing through it.
“Can’t you just go back to your room?” Quanrui asked him.
“Hao hyung told me I could stay here if I wanted.” Hao hyung was also a stupid person, on occasion, and he shouldn’t be quoted as the maximum authority if he didn’t even live here anymore.
“I’ll call him,” Quanrui stated. “And make him eat his words.”
Hao didn’t even pick up his phone. On Qanrui’s second attempt, it was Hanbin who answered it. “Hey, Hao’s, uh, busy right now,” Quanrui frowned. “Can I help you?”
“Busy doing what?” Quanrui knew that he should mind his business, but he had to get Gyuvin out of his room. It was vital.
“He’s, well. He’s trying to teach my sister how to shape her eyebrows and do make up and it’s a bit ruinous. All of it.” Quanrui made a face. What the hell.
“Put him on speaker, please?” Hanbin sighed. “Hao-ge,” Hao hummed. “Would you tell Kim Gyuvin to leave me alone in my room and that he can’t stay in my bed all day just because you told him he could use your old room? It was true before I won it, but now it’s mine, right?”
Hanbin’s muffled laughter was distinguishable through the phone. That boy laughed too much. “Is Kim Gyuvin listening?” Hao’s voice said. Quanrui told him he was. “Yo, Kimgyu,” Hao quipped. “He’s right, it’s his room, now.” Oh. Vindication. He turned to see Gyuvin sporting a very disappointed expression. “But why don’t you tell him how it is that you’ve occupied his bed, huh?”
“That’s cheating,” a girl’s voice said. Hanbin’s sister? Cheating? What was she talking about?
“Shut up,” Hao told her, laughing. “Kim Gyuvin, come over and have a chat, won’t you?”
Gyuvin groaned. “You live too far away, I can call you back from my room, though,” he said, and Quanrui watched him go. Having won his freedom should’ve tasted better.
*
Hanbin opened the door to his home to find Taerae comfortably sitting in his kitchen and chatting with Hao over a cup of coffee. “Hi, Kim Taerae,” he said, kicking off his shoes. “I didn’t know you’d be over.”
“Your boyfriend told me to come,” Taerae said, relaxed. “We had to discuss relevant business.”
Hao laughed. Hanbin walked over and poured himself some of the leftover coffee in the brewer. He sat down on Hao’s side, where he never sat. (They usually took seats in front of each other.) “Can I know?”
Hao turned to look at him with a fond smile. “Maybe it’s just between us,” he teased. Hanbin looked at him with a pout, until Hao laughed and patted his hair.
“Ew,” Taerae said, and he drank more of his coffee. “I was just looking for advice on how to deal with meeting parents. You know.”
Hanbin said nothing, at first. Then, he realized Taerae wanted a reply. “Oh, you want advice from me, too?”
“Well, yeah ?” Taerae sounded angry. He wasn’t. “Hao hyung, really, I don’t know how you stand this dumb kid.”
“Yah,” Hanbin protested.
“Taerae,” Hao laughed softly. “You’re dating a guy falling under the same definition, I don’t think you should judge me.”
“Come on,” Hanbin protested, again. “Why do you both hate me?” Hao laughed out loud, and he moved his hand on top of Hanbin’s leg, under the table. “Anyway, don’t beat yourself up too much for the parents thing,” Hanbin told Taerae. “You have a face parents love.”
Taerae frowned deeply. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
*
hanbinsung
> HAPPY BIRTHDAYYY
firstborn son
> hyunggg thank youuu
> is hao hyung better? with the flu??
hanbinsung
> he’s better
> not better enough to get to your bday party dinner tho
firstborn son
> but are you coming?
> or do you need to idk what do you do when your spouse is sick
hanbinsung
> stop calling hao my spouse help
> anyway of course i’m coming
firstborn son
> oki, see you later at the company anyway
hanbinsung
> ugh
> work.
*
Hao wouldn’t be able to describe what his favorite thing about sharing a house with Hanbin was. Living with Hanbin, in general, was his favorite thing. Getting to see him when he opened his eyes, getting to touch him when they woke up earlier than their alarms, kissing him unhurriedly in the evenings when they managed to get home at a reasonable hour, tidying their apartment together in a rush five minutes before anyone among those they knew came to visit them, laughing like idiots whenever they realized they’d forgotten to buy something essential once again. He loved all this. And he loved being able to initiate things without shame, without constraints. Hanbin was always happy to let things progress in whichever way Hao preferred. Urgent, needy, untidy sex, like when they came back from being away too long, or, like, when one of them came back from some kind of night out with their respective company. Hao was always eager to get his hands back on Hanbin, and Hanbin wasn’t the kind who said much in this regard, but Hao could read him, and there was no doubt, none, that he wanted Hao’s touch in equal measure. Most of the time, though, it was a slower affair, something with a build-up that began in a shared glance and progressed to teasing, lingering touches that dared sliding underneath clothes, until one of them gave in and started touching the other with more purpose and the other surrendered to it. It wasn’t always the same, yet it was always intense and breathtaking, and most of the time Hao ended up whining in Hanbin’s ear that he loved him, he loved him, he wanted to love him forever and ever. Hao’s favorite thing about Hanbin, though, if he had to pick one, was how he’d grown not to be ashamed of their desires, how he’d learnt to ask for Hao to do things a certain way, how he wouldn’t shy away from looking Hao in the eyes and ask him to be fucked, asked Hao to hold him through it, to be good to him. And Hao would always say yes. Hao’s second favorite was when Hanbin started being silly for no reason, like the time he made a Transformer mask out of a cereal box, or the time he stopped folding sheets to turn them into superhero capes. Or the time when he started trying to learn magic tricks and kept failing and they spent three hours not being able to stop laughing. Hanbin had spent half of that time with his mouth on Hao, after that, his tongue sending electric jolts through Hao’s spine from the place it was digging deep into him. Yeah, Hao loved sharing his life with Hanbin. Even when they would inevitably disagree about things, even when they were too tired to bother to have a decent talk about important things, even when their bosses got in their way or their managers fucked up their schedules. There were days when they were both zombies and they barely had any energy to strike up conversation, and Hao would still choose to spend them with Hanbin, if he had to have someone around. Because Hanbin was his other half, and he’d always known it, but it was magic that he could realize it day after day, after day.
*
Hanbin had picked the habit of doing live streams from the spare room they had. A room that the estate agent had promised them as a second bedroom, because they were two renters, and they each needed their own space, right? No amount of PDA had clued her in to their needs, and so they’d elected to rent an apartment with a significant discrepancy in room dimensions: one of the bedrooms was double the size than the other. Which, had it been two roommates, would have sparked some controversies, but, being a couple, had left them with a puzzle to solve as to how to employ the extra small room on their bedroom’s side. It had turned into a room with a desk and a couple shelves for books and they called it “the studio”, but there wasn’t anything worthy of such a noble definition. They were going to build a wardrobe to store spare stuff, sooner or later, but, so far, there was a mess of mismatched boxes and a treadmill. The boxes and the mess were never caught on camera when Hanbin did live streams. And Hao, of course, never did live streams from this same room. If he streamed from home, he used the bedroom, and he hardly moved from his side of the bed.
Hanbin, anyway, loved to talk to his fans from the comfort of “the studio”, it made it more intimate than any other setting, it made it more spontaneous. People often asked him for a house tour, but he serenely ignored the request by talking about completely different subjects. He told anecdotes about his workshops, about his guest-appearances on TV dance survivals, about his group members and their silly antics. And that got the job done, usually.
Today, he was going to try to put some music on, to possibly accept suggestions from the watchers, too. That was the plan, anyway. People were giving boring suggestions, and he was ignoring them in favor of livelier, more dance-able songs
. Please dance, too
.
“I can’t dance here,” he laughed. “There’s no space.” He got up to show how little space he had, how little he could move around. “It’s like this, you see, if I get up I don’t fit on camera, and I can’t move the camera further because it’s already pressed to the wall,” he chuckled. “This is the state I live in, I’m sorry, I’ll move to a better place just to dance better.” He made it sound exaggeratedly sad.
Go to a different room! Someone commented. Living room ! Someone else. Home tour, Hanbin-ah ! Well, what about no?
“Let’s not dance today,” Hanbin said. “Let’s just chat about music.” They kept commenting on other things, his hair, his appearance, and someone begged him to play some new artist’s music. And he complied, and it was going well, he was forty minutes into this live, and people kept tuning in instead of disappearing, which meant it was providing some entertainment. “Ah, guys,” he started. “You saw Jiwoong’s solo dance? He came to me to check if his choreo ideas were cool, and I was amazed, because he came up with a lot of amazing stuff and I couldn’t stop praising him and he was shy about it, lol. If I did part of his choreo? Like, if I created it, you’re asking?” He paused to read some comments. “Ah, no. He did that on his own, we only cleaned it up a bit together. He’s a pro dancer,” Hanbin laughed. “No, really. He is.”
Are you doing a solo single too? “Uh, actually, I don’t think I’m doing that any time soon, right. But, you know, maybe next year? If I manage to write something I’m proud of,” and if he actually cared about doing a solo song, because, honestly, he was fine with the dance activities and the group promotions, and he was also tired, these days. “Anyway, did you watch the Street- ” Man Fighter episode, he was going to ask. Because I loved the dance battles, he was going to say.
“I’m home,” Hao’s voice roared through the whole apartment. Clear as the morning light through thin blinds. And Hanbin realized that he’d forgotten the most relevant thing to remember when he was going live: the post-it on the front door saying Live. Maybe his fans didn’t hear. The audio quality always sucked, right?
“ Street Man Fighter ? The dance battles. Have you seen how-”
Well, fuck this. Hao opened the door to the room with his usual energy. “Hey, I’m back-” he started. Hanbin had turned towards him instinctively. He watched realization sink in on Hao’s face. “Oh.”
Hanbin tried to think about what to say. His mind supplied nothing. Hao closed the door again. Hanbin dared to look at the comments for a split second.
Zhang Hao?
Hao????
I’m back?
AHHH OMG HAOBIN
2 years later???? all along?
Hanbin got up without thinking too much. He opened the door, and he faced Hao, who was standing in the middle of their corridor with a shocked expression. “I fucked up,” he whispered. “But, since we’re here, do you want to appear in my live?”
Hao’s face turned into a warm smile. He nodded. Hanbin sighed. He was an idiot, but this would be fun, in a way. And their managers would have to clean up a huge mess, but, fuck this, and fuck their companies too.
“Oh, it seems like we have a guest today,” Hanbin said. “You all already know Hao hyung, right?”
Does he live there, too?
Are they still together then
f*ckkkkkkkkk
“Of course they know me,” Hao said, sitting on Hanbin’s same chair, each of them completely uncomfortable. “Anyway, hi, sorry for hijacking our Hanbin’s live. I’m Hao, nice to meet everyone. What are you doing today? Are you dancing for them, yeobo?”
Hanbin guessed the cat was already out of the bag, right? So why bother? “No dancing,” he commented. “We were just telling stories. Do you guys have any questions for Hao?” He didn’t even glance at the comments, he asked the first question himself. “Hao was going to cook dinner for us later, did you find all the stuff you needed?”
Hao’s hand gripped his leg, off camera. “You promised you’d help to cook,” he said, teasingly.
“Did I?” Hanbin hadn’t. Hao had promised an intricate traditional plate and Hanbin wouldn’t know where to start. “Oh, I remember it very differently.”
“Well, that’s because you always forget stuff,” Hao jabbed at him. “Don’t you think he’s lying?”
“Yah, they’re my fans,” Hanbin protested. Hao laughed. Hanbin got up. “I’m getting us another chair, we’re uncomfortable like that.” His phone was buzzing in his pocket. He would ignore it. Hao looked up at him, an amused fondness predominating in his gaze.
“He’s trying to make me forgive him,” he winked at the camera. “Always does that.” There was no going back from there, huh. Hanbin laughed at him, and he went to fetch the chair. They would live through the scandal that would rise. What a boring scandal can it be to just reveal that a public couple is still together, after all?
5tars translations @starsintranslation — 3h ago
SHB sent texts:
ooohhh hao’s recipe turned out well
(i ended up helping)
5tars translations @starsintranslation — 3h ago
SHB sent texts:
well thank you for all the warm messages ily a lot
Aw4ke Updates @aw4keupdatesglbl — 1h ago
20250304 Hao posts on Bubble
[TRANS]
yah it’s not my fault he forgot to tell me he was doing a live!
mhh-hh yep
ah the message above? someone asked if we’re still dating.
he’s stuck with me babyyy
5tars translations @starsintranslation — 1h ago
KJW sent texts:
oh the stories we could tell.
FIN.