Chapter Text
The End of Winter: February
There’s way too many people on this campus for nine o’clock on a Wednesday morning. Central Quad is packed with people, loitering in small groups both on the pathway and on the grass itself. The lawn is still evergreen, despite the calendar declaring it smack in the middle of February, easily explainable by the city’s temperate climate and the immense water bill that the university shells out for each month. While the glossy images of historic-looking brick buildings and perpetual summer had played a key role in luring Zhang Hao to this school three years ago, he’s not sure he can look fondly upon that same lawn now and thank the school for spending his thousands of dollars in tuition on its landscaping instead of some real campus security. No school-sponsored activity could be pulling this large of a crowd so early in the morning one week before finals, especially not one without any kind of organization at all.
However, this crowd doesn’t seem to be made up of the usual rabble of stressed college students loitering to avoid the last lecture of the quarter. Some of these people look far too young to have suffered through all-nighters in the stacks or to have first-hand knowledge as to why one shouldn’t mix Red Bull and coffee right before said exam. To spare an unwilling audience with the brutal details, he had managed to pass the exam, but at the expense of his bowels, which made sure to strongly encourage him to never make that mistake again thirty minutes after the exam had ended. Post-exam clarity is 20/20, and Hao will never return to those bathrooms again. He scans the crowd for an opportunity to dive through the unmoving masses in hopes of getting to his 9:30 lecture before all the good seats are taken.
‘Good seats' was an entirely subjective term. Hao was confident that fewer than half of the lecture’s total population would show up by the end of the two hour lecture, given that 9:30 am was an ungodly time for university students in the first place, let alone ones simultaneously bereaved by the quickly approaching doomsday that was final exams. To be quite frank, this was Hao’s first time even attending this lecture in weeks, but no one should be surprised, considering his inability to function so early in the morning was well known among all those forced to catch a glimpse of him at a lecture or lab before 10 AM. Hao could only hope that by making an appearance at the last lecture of the course, the professor would be a little kinder in grading his final. Plus, if Hao had managed to drag himself out of bed early enough to attend this lecture, then you can be damn sure he was going to get there on time. Otherwise, he was going to curse every single one of these sign-holding teenagers disrupting their campus so early in the morning for no apparent reason. Seriously, what was with these people?
When he brushes past one of them, they grumble something at him, eyes narrowed like Hao is about to be the one cursed for getting in their way. Fortunately Hao is already too far away to properly listen to whatever they had to say. Oh well, it’s not like they’re paying to be here the way Hao has spent thousands of dollars spent on tuition, which is about to go to waste.
Was there a protest of some kind, or had the religious fanatics returned to inform students passing by of their inevitable descent into hell? Neither would be out of the ordinary, unfortunately, but he’d gotten pretty good at ignoring anyone who tried to talk to him on the main pathway. Hao didn’t bother trying to read any of their hand-drawn signs, not interested in anything they could have to say that wasn’t a direct order to part the crowd like the Red Sea in order to allow him to cross the quad. Why are they standing in the middle of the walkway? Pathways are for walking, not for staring at something on the other side of the quad. Still, Hao has been at this school long enough to know there’s no reasoning with the fanatics; it’s better to just pretend they don’t exist all together.
He checks the time on his phone with a silent groan. There’s no way he’s going to get across the quad in time unless there’s a sudden miracle. Unless…
Hao has never considered himself to be an expert in mathematics, but years of public schooling have drilled one geometric formula into his mind to the point where even if he lost all his memories, he’s sure if someone asked him how to calculate the missing length of a right triangle, he’d start chanting the formula like an unlocked sleeper agent. Pythagoras's theorem: the quickest way to get from point A to B is via the hypotenuse. He squints at the rectangular shape of the quad, looks down at his clean sneakers and resigns himself to wiping the mud and grass clippings from them after the lecture. It’s going to be worth it, he promises himself; he needs this course to not tank his otherwise perfect GPA.
Then, he sets off in a dead speed-walk right through the grassy lawn, weaving through the groups of people loitering in the field. Somehow, they seem to form an even tighter wall, making even the shortcut take longer than necessary. What can they possibly be doing here? The weather and time of day is entirely wrong for an impromptu picnic (It’s 9 am for crying out loud! If Hao didn’t have a class he would be dead asleep still). And yes, Hao is happy to promote the fact that during the last few weeks before spring quarter finals, the quad really does turn into a picturesque college brochure of friendship circles and ultimate frisbee, but now is not that time. Now, it is barely sixty degrees, and Hao can feel the wetness of the morning dew soaking into the bottom of his sweatpants. Still, he soldiers on before his brain can catch up to the regret that’s already starting to bubble up in his stomach.
In his haste, he trips over some kind of box in the middle of the lawn. Upon further inspection, which he can now make at eye level with the device, it appears to be some kind of expensive-looking lighting fixture. At least, that’s what it looks like as he stares up at it from where he’s fallen ass-down in the grass, trying not to be distracted by the fact that he can already feel the wetness from the grass seep into the back of his sweatpants. Not to be dramatic, but Hao has never regretted anything more in his life than deciding to tempt fate by trying to attend this lecture.
A smooth hand glides into his field of vision, reaching down to help him up. It’s not like chivalry is entirely dead on this campus (who is Hao kidding, it certainly is, especially during finals week when it’s notoriously an every man for themselves, and the library becomes an eat or be eaten world), but Hao wouldn’t have thought that anyone would actually stop to help him. More likely was that they would just watch him wallow in his suffering until he managed to drag himself to lecture later.
“You should watch where you’re going,” Hao’s savior informs him, though his tone is not unkind. Unbidden, the thought strikes Hao that the stranger’s voice is warm, almost familiar in a way that he can’t quite place. Biting back a snarky comment, something along the lines of, “Thanks, Captain Obvious ,” which would probably have landed just on the wrong side of cruel rather than teasing this early in the morning, Hao meets the gaze of the unexpectedly helpful man.
Oh.
Oh.
Shit, his savior is beautiful. And not beautiful in the way that skinny runway models are ‘beautiful,’ or in the way that a man at a house party is ‘beautiful’ under the multi-colored LED lights when Hao is just on the right side of drunk. This man is beautiful like a garden rose or the first hues of a morning sunrise, the kind of beautiful that has Hao writing poetry in his head about him. The kind of beautiful where any coherent thought has emptied out of his mind leaving only radio static behind.
Physically, he’s probably awkwardly been burning a stare at the man’s proffered hand for what has definitely been a socially unacceptable amount of time. Mentally, he’s slamming his head into the grass in front of him in the hopes of resetting time to approximately 60 seconds before he fell on his ass in front of the most beautiful man to have stepped foot onto this campus in recent memory.
Is there a chance that he’s a student here? The official university brochure claimed that at any given time, undergraduate plus graduate students made this campus thirty thousand strong. Those are good odds, right? He’s a failure among STEM majors everywhere for not being able to do the math in his head, he knows, but statistically given the fact that Hao is in central campus at 9 am on a Wednesday morning… Why would anyone who’s not a student be here?
Hao might just stand a chance of meeting this man again, and the universe owes him at least that much after all the trauma he’d been through since he’d woken up, if only he could get any words out at all. But his throat is like sandpaper, and it feels like his mouth is trying to send SOS signals to his brain to just to say something, anything , but no one is home.
Instead of accepting the stranger’s hand, Hao scrambles to his feet on his own awkwardly, nearly slipping back into the grass in his haste. Reactivating the limbs that his brain seemed to have forgotten it could control, he dusts himself off, mortified, and gathers the courage to at least ask the man for his name at least before the spell between them is broken.
Before he can speak, the man interrupts him again, “If you’re looking for the tent for the background actors, it’s back that way.” He points to a large fenced off area a ways behind them. There’s a large group of people milling about in the area, all dressed similarly to this man.
Hao’s blood turns to ice. Too late, spell’s broken. In all his caffeine-fueled anxiety followed by mortification, he’d forgotten the third reason someone might be on this campus so early in the morning.
Situated in West Los Angeles, it seems like every other day there’s a new celebrity sighting of some actor or singer filming something on their campus. At one time, there was literally a dedicated Twitter account with thousands of followers just to let people know who’s been spotted each day. It had been shut down by the team of one celebrity daughter who’d started attending the university, only to be surrounded by fans any time an update on her location went out. Hao pitied her, honestly; she was just trying to live a normal life, going to the same lectures and eating in the same dining halls as everyone else, but people couldn’t even give her enough space to do that.
Hao quickly glances up and down at the man in front of him. From his observation, he’s somewhere over the age of twenty, but for some reason dressed in a high schooler’s uniform. Certainly, he must be a celebrity of some kind. No self respecting man in their twenties would be caught dead on a college campus looking like he’d just escaped a particularly boring class in catholic school.
And for some reason, in all his sweatpants and hoodie glory, the beautiful man thinks Hao is one of them, “Oh, I’m not a–”
Hao’s particularly articulate response is cut off by another important looking man hooking an arm around mystery man’s shoulder to pull him away from Hao without a second glance. Well damn, Hao knew he wasn’t important, but not even a look?
“There you are! What have I told you about disappearing like that? The director has been looking for you for the past five minutes,”the man chides, hand already reaching into his pocket for his phone, likely to inform said director that their runaway actor had been recaptured.
Beautiful stranger doesn’t spare him a second glance either, but Hao supposes he should’ve expected that. After sixty seconds, all that remains to prove Hao’s first celebrity interaction is a pair of grass-stained sweatpants and a complete loss of dignity. He finally remembers to check his phone for the time.
Shit, he’s definitely going to be late to lecture now.
*
Hao manages to slink into lecture a cool eight minutes late, a slightly more respectable time than the girl who turns up in sunglasses with a massive ice coffee and nothing else, but Hao wishes he could summon half of her zero-fucks attitude this early in the morning.
Let the record show for at least the first thirty minutes of the lecture Hao tried to pay attention to what the professor was saying. He even opened a new document on his computer to take notes. Unfortunately, there was only so much one could care about rock formations at 9 am, and as his eyes started to droop after only five minutes of attention, he remembered why he usually skipped this lecture in the first place. Thirty minutes in and all Hao has to show for it is the topic and date. His laptop’s cursor stares back at him incriminatingly, judging him for his failures as a student. Worse, there’s a maximum of twenty people in the massive lecture hall, so if he takes out his phone at all, the professor is going to notice.
The problem is, there’s just a part of him that has to know. It’s going to eat away at him until he finds the answer he's looking for. But who can blame him? He's always been a naturally curious person, and any sane person in the same situation as him would be aching for the answer too. Who was it that he’d run into on campus this morning? Assuming the crowds had been waiting for them, whoever had been filming was popular enough that their army of fans was capable of congesting the whole quad in the middle of the week.
The lecturer goes on and on, flipping through her hundred page slide deck at a speed that tells Hao that there’s no way she’s going to get through it all in the next hour. His gaze briefly catches on the pixelated game of Minecraft the student in front of him is deeply engrossed in. No one else seems to be paying attention either, so Hao doesn’t feel bad when he opens up a new search tab on his laptop.
What had the person called the mystery celebrity when they came to pick him up? He thinks it was something with a ‘Bin,’ but even if that was the whole thing, it’s not like a first name was going to be enough to go on unless the guy was some kind of household name. Hao might not be the most interested in celebrity gossip, but if the guy was famous enough to be identified by one syllable, he’d probably have heard of him before.
Hao did know one person who he was confident would know if there was anyone filming on their campus today. A sponge for all kinds of knowledge, as if his pre-law classes weren’t enough of a load on the brain, Gunwook Park also spent copious hours scrolling on their school forums online. Seriously, Hao wasn’t sure when that boy slept. But in this case, the sophomore’s addiction to social media would come in handy. Waiting for the lecturer to turn back to the slides, he unlocks his phone under the table. As fast as possible, he types out a message to Gunwook and hits send without double checking what he’d written when the professor whips around, almost waiting to catch him out.
He sinks into his seat, as though he could hide his entire being behind the screen of his laptop from her prying eyes. Maybe he should’ve just opened the Sims 4 or something, maybe started online shopping like the person in the third row ahead of him. It’s not like Gunwook is going to respond to Hao’s vague question at 9:30 am anyways, so he’s probably just ruined his reputation in front of this professor for nothing. So much for a good grade on the final now.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. Instinctively, he reaches for it, but stops himself when he feels the burning eyes of the lecturer in his direction.
There's no way it’s Gunwook, right? He should just forget about it and try to take a few notes for what’s left of the lecture. The phone buzzes again two more times in rapid succession. To stop his hand from doing something dumb, like checking the phone for something that’s probably just a notification from a random app that doesn’t even matter, he curls his fingers together in a fist under the desk.
But just a brief glance wouldn’t hurt right?
What if there was an emergency, and someone needed to contact him right at this very moment? He’d gotten more than one notification, and just a spam would not have come through more than once. It was best to check now rather than later.
He peeks down under the desk to see three messages from one, Park Gunwook.
The professor bangs loudly on the board with her pointer stick, tutting loudly, “I know there are plenty of distractions on those teeny little devices even this early in the morning, but that’s why I specifically requested not to see them in my lessons. Please, pay attention. This will be on the final exam next week.”
Hao slouches into his seat, was that about him? It was probably about him. God, he can never show his face in this lecture again. Maybe he should’ve just ditched. falling in front of a hot guy was probably a sign from the universe. It was impossible to embarrass oneself face-down asleep in bed, ignoring all the social and academic obligations that had been piling up by the end of the quarter. Gunwook’s message would have to wait until later, and Hao goes back to his blank document. He’s never taking another 9 AM lecture again.
*
haohao
hey do you know if anyone was filming smth in the quad today?
wookie
OMG YES
IT’S ROSE HORIZON
HAO WTF DID YOU SEE THEM?
*
‘Rose Horizon’ doesn’t seem entirely unfamiliar of a name. Hao vaguely associates the words with the music that played in the gym for the two weeks he had forced himself to go (a failed new year’s resolution, just like the rest of the student population deciding to use the free student gym the first two weeks of January only to balk at the lines for the usually empty building). But he can’t remember any words, any names, and he’d never even seen their faces before. The man he bumped into looked handsome enough to be in a band. Hao can easily imagine him, hands curled around the stand of a microphone, crooning the lyrics of a love song to an adoring audience of screaming fans. He would look even better with his hands around Hao’s… hands! Yes, they should be holding hands, which they could’ve been… had Hao not been an actual idiot and lost his one chance.
A tray clatters down on the table in front of him, startling him from his impromptu daydream. Physically shaking himself out of the remnants of an entirely too-detailed scenario involving a man he’d interacted with for less than thirty seconds, he notices the ice in his take-out coffee cup rattling noisily, nothing but melted ice water left inside. Maybe he just needs another coffee. Like any other sleep-deprived college student, Hao was starting to think he was developing a tolerance to the substance, and like an addict, it took more caffeine each time just to get him out of his own head and into gear.
“Don’t you have class right now?” Hao directs his words to the unexpected guest at his otherwise unoccupied dining hall table. It's not unusual to find Hao here, and the younger could have easily guessed Hao would take an early lunch after he skipped breakfast to get to his lecture, but he’d also given Gunwook his location in case of emergencies. Previously, this had primarily consisted of him letting the younger know when he was going on a Tinder date, just in case he needed to recover Hao’s phone and delete all of its contents if he was murdered. Access to his location was not meant to be used to interrupt Hao’s sweet treat time after surviving the rest of his lecture unscathed and without any other encounters with strange, potentially famous men.
Gunwook ignores his question, posing his own instead. The youth these days, Hao wants to grumble in complaint, no respect for their elders.
“So did you see them or not?” He seems out of breath, and his backpack is only slung across one shoulder, like he’d haphazardly run here to catch Hao before his class.
“What are you talking about?” Hao’s brows furrowed in confusion.
“Rose Horizon!” Gunwook practically shrieks, and half the patrons of the dining hall look over in interest. Hao can feel his ears flush pink with embarrassment. Why did he have to be so loud about it? There was still no confirmation that was even who Hao had seen. Plenty of people film on this campus every day. It could have even been a student project of some kind (who is Hao kidding, that guy was way too hot to be a student here, his talents would be wasted on a college degree when he could be on the runway instead).
“Keep it down!” Hao hushes, gesturing to Gunwook to lower the volume of his voice. The last thing he needs are some of the rabid (he assumes) Rose Horizon fans from that morning to track them down, “Are you a secret fanboy or something? Also, don't you have a class?”
Without asking permission, Gunwook pulls the chair out across from Hao with a noisy screech, the metal legs of the chair scraping against the linoleum floor in a great impression of Hao’s current mental state, collapsing into it unceremoniously and pulling out his phone.
“First of all, my class can wait. Professor Xin loves me anyways,” Gunwook scrolls rapidly to something before sliding the phone to Hao face up, almost like he’s trying to make a deal of some kind. Maybe if Hao spent more of his nights sleeping than binging crime shows, he wouldn’t suspect his junior to be trying to make a drug deal with him in the middle of the university-owned dining hall.
“Second, if you listened to anything I said about music you would know about Rose Horizon. They’re basically the most famous boy band in the world right now,” Gunwook sounds annoyed, but Hao can tell he’s secretly just excited that Hao is asking about this.
“Wait, do you run a stan account for them?” Hao immediately directs himself away from whatever Gunwook had opened for him to navigate to Gunwook’s own profile. “How did I not know this!”
Gunwook snatches the phone back. “It’s not a stan account! I just… use one of the members' photos as my profile because it’s a good picture.”
Narrowing his eyes, Hao squints at his younger friend like he can mentally will him to confess to his hobby of posting updates about a boy band member on the internet every day, “Sure. let’s just say I believe that,” Hao lets the sarcasm drip from his words to make it clear, he doesn’t believe it at all, “and that I don’t think it’s because you have a little celebrity crush on whoever this brown-haired guy is…”
“His name is Matthew, and it’s not a crush. I just admire his talents and what he brings to the band," Gunwook fiercely defends, which is how Hao knows not to prod any further. Clearly, this band really does mean something to Gunwook, and he doesn’t want to continue joking around about whether or not he saw them if it might genuinely hurt his friend.
“Well, I can tell you for sure, I definitely didn’t see this guy,” Hao points to the picture of Matthew on Gunwook’s profile. “Eh, who knows. maybe it wasn’t them at all,” Hao shrugs, “There’s half a dozen things being filmed here every day, I probably stumbled into someone’s final project, and now the film majors are going to put a target on my back for damaging their equipment or something.”
Gunwook frowns, like he can tell Hao is trying to change the subject. A slew of emotions pass over the younger’s face, but Hao can tell the exact point when he decides to let it go.
“Sorry it wasn’t your boy band guy,” Hao adds, “I didn't mean to get your hopes up.”
His friend just shrugs, “It was a long shot anyway. I just figured, if anyone was going to run into a celebrity and not know who they were, it would be you.”
“What is that supposed to mean!”
“I'm saying this in the nicest way possible, you live under a rock. You deleted all of your social media to focus on school and listen to fourth gen girl group music religiously. You’re probably the only person on campus who could’ve walked onto that set and had no idea what was going on.”
*
Though he told himself not to take Gunwook’s words to heart, they weren’t exactly wrong. Hao didn’t think he lived under a rock, but maybe he was a bit behind when it came to the current trends and popular celebrities. He’d been off of social media for over six months now. At first, it had just been a good habit for final exams. There was no way he could be distracted by the latest dance challenges on Tiktok if the app wasn’t available on his phone at all. Sure, it was harsh, but it worked, even when all his friends called him crazy for quitting every platform cold turkey before the school year started.
But now it’s 1 AM, and his phone screen is shining a harsh white light against his blanket, which is pulled over his head to prevent his roommate from waking up across the room at his impromptu online binge. Not that there haven’t been nights when Hao has returned home from a night out to the constant scroll of his roommate on social media, but Hao likes to think he has at least some decorum to watch with a pair of earbuds in instead of letting the noise fill the room blatantly.
He told himself he wouldn’t, but curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he’d given in to the bubblingly desperate need to search up Rose Horizon on Google. Not to confirm whether or not he’d really seen a member earlier, he’d told himself, but just to determine whether or not he’d even heard of the band before. Besides, if they were as popular as Gunwook and their hordes of adoring fans seemed to imply, perhaps Hao really was missing something in his ignorance of them.
There was a slight problem though. After Hao had speed-scrolled through the band’s Wikipedia page, he’d caught a glimpse of a familiar face on the member profile page, and it wasn’t Gunwook’s sparkling profile picture of ‘Matthew Seok.’
The man of Hao’s daydreams has a name apparently, Hanbin Sung, according to a familiar smiling face staring back at Hao through the phone. Even in the photo, his eyes glitter like how they had when he’d reached for Hao’s hand just over 12 hours ago, though in this image he has dark brown hair and looks a bit younger than he had in person. Unfortunately, Hao finds the sort-of boyish charm of Hanbin’s debut photo as attractive as the ashy-blond man he’d encountered in person that day.
Really, Hao shouldn’t be doing this. He knows he has the tendency to get invested, falling off the deep end before his brain even comes to terms with the choice he’s about to make, and finals are only two weeks away.
But still, he can’t seem to stop himself from clicking the little blue hyper-link attached to Hanbin’s name, and by the time the page reloads, it’s already too late for him to be saved.
It starts with the wiki, yes, but by 2 AM he’s read everything there is to find on any ‘official pages,’ and he’s moved into the tabloids. Despite Rose Horizon’s social media managers’ attempts to paint Hanbin as the perfect boy-next-door type leader of Rose Horizon, the man himself seems to have branched far beyond his designated concepts. Hao spends at least five minutes staring blankly at a magazine shoot the man had done where he was on his knees in front of the camera, pulling the collar of his shirt down to reveal a tantalizing set of tattoos that Hao would love to sink his teeth into.
Woah. Who said that? Not Hao. He would never say that…. just think about it… maybe.
He slams the phone down onto the sheets, a faint glow emanating from where the screen tries in vain to taunt him with an image that will likely haunt him for the rest of the quarter.
Regretfully, he swipes away from the photoshoot and collects the facts he knows about the celebrity, bits gathered from articles that spilled half-truths in the name of getting the hottest scoop, fan-fueled rants about the apparently long history of Hanbin Sung’s career as a child actor before becoming the face of Rose Horizon, even the real estate details of the neighborhood where he’d apparently bought a luxury home somewhere in downtown New York with more money than Hao would probably ever see in his lifetime.
Still, but these facts are nothing in comparison to the videos. Hao’s eager eyes absorb compilation after compilation of the man dancing, singing, acting… it doesn’t seem that there’s a thing the man has tried in the entertainment industry that he hasn’t excelled at (though perhaps Hao has already become biased; one glimpse of the man’s whisker-dimpled smile and Hao’s attention on the activity he’s doing in the rest of the video has been entirely lost).
Part of him will never forgive himself for not reaching out to take that man’s hand. Even if he wasn’t a celebrity, and even if he really had been just some random film student, he was still the hottest person Hao had ever seen. The more rational side of him beats the delusion back with a stick. So what if Hao had let poor judgment win? There was a not unlikely chance that photos of the impromptu moment would be plastered all over the internet in hours, and Hao would forever be the guy with a grassy ass saved by Hanbin Sung until the day he died.
In this life, there were always going to be guys like Hanbin out there, untouchable to the rest of the population, something beautiful to look at, but never to have. Then one day, he’d go on to marry some other beautiful pop star or model or actress, they’d have a million dollar white wedding, and the fans (god how down bad did Hao have to be to already start associating himself with the people skipping class to wave signs in some boy band’s face after just one sighting) would forgive her eventually for achieving what they never could.
It would be best for Hao’s mental health to forget about Hanbin Sung all together. He’d already told Gunwook that he hadn’t seen the band (though it isn’t like he lied, he had no idea who they were at the time) and Hao has finals in two weeks to be studying for.
Still, just one more video couldn’t hurt right?
*
Disoriented, the clock on Hao’s roommate’s side of the room declares it to be 10 am the next day, and Hao groggily realizes his phone had died some time in the night halfway through Rose Horizon’s discography. Hao rubs his eyes. Shit , doesn’t he have a paper due in less than twelve hours?
He scrambles out of bed, his roommate long gone, their bed messy and unmade as usual. As if he could willingly undo his past decisions with a menacing stare at the brick of his dead phone, Hao swears to never touch a single thing related to Rose Horizon for the rest of his life.
Leaving his house to make his way to the library to speed-write his paper, Rose Horizon’s latest single is already queued to play on his phone.
The song is just as good as he remembers it being last night when he’d watched the dance practice on loop to catch the way Hanbin's hands intricately led a tutting section in the dance break. Letting the rest of the album play through to the end, under the crisp air of early spring, Hao knows he’s totally screwed.
Interlude: Hanbin Sung answers the Internet’s Most Searched Questions
The man himself dresses quite unassumingly, a simple t-shirt with a collar low enough to reveal the tops of a celestial tattoo inked across his collarbones, a flannel draped over his shoulders, and a pair of light-washed ripped jeans paint a perfect picture of boyish charm. He introduces himself to the camera, dazzling smile never leaving his face for a second, though from his body language it’s clear that this isn’t his first interview of the day. His eyes sparkle in humor as he picks up the staff’s prepared board, “And all these questions are about me?” he directs to the camera, “Sorry to say, but I’m not that interesting. The staff is shaking their heads at me. What? Guys, you know it’s true!”
He has the kind of charm that is impossible to teach, the kind you have to be born with, and the kind of ease in front of a camera and a dozen strangers that even the most practiced actors would have trouble with.
“Okay, first question - what is the Hanbin Sung Calvin Klein campaign… You guys!” he laughs, though there’s a tinge of embarrassment visible in his cheeks, “Internet, I have questions for you guys. Do you know how awkward it is to have your mom send you a video of yourself shirtless playing in Times Square? And for her to tell you she wasn’t the only one filming it?
“Ah, I really wasn’t sure about doing that campaign, but it came out well, didn’t it? It's not my usual style, I know. Thank you guys though, for loving it a lot…” Cheekily, he pulls his shirt up just enough to reveal a familiar waistband, but he stops there.
“The staff is telling me to stop showing off. I'm not! I just wanted to show that I'm still a dedicated ambassador... Even though I’m not sure I'm happy that the thing I'm most searched for is an underwear campaign. I am a singer, did you know that?” He ends his story lightly, teasing the fans even though everyone and their mother knows Hanbin is a member of the most famous boy band in the world right now. Despite the fact that Hanbin is basically talking to himself, he keeps up an easy one-way conversation with the audience. He speaks to his fans like they’re friends, and never forgets to thank them for their dedication.
“Next question. Who is Hanbin Sung’s ex-girlfriend?”
His expression drops for a moment before he gives the camera (or perhaps the production crew) a disappointed face. “Pass.”
He doesn’t leave room for discussion, and pulls off the strip for the next question, “Was Hanbin Sung in the Starbringers movies?” He dramatically puts his face in his hands. “Ugh, you’re never going to let me forget that, huh? You play a singing alien once when you are fourteen years old and it lives on the internet forever.”
He laughs to himself, “But yes, I am the one and the same. Even though it’s a bit cringey now, I still am grateful that I was given a chance back then. Besides, everyone has to start somewhere, right? People always tell me I was much cuter as a kid,” Hanbin continues, “What do you think? I'm cuter now, right?”
The screen flashes through a compilation of a younger Hanbin’s past roles in film and TV. Although it’s been ten years since he appeared on the screen in an acting role, it’s clear the man had quite the repertoire before he had reappeared in the public eye as a member of Rose Horizon.
“People ask me if I regret not having a normal childhood because of all the filming,” Hanbin starts to say, and it’s immediately obvious by the slight pinch of his face that he’s being more candid here than he was before, the playful air of teasing traded for something a bit more serious. “I don't regret it, because I met some of my best friends on those sets, but I also know I missed a lot too. The last time I attended a real school was probably third grade, and of course I can't really keep in touch with anyone from back then.”
Either because he recognizes the major tone shift in his words, or because the production crew is gesturing for him to move on, Hanbin brightens up again to finish answering the questions, “Alright, next one. Does Hanbin Sung still live in New York? I guess yes, technically. I bought my parents a place there forever ago, but we’ve been so busy lately, I can't remember the last time I stayed there,” he sighs wistfully, “I don't know. I think I'm ready for a change. Where should I move to, internet? Search it as a question so I can get your recommendations the next time I'm here.
“Last question now,” Hanbin peels the white tape away, “Does Hanbin Sung write Rose Horizon’s songs? Thank you internet, finally a great question! Yes, we all wrote a song for our newest album, which just released last Friday! Please give it a listen and if you like it, be sure to catch us on one of the stops of our world tour this summer!”
May: Spring Quarter
Without a word of acknowledgement for the resident of the room when Hao had opened the door for him, Gunwook took the opportunity to flop face first down into Hao’s pillows as soon as he crossed the threshold to the older’s tiny dorm room. Although he hadn’t taken off his shoes before deciding to cosplay as a pile of mush on Hao’s perfectly clean sheets, he at least had the foresight to leave his feet hanging off the bed, otherwise Hao would have thrown him out for the audacity of making him do laundry again when he’d only just managed to get a load in with the few working machines in the building.
“Do you want to talk about it Wookie?” Hao asks, gently, because he knows that finals season is right around the corner, and every day brings new trials and tribulations that they never warn you about when you sign up to attend one of the best public universities in the country. Hao had pulled himself out of the throes of a mental breakdown just a few days prior when he finally comprehended the full extent of revising he had to do before the quarter would be over. Why had he chosen a school like this again? It seemed like there was always some kind of final or exam going on, the professors never cutting students a break from their endless creative methods of torture in the name of academic validation.
At least Hao had finished the final assignment for his songwriting class already, recording a final ‘studio version’ of the lyrics he’d written earlier in the semester over a simple guitar track he’d convinced a music major to play for him in exchange for paying for his dinner. In an unfortunate twist of events, the dinner had ended quite awkwardly when Hao realized the man had thought Hao had asked him as a date, which was not his intention at all. Twenty awkward minutes, one soft rejection, and a significantly lighter wallet later though, his song was finally done and submitted to the professor. He’d chosen the songwriting class last quarter because it filled a nice block in his schedules as well as his ‘outside of major’ elective requirement. The professor had rave reviews, and Hao figured the class would be full of other random majors just trying to get by with a nice grade to pad their otherwise suffering GPAs.
That hadn’t been the case at all, and the professor had been putting them through their paces since day one. Hao swore his brain never hurt more than after one of those songwriting classes, even when he’d been forced through multivariable calculus the first quarter of his freshman year. Still, Hao found himself eagerly anticipating the course each week, and he was even prouder of the song he’d managed to write by the end of it.
The professor had told him to write what he knew, and in the middle of the night, inspiration had struck. What did he know more about than pining after a man who didn’t know he existed? And so 'Risk' was born, chronicling the sleepless nights when his mind had been consumed by only one person. It was a bit embarrassing to admit the things he had learned about the celebrity, the regret he’d felt when he’d gone on a deep spiral down the singer’s entire dating history.
It’s not like he would ever have a chance with Hanbin, even if they met under different circumstances. Really, this is none of his business, but a small part of Hao can’t help but wonder as he scrolls past model after model what they have that he doesn’t. Writing the song was therapeutic in a way, it was freeing to finally put the feelings he’d bottled up for so many months down on paper.
Was it a spectacular technical masterpiece? Certainly not, but for Hao, who’d never written a song in his life, he was quite proud of the accomplishment.
He’d just submitted the final file right before Gunwook had barged his way into the room and thought he would reward himself with a nice long nap in celebration. Given the unmoving mound of sophomore on his bed, Hao might have to postpone until he figured out what had made his junior so despondent.
“Is it exams?” Hao prods at Gunwook’s back, “Do you want to rant about it?”
Gunwook flops over, “It’s worse.”
“Worse than exams?”
“Rose Horizon’s concert sold out before I could get a ticket,” Gunwook complains, “I skipped class, had three devices all logged in ready to go, but it was sold out in five minutes. The queue had barely moved on the screen when it told me everything was gone.”
Hao has to stop himself from visually reacting to the name of the band. Truth be told, he hadn’t told Gunwook about the winter-quarter-induced moment of weakness that had spiraled into a bit of an obsession with the band. He was ashamed to admit that the band he’d once pretended to never have heard of was slowly climbing to the top of his most listened to artists. Anyone who says boy bands make bad music is lying to themselves and the world. Rose Horizon’s discography is top tier, and one day Hao will be brave enough to admit that in public.
Not only that, but he would rather die before admitting the rather debilitating celebrity crush he had developed on one Hanbin Sung. And if he told Gunwook all of this, he would have to admit how it started, which was that Hao had once met the celebrity on the very university campus he shared with Gunwook, and then lied about it. In his defense, he didn’t know who the other was at the time. Still, the little tidbit that Hao had almost held hands with the leader of Gunwook’s favorite boy band after he tripped onto his ass in front of him was probably information Gunwook would never forgive Hao for keeping from him.
But, he’d decided after too many weeks had passed to bring the incident up again and that it was better if he just pretended in public that it never happened. The only issue was, even if Hao had never said anything about it, that wouldn’t stop him from thinking about it. Hence, the song.
“It's the last night of their tour in the states,” Gunwook whined, “And it’s right here in Los Angeles, but I can't go.”
“Isn’t it right before finals?” Hao finds himself asking before he thinks better of it. Of course Hao knew about the concert, he contemplated trying to get a ticket for himself before he realized Gunwook would probably kill him. Besides, Hao wasn’t a super fan or anything. He was content to listen to the songs from the comfort of his room (please, no one check his Youtube history for the number of times he’d watched Hanbin’s self-choreography videos, or the BTS of his Calvin Klein campaign, he’s in it for the music, he swears). Someone else would probably enjoy that ticket a lot more than him.
Gunwook snaps up from the bed, eyes narrowed. “How did you know about the concert?”
Stumbling through an excuse, the best Hao can come up with is, “I heard some girls talking about it at the lab?”
Though he has no reason not to believe Hao, Gunwook still doesn’t seem like he’s entirely convinced. But up until this point, Hao had been so careful to immediately change the topic any time Gunwook brought up the band. He still pretends not to recognize their songs when they come on at the cafe where he and Gunwook are studying. He has done everything in his power to hide the fact that he’s watched every single interview Hanbin has done in the past year.
Rolling over disappointedly, Gunwook sighs, “Who cares that it’s the day before finals start? This could be my only chance to see them.”
“What do you mean?” Hao frowns, “Won’t they do another concert here again eventually?”
“I forgot you’re not on social media,” Gunwook complains, “There was a blind item that this is going to be Rose Horizon’s last tour ever because someone in the band is ready to ‘move on.’”
“What?” Hao tries to keep the shock out of his voice, he hadn’t seen anything about that during any of his content-binge-spirals.
“It’s just a rumor, but I’m worried it’s true, and they’ll disband before I ever get the chance to see them,” Gunwook pouts, and Hao feels genuinely bad for the younger. Sure Hao had become a bit of a fan himself these past months, but Gunwook had dedicated himself to this band for who knows how long by now.
“What about resale?” Hao suggests, “You can look on my computer if you want.”
Gunwook peels himself up from the bed, settling down at Hao’s desk and pulling up the ticketing site. Hao watches over his shoulder for entirely selfish reasons (definitely not wondering if he should try and snag a ticket too).
“1500 dollars?” Hao shrieks, “That’s practically extortion!”
“It’s over,” Gunwook lets his face fall flat onto the desk. He accidentally hits the space bar on Hao’s keyboard, triggering the recording of the song he’d written to start playing out of the laptop’s tiny speakers. The familiar guitar intro filters into the air before Hao’s own voice starts singing the opening lines, and Hao has to stop himself from visibly cringing at the sound.
“Oh god,” he whispers, scrambling for the mouse to shut the computer off. Why did he say he was proud of this again? This is terrible, Gunwook cannot hear this. The song was meant to be kept between Hao and his professor and no one else.
“Is that… you?” Gunwook, unfortunately far stronger than Hao will ever be on the grounds that he never gave up on going to the gym when Hao barely lasted two weeks, grabs Hao’s hands before he can shut the computer off.
“It was for a class,” Hao replies meekly, “I know it’s pretty bad.”
“Bad?” Gunwook gasps, “Hao, this is really good…”
“You don’t have to tell me it’s good just because I’m your friend,” Hao chides, slowly reaching forward to close the laptop. “Hey, don’t you have any online friends that can help you get a ticket?”
Twisting around to trap Hao’s arms behind his back, Gunwook frowns. “Stop trying to change the subject, you made this for your class?”
Hao pouts until Gunwook releases him, satisfied Hao won’t try to grab the laptop again, “Yeah…”
Gunwook rewinds the song so it plays over from the beginning, this time listening carefully to the words. “‘Look at me now, said I wouldn’t do it but I hunted you down…’” Gunwook repeats the first line back to Hao, who fidgets awkwardly, embarrassed at having his own lyrics sung back to him.
“Who is this about?” Gunwook's warm eyes seem to stare straight into Hao’s soul. He gulps, hoping that Gunwook won’t make the connection.
“No one!” Hao announces, laughing awkwardly to hide his sheer panic, “It’s like, fictional, you know? It’s about like, seeing someone once and getting a crush on them.”
Gunwook nods appreciably, “Damn. I wasn’t aware of your game, but this is…”
“Well, it was just for an assignment, so between you, me, and the professor, that’s about everyone that’s going to hear it.”
“No!” Gunwook's eyes go wide, “No way, we gotta put this out there, like now!”
“Out where?” Hao questions, “No one is going to want to hear this.”
“Stop doubting yourself,” Gunwook frowns, “Can I post this on my Tiktok?”
“How many followers do you have?” Hao asks, unsure. He had deleted all his social media for a reason, but he didn’t see the harm of letting his disembodied voice onto Gunwook’s account. He probably didn’t have many followers anyway, and Hao knew that trying to argue with Gunwook once he had an idea in his mind was like arguing with a wall. The house was already built, and at least Gunwook was giving Hao the illusion of inviting him inside before he started remodeling. Hao loved Gunwook, don’t get him wrong, but the pre-law major’s brain moved at speeds at least five times faster than Hao’s on his best day.
“Like a thousand?” Gunwook says, unsure, “but my average video gets like 100 likes.”
Hao calculated the odds (and thought about the potential consequences of giving into Gunwook now versus listening to him debate Hao about it for 10 minutes until he inevitably gave in to the younger’s demand, which was just one of the perks of having a pre-law major as his best friend) and decided it was better to just cut his losses and agree now.
“Fine,” Hao sighs, “but if people from the university start finding it, delete it, okay?”
Gunwook reaches out his hand to shake, “Deal.”
It’s not like the person who he wrote the song about is ever going to hear it anyway. If it makes Gunwook this excited, and takes his mind off the concert he can’t attend, it will be worth Hao’s embarrassment knowing his singing voice might be floating around the internet somewhere.
*
Two weeks pass, and Hao doesn’t hear a word about the Tiktok, so he assumes that whatever interest Gunwook had in his song has abated. He’d debated telling Gunwook he’d gotten a perfect score on the assignment, but he didn’t want to bring it up again for fear the younger would start investigating deeper into the material of Hao’s lyrics.
Hao himself had gotten so absorbed in his revising that even he hadn’t really thought about the song or its subject in days, not having the time to binge through the tabloids like he had in his down time before. He hopes that’s a sign that his infatuation is starting to abate. Maybe the song had been just what he needed to finally move on.
Just when he thinks the song has finally been wiped from memory by everyone (including himself), one of his classmates messages him a Tiktok video out of the blue. Hao had done a group project with her in the fall quarter, but he hadn’t even seen her since their final presentation. While they had been meeting to prepare their report, they texted quite often, sometimes sending funny memes online about incompetent professors and their shared major. But for her to message him out of nowhere months later had to be some kind of mistake, especially with the accompanying text of ‘is this you?’
Hao had removed all the videos on his Tiktok account before he’d deleted the app altogether. There was no reason for him to be on the app at all, unless someone had saved one of his old videos. He’d been a bit more… free when he was in high school compared to now, posting silly videos without a care for his digital footprint. Now he was in college though, and Hao didn’t want his old lip synching videos to haunt him in front of any future employers.
He clicks the video, surprised when he sees Gunwook’s smiling face blinking back at him. His volume is turned all the way down, so there’s no audio the first time it plays, but the caption makes it obvious what his former classmate has discovered.
Captioned across the screen below Gunwook’s nodding head is, “Help me share this, I think my best friend just wrote the song of the summer!”
Though he knows he doesn’t have to unmute the video to know what the sound is, he replays the video and hears the familiar guitar intro to ‘Risk’ buzzing through his phone speakers. Instinctively, his eyes flick to the right side of the screen to check the number of likes and shares the video has, only to physically recoil as his brain comes back online to actually process the number. 1 million likes on this video, 50 thousand shares, and Gunwook hadn’t said a damn thing.
Out of morbid curiosity, he scrolls through the comments. If they’re awful, he’ll cry and never talk to Gunwook again. How could the other not tell him about this? There were people here sharing his old social media accounts, which thankfully had been cleared for the most part, except for his instagram with some posts of his first year of university. He thought none of that would matter though since he deleted the apps off his phone. But more than the speculation over Hao’s identity, people were raving about the song. The sound has thousands of videos under it of people dancing or setting it to the background of their start of summer vlogs.
There was only one thing to do now. He opens the location tracker app on his phone, laces up his shoes, and sets off across the quad to the dorm room of one, Park Gunwook.
Hao bangs on the door five times before the younger sleepily pulls the door open. Already poised to knock again, Hao trips over himself with the sudden lack of barrier between them and nearly tackles Gunwook to the floor. Luckily, the younger is much better balanced and manages to keep them upright.
“Hao? What’s going on… it’s like eight in the morning?” While Hao usually finds his junior adorable like this, all puppy eyes and floppy hair, Hao has no time for games this morning. He shoves the phone at Gunwook, the chorus of Risk repeating twice over before Gunwook wilts in realization.
“When were you going to tell me?” Hao shrieks, and Gunwook gestures at him to quiet down, pointing to the sleeping lump of roommate only 2 feet away. Curse these tiny university assigned dorms. Gunwook must have the smallest double in this whole school. Grabbing him by the sleeve of his university-emblazoned sweatshirt, Hao pulls Gunwook out of the room into the hallway.
Gunwook doesn’t even have to look at the phone to know what’s going on, his usually proud shoulders drooping a bit in reaction to his being found out.
“Alright, look…” he starts to say.
Hao silences him by putting a hand up, “I told you to take it down if anyone from school saw it, don’t you think that extends to, I don’t know, a million other people as well?”
Sheepishly, Gunwook puts on his best puppy-dog eyes and says, “Well I didn’t expect it… it kinda just happened, and by the time there were fifty thousand likes well… I just thought…”
“You thought what?” Hao crosses his arms.
“Well, I was just really proud of you. People love your song, Hao, have you seen the videos?” Gunwook tells him, suddenly lighting up, “I was right, you know. People are calling it the song of the summer.”
“It’s barely even May,” Hao hisses, “There’s no way my stupid assignment is the song of the summer. How did it even reach that many people anyway?”
Gunwook scratches his head, “Well, you see. My personal account doesn’t have that many followers, but um… I reposted the sound to an edit on my Rose Horizon fan account… which um… has a lot more.”
Hao’s eyes narrow, “How many more?”
“A couple… hundred,” Gunwook starts to say, “thousand.”
“Well shit ,” Hao runs a hand through his hair, “ Shit .”
“You’re not mad, right?” Gunwook amends, reading the tell-tale signs of an incoming Hao explosion from a mile away, “not too mad.”
“I'm just,” Hao sighs, feeling the bubbling frustration that had been tugging him back and forth ebb away in the face of genuine apology by his friend.
“No, I'm just surprised. This isn’t what I expected, at all.”
“Well, you’re kind of an internet star now,” Gunwook tells him, “People keep asking me if you’re going to reopen your Instagram.”
“I’m not,” Hao replies instantly, without a second thought, “No way in hell. Especially not now. Did you see some of those comments? Some people are insane!”
“I saw the ones asking if it was crazy to want to marry a disembodied voice,” Gunwook laughs, “If only they saw your face!”
“What do you mean?”
“In the least weird way possible, because you are the older brother I never asked for, but couldn’t live without,” Gunwook prefaces, “You’re very attractive. You have a celebrity face.”
“I do not!” Hao disagrees, affronted at the accusation.
“Half the reason you deactivated your social medias was because of the girls thirsting after you on every post, don’t lie,” Gunwook teases, “And you were too nice to let them know they were barking up the entirely wrong tree.”
Almost Summer: June
This time, Hao is the one encroaching on Gunwook’s table at the dining hall, barely able to squeeze himself into the empty seat due to Gunwook’s chaotically (but effectively, the younger insist’s) color coded pre-law notes. From the state of the table, with the younger’s laptop (easily identifiable by its brightly colored stickers) and notebooks spread across 80% of the available space, it’s obvious that Gunwook has been camped out here for a while. Despite seeming like his backpack had thrown up its entire contents in front of him, Gunwook is practically glued to his phone, watching the device more intently than Hao has ever seen him look at any of his assignments before.
“Working hard, huh?” Hao teases, settling down with his tray of lunch, brushing some lecture notes to the side. It appears to be some kind of Political Science lecture situation. Hao pushes it under the tray, it’s probably not important. Unlike Gunwook, Hao found it impossible to focus while in the dining hall, so he never stayed long after finishing his food. There was too much noise and too high a chance of encountering someone he’d much rather avoid to make it worth the easy access to snacks whenever he got hungry. He far preferred the library and its silence to the dining hall’s constant commotion, even if it meant his source of nutrition for the day would be protein bars and Coke Zero.
“Rose Horizon is doing a group jam live stream,” Gunwook doesn’t even look up from his phone, “They haven’t done one of these in ages.”
Nonchalantly (expertly pretending he has no vested interest in seeing those four boys), Hao pushes Gunwook’s laptop out of the way so he can sit beside him instead of across the table.
Sure enough, the four members of Rose Horizon are sitting around a couch together, chatting about something random amongst each other, almost like the camera isn’t there at all. They have such a natural dynamic together, Hao would never guess the age gap between their youngest and oldest member, nor the fact that they had been stuck together on some reality show instead of living their whole childhood in each others’ pockets. Matthew is the only one with an instrument at the present, his bass guitar tucked into his lap, though he doesn’t seem to be interested in playing it, more absorbed in the easy back and forth between the group members about their last performance and new album.
Rose Horizon didn’t always play their songs acoustically, Hao had noticed in their performance videos. Almost all of the shows in their debut era had some kind of choreography, the boys dressed all the same down to their sparkly black microphones and fedoras. It was probably incredibly embarrassing for them to look back on. Unfortunately, like most fans of the band, Hao found himself thinking the era had been nostalgic and endearing instead of cringey.
Only recently, seemingly at the members' own behest, had they traded some of their elaborate staging for instruments. Hao liked those stripped down performances a lot more than the flashy choreographies. Even though he knew it was all still fake, arranged to fit the fans demands exactly, he still felt it did show a bit more of the band’s real sides than their first songs.
“Someone asked what our favorite songs are lately,” Kim Gyuvin reads from the screen, “Well, we can all share one… but I know one of us definitely has a new favorite because every time I pass by his room, I can hear it blasting even from the hallway.”
Matthew cackles, “Don’t expose him like that!” he shoves at Gyuvin’s shoulder playfully, but his eyes are glued onto the fourth band member who’s sitting at the corner of the screen.
Hao follows Matthew’s line of sight to the man, giving himself a mental pat on the back for doing a valiant job pretending he wasn’t watching him the whole time.
For once, Hanbin seems to be letting the members lead the conversation, and he barely keeps his head visible in the bottom corner of the screen. He’s not exactly hiding, but he looks tired. Hao worries, a bit nonsensically, since he doesn’t really know the intimate details of Hanbin’s life at all. He can only imagine what his stresses are, or even mundanely if he had slept well the previous night.
Unlike some of the younger members, who share quite a bit of their lives on social media, Hanbin has always been quieter about himself. At first, Hao had chalked it up to Hanbin being the most prominent member of the group due to his past, preferring to keep an air of mystery instead of doing tell-all lives and song-writing sessions with fans like some of the other members. Now, Hao thinks it might be something else entirely. Maybe Hanbin is private because there are pieces of his life that he wants to keep out of the spotlight. While he’s forced to share most of his life with the world, perhaps there are a few things Hanbin would like to treasure for himself.
At these words though, Hanbin seems to perk up, the redness in his ears that Hao can recognize even through the screen telling Hao that this isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation. But as the leader, Hanbin seems to be torn between scolding them or just laying back and taking it, perhaps unused to such blatant teasing from his members.
“I don’t listen to it that often,” he defends, directing his argument at the camera instead of Matthew, who is already laughing like he had expected Hanbin’s answer. Hanbin seems to know arguing with his members is a lost cause, deflating slightly, letting someone else speak.
Han Yujin, the youngest member of the band, refutes Hanbin’s claim without a second thought to the consequences of his actions, and the road he was leading the band down, “You should be lucky that Tik Tok doesn’t tell you how many times you have watched a video, I guarantee Hanbin is at least a hundred thousand of the views.”
Now that all three of his members have goaded him into submission, or confession, Hanbin gives in, “Well, it’s a good song.”
“We never said it wasn’t,” Gyuvin replies, “just that you’re addicted to that guy’s voice.”
Matthew scans the chat, “They want you to sing it for them, Hanbin. You won’t disappoint our Petals, will you?”
‘Petals’ is the self-given name of Rose Horizon’s fanbase. While not the most clever, it could have been much worse, especially given that, without admitting it out loud, Hao considers himself to be one of them.
Hanbin rolls his eyes, but it’s clear he’s being playful about it. In all the videos that Hao has come across of the other, he always seems to be in good spirits. He almost seems inhuman the way he refuses to break down in front of the camera, “Of course not. Where’s my guitar?”
Hanbin leans out of frame for a moment, and Hao watches him go, eyes tracking even the smallest movements of his body language. Hao still hasn’t reactivated any of his social media platforms, so he never gets to see anything of the celebrity in real time, forced to be satisfied with historical footage and pre recorded content. This is so much better. Now he understands how fans can become obsessed with this kind of thing. With the way the idols pretend that the audience is in the room with them, an equally important part of the conversation, Hao thinks it would be so much harder to focus if Hanbin’s gaze was actually on him rather than just through the screen.
“I've never seen you so invested in anything related to Rose Horizon,” Gunwook accuses, “You always pretend to be busy texting or something when I put it on.”
“Can’t I take an interest in your interests?” Hao deflects, trying to detract from the fact he’d been caught red-handed. The only thing worse would be if Gunwook figured out which of the four members had Hao finally interested in a boy band.
“You’re like their biggest fan apparently, Wookie. And, for the record, if you told me that before, I would have gladly listened when you talked about them.”
Hanbin reappears with the guitar, a cherry red colored acoustic instrument with an intricate rose carved into the body. A fan gift, Hao recalls from an interview he had watched where Hanbin had described it as his most prized possession.
“You guys probably know this one too. It’s all over TikTok lately. Sing along with me if you know it”
All the blood in his body rushes to his head at once as Sung Hanbin’s deft fingers pluck out the opening chords to a familiar melody.
Gunwook grabs at Hao’s wrist, anticipating his friend’s nearly visceral reaction, “Oh my god. Hao, that’s your song!”
Hanbin starts to sing through the phone, “Look at me now, said I wouldn't do it, but I hunted you down. Know you had a girl, but it didn't work out. Know you bought a house, but you had to move out and…”
Frozen, Hao can’t help but watch entranced, as the celebrity crush he’d written a silly song about after accidentally bumping into him one time (without even knowing his name at the time), sings the very song Hao had written about him, right to his face.
“What the fuck,” Hao whispers, both in shock and also not wanting to get any glares from the dining hall staff for his use of profanity in a public setting. He squeezes Gunwook’s hand back in turn, “I-”
“This is the greatest day of my life!” Gunwook is practically bouncing out of his seat. He looks about ready to stand on the table and announce the news to the whole world.
Which is great for Gunwook and all, but today might actually be Hao’s worst.
For the longest time, Hao had been stuck on the lyrics for his final song. He'd gone to the professor for advice, and what he’d been told was simple: write what you know. And at the time, half of Hao’s brain space was occupied by the most useless information about Sung Hanbin ever. Hao knew the street he lived on in New York, he knew the name of the ex-girlfriend the paparazzi still asked him about, he knew his favorite color, and the food he liked to eat before every concert. So during one of those sleepless nights this quarter, he’d written a song about it, a song about risking it all for a person who’s never going to acknowledge your existence, fed by the delusion that together you could be something great, if only you had the chance to take the risk for it.
And the consequence was Hanbin Sung, leader of the most famous boy band in the world, consistent top 20 ranker in the ‘World’s Most Handsome Faces’ poll three years running, was singing the song Hao wrote about him , and the man had no idea.
Hanbin doesn’t actually sing the whole song, stopping at the end of the first chorus and smiling widely to the camera. Though Hao doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he’d heard Hanbin sing, “Too soon to tell you I love you,” for Hao and a million other people to hear for free.
Hao’s ears are still ringing as he comes back down to Earth. Is this real life? What if he had just hallucinated the whole thing?
“Damn, now I really wish I had gotten tickets for their concert.” Gunwook breaks Hao out of his thoughts. Hao wishes Gunwook had gotten the tickets too (just maybe, so that he would share one with his best friend and give him the chance to experience the beauty that is Sung Hanbin live).
Later that night, after he’d watched the replay of Hanbin playing ‘Risk’ for at least ten minutes straight, contemplating how exactly each moment in his life had led him here, Hao started to come up with an idea on how to fix that.