Work Text:
Even when he said it Hanbin knew it would come back to bite him, but it’s not until Bobby crowds him into the back of the van outside Se Ho’s apartment that he realises how much.
“Never been kissed!” Bobby crows. “Pathetic. I’ll kiss you. I’ll kiss you right now.”
It’s only Hanbin’s sense of common decency that makes him push Bobby away, ducking so that the press of Bobby’s comically pushed out lips lands on his forehead instead of their intended target.
“Please don’t. I’m serious,” he says when Bobby grabs the collar of his shirt, “I don’t want your bad breath in my mouth.”
It’s not like Bobby didn’t know, having lived their formative years together, so why all of a sudden now Bobby chooses to be offended by the knowledge that Hanbin’s never been kissed is beyond him.
Bobby pulls back, twisting his expression into one of feigned hurt. “I’m a great kisser.”
“You’re an idiot,” Hanbin says.
/
It turns into something of a running joke that loses all humour by the fourth time Bobby tries it. Hanbin will ask Bobby to pass him something and regret it immediately when Bobby says, “Only if you pay the toll,” and sticks his lips in Hanbin’s face. Or he’ll corner Hanbin coming out of the bathroom with a smooth, “How about it, then,” boxing Hanbin in with his hand on the door frame, seemingly addicted to the way Hanbin blushes involuntarily. Hanbin’s tempted to just let him do it so that he’ll let the joke die instead of beating it to death.
Finally, Bobby gets frustrated, pouting, and blurts “I’m only looking out for you,” and “why not?” when Hanbin gives him another “not even if you paid me” answer.
“Because.” Hanbin really doesn’t have an answer why, other than he’s never done it before, why would he do it now? “It would be like–would you want to kiss Chanwoo?”
Bobby shuts his mouth, looking, of all things, contemplative. “I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it. Chanumon!” He’s loud considering Chanwoo is sitting three feet away on the living room couch.
“What,” Chanwoo says, without taking his eyes off the tv.
“Wanna make out?”
Chanwoo shrugs. “Sure.”
Bobby turns to Hanbin, triumphant. “See,” he says, as he moves towards the couch, “Chanwoo wants to kiss me.”
He goes as far as sitting next to Chanwoo before Hanbin leaves the room, eyes shut and ears covered, just in case.
/
Jinhwan’s only resting, eyes closed and earphones in, but he’s doing it on Hanbin’s bed, so Hanbin doesn’t feel guilty about disturbing him by lying down next to him. They both barely fit but they make it work, Jinhwan tucked under Hanbin’s arm, earbuds shared between them.
“So, Bobby’s acting weird,” Jinhwan says, and with that Hanbin feels all the tension leave his body.
“You noticed.”
“It’s hard not to notice Bobby.”
Hanbin groans and buries his face in Jihnwan’s shoulder. It was a good call, coming to him, because whatever Hanbin’s feeling Jinhwan has this uncanny ability to empathise.
“You’d think he’d have more important things to focus on, like, I don’t know, the tour we’re doing.”
Jinhwan scrolls through the music on his phone, settling on something soft with a nice bass line. “Maybe you should just let him kiss you and that’ll be the end of it.”
Hanbin scoffs. “It won’t be, he’ll never let me live it down. He’ll bring it up at my wedding. He’ll be on his deathbed, and it’ll be the last thing he says to me. ‘Hanbin-ah, do you remember how I was your first kiss?’”
Jinhwan lets out a huff of laughter. “Then find someone else to kiss.”
“I’m not that good with girls.”
“A boy, then.”
Jinhwan says it so casually that Hanbin wonders if he said it at all. He goes still, waiting for Jinhwan to laugh, or say, just kidding, but the moment stretches uncomfortably long.
“Jinhwan,” Hanbin says slowly, “I can’t just kiss a boy.”
“Why not? Bobby wants to kiss you.”
“But he’s Bobby,” is the best Hanbin can come up with, but really it’s the only answer he needs. Bobby exists in a place outside place and time, outside logic, sense, and reason. He’s like those giant Polynesian stone statues that just appeared and no one knows how they got there. Bobby is Stonehenge. “He can do that.”
“And you can’t?” Jinhwan has this little furrow between his brows like Hanbin is being purposefully obtuse.
“I don’t know how we’re having this conversation. Do you want me to kiss a boy?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Jinhwan says, but it’s not really an answer, and Hanbin wants to fault him for it when all he’s done is answer Jinhwan’s questions the only way he knows how.
“Do you want to kiss boys?” He almost doesn’t say it, but now it’s on his mind and the conversation seems to be directing itself. Hanbin’s so out of his depth he might as well drown.
Jinhwan looks at him for a long time before he turns the volume up on his phone, but that’s not an answer, either.
/
Hanbin’s not really the best at words - that role in the band usually falls to Jinhwan – and the best of his and Bobby’s communication is nonverbal, so it doesn’t occur to him that he could simply explain to Bobby that he’s fine with not having been kissed, and while it’s not like he’s never thought about kissing anyone, he’s really had enough life changing experiences for one year.
Except, now that he’s thinking about it, he can’t stop.
Donghyuk wakes him up one morning by singing in his ear and Hanbin’s first thought is of how pretty Donghyuk’s mouth is, a thought that plagues him through his morning shower and the ride to that day’s fansigning. Greeting fans and signing whatever they put in front of him distracts him enough and it’s halfway through the day when he has time to reflect.
Girls flood the plaza, bringing gifts and smiling like all their dreams have come true. Hanbin takes a moment to sit back and survey.
This is my kingdom, he thinks, watching Junhwe shake hands and laugh, his smile crinkling his eyes, his tongue darting out to wet his lips, the fan in front of him blushing.
But then the moment is over, and he forgets about thinking, for a while.
/
The peace Hanbin feels at not being Bobby’s object of derision lasts all of five days. It’s nice, he thinks, Bobby’s head resting on his chest, the seven of them crowded onto three beds in front of the tv, not to be bothered by the constant threat of kissing, and as he’s thinking it, Bobby tilts his head back to look at him, smiling.
“What,” Hanbin says, feeling his own smile twitch his lips.
Bobby shakes his head, nothing, but then he’s leaning further into Hanbin’s space with his lips parted like he wants to share a secret, and Hanbin almost leans in to meet him before he realises what Bobby’s doing. He jerks back, surprising himself with the shock of it.
“Seriously?” He’s tempted to push Bobby off him.
“Hanbin-ah,” Bobby says, and if Hanbin didn’t know any better he’d say there was a note of pleading in his voice. He looks around at the others, but they’re too absorbed in the movie. Bobby looks around too, seeming to anticipate Hanbin not wanting the others to notice, and clears his throat. “Band meeting,” he says, sitting up before Hanbin has a chance to push him away. The others turn around the way they only do for Hanbin when he has his stern leader voice on. “Who here thinks Hanbin is attractive?”
Junhwe looks to Jinhwan, who is pointedly looking at Bobby. Chanwoo puts his hand up, eyes still glued to the tv. Donghyuk is half-smiling like it might be a joke, and Yunhyeong shrugs.
“And who here would like to kiss Hanbin?”
“Me,” Chanwoo says without hesitation, and Hanbin pulls a pillow out from under him to hit Bobby with.
“Seconded,” Yunhyeong confirms.
“Enough,” Hanbin says, tempted to bury his face in the pillow and start screaming.
“Are we all turning gay now,” Junhwe asks, eyebrows furrowed in concern, “is that what’s happening?”
“Gay for Hanbin,” Bobby corrects.
“Is that why we’re watching Ssanghwajeom?” Donghyuk asks. He turns to Jinhwan, who shrugs, says, “We could use some culture.”
“Is that what this movie is about?” Junhwe asks, as Chanwoo says, “I don’t think I’m allowed to watch it yet,” while Bobby whispers, “It’s for your own good, you know. I heard if you go too long without kissing anyone your balls drop off,” and Hanbin does bury his face in the pillow, rolling away from all of them and staying like that until they stop bothering him.
/
Seven boys piled into two hotel rooms isn’t any more of a disaster than nine boys in one dorm had been at the time, and at least this way there’s more than one bathroom. Nothing is private between them anymore, and even though Hanbin had forgotten he had a right to privacy two weeks after meeting Bobby, he doesn’t need the reminder that comes in the form of Yunhyeong bursting into his room on one of the rare occasions he has it to himself.
“Hanbin-ah, you said we could come to you for help, right?” He looks panicked enough that Hanbin shuts his laptop and gets to his feet, but he doesn’t expect what comes out next.
“I need you to look at my dick. There’s something wrong with it.”
Hanbin takes a moment to mull over what Yunhyeong said before he glances at the corners of the room. He can’t see anything, but he didn’t see any of the cameras last time they were there, and absence of proof is not proof of absence. Still, it would be going a bit far, even for their management, to have them take their dicks out on camera.
Hanbin sighs. It’s proof of how strange their group dynamic is that this is not the weirdest thing he’s been asked to do this year. “Bathroom,” he says, and leads the way, because at least if he has to live with these memories he can contain them in a sterile place.
Yunhyeong drops his pants as soon as he enters the room so Hanbin has no time to mentally prepare himself. Yunhyeong looks like the world is coming down around his ears.
“Well?” he asks. The fluorescent lighting coupled with his expression makes him look deranged.
It looks fine. Normal. A good dick, in Hanbin’s opinion. He shrugs in answer. “I’m starting to think you just wanted to show off.”
“It looks different.”
“Size-wise? Because that’s usually a good thing.”
“It was all–” Yunhyeong makes a motion to encompass – something, Hanbin’s not sure what, “–and now it’s all–” He makes a different motion that means as little as the first. “Don’t you think?”
Hanbin folds his arms and leans back against the counter. “I’ve changed my mind. You can’t come to me for help anymore.”
“Can you take a closer look?”
“I’m not taking a closer look.” Yunhyeong throws his hands up in frustration. Hanbin tries not to laugh. “Why didn’t you go to Bobby for this? He’s our resident dick-expert.”
“I did,” Yunhyeong says, looking dispirited, “he told me to come to you.” He says it as if it’s supposed to make Hanbin change his mind, but all it does is drain the humor from the room.
“Bobby told you to come here?”
Yunhyeong nods. Hanbin can feel the moment the switch in his brain flicks, and suddenly he’s fired up, all his impotent rage coming out at once. He pushes his way out of the bathroom, leaving Yunhyeong alone with his pants down, and into the hallway, the carpet muffling the intensity of his steps.
If Hanbin’s life had a soundtrack, anything more than whatever soundbites are playing in his head at any given time, this moment would deserve a drumroll.
The door is already open and Bobby’s sitting on the couch, his laughter when he catches sight of Hanbin ringing through the room.
“You think you’re so funny,” Hanbin says, and sits in his lap. Bobby makes a sound like the air has been punched out of him, but he’s still laughing. “You think you’re so fucking funny.”
“You should see your face,” Bobby says, eyes crinkled up and clutching his ribs. He tries to squirm away but Hanbin bears his weight down, using the floor as leverage to crush Bobby underneath him. He grabs Bobby’s hands so he can’t push Hanbin away, and then it turns into a sort of wrestle where Bobby tries to buck him off and Hanbin rides it out.
Eventually Bobby stops laughing long enough to say, “I have a boner right now.”
“I know,” Hanbin says, “I can feel it.”
What comes out of Bobby’s mouth next manages to charge the tension in the room all the way to one hundred and push aside any thoughts Hanbin had of revenge.
“Are you going to do anything about it?”
Hanbin stops moving. He feels a shiver run down his spine that has nothing to do with the air vent they’re under. Bobby’s laboured breaths come out tacky against the back of his neck.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” he says, feeling like he’s announcing it to an empty room. The unmade beds look as dishevelled as Hanbin feels.
Bobby bucks again but this time Hanbin doesn’t fight him and ends up on his back on the floor, staring up at Bobby’s flushed face. “I didn’t say anything about kissing.”
“Oh,” is all Hanbin can manage, his thighs pushed open by Bobby’s hips, their faces so close they might as well kiss.
Hanbin can feel Bobby pressing hard against his hip, but then Bobby moves, thrusting the smallest amount like he’s testing the waters, and all Hanbin can do is gasp at the friction against his own dick.
The furthest Hanbin’s been is with his right hand, rushed and quiet in the dorm bathroom on the rare occasion he gets more than three minutes alone in there, and Bobby knows that, has recounted all the memorable, fleeting sexual experiences he’s had like he wants Hanbin to share in them, too.
It only makes sense, really, that they would share this eventually. It feels like a natural progression, like the last five years of their friendship have been leading up to it.
Bobby rolls his hips again, and Hanbin’s hard, too, now, more turned on than he’s ever been in his life. All he can do is lie there and hope Bobby had a better understanding of what to do, because Hanbin is at a loss. He knows that he wants Bobby to touch him, but he doesn’t know how to ask for it; they’ve lived their lives in contact, touching as easily as breathing, why would this be any different?
Hanbin tightens the hold of his thighs around Bobby’s hips, grabbing onto his shoulders, and Bobby takes it for the invitation it is. Their rhythm starts off shaky before it builds to a more practiced grind of their hips through layers of clothing neither of them have the foresight to take off, Hanbin thankful for the loose stretch of his sweats when Bobby palms him.
He feels his back arch into the touch and a groan rise out of his throat.
“You like that?” Bobby sounds both surprised and smug, like maybe he wasn’t being entirely self serving when he said he was looking out for Hanbin.
“Don’t ruin it.”
A grin spreads across Bobby’s face as he squeezes the outline of Hanbin’s cock through his sweats. Hanbin lets out another gasp and that’s all Bobby needs to work his way into Hanbin’s underwear and get a hand around him. It’s better, then, with the warmth of Bobby’s hand coaxing him to orgasm, with Bobby still rutting against him. It feels like being fully aware of his body for the first time, and Hanbin comes like that a minute later, biting his lip to keep quiet, conscious of the open door and the risk of someone walking in on them.
Bobby follows quickly, screwing his face up as he comes in his shorts. They lie there for several minutes in silence broken only by their laboured breathing while Hanbin’s heart rate slows to a normal pace. Bobby is heavy but he’s a comforting sort of weight, and he buries his face into the crook of Hanbin’s neck. True to his word he doesn’t try to kiss him, but Hanbin thinks maybe now would be the time.
“Do you think I should see a doctor?” Yunhyeong asks from the doorway, and Hanbin sighs.
“Go away,” Bobby says, mostly muffled in Hanbin’s neck, “adults are doing things.” His hand is still holding Hanbin’s cock in a loose grip.
“I’m older than both of you,” Yunhyeong says, but it’s mostly lost as he disappears down the hallway.
Hanbin turns his head towards the doorway. “I think we should get up.”
“Another minute,” Bobby says, apparently oblivious to the way Hanbin’s underwear has turned tacky and how his weight has gone from comforting to dead.
Hanbin pushes him away but offers him a hand up when he gets to his feet, which Bobby accepts. Bobby leads the way into the shower, soaping down, and it’s just like the showers they used to have years ago, taking turn to scrub each other’s backs, and after, Hanbin changes into a pair of Bobby’s shorts and goes back to his room to finish watching his movie.
When Jinhwan comes back to the hotel, flushed from the cold and wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse ears he was given by a fan, Hanbin can only shrug when he asks, “What did you get up to while I was gone?”
Chanwoo, Donghyuk, and Junhwe follow him in, and Hanbin feels the space between them all compress, a weight lifted now that they’re all together again. Jinhwan comes over to where Hanbin’s leaning over the coffee table with a notebook in front of him and kisses the top of his head. “Missed you,” Jinhwan says. It’s hard to believe sometimes that Jinhwan is real and that Hanbin didn’t dream him up to fill all of his emotional needs.
“Did you have a good day?”
Hanbin is acutely aware of how close Jinhwan is; the urge to bring him closer, pull him in and rest his head on Jinhwan’s belly, flares up, but he doesn’t know where it comes from. Maybe from being so close to Bobby. Maybe it awakened something in him.
“You should have come. We got to see the whole city.”
“It’s not that big,” Junhwe says, casually disappointed with everything.
“Mm,” Hanbin says. The need to touch Jinhwan claws at his stomach, but he ignores it, and by the time he thinks of something to say Jinhwan has already left the room, probably to find Bobby and ask him the same question.
/
It gets both harder and easier over the next few days. Bobby doesn’t try to kiss him again; he keeps his distance as if afraid Hanbin might get startled and retreat. Hanbin wouldn’t say no this time, but now it’s up to him to make the first move and once again he’s at a loss, unsure of himself, what he wants, how to get it. He’s only wanted one thing for so long that he’s forgotten how to want anything else. It only makes sense that Bobby would be the one to break new ground for him.
Hanbin corners Chanwoo in the dressing room after the rehearsal, when everyone is hyped up like they get on the promise of performing. He doesn’t mean to but one second he’s laughing with Donghyuk over Jinhwan and Junhwe wearing their wigs and taking selcas, and the next he’s across the room, standing next to Chanwoo as he pops pieces of candy into his mouth, murmuring, “Did you and Bobby actually kiss?”
Chanwoo doesn’t look surprised at the question, but then again nothing really phases Chanwoo. He answers, “No, Bobby was only posturing,” and so Hanbin doesn’t get to ask what it was like. “Haven’t you kissed him yet?”
Hanbin shakes his head. “I’ve managed to resist.”
“Oh, I thought you had. Did he just get bored?”
For once, Hanbin has a lot of answers, none of which he feels like sharing. “Must have.”
Chanwoo opens his mouth to say something else when Donghyuk jumps on him, all energy and fire. “You should see the crowd out there.”
Hanbin looks around the room but Bobby’s disappeared in the minute he was talking to Chanwoo. Hanbin always gets anxious this close to showtime, not that something will go wrong, but that something won’t go right. He thinks about going looking for Bobby, but then he’s there again, bursting through the door with his wig out of place and his arms full of snacks. He seemed to be able to anticipate Yunhyeong finishing the last bag of chips because he dumps an entire tray of sandwiches in front of them.
Hanbin doesn’t want to ruin the mystery by asking where he got them. Stonehenge.
Bobby slings an arm around Hanbin’s shoulders, looking pleased with himself, asking, “You ready?”, and Hanbin answers, the same every time, “Always.”
/
On stage, everything is different. The lights, the music, the fans, they give him license to be something more than just himself. It’s where he was born to be.
During Apology, Hanbin watches the way the others circulate, bodies drawn to each other’s gravity. Bobby and Jinhwan move towards each other, Jinhwan bringing a hand up to cup Bobby’s face as he raps, and Hanbin feels a stab of something, longing maybe, and the thought, not of him kissing them, but of them kissing each other. It makes him light-headed, and he misses his cue.
Afterwards, he loses his way backstage, still dizzy with adrenaline, ends up opening several doors looking for the others. In the last one, he finds Bobby and Jinhwan, huddled close together, closer than they were on stage, and when he comes in they look up, not startled, but like they were expecting him. He’s hit with the feeling that they were just talking about him.
Jinhwan smiles, but Bobby glances away, and Hanbin feels then a divide that wasn’t there before, something that only Jinhwan and Bobby share that he’s not a part of. He takes a step back closes the door behind him.
/
Hanbin would never have thought of their dorm as a welcome sight but after weeks away he finally lets go of the homesickness he felt for their cramped kitchen and the bedroom he spent years in as a trainee.
The studio is the same as always, his footsteps across the polished floors echoing like a heartbeat. As he takes a seat at his desk he feels the weight of leadership settle on his shoulders again, with the promise of a new album to write looming, the need to prove himself again, prove that he’s a good leader for a band that can last. Whether they can isn’t up for debate, it’s up to him and Bobby and the others to pull him through on days like this when all he wants is to get lost in the soundboard and forget the delicate balancing act he’s doing to stop the world coming down around himself.
The only person who knows the full weight of the pressure he puts on himself, however much he tries to hide it, is Jinhwan, so it’s no surprise that Jinhwan comes to find him, several unproductive hours later, a slight frown on his face like finding Hanbin in his natural habitat is an annoyance, like it hasn’t happened hundreds of times before.
“Hanbin-ah,” he says, no more than a huff of irritation. “It’s three a.m.”
Hanbin thinks of waving him off, telling him, “I’m almost finished this track,” but he’s never lied to Jinhwan before and he doesn’t want to start over something so trivial as not wanting to come back to the dorm because of the responsibility he feels to be someone better than he is.
“Hanbin,” Jinhwan says, a gravity to the word than belies his stature, and that’s all it takes to bring Hanbin to heel like a well-trained puppy, and he takes Jinhwan’s hand when Jinhwan offers it, following him out of the room without a second thought.
/
Even though the cameras had been taken down after ended, they’ve followed them everywhere since, and it still surprises Hanbin every time he looks to the corners of the room and finds nothing there. Two survival shows have made him wary of being watched every minute at the same time they trained him well for being in the public eye. The others never acted any different when they were being filmed but Hanbin could tell they’re glad the cameras aren’t there anymore, that the house is their last bastion of privacy.
It’s one of those rare days when they’re still getting used to the freedom of having nothing to do, no stage to fill and no fans to meet, so when Hanbin gets back from the studio in the afternoon he’s surprised to find everyone gone.
He’s not sure what to do with an empty dorm and more time than he can possibly fill by himself, so he settles on getting his laptop out to watch the rest of Ssanghwajeom before he realises his headphones are missing. It happens often enough; Jinhwan likes to take his things because he says they’re better than his own, and much of Hanbin’s possessions are lost to Bobby’s chaos.
When he opens the door to Jinhwan and Bobby’s room he’s hit with a sight that stops him in his tracks: Bobby sitting on the bed, head tilted back and pants undone, and Jinhwan kneeling in front of him, head in his lap. Jinhwan looks impossibly small bracketed by Bobby’s thighs. The soft gasps Bobby makes and the slick sounds of Jinhwan moving up and down on his cock root Hanbin to the spot.
Hanbin stands motionless in the doorway long enough for Bobby to notice him, to tilt Jinhwan’s head back and nod towards him, and still Hanbin doesn’t move. He can only think about leaving the room, moving, apologising, when Jinhwan brings a hand up, beckoning him in.
Hanbin takes a step in and closes the door behind him.