Chapter Text
The petals of the plum trees fell slowly, drifting past the windows of the lecture hall. Hanbin watched as they hit the ground one by one, covering the campus grounds in a carpet of light pink. It was incredibly pretty to look at.
An elbow to the ribs redirected his attention back to the events inside the lecture hall. His stomach sank when he realised that everyone was looking at him.
“The professor has called your name, like, twice,” Gyuvin mumbled under his breath.
Hanbin quickly raised his hand. “Present.”
Professor Lee laughed as he made a mark on his roll call sheet. “And here I thought we’d lost you to the view outside the window, Mr Sung. I hope you’re going to have better focus at the next swim meet.”
“Certainly, Sir.”
A couple of students in the front row giggled. Hanbin laughed along, simply because it was expected of him. He waited until the professor had turned around before he dropped his head back onto his folded arms.
Gyuvin let out a low whistle. “As expected, not even Professor Lee can hold a grudge against you.” He nudged Hanbin’s side once more, clearly trying to get a rise out of him.
Hanbin shrugged him off. Normally, he would have been willing to play around with Gyuvin, but he hadn’t slept well the night before and so he preferred returning his attention to the windows.
He knew Gyuvin wouldn’t hold a grudge either.
They both looked up when the door to the lecture hall swung open. Usually, Professor Lee locked it the moment class began, but he must’ve made an exception this morning.
Plum petals, Hanbin thought as he watched the newcomer stroll into the room. There was a plum petal stuck in his hair. On anyone else, it would have been an imperfection. On the newcomer, it just made him look more ethereal.
“Damn, that has to be the prettiest guy I’ve ever seen.”
Hanbin didn’t think Gyuvin’s words did the newcomer any justice, but they were a start. Hanbin leaned forward in his seat to watch as the guy approached the professor’s desk.
“Sorry.” He bowed his head before Professor Lee could even open his mouth. “I couldn’t find the room.”
Hanbin bit his lip. Professor Lee wasn’t exactly known for his lenience with tardy students. The entire class seemed to hold their breath as they waited for his verdict.
Hanbin could tell that some of the other students seemed almost excited at the prospect of seeing someone get chewed out. Hanbin was surprised by how irrationally angry that made him.
He wasn’t even student council president anymore. That was Gunwook’s job now.
Hanbin shot a quick glance over to the seat on Gyuvin’s other side where Gunwook was sitting. He was frowning at the few students who were openly laughing at the disruption.
Professor Lee looked the newcomer up and down before he took a deep breath. “Well, I suppose since it’s our first day back, I can make an exception. What’s your name?”
“Zhang Hao.” The student bowed his head. “Zhang Hao, Sir.”
“Mr Zhang, don’t let it happen again.”
“Certainly not, Sir.”
Hao smiled and Hanbin found himself caught in the sight of it. It was gone too quickly. He wanted to see it again.
“You may take a seat.” Professor Lee dismissively waved his hand before turning his attention back to his roll call sheet and Hanbin wasn’t the only one that fell back in his seat, being so eager to listen and even more eager not to get caught doing so.
Hao came up the stairs, one hand curled around the strap of his backpack. Hanbin prayed that he would walk past their row. He didn’t want to be distracted for the rest of class.
Unfortunately for him, Hao seemed to have different plans. He slid into the row below theirs, leaving an open seat between himself and the girls already sitting there. When they offered him one of their books, he declined.
“Oh, he’s a cool guy, huh?” Gyuvin snickered.
Hanbin frowned, but Gunwook was quicker than him. He hit Gyuvin’s arm, shooting him a silent, but terrifying glare. Gyuvin folded, quickly pretending to be immersed in the lecture starting at the front.
Hanbin did the same, trying his hardest to keep his eyes from wandering during the rest of class. He wasn’t completely successful, but his notepad wasn’t completely empty by the end of class either, so he counted that as a win.
So what if there was a doodle of the back of someone’s head in the corner of the page, a dot of pink highlighter placed on the figure’s hair. No one was going to look at these notes, probably not even Hanbin himself.
Gyuvin was the first out of his seat when Professor Lee dismissed them. “Lunch time!”
“Your stomach must be the eighth wonder of the world,” Hanbin said. “No matter how much food you put in it, it never seems to get full.”
“I’m an athlete.” Huffing, Gyuvin pointed at the university logo on his varsity jacket. “I have to keep up my calorie intake.”
“I don’t know, man, Gunwook gets faster lap times than you and he doesn’t need three servings of pudding to have a good day.”
Gyuvin flipped him the bird, walking backwards. Hanbin saw it coming before it happened. He wasn’t fast enough to stop it. Gyuvin walked right into Zhang Hao, pushing him to the ground. Gyuvin’s eyes widened, his arms flailing as the initial contact made him lose his footing on the edge of the step.
Hanbin felt a spike of panic and surged forward, grabbing Gyuvin by the front of his shirt. He pushed Gyuvin into Gunwook’s steady frame before he crouched down to help Hao gather the books he had dropped.
“I apologise for my friend!”
Usually, when Hanbin said something, people responded. Usually, when he smiled at someone, he received a smile in return. Hao did neither of these things. He didn’t look at Hanbin and he didn’t smile. Hanbin felt his chest tighten.
He forced a laugh. “He’s like an uncoordinated baby giraffe sometimes, you know?”
The joke fell flat. Hao still didn’t look at him.
Hanbin picked up the book closest to him, got up and then offered Hao his hand. Hao only took the book, lips pressed together as he grabbed his backpack and got to his feet.
He didn’t move fast enough for Hanbin to miss the rip across his left knee. The fabric must have torn open as he fell. Was he bleeding too? Hanbin couldn’t tell.
Hanbin didn’t know why he was so angry all of a sudden. With Hao already halfway down the auditorium, he turned towards Gyuvin.
“You’re a real idiot, you know that!”
“Hey, I didn’t run into him on purpose! And it’s not like he stuck around long enough for me to apologise!”
Indeed, Hao was almost at the door by the time Hanbin looked for him once more. Hanbin shook himself to get rid of the weird feeling in his chest.
“You can apologise to him next time,” Gunwook told Gyuvin before turning to Hanbin. “He didn’t mean it, you know that.”
Hanbin took a deep breath. He was overreacting, he knew that. He pressed down on the weird surge of emotions in his chest. It was unlike him to be so upset and so he forced himself not to be.
With a sigh, he threw an arm around Gyuvin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I didn’t get much sleep last night so I’m cranky.”
Gyuvin visibly relaxed at Hanbin’s conciliatory tone. He snuggled into Hanbin’s side, apologising once more before they let go of each other.
Gunwook was smiling when they let go of each other. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Gyuvin aimed a kick at his leg. “You talk too much!”
Hanbin laughed as he watched his friends chase each other down the last remaining steps of the auditorium. He was about to follow when he spotted a dot of pink on the ground. He picked up the plum petal, admiring its perfect shape. Hanbin dropped his gym bag so he could pull out his notepad and put the petal between its pages.
“Yah, SungHan! Are you coming or not?”
He hastily put his notepad away and shouldered his bag. “On my way!”
*
Hanbin rolled out his shoulders before touching his fingertips to the edge of the diving block. His vision was impaired by his swimming goggles, but even so he knew the five swimmers to his left were doing the same thing.
He took a deep breath. In. Out. In. The sound of the whistle rang out and Hanbin was in the water. He glided for as long as he dared before putting his muscles to work. He didn’t bother trying to make out who was keeping up with him. The moment he was in the water, he was alone in his row. At least, that’s what it felt like.
After a full year on the swim team, he knew exactly how many strokes it took him to get to the end of the lane. He gave his all to get there as fast as possible. His hand touched the tile and he came up, pulling off his goggles. He pushed them up his arm before pulling himself up onto the edge of the pool.
“That was great, Hanbin!” his coach called out to him. “Point one seconds faster than last year!”
Hanbin smiled. His smile turned into laughter when Gyuvin in the lane next to him hit the water so it splashed Hanbin’s shins.
“Don’t be a sore loser,” Hanbin teased him.
“Stop looking so smug! How much did you work out during break?”
Hanbin shook his head. He had spent his summer working three different part-time jobs. He hadn’t had any time to work out, but waiting tables had kept him on his feet and the construction side gig had definitely done wonders for his shoulder muscles.
“Not that much.”
“Our Hanbinnie is just that talented,” Gunwook sang. He was the first out of the pool so he pulled the both of them to their feet.
“Easy for you to say,” Gyuvin complained. “You came in second.”
Gunwook shook out his hair, pretending he hadn’t heard. Hanbin smiled.
They made space for the next wave of swim team members. As it was the first training session of the season, their coach was timing all of them to get a ranking.
They sat down on one of the concrete benches by the pool. Hanbin wiped himself down with a towel while Gunwook and Gyuvin waved at the people cheering for them on the stand. It wasn’t uncommon for students to come to the pool and hang out in the stand during their freetime. There was always some kind of training going on and many students liked to watch.
The swim team even had a small fan club, though most of them were smart enough to bring books or other study material. They had shown up with posters during Hanbin’s first year and the coach had expelled them from the swimming hall whilst wildly blowing his whistle, yelling about how they were distracting his athletes.
Things had calmed down since then, but Hanbin still spotted a phone turned in his direction, displaying his name in pink LED letters. He smiled and waved.
A ripple went through the crowd.
“Are we doing something tonight?” he asked his friends.
It was the first week of classes and that meant that usually there was something going on somewhere.
Gyuvin gasped. “Are you suggesting we go out and drink?”
Hanbin rolled his eyes. “No.”
Gunwook scoffed. “You want him to projectile-vomit in the pool again or what?”
They all winced at the memory of Hanbin’s one and only endeavour with drunken varsity hazing. He didn’t take well to alcohol. The smell alone made his stomach turn so he didn’t drink. The cleaning fee for the pool had nearly bankrupted him that one time.
“We could go watch a movie,” Gunwook suggested.
“That’s boring! We survived the first week back! We need to celebrate! Let’s go out for chicken and beer! Hanbin can drink his beloved zero cola.”
Gyuvin and Gunwook started squabbling and Hanbin would have joined in if it hadn’t been for the dot of pink he spotted in the stand. It wasn’t a petal in Hao’s hair this time. It was the cover of his sketchbook.
Hao sat hunched over in the stand, lips pursed in concentration as he worked to capture whatever had caught his attention. Hanbin wanted to see what it was. Hanbin wanted him to look up so their eyes could finally meet. Hanbin wanted to stalk up the concrete stairs so he could wipe that smudge of charcoal from Hao’s cheek.
“Hanbin? Hanbin!”
Hanbin snapped his eyes away from the stand to smile at Gyuvin. “Yes, my friend?”
“You still with us?”
Hanbin widened his smile. “Yes. Chicken and zero cola. I’m in.”
Gyuvin was immediately placated. “Good. I’ll ask in the group chat whether any of the other members want to come too.”
Hanbin nodded. He kept his eyes on the pool after that. He didn’t know why his heart was racing so hard.
*
Hanbin didn’t sit with his friends the next day.
“Hanbin, over here!”
Gyuvin waved at him and he waved back, but he slid in the row below them. He sat down next to Zhang Hao.
“Hi.”
Hao didn’t respond to his greeting, but he had definitely heard Hanbin. Hanbin could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened. Still, almost stubbornly, he kept his eyes on his book.
Hao didn’t look up at him until Hanbin placed a brown paper bag on top of his book. He turned his head in surprise, seeking out Hanbin’s gaze for answers.
His eyes were as beautiful as the rest of him. Hanbin wanted to touch the mole under his right eye.
“Is there a dead bird in there?”
Hanbin’s easy smile slid right off his face. “What?”
“I’m not someone you can bully.” Hao spoke every syllable with conviction. It was the first time Hanbin heard the slight accent tilting his words.
His eyes widened in horror. “No, oh my god, no. It’s not like that!”
Hao didn’t look like he believed him.
Hanbin raised his hands. “It’s really nothing bad, I promise. You’re misunderstanding. Look inside, please. It’s for your knee.”
“My knee?”
Hanbin nodded, trying to look as trustworthy as possible. He knew his varsity jacket and his giggling jock friends in the row behind them weren’t helping his case, but Hanbin trusted that Hao would see his sincerity.
People usually folded to Hanbin’s charm sooner or later.
Hao kept his narrowed eyes on him as he slowly unrolled the top of the paper bag. When nothing sprang out at him, he took a peek inside. His expression melted into one of surprise. “Oh.”
“Disinfectant. Bandages. Bruise-reduction cream.” Hanbin rubbed the back of his head. “The blue gel thingies are cooling packs. You pop them in the freezer and the gel inside stays cool for a while. Wrap them in a paper towel before you put them on your skin, though.”
“That’s--”
“Don’t worry about it!” Hanbin quickly said, in case Hao was trying to reject his gift. “It was kind of my fault that Gyuvin ran into you, so please accept this gift bag as compensation.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“Oh, but it is!”
The corner of Hao’s mouth twitched with amusement. “No, I mean it’s not necessary , Hanbin. My knee is fine.” He reached between them to pull up the leg of his trousers far enough so that Hanbin could see the unblemished skin of his knee. Indeed, it looked just fine. He must have only ripped the fabric of his trousers during the fall.
“Oh.” Hanbin’s ears warmed up as he struggled to tear his eyes away from Hao’s knee. It got easier when Hao rolled down his trouser leg again.
Hao no longer looked at him. He touched the edge of the paper bag. “Thank you, though. This is sweet.”
“You can keep it.” Hanbin’s voice came out much squeakier than he would have liked. He cleared his throat. “It’s always good to have stuff like that on hand, don’t you think?”
Hao smiled and nodded. Even if Hao was no longer meeting his eyes, Hanbin felt like he was looking straight into the sun. He blinked. He felt a whole lot better when Hao actually put the paper bag into his backpack. Hanbin had gone through a lot in his life, but this moment had to rank among the top three most embarrassing things that had ever happened to him.
He still wanted to make conversation after that, but Hao went back to ignoring him and then Professor Lee walked in, demanding everyone’s attention. The only consolation Hanbin had was that Hao didn’t actively kick him from his seat. It gave Hanbin an excuse to sneak glances at him from time to time. He couldn’t help himself. It was like his eyes were automatically drawn to Hao’s frame.
He had almost mustered up the courage to say Hao’s name again when class was over and Hao got to his feet. He pushed through the entire length of the row and past the girls from yesterday to get out.
All so he didn’t have to ask Hanbin to move.
Hanbin tried not to feel so miserable about it.
“I think you just got rejected, dude,” Gunwook kindly informed him. “He, like, definitely hates you.”
Gyuvin snickered.
Hanbin groaned and dumped his head on the table.
It wasn’t until after lunch that he noticed that Hao had called him by his name, even though Hanbin had never introduced himself.
*
Hanbin tried to forget about the whole thing. His life had been perfect before Hao had shown up and he’d like for it to return to be that way. In between all the course work he had, his part-time job and his obligations to the swim team, there was not much space left to think about Hao. At least, there shouldn’t have been.
The truth was that Hanbin thought about little else. Try as he might, it was like his mind refused to focus on anything else but Hao. When he closed his eyes, he could see the curve of Hao’s neck in front of him. The shape of his lips. The mole under his eye. His eyes. God, his eyes. Hanbin would kill to have Hao look at him just one more time.
Hanbin didn’t know what was happening to him, but he knew things would have been easier if Hao hadn’t regarded him with about the same level of fondness one would regard a piece of gum under their shoe. He wasn’t rude to Hanbin, but it was fairly obvious that he liked Hanbin best when there was a good chunk of distance between them. For his own sake, Hanbin would have liked to stay away from him too.
The problem was that there was no avoiding Hao. Hanbin had to see him in class every other day and on the days they didn’t meet in Professor Lee’s class, Hanbin saw him around. It was like Hao was always there, floating around the edge of his vision. He was never there when Hanbin turned his head, though. Hanbin just liked to imagine him.
He was pretty sure he was slowly descending into madness.
“Hanbin.”
He blinked, returning to reality. In reality, Gyuvin was standing over him, his shower caddy wedged under one arm, “Can I borrow your shampoo? Mine’s empty.”
He handed Gyuvin his shampoo bottle. Gyuvin saluted and left for the showers.
Gunwook sat down next to Hanbin. “What’s up with you lately?”
Hanbin shrugged, plastering a smile onto his face. “Nothing. You know me. I’m good. Why do you ask?”
Gunwook regarded him with thinly-veiled concern. “You seem absentminded recently.”
“Maybe the captain has finally lost it.”
Hanbin frowned. He was used to jokes from his friends, but the one who had spoken was not his friend.
Gunwook turned in his seat to glare at the offender. “That’s rude, Jaesung.”
Jaesung didn’t seem to care. Hanbin wasn’t surprised.
Kang Jaesung was a rich asshole that didn’t care about anyone else but himself. He had tried to suck up to Hanbin at the beginning of last year, but ever since he’d realised Hanbin’s kind demeanour didn’t mean that he was a pushover that could be taken advantage of, he’d turned on Hanbin.
The loud slam of a locker made all of them look up. Gyuvin came back from the showers, a towel wrapped around himself and a big smile on his face as he squeezed his way through the space between the lockers and the bench that Jaesung and some other swim team members were occupying. “Sorry, excuse me, coming through! Would you make some space Jaesung? God knows you’re wasting enough of it.”
Jaesung scoffed, squaring his shoulders but even so he was a head smaller than Gyuvin and he lacked that hint of crazy in his eyes that Gyuvin was very good at conjuring when he wanted to.
“Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends,” Gunwook sang under his breath. “Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends.”
“Gyuvin!” Hanbin called out and Gyuvin broke eye contact with Jaesung to walk over to them.
“Thanks for lending me your shampoo.” Gyuvin gave him back the bottle. His sunny demeanour showed no trace of the almost-fight they had just witnessed.
Hanbin sighed and packed up his things. “Get changed so we can go.”
Gyuvin did as he was told and Hanbin was thankful for that. He kept his arm on Gyuvin’s shoulder as they left the locker room.
*
Hanbin liked parties. He just liked them a little less when he hadn’t slept.
“Hanbin!”
Hanbin smiled and waved as Gyuvin dragged him through the house towards the kitchen where the swim team had gathered around the kitchen island to take shots. Gunwook was nice enough to get him a can of zero cola from the fridge as everyone else grabbed one of the shot glasses.
“All right, everyone got one?”
A chorus of yes -es filled the air. “Very good. What do we toast to?”
“The new season?”
“Better not jinx it.”
“Hanbin, then! He’s never let us down.”
“Oh, Captain, my Captain!” One of the guys raised his shot glass and knocked it back.
Hanbin toasted with his can as everyone downed their shots. Gyuvin started coughing so Hanbin patted him on the back.
Gyuvin slammed down his shot glass. “God, that was disgusting! Who brought that stuff? It tastes like charcoal lighter!”
“Don’t complain if you’re drinking for free, Mr Kim.” The responsible team member flipped him off.
“Oh, please.”
Hanbin took a step back to let Gyuvin do his thing. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, pressed it into Gunwook’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen.
They meandered deeper into the house, eventually finding a living room that wasn’t blasted with music like the rest of the house. The smell of weed was heavy in the air and Hanbin couldn’t help but agree when Gunwook said, “We shouldn’t stay here. This could lead to a misunderstanding.”
Hanbin nodded and followed Gunwook to the door. They could get away with drinking. They could not get away with even a hint of drugs on them. Their coach would have murdered them and their dead bodies would have been posthumously expelled. They were nearly out of the room when Hanbin’s feet stopped on their own accord. He blinked several times. He wasn’t imagining things.
A bunch of students from Fine Arts were sitting in a circle around the coffee table and in their middle was Zhang Hao. He looked like a completely different person than the Zhang Hao Hanbin knew from class. He was still beautiful, still looked untouchable even as he was surrounded by people, but he was smiling here. He was laughing as he clinked glasses with the person next to him. Judging by the tattoo on the guy’s neck, he had to be one of the art students too.
Gunwook’s hand landed on his arm, pulling him away. “Let’s go.”
Hanbin stumbled after him. He blinked. The vision of Hao did not disappear from his eyes. Gunwook led them back to the kitchen, which was crowded but free of any incriminating stenches and Hanbin pulled himself together so he laughed when someone made a joke, he responded when he was spoken to and he cheered when another round was poured.
The can of zero cola in his hand was long empty, but he didn’t bother getting a new one. There was already enough bubbling inside his stomach. When the noise and the heat and the smiling all became a little too much, he excused himself to go to the bathroom.
“Down the hall and right next to the front door.”
Belatedly, Hanbin realised that this was his teammate’s house. It was one of the freshmen and Hanbin knew he was one of Jaesung’s friends, but Jaesung wasn’t here so he apparently he had no qualms being nice to Hanbin.
Hanbin nodded at him in thanks and left the room. It was blessedly quiet out in the hallway, even if the walls vibrated with the bass of all the different sound systems on full blast. He moved past people to get to the front door, smiling and waving whenever someone called his name.
There was a small line in front of the bathroom, but Hanbin didn’t mind waiting. It gave him an excuse to stay out longer and work on the headache that was building at the back of his skull. He direly needed to sleep.
The line moved and he was up next. Just as the girls that had gone in before him emerged from the bathroom, he was pushed aside.
“Hey!”
“Sorry, I need to--”
Hanbin’s heart skipped a beat.
Hao’s expression grew comically panicked when their eyes met. Hanbin smiled on instinct. A moment later, Hao was bending down between them. Hanbin blinked. He was pretty sure Zhang Hao had just vomitted on his shoes.
Somehow, it was the best moment of his life.