too lazy to finish this

[lackingdaze]

& i don't think i can rework it into anything else! so here is a crazy little haobin university au snippet....

the general premise is that hao is an exchange student and hanbin is his club assigned mentor and then.....they start sleeping together....or something idk. tried so hard to make it toxic (the only relationship dynamics i'm interested in writing unfortunately) but i feel like their general very public domesticity makes it hard for me to rlly develop brainworms in that direction/that isn't in a bbb way. also don't think i nailed their personalities......which is why writing haobin in general is just impossible, etc.

“Do you hate me or something?”

They were studying at the Starbucks in the basement of the student building, rush hour squeezing them into a table that left both their laptops halfway off the edge. Hao’s latte was one careless swipe from tipping over onto his keyboard, melting cream and all.

“What?” Balancing Hao’s Korean workbook on his thigh, Hanbin flipped to the next page. He had a pen in his hand, because Hao wanted him to mark up all the errors, but so far none of it was wrong.

“You didn’t reply earlier, when I asked about this dinner this weekend. Are you already getting sick of me?”

In the span of two months they’ve known each other, Hanbin has grown to admire many things about Hao, but what he found most impressive was Hao’s ability to deliver every sentence that could be taken the wrong way to a coyish, un-hateable effect. He wondered if it was the face that completed the tone, something in Hao’s slow blink, dark set brows.

“I didn’t see it?”

“It said you read it,” Hao said, holding their Kakao chat up to Hanbin’s face. “That’s what it means when the 1 disappears, right?”

So Hanbin was lying. He did read it, sitting on the ground at dance practice, and then set his phone down to take a swig of water. Then was called away to check a formation, and really, by the time he returned, the screen had turned off and there were new notifications so he had forgotten. Was the excuse he rattled off to Hao, who nodded with understanding then held out his hand to get the workbook back.

“Everything’s good, except for the last part.” Hanbin tapped at the neat red star at the bottom. “This pattern conjugates differently with a descriptive verb.”

He watched as Hao narrowed his eyes at the page, mouthing over the sentence to eternalize it in memory. Then clapped the workbook shut, beaming a smile at Hanbin that has clearly never been rejected.

“So gopchang? Euljiro? Saturday night?”

And well, Hanbin was a people pleaser. Out of all the things he considered his weak points — riding a bike, flipping an egg without cracking the yolk, 10th grade calculus — saying no always ranked first. Which was how he’d met Hao in the first place, damp bangs clinging to his forehead, shivering as he stood under the blasting AC in the international student building.

The week before that, Jiyoon had cornered him outside the library and coaxed him into walking with her towards the nearby convenience store.

“But we just need one more person,” she said, shoving a can of Americano into his hand. “You wouldn’t want someone to be left without a mentor, right? Left to fend for themselves in this big campus for the year? All while knowing you could have fixed that? Wow, that’d be pretty messed up of you. What would Jung Jaehyun think?”

So Hanbin came. And the rest was history, he supposed, in the way that events tended to tip into each other like a crooked line of dominos, teetering towards a noisy conclusion.

Domino one: they met. Hanbin wiping the rain off his face and swiping it across his jeans, before sheepishly reaching out to shake Hao’s warm, dry hand.

Domino two: The fact that Hao was extremely good looking. Or maybe this warranted its own sub section, was a third-party force. If Hanbin wanted to be pretentious, he’d say that the realization became undeniable up close, as all of Hao’s features crystallized into view. But Hanbin had already seen him across the room and thought he’d spawned straight from his teenage fantasies.

Domino two point one: That they first met up at a bar favored by students in Hapjeong. Which was a mistake, looking back, because Hanbin was shit at holding his liquor and Hao was a touchy drunk and not an hour later they were holed up in the bathroom, palming each other under a handwritten sign that read, unironically, NO FUCKING!!!

Domino three or maybe seventeen: When they slept together for the first time in Hao’s broom closet of a dorm room and Hao asked, “Are you this nice to all of your mentees?”

[Insert whatever exposition needed for this scene to make sense]

The twin bed was a sardine tin for their lanky frames, and Hao had taken to tucking in all his limbs fetal position to accomodate half of Hanbin’s body, the rest spilling over the lumpy mattress, one stray feet hovering over the floor. There was no space. But still, Hanbin had made a habit of lingering. He liked watching the rise and fall of Hao’s ribs, the lazy constellation of dots that shifted coordinates with every breath. The tail of a hazy Big Dipper that disappeared as Hao shifted onto one elbow, asking, “What are you thinking about?”

Hanbin cocked his head towards the door, where takeout fliers took real estate between club wrist bands and photobooth strips. “When Kuanjui is coming back.”

Hao laughed, flopping back onto his bed. Big Dipper tail returned. Hanbin didn’t stop to think before touching it, scratching his finger at Hao’s waist. Hao barely flinched.

“Kuanjui is out the whole night. Why, are you ready to move onto the next exchange student?”

Hanbin frowned at a stain on the wall, trying not to preen into the sensation of Hao’s fingers against his stomach, tapping an indecipherable code. “Sometimes I think you’re a little too good at Korean.”

“Ow, that hurts my feelings.” Hao’s lips jutted, on instinct. He had a lifetime of the expression perfected. “I’m studying hard to communicate with you, aren’t I?”

Hanbin couldn’t help it then. It just slipped out of him. “Who are you going to practice it on when you go back?”

He could feel it, Hao’s breath catching. The moment of hesitation that slitted between them like a muscle spasming. Hanbin sensed, not for the first time in his life, that he was a victim of his own proactiveness, the insufferable desire to lay everything out in plain sight. He busied himself with the trail of pin holes by the head of the bed as Hao sat upright and reached for his phone. The silence dragged.

“My grandma,” Hao said at last, just as the generator on the balcony thrummed to life. “She’s marathoning her way through Jun Jihyun’s entire filmography.”

And Hanbin just laughed, letting the punchline slam its way home.

Comments

[permutative]

ur insane