Archive of Our Own

“Hao,” Ricky muttered, barely looking up from his screen as they bypassed the bouncers. “Gyuvin is here already. He’s down at the table by the stage. He said there’s some new Apex artist on.” 

It never failed to baffle him how easy it was for Ricky to dismiss a several-thousand-quid table booking and immediately chase after a better offer. Debatable at that. “Fine.” Hao sighed, stepping aside. “Go find him then.”

Hao did not belong here, by any account. He didn’t even have any real savings to speak of or a trust fund to his name, and certainly not the kind of money that got you into a Mayfair club, let alone a mezzanine table. But what he did have was Ricky. His obsessively rich friend had paid Hao’s entry on a whim and just disappeared with Gyuvin somewhere into the crowd and hadn’t been seen again. 

So there he was, left to his own devices, clutching a glass of Belvedere Ricky had bought him. The bottle sat nestled in an ice bucket on their table. Alongside it, assorted mixers. Everything had been covered on his friend’s card, but nothing else on the menu Hao knew he would be interested in ordering himself anyway. Not even the leggy servers interested him a bit. Not quite his type. With a sigh, he turned toward the balcony railing, their booth here perfect for people-watching. He rested his forearms against the mahogany, nursing his drink as he looked down below. A crowd had begun collecting near the front, waiting for the next act. 

“Ten minutes.” A familiar voice snapped behind him, instantly catching his interest. Not very far, but not too close either. “Can I please have a bloody ten minutes before I’m paraded downstairs again?”

Hao glanced over his shoulder before turning fully around once he registered the man. And of course it was whom he thought it was, for fuck’s sake. Imagine the shock would have been plain on his face had he not spent every minute here passing him off as some wealthy heir. He concealed the thrill with a sigh, not invested any less nonetheless.

That person would have been just another lad to these clubgoers. But to Hao, he was a household name. In a literal sense. He had his bedroom walls papered with Hanbin’s face staring back at him whenever he changed clothes. But he knew better than to act like a superfan and give him the immediate ick here. The local sensation stood a few metres away, wearing a bone-white silk shirt, speaking to a woman Hao’s mind immediately supplied as his manager, harried-looking for the stress her difficult talent must have caused. 

What a prick, Hao thought, as if anything could make him like Hanbin Sung even more. 

The woman’s arms folded over her chest. “You’ve had twenty,” she reminded him.

“Martha,” Hanbin groaned. “You know I’m not even interested in going.”

“Unfortunately, the management doesn’t care,” Martha retorted dryly. “Whatever, Hanbin. Do what you want. As long as you don’t pull a stunt on him.” 

Something seemed to buzz inside her handbag. With an irritated sigh, she fished out her phone and walked away with it pressed to her ear. Someone must have called her back to deal with whatever else there was downstairs. Hanbin rubbed a hand over his face, groaning as he dropped his head back languidly. Hot. So hot and — shit. Hao forgot about pulling his eyes away immediately. The damage was done anyway; their eyes met. 

Well. Bollocks. Hanbin walked closer to his booth and stood facing him defensively. 

“You’ve been staring at me arguing with her,” he said. 

Hao had never dreamed of this happening at all. He had thought he’d come here for absolutely nothing, dragged along by a rich friend who was probably busy schmoozing with another rich guy, but apparently the night had alternative, funny plans for him. Though knowing himself well, he had always been an opportunist. A crack in the armor was far too good of an opening to waste. He forced a weary, thoroughly bored ahem.

“Isn’t that what you do in a club like this? Watching people?”

“Right. And you must be one of those people.”

“Who? The ones with eyes?”

Hanbin scoffed at that. “I don’t know,” he shrugged, leaning his hip against the booth’s leather padding. “Journalists, the paps, you name it. The lot of you think you’re subtle.”

Hao chuckled. Hanbin could not be serious. “Mate, half of London knows who you are,” he pointed out, gesturing with his glass as if measuring the man from head to toe. Like saying Look at you. “Not exactly hard to pick a rising British-Asian actor out of a crowd in posh London, is it?”

“Yeah but the people up here don’t usually care about me much,” Hanbin muttered, stretching his hand forward lazily. Hao felt his pulse pick up as he watched Hanbin bunching his sleeves back, exposing the prominent veins of his wrists. A watch glinted dully on the left one. “Too wrapped up in themselves to care.”

“So, I don’t look rich is what you’re insinuating?” Hao shot back with a pout. “I’m hurt. What if I own a massive share in Apex Media?”

“Sorry,” Hanbin murmured. Ingenuine, that one, because a split second later the man laughed. “Is that even a bad thing?” he asked, completely ignoring the latter part where Hao was bluffing. “You’ve got a real look about you. The rich are usually incredibly boring.”

What’s that supposed to mean? “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Hao mused, hoping he hid the sudden rush of adrenaline. “But you’d be right. My friend bankrolled my entry tonight before completely abandoning me to chase after another guy.”

“Trust me, you’re the lucky one,” Hanbin sighed, running a hand through his hair as he shifted his weight. He had been standing all this time because Hao didn’t say anything about sitting down? “Everyone’s been dragging me around all day and apparently now I’ve got an obligation to watch some absolute wank.”

“Come sit, won’t you?” Hao offered, nudging the tray of spare glasses as he finished the last of the liquid in his own. “I’d wave down the servers to deliver another round if we ran low, but you’re welcome to help yourself.”

“You didn’t even pay for this,” Hanbin teased, a smirk playing on his lips as he finally sat in the booth opposite him. He reached into the bottle, lifting to squint and read the print on the glass. “Very generous of you to offer someone else’s two-hundred-quid vodka.”

Hao chuckled, thoroughly entertained by how Hanbin seemed just as entertained with his company. “You could say it’s a finder’s fee.” He grabbed the bottle and poured another one, giving Hanbin a loose shrug as he set it back down. “Technically, I’m doing him a favor by ensuring the minimum spend doesn’t go to waste, no?”

“Unbelievable,” Hanbin laughed under his breath, pouring a measured splash into a fresh glass before topping it off with the juice from one of the three carafes. “I miss the days when I was just doing tiny fringe theater runs and my wealthier mates would foot the bill too.”

“What, you don’t like the commercial fame?”

“It’s a bit hollow, isn’t it?” Hanbin said, turning the glass slowly between his fingers. He took a sip, and some of the earlier irritation seemed to drain from him together with it. “Everyone wants my face on the magazine. The press. Who knows what’s next? A bloody BAFTA? The Oscars? Nobody cares so much about the actual art anymore.”

Hao felt a twinge of guilt about keeping a pile of magazines tucked beneath the coffee table at home. “If it makes you feel any better, I actually preferred your underground work,” he blurted out, surprising himself. 

Ouch. That one wasn’t so much a giveaway, was it? Was it not? He bit the inside of his cheek. How should he play this? 

“Saw that indie short film you did, Good So Bad, at the BFI four years ago,” he continued anyway. “It was brilliant. Nonetheless, a bit too much for the mainstream. It’s sort of a soliloquy.” There went a buzzword. Hao wasn’t entirely sure he was using it right, but it sounded smart. 

Hanbin paused, his dark eyes locked onto Hao’s face, his glass hovering inches from his lips. Something, there on his face. Something that felt like a testament to Hao’s worry. But it was gone almost in an instant, so maybe Hao was just imagining it. A sheepish smile replaced the wary look. “Sorry, I’m genuinely taken aback. Nobody’s mentioned Good So Bad to me in years.”

Hao’s stomach did the lurch thing. “Really? I truly thought it was one of your better performances.” A bit of a lie, though not really. With five minutes of screen time, there was only so much anyone could judge. Hao was not a film critic either, but he could certainly judge Hanbin’s playing as a shirtless lovesick boyfriend in an entirely different rubric. 

He made damn sure not to mention that part out loud, though. “That final sequence by the window where you just stared out into the rain was beautifully understated.”

“You reckon?” Hanbin gave a small laugh. “You’ve got a hell of a memory. Thank you, um…?”

Hao leaned forward, resting his chin on one hand and his drink on the table as he extended the other. “Hao.”

Hanbin met him halfway, his grip firm and expectedly warm. “Thank you, Hao.” He fell silent for a beat before supplying his own name as a courtesy. “Hanbin.”

Hao gave him a flat look, rolling his eyes. “You know, you’re surprisingly approachable,” he noted, taking a good look at the real thing once more. Hanbin Sung. It was real — he had always been real, of course, but this time not on a screen. Perhaps only this time, but Hao sure hoped not. He gulped a mouthful, doing so as subtly as he could. “For someone whose face keeps turning up in Shoreditch, I had you down as being a bit full of yourself.”

Hanbin scoffed, a wry tilt touching his mouth the moment his drink left his lips after a brief sip. “That’s a shame. I spent another hour downstairs swarmed by my frantic fangirls for nothing. I should’ve been more of an arrogant prick, shouldn’t I?”

“Mm. Definitely,” Hao purred. He liked being clever. He liked feeling clever. “If I had recently secured a gig on Channel 4, I’d be smug as hell.” As he glanced over the balcony railing bordering their private mezzanine, there was a teeming crowd of restless bodies moving beneath the strobes. “But instead, you’re here playing an indie darling with the wealthy flock of your fangirls. What’s your game, Hanbin? Taking one of these rich punters home?”

Hanbin’s pupils dilated hearing the words. Quickly recollecting himself, he retorted, “That’s utter bullshit. I don’t sleep with my fans.” Touché. Prod at a man’s pride and suddenly he had something to prove. His eyes grew dark, their coloration shifting with the beams cutting through the haze. “I can tell when someone’s one. They get proper awkward around me. Always a dead giveaway.”

Hao laughed it off. The thought he had right now had long toyed with the lines of his imagination. Anything about Hanbin had been. But this one did make him a bit nervous, more thrilled. He hoped he didn’t come off too obvious of a fan, only a boldly interested guy. His fingers flew to the collar of his shirt, tugging before unbuttoning the second button from the top — the first was already undone. The VIP lounge was not hot at all. “Well,” he mused. “Aren’t all your fans girls anyway?”

“I’m sorry?”

Hao lifted his shoulders, watching as Hanbin tensed up a little. His posture bristled like a guard dog scenting a possible threat, yet like all dogs, he remained just as curious. Hao just had to press his luck. “A bit better odds for me then if you don’t fancy them. Do you? Or does the famous Hanbin Sung just prefer boys?”

A dry laugh left Hanbin before it shortly faded into a prolonged hum. Then came a sequence of slow nods before he finally drew out a word. One word. “Depends?”

One which Hao mirrored his own. “On?” he prompted, tipping his head so as to invite the answer.

“You know. Whether the bloke asking is fit.”

Hao choked back a laugh, eyes widening and mouth pursing into a brief moue before ducking his face to conceal a grin. That one was uncalled for. “Christ. So you are cocky.”

Hanbin only grinned. A flash of white teeth, devastatingly symmetrical and perfect — courtesy of the entertainment industry, no doubt — but nonetheless reminded Hao precisely why he kept the photograph next to a vanity mirror in his flat. Before Hao could think of resuming their conversation, the heavy velvet curtain of the mezzanine booth swung wide.

A cluster of tag-alongs showed up, girls and more girls, exactly as Hao had expected. One of them screamed Hanbin’s name, and in a split second, Hanbin turned briefly to greet them, his lazy, crooked posture washed out immediately as he stood up. Becoming the flawless Hanbin Sung in a heartbeat, waving a hand at him shortly as he walked away.

Hao waved back, and at a glance, Hanbin welcomed the newcomers as though they were each a person he had most wanted to see all evening, and even as one of the girls aggressively latched onto his arm, he didn’t even look remotely bothered, only slowly adjusted his stance to accommodate her more appropriately.

“Oh my god, Hanbin. You’re here!” that blonde girl exclaimed. Hao knew it was nonsense anyway, they had almost certainly known where he was all evening.

Although Hao had spent half his youth staring at posters pinned to his bedroom walls, only now he had realised how much effort it took to appear kind, entirely effortless, and, more astonishingly, how swiftly Hanbin could switch up, regardless. One second he had been slouched opposite Hao, grinning like a charming bastard. And bloody hell, was he ever one. The next he was easygoing and ripe for the public eye. It brought a bizarre realization, however apparent before it was to him — the idea of celebrities —  that Hanbin wasn’t approachable so much as relentlessly committed to being approachable.

But these girls were his volatile currency. His patrons, his livelihood. They all adored him, bought tickets, memberships, magazine covers, whatever else the industry found to sell them. In return, Hanbin gave them what they came for: attention. However genuine it may have been, it would still be parcelled out in an illusion that all these girls mattered to him singularly. 

His train of thoughts broke when one of the girls thrust her phone into Hanbin’s hands. “Wait, no. Take it again, please. I blinked.” Hanbin only laughed, leaning in while the girl hooked an arm around his neck. 

Another girl crowded his space, tugging at his shirt. “We’ve been looking absolutely everywhere,” she complained, pouting up at him. A grim sight to behold. “Babe, you have to come downstairs. Noah’s on in five. Are you seriously going to make him think you skipped his set?”

Hao grimaced at the pet name. A brunette girl in a sheer designer top looked his way, her eyes narrowing as if disliking that Hao had been prying into their conversation. He took a quick sip of his rather tame drink, swallowing the ice-cold liquid to force down the lump forming in his throat.

“Right after I finish up here, yeah?” Hanbin promised, giving them squeezes on shoulders. Pristine as ever. “Go on, find us a spot near the front. I’ll be down in a second.”

“Fine, but you’d better not make us wait!”

As the girls turned to lead the way down the mezzanine steps, Hanbin waited until the velvet drapes fell shut. He spun on his heel, stepping right back into their booth. “They’ll realise I’m not behind them in about thirty seconds,” he muttered, checking the time on a battered silver Omega. “Fire exit is past the toilets. Do we go to your place, or are you going to bin me off to the girls?”

“Well,” Hao said, the reality of the situation hitting him at once, then laughed off the rush of adrenaline. So that was where this had been heading. How had it gone this absurdly well? “Aren’t you supposed to support your agencymate?” He didn’t mean any of that, except, of course, to provoke Hanbin once last time.

Hanbin made a face, downing the rest of his drink as he turned towards the balcony. “Please. He’ll survive one night without me. Besides, I’d rather stick my head through a wall than listen to that pretentious knob play for the next hour.” A burst of applause drifted up from below. Noah’s set, presumably. He tore his gaze away before looking squarely back at Hao. “Come on, let’s move.”

Hao didn’t need telling twice. He didn’t give a single toss about leaving Ricky’s expensive, half-empty Belvedere behind. The bill was securely anchored to his friend’s black Amex card anyway. He grabbed his jacket from the leather banquette, and stood up.

The thrill of the escape was a sudden electric current under his skin, lighting up every nerve ending like a live wire. “Lead the way then.”

Ricky would not believe what happened to him today. Or maybe he would. Regardless, Hao was already running away with London’s biggest breakout star.

—

The cab ride back to his place felt interminable and absurdly fast all at once. Hao couldn’t properly recall what they talked about inside the cab, only several ignored calls and how their knees pressed insistently against each other’s despite the vibration on Hanbin’s thigh. Martha kept calling Hanbin even as they hurried up the stairs, the phone persistently buzzing until he finally killed the signal, switching to airplane mode. 

“This woman,” Hanbin muttered with a low grunt, stowing the silenced device deep into his trousers. “She’s losing her mind knowing I’m off the grid.”

“I bet.” Hao snorted as he fumbled the keys and shoved open the door. “She’s going to be right on your case.”

“Tomorrow’s problem,” Hanbin said, backing Hao flat against the door before the latch had even clicked shut.

He didn’t give Hao a chance to reply, sealing his lips with his. They practically stumbled into the flat, kissing their way down the narrow hallway in a careening scramble. Hanbin’s hands were everywhere, one roving beneath Hao’s shirt, the other cinching his waist so tightly that Hao could feel the thump against his own ribs. They didn't even make it past the threshold of the bedroom before throwing themselves blindly onto the bed, without a single care that they hadn’t taken their clothes off yet. 

The sudden plunge made Hao’s muddled head swim, fuzzy and warm as he momentarily found himself sprawled over Hanbin’s chest before the man rolled them over. But just as Hanbin pinned him down, and his ragged breathing flayed hot against his column, the fog in Hao’s mind cleared abruptly. 

Holy shit, Hao thought. He felt his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He was fairly certain there were more than twenty posters plastered across the walls. Up until now, he had been running on a full unadulterated adrenaline, but Hanbin being in his bedroom almost sobered him instantly. It only hit him now. Holy fuck. He was in bed with the exact man whose face he had willingly clad every wall with. If only Hanbin could see.

Soon, he would. Thrilled, Hao’s knuckles scraped blindly along the wall beside the bed.

Click.

“Are you taking the piss?” Hanbin hissed, blinking up at the bright ceiling fixture the moment Hao flipped the wall switch, then looking right back down at him. “Who on earth has sex with the lights on?”

Hao smirked. “Us, I decided,” he said. “Just look around you.”

Hanbin tore his eyes away from him. Still seated on his lap, he slowly turned to his left, then over his shoulder, then to his right. 

A flush crept up Hanbin’s neck. Oh, he was mortified. Hao had known he would be; the actor was practically famous for breaking character once he got flustered on set. Seeing it happen live right above him in his own mattress was a bit of a payoff.

Hanbin pressed a hand over his face, letting out a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “Right,” he muttered against his palm. “Of course.”

Hao propped himself up a bit, keeping his hand looped around Hanbin’s waist. “Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but sorry. “Did I just ruin your Notting Hill fantasy, Mr I-don’t-sleep-with-my-fans?”

Hanbin looked at him with a wry, helpless smile. The smile turned into laugh and the laugh into a groan, as though gradually debating whether smacking Hao would be worth the effort more than fucking him. Finally letting out a long, defeated sigh, he pressed their foreheads together, warm breath fanning across Hao’s face.

“Hao…”

Hanbin caught his jaw and kissed him again. Quick, this one. 

“Did it turn you on even more that I was your fan?”

“Christ,” Hanbin muttered. A breathless laugh escaped him as he buried his face in the crook of Hao’s neck. “I know something was off. No random bloke would know about a forgotten indie film from four years ago. But I really just wanted to sleep with you.”

“Even better,” Hao sneered, his fingers shifting to tangle in Hanbin’s hair, pulling his head back up just enough to force his eyes to lock. “Now you know you’re my dream fuck, too. Think about what a guy like me would do with your face staring down around his bed.”

“Fuck,” Hanbin groaned, his pupils blowing wide. “That’s hot.”

“Great,” Hao said dryly. A wicked tilt touched his mouth as he ran a thumb over Hanbin’s lips. “Because it would be such a turn-off if I came back here with some other guy and he had to look at you the entire time we—”

Before he could finish, Hanbin lunged forward. A pair of hands struck the headboard on either side of Hao, and as if that weren’t enough, he pinned him down with his body so aggressively that Hao was dropped flat against the mattress, completely engulfed. 

“Stop.” 

Hao raised an eyebrow at that. Oh, this was amusing.

“Stop talking about others when I’m literally on top of you,” Hanbin gritted out, his ego visibly bruising at the mental image. The edge of his annoyance only dissolved as he pressed his lips soft against Hao’s jaw. “Put your mouth to use somewhere else.”

“Gladly,” he breathed, a little rough with the weight of Hanbin pressing on him. He knew exactly what he wanted. Shifting slightly, he leant up onto one elbow, just enough to brush his lips directly against the curve of the other’s earlobe. He knew exactly what to say. 

“Lose the shirt. I’ve been dying to put my mouth on your perky nipples. The scene in Good So Bad where you did that dramatic boyfriend monologue shirtless?” he whispered the words. “I keep a laminated photo of that exact frame in my bedside drawer here that I’d lick occasionally while wanking to the thought of you.”

Even Hao’s deadpan delivery still gave Hanbin the most whiplash. He shuddered hard against him. Pushing his torso upward, a crimson flush bloomed across every inch of his visible skin, staining even his neck and ears a deep pink. “Literal goosebumps,” he groaned. “This is exactly why I don’t shag my fans. You’re bonkers.”

The complaint had no real bite to it. Clutching a handful of the silk fabric at Hanbin’s chest, Hao used the grip to haul himself upright into a sitting position, and with it yanking the panels apart with such power that it sent two buttons skittering across the floor.

“Damn it. This is a bloody loan of Margiela,” Hanbin snapped immediately, instinctively grabbing at the torn fabric. “My stylist’s going to actually murder me.” He shrugged off the ruined shirt, albeit rather carefully now, and tossed it over the edge, leaving his upper body bare in sight. 

Hao’s breath hitched. It was one thing to admire it through screens and paper, but this was entirely another. The very real, three-dimensional idol was far more magnetic. He felt a surge of admiration, a pull; Hanbin was undeniably stunning, a matter of simple, objective fact, but all rationale after that was amiss as Hao’s heart raced a sprint, a frenzy. 

He lunged forward, their bodies colliding as his tongue found one bud and began licking it deliriously. It was salty in taste, but Hanbin’s skin smelled something more woody. Diptyque Orphéon, probably. It was once mentioned in an interview. Hao had never smelt the actual perfume. Didn’t matter to him so much as the knowledge.

The bud hardened rather instantly under the damp swipe of his tongue. Hanbin was so sensitive that with every lick he squirmed erratically, the pleasure wrecked his posture everywhere. Yet when Hao cheekily bit on the soft skin, the body tensed together with a hiss. That must’ve hurt. Hao immediately wet the spot, trying to soothe it. 

Apparently, that wasn’t the right instinct. Because—

“More,” Hanbin pleaded, his voice dropping into a whisper. “Please.”

Hao was the most generous when being begged prettily. The second time his teeth sank in, it drew out a moan. Another, and a hand twisted fiercely into Hao’s hair to pull his head tighter. Then, he felt it. He felt something was grinding against his trousers. 

Fuck. Hanbin was humping Hao’s dick with his own bulge.

The friction was agonizingly good; Hao could feel himself straining painfully against his trousers. He switched to the other one, swirling his tongue around before biting on the twin peak harder than before, and Hanbin became more frantic with it. Reluctantly, Hao had to pull his head back, releasing him with a nip. 

“Hanbin—” His voice was utterly raspy as he muttered the name, fingers digging into Hanbin’s hips in a bid to slow him down. But the moment he looked up, he froze. Hanbin didn’t even seem to be doing it consciously. His pupils were blown wide, glazed over with something of an unseeing, utterly consumed look.

Hao looked at him in disbelief. “I swear— If you don’t stop, I’m going to lose it right here in these fucking trousers.”

“Mph.” 

No words came. Instead, Hanbin’s head dropped forward, his jaw clamping down as his perfect teeth chomped sharply into the meat of Hao’s shoulder through the thin fabric of his shirt. What an absolute rascal. Hao gasped aloud at the stinging bite, but Hanbin didn’t care about stopping at all. If anything, he ground down on Hao’s crotch more viciously, entirely desperate for the chase.

“Han— fuck, stop—” Hao choked out, his fingers digging, bruising into the flesh of Hanbin’s bare waist. He tried pushing him up, creating even an inch of a room, anything, but Hanbin was too checked out to care. He was a dead weight of desperation. Their undone zip flies started to bite into their swelling lengths the more they ground together. And, sweet Christ, Hanbin was a grower.

It felt so big, and it did something unhinged to Hao’s psyche to merely think of fucking Hanbin while his enormous cock would flap heavily against his stomach. Or whether he could take him. Whichever way this would go down. He had completely abandoned the attempt to push Hanbin away. Locking his fingers into Hanbin’s belt loops, he pulled him down hard, and bucked upward in one hard grind, meeting Hanbin’s dutiful thrusts.

Good god. Hanbin shuddered violently at that. “Hao— ah, shit, I’m—” He gasped, his voice cracked and stomach muscles rippled with spasms right against Hao’s chest. “Fuck, Hao— fuck,” he splintered out, his entire frame going rigid as he finally chased the high of it.

It was only damp and warm on Hao’s part; Hanbin’s release didn’t break through the jeans. But then he squirmed, squealing, and all at once, it soaked both their trousers. His head fell into the crook of Hao’s neck again.

Hanbin wetted himself, and with it, Hao, leaving him entirely stunned. His thoughts staggered. Should he say anything at all? Before he even had the chance, his body physically jolted and eyes squeezed shut. A low whine escaped his lips as his own overstimulated body finally gave in. He came into his underwear, adding into the shared mess between their pressed crotches.

After a while, the high had worn off. The wetness had turned cold now, the fabric sticking uncomfortably against Hao’s skin. It was worth the crude regardless. “Fucking hell. That was so hot,” he wheezed, breaking the silence. He laughed weakly, shaking his head. “And gross. And ridiculously fast.”

“Shut up,” Hanbin groaned. “I’m grossed out by myself. I’d never— that on anyone else before. I completely lost it.”

“I’d never thought I’d be into it, too. But here I am,” Hao admitted, trying to lighten the mood. Reaching up, he gave two slow taps to Hanbin’s bare back. “There’s a first time for everything, superstar.”

“I’m… hard again,” Hanbin said stubbornly after a moment, like it galled his pride to confess that. “It’s infuriating. I was hoping we could do more.”

“Well, lucky for you, I’m very infuriated, too. I mean, you peed on me.” Hao said teasingly. 

That earned him a light, indignant smack on his back. He began undoing his zip fly regardless, hooking the fabric of his underwear so that his cock sprang free. He nudged Hanbin’s shoulders, prompting him to finally shift upward. “In fact, I would prefer it if you lick it off my cock. Won’t you?” 

Hanbin’s head snapped up, but his jaw dropped. “Why?”

Hanbin probably thought that Hao should’ve swooned over him and taken his orders. But here was the funny thing: Hao knew exactly who Hanbin Sung was, but he didn’t know a thing about Zhang Hao; Hao held all the cards. He grabbed Hanbin’s chin, locking their eyes together. “Suck,” he commanded. 

Hanbin caught his wrist, a brief of haughty resistance in his eyes. “Tell me you’re never, ever, telling anyone about this.”

Hao chuckled. The stubborn vulnerability endeared Hanbin to him. Looking at those glassy eyes now, he saw a mirror. There was so much of himself in a person he once thought was out of reach. Both of them tried to make the situation work in their favour. Both of them were equal opportunists and survivalists. Hanbin wasn’t a god on a poster — or maybe, it meant a guy like Hao could be one, too.

“My lips are sealed, darling.”

—

A grey morning was nothing out of the ordinary. The drab light filtered through the thin blinds of Hao’s flat, waking him up gently. For a few blissful seconds, he had dismissed the night before as another of the embarrassingly vivid dreams he’d been having about Hanbin since sixth form. 

Then he noticed the shallow indentation on his bed. He looked once more. Fresh sheets. A silk shirt hanging over the back of his chair. Right. It had actually happened. Dragging himself out of bed, he stumbled down the narrow hallway toward the bathroom, still rubbing his eyes from sleep.

The door stood ajar. “Is that my toothbrush?”

Hanbin spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. Then, he smiled with his devastatingly straight teeth. “Your spare toothbrush,” he said, correcting as though that made a difference. “Found it in the cabinet. Hope you don’t mind.” He tossed the blue brush into the cup, completely claiming it as his own. 

“By the way,” he added. “Your rich mate Ricky’s called for the last hour.”

Hao groaned in his hands. Call him a bad friend but he completely forgot about him. 

“I picked up,” Hanbin continued. “He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘You two shagged, didn’t you? Tell Hao I’m never paying for his drinks again after this’!”

“Serves him right for ditching me first.”

“Apparently, his man Gyuvin’s on Noah’s team,” Hanbin said, rubbing a hand through his messy hair. “But the real issue is that Martha connected the dots. She badgered Ricky about it until he gave in. She’s on her way.”

Hao only stared at him, the incoming disaster registering in his mind rather sluggishly. 

“I have a schedule at ten,” Hanbin grimaced.

That clicked. But honestly, whatever, Hao had spent years fixating on the version of Hanbin he invented after years of watching him on screen and collecting magazines. The one casually standing in his bathroom was none of it. He was messier, funnier, far more reckless, and somehow, infinitely more lovable.

“First time harbouring a fugitive,” Hao said jokingly, giving up the bathroom, walking over to grab his coffee mug instead. It was a simple ceramic mug stamped with a letter Z. It had come as part of a two-for-one set from Marks & Spencer. Its twin, marked with an S, currently sitting unused on the drying rack.

Hao grabbed it anyway, turning the twin porcelain cups over in his hands. “Well, how do you like your coffee, superstar?”