Chapter Text
It’s only been twenty minutes into Hao’s day and she can already tell that it’s going to be the worst.
It’s basically a chain of events: Hao got up late despite her five different alarms, then she barely made it out of the door on time. Because of that, she put on the wrong shoes for the weather since she was rushing — she should’ve just put her damn sneakers on and risk getting dress coded instead of her stupid school loafers — then because of the half-melted snow and her shitty shoes, she trips, slips, and eats shit on the pavement.
The dirty ice tastes like embarrassment and defeat, and all Hao can do is slowly push herself up and ignore the throbbing pain that radiates from her hands and knees, as well as the flush that overtakes her whole face. She wipes her hands on her parka, streaking dirt and snow all over the outside. One quick glance at her hands tells her that she probably should go to the nurse’s office, and another glance at her knees tells her that she definitely should go to the nurse’s office.
She ducks down to fix her stockings and her skirt, her fingers trembling in the cold — it’s not that cold, but Hao just runs cold, so it basically counts. She stares at the dirt and ice that coat the varnish of her loafers and the bloody scrapes that should be cleaned sooner or later from her knees and palms, but all she can focus on is the sound of her classmates cheerily chatting and walking by. They pass by her, brushing past her if necessary. It stings.
Hao grips the edge of her skirt, lets go, and promptly heads to the bathroom. She washes her hands, dabs soap and water onto the scrapes on her knees, and just heads to her locker to drop off her jacket.
She sees a small horde of students chatter and make their way to the classroom down the hall, and she just knows who’s there. Even so, she turns her head to see Sung Hanbin: student body president, dance team captain, straight-A student, and the prettiest person she’s ever seen. Hao has been in this school for only two weeks so far and there’s no one else who wears the blocky private-school uniform as well as she does. Chin-length black hair, round eyes that probably saw eight hours of sleep per day, and the sweetest whiskers of her cheeks— Hao is no poet, but she could manage an ode to Sung Hanbin’s dimples. Probably.
It’s not like there’s a lack of admirers, though: it almost seems like the whole student body is crammed in a hallway, clamoring for Hanbin’s attention. She’s like a celebrity — if you’d call linoleum tile ‘red carpet’ — as she responds to every question, compliment, and conversation starter with the brightest grin and the sweetest laugh.
Hao wishes she could have at least someone wrapped around her finger like that.
The bell rings and Hao watches as the crowd basically dissipates, much like ants scurrying away from rainfall. There’s no point for Hao to get to class so soon — it’s not like she has anything to look forward to — so she waits for everyone to get to their first period before she starts walking.
She doesn’t get far before Sung Hanbin notices her and bafflingly, smiles at her. Hao stops in her steps as her heart thuds in her ears, words on the tip of her tongue — but then Hanbin walks away and Hao misses her chance to talk to anyone but herself.
The late bell rings and there’s no time for Hao to ruminate anymore. But even when she tries to erase it from her mind, Hanbin and her short hair and bright eyes and whiskered dimples is all she can think about. She’ll make up that missed chance; she’ll go talk to her — maybe tomorrow.
Hao fishes her phone from her pocket, the pastel pink homescreen reading out the current time, which she ignores in favor of the date: March 5th.
She’ll do it tomorrow, she promises herself. Tomorrow, March 6th, sometime during then.
She promises this to herself and then rushes to class — she hopes her calculus teacher grants her mercy.
Hao wakes up late. She reaches out to her dresser, fumbling for her phone to turn off the alarm that blares like her being late to school would be an actual emergency. She makes the terrible mistake of knocking her phone straight off her dresser instead.
“What the fuck,” she curses, blearily rubbing at her eyes as she scrambles out of her bed and knocks all its contents onto the floor in order to get her damn phone and turn off the alarm. Hao gets it, eventually. She angrily taps at the screen, silencing the alarm about to ring for the umpteenth time, and her pastel pink homescreen reads the current time of 7:20 AM.
“Fuck!” Hao swears, immediately rushing to the bathroom to get ready. She brushes her teeth in perfect time and pulls off the rollers from her hair, letting her dark brown hair settle down her back as she scrambles to get her uniform off the hanger and onto her body. “Yesterday, and today?” she bemoans, rolling a stocking up her leg. “Just my luck.”
She manages to get everything into her schoolbag and snatch a breakfast bar before she’s faced with the dilemma of shoes. Either the school-mandated loafers that gave her awful luck yesterday, or the sneakers of probable detention.
Hao ties the sneakers onto her feet and hopes that no teacher gives her trouble for it. “Okay, okay,” she mutters, slipping on her white parka and schoolbag. “Bag, keys, wallet, pencil case—” she slides her hand into her pocket— “and no phone. Great.”
She slips off her shoes and runs upstairs, grabbing her phone and checking the time. It’s only 7:46 AM on March 5th — she doesn’t remember having anything to do in the morning — so she should be fine. Hao runs downstairs, puts her shoes back on, and then freezes.
“Wait,” she says. She pulls out her phone, where the pastel pink homescreen she’s so familiar with reads 7:46 AM, March 5th.
March 5th.
“What the fuck,” Hao hisses. Her classes can wait; she can be terribly, dreadfully late all she wants, because what the fuck.
She checks her phone settings, then the news, then her daily tasks in her games, then her settings, the news and then one more time for the whole run through before Hao stops and starts pulling at her hair. “What the fuck?!”
It’s not a joke: all of the relevant apps and settings keep pointing to the date being March 5th. So either Hao is hallucinating, she’s caught in a terrible social experiment, she’s the main target of some elaborate prank channel, or she’s stuck in a time loop.
“I don’t have time for this,” Hao groans, flinging her door open and starting her way down the icy streets of her new neighborhood. “I’m gonna be fucking late, and it’s all some evil deity’s fault!”
She gets to school in record time — albeit as careful as she can and reaches the dreadful section that caused her great pain yesterday: the half-melted, iced-over section of the pavement that stands her way in getting to school in one piece.
“I can do this,” Hao mutters, pumping her fist in determination. “I can so do this without falling on my face.”
Hao steps forward with the confidence of someone who knows the future and she slips, trips, and eats shit in the exact same manner as yesterday. The dirty ice tastes even more embarrassing than last time — and Hao thought she couldn’t top that. “Really proved myself wrong,” she mumbles, pushing herself up with her stinging hands.
“Are you okay?”
Hao snaps her head up, her eyes landing on Sung Hanbin, in her short-haired, bright eyed, dimpled glory. Her hair is tied in the smallest little ponytail and the cutest star-shaped earmuffs are propped on her head. And, most prominent of all, Hanbin’s cheeks and nose are bitten with the sweetest bit of cold. Hao could die of cuteness, effective immediately. “That was a hard fall,” Hanbin comments, and Hao starts paying attention again. “Do you need help getting up?”
Hao nods, maybe a bit too eagerly. “Yes. Yes, I definitely do.” She sticks out her hand. “Please.”
Hanbin nods and reaches out for her hand, only to flip it over to see the scrapes on her palm. “You’re hurt?” she asks, a soft frown curving on her face. Hao’s palms are sensitive — either from the cold, the fall, or maybe that’s just how it is — she can feel every small brush of Hanbin’s thumb as she examines the scrapes. “Both hands?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Hao stammers, her own flush overtaking her face. “My knees too.”
Hanbin helps her up and off the evil sidewalk, guiding her to one of the school steps to sit. “I don’t really have anything in my bag to help,” Hanbin admits regretfully, as if Hao wouldn’t refuse pure arsenic as long as it came from her. She pulls out her water bottle and some napkins. “But these can probably help a bit before we get you to the nurse’s office.”
Hao blinks widely. “You’re — You’re coming to the nurse’s office with me?”
She looks at her, just as confused. “Yes?” Hanbin says, her voice lifting at the end in question. “I can’t just leave you here.”
“Oh,” Hao says. The words finally process in her head, and she brightens immediately. “Oh! Okay, let’s go.”
Hanbin immediately pushes her down the moment she tries to stand up. “No, wait, I need to clean your scrapes first,” she chides, unscrewing the water bottle. She pours a capful on a napkin and uses it to gingerly wipe Hao’s scrapes. It takes everything in Hao to not start squealing and jumping up and down at the fact someone from school is talking to her — finally! — and on top of that, the person is Sung Hanbin: the person everyone knows. Hao realizes that she’s the opposite in terms of popularity, and should probably introduce herself.
“Oh, um,” she starts, watching Hanbin pause her ministrations to look at her. “I’m, uh, Zhang Hao, by the way. If you didn’t know me.” She can feel her pulse skitter as she forces words out of her mouth. “Or my name.”
Hanbin watches her ramble with a gentle smile on her face. “I’m Sung Hanbin,” she says; Hao nods along as if she didn’t know this already. “You can call me Hanbin. We’re the same age, so no need for formalities.”
Hao nods, perhaps a bit too eagerly. “Yes. Great. You can call me Hao.”
She smiles wider and Hao can hear a chorus of angels descending in her mind. “It’s nice meeting you, Hao. Let’s get you to the nurse’s office, okay?”
She glances down at her knees and sees that they’re freshly cleaned and she didn’t notice. “Oh, okay.” Hao stands up and nearly slips again, but lucky for her, she is next to Sung Hanbin — the poster-child for school success and parental pride — who catches her before she can eat shit for the second time (well, third, but Hanbin doesn’t need to know that).
“Careful, careful,” Hanbin says gently, steadying her. Her hands don’t leave even when she speaks. “Let’s get you to the nurse’s office.”
Hao nods, her tongue a deadweight in her mouth — maybe out of a sort of self-preservation. The next few minutes are a blur as Hanbin leads her through a maze of stairways and halls that Hao didn’t even know existed (her directional prowess probably comes from staying in the same place for a long time — Hao can’t relate). The nurse office is locked as the nurse isn’t there, probably because of the early hour, but Hanbin just excuses herself and comes back with a faculty ID.
“Don’t worry, I got permission,” she explains, as if Hao needs placating. She unlocks the door with a swipe, then she ushers her in before switching on the lights. Hao squints immediately; the light washes the room in a sickly-cool white, which makes the white and washed-out blue walls burn the back of her eyes. Hanbin giggles, making Hao slightly jump, before she leads Hao to the bed tucked in the corner of the room. “Sit,” Hanbin hums.
Hao doesn’t need to be told twice. She perches on the bed delicately, the sheets underneath her wrinkling despite her efforts. Hanbin rummages through the drawers, eventually procuring a tube of ointment and a handful of pastel bandages. “Hands or knees first?” she asks, holding one item in each hand.
Hao reaches out and takes the ointment from her, their fingers brushing. She ignores the electricity that races up her arm. “I can do my hands,” she mumbles.
Hanbin blinks widely, a flush creeping to her ears. “Oh, okay.”
That’s all they say for the next while: Hao takes care of her palms and Hanbin kneels down to tend to her knees. There’s some mutters here and there, but the silence is surprisingly comfortable for someone Hao only met once — they exchange bandages and ointment without a word.
Eventually, the silence and their time comes to an end as Hanbin stands up. “I need to give the ID back before first period,” she explains, holding up the lanyard. Her smile is adorably sheepish. “Do you think you can handle the rest on your own?”
Hao finds herself mirroring her smile down to the connotation. “I can,” she says with a nod. “Thank you, Hanbin.”
Hanbin smiles and takes her leave — all Hao can do is watch her as she bumbles out of the nurse’s office, skidding against the floor with her mandated-school loafers. Hao stares out into the empty space where she was before dropping her gaze to the bandage wrappers next to her. It doesn’t take long to clean up, but she almost savors every second.
“If it was like this yesterday, maybe I’d feel better,” Hao mumbles under her breath, sweeping her pastel-bandaged palms over her equally bandaged knees. She dusts off her hands and checks her phone to see that it’s 8:12 AM and she really needs to stop by her locker before going to class.
Hao rushes, as per usual, but there’s a bounce in her step as she makes her way to her locker — even the fact that it’s across the school building from the nurse’s office doesn’t dim her mood.
Her mood stays at an all-time high for the rest of the school day.
Hao’s alarm goes off in a similar fashion as usual, where she grapples for her phone to turn off the hellish sound that blares like the world is ending. Through bleary eyes, she swipes open her phone, squinting at the screen to make out the time of 7:00 AM on March 6th.
“Oh,” she manages through her deadweight tongue. “Guess ‘ts not a time loop.”
Getting ready is its usual struggle, but Hao pulls on her clothes and sorts her bag with an exclusive kind of wariness from being in a sort-of-time-loop. Maybe. It’s not like Hao knows the details, anyway.
She makes her way to school (in her sneakers, of course; Hao rather be stuck in detention than fall on her face again) and manages to get to her locker without any terrible accidents. Well, that’s until she sees Hanbin — because Hao is immediately consumed by the thoughts of pretty, pretty, pretty and the idea of actually talking to her, like she planned before everything. It’d probably be easier now, since they talked the day before.
Hao shuffles her way over and shyly waves her hand in front of Hanbin’s face. “Um, hello?”
Hanbin’s eyes flit over to her, her eyes rounding out into the kindest boba pearls. “Hi?”
“How…are you?”
She looks confused. Why is she confused? “I’m alright,” she responds slowly. “How about you?”
Hao can feel her heartrate jackrabbit up into her ears and she knows that something is off. “I’m…I’m okay. I just, uh, fell yesterday and my knees still sting.”
Hanbin’s face rounds into something more sympathetic and gentle as she listens. “How badly did you fall, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asks, her eyes searching.
Hao is struck by the terrible, awful confirmation that this Hanbin definitely does not know her and she’s two words away from making a fool of herself. “I just scraped my hands and knees,” she says, hopefully as evenly as possible.
“Do you need help?” Hanbin asks, snapping Hao out of her stupor. “I can lead you to the nurse’s office.”
“Maybe just, uh, directions,” she mumbles, fiddling with her sweater. “That’s all.”
“No, I insist,” Hanbin says kindly.
Hao is tempted, but also she really doesn’t want to embarrass herself further. “No, nevermind, it’s fine,” she replies, “I’ll figure it out.”
Hanbin opens her mouth, probably to respond, but Hao starts scurrying away as fast as she can. She checks behind her after a while, just to be sure, and as she hoped, Hanbin does not follow her. Hao pumps her fist in silent victory and heads to the nurse’s office, only to find out that it’s locked because it’s before 8 AM and the nurse is never here early.
“I could borrow an ID,” she mutters under her breath, “Like Hanbin did yesterday.” Hao thinks about finding a teacher, talking to them, and asking to borrow their ID, and it’s all too much work — she sighs and gives up.
The rest of the school day is punctuated by Hao trying her best to avoid Hanbin and her group of friends (which is somehow really hard today; Hao has to pull an entire spy movie to escape from view). She eventually goes to the nurse’s office, as she planned, and gets fresh bandages for her knees and hands.
Hao specifically asks for the regular beige bandages — she needs to test something. It’s a little harder to patch herself up on her own, but at least her scrapes aren’t fresh.
She goes to sleep that night with a half-baked plan in her mind.
Hao wakes up, checks her phone that reads 7:00 AM on March 6th, and checks the scrapes on her palms and knees. “So it is a time loop,” she muses, picking at the pastel bandages that are plastered over her skin. “But it’s weird.”
Her half-asleep mutterings make more sense after Hao fumbles around her house to get ready for school. She’s stuck in a weird time-loop, where the day repeats twice. It’s not some completely alternate universe; everything looks identical and there’s no magical powers she suddenly developed. The only real difference is, well—
“Hanbin helped me in one,” Hao mutters, “And in the other one she didn’t.”
She lets herself leave a bit late today; she spends an extra ten minutes checking around the house for any discrepancies, just in case. At exactly 7:43 AM, Hao’s phone dings — something she did not remember happening yesterday — and she checks her notifications to see that her mom sent her money for this week’s groceries. “Did this even happen yesterday?” she mumbles, swiping away the banner and texting a short reply to her mother. “I need to check when this resets.”
Hao finishes texting back and with a yelp, she runs to school, because her impromptu delay lasted twenty minutes and Hao really doesn’t need to deal with detention for being late and breaking the dress code because of her beat-up sneakers.
She gets to school in record time, running to her locker and getting it open after two failed attempts at her locker combination.
“Are you always running late to class?”
Hao shrieks and claps her hands over her mouth in embarrassment as she turns around to see Sung Hanbin. “You scared me!” Hao scolds, but it comes out more breathless and petulant than not.
Hanbin’s eyes scrunch up in sweet little half moons as she smiles. “Sorry,” she says. “I was just wondering.”
She huffs. “Well, I left the house late.”
“For today and yesterday?”
“For today and yesterday,” Hao affirms, shoving her parka into the locker. She turns back to Hanbin afterwards. “Why do you ask?”
“Because if you come earlier to school, maybe you wouldn’t slip and fall on ice,” Hanbin explains. “Since you won’t be in a rush.”
Hao can feel her face flush an angry red. Hanbin’s smile grows wider before her eyes flick towards her bandaged knees. “How are your scrapes?”
Her flush gets brighter. “Fine,” she mumbles. “Could be worse.”
“That’s good,” she replies, her gaze drifting lower to Hao’s sneakers. “You’ll get dress-coded for that, y’know.”
Hao feels her heart sink and a frown form on her face. “Are you going to report me? Since you’re student body president, and all.”
Hanbin giggles and shakes her head. “Nope,” she says kindly. “You should just bring your school shoes and put them in your locker. You can still wear your sneakers during this weather, but you’ll have the proper shoes here, so you won’t get detention.”
Hao blinks. “I didn’t think the school president would be condoning rule-breaking.”
It’s Hanbin’s turn to flush this time. “It’s not rule breaking,” she protests. “It’s being strategic.”
She leans closer, a small smirk curling at the corners of her mouth. “You sure know a great deal about this.”
Hanbin shrugs half-heartedly, glancing away. “I keep my loafers in my locker, so I can wear my boots to school when the weather is bad.”
“So you’re a rebel.”
The flush that overtakes Hanbin’s ears is adorable. “I didn’t say that!”
Hao lets out this terrible snort and immediately covers her mouth afterwards, coughing to hide her embarrassment. Hanbin watches her and smiles softly, letting the silence linger before she breaks it. “You’re the transfer student everyone keeps talking about, right?”
Hao gnaws at her lip, as if that would hide her nervousness. “Yes?”
Hanbin’s smile doesn’t get any less gentle. “Well, as student body president, it’s only right that I help you adjust.”
She switches from biting her lip to tugging at her hair. “Um. How would you…”
Hanbin snaps her fingers in excitement. “I heard from Matt that you’re in her calc class, so I could just officially introduce you two. And you could meet the rest of my friends if you’d like?” She waits for Hao’s reply and when she doesn’t get one immediately, she pauses and looks at her. “If you’re comfortable, of course. I get it if it’s too overwhelming or something; it’s okay if you say no.”
Hao snaps out of her nervous stupor and shakes her head. “No, I’m okay with it. Just, uh, when will this be?” She tugs at her hair idly. “Just so I can prepare myself.”
“Lunch time,” Hanbin says, a smile blooming across her face. “We’ll be in the back and we’ll be very loud. You can’t miss us.”
She mirrors her smile, albeit shyly. “If I do, you’ll help me find you, right?”
The bright red flush travels down Hanbin’s neck. “Y—Yes. Of course.”
Hao smiles, happy and inexplicably pleased at the sight of Hanbin all flustered and stuttering, before the first period bell rings and snaps both of them out of their stupor.
“Ah, I have calculus,” Hao sputters, the words tumbling out of her mouth with zero grace.
Hanbin doesn’t fare much better. “Oh, um, I have it too. What room?”
Hao blinks and searches her brain for the room number that remains elusive in her most desperate hour. “Uh. Forgot.”
She giggles and Hao feels both immensely pleased and horribly embarrassed. “Wait, I’m silly, you share it with Matt in room two-oh-five, right?”
Hao flushes redder despite herself. “Why did you ask if you knew?”
“Sorry, habit,” Hanbin explains. She reaches out and grasps Hao’s wrist, tugging her down the hall. “C’mon, we’ll be late!”
Her feet stutter against the linoleum before they get back into proper running order. “Wait, Hanbin,” Hao sputters, “You don’t need to take me there; you’re going to be late for class too!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Hanbin exclaims cheerily, her pace not slowing down by a bit. “My classroom is right next door, so we can go together!”
Hao can’t say anything for the next while as they rush to class — she’s not athletic enough to have anything come out of her mouth other than huffing and puffing. Yet the moment they reach the designated room and Hanbin waves goodbye before heading to her class, Hao can’t help but laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Dare she say, she’s actually looking forward to lunch now.
School is going surprisingly well for Hao, all things considered. She can’t pinpoint when it all happened, but class periods seem shorter and lunch stopped being something to get through. Granted, it’s mainly because of Hanbin introducing her to her friends, Hanbin showing her favorite spots on school grounds, Hanbin telling her little loopholes in the school rules (she still claims that it’s her being ‘strategic’ despite Hao’s teasing) — truth be told, Hanbin really is Hao’s savior.
It’s quite bad how dependent she’s become on Hanbin, if Hao thinks about it. She finds herself latched onto Hanbin more often than not— like a duckling following its mother. Even Hanbin’s friends tease that she hangs out more with Hao than with them, which makes Hanbin apologize profusely and Hao giggle uncontrollably.
“We only share one class together,” Hanbin grumbles, fanning her cheeks as if that’ll dull their flush. “How am I hanging out with you more than them? I share classes with them too.”
Hao joins in fanning her cheeks, leading Hanbin to swat her hands away with a growing pout. “Well, maybe it’s because we hang out a lot after classes, she muses, pinching Hanbin’s cheek instead. It’s hot under her touch.
“Maybe,” Hanbin mumbles, her eyes drawn everywhere but to Hao. “But you also hang out with Taerae a lot more than me, so.”
“We just share a handful of classes,” Hao says slowly. She can’t help ducking down to look at Hanbin’s adorably flushed face from below. “What about it?”
Hanbin’s eyes are still resolutely stuck looking everywhere-but-Hao and Hao really, really wants to change that. “Cat got your tongue?” she comments sweetly, her eyes crinkling into crescents. “Y’know, you’re acting like a jealous girlfriend right now.”
“So what?”
Hao blinks. “Huh?”
“So what if I’m jealous?” Hanbin says a bit louder this time, her eyes flicking over to finally meet Hao’s. “Maybe I’m acting like how I want to be.”
Hao feels her brain short-circuiting in real time. “Huh?”
“Maybe I’m acting like how I want to be,” she repeats, her tongue hugging each syllable. “Like how I want to be your girlfriend.”
“Oh,” Hao manages to say, which is honestly a feat considering how red she’s turning. “Well, if that’s the case, you should take me out on a date first.” She pauses before blurting out the rest. “Then I’ll think about it.”
Hanbin blinks in a way that’s so wide and cute and makes her eyes as shiny as stars. Her words are more breath than enunciation. “Really?”
A sudden wave of embarrassment crashes over Hao and she can only nod in response, her words dying in her throat. Hanbin’s eyes widen to the point that Hao worries they’ll pop out and her jaw unhinges just as much. “Really?” she asks again. “You really want to go out with me? In the future? Near future?”
There’s a small bit of courage that Hao seizes before her throat closes up. “We can go right now,” she manages to say.
“That’s really soon,” Hanbin says, and Hao can feel her heart jump to her throat as she waits for her to finish. “But let’s do it.”
Hao nods a tad too eagerly and she prays that Hanbin’s giggle is because she finds it cute and not pathetic. “We can go to that cafe that you wanted to check out?”
“We can go to that cafe I want to check out,” Hanbin repeats reverently, looking at Hao like she just interpreted the secrets of the universe. There’s a tingle in the back of her mind that makes Hao so inexplicably pleased. She beams, and Hanbin mirrors her. “Let’s go. Now, please.”
One thing leads to another and Hao finds herself stumbling into a cafe she’s seen only on Hanbin’s phone, tugged along by that very girl — future girlfriend? — all the way to the register. Hanbin skims the menu and immediately orders right after: an iced americano and a strawberry shortcake. Hao takes a bit longer, twirling her hair idly as she orders an iced caramel latte with extra caramel. She tries to pay, but Hanbin beats her to it. “You can pay next time,” she placates, sending another pleased zip down Hao’s spine. She acquiesces.
They take a seat right next to the windows, the sunlight perfectly illuminating the girl in front of Hao. It’s almost like Hanbin’s straight out of a manhwa. Hao quickly glances down at her pastel blue homescreen and fiddles through a couple of apps: she doesn’t need to be caught staring. It feels like decades and seconds all at once, but when Hao looks up from her phone, their order is already on the table on the cutest silver tray.
“You seem like the type who’d like this,” Hao comments, tapping on the side of Hanbin’s iced americano, “but why the cake?”
Hanbin takes a small sip before turning her attention to the shortcake. “Do you remember Ricky?”
“Mhm,” Hao hums, whisking away Hanbin’s fork before stealing a bite of the cake. It’s delightfully sweet and spongy and light and it makes Hao twirl her fork in joy. “I share my history class with her.”
Hanbin simply lets her eat her cake with a smile on her face. “She recommended this cafe,” she explains. “Told me to get it if I came here, so I did.”
She takes another bite and twirls her fork in delight again. “I will give her my first born,” she proclaims, causing Hanbin to double over in giggles. She straightens up to reach for Hao’s fork to presumably take a bite, but Hao beats her to it and holds it out for her. She tries not to watch Hanbin’s lips wrap around the metal, but it’s hard not to when it’s all she can think about. Instead, she occupies herself with feeding Hanbin more of her cake and thinking of anything else but her lips.
“You’ve been really busy lately,” Hao blurts out, the words being the first to come to her mind besides wow her lips are so pretty, I need to kiss them now.
Hanbin blinks up at her, pulling back before replying a beat late. “Oh, it’s not much,” she says, tucking her hair away. Her bangs peek out from under her ear. “I’ve just been picking up Areum for the last week. Since my parents are busy and all.”
“Areum?” Hao asks.
“My little sister,” Hanbin explains. “She has practice almost every day after school, so I pick her up.”
“Practice?” Hao rests her chin in her palm. “Like, sports practice?”
“Soccer, usually,” she says, taking another bite of her cake. “Tennis is mostly on the weekends.”
“Two sports, huh,” she comments, tapping her finger on her cheek. “Overachieving really does run in the family.”
Hanbin flushes red like the strawberry in her cake. “You’re exaggerating.”
Hao bites into a strawberry in her cake. “I’m not.”
“You are!”
“I’m not.”
“You—” Hanbin huffs before turning away, covering her flushed cheeks with her hands. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re really pretty,” Hao blurts out against her better judgement.
Hanbin shifts her hands to cover her whole face and lets out a muffled sound that sounds like an amalgamation of embarrassment, flattery, and disbelief. Hao has to bite her lip in order to not giggle, but the smallest bit slips out against her better judgement. Hanbin slides her hands down her face and follows their path into the table, pressing her forehead down as she resolutely attempts to calm down. “Hao,” she manages to say, lifting her head up a tad in order to look her in the eye. “Do you want to come over for a bit?”
Hao blinks, mid-sip of Hanbin’s iced americano she pilfered. “Like, to your house?”
Hanbin nods against the table. “I have an hour before I need to pick up my sister from soccer practice,” she explains. “Maybe we could hang out until then?”
Hao would blame her drink for making her cheeks so warm, but she’s sipping on a cold drink, so that excuse doesn’t work. “Alright,” she says. “I don’t have anything better to do, anyway.”
Hanbin beams at her, her expression half-smushed against the table, but it’s sincere and adorable nonetheless. Her features are permanently fixed with joy for the entire trek over to her house (she lives closer than Hao thought — all Hao needs to do is turn right earlier instead of walking straight down). It’s a nice house, Hao can admit; there’s really no other descriptive factor for it other than that. Hanbin fumbles with her keys for a solid minute once they walk up the steps to her door, but eventually she gets the door open with the right key and they walk into the Sung family’s cozy, lived-in living room, where a fluffy white dog lays and perks up the moment its eyes land on Hanbin. It scurries over, chuffing and snuffing at Hanbin before turning its gaze towards Hao.
“This is Bori,” Hanbin says, patting its furry head. “Bori, this is Hao.”
Hao crouches down and extends her hand so Bori can sniff it. She guesses that Bori is pleased with what she smells, because she noses into her hand with great enthusiasm. Hao giggles and gently scratches under her chin, and by how much her tail is wagging, she guesses that Bori likes it a lot.
“You’re doing a good job at handling Bori,” Hanbin comments, causing Hao to squeak in surprise. “Do you have any pets at home?”
Hao blinks up at her before turning her full attention to petting Bori with both hands. “No,” she answers after a beat. “It’s hard to have a pet when you move a lot.”
Next thing she knows, Hanbin is kneeling next to her. “You moved before?”
“Several times,” Hao says with a shrug. “My parents have to move a lot ‘cause of their job.”
They say nothing for a while; Hao’s hands are buried in Bori’s fur and Hanbin just watches them quietly. Hao knows the question that must be on the tip of her tongue, but she refuses to answer it. “They promised they wouldn’t move this year,” she says instead. “Since it’s my last year of high school and we haven’t moved for two years or so. But then they picked up a contract that was too good to say no to, so...”
“...they broke their promise,” Hanbin says softly, filling in the blanks.
Hao just nods curtly, busying herself with petting Bori, who chuffs in approval. “They’re never home,” she murmurs. “They just send me money for groceries and rent.”
“Do you think they might feel guilty?”
Hao shakes her head. “If they did, they should’ve just left me at our old place.” She scratches under Bori’s chin. “But they didn’t, so. That’s just how things are.”
Hanbin just watches on at a seeming loss of words. Hao feels a small trickle of shame travel down her spine. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” she says, fussing with the fur under her hands. “We can talk about something else.”
“No, it’s okay,” Hanbin replies, shockingly quickly. Her eyes are set and hard, but it’s in a way that’s startlingly kind. “Thank you for telling me.”
Hao stares at her, pausing her ministrations. “Oh,” she says.
Her eyes become even kinder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says, blinking back tears. “Nothing at all.”
Hanbin takes her at her word and they go back to chatting as if nothing is wrong at all. She even leaves the house early so she can drop Hao off at her house before going to pick up her sister — the revelation sparks a flush across Hao’s face and butterflies in her gut.
They reach Hao’s house with minimal fanfare. “We really do live closer than I thought,” she says, fishing out her keys from her pocket.
“We do,” Hanbin agrees, watching Hao intently as she takes her time opening her door. There’s silence as her front door creaks open, then Hanbin turns to her and smiles. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah,” Hao says breathlessly, hoping Hanbin didn’t see her fumble with her keys while opening the door. “See you.”
Hanbin lingers at her doorstep, prompting Hao to ask what’s wrong, but before the words leave her mouth, Hao finds her hand in Hanbin’s and lifted up against her lips. Her mouth is warm against her knuckles. “Bye,” Hanbin says, then she’s off and running down the street.
Hao may be flustered beyond belief, but even she can still laugh loud enough to echo against the pavement.
They get together eventually. Hao’s more surprised that it didn’t happen sooner, because ever since that day, Hao somehow sees Hanbin even more frequently. They walk to school together (Hanbin’s always on her doorstep despite how Hao lives farther away — she asks her and Hanbin tells her that she’s always up early anyway), walk to classes together if they meet up in the hallway, and walk to Hanbin’s dance practice or back to Hanbin’s house or anywhere else they want to go. Sometimes they’ll go with the rest of Hanbin’s friends, but recently it’s been only them two.
At some point, it’s only natural for Hao to ask Hanbin what they are, so she does on the way home from school. Hanbin responds by turning over to her with her eyes wide and round and Hao thinks she messed up. “Did I say something wrong?”
Hanbin still stares at her, unblinking, and Hao is about to repeat herself before she speaks. “Do you mean it?”
It’s Hao’s turn to stare now. “Do I mean it,” she repeats incredulously. “I’m asking the girl I’ve had a crush on since I saw her what we are, and she thinks I’m joking?”
She’s not that upset, but it’s still funny how Hanbin’s hands immediately start waving around to convey her denial. “No, no, that’s not it!” she exclaims, her voice pitching up into a near-wail. “I really like you and I want to date you! Really!”
The confession sends a zip down Hao’s spine. “Then I guess you should prove it, right?”
Hanbin stares at her, her lips deliciously parted and wide and next thing she knows, Hao finds those very lips pressing against her cheek. She can feel her pulse in her ears as she wraps her arms around Hanbin’s neck. “I think you missed.”
Hanbin’s blush travels all the way from the tops of her cheeks to below her shirt collar — her eyes flit around to look everywhere but Hao. It’s quite cute. “Oh,” she says. There’s a short pause in between her words. “Where do you want me to…”
Hao pouts, looking up through her lashes. “Guess.”
Hanbin’s response tumbles out of her lips with absolutely zero grace. “Your…mouth?”
There’s a zing of brazen confidence that makes Hao lift her finger and tap Hanbin’s bottom lip. It’s absurdly plush. “Bingo,” she says with a satisfied smirk. “I hope you like strawberry.”
Her eyes are wide as a deer in headlights and Hao can find nothing cuter. “I do, but why?”
Hao flicks her eyes down, then up, then she responds by kissing Hanbin squarely on the lips. The kiss is chaste, sweet, and Hao can suddenly understand what all of those romance manhwas were getting at, because the kiss sends goosebumps across her skin and fireworks exploding behind her eyes.
It’s over too soon as Hanbin pulls back, her voice breathy and sending a jolt of something down Hao’s spine. “We’re dating now, right?”
She pouts harder. “No, I kissed the girl I have a crush on just for fun.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Hanbin says quickly, a sheepish grin stretching across her face. “I just…can’t believe it.”
If Hanbin can’t believe it, then Hao doesn’t know what she can believe either. “I guess you should start believing it,” she says in lieu of her own disbelief, “because I want an apology from your mouth.”
Hanbin opens her mouth and Hao immediately shushes her with her finger. “Not verbally.”
She opens her mouth again, her lips parting in a cute ‘o’ as she realizes. “Ah, right, sorry,” Hanbin sputters.
“Hanbin,” Hao chides. “Stop apologizing and kiss me.”
“Right, sorry,” Hanbin says immediately afterwards. Hao is about to scold her again, but it’s hard to do that when someone is kissing you so sweetly — all of her thoughts melt into fluff and flutter by the time she pulls away.
“Again?” Hanbin asks, her lips delightfully red and an eager note in her voice.
Hao laughs, the sound bubbling out of her before she can stop it. “Don’t ask silly questions.”
That’s the last word either of them gets in for the next while, but it's not like they’re complaining despite it all. By the time they pull apart, Hao feels like she lived through ten different loops while floating through cotton candy clouds. “You’re mine now,” she says softly, the words tumbling out of her throat before she can stop it.
Hanbin grins, rubbing her nose cutely against Hao’s. “In every universe?”
Hao smiles back. “Of course,” she replies. “Again, don’t ask silly questions.”