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Han and Lee know sat in the back room of one of their favorite restaurants. It was nice that this place had somewhere that could be a little more private so that prying eyes wouldn’t intrude on their nights. They didn’t want to have to be aware of all the possible Stays or antis all the time. The pair was able to be more themselves. They sat on one side of the table with Han’s arm lazily interlocked with Lee Know's, both looking at their separate phone screens. One would occasionally laugh and hold up a phone for the other to see.
A waiter came in and set down four drinks on the table. “Are you both ready to order or should I wait until the whole party is here?”
“We can wait, they said they would be here soon.” Han smiled. He went back to his phone and pulled open his messaging app to see if there was any word from the friends who would be meeting them there. Finally the door opened again and Hanbin and Zhang Hao of the group ZeroBaseOne walked into the room and sat across from the couple.
“Hey, Minho hyung, thanks for meeting up with us. We really appreciate having someone to talk to about this stuff” Hanbin smiled as he pulled a chair out for Hao.
Han smiled “What a gentleman, why don’t you do stuff like that for me?” He poked his boyfriend.
“Well Hanbin is younger than Hao, so by that logic you should do it for me.” Minho smiled as he poked his boyfriend right back.
Hao’s ears started to redden as Hanbin finally sat down next to him, “I mean, he doesn’t do it all the time just when its the two of us…”
“The other members get jealous? We get that.” Minho laughed thinking about how many times the other kids groaned when Minho and Han were being ‘themselves.’ “So what was it that made you want to meet up?”
Hanbin took Hao’s hand in his “Well, I was talking with some of my old dance crew about our predicament, and they suggested reaching out to you saying you may have some insight.” He used his thumb to caress Hao’s hand, almost to soothe himself more than anything.
Han smiled at the rookie couple, “You need some advice about dating in the industry?”
“Yes” The two blurted out in unison.
Before the conversation could continue, the waiter came back in and took everyones food orders. Han and Minho couldn’t help but laugh when the other pair quickly pulled their hands apart at the inclusion of a new person in this room.
“Don’t worry,” Jisung reassured; “JYP owns part of this restaurant and if anyone talked, they would loose their job. and they’d probably be unable to work, anywhere in Korea…”
“Is JYP the mob or something?” Hao asked with a slight smirk.
Lee Know looked over at him, with no hint of a joke on his face, “Not officially.”
Hao looked over at Hanbin in time to miss Lee Know’s taunting expression, satisfied he had won a competition Hao didn’t know he was in.
“Jagiya, please don’t scare the kid too much…” Han laughed
“Kid?” Minho smiled at his boyfriend and finished his sentence with an almost sickeningly sweet air, “Jagiya, he’s the same year as you.”
Han’s eyes grew wide and his mouth hung open, “You're a 2000’s liner?” Hao nodded, “But you look so young! Whaaa!”
Hanbin looked back over at his seniors, “So how do you guys do it? Does your company know? How do you keep the fans from prying too much?”
Han settled back into his seat and looked over at his boyfriend, “It was almost all Hyung’s idea. Just be so obvious that people think it’s a big joke.”
“I had someone give me that same advice early on,” Minho smiled, “It worked like a charm for us.”
Han looked over at his boyfriend again “Wait, really?”
“Yeah,” Minho shrugged, “Minho and Key were really helpful when we first started out.”
Hao thought back to the day Key was a star master for boys planet, he for sure clocked that they may have a similar vibe, but Minho? That was a bit of a surprise. Then again, there were often jokes thrown their way that they were arguing ‘like an old married couple’. Maybe they weren’t ‘like’ anything.
“Ok, ok, make it obvious. We could do that.” Hanbin smiled. “We basically already have with that finale episode…”
Han started laughing to himself “Oh we’ve all seen the finale episode of Boy’s Planet…”
Lee know lightly elbowed him in the side while staring blankly at Hanbin as if nothing had happened.
“What?” Hao asked, “We just hugged and walked up together, right?”
“And the neck kiss?” Lee Know asked as if it was the most normal question in the world.
Hao’s entire face started to turn a lovely shade of red, even through his foundation Wake One wouldn’t let him leave the dorm without wearing. “Oh, that…”
“Have you thought about having a code word or phrase meaning you guys are hanging out?” Han asked excitedly; “We talk about the weather on bubble and fans go crazy now! It’s kinda cute.”
Hao pouted, “I’m afraid if our company caught on that could be an issue.”
Lee Know chuckled “Yeah, you guys gotta get that Gunwook kid to start making the same sorts of faces that he did during the first few episodes of Boys Planet to the staff, that's how you keep them out.”
“Yeah, Changbin makes the face he made at JYP during our survival show once and no one has ever messed with me and Minho again.” Han smiled. “He’s like our relationship’s personal guard dog.”
The waiter came back in with the boys' food and the conversation lulled a bit. After they got most of the way through their dishes Hanbin looked back up at the older couple “So when did you guys start dating?”
“About a year into the group?” Han almost thought out loud, “I liked him from the survival show but I thought it was just because I was so happy to debut as 9.”
Smiling at his boyfriend Lee Know chimed in; “I liked him from the first time I saw him in the practice room, but I thought he was straight.”
Hao sat up in his chair, “I thought the same thing about Hanbin because he was trying to be so, like, MNet ready or whatever!”
“Hey!” Hanbin interjected, “I got to the debut group this way!”
Hao flipped his nonexistent long hair “But I debuted at number one without it.”
“What about you two?” Han asked, “When did it become official?”
Hanbin took his boyfriend's hand in his again, “In between the Third stage and the finale during the show. I realized during Tomboy it wasn’t just a little crush that would go away, but that Hao was really important to me. When I thought there was a possibility that we wouldn’t debut together, I got really nervous and asked him to be my boyfriend.”
“It’s so nice that you asked him specifically to be your boyfriend.” Han smiled, “Minho Hyung just told me he loved me and assumed that meant we were dating. It wasn’t until two weeks later when I had a breakdown trying to figure out how to make it all work that he realized I wasn’t calling him my boyfriend yet.” Han stuck his tongue out at Lee Know to make sure he saw how much Han was trying to tease him.
Lee Know sighed, “One day he is going to let that go…”
“Never,” Han and Hao said in unison before busting into a fit of giggles.
Looking at his phone, Hanbin tapped his boyfriend, “Hey, Ricky just texted me. He and Gyuvin were messing around and broke another one of the plates in the dorm. He wants me to come and tell the staff.”
“Another plate?” Lee Know raised an eyebrow.
Hanbin sighed, “I really don’t know how they keep doing it but this is the fourth plate this month. I think the staff are going to stop buying nice ones and are going to buy us Pororo plates or something.”
“Jiwoong would love that,” Hao laughed
“You guys head on,” Han smiled. “It was really good seeing you guys, we should do this again!”
Hanbin nodded, “Absolutely, Thank you both for the advice and for just listening to us. It’s nice to have other couple friends that aren’t Matthew and Jiwoog. I love them, but they can be a lot.”
A look of horror crossed Hans face, “More than Lee Know and I? That's scary.”
************************
On the walk home back to the dorm, Hanbin and Zhang Hao remembered that they wanted to film a dance cover that evening. If they were going to do the whole make it obvious thing, it made sense to do the cover in front of one of the ads a Zerose had paid for. It was a nice way to thank the Zeroses who put their money into these ads for the boys.
They filmed and sent the video to the staff to post that evening without thinking much of when it would be posted. That next morning Hao and Hanbin woke up to a slew of notifications after their dance cover to Water by Tyla in front of an ad that said ‘Love is Love’ and had the two boys making a heart started making the rounds.
One notification in particular stood out to Hanbin from Lee Know. Just three words;
‘Not that obvious.’