Off-Screen (무대아래에서) | Haobin

Home (고향)

There are many moments when Hanbin isn't sure if he's leading a K-Pop group or raising children.

"Would the two of you please explain to me what you told our fans today?"

Ricky and Gyubin look at each other. Then, almost at once, they both shake their heads "no".

Hao Hyung is beaming, but trying to hide it behind his hand. Hanbin is regretting bringing him into this discussion, but... he needs an elder gay right now to give their younger members some real guidance.

"We're not mad." Hanbin tries not to show his stress.

"We're ecstatic, actually."

"No. We're not that either," Hanbin says slowly, side-eying Hao Hyung.

"I'm ecstatic..." Hao Hyung whispers to him, still hiding his smile behind one hand.

"You look mad, Hyung," Gyubin points out, looking at Hanbin. His smile is too mischievous. "Are you sure you're not mad?"

"If you two hadn't told our fans that you're boyfriends... I wouldn't be asking about it. If you want to date secretly, that's fine. But now that you've told our fans, we need to talk about it."

"I told them not to misunderstand," Ricky points out. "Our fans think we're joking. It's fine."

"You said that, but Gyubin's been calling you his boyfriend now. Repeatedly."

Hao Hyung's broad smile turns into a poorly suppressed laugh. He seems to make an effort to restrain himself when Hanbin side-eyes him again.

"Hyung... I'm going to excuse you if you don't stop that..." Hanbin whispers to him. Hao Hyung bites his smile and schools his expression into something... less excited, but still obviously happy. Hanbin turns back to their two little brothers, who are both smiling now.

"Are you joking?" Hanbin asks them straight. Gyubin doesn't look like he's taking any of this seriously. Ricky doesn't look stressed about it either, but maybe that's just because he's used to Hanbin scolding him at this point. It might be losing its effect... which is why he roped Hao Hyung into the conversation. Maybe they'll both listen to Hao Hyung instead of him.

Hanbin usually takes the approach of being attentive and loving with his members so that they have a strong bond and naturally don't want to disappoint or hurt him. Most of the time this strategy works well on both Ricky and Gyubin, so he only needs to scold them occasionally when they do something that's either bad for the group dynamic or simply not okay to do when they're in front of an audience. Gyubin is a chaos agent. Hanbin loves him dearly, but he's a 19-year-old goblin sometimes. And Ricky mostly makes mistakes because of language or cultural barriers that he hasn't managed to break down as thoroughly as Hao Hyung. Sometimes, like now, when the two of them work together to give him a headache... it's a true catastrophe.

"Hyung, are you making us come out to you?" Gyubin asks him. There's something just... not serious about his serious expression. Hanbin can't tell if he's messing with him.

"I'm not going to make you come out to me. But, I think you're misunderstanding how serious this could be."

"Everyone thinks it's a joke," Ricky repeats. "What does it matter if it is or it isn't, then? WakeOne isn't taking it seriously."

"You think our manager hasn't talked to me about this?" Hanbin asks them after a stunned moment. That seems to shake them. Gyubin loses his smile, and Ricky looks down at the ground, chagrined. "Well, she has. She wants to know if she needs to be on alert for damage control. You know we're not allowed to come out publicly. It's in our contracts."