Hanbin is scary.

The intensity of his gaze.
The raw veracity in his words.
The sheer passion in his moves.
The way he exist.

Hanbin is scary.

That what Jinhwan thought the first time he saw him, clad in all-black sport attire, shouting his introduction to the seniors. There is no shyness nor hesitance, no nervous laugh and embarassed grin. There are no shades of green like the sprouting beans which are his peers.

Stoic, bold, and gallant.

Hanbin frightened him somehow.

Jinhwan is no social butterfly, but he knows he has this force which draws people in. Taehyun said it is the way he emanates purity. Jinwoo said it is his tiny and child-like figure. Jinhwan thinks the hyungs are just overreacting.

It is somewhat true, though. Because when the juniors come flocking the club, he is the one they immediately stick by. The one they ask first for consolation, the one they look for in case of exhaustion.

Jiwon already thinks of him as his mental pillar eventhough they only know each other for a month.

Hanbin is different.

Jinhwan is more like a playmate than a senior. One look for him to find distraction from the tiring practice instead of asking for pointers. With him it is all fun and laughter. And Hanbin apparently does not need so. As his friends come crowding Jinhwan and Jinwoo to joke around, the new setter will come looking for Seungyoon or Mino, discussing strategy and evaluating their moves as if physical strain is not already hard enough.

In the end, even when Hanbin made his way as a regular, Jinhwan never gets close to him.

“Oh, you are a good friend with Hanbin?” Jinhwan asks, a little bit surprised. Jiwon raises an eyebrow in response, mouth still busy munching on his food. Jinhwan is not really sure when hanging out with the kid begins to be a natural part of his day.

After a moment of chewing and swallowing, Jiwon finally speak up. “Why? Is it that shocking? I’ve been friend with him since forever.”

“Well... you two just seem so.... different?” Jiwon is playful and clingy, a fun guy to chill out with. Hanbin, on the other hand, is always so serious and distant. Jinhwan swears the kid only knows how to play volley and nothing else—not even why the sky is blue, or what twitter is.

Hearing his explanations, Jiwon bursts out laughing—loud and clear. Jinhwan does not understand what’s so funny.

“That’s because you only know him inside the court, hyung. He is just a sixteen year old boy like me on the outside. He is crazy about volleyball, yeah, that much is true. But other than that he is a completely normal guy who is fun to hang out with.” Jinhwan nods his head, not believing a word. “See, he is actually an avid fan of Haikyuu, and one day....”

Jinhwan spends the next two hours listening to Jiwon blabbering about his ‘adventures’ with Hanbin, crackling at the silly stories of the two he shares. At that moment, Hanbin almost seems common. Definitely not intimidating.

But when he hears the younger shouting the direction at him the next day, eyes staring intently—almost glaring, Jinhwan find himself cowering behind Taehyun for just a little bit.

Hanbin is scary.

*****

The more he listen to Jiwon’s stories, the more he is convinced that the Hanbin they know is a completely different person. Maybe, there exist a lag or a hole in the space and they are talking about two totally unrelated person.

Or maybe he need to stop reading science fictions.

Jinhwan is not sure why, but their conversation always ends up touching the subject of Hanbin. (“You are the one who mentioned him first, hyung.” Jiwon argues, but Jinhwan does not like to think so). In the end, he knows a little too much about someone he has not had a decent conversation with.

“Hyung! Jinhwannie-hyung!”

It is hard to claim that he does not see him when Jiwon is excitedly flailing his hands and shouting at the top of his lungs. So despite wanting to go home so bad, Jinhwan changes his course and walks to the younger instead. Yunhyeong is just standing beside the hyperactive boy with a tired smile, maybe, he gets to much secondhand embarassment to last a lifetime.

“Let’s eat out with us! We gonna eat free meats at Yunghyeongie’s restaurant!”

The prospect of a free meal—meat, especially—is a total game changer, and without much thinking Jinhwan is already trailing behind them. What he fails to realise is that ‘we’ includes no other than Kim Hanbin in the mix. It is not that he hates him, or dislikes him at any means. But walking beside someone who just less than two hours ago was mercilessly critisizing your every move can be somewhat uncomfortable.

“Hey, let me look at your Math homework. You also get Ms. Kwon, right?”

“If you buy me the next volume of Haikyuu, then we get the deal.”

Jinhwan watches the banter between the two bestfriends with mild amazement, only half paying attention to Yunhyeong’s lament about his Biology class. Being outside the court, Hanbin can sure laugh.

And it looks nice.

“Yah, hyung, are you listening?”

Giving back his attention to the poor boy, Jinhwan listens as Yunhyeong recites the story of that one time they had to dissect a frog, and how everyone freaked out—turning the laboratorium into a complete chaos.

Hanbin’s laughter playing as a nice tune in the background.

Hanbin is scary.

But he is also quite a gentleman.

In the middle of Jiwon and Yunhyeong’s boisterous joking, and him being completely sidetracked, the younger held the door open for him, stepping back to let him choose a seat first, and even pull the chair out for the older. All in bold, but somehow awkward manner.

He is an attentive and respectful junior like this.

It is not that Hanbin is disrespectful. Jinhwan knows that he respects his seniors a lot. But in term of practice, and volleyball in general, he observes that Hanbin is not one to glorify s. Hanbin believes in experience and skill, and he respect those who have it more than him. Jinhwan realises he is lacking in lot of parts, but even Hanbin listen to his advice if it is within his field of expertise.

Maybe he is just too serious, and Jinhwan have not had the chance to know what lies beyond.

“Hyung, your meat is burning.”

Jinhwan jolts back from his musing, crushed by the sight of the poor meat laying unattended on the grill. With a series of whiny ‘why don’t you tell me earlier’ ‘you ungrateful brats’ ‘my poor precious meat’ he tries to salvage whatever remains from his share. The others casually laughing at the mathyung’s cute reaction.

From the corner of his eyes, Jinhwan can see Hanbin chuckling. Lips and eyes and everything forming a beautiful carving on his habitually cold face.

(He is definitely blushing from embarassment, nothing else.)

(Not even when Hanbin extends his chopstick to reach for his meat, and swap it with his own)

“Did you hurt yourself?”

Jinhwan stops himself from talking to Jiwon, tracing to where Hanbin is intently looking at. On his right hand, just beneath his thumb, lies a visible gash.

“Oh, this?” He raises his palm to indicate the cut. “Just something I got during practice, nothing serious.” Unlike the other, his battle is not high in the air, but low on the ground. A mere scratch like that is nothing special, the usual outcome of his day-to-day interaction with the hardfloor.

Hanbin, though, is currently wearing his scary face. Looking dissaprovingly at Jinhwan before searching for something in his bag.

“What?”

“Hanbin is someone who believes that a cut can lead into infection which may damage your hand and thus affect your performance.” Yunhyeong kindly supplies, an amused grin on his face. “I had the honor to be in the same team with him in middle school, so I know it firsthand.”

Still has not completely grasp the whole idea of this banter, Jinhwan absentmindedly let Hanbin takes his hand and tends the seemingly insignificat wound.

(He is NOT blushing.)

The night finally ends when they realise there is still school tomorrow (and practice, for Hanbin at least). The night is already beyond dark when they bid their goodbyes to the sleepy Yunhyeong, thanking his parents for the free meal. The night air feels cold through Jinhwan’s uniform.

Fall is coming, he should start to bring his coat.

His eyes soon fall to the two freshmen walking in front, Jiwon still negotiating the price of Hanbin’s homework in exchange of some comic books. He sees a lot of different sides of them today, well, of someone in particular. It would be lying to say that he is not awkward anymore with Hanbin, but at least there is a start somewhere tonight.

“I’ll go this way then.”

The two of them stop and turn back. Jiwon giving him an exaggerated hug before running away, escaping his upcoming wrath. Hanbin only chuckles at his bestfriend’s antics.

“Then I’ll go that way, hyung.”

It turns out that Hanbin and Jiwon are neighbors. It explains how the two of them could be so close.

“Okay, goodbye Hanbin.” Jinhwan gives him a smile before walking away.

The night sure is cold.

Jinhwan is about to complain when he feels something heavy being draped around his head and shoulders. A nice musky scent suddenly flooding his nose.
It is warm.

“Don’t catch a cold, hyung.”

Hanbin frowns at him before walking away. His black hoodie now engulfing Jinhwan with its unfamiliar—but not unwelcomed—comfort. Leaving the latter breathless.

Hanbin is scary.

And he might have stolen the last piece of something from Jinhwan’s chest.
(Is it his breath?)

_____________________________________________________________________________

I think this will be the last prequel... and now that you all know how it all started, maybe I'll write some sequels...

But I'm not promising anything...hahaha

I hope you all enjoyed this one!