Hanbin.

Atumn 2011

Before the song even reaches it's two-minute mark, a fist makes contact with the back of his head. It makes him yelp and due to embarrassment, he quickly covers his mouth and glares at the laughing senior beside him. His eyes are narrowed down on Kim Jinhwan with all the resent he could muster up right at that moment. His punch was meant to be a playful one, but it hurt a lot to Hanbin.

"What was that for?!" he whispers angrily at the older one. He's forced to pause the beautifully well-written song he was just listening to. It was a masterpiece, the song "The A Team" was. 

Jinhwan didn't seem to care about that, because his expression remains the same as he looks at Hanbin, grinning like a total idiot. "You weren't listening to me," he says, shrugging. "It was your own fault. Besides, I noticed something."

Hanbin removes his earphones from his head, rolling his eyes. Perhaps fanboying over this song and the artist to Jinhwan would have to wait, because now the mood was ruined for whatever "something" Jinhwan had noticed. Hanbin would have to listen to the song again later on. "Noticed what? That I grew three more inches than you over the summer?"

"Don't make me hit you again, Hanbin." Jinhwan warns, seriousness coating his voice. But it doesn't last long because serious Jinhwan is practically non-existent. There's carefree Jinhwan, or breezy Jinhwan, or 'I don't give a ' Jinhwan, but never really a serious Jinhwan. If there is, it'll only be for a few seconds. Like now. Not a second later, he's looking at Hanbin with those half-lidded eyes, and a full-on smirk again.

"What happened? Are you over Lee Hayi?" he says, having the nerve to snicker over it. 

Hanbin would've laughed if he knew what he was talking about, but since he didn't, he kept his mouth shut and an eyebrow raised. "What're you talking about?" he says. They reach his locker, and he opens it first before Jinhwan continues.

"Nothing, I just... she just passed by us and she was looking at you the whole time. You didn't even give her a sideway glance, didn't you? She kinda looked crestfallen, Bin."

His hands try to find his Math textbook in the small space that is his locker. He picks up a hardbound covered book and looks at the front cover. "Well, that's because I didn't see her? Duh. I think it's just me, but she's gotten so small these days." he says airily before stuffing the book inside his bag. 

"Nobody shrinks in height, dummy." Jinhwan points out.

"Oh, I know," Hanbin closes his locker door and they make a u-turn for the gates. "But the part about Hayi being small is true though." 

"How about the part about you being over her? Eh?" Jinhwan pushes on, elbowing Hanbin by the sides. He pushes further on into the topic, because somehow, this intrigues and interests Jinhwan a lot. "Don't you even try to deny it. I see you all the time with her after our basketball games. You always seem cheery around her then."

Hanbin sighs like he's heard this a few more times before, which he has. "It's not like that, I don't like her that way." he says, getting to the point. He looks at Jinhwan, who's still wearing a goofy smile on his goofy face. Hanbin wants to wipe it off. He doesn't like the teasing. "Stop that. I just like annoying her, that's all. It's actually nice to know that I make her feel something, some people were wondering if she was really cold and emotionless from the start."

"But she's not, that's ridiculous."

"Exactly. They don't know her, like I do and I... I just want to make sure she's holding up okay." against his will, his voice softens at the last words. He doesn't realize those words are the truth, and that they came from inside. From his true thoughts and feelings. 

People always made a big fuss about the Lees, anything and everything about them seemed to interest the whole city. Hanbin didn't really like those people. People like Jiwon and the gossiping ahjummas. They just liked to stick their noses into everything that doesn't concern them, in which Hanbin totally disliked, perhaps even "hate". 

That's why he's trying to approach his old friend in a friendlier manner, unlike other people who slither in to their lives. Hanbin wants to show Hayi he's sincere, about everything, most especially about their friendship.

Up to now, as he thinks about it, he doesn't really know why they aren't close anymore. 

He wants to ask her that, too. 

From the corner of his eye, Jinhwan's eyebrows knit together in concentration. "What do you mean by that? Do you mean by the incident last winter?" 

Hanbin nods, a little too stiffly. "Yeah, exactly." it comes out as a sigh, and he also realizes he can't help himself from showing off what he really feels when he speaks so honestly to somebody. He gives himself away like that. 

"But, that didn't involve her, it was her brother, it was -"

Hanbin shoots him a look, and Jinhwan lowers his voice an octave or two. When Hanbin looks at him harder, he finally drops the topic. 

> ; <

At lunch the next morning, the cafeteria is like the inside of a hive. Everyone's talking, buzzing, busy making noise that Hanbin can't even hear himself think over the ruckus. He doesn't hesitate or scroll through his iPod to play a song this time, because one particular song kept tugging him by the sleeves of his clothes ever since last night. 

White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light's gone, day's end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

He sees Jinhwan pull the seat in front of Hanbin, and he only raises a hand for a greeting. He can't even hear Jinhwan say "hey", he can just see the way his lips moved. He has his iPod on full volumne, and it may absolutely ruin his ears later on, but he can still hear the buzz, buzz, buzzing of the student bees in the cafeteria. 

Jinhwan doesn't even bother to remove Hanbin's earphones, he just smiles at him and starts to eat without another word. 

And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since eighteen

He's chewing on the kimchi pancakes, when a familiar face walks past him. From the corner of his eyes, he sees a blurry, disfigured version of Hayi. 

He turns his head, and it's really her. 

Standing in line behind someone, a tray in her hands. 

She's just like everyone else.

But they look at her as if she's different. 

But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries

She seems to notice this too. She looks from left to right in a nervous manner that makes Hanbin frown at her uneasiness. The lunch line isn't that far away from where he's sitting, so he can clearly see the way she's playing with her fingers. 

She looks so small, so fragile, and so insecure that Hanbin is surprised. 

Even tough girls have weak spots. 

And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us

This tough girl leaves the cafeteria before she can even sit down and take at least one bite from her tray of food. Nobody runs after her, and Hanbin feels a little guilty. 

> ; <

The brick wall is hard and cold against his back as he continues leaning onto it, searching the faces of the students one by one who're walking out of the gates in ones, twos, threes, fours and more.

The apple in his hand is a little below a kilo, which makes it really big compared to his hand. As he waits and waits and waits, it gets heavier with time and he can almost feel his wrist limping. 

With his free hand, he lifts his wrist up and the watch strapped onto it tells him she should be walking out by now. Hanbin sighs, looking from left to right over and over, thinking that he simply had missed her and she was probably at her house by now. 

"She can't be," he mutters to himself, pushing the thought away. He tries to think positive, because he doesn't want to give the big- apple to Hanbyul. He spent what was left of his money on this big one, and he's not giving food to his sister again. She's going to be spoiled. 

Hanbin shakes his head at the thought, and when he refocuses his attention to the gates, Hayi comes out with a book covering half of her face. 

She walks right past him like the autumn breeze, and he goes chasing after her.

He has an idea in his head of throwing her the apple to catch her attention, but that idea goes away and out of his head when Hayi cranes her neck back, her eyes staring straight into his own. 

Hanbin stops in his tracks, blinking cluelessly at her for a few seconds before catching his senses. 

A smile automatically shows, he greets her with it. "Hey," 

She turns around, closing the book and tucking it under her arm like before. Her expression changes from wonder to irritation when she crosses her arms at him, her hip jutted out. "What now?" she says, although he notices the lack of spite in her voice. 

"Here," he lifts his hand up to show her the large apple, and her eyes go a little wide at the sight of it. "Catch." he throws it before he can second-think, and to his surprise, she catches it easily with both hands. She made it seem effortless. 

"What's this? You're giving me gifts now too, Hanbin?" she asks in a mocking manner. Her voice, however, is filled with curiosity that Hanbin thinks is too obvious to miss out on. 

He doesn't give her a direct answer, he just shrugs. "You didn't eat lunch. And besides, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, right?"

She doesn't respond for over a minute, so Hanbin's left standing there, grinning like an idiot in front of her expressionless face until his cheeks began to hurt. He stopped grinning and started frowning at her instead. 

Why was she making this so hard? 

"With this apple, I think it'd take two days to consume it." she finally says. A small, almost unnoticeable smile graces her face.

But Hanbn definitely noticed it. 

He definitely saw the upturning of her lips. 

"I'll see you later," he says, he starts walking backwards and when she turns around with a subtle nod and the ghost of a smile on her face, he turns around too and he walks the other way. 

He places a hand over his heart.

He feels nothing.

Just a steady beat. 

He knew he was right all along. 

> ; <

Hanbyul was eight, almost nine soon, but still she jumped into Hanbin's arms every time he came home from school. She did it on purpose all the time. And when that happened, he'd feel his knees weaken and wobble under her growing weight. 

This time, they almost collapsed against the door. 

"Hey, seriously, Hanbyul!" Hanbin complains, pushing her to the side as she giggles playfully like the kid she still is. He rolls her eyes at her. "Stop that, or next time I'm going to seriously topple over."

She sticks her tongue out. "You're just not strong enough. You're no man, oppa!" 

Hanbin glares at her, and she only laughs. From the kitchen, he can also hear his own mother laughing at Hanbyul's words. The ladies in this house think he's a joke. 

"Shut up," he mutters before heading to his room upstairs. 

"Hanbin-oppa,"

"What?"

"Did you bring a flower today?"

Hanbin walks slower. Then sighs. "Not today, Hanbyul." 

"It's okay," she says behind him. "There's always tomorrow,"

> ; <

fifth chapter is served. if there are any spelling errors, please tell me by commenting! i'm always needy for comments guys, don't be shy because i will respond and reply to you all. promise. by the way, i wanted to clear up that hanbyul isn't eight in real life. she's probably like five, or four right? but here, i wanted her to be a little older. so yeah. stick around for the next chapter. c: 

the a team