where stars land | haobin

thirteen.

Hanbin rubs a towel over his hair with his free hand as he swipes on the touchpad of his laptop with the other, scrolling down his list of Facetime contacts to find Zhanghao's. It's a little past nine in Korea, which means in the States where Hao is, it's just about ten in the morning. Hao had compiled a list of the hours their timezones would match up, two days ago, and since he's just told Hanbin he's finished unpacking and settling in as of last night, it seems an appropriate enough time to give him a call.

The waiting bubble appears on the screen and Hanbin walks away to hang his towel up on the rack, and by the time he's situated back on the bed, cross-legged with his laptop in front of him, the call's been accepted and lags for a few seconds, still connecting.

"Hey," Hanbin says, smiling when Hao's face finally appears on the screen. "Good morning to you."

"Goodnight to you," Zhanghao answers. He's seated somewhere, a desk probably, and Hanbin can see the rest of his room behind him, a bed, a closet, a door, and his suitcase tucked away in a corner. "How are you?"

Hanbin, on second thought, moves so he's lying on his stomach. "I miss you. I don't think it's really set in that you're going to be gone four years yet. I think my brain still thinks you're just on a holiday or something, and you'll be back soon."

"I miss you too," Zhanghao answers. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to call earlier. It's been so hectic and I'm tired every day because I keep having to meet new people and I don't even have energy to do anything when I get back to my room."

Hanbin laughs. He knows how drained Hao gets when he's always around strangers; it's the reason why they are the way they are, Hanbin makes friends and takes Hao along with him for the ride. "It's okay. I hope you've been sleeping enough. Have you gone to see the school campus yet?"

"Yeah, they took us on a tour yesterday," Hao says, reaching over to grab something out of the camera's eye, a charger. "It's a nice place. We have to attend some classes there every week, but for now since we're only studying English they've mostly just given us some materials and told us to study at our own pace."

Zhanghao pans the camera over to show a stack of colorful paperback textbooks and a smaller book that looks a little like a dictionary. "This is seriously difficult. D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T. I feel like giving up. G-I-V-I-N-G-U-P."

Hanbin's caught off guard by the sudden stream of agonised spelling and bursts out laughing, collapsing onto his bed where he loses balance on his elbows. "Come on, you can do it. You've already learned two languages, what's one more?"

"That was when I was a child," Hao protests, groaning. "You know studies say it's much easier to learn languages as a child than as an adult, right?"

"But you'll do it anyway."

"Right." Zhanghao leans back in his chair, sighing. "I have to."

Hanbin nods slowly, then searches for a way to change the subject. "You know, Mrs Kim keeps accidentally pointing at Jeonghyeon to answer questions instead of Matthew," he begins, recalling the five separate times it'd happened in the past few days.

"Oh? How come?"

"Matthew moved over to your seat, remember? Which means the seat beside Taerae was empty," Hanbin explains. "Jeonghyeon and his deskmate didn't get along because his deskmate kept threatening to report him for using his Nintendo Switch under the table, so he moved over to take Matthew's old seat."

Zhanghao smiles. "I can see where this is going."

"Since Matthew is always sleeping or doodling things in class Mrs Kim got used to calling on him all the time, but she hasn't gotten used to the new arrangement yet so she keeps calling on Jeonghyeon by accident."

"Which is fair," Hao interjects. "Jeonghyeon doesn't really pay attention either. He's just that good at math he doesn't need to listen in class."

"Right? Mrs Kim always gets so shocked to hear the right answer, then she turns around and realises it's not Matthew," Hanbin laughs, shaking his head. "He gets away with it because I give him answers, but I wonder when she's going to get off Jeonghyeon's ass."

"Probably not anytime soon. Remember she spent the whole of last year calling me Zhangha?"

Hanbin collapses onto the bed laughing for the second time. Mrs Kim was a little old and apparently had some trouble remembering things; she'd mistakenly called Ricky Nicky for months back when she'd first become their teacher, and was entirely appalled to realise she was wrong halfway through the school year. "Yeah, I remember. She's so adorable, though, she's been teaching us for almost three years now."

He lays back on the bed and watches the headlights of occasional cars passing make long, sweeping patterns across the darkness of his ceiling. It's silent again, but it's comfortable, and as he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of leaves rustling in the night breeze outside his window, it almost feels like they're together, right next to each other, and nothing in the world is wrong.

"I wish you were here, Hao," he says slowly, not opening his eyes. It just feels wrong; he shouldn't be hearing Zhanghao's voice through earphones, shouldn't be seeing his face through a screen, shouldn't be straining his eyes to see his soulmate star because his soulmate's so far away that the star that once blazed with all its heart for them is barely a blip in the night sky.

Zhanghao's quiet for a long moment, but as he finally speaks, Hanbin feels the first of his tears roll down his cheek.

"I wish I were home."