The 1 Rule - haobin

escape room

I walk calmly towards the address Cho has sent me, feeling excited to do something that I have always longed to do. I feel a sudden urge to run, overwhelmed by excitement, but a sudden foreboding for the event is yet to come.

An escape room.

Something I have wanted to do ever since I was young, ever since I was a teenager. An escape room in which I was bound to experience its adrenaline just days after the incident. Therefore, some feeling that I never underwent.

As I approach the lengthy but small establishment, I clear my throat and run my hand through the hair I brushed carefully. I open the door to the building and smile once I see Ricky and Gyuvin, along with Cho and... Zhang Hao?

"Hanbin, what took you so long? We were about to enter without you!" Ricky says, coming over to me and hitting my arm weakly.

"Sorry, I slept more than I intended to," I say, pushing Ricky off me. Nevertheless, he takes my arm once again.

"Really? Because I swear I see your hair looking a lot better than other days," he says, laughing before poking my chin "And is that makeup I see?" I shove him away by pushing at his face while giving something that I hope looks like an irritated look.

"Whatever. Do you blame a guy for wanting to look good?"

"Kinda," Gyuvin says, touching my hair and probably making it look messy "Send me your hair care products."

"Shut the fuck u-"

"Alright, alright! But please, also send me whatever makeup you use!" he replies, laughing after seeing me get even more annoyed.

"Anyways! Hanbin, I brought Hao along as well." Cho says, cutting off whatever I was about to say

"Why?" I ask, still slightly annoyed at the boy for lying to me.

"My mom forced me to bring him. In her opinion, he needs a distraction from school work," she says, whispering to me while looking at the boy on his phone.

"Couldn't he have just gone somewhere by himself?"

"Not really, all of his friends are studying, and it's not like Hao would like to hang out with them," she says. I look at the boy but look away once he notices me.

"Alright then. Should we get going then?" I ask, looking at Ricky. He nods and we walk to the rooms

"Alright, there are two rooms. How do we separate" Cho says, looking at me.

"Let's just choose a number between one and two. We need to be three and two" Hao says quietly, making us turn our heads towards him. His voice seems different from when I first met him. Back then, he sounded more... extroverted?

"I like that idea," Gyuvin says. We count to three and show our numbers. I look around only to notice that the only people who chose number one are me and Cho's brother.

"Guys, I don't like this lineup," Cho says, pouting.

"Well, that's too goddamn bad. Come one, stop being such a baby," says Gyuvin, dragging Cho away after waving at me and Zhang Hao.

"Alright, let's go to that one," I say awkwardly, pointing at the only room left. Hao nods and walks towards it, opening the door and waits for me to enter first.

♡♡♡

short chapterrr

I made it short for a reason so dw dw it'll all come tmr

soooo therefore it might mean that there will be more interactions between Hao and Hanbin????? I don't know 🤷

kinda weird that the title is like that for this chapter rather than for the next one isn't it?

But anways pls look forward to it :)

(stream 'topline' by stray kids)