Iâm thinking back to when I said hongbin is so superhero love interest coded to me and the more I think about it the more I think this is a very specific character archetype in my head and hongbin truly does fit it perfectly. Especially after aggregating several different cases, I feel like a classic heroâs love interest (and my favorite kind) is a skeptical, logical, no-nonsense character who through no desire of their own finds themselves roped into the heroâs clumsy escapades in their effort to fight evil and prove themselves. Usually because theyâre being targeted by a villain, but often also just because the hero is enamored by them and follows them around like a lost puppy, also painting a huge target on their back⊠a lot of the times itâs also because their own natural curiosity draws them towards danger. bonus points if their relationship with the hero is begrudging at best and they donât take them very seriously at all since theyâre kind of a loser outside of all that saving the world stuff. Then they actually find out about the heroâs double life and start having weekly heart attacks over the amount of casual peril they regularly puts themselves in. Plus the idea of hongbin being a recurring damsel in distress is so fun.
Like picture Hakyeon being this basic office worker whoâs all nice and pleasant and effortlessly charms all his coworkers with his disarming harmless energy but then thereâs his one coworker Hongbin who never laughs at any of his jokes or even greets him when they pass by each other and he swears heâs seen Hongbin eyeing him warily in meetings when he hasnât even said anything. Hakyeon who basically thrives on being unassuming and lovable (in an effort to divert suspicion away from his secret identity) is thoroughly lost and cannot figure out with this Hongbin guyâs deal is.
One day at the office, Hakyeon approaches Hongbin whoâs by the coffee machine and tries chatting him up, as usual. Hongbin is, well, mildly put-off and guarded as ever. Hakyeonâs in the middle of talking about the new family-owned restaurant across the street that heâs been looking forward to trying out when he looks down to point (they work in a tower) and notices one of his weekly villains running around the streets, clearly preparing something nefarious, like kidnapping a cat or robbing a family-owned restaurant. He straightens and finds an out in the conversation to excuse himself, not noticing Hongbinâs eyes narrowing, following him.
So Hakyeon does his thing and takes care of this situation like the efficient hero he is and gets back to work at record speed, only now thereâs definitely a pair of eyes on him more often than before even as heâs typing away at his desk doing some mundane work. See, Hakyeon had become a master of disappearing without really alerting anyone since he first started this whole hero gig, and his friends hardly even notice anymore, much less his coworkers, but clearly Hongbin was onto him now, for⊠something, even if he had done absolutely nothing to warrant that suspicion. In his underlying stress, he decides to approach Hongbin after work to scope out whatâs happening. Only heâs an idiot and heâs trying to come up with some kind of super subtle CIA script in his head to extract information in the least suspicious way possible so he ends up following Hongbin for like five minutes formulating what to say.
In the middle of pondering whether it would throw Hongbin off enough to ask something stupid like how much he likes him on a scale of one to ten, a villain dashes out from an alleyway and attacks him, right before Hakyeonâs eyes, clearly intending to rob him. He changes into his costume in no time and manages to best the villain, scaring the guy away, but then heâs left with a scared-to-death civilian Hongbin on the verge of a panic attack, so Hakyeon being the good guy he is practices breathing exercises with Hongbin until he can catch his breath. Once everything settles down it occurs to Hakyeon that heâs been using his real voice this whole time so he awkwardly puts on his fake deep voice, maybe even throws a British accent in there, but Hongbin is giving him the strangest more surveying look and he canât even fathom the mess he mightâve just made for himself so he just cuts it short and prays that Hongbin develops stress-induced amnesia or something and dashes away.
He doesnât.
i think the most important part abt it for me is that he truly does not give a fuckkk. at most he will complain about it and call you an idiot and make jokes in ill taste (and worry himself sick in private but thats his own issue)
->hakyeon comes into work after some horrible disaster having to keep up the charade. out of everyone hongbin clocks him immediately like âdamn who diedâ and hakyeon just looks at him with an amount of grief that is NOT appropriate for 8am on a friday morning and NEITHER of them can do anything about it. bc u cannot cite a family emergency every time u hold someone taking their last breath or glimpse them be crushed by falling debris while youre fighting for your OWN life. yet every time hakyeon takes it personally and internalises it as his fault.
/frankly at this point hongbin is just waiting for hakyeon to come out and say it because every day he scrambles to make excuses it just gets weirder and funnier. unrelated./
hongbin over here ALSO scrambling to make cia level excuses and make his feel better or die speech applicable to civilian life bc again this is like at the fucking coffee machine
âyou can't be perfect no matter how much you try. you cant save everyone. With. Your work. Deadlines.â both aware of how stupid he sounds. but unfortunately it does work and hakyeon has to take a seven minute bathroom break to cry and put the mask back on. and every one of those seven minutes is also filled with hongbin cringing to himself.
No bcs the next time Hakyeon comes into work heâs worked himself into a little stress ball thinking Hongbinâs going to tell everyone what he figured out but everything is so distressingly normal and Hakyeon has to go the entire week on edge because Hongbin isnât acting any different than before, he still mostly ignores him and shuffles away from the coffee machine quickly when Hakyeon is nearby and doesnât listen to him in meetings. Maybe... he really did develop stress-induced amnesia? Hakyeon can only hope.
Only a few weeks later Hakyeon has been running himself particularly thin lately and his brain is all over the place, he's coming to work late today because he just spent his morning preventing a gang of thugs from robbing a homeless person and it took all the life out of him (he's not the kind of hero that's made to fight four people at the same time). He's hurrying his way into the office when he trips and the contents of his backpack end up spilling everywhere. He's scrambling to get everything back inside (especially because some of his hero gadgets are, um, currently all over the floor) when he notices Hongbin standing off to the side, just eyeing him. Presumably he had just been on his way to the bathroom or something when he came across Hakyeon stuffing his backpack full of weird tech.
Surprisingly Hongbin actually acknowledges him for once. He's like, "what's all that? do we have a new engineering project or something?" well aware that Hakyeon is in marketing. Anyway Hakyeon just blabbers something like "oh uh... I'm just dropping off some cosplay stuff for my niece when I get off work... hahaha... she's really into cosplay... it's crazy" and starts beating himself up in his head for being so incredibly careless (seriously, what is wrong with him today? his cover is usually impeccable) because if Hongbin wasn't suspicious before he definitely just sealed his fate now and he tries to brush it off and walk past him quickly to end the interaction as soon as possible. Only Hongbin actually steps in his way and after a few agonizing seconds he just goes "your collar is undone." and walks off after an awkward pause. Hakyeon looks down and realizes his suit is peeking out of his dress shirt and fixes it hastily.
It eventually gets to a point where they're both very obviously dancing around each other as Hongbin gets increasingly (and begrudgingly) invested. So like you were saying Hakyeon pulls up to the printer stressed out of his mind because a new villain just showed up and he has no idea how to beat this guy and Hongbin can tell that he's out of it and their nosy as fuck coworker Jaehwan is right around the corner so he starts saying some shit like "you know nobody expects the printer to be flawless right? i mean obviously, it has its job, but if a print comes out weird they just try again. sure paper gets wasted but only a printer can do a printer's job. so i'm grateful to the printer." and their IT guy Wonshik who happens to be walking by pops over and is like "is the damn printer acting up again? I swear I've been putting in a monthly request for a replacement, that thing is hopeless" and ruins the whole moment and Hongbin excuses himself so he can go scream into his arms about how embarrassing that whole thing was
The whole time Hongbin would rather die than admit he actually cares about whatever is going on. Eventually if they start dating Hongbin would complain about âhow hard is it to be a normal coupleâ and âcanât they just go on one stroll in the park without Hakyeon being on standbyâ but always attach a âjust kiddingâ at the end to make sure Hakyeon knows heâs chill and nonchalant like that. He doesn't really care that Hakyeon is this larger-than-life supernatural entity or whatever, but he's going to start getting gray hairs if he keeps putting his life at risk every weekend (not that he ever says this to the guy directly)
