i have my favorite duos and all that which doesn’t really align with my opinion on their closeness ahaha but overall i view hanbin as much more of a glue to the group than hao! hao seems to be a bit more independent and from what he’s said i don’t think he was truly close with the yuehuaz before zb1. i don’t think i have the space to mention all the members so this will be a bit more of a general overview…

i think most if not all of the members have a good relationship which might still be ultimately based on proximity but i don’t think that’s a negative thing whatever

for hanbin (apart from hao) i’d say he’s truly close with matthew and gyuvin! i do wonder what their relationship is truly like in the sense of how honest hanbin can be with them, i get the feeling that hanbin likes to keep people at a certain arms length because he tries very hard to be kind and polite always so he struggled with voicing concerns and things like that. hao has alluded to this and hanbin has said that hao helped him be able to open up. hanbin also can sometimes treat both of them a bit childish despite not really have a huge age gap (more gyuvin than matthew) so i’m not sure if hanbin would actually like… go to them with his real problems. i feel like i’ll get jumped for saying this in accordance to mattbin fjrjdhdh but relationships are complex and you can have someone you’re extremely close to and still not be open with them in that way. since hanbin is the leader he’s kind of a role model for the other members, and if they’re all having a hard time i think hanbin would try to keep it in as to not burden them further. if they weren’t in the same group though the circumstances would be different but right now hanbin has a job to complete in a certain sense so i think he’ll try his hardest to keep it together at all costs for the other members, and that includes holding them at a certain distance. this reminds me of during that anniversary of BP when they were in the dorms again, yujin made a comment of never having seen hanbin cry, when both hanbin and hao have spoken about what a crybaby he is. obviously yujin is the youngest (and he also hasn’t shared a room with hanbin) so i’m not sure how much that dynamic would extend to the other members

hao i think has a certain separation with the members too but especially with the yuehua ones. he was older when he started training and met them while the other boys were pretty much kids and had way less life experience than hao. the way relationship hao has with yujin especially is very fatherly which i think is sweet, he doesn’t actually baby the yuehuaz though, just looks after them in a parental sort of way. again like hanbin i don’t think he would be open about his personal problems with them but i do think they have a good relationship! especially yujin now that they spend more time together but obviously there’s such a huge age gap there that it’ll likely never be a typical friendship unless they stay close many years into the future. with the other members i think hao is particularly fond of gunwook but again a more proximity based relationship (my gunhao roommates…) and him and taerae can get along well but never evolved past surface level! overall hanbin is closer friends with the members than hao!