Sanghyuk was really getting fed up with Hakyeon’s inability to be on time whenever they tried to meet up.

Hakyeon had said they’d meet for lunch at 1 p.m. and Sanghyuk knew that meant he would have to depart at 1.15 so that he would only have to wait about five minutes for his friend to arrive. He did that, and when Hakyeon didn’t show up five minutes later and neither did he reply to any of Sanghyuk’s messages, Sanghyuk decided to go down into the subway to wait for Hakyeon in front of the metro entrance.

He looked around before leaning against a column, recognizing that Hakyeon wasn’t among the people hurrying through the underpass, neither those that were queuing up in front of the ticket machine, nor those that were hopping off the escalator. Sanghyuk sighed and looked down onto the phone in his hand, checking all of his social media for the millionth time, and swiping the menu left and right when he had nothing better to do. He was doing that for a few seconds, but then he heard a melody that he had been hearing since he entered the underpass, but only now did it hit him, the words floating around in the air as someone sang:

“There stands a guy—so handsome,

Tapping away on his phone, looking bored,

And I can only hope he has some

Spare change on him that he can afford

To give a poor young man like me.”

The song ended with a surprisingly well-executed high note, the ‘e’ at the end of ‘me’ drawn out, and Sanghyuk looked up from the tiny screen, his eyes locking with two brightly shining ones. A dark haired guy was sitting opposite him by the wall, with a guitar propped up on his lap, fingers still playing a light melody, even though he stopped singing. He was grinning at Sanghyuk with a crooked smile, raising his eyebrows a little.

Sanghyuk stood transfixed for a moment, but when he managed to comprehend the possible meaning of the lyrics, he pointed at himself with his right thumb with a questioning expression. The musician nodded, and watched as Sanghyuk padded over to him and when they were face to face, Sanghyuk reached into the pocket of his jeans.

“Wasn’t that a little too direct?” he asked, dropping a ₩1000 bill into the wide-brimmed black hat that reminded him of a witch’s placed in front of the guy. “People are more likely to give money to beggars who don’t outright ask them, you know.”

“Yet here you are giving me a one thousand won note,” the musician continued smiling, sweet like sugar, teeth white like freshly fallen snow. Something was off with him—him as a mendicant, especially.

“Yeah, well.” Sanghyuk murmured, not intending to go on with the sentence. “‘Handsome’ can’t rhyme with ‘has some’, though. That’s cheating.”

“How clever a remark,” the musician said, his voice ringing just as melodically as when he was singing, making Sanghyuk more than a little amazed. “But it did have the effect I wanted it to have, so it doesn’t matter whether I cheated or not. Who is to say had I come up with something different you would have found it interesting enough to approach me?”

“I… yeah.”

“Thank you, kind handsome guy.” The stranger said, and now Sanghyuk found himself smiling back. “For both the money and the constructive criticism.”

“Sanghyuk,” Sanghyuk blurted out, only wondering whether giving his name to a random young man playing a guitar in a subway was a good idea afterwards.

“Pretty name for a pretty boy,” the guy said, his fingers stopping on the strings.

Sanghyuk felt himself blushing from the tip of his ears down to his neck.

“Please, stop saying embarrassing things,” he mumbled, looking around in the underpass, seeing a familiar neck stretching longer than usual, a head turning left and right above the crowd like a periscope. “I… have to go now. Um, you’re good.”

“Excuse me?” the musician asked, tilting his head to the side like a puppy.

“You play well,” Sanghyuk explained, face gradually growing hotter. “And you sing well.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Sanghyuk nodded and looked up to wave at Hakyeon, but then he heard from behind:

“Sanghyuk?” he turned back to the guitarist, eyes widening at the sight of the guy’s smile turning even more brilliant. “I’m Jaehwan.”