“Thank you everyone, hope you enjoyed the performance. See you again tomorrow!” Seungyoon said as he bowed to a sizeable crowd in an acoustic concert hall chanting his name – except that it is actually a group of high school bypassers and a couple of clueless foreign tourists munching some churros in the less popular parts of Hongdae.

Someday, he said to himself, I will perform in a proper venue.

Someday.

He tidies up, counting the coins and notes he earned from his two-hours stint, barely sufficient for a day’s meal and transport cost, and packs up his guitar. It’s nine on the evening, the wind is chilly, Seungyoon is broke, and he couldn’t afford staying later to the night because he will miss the cheaper night bus and he’d rather save his coins for food and rent than to ride the train or taxi home.

When life tempts him to ditch his rock star dream for a more stable job (like how Mino agreed to teach drawing classes to kids to sustain his aspiring hip hop artist persona), he reminded himself that this hardship shall pass, plus his audience grew in numbers too: the Kind-Of-Cute Waitress from the shaved ice café next to his usual spot is a regular now, on top of the five high school students and Jaehyun and Doyoung, the always-too-cheerful waiters from the opposing café. Eight is the magic number, they said.

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Fridays are the best days because people are too excited about having two days’ break from their hellish office routines so they a) spend their money carelessly on bottles of alcohol, b) which makes a mediocre song sound like a godsend Mozart piece, and c) ended up throwing whatever they have on their pockets to Seungyoon’s guitar case, unknowingly mistaken a 10,000 won bill for 1,000 won. That, and the fact that yesterday was payday for most companies, motivated Seungyoon to try his best and capture the opportunity, as he dresses himself in his hippest outfit yet (he always claimed he’s a fashionista although, um, let’s just say his choices are questionable sometimes – who even pairs sandals with denim jacket and sweatpants?) and prepares himself a track list of top pop and pop-rock songs from the charts. Only when people are giving him enough attention will he slip to his self-composed songs, otherwise he won’t pique their interests.

All hyped up, Seungyoon got off the bus, bought a fishcake on the go, and walked to his usual spot – only to find a competitor strumming her guitar next to his usual spot.

“Um, hi?” he approaches her, unsure.

“Oh hi! Please wait! I’m still preparing and in a bit I’ll start my performances!” he really wants to hate her but alas, the universe is playing tricks on him for this competition of his has a contagious bubbliness that you can’t help but reactively smile at her.

Trying to focus on his goals (aka pay his rent), he tried to ignore her and sets up his set. She noticed this as she stole glances at him and realized that , this guy didn’t come to watch her perform. Seungyoon took his guitar from his case and connected the speaker to his guitar – the competitor followed suit. With confidence, the competitor unfolded a poster she brought, brightly orange colored with a retro text on the center that reads “WENDY” and a smaller text underneath that plays on the fast-food chain’s tagline that reads “Quality is our promise and Positivity is our recipe!” just below. Honestly that tagline is just 1) so cringeworthy 2) such wordplay is so outdated and mom jokes-like and 3) I definitely can do better, Seungyoon thought because he is truthfully an ambitious man who can’t afford to lose and this should be an easy win. He frantically looked for a paper, a cardboard, an anything to write his own poster. Luck was not on his side as he found none except for Mino’s misprinted showcase promotional poster that is pretty much a bright red background and a black “SWAG” text on the center. Seeing Wendy (is that even her real name or just a one-upped cute stage name?) snorting at him, he took his marker and abruptly wrote “KSY” and added a “Smile is Ma” on top of the SWAG text so it reads “Smile is Ma SWAG” in the misprinted poster.

By the end of the half-an-hour-long one-upping-one-another session, Wendy and Seungyoon both had their guitar ready, speakers fully blasting, poster pasted on each guitar case, slightly modified outfit to out-hip the other, and a smug face ready to go to the battlefield.

Not wanting to lose from his competitor, Seungyoon started his session and opened the night with a cover of an upbeat version of Park Hyo Shin’s song.

“Hello everyone! Back with me again, Kang Seungyoon!” he shouted at the microphone. His crowd is gathering, Jaehyun and Doyoung waved and cheered at him from their own posts while distributing leaflets, and the five high school kids are attentively standing on the front line.

Seungyoon’s voice is powerful and his guitar is an inseparable part of himself. He feels very confident and the crowd seems to be nodding their heads along to the beat, when suddenly–

“Hello everyone! Tonight I’m going to please your ears with a honey-like voice! Wendy here! Woohoo!” Seungyoon thought that it was super embarrassing but it looks like it does the job as a quarter of his crowd laughed and turned their heads to Wendy.

Not wanting to lose his crowd, Seungyoon raised his voice when he enters the chorus – only to be met by Wendy’s surprisingly equally powerful but silky voice as she started singing Taylor Swift’s Speak Now. By now a third of his crowd moved to Wendy’s circle, clapping their hands and nodding their head. Panicked, Seungyoon flashed his smile (anyhow his smile is his swag) and hoped the remaining crowd will stay loyal to him. After the Park Hyo Shin song, he decided to do Muse’s Uprising because surely a girl as delicate-looking as Wendy can’t do rock songs, right?

Wrong – Wendy looked at Seungyoon when he started singing Muse, so after ending her Swift act, she slipped into a Coldplay’s Yellow stage and the crowd cheered wildly to her song choice. Seungyoon shot a mean look to Doyoung who now cheers at Wendy more than to his songs and made a mental note to buy dinner at the competing café next to his instead.

While Wendy successfully made the crowd wave their hands following Yellow’s chorus, Seungyoon paused and frantically re-strategize his performance. He has in his mind a wide variety of genre he can choose from, but he decided to go with Adele’s Someone Like You, as the evening was chilly and a popularly acceptable song might be able to optimally capitalize Hongdae’s Friday evening crowd. Plus, it could be a refreshing twist of genre after his rock song and Wendy’s slightly mellow rock. He waited for Wendy to finish her last line (a very soothing “…and all the things that you do”) before softly whispering to his mic,

“I heard that you’re settled down…”

The (unfaithful) high schoolers returned from Wendy’s crowd to Seungyoon’s with an enthusiastic clap. People started to shift their standing positions and adjust themselves so that they’re located in the middle of Seungyoon and Wendy, only needing to look left and right alternately rather than walking back and forth. Seungyoon poured his all to his rendition of Someone Like You – he thought of his past flames and imbued them in the verses and his yearning for home and his mother in the other, his hardships reflected in his falsettos on the chorus.

It took him by surprise when he heard a gentle voice harmonizing his by the second chorus. Not too long after, soft melodic guitar rhythm accompanied his guitar strums. The harmonized voices soon filled one of Hongdae’s end, luring more and more people to their corner. When they reached the final chorus, Seungyoon trusted his guts and let Wendy sing the base notes, as he delivered high notes one after another, making impactful adlibs that accentuate the song and set the overall mood to be more sincere and emotional. After singing the last line of the song, they both opened their eyes to a sizable crowd – at least it was by the thirties! Passerby had been mesmerized by their harmonization, stopping them in their tracks and joined the crowd standing in the middle of Seungyoon and Wendy.

Seungyoon couldn’t believe his eyes, the last time he had this much committed crowd was last Christmas – although this time he doesn’t need to wear a worn-down Santa’s helper outfit nor sing his overly enthusiastic versions of traditional Christmas carols. The bank notes in his guitar case starts to pile up, some people gave him thumbs-up and clapped at him, commending his stellar performance just now – a slight correction, their stellar performance.

He glanced at Wendy, who put an equally surprised smile on her face. Having found a better strategy, Seungyoon nodded at Wendy, signaling her to pick and start the next song. Seizing at the opportunity presented in front of her, Wendy chose to sing Beyonce’s Halo, one of her favorite song. She isn’t sure whether her newfound duet-mate can follow through, but she reckoned at least he can play some basic chords to accompany her voice.

Seungyoon delivers, of course. They perform one song after another: John Legend’s Ordinary People, Lee Juck’s Don’t Worry Dear, John Mayer’s Half of My Heart, they even went to the classic route with the Sinatras’ Something Stupid.

As the last claps and whistles subside, Wendy gave Seungyoon a smile and a nod, and in return Seungyoon gave her a thumb-up and a smirk of approval. They were received very positively – crowds were singing along, cameras and phones were everywhere (Seungyoon made sure to check Instagram location tags later), and some people made song requests.

Once he’s done packing his guitar and speaker, he came up to Wendy, knowing that he owes her an apology (and mostly gratitude).

“Hi, yeah, sorry about how it went –”

“Yeah, I mean, I was a jerk too. You know.”

“Yeah. I mean, not like you’re a jerk. You’re a good performer!”

“Thanks! You too!”

“You really live up to your promise – I mean, quality is our promise and positivity is our recipe, right?”

“Actually that’s a bit tacky I might need to change it soon. And, smile is your swag? Really?”

“Ha. Speaks for yourself.”

“Anyhow yes, I’m Wendy! Thanks for tonight, it was fun!” she laughed a little (Seungyoon thought it was kinda cute (kinda? It’s much more than kinda, Seungyoon corrected himself)) and offered him a handshake.

“The pleasure is all mine, Wendy. I’m Kang Seungyoon, I play here every day. Now you’re welcome here if you want to, I guess?”

“Okidokes Kang Swagyoon!”

It was the lamest thing ever, even for Seungyoon who has lived his life knowing Mino and his cringeworthy, random English usage – and Seungyoon stared at her in disbelief while wondering how many other lame mom jokes she can conjure before the night ends.

“I really should stop myself, shouldn’t I…” she faked a concerned look and gritted her teeth, readying herself to go home with her guitar on her shoulder.

“I have to second that, sadly… You must be hungry. Do you want to go grab some Wendy’s, Wendy? I don’t have fairy dusts with me but we can take the bus.”

She responded by staring at him, also in disbelief at how lame this guy is. That was the umpteenth time someone joked to Wendy about eating at Wendy’s and how her favorite dessert is Frosty and whether she sleeps in a blue sleepwear and flies at night.

“You really have terrible sense of humor. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“I think we will, indeed.”