Buskers

Chapter 1

Late again. You promised yourself that at the start of the second academic year at University you would actually be on time to your seminars. In the last month of term, you hadn't been on time once. Not that the professors or tutors usually cared, it was just a matter of feeling as though you had some control over your ever spiralling life.
You grabbed your beige handbag from the end of your bed, knowing that everything you'd need was in there because you always made sure to pack the night before. After giving yourself a quick check in the mirror, you sighed exasperatedly. It was a no makeup day today, and your hair looked like a birds-nest.
You'd thrown on the first things in your wardrobe - a terracotta turtleneck and a pair of fashionably torn faded blue shorts. You wore a pair of matching tatty terracotta converse on your feet, completely bypassing socks today.
With a shrug you moved quickly to the front door of your flat and flew out of it, barely remembering to lock it on the way out. You jogged down the three flights of stairs and through the main entrance of your flat block and began the mad dash to uni. It took you 20 minutes to jog there on a good day.
Was today a good day? Almost definitely not.

Jogging swiftly with your bag gently hitting your thigh, you made it past halfway - coming to the main part of town, where masses of people would gather in the square. They either milled about doing nothing or were appreciating a good group of buskers. Today was the latter, which you were almost thankful for, until you heard that beautiful voice.

"Ijeneun yeonrakjocha batjil anha,
neo daesin deullineun mumigeonjohan moksori," The words were Korean, you'd lived here for roughly two years and your Korean was decent so you could hear the meaning well enough to know that it was a breakup song.

Curiosity nagged at you, begging you to take a peek at the owner of the voice. It was so confident and clear, yet pulled softly at your heartstrings. After a moment of listening, you dragged yourself over. You were going to be late anyways.

There were 6 boys all sat in a semicircle, all holding an instrument or armed with a musical ability of some sort. The one singing currently had soft blonde hair - partially hidden under a black wide brimmed hat , his eyes closed softly as he sung with emotion to his audience. Your heart did a funny dance in your chest as you studied him carefully. One of your hands was inching towards the Polaroid camera in your bag.
The boy stopped singing and another one started, your eyes snapped to the new singer curiously - finding that all of these boys were very attractive. But that one with the blonde hair and glasses...

You looked back over to watch him yet again, his eyes were already glued to you. With a small gasp you found yourself staring back shamelessly, you couldn't remember if it was as rude to stare over here as it was in the UK but you continued to do it anyway. The Polaroid camera was in your hand. You struggled internally, wondering whether you should take a snap of a random busker or not.
He licked his lower lip and gave you a full toothed grin, almost nodding his head as he noticed the camera. You smiled back, appreciating the opportunity to capture a living perfection.

He smiled and looked away slightly, definitely posing for you. You captured the moment and waited for the photo to develop. You smiled once you saw how it had turned out, you grabbed a marker from your bag and scrawled underneath it.

You smirked at the name you'd given him. The song was coming to a close now, and it must have been the end of their session because some of them were saying thank you's over the last lines of the song. Eventually it came to a close and the crowd of people started to slowly disperse.

"Hey," The blonde boy walked over to you slowly, guitar still slung over his hip and plectrum still in hand. "Do I get to see?" You were surprised to hear him speak English, but pleasantly so.

"Sure," you handed him the Polaroid picture and watched him smirk lightly as he read what was underneath. "Any constructive criticism for me?"

"Nah, you made me look about twenty times more attractive than I actually am. You a professional?"

You took the picture back and smiled at him,"Not even close, I'm at my second year of Uni. Hopefully one day I will be though."

"Well you've definitely got what it takes,"

"Thanks. What about you? You guys sounded almost too good to be casual buskers."

He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed a little. "We're technically still in training too, but we are a fairly known band."

"What do you guys call yourselves?"

"Day6," he looked back down at the Polaroid in you hand and smirked at you, "Oh and I go by Jae, not 'The Blonde One'. Although I do like the sound of it."

You laughed with him, his eyes crinkled up when he laughed which you found adorable. Everything about him just seemed to affect you, whether it was just the artistic side of your brain yelling for you to beg him to be your subject for the rest of the year or whether it was your hormones yelling at you to get his number because he was gorgeous.

"You watch buskers often?" He asked you, while carefully studying your face through his tortoiseshell glasses.

"Not usually, but you guys caught my attention today."

He tilted his head and grinned. "We're back here around 6 if you want to come watch later? It'd be nice to see your mad camera skills get my good side again."

You couldn't help but grin back at him. "Sure thing Jae, I'd love too. "

"Great. See you later," you turned to go but his hand grabbed your wrist before you could go anywhere, "Wait, I didn't catch your name beautiful."

You didn't miss him call you beautiful, in fact it made your breath stutter subtly.

"Maybe cause I didn't throw it?" He shook his head at you with an amused smile and waited for an answer. "(Y/N). My name is (Y/N)"

"(Y/N)," he rolled it off his tongue perfectly, which made you bite your lip gently. Since coming here no one pronounced your name right. Except for him. Jae. "I guess I'll see you tonight then (Y/N)"