A/N: I almost forgot about this story whoops. Here's the link to the video of the song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM1z7FC7ui0

Ringgggg. Ringggggggg. 

“Who would call at this hour!” Miss Chou yells from her bedroom. Tzuyu wakes up as she rubbed her eyes. She looks at the clock to see that it’s past midnight. 

“Huh?” She squints at the telephone that kept ringing and she heard her mom yell again. 

“Answer the telephone, Chou Tzuyu!” She yells out in Chinese and Tzuyu sighed as she ripped the blanket away from her body and turns on the lamp on her desk as she picked up the phone. 

“Hello?” Tzuyu groggily says and the person at the end of the line giggles. Tzuyu sighed in defeat when she realized who the person was. “Let’s hear some lingo out of you, my mom is very ticked off right now.”

“Hey, don’t lose your cool!” Chaeyoung says in excitement and Tzuyu rolled her eyes. 

“What’s your bag, man?” Tzuyu asked as she fiddled with a pencil. Chaeyoung grinned to herself. 

“Say, Tzuyu… That Minatozaki sure is something” She says in a teasing tone. Tzuyu froze, her breath could only be heard through the phone. “Hello, Tzuyu? Are you alive?” 

“What about Sana?” Tzuyu whispered, not wanting to wake up her family. She can hear Chaeyoung click her tongue as she changes the topic. 

“Y’know Tzuyu, it’s been a while since we’ve hanged out. Come over.” The girl offers and Tzuyu’s eyes popped out at the request. 

“Right now!? Are you crazy woman?” She whispered in a harsh tone. She’ll totally get shanked if she walked at midnight in the Korean side of town. Chaeyoung laughs again. 

“No, I’m not! Now, be there or be square. Besides, I need to tell you something but…” Chaeyoung pauses and then continues to talk in a low voice. “I don’t think it’s something to talk over the phone”, Tzuyu gulps as she nodded, but realized that Chaeyoung can’t see her. 

“I’ll try to find a way…” Tzuyu hangs up the phone, quietly placing it back to its previous spot. She looks around to see her possible exit routes. She can’t go downstairs and walk out the front door, she’ll get caught by her mom or even worse, Jieqiong. Then, she stares at her window. She takes quiet steps towards it as she opened the curtains. She smiled when she saw a tree nearby that she could reach and climb down. Tzuyu slowly opens the window and lets her feet out first, stretching to place it on a stable spot on the tree. Meanwhile, Jackson kept hearing noises outside of his window. 

“Huh… That’s off the wall…” Jackson murmurs as he goes towards his window and takes a peek through the curtains. He snickers when he sees Tzuyu trying to climb down the tree. He opens the window to tease the girl. “Well, would you look at that?” Jackson crosses his arms as he leaned against the window sill. Tzuyu looks up, glaring at Jackson. “You’ve been tagged, Tzuyu. Need help?” He asked and Tzuyu shook her head in ignorance. 

“Why would I ever ask you for help?” She stayed in the same spot, not knowing how to get down and Jackson sighs. He fishes out a long piece of sturdy rope from under his bed and holds onto one end as he throws the other end out of the window. 

“Because I’m your neighbor.” He said as he leaned over to tie the end he was holding, to the tree. He then pats the tree as Tzuyu furrows her eyebrow in confusion. “There.” He shows a cheeky smile and Tzuyu an eyebrow at him. “What? I’ve done this before, okay?” He says, raising his hands up. Tzuyu smirks as she uses to rope to help her climb down. Once Tzuyu set foot on the ground, she looks up again to notice Jackson’s window was still open but he wasn’t there.

“Hey, Jackson?” She softly called out and the boy returned to leaning on the window sill. He looks at her expectantly. Tzuyu smiles. “Thanks.” Jackson smiles back as he waved to Tzuyu and then quietly closed his window.

“Have you gone ape!?” Tzuyu yelled out as soon as she stepped foot in the Son residence. Chaeyoung’s parents were never home, so it was okay for her to use the “outdoor” voice. Chaeyoung just laughs as she welcomes Tzuyu in her humble home. 

“Don’t flip your wig!” Chaeyoung defended back as she plops on her couch in her silk pajamas. Tzuyu does the same as she lets out a long sigh. 

“May I ask why you called me so early in the day?” Tzuyu furrows her eyebrow in annoyance and Chaeyoung laughs again, slapping the latter’s broad shoulder. 

“Can’t two best friends hang out?” Chaeyoung frowned and Tzuyu’s facial expressions soften. It must’ve been the lack of sleep that was getting to her. Chaeyoung slumps into the couch, not caring if her posture was bad. “This show is driving me nuts, especially Nayeon.” The girl looks at Tzuyu, knowing that Nayeon is getting on her nerve.

Tzuyu nods, clenching her jaw. “Don’t tell me about it.” She says in an over-dramatic voice. “Now that Sana is on the show, she’ll go crazy for trying to kill the poor girl.” Tzuyu felt bad, considering that she kind of helped Sana get on the show by inviting her to the hop. Chaeyoung an eyebrow as she straightens her back.

“Are you sympathizing with the foreigner?” She asked with curiosity and Tzuyu felt drop at the sudden question. 

“W-what!?” She stuttered out of instinct. “Never! I-I” Chaeyoung raises her hand for the girl to stop talking. 

The girl looks down in disappointment. “You know Tzuyu, foreigners aren’t that bad.” The Taiwanese’s eyes went wide as she watched every move that Chaeyoung made. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about…” 

Tzuyu anxiously looks at her. Chaeyoung couldn’t have known her secret… Right? Chaeyoung tightly shuts her eyes. 

“I think I’m in love with a foreigner.” 

——

(A/N: There is a small part where it may make people uncomfortable because the characters talk about depression.) 

The next day, Tzuyu managed to sneak back in with Jackson’s rope and went to eat breakfast with Jieqiong and her mom. It was evident to Jieqiong that her sister had gotten no sleep as Tzuyu’s eyes kept closing and then the little girl would pinch Tzuyu’s arm. 

Tzuyu’s eyes went wide at the stinging pain and looked at Jieqiong, quietly thanking her sister. She then went back upstairs to make herself look presentable as she walked out of the house with her yellow puffy dress on and curly black hair. As she walked through downtown where all of the Koreans were located, she saw a familiar face on the windows of the stores. 

“Sana!?” She muttered in shock and there she was. Minatozaki Sana’s face was on a whoopee cushion and there was even a miniature bobblehead doll version of the girl. Tzuyu quickly walks into the store to see that many Koreans were lined up to buy Sana’s merchandise. The girl stands on her tippy toes to see that Jihyo was also in the store with her little sister who was holding a bobblehead version of Sana in her hands.  

She hurriedly walks towards the two and Jihyo shows a welcoming smile. “Hiya, Tzuyu.” The dancer nudges for her sister to also greet the popular dancer. 

“Jihyo, it’s Chou Tzuyu!” She excitedly tugged on Jihyo’s dress and the latter quietly chuckles at her. Tzuyu gives a warm smile to the girl and then looks back at Jihyo, giving an amused look. 

“She really looks up to you, but now everyone is going crazy over Sana!” She gestures around the store and Tzuyu noticed there were Koreans animatedly talking among themselves as they held Sana’s merchandise. “After last night’s show, the Koreans are starting to realize that maybe foreigners aren’t that bad.” The Taiwanese raised her eyebrows in surprise and she swore her heart started to beat faster. 

Could that mean she can finally come clean about herself? 

Jihyo waved her hand in front of Tzuyu, trying to get her out of her daze. Tzuyu blankly looks at Jihyo and the girl gives a concerned look. “I was asking if you wanted to walk to school with me.” Tzuyu reluctantly nods at her as they greeted Jihyo’s little sister off with her bobblehead and walked towards the school. Jihyo kept talking about the outcome of Sana’s appearance on the show, meanwhile, Tzuyu kept silently thinking to herself. 

“Isn’t this bad?” Jihyo