"... Pardon?" She leaned closer, sure she'd heard wrong.

"Go. On. A. Date. With. Me." He repeated slowly, as if speaking to a child.

"What? Seriously?" She asked, still disbelieving.

"Yes. Really." He leaned closer, a smile on his face. "Will you?" He asked again, looking somewhat like an excited puppy.

"S-sure..?" She stuttered, unsure. "Then it's settled then." He smiled, looking out over the view of the city. "Is there anywhere in particular that you'd like to go?" He asked, looking up at her through smiling eyes as he sipped his juice and popped a bite of eggs in his mouth.

"Not really..." she mumbled. "I hardly even know this place actually." it was a lie; she remembered this place perfectly well, for it was where she had spent most of her life, before they moved to Korea about five years back. It was also the place she visited every year with Taylor, revisiting old memories and strolling down the streets, hand in hand-

It felt like someone had physically punched her in the chest. The memories surged around her, bringing her back to warm nights spent wrapped together in blankets, cold days visiting quaint old towns, warm summer days strolling among farmlands.

"Are you alright?" Tao asked, bringing her back to the present. She realised her hand was trembling, and that the tea in the cup she held had begun spilling onto the saucer. She quickly placed the cup back.

"I'm fine." She lied, even though her voice sounded fake to her own ears. She smiled. "So where are we going today?"

"You'll see." Tao smiled, eying her half finished cup of tea. "We could go right now if you're done." He said, half looking like he was about to stand up.

"Oh, um, sure!" She hurriedly stood up, almost knocking over her tea and catching Tao's amused grin.

"What?"

"Nothing~" he sang as he led the way out of the dining hall and the hotel, before managing to flag down a taxi. After the opening the door for her and making sure she was settled down comfortably, he gave the driver a long string of instructions, half of which she didn't catch.

Something about a mountain... Tea???

Once he had finished, he leaned back in his seat, squirming around until he got comfortable. "It's going to be a long ride, so you might wanna get some sleep." He said, stretching with a groan before shutting his eyes. Kuri followed suit, leaning against the window and shutting her eyes.

She slept for what seemed like a long time, and when she opened her eyes once again, she realised they had left the city behind and were now driving past farmlands. A hill loomed before them, dotted with tiny people going about their business. Tao had sat up, positively glowing with excitement as they neared their destination.

As they pulled up to the village, she heard Tao telling the driver to come back in the evening to bring them back, to which he grumbled sullenly and only shut up when Tao handed him a small stack of notes with a smile.

Sighing, Kuri got out of the vehicle, stretching her stiff muscles and taking a walk around. The place was vaguely familiar to her; she was almost certain she'd been there before, perhaps in her childhood. 

Tao suddenly took her hand, startling her and making her reflexively jerk her hand out of his grip. She looked over just in time to see an expression of stunned hurt cross his face, and she immediately apologised, looking abashed. "Nah, it's my fault for startling you like that. My bad. I'm sorry." Tao shrugged, ruffling his hair with a sheepish grin.

"But I wanted to show you this teahouse that serves really good tea." He continued, walking towards a building near the end of the stretch that was the village. A soft warm glow emanated from within, giving it a homely feel as they approached it.

The place felt inexplicably familiar to her, as though she knew it like the back of her hand. But it wasn't until she stepped into the teahouse and was shown to her table did she realise why.

A portrait of a laughing baby hung on the wall opposite her table, and it was with a jolt that she realized who it was.

That's me. There's one that's exactly the same at home.

"That's a cute baby." Tao commented as he looked in the same direction as her. "That's... Me..." She stuttered, unbelieving. Was this place run by her family?

"Hello, what would you like to order?" A friendly old man had suddenly approached them, cutting Tao's reply off. His face was a mess of wrinkles, proof of his age. He looked very benign, but there was a small part of Kuri that shrank back from this man in fear.

"Hi yes, I'd like to get the tea set for two please?" Tao said, scanning the menu. "Of course. Will that be all? How about some dumplings to complement it?" he asked, smiling at them.

"Then, I'd like the soup dumplings and some of those fried prawn dumplings please." Kuri smiled, handing the menu back.

"Though may I ask who that baby is? He or she is quite cute." she gestured towards the portrait, and the old man's easygoing expression suddenly saddened.

"That's our granddaughter. We lost her and her parents just days after this portrait was done. They took her away and moved out, and we haven't seen her since." He replied, and collected the menus. "But I believe God will lead her back here one day, and I can see her properly again. She should be around your age now though, her twenty third birthday will be in September this year." He continued, just before he turned and left with their order slips, leaving Kuri with a thousand questions burning in her mind.

"Is this your family's home?" Tao asked, leaning forward curiously.

"I don't know." She admitted, looking down at her hands. "My parents moved to the city when I was really young and I don't remember anything before that." She mumbled, glancing towards the framed picture.

"But I'd like to know what happened back then."

[A/N hello! <3 so I kinda wanted to bring some of Kuri's history into the story so that it'll at least explain how she knows Chinese and all that. Haha so yeah, she's actually Chinese but she learnt Korean when she got to Korea and all that haha (': also, I might not post for a while. I need a break man. iously, I wanted to prove to myself I could complete articles within a deadline by making myself write two chapters (one for Wanderlust and another for another story) each day so that I could be certain that I'd be able to handle articles at least since most of them would probably be shorter than a chapter. All this just to see if I could deal with the stress of being a journalist in the future (my dream) (': so yeah haha I might need to take a break to relax and get my mind back in order too cause the past few days have been hectic and I'll be busy tomorrow as well so ^^" I'll try to write a little in between maybe but I'm not making any promises haha (': but thank you for reading this (and also this long as heck note) and I'll see you in the next chapter! Also, reads, reviews and votes are always appreciated so please tell me what you think! <3 thank you! ^^]