(fair warning: like 98% of this chapter is filler and background, so I'm sorry lol)

When Tessa opened her eyes again, she was momentarily confused, with the only thought on her mind being "where the hell even am I?" As she blinked her slightly swollen eyes, the events of the day hit her like a ton of bricks, and she let out a tiny sigh as she blankly stared into the distance, letting the memories wash over her. When she finally snapped herself out of her daze, she noticed that it was pitch black both outside and in her room, with the only light in her room being from a lamp that her grandfather must have for her sometime as she was asleep. She quickly leapt to her feet to go down and meet with her grandfather, only stopping when she heard her phone fall out of her back pocket and onto the carpet of her room. Her eyes went as wide as they physically could when she remembered that she had promised Mark and Joshua just yesterday when they'd been at the airport to see her off that she would let them know when she was settled. She heaved another sigh as she dug around her suitcase, finally finding her phone charger and mentally preparing herself to face her best friends. After having her phone plugged up and charging for not even a minute and a half, her phone started exploding with mainly - she noticed with an even louder sigh - texts from Mark yelling at her for not responding, with a few gentle texts from Joshua thrown in there. After the 56 texts and 20 missed calls finally stopped making her phone go insane, she tentatively texted Mark back a simple "hey man, my phone was dead. I'm alive tho, so stop blowing up my damn phone pls." And as she expected, not even an entire minute had passed before she was getting a FaceTime from Mark. She ran her fingers through her hair and tried to mentally prepare herself as she flopped back down on her bed. As soon as she pressed the accept button, however, she didn't see what she had expected: while she had expected being yelled at (with love, of course,) what she saw instead was both Mark and Joshua crying their eyes out and telling her how much they miss her already. "Tess, oh my god, it's so ing nice to see your face! Do you know how worried we were?! It's been amost an entire day with nothing from you! How the did you let your phone die?!" Mark shouted in about two breaths, tears still streaming down his face as Joshua gently took the phone from Mark's hands, patting him on the back as he did. "Hey there, sweetie. You look like you just woke up...and are your eyes swollen? Tess, what happened? You okay?" Joshua asked her, furrowing his brow in worry as his eyes scanned her entire face. Tessa could feel her face automatically flush as she wordlessly stared at his handsome face, wanting to cry all over again as it hit her that she wouldn't be able to be with her favorite boys for quite a long time. She snapped out of her little trance when Mark violently ripped his phone back into his own hands, repeating all of Joshua's earlier questions in a...well, louder and more cuss-filled way. "Calm the down, Mark. I'm all in one piece, see? And anyway, what are you two even doing up? Isn't it like 9 in the morning?!" she ended up yelling at the end, almost snarling at Mark. That was how her relationship with him was: they fought almost constantly, but they were very fiercely protective of each other at the same time.



Mark Tuan had interested her the very first week of their freshman year of high school, since he was quiet and reserved around everyone except for a boy named Jackson Wang, who was the very opposite of both Mark and Tessa, since she herself is very shy and quiet until she really gets comfortable around someone. She accidentally stumbled upon them one day at lunch having a rap battle, and after that day she became close friends with both of them, even dating the self-proclaimed "wild and y" Jackson for a little bit. Jackson ended up moving back to Hong Kong during the summer between their sophmore and junior year, though, so their junior year started out with Tessa and Mark clinging to each other and not wanting to bring anyone into their lives. That is...until Tessa and Joshua Hong were in the same chemistry class. The first thing she noticed about him was that he was also Korean; the second thing she noticed about him was that he was REALLY tall (well, everyone practically is to her since she's only 5'4,) but this boy was taller than a lot of the other boys; and the third thing that she noticed was that he was drop-dead gorgeous. Now, remember, Mark Tuan is her best friend - the guy whom every single girl in the entire school, older and younger alike wanted to be with - and yet she was barely phased by his attractiveness, although she did recognize it. Joshua, however...he was gorgeous in a classic way, with side-combed honey colored hair, double-eyelids that Tessa instantly envied, and quite possibly the most beautiful smile she had ever seen in her life. When they were assigned to be partners in chemistry and he threw her a smile from across the room, Tessa could've sworn she was going to melt straight through the floor. The first day of class she couldn't even bring herself to talk to him other than stuttering out an embarrassingly high-pitched "m-my name is Teresa Im, but p-please call me Tessa!", instead running straight to Mark when the bell rang that signified lunch, telling him about the "really really really cute guy she just met in chemistry," making Mark chuckle when he saw the hearts practically in her eyes, which of course made her smack him. After that day, Mark discovered that he in fact had a class with Joshua, too, and invited Joshua to sit with them that day at lunch, much to the horror and many protests on Tessa's part. The rest is history - Tessa and Mark had a third muskateer again, and Tessa felt herself fall for him even more as each day passed. Here they are almost two years later, and unbeknownst to Tessa, Joshua had liked her since he saw her on their very first day of freshman year, an entire year before she even knew he existed.



As Tessa was spacing out and remembering all of this with a fond smile on her face, she was finally snapped back to reality when she heard Mark yelling at Joshua, who was actually frowning at him, which is something he never did unless he was starting to get really pissed off - and usually when it had something to do with her. She ended up catching only the very end of their conversation: "-least I'm honest with my feelings, lover boy! You were a chicken forever, and now this happened!" Tessa frowned in confusion, finally speaking and asking what Mark meant, which caused said boy to automatically shut up and for Joshua to...oh my god, was he blushing? She looked back at Mark when he started hurriedly saying how they needed to go and that they had a busy day ahead of them and blah blah blah; Tessa was internally laughing her off, because she and Mark both knew that they could automatically tell when the other was lying, which made her even more curious as to what he had been yelling at Joshua just a minute ago. She smiled widely when the camera panned over to include Joshua in the shot, and she was a giggling mess as he cutely waved at her and promised that she'd wake up to tons of texts from him, full-out laughing when Mark rolled his eyes and said that they did need to go. When the FaceTime finally disconnected, Tessa was left smiling like an idiot there on her bed, barely even registering that it was past 11 o'clock at night, since she had slept the entire evening away. She left her phone on the charger as she stood back up and stretched her arms out, hearing her stomach growl and goraning out loud as she realized she had to walk back down to the first floor to actually get food; that was, if she could even find the kitchen again. She stepped out of her room and started walking down the hallway, stopping in her tracks when she heard...running water? She looked around, wondering if she was already going insane, until she walked closer to her grandfather's study and realized that the sound was coming from behind the door. His warning of NEVER going into his study came back into her mind, but after she carefully looked around the area and determined that she was indeed alone, she threw caution to the wind and tried the handle, gasping out loud when she found out that it was actually unlocked. Stepping into the room, she looked around in wonder, though she couldn't see very much with the only illumination coming from the moonlight streaming through the two large windows framing the large desk in the middle of the room. The running water sound was almost deafening once she was inside, and as she searched the room to try to find the noise, she saw a door tucked away in the corner of the room. It was maybe 6 feet tall, intricately designed, yet a light brown color that almost perfectly blended into the rest of the walls. This was definitely where the noise was originating from, and Tessa's curiosity had her grinning and reaching for the handle. Right as she put her hand on the door's handle, though, it was yanked open from the other side, and Tessa was left staring at a man that looked a little bit older than herself - maybe in his early 20s? - that had brown hair styled to frame his face, beautiful milky white skin, and plump lips that were currently turned up into a mischievous smirk. "Well look at this beauty~" he drawled at her in lazy Korean, eyeing her up and down, instantly making Tessa's face flush. With lightning fast speed, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, saying "how about you come with oppa for now, yeah?" before he tugged her forward, which ended up with her having to brace her hands on his broad shoulders to steady herself, making her face flush even brighter as she looked up into his smirking face, belatedly realizing that there was a huge waterfall maybe 100 feet from where they were standing, which made her head spin with thousands of questions. Her last thought was "what the has my curiosity gotten me into now?" before she was whisked away by this mysterious stranger.








1849 words omfg
that wasn't exactly what I expected, but eh
OH ALSO, HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE AHHHHHHHHHH
it's currently 10:50 PM for me, so happy new years if you're reading this where it's already 2016!!!
BUT OH MY GOD Y'ALL, LISTENING TO SEVENTEEN'S "BOYS BE" ALBUM ON REPEAT WHILE WRITING THIS WAS A BAD IDEA, BECAUSE AS Y'ALL CAN TELL, MY JISOO FEELS CAME OUT WAY TOO MUCH
Tessa is also slowly becoming more like me, especially her attitude towards Mark lol
and btw Deme, this is your shoutout for now, since I was too ing lazy to add you in in the flashback lol

~Dara