o words could describe how Andrew felt. It was posted all over the school portal and all the Facebook groups he was in. Every single social media he had; her face was plastered all over it. He couldn’t escape her. No matter how hard he tried.

Veronica Zhang was missing.

She has been for more than 15 hours. No one has seen the University of Westchester’s golden girl. Veronica Zhang, or more known as Roni to friends and family, disappeared sometime last night. Word on the street was that she had a group project meeting that ran long, and they didn’t leave the campus library until well past one in the morning.

Her group mates saw her leave in the direction of her house, opting to call for a cab since there weren’t any buses running that late in the night. And that was the last time anyone saw her.

Andrew bit his fingernails. He was raring to go. His criminology background wanted to investigate. Even though he didn’t know Veronica, from what limited knowledge he had of her, he knew that she wasn’t the type to run off. School was everything to her, everyone knew that. She put her grades first, before anything, ignoring her own needs.

The apartment was eerily quiet, a stark difference to last night. He shuddered, thanking the Lord for the headphones he had received from Ruston for his 19^th birthday. Andrew would thank Ruston as he was the one who gifted the lifesaving technology, but it was also because of the man that he lived in misery.

He has lived with the couple for long enough to know that when he moves out and Ruston is still looking a roommate, he needs to advertise that they should have noise-cancelling headphones ready for the adventure.

He downed the last of his Red Bull and stood up, ready to wash it out and toss it into the recycling. Andrew already had his tea for the morning, so the rest of the day will be spent drinking Red Bull, Coke and more Red Bull. The beverage fridge in their apartment had different sections of each resident, one section for Andrew’s Red Bull, one section for Ruston’s Diet Coke, a section for Tatum’s grape Fanta and a common section for the Coke they all drink.

Once the can was disposed of, he grabbed another from the fridge, making a note to buy more and headed to Ruston’s room door.

Bang bang bang.

Andrew leaned against the doorframe, popping the tab of his Red Bull. “Tatum! Get your out of bed, we need to go!”

He rolled his eyes when he heard nothing from beyond the door and tried again. “If you’re fast enough, we can stop by the drive-through and get breakfast.”

In seconds, Andrew could hear shuffling coming from inside the room, a loud smooching sound was heard too, making him cringe before the door opened up, Tatum finally gracing him with her presence. He gave her a once over, she was dressed in what seemed like Ruston’s hoodie that was probably 3 sizes too big for her, and a pair of leggings.

“Give me 5 to brush my teeth and I’ll be right with you. I’ll meet you at Judith,” she croaked out before slamming the door shut.

Andrew nodded to himself and grabbed his backpack from the floor along with his car keys, heading towards the elevator. He hummed the fourth opening track to Haikyu!! as the elevator made its descent to the basement car park. Andrew made his way to his car, a green sedan his parents and siblings gifted him for his 16^th birthday, affectionately called Judith.

True to her words, Tatum showed up in 5 minutes, opened the passenger seat door and slumped into the leather seat of his car. “Junior keep you up last night?” he asked as her touched the seat.

Tatum gave him a side-eye and raised a brow. “You know he hates it when you call him that, right?”

“He hates me calling him Cormac more, so he’ll have to deal.” The younger grinned and started the engine before pulling out of his designated parking spot and left the underground car park.

It wasn’t until they were waiting for their food at the McDonald’s drive-through near the school campus after shooting the that Andrew remembered all the tweets on his phone.

“Tate, did you know Veronica Zhang?” he asked.

Tatum shook her head slightly before answering her best friend, “Kinda, not really. You know the parties Ruston hosts?” she waited for Andrew to nod before continuing. “She attends those, and we do some small talk, but I don’t know her all that well. What’s up?”

Andrew accepted the paper bag full of the Golden Arches goodies, thanked the man at the window and drove off. “She’s gone missing, Tate. Have you not gone on your phone?”

“Battery’s dead. Forgot to charge it last night.” She pulls out her phone from her hoodie pocket and waved it at Andrew. “How sure are they that she’s missing? Maybe she’s playing hooky.”

He frowned, disagreeing. “She’s not like that. She was at the library with other people, then when they left. Poof.” He snaps his fingers. “Gone, just like that.”

Tatum raised a brow, taking a bite into her McMuffin then said something incomprehensible.

Andrew flicked Tatum on the nose. “Can you please swallow before talking? I couldn’t understand you through your mastication of food.”

“Ow, you ,” she exclaimed, having swallowed her food. “I asked where you got all your information from.”

“On Facebook and Twitter,” he replied sheepishly. But before Tatum could yell at him for trusting information blindly on social media, he continued on, “Before you say anything, it was on the school portal too.”

Tatum idly played with the band on her ring finger, something Ruston gave her on their 2^nd anniversary which was reminiscent of a promise ring but it wasn’t said in that many words, a habit that she picked up a few weeks subsequent to receiving it.

“So, what do you want to do about it?” she asked cautiously. After knowing Andrew for 3 years, they’ve grown extremely close with each other, and if Andrew is acting all interested in something, Tatum knew that Andrew was about to embark them on another adventure.

The man downed the last of his Red Bull and pulled into a free spot at the campus parking lot. “There’s a lot of things I want to do, but for now, I’ll have to talk to Mr. H.”

With her hash browns in hand, Tatum stepped out of the car and slung her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Alright, whatever you want. You know where to find me once you want to get this thing off the ground running.”

“Knew I could count on you, Tater Tot,” he said on a grin. “Charge your phone, I’ll check back in later.”

a/n: ( present ) second teaser up! we're hoping to get introductions out of the way and waiting on applicants to start coming in. hope you've been enjoying the teasers as much as i've had writing them. – adam & loo