Jessica was sipping on her coffee since Taeyeon dragged her out earlier than she wanted this morning, “Why couldn’t we go out looking after lunch like we did yesterday?”

“I researched it last night and there’s a ton of universities in this area! We need to start earlier to cover more schools. We only made it to like 2 yesterday.”

Nearly hanging on Taeyeon’s arm, Jessica just groaned as they made their way to the UCLA entrance, “Well this is the biggest in the city so it might be hard finding him here...if he is here.”

“We won’t know if we try babe.” Taeyeon turned to give her a quick squeeze, “Call me if you have a lead but if not, meet back here for lunch?”

Jessica nodded and kissed Taeyeon on the cheek, “Of course. See you in a few hours.” Reluctantly, Jessica let go of Taeyeon so they could go their separate ways. Taeyeon went towards the badminton courts/gym while Jessica went to the other end of the school with the outdoor activities like track, football, and baseball. They thought it would be wiser to start at the sport arenas first but Jessica thought different, she thought Jiwoong might not be practicing anymore but she had no idea where to look either.

Making her way past the dorms, Jessica did the usual routine of showing pictures of Jiwoong but she got the same response as before, “Never seen him before.”

Sighing, Jessica continued on her way to the track thinking Taeyeon was one lucky woman to have her help like this cause this job is boring as hell. Heck Jessica was so bored she wished she would be at morning practice instead, “ouch!”

Jessica rubbed her head in pain from the soccer ball that happened to hit her in the head. Looking around with her icy glare, Jessica spotted the poor boy who happened to hit her. Frustrated and a bit angry that someone caught her off guard, Jessica kicked the ball with all her might at the boy who wasn’t prepared for the woman’s fury, “!”

Hitting the boy in the gut, he fell over and guilt soon rattled Jessica who jogged over to see if he was alright, “Ah sorry...I didn’t think I kicked it that hard...”

Still holding his stomach in pain, the boy reached up as if asking for help, “I..I...”

Jessica furrowed her eyebrows and leaned closer to hear the boy, “Umm do you want me to call for help?”

“N-no...I want you on my team.”

“What?”

The boy reached up to grab Jessica’s sleeve, “Join my team.”

Jessica looked up past the boy to see a bunch of students who must of come together for a pickup game, “Ah well I am a bit busy.”

“Please! I need you.”

Jessica couldn’t help but laugh at the boy’s desperation, “Really I have to go. I am looking for someone.”

Jessica was ready to leave but the boy swiftly grabbed her, “Please! If you play we will all help! Just one game!”

Biting her lower lip, Jessica thought this might not be a bad idea. Having more people looking would be amazing since just her and Taeyeon searching was taking a long time, “Deal, but you have to help me after?”

The boy got up and smiled, “Deal.”

Taeyeon was like a little energizer bunny hopping around and asking each person she saw if they knew Jiwoong, however like Jessica, she had no luck in finding anyone who knew the boy.

Still walking around, Taeyeon eventually made her way into the gymnasium. She looked around in awe at the facilities these American universities had, “Wow...this could hold thousands of people!”

“Hey miss! You shouldn’t be here.”

Taeyeon cocked her head not able to understand the older male who shouted at her in English. Ignoring the man who was walking towards her, Taeyeon continued to look around the enormous gymnasium, well until the man grabbed her arm causing Taeyeon to flinch in fright.

“Miss I said you can’t be here.”

Staring blankly at the man, Taeyeon said one of the few things she knew in English, “I-I don’t speak English.”

The man sighed as he slacked his grip on Taeyeon and started to motion that Taeyeon wasn’t allowed here. Being a smart girl, Taeyeon understood finally and went to leave. Feeling like she might need Jessica around for her English skills, Taeyeon went to seek her girlfriend out because being alone in such a huge university was frightening.

Dashing out towards the track area, Taeyeon made it to the track only to find Jessica not doing her job but instead playing soccer. Sighing, Taeyeon thought she should have known better than to send Jessica to a place she would get distracted. A bit annoyed, Taeyeon walked towards the field to pull Jessica and tell her they needed to get back to finding her brother, but halted when she noticed the huge grin on Jessica’s face. Seeing Jessica so happy, Taeyeon decided to take a seat and watch Jessica play. She could see the joy Jessica got out of playing the sport and it made her heart flutter seeing Jessica being passionate about something she loves. There was no way Taeyeon could go down there and rip away Jessica’s happiness, so she waited. She waited until the match was over and Jessica finished hugging her teammates in a well-deserved victory.

“Sica!”

Jessica turned hearing her nickname that only her girlfriend would use, “Tae...you finished already?”

Shaking her head, “Someone spoke English and I ran back to you,” Taeyeon said silently in embarrassment.

Jessica tried to fight the laughter but she nearly cried from Taeyeon’s cuteness, “My poor baby.”

Letting out a fake cough to ease the embarrassment, “So umm you want to continue now that you finished your fun?”

“I wasn’t just having fun. I was recruiting.”

“Recruiting?”

“Yea. If we won, they would help us search for your brother. Do you have extra photos?”

“I think I have two more...”

Jessica reached to take the two extra photos, “No worries. We can make copies. I will talk to the guys.”

Taeyeon watched from afar as Jessica went to speak to the players. They laughed a bit before taking the photos and Jessica ran back over to Taeyeon, “They will really help?”

“Yep! I gave them my phone number and they will call if they find anything about him. With 5 more people helping, we won’t have that much work to do! Aren’t I amazing.”

Taeyeon grinned and gave her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek, “Yes. I knew that before we got together.” Taking Jessica’s hand in her own, the two made off across campus asking more students until lunch time.

“Did you want to change universities?”

“I thought UCLA was the biggest? Wouldn’t he be somewhere there?” Taeyeon said as she chewed on her sandwich.

“It is but with those boys helping us there, we really don’t need to look I think.”

Taeyeon reached over the table to wipe mayo off the corner of Jessica’s face, “Humm ok. We can try another place.”

Jessica smiled at Taeyeon’s thoughtfulness, “Can we stop at a store first?”

“What’s wrong?”

Jessica looked down at her grass-stained feet, “Well I didn’t have good running shoes so I played in my bare feet. I kind of want to buy some better walking shoes than these sandals.”

Taeyeon grimaced, “Oh yea I forgot...didn’t that hurt?”

Jessica shrugged as she sipped her drink, “We did beach practices before remember? We never wear shoes for those...kind of used to playing with or without shoes.”

“Yea well the beach is soft...I would think running around on the grass would hurt.”

“A bit but it’s ok. So you think we have time to stop somewhere?”

Taeyeon giggled, “of course we do. I can’t have you wrecking your golden feet.”

Jessica wrinkled her nose with the strange cliché, “don’t call my feet golden when they are green now.”

Jessica spotted a department store so the two Koreans made their way in, “Jeeze, all the buildings in America are huge. I saw the gym at UCLA and it was like a professional arena.”

“College sports are like a big deal in America...as for everything else...I guess we just like more options.” Jessica shrugged as she looked at the mall map.

Taeyeon went up to lean on the map, “I feel so small in this country.”

Jessica smiled before walking up to Taeyeon and ruffling her hair, “I hate to tell you but you are small in Korea too.”

Taeyeon smacked her girlfriend on the arm, “Like you are much taller.”

Jessica could only laugh at Taeyeon because she was right, “3^rd floor should have good walking shoes.”

Taeyeon weaved her fingers into Jessica’s, “Alright let’s go.”

Jessica led the way up to the 3^rd floor as she enjoyed the warmth of Taeyeon’s hands. She loved that they could be intimate like this without much judgement, almost like they were having a normal date together.

“Which store? They all look the same.”

“It should be...”

“T-Taeyeon?”

Hearing her name in fluent Korean and a very familiar masculine voice, Taeyeon quickly released her grip from Jessica to turn around, “Jiwoong?”

Author's Note

Author is officially back with updates! I really only thought I would be gone for like a month from doing story updates but things turned all crazy busy suddenly. I will be updating all week with my ongoing stories (The Resistance might take longer due to the complex storyline) so look forward to that!

On another note, who was super excited for a video of Man-Taeng?? I nearly fell over in laughter watching this: