Taemin closed the door of his house behind him as his eyes wandered side to side around the road for Key's car.

Usually Minho would be the friend driving Taemin around without any decline.

Yes, Minho was his most intimate friend, studying partner, personal chauffeur, and his personal brother. Come to think of it, what wasn't he for Taemin? They were forever partners in crimes, but since he was busy managing the party back at his own house, Key offered to drive Taemin... alone... which was weird. Key just wasn't the type of person alone, especially since Jonghyun would be always by his side.

A car 's horn began honking repetitively and Taemin's lips parted making a small smile once he recognized Key through the window. Key stuck his head out and waved at him. 

"HURRY UP! HEY, HOW COME YOUR LEGS SO LONG BUT THEY MOVE SO SLOW? WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE." Taemin playfully scoffed at Key's usual persistent nagging.

"I'M COMING!" Taemin yelled back and quickened his pace.

Once Taemin stepped inside and fixiated his position to the seat next to Key, Taemin's eyes quickly met with Key's seemingly enthusiastic eyes while his lips looked like it couldn't have helped but form into a huge smile. As he was busy putting on his seatbelt, Taemin his eyes couldn't help but furrow at Key and his sudden friendly atmosphere. His eyes shyly glanced away back and forth from Key who looked like he couldn't stop glimpsing at Taemin from the corner of his eyes. After a while of extreme awkwardness, Taemin slightly narrowed his eyes back at Key with a bit of concern.

"What?" He mumbled. In that instant, Key giddily bounced up and down on his seat and cooed in a quite cute manner.

"I never thought this day would come that Taemin, Lee Taemin,  would get attracted to a girl. BABY TAEMIN HAS FINALLY BECOME A MAN. Aigoo I need a moment to breath." Key slammed his hand firmly on his chest and took a deep breath. Oh right. Taemin laid his head back and chuckled.

"It's been over a week. How come you're not over it?" Key looked a Taemin in disbelief and quickly turned back to the road.

"Yah.. How can I? Besides, I'm not the only one." Taemin rolled his eyes.

"I know, but they're not like you." They both laughed.

In the midst of the slowly withering laughter, Key's smile slowly turned into a questionable frown.

"But.. Taemin-ah.. Are you going to confess to her anytime soon?"

Key's question surprisingly stumped Taemin as his smile quickly faded away as well. The idea of actually confessing to Sulli never occurred to him. Sure he had imagined them being together, holding hands, snuggling under a single blanket as he would soothe her to sleep, but he it never came to him that for that to happen, he would actually have to confront his feelings to her to make those imaginations a reality. 

He gulped at the thought.

Out of all possible fears a person might have, Taemin had obtained the fear of affection. Taemin assumed this fear was most likely influenced by his father. It was the most prominent peculiarity they had in common which had and will always be a nuisance to him. He felt his heart tightly pounding against his chest as his ears began to burn by just thinking about it.

"Woaah I can hear your heart thumping from all the way over here. What are you thinking about?" Key looked at Taemin with amusement.

With that, Key roused Taemin from his thoughts. The silent ambience inside the car made completely obvious that the loud beating sound was coming from the inside of his chest. Taemin blushed and cleared his throat.

"Nothing." Taemin replied and turned to face the window again before giving Key his answer. "No."

"WHAT?!?!" Key exclaimed in disbelief while the car screeched into a halt for a short second, causing Taemin to almost fly forward and experience a mini heart attack. Taemin gasped and clasped the cloth in front of his chest in shock.

"Key-hyung!" Taemin looked at Key with bewildered eyes. Key cleared his throat.

"Sorry. How come?" Key asked. 

"To be honest, I haven't even thought about telling her yet nor did I plan to." Taemin winced in embarassment and rubbed the back of his neck coyly. "But, Key."

"Yeah?"

"I'm afraid." Key snorted.

"You aren't afraid to do everything else but you're afraid to confront to a girl." 

"Yah..." Taemin gave him a death glare. 

"Don't look at me like that, I'm your elder." Key returned Taemin's death glare with a threatening scowl. Taemin's expression softened as he sighed.

"Of course I'm scared. What if she still hates me?.. What if I don't get the answer I want?.. What if she only looks at me like a fool after I do?.. What if she won't talk to me anymore?"

Key let out an angry sigh.

"You keep asking too many questions, that's your problem. What if she does this? What if she does that? You only think of excuses. Those are only excuses Those delusional thoughts of yours only came from your head, but they're not actual answers. To have an answer, one of you have to at least have the balls to tell the other how they feel or a new wonderful blossomed relationship can never exist for the both of you. For example, Minho. He doesn't have enough balls to tell Krystal now look where he's at!"

Key stopped and winced. 

"Tsk what a shame actually. It's been about 4 years and he hasn't even talked to her yet."

Taemin, silent and sweating from embarassment the whole lecture, quietly the belt of his seat belt. Key looked at Taemin from the corner of his eyes and sighed in sympthany.

"Sorry... we all just want you to be happy and if she makes you happy, go for it. You're nearly 19 and all you did was stay at home until now... Suppose your brother saw you continuously depressed and lifeless, wouldn't he be say something like, 'If I can't be by my little brother's side now, he should at least be with someone that makes him happy like I did... before I return."Key quickly added.

Taemin, stunned at the mentioning of Taesun after so long, clenched his teeth, but then quickly lifteed the corner of his lips into a crooked smile.

"I know, I know." Taemin pretended to sound annoyed and chuckled.

"So do you promise you're going to tell her as soon as you're ready?" Key lifted his eyebrows. Taemin forced a smile and nodded.

"Sure." Key's face lit up with a happy grin and playfully ruffled Taemin's hair. 

"You better." Taemin just smiled as he fixed his tousled hair. He then paused and looked at Key.

"But is she coming?" Taemin asked. Key paused as well and tilted his head as he wasn't so sure of the answer to that question himself.

 

Meanwhile...

"Oh my god I can't believe he would do that to you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go." Krystal rubbed Sulli's back as she sat on the side of her bed emotionlessly. Just a few days ago, Sulli had received an unexpected call from her father that started with excitement but ended terribly as her father announced that he wouldn't be coming home until a couple more months than the original schedule.

"Why not? I thought you didn't want to go in the first place, what makes you want to go now?" Sulli said dully. Krystal furrowed her eyebrows and bit her lip as she turned to face somewhere else to hide her blush.

"There's nothing to do at home anyways, so why not?" Krystal muttered shyly. Sulli laughed wearily.

"But don't worry about me. Go. I'm sleepy." Sulli said and let her back fall onto the bed. Krystal sighed as she stood up and walk in Sulli's closet and took out her dress that Baekhyun had given her and threw it on the bed.

"No, you're going with me." Sulli groaned and stood up to take the dress, but instead, stood up to bring it back into the closet. Krystal frowned and grabbed the end of the dress before Sulli could take it to the closet.

"Sulli, what are you doing?"

"I'm not going."

"Yes you are." Krystal clutched the dress even harder.

"No I'm not." Sulli pulled the dress back.

"YOU'RE GOING TO THE PARTY." Krystal yelled and yanked the dress back harder, but unfortunately, causing the end of the dress to rip apart. 

Both girls looked at the damaged dress, then back at each other in horror. 

"Oops." Krystal winced.

 

Taemin looked at the many parked cars around Minho's house as he and Key reached the front door.

"Where did all those cars come from?" Key shrugged as he turned the doorknob to find the whole house crowded with over a hundred strange teenagers dancing to the booming music in the background. Taemin opened his mouth in awe.

"Oh." Taemin managed to say. They both walked around puzzled as to what's going on until Minho spotted them and scurried through the crowd followed by Onew and Luna while Luna dragged Jonghyun by the collar along with her.

"I thought this party only consisted of just us." Key frowned as he looked around, then his eyes set on Jonghyun. Jonghyun forced a fake innocent smile. Key scoffed and pointed his finger at him.

"This is the cause of the problem isn't it?" Minho nodded. Luna turned to smack Jonghyun's head. 

"It's all your fault. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT." Luna screamed and continued to abuse a whimpering Jonghyun.

"What happened?" Taemin asked.

"Since he was the only one who came early, I asked him to watch for guests for an hour while I go out to buy the beverages and this is what happens." Minho turned and angrily gritted his teeth at Jonghyun who shrugged in response.

"You said to invite a few girls over and I did... maybe a bit more, but I didn't know that this amount of people would be dragged along with them." Jonghyun said in his defense and stuck out his bottom lip.

"Why can't you tell them to all leave?" Key asked.

"They won't listen to me." Minho massaged both the sides of his head with his two forefingers.

They all groaned.

"How is the plan going to work out now?" Onew asked and cupped his hand over his mouth as he realized what he had just said.

"What plan?" Taemin cocked his head to the side. The others froze. 

"Nothing." Luna fake smiled. Taemin looked at all of them and frowned as he knew they were trying to hide something from him.

"Be right back." Taemin said and walked off. After he left, they all looked at Jonghyun in disbelief who nodded his head down in shame.

 

 

Sulli uncomfortablely played with the end of the dress that Taemin had given her that she had no choice but to wear now to the party as she stepped out of Krystal's car. After what seemed like an eternity of begging and screaming, Krystal had managed to convince Sulli to come to the party who only agreed to go for Krystal.

Once they stepped inside the house, the girls were greeted with junk food lying all over the floor as strangers that they had never even talked to danced on top of it along with intense music. 

"I thought this was supposed to be a small party." Sulli stared at the crowd in awe. Krystal looked at Sulli with concern.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay with you?" Sulli smiled back at her and nodded.

"I'm sure. Go ahead. I need some time alone anyways." Krystal, still unsure, nodded and patted Sulli's shoulders before leaving Sulli's side, leaving Sulli alone in the middle of a crowd full of strangers. Sulli sighed before pushing through the crowd towards the stairs.

 

"How is the plan supposed to work now? It's impossible." Luna stared at her empty cup as her head dangled gloomily. Minho had left in a hurry for some reason. Taemin had the same reason. Now the four were all stuck together in the corner of an overcrowded room. The boys all shook their head and shrugged.

"Aigoo what are we going to do with you now?" Key scrunched his nose at Jonghyun who pretended to pout sadly. As Jonghyun lifted his head, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure and his eyes began to widen in astonishment.

"Uh oh." Jonghyun's jaw dropped.

"What is it?" Key frowned as he tried to see what Jonghyun seemed to be blankly staring at and soon his jaw dropped as well. Luna glanced at the direction their eyes were focused on and dropped her cup once she saw the familiar person.

"Jonghyun you've done it now." Onew chortled. 

They all eyed Minhee as she stuck up her nose as usual as she spun around in search of what would most likely be Taemin. Luna made an evil smirk as she slowly turned her head towards Jonghyun to give him a cold stare.

"You... I'M GOING TO KILL YOU. HOW COULD YOU LET HER IN?" Luna raised her voice and grabbed Jonghyun by the hair and started to pull his head back.

"Ah ah ah ah how should I know how she got in? I didn't see her." Jonghyun tightly closed his eyes and bit his lip as he kneeled down and tried to endure the pain. 

"We need to get rid of her. Let's go." Key said as walked towards Minhee followed by the rest and pulled her by the shoulder to face him.

"Who said you could come? Leave." Key hissed at Minhee who smirked in return.

"No way. I'm not leaving until I find Taemin by the end of tonight. Did you know that it has been said that the person you're next to at the beginning of a new year will be the person you're destined to end up with that year. I have to be the one."

"That's ridiculous." Jonghyun shouted. Minhee sneered and as she tried to walk off, Luna quickly grabbed her by the wrist.

"Leave him alone." Luna threateningly narrowed her eyes at her. Minhee wrinkled her nose in an exasperate manner at her and pulled her arm away from Luna's grasp and ran off. The four all groaned.

"Aiiish how bothersome. Let's just go find her before she finds him." Key said and they all nodded as they tried to chase after her.

 

Where could she be? Minho scratched his head as he looked over the crowd of people in hopes of finding Krystal. Had she had rejected the offer to come after all? He thought. He shook his head to let that idea go and dashed toward the entrance to the backyard where it was, thank god, empty. He needed a place to relax anyway that was anywhere away from the suffocating area inside his own house. He inhaled as much fresh air as he could as he closed the door behind him. 

As he walked towards the pool, his eyes immediately widened as soon as he saw her plainly sitting on the side of the pool with her legs dipped into the cool water. Krystal. Her back was only visible, but he was sure that it was her.

 

Krystal lifted her leg up so that her delicate feet were now visible above the water and she was able to obtain a cool breeze against the wet skin of her feet in return. Luckily for her, it was winter, so no one dared to come out here besides Krystal who really just enjoyed the feeling of the cold weather.

"Aren't you afraid of catching a cold?"

The voice started Krystal, causing her to jump. Krystal quickly turned around to find Minho kneeling right beside her.

"Sorry." Minho grinned shyly while Krystal sat there stunned at his sudden appearance. Oh no. Krystal could already feel her heart beating faster. As she was about to lift her legs up to run away, Minho grabbed her wrist before she could have even stood up.

"Can you do me a favor?" Minho spoke quietly. Krystal hid her face behind her hair to hide her blush.

"Please.. don't run away from me anymore." Minho murmured in a gentle voice that filled her with a warm feeling,  causing her to blush uncontrollably.

 

 

"Move, I need to get through." Taemin groaned and struggled to push through a group strangers as he walked up the stairs. Minho had mentioned of a balcony in a guest room, so he figured he could go there for some fresher air. 

There was no sign of Sulli anywhere. For this, he was infuriated at Jonghyun like the rest for letting so much people in. It was just impossible to find her. 

Taemin stomped up the stairs and panted from exhaustion once he reached the end of it. His legs crawled to the front of the door of a room.

As he twisted the door knob open, Taemin was astonished to find a young girl had already taken over the balcony. Taemin grumbled as he walked closer and before he could tell her to move, Taemin's lips only parted halfway as he froze once he was able to recognize the face of the young girl.

"Sulli.."

---

So I realized that if I continued to finish this chapter, it would be too long to read. I have to admit that It seems like this chapter was a little too weak and rushed, but I'll be more careful and thorough in the next chapter which will be especially for MINSTAL and also Taelli, so please wait since I am planning to post the next chapter somewhere this week. xD I've noticed that a lot of you have asked for more Minstal moments, so I hope the next chapter can hopefully make up for it. (: In the meantime, PLEASE LEAVE SOME COMMENTS for this chapter below and if not,  at least at least at least VOTE ON THIS POLL on the bottom. Thank you in advance~