One certain Saturday, a phone rings loudly. It breaks through the silence of the apartment, where everyone is sleeping. The phone goes ignored, however, and it lets out a few more desperate tunes and then shuts off.

Just a few minutes after the specific apartment's peace returned, another phone rings-- in the same building, but not in the same space. The first rings, similar to how it was in the other apartment, go ignored. As the tune plays itself out, a girl who values her sleep very much suddenly sits up.

"Ssul! Get your phone!" Krystal throws a stuffed animal at her friend's sleeping face.

The owner of the phone slowly blinks open. She looks around dazedly with hair covering her whole face and her eyes half-open. She finally reaches for her phone just when it is about to shut off as well.

She mumbles into the phone. "Hello?"

"Is this Jinri Choi?"

"That's me. Who are you, and why are you calling me at--" she quickly checks the clock at her bedside-- "6:15?"

"I'm sorry," an apologetic voice answers. "Have I woken you up?"

"Yes," Jinri Choi answers bluntly. She yawns and rubs her eyes to keep them open, and almost dozes off when another stuffed animal hits her. "Krystal," she whines away from the phone.

"Get out and be quiet!" One look at her roommate's face, and Sulli is out in a flash. She knows better than to make Krystal angry when she's sleepy-- it's like calling out the monster hidden inside the innocent looking girl. She shudders.

"So, who are you?" she cuts in. The person on the other side, who had been ranting on and on frantically about why she had called so early, stops talking and clears .

"Sooyeon Jung. Nice to meet you, Jinri Choi. I believe you and your brother Minho Choi know me?"

 

•    •    •    •

 

 

In the other apartment, where the call had originally went, everyone inhabits dreamland peacefully.

Until, that is, the doorbell starts ringing.

And ringing.

And ringing.

Continuously.

For 10 straight minutes.

Finally, Onew wakes up-- the lightest sleeper (and closest to the door) in that apartment-- and shuffles to the bathroom sleepily. He washes his face to the tune of the doorbell ringing, and brushes his hair a few times. He clears his throat, chorus-prep-style, and lets out a few monosyllables to get rid of his sleep-induced huskiness.

He finally opens the door. "Sulli? Why so early?"

"Emergency!" she shouts as an answer.

Confused, he repeats, "Emergency?"

She nods frantically. She's holding a phone tightly, and she looks at the leader with wild eyes. "Emergency!" she says again. Sulli rushes around the bewildered boy and rushes into her brother's room. "Emergency!" she yells into the small room with her eyes closed. "Minho oppa, wake up! Emergen--" She stops.

Onew watches from the front door, dumbfounded, as Sulli stares into whatever it is, colors, and runs back to him as if her heels are on fire.

"Oppa, can you get Minho oppa for me? Taemin oppa is... not decent," she begs breathlessly. "It's a total emergency!"

"I figured it was, Ssul," he sighs. "Stay here, then." On his way to the room, he mutters, "Obviously, I won't be getting any more sleep." He sighs again, and out of curiosity, looks at Taemin to see what Sulli's 'not decent' meant.

The moment his eyes land on the young boy, he stifles his laughter, for Taemin is half-. He barely suppresses his delight at this unexpected Taelli moment, and anticipates Taemin's reaction when he tells the boy about this. The dear leader imagins sharing this news to all the other shippers, and lets out a giggle.

He jolts himself awake from the daydream with his  own too-girlish giggle, and shakes his head-- Taelli is making him a fangirl. He shudders at the thought, and pushes the idea into a far corner of his mind to focus on the task at hand-- wake Minho up.

"Minho, wake up," he pushes. "Your sister's here." When the sleeping guy doesn't stir, Onew sighs. However, he gets an idea, and his face brightens again. "Oh, Minho," he singsongs. "Your girlfriend Krystal is here!"

The 'boyfriend' rolls over. "Krystal.... Girlfriend," he murmurs. "...yeah."

A pause.

"Wait, what?!" Minho wakes up with a shout. His big eyes are even bigger than usual, filled with confusion and shock. "Krystal's not my girlfriend!"

"I was joking!" Onew scoffs quickly. "Your sister's here." He ushers the just-awoken younger boy outside, closes the door, and releases another girlish giggle. A Taelli and Minstal moment in just one morning! And it's only 6:35.

His eyes pops open. 6:35? He's going back to sleep. He yawns, and ignores the whispering siblings and goes into his room to sleep. Ah, peace and sleep-- his two favorite things. With singing, of course, and chicken, but that's another story.

He drifts off into dreamland again, with a satisfied smile.

Outside, the sister is dragging the stumbling brother into the bathroom. "It's a giant emergency!" she hisses.

"Okay, okay," he groans. "What is it, already?"

"It's..." she drops her voice "the sister."

Once inside the bathroom with the door firmly locked, Sulli turns to Minho. "She called."

"She what?"

Sulli insists, " I'm serious! Sooyeon Jung called me! Me!"

"No way!" Minho yells back.

"Yes way!"

"So what did she say?"

Sulli prepares herself for the big summary. "She told me to save her number and call her later because she's super busy and that she's really sorry for replying so late and early in the morning," she says in one big breath. "So what should we do?"

Minho is confused. "What do you mean, what should we do?"

Sulli rolls her eyes. "I'm asking, should we tell the other oppas and unnies now? I mean," she continues, "now that this Sooyeon Jung is ready to reveal all the stuff, shouldn't we share it with everyone else?"

Her brother raises an eyebrow. "Even Krys?"

"No, obviously not." She sighs, and her 'duh-that's-obvious' face disappears. She hesitates, and says, "I feel like holding off information from our friends who, may I add, are also Krystal's friends, is unfair." Minho opens his mouth to speak, but Sulli keeps talking. "We started contacting Krystal's sister because we were worried. But we're not her only friends, as I've said before. Krystal is close to everyone else too, and we're not the only ones worried about Krystal."

Sulli waits for her brother to respond after finishing her long speech. The elder sibling carefully turns over this new thought in his head.

Finally, he says, "Maybe you're right. It's not like th others are incapable of helping Krys out, so why keep it from them?"

"Exactly," Sulli exclaims. "You took the words right out of my mouth. Now come on, let's go tell the others!" She makes a move to go outside.

"Whoa, Ssul," he pulls her back. "We need a plan."

"A plan?"

Minho nods seriously. "A plan called Operation Keep Krystal Out Without Making Her Feel Outcasted On Purpose, also known as Operation Nicely Remove Krystal."

"A plan."

 

 

•    •    •    •

 

 

"Krystal!" A shrill voice fills the room. "Krys, come on!"

The aforementioned girl groans and buries her head into her pillow. "Not now, Ssul. I'm sleeping."

"Remember? We're going hiking!"

Were they? Krystal doesn't remember-- she's too sleepy to make sense out of this world. She prefers the one in her sleep. "Go without me."

Her roommate smiles discreetly. "No, Krystal," she whines extra-loudly. "You promised!"

"I don't remember," comes the reply from under a pillow and a blanket. She really doesn't-- maybe Sulli made her promise in her state of half-sleeping?

For five more minutes, Sulli tries to wake Krystal up.

"What time is it?" the sleepy girl mutters.

"Um, 5:30," the wide-awake one lies.

"What?!"

"Okay, fine," Sulli pretends to give up. "But you owe me one, because you went against your promise."

"Fine. Deal. Go. Leave me alone," Krystal shoos.

The actress singsongs, "Bye, Krys!" She makes a big show of rustling stuff and calling to imaginary unnies, then goes outside.

When the roommate leaves, Krystal sighs happily. Peace and quiet at last.

 

 

 

 

•    •    •    •

 

 

"Plan success," Sulli whispers to herself giddily. She texts Minho of the news, and includes that she will be going over to their apartment, so get ready. When she gets there and the door doesn't open, she sighs and alerts the inhabitants in the apartment of her presence. In other words, she rings the bell.

"Coming," an unrecognizable voice calls. Sulli tilts her head. It's not Minho oppa, or Onew oppa, and Key and Taemin oppa are both too high-pitched. So is this Jonghyun oppa? she wonders.

When the door opens, it reveals...

...a shirtless Taemin.

The shirtless Taemin squints sleepily at the frozen Sulli. "Ssul? Is that you?" he asks, his voice all low and husky from sleep.

Sulli unfreezes quickly and slams the door shut. She runs away and hurries into the elevator again, and stays there to hyperventilate a little and calm down. She shakes her head, trying to erase his image and voice.

Her phone rings, and when she manages to fumble it out with her shaky hands, she sees it's Taemin. Though she feels like not answering, she fears it's going to be too mean, and picks it up against her better judgement.

"Hello?" she hears herself say with a calmness she doesn't feel. Her body feels numb, but fortunately her voice doesn't betray this fact.

"What in the world," comes the husky version of Taemin's voice.

"Oh, sorry, I remembered something very important. Is my brother there?" she asks coolly.

"Minho hyung? Yeah, why?" He sounds confused. "Anyways, it didn't seem like it. You ran away," Taemin accused in a deep voice.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I mean, no." Curse Taemin and his just-awoken voice-- she can't focus. After a few moments of indecision, she decides to be honest. "Well, you see, oppa, you don't have a shirt on," she accuses back bluntly.

"A shirt?" He pauses, and when he speaks again, he's more flustered than ever. "Oh, uh, sorry, Ssul. I usually sleep like this, so, yeah, sorry. I didn't realize. You have no fault, it's all mine." He rambles on and on while Sulli silently laughs.

"It's okay, oppa. Just put a shirt on the next time, okay?"

She smiles as she hangs up. What a good oppa, that Taemin oppa, she thinks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

•    •    •    •

 

 

Meanwhile, Minho is busily calling every girl in the other apartment (except Krystal, of course). He already had woken up the rest of the boys (thus how Taemin was awake to answer the door). He tries to wake everyone up with a text first, then calls instead when it obviously doesn't work, since nobody answers.

Luna and Amber both doesn't answer, but fortunately for Minho, Victoria does.

"Hello?"

"Noona! It's Minho!"

"I gathered that from the phone ID. But why did you call so early?" she yawns.

"Well..." The boy does some quick thinking. He decides how to break the news, and ask her a favor in one. "Noona, you see, we have something very important to share with you guys, but not to Krystal. It's complicated, so can you wake Luna and Amber as well?"

Maybe she sensed the urgency in Minho's voice, but she accepts this explanation immediately. "Okay, but it better not be something foolish," she warns instead.

"Thanks, noona. Bring them to our apartment, please." Relief floods into his body, and he hangs up satisfied.

Now all that's left is explaining the whole, huge situation to everyone.

---

A quick update to my subscribers-- it's not long, but it's not short, but it's not good either. It's like a prep chapter for the next big one, so yeah. Hope you enjoyed the huge Taelli moments and the small Minstal moment here, and a girly Onew. I got a subscriber wanting Lunew: don't worry-- in, like, 2-3 chapters, there's going to be loads, followed up with Khuntoria as well. I think. But anyways, sorry for the late-ish update, it's been a pretty long time. I'll try to update a bunch more, but as I've said, I'm on a semi-hiatus status thing. Okay, thanks to all my subscribers and commenters, greatly appreciated. Upvote is very optional, and I personally like comments more, because it motivates me! Not that I don't like upvotes, but anyways. Yeah. Okay. Bye.