The bus creaks to a stop, and ten students-- five boys and five girls-- tumble off the crowded bus steps. The chatter doesn't stop for a second, however, and all ten are engaged in happy conversations all around.

That is, until a certain cheerful girl screams out, "Ice skating!"

All side discussions stop to spazz about ice skating all together, as one. Happy voices fill the air when the group sees the ice rink positioned in front of them, except for two people.

They file inside, paying for whatever cost needed, and settle down at a nearby bleacher bench thing.

"I'm not skating," Onew says. He shudders. "I hope I'll never have to skate again as long as I live."

The others look at him in a questioning way, but apparently he is not too happy to share his traumatic experience, so everyone else drops it.

"I can't skate as well," Luna adds. Her smile is saddened and a bit apologetic. "My ankle's kind of sprained, and last time I went to the doctor's, they told me not to exert pressure on it and stuff."

"Poor unnie," Sulli murmurs to Krystal. "We all know how much she loves ice skating." Krystal nods, a small pout unconsciously on her lips.

After everyone who will skate is ready, the eight boys and girls glide into the ice rink happily. Well, most of them.

As soon as he puts a cautious foot out unto the slick ice, Minho slips and falls. Thankfully, Taemin is near, and they help him up after a bout of laughter. He manages to go three steps with the help of Taemin, but lands on his in seconds once again. This continues on for about ten more minutes, until Taemin announces that he can't help his hyung anymore, because he had promised Sulli that he would help her out.

He looks around the rink, searching for a person in their group who can skate well, and his eyes light up at Krystal's skating skills. She is gracefully and effortlessly racing around the rink, a picture of a long-limbed figure skater. Taemin hollers out her name, and motions her to come towards him and Minho, who is supporting his weight on the wall.

"Yo, Krys, can you please help Minho hyung here? I have to help Sulli," Taemin begs as soon as the girl comes. He points to Sulli, who is still on firm ground waiting for him.

Krystal, however, shakes her head. "The best way to learn is by self." She starts to skate away, but Taemin grabs her sleeve before she gets far.

"Please? Please, please, please, please? I promised Sulli!"

The girl starts to say no again, but stops as she realizes that by saying no, she would be depriving all of them of a TaeLli moment. Hiding her thrill inside, she sighs heavily. "Fine, go to Ssul, I'll help oppa."

With a cheerful yell, Taemin races back to guide Sulli in the art of ice skating. Krystal smiles at the sight, and turns back to her student. "Now, Minho oppa, is it safe to assume that this is your first time ice skating?" Minho nods weakly. "Okay, have you ever roller-skated before?" Again, the older boy nods. "Well, this is nothing like it, so don't try to skate like the way you skated on ground," she orders coldly.

"Don't try to walk, either, but glide. Even, even glides, like this." She goes a short way to show how to glide. "Now, you try."

Minho, to his credit, does try his best. He imagines gliding just like how Krystal has, but before he knows it, he's on the ground staring up at Krystal. And Krystal, to her credit, does try to not laugh, but can't help herself either.

"I know I'm bad at this, okay?" Minho grumbles.

Krystal nods, gasping for breath. "It's just that-- well you're-- really athletic but-- you're falling so comicly-- it's so-- funny!" And again she goes, laughing her head off.

Sighing, Minho helps himself up, but a small smile has already formed on his lips-- his teacher's laughter is quite contagious, and quite gladdening to hear as well. "Just help me out, will you?" It's a complaining tone, but it's really just for show.

The girl quiets down considerably and shows Minho the way to skate. After thirty minutes of hard trying and laughing, Minho can finally skate if he holds on to Krystal's arms. It helps that Krystal's such a great skater that her laughter doesn't affect her skating at all.

"Here, oppa, c'mon, here boy, here!" Krystal mimics clapping her hands and motioning to a dog to come to her, except, well, it's a person. She can't stop laughing, and a mischevious grin is now permanently engraved unto her face.

"Stop it, Krys," Minho complains with gritted teeth. He is focusing in that really intense focusing way he has, and Krystal laughing at him isn't helping at all, especially since it distracts him so much that he can't concentrate well. After all, Krystal gets ten times more prettier than her usually beautiful self when she's laughing, and it's taking all of his power to not zone out and openly stare at-- wait, what? "Whoa!"

He hears more laughter (music to his ears, but he'll never admit it to himself or to others) from the girl, getting louder as she glides close to help him up. "You okay, oppa?" Her 'oppa' is still in the process of clearing out the disturbing thoughts and so when he finally sees what situation he is in, he's surprised to see Krystal's smiling face so close. That's when he loses it.

Wide-eyed, he just stares. Fortunately for him, his mouth doesn't drop open, but as Krystal helps him up with another bout of laughter, his hand tingles where it had touched hers. And from then on, no further advancements in ice skating are possible with him. His thoughts are occupied with finding out why he feels so weird, working a million miles a second to figure out the exact reasons why. But he keeps getting off track due to having Krystal beside him, smiling and laughing and generally just shining like a lighthouse beacon in his view.

And for the sake of his life, he just can't figure out why it bothers him so much.

•     •     •     •

"Look, there goes Sulli and Taemin, and Taem's skating backwards! Awesome, I didn't know he could skate like that!" Luna exclaims. Her brief unhappiness has disappeared, and she is her own happy self again. "Oh-- there's Amber and Key oppa. I think they're fighting. Are they?"

Onew nods. "Key gets that look on his face when he's annoyed, but at least they're not outright chasing each other and stuff. Never mind; it's starting to get heated."

"Why are they skating together in the first place?"

"My thoughts exactly. Hey, Vic noona's waving at us."

"Where?"

"There. See the hot pink jacket? At that far corner?"

"Oh!" Luna raises a hand to wave back, and Onew does the same. "Wait, there's Jonghyun oppa right next. Is he on his phone? Bad oppa. Phones aren't allowed on the rink!"

"That's why the security skater guy's heading that way. Look." The boy nods his head towards the big, buff guy always at ready on the rink. "There's Minho and Krys over there, too."

"Krys looks like she's teaching Minho oppa." The girl stifles a giggle. "And oppa's not doing so well." Her small titters turn into real laughter. "Look, there he falls again!"

"But I've never seen Krystal look that happy, except maybe when she plays a game and does something perfect," Onew notes thoughtfully. "And it doesn't look like Minho's very upset, he's kind of smiling too. If I laugh at him, he sends me this death glare thing." The leader shudders. "It's scary."

"Maybe he's a gentleman and spares girls the glare?" suggests Luna.

Her companion shakes his head. "Nope, I've seen him glare at Amber, Sulli, and Victoria noona in the same way."

"...but not Krystal, huh," Luna muses. An evil smile to rival Jonghyun's forms on her lips. "Oppa, I now have a second ship I dearly want to let sail." She relocates her point of interest to the teacher and student, and the evil smile grows larger. "Let's call it... MinStal."

•     •     •     •

"That was fun," Sulli yawns drowsily. "Let's do it again soon." A chorus of agreements rise from the sleepy group.

"Thank goodness the bus isn't as crowded as we first got on," whispers Victoria, surveying all her tired dongsaengs. "They all would've fallen asleep on random people."

"Agreed," comes Jonghyun's reply. He is preoccupied with the phone once again, playing random games.

The oldest member of the group lets herself daze out, snapping back to reality when thirty minutes later, the bus hits a hard stop. "Goodness, watch your driving," she mutters to herself. She satisfies herself by throwing a dark glare to the back of the bus drivers' seat, and makes sure the rest of the group is still there. To her pleasant surprise, she finds most of the others asleep or talking quietly.

Key, sitting next to Jonghyun on the other side, is sleeping leaning against the wall. Amber is at Victoria's side, at the back of the bus as well, sleeping like a baby too. Victoria sneakly takes out her phone and snaps a shot of Amber, since her mother-like side of her can't miss this cute moment of her 'child.' Seeing this, Jonghyun snaps a shot of Key, too, but for another reason-- just in case he could use this to blackmail the poor sleeping boy.

Eager to take more shots, both Jonghyun and Victoria widen their views to people in front. To his great delight, Jonghyun finds that while he had been getting his high score on one of his games, both of his ships had fallen asleep-- together.

He snakes his way down the aisle and snaps a shot of the peaceful Krystal leaning on Minho's shoulder, and the peaceful Minho leaning on Krystal's leaning head. He cackles silently for a while, looking very much like an evil dinosaur elf, then speeds to his next destination-- TaeLli.

Taemin is leaning on the window, and Sulli is leaning on Taemin, and their arms are intertwined. How that had happened, Jonghyun doesn't know, but he doesn't care-- it's awesome, and so it must remain forever in his memories. He snaps multiple shots-- one of Sulli leaning, one of their arms, and one whole picture. 

After his successful mission, Jonghyun returns back to his seat by Key and Victoria to gloat by himself over the photos.

As for Luna and Onew they are listening to music together, both mouthing the words of the song silently, just enjoying each other's company while surfing on their phones. Victoria takes a photo unbeknownst to them, and decides that she'll partially ship this couple. She discusses the ship name with the unofficial ship name officer, Jonghyun, until they decide that LuNew is the best name out of the other possibilities.

Two stops away from their stop, Jonghyun and Victoria go around waking everyone up. Jonghyun keeps an extra eye out for his two ships to see their reactions of the state they are in, and is not disappointed. Minho, who regains full consciousness first, jerks back in surprise and, when the shock fades, grows dark, dark red. He nudges Krystal away carefully without looking at the girl, and the girl (fortunate for her, unfortunate for Jonghyun) never realizes in what position she had slept in. Minho's red face, however, does not go away for quite a long time.

Jonghyun's happy and evil grin forms.

As for TaeLli, they wake up and is drowsy, feeling comfortable. They don't notice their arms linked until, well, they do, and they do it together. With a yelp, the withdraw their hands and sets their faces on fire, then seem to agree not to talk about it anymore, and turns away. They are both fanning their own faces trying to chase the red away.

Jonghyun's happy and evil grin widens.

The best thing happens, however, when the group gets off the bus. First Luna and Onew go off, then Sulli and Taemin, then Minho, then Krystal. But alas, the girl had not woken up fully from her little nap, and in her tired state, she cannot think or move well. Drowsily she follows Minho's lead, and stumbles at the stairs to land on Minho's back. There, she promptly falls back asleep. Victoria, who had been behind the two, urges Minho to piggyback Krystal all the way to the elevator at the very least, because if she can fall asleep that fast, who knows what will happen? Minho doesn't see Jonghyun taking a picture of this and cackling.

Jonghyun's happy and evil grin reaches full limit. He decides that this is the best night of his entire high school career.

They reach the elevators, and Minho uncomfortably puts Krystal back down, not percieving all the shipper smiles exchanged by everyone else. The silent spazzing goes unnoticed as well, to the great relief of those silently spazzing. Krystal, to not fall down, goes as far to cling unto Minho's arm, and the silent spazzing becomes too much to stay silent and squeals are accidentally pronounced.

Of course, Minho doesn't notice, mostly because, well, Krystal is clinging on his arm, and that by itself is enough to stop Minho's brain from functioning. It takes all ounces of his power and focus to not stare at Krystal, because he knows he wouldn't be able to swim out of it again. Not that Minho would confess this unto himself, though. Again, he wonders why this situation has such a big influence to him, but cannot find the strength to delve more into it, and so lets it pass to concentrate more on not looking at Krystal.

And so it is that he cannot relax until Krystal is off his arm and the girls have gone to their floor. Even then, though, Minho is dazed and zoning off, quite lightheaded, his heart still thumping painfully for reasons unknown. He shakes it off and blames it on too much physical exertion, and tells himself that it will be gone when he gets his rest.

Oh, how wrong he is.

Some Jonghyun funniness and a lot of Minstal for my readers! I don't think you guys had to wait as long as last time, right? At least, I really hope so. A warning: there won't be too much Minstal from now on, because we are reaching another conflict and some other stuff. That's why there's a lot of Minstal fluff in here, to spoil you guys before the angst. Well, it won't be much of an angst, but still, it deprives you from Minstal. After all, all stories (except crack and pure fluff) need some trouble to make the plot roll, right? (Maybe not. But that's what I've planned, so yeah. Gotta bear with it, man.) It's a pretty not-short chapter, this one-- 2614 words! I usually have around 1300-ish to 2000-ish words a chapter. I'm kind of proud, especially since I am not an experienced fluff maker. Quite the opposite, in fact. Anyways, thanks to all my subscribers and commenters and readers in general-- I have 43! Hurrah! I hadn't known until today, because I barely check my subscribers number, so it has been a great surprise for me-- and I love commenters a lot, so if you can, please comment! :) Thanks for reading!