Hello, hello!

As the author is incredibly bad, I, said author, will recount some stuff with you. A summary of what's happened so far: People are shipping people like crazy, Victoria's Nickhun has been introduced, randomly (or is it?) named friends SHINee and f(x) for the competition are practicing for aforementioned competition, and whilst they are making these songs up, the shipping friends decide to get Minstal to happen. Thus, they are sent out each at the same time (carefully planned just so) so that they end up going to the grocery store together.

Now, on with the story.

Krystal, still grumbling, walks on to the elevator. To her surprise, when the elevator door opens, who else but Minho is staring back at her?

"Wait, what?" they both say. After a beat of silence, chuckles fill the silence and Krystal steps into the elevator as well.

"Sent on a mission?" she asks with a playful smile, her grumbles long gone.

"If it wasn't obvious already," he replies. "They're in desperate need of pineapple juice, it seems. You?"

"Bread for the hungry llama named Amber." Another bout of laughter follows at that.

Krystal shrugs her shoulders with a very "what-can-we-do" face. "What can we do? It should've been expected that someone would be sent. It's just we were unlucky this time around, I guess." The truth is, no, it wasn't a of luck (or the lack of it) that the two had been chosen. Quite the contrary-- the whole thing had been planned through furious texts while Sulli and Taemin distracted the couple.

But since these two don't know about that, they just agree and find solace in each other's company-- they're not alone, and that in itself is something after all.

"Hey, did you hear about how Yesung got accepted to the police academy early? Apparently, he's going to be an information gatherer. Maybe a spy or something."

Yesung: Minho hadn't heard that name in a long while. It's a welcome sound for sure, though. "Really? It'll fit him. He knew everything."

"Probably more about everything than anyone, ha."

Easy laughter and a flow of conversation is so natural between them, and the 5 minutes that it takes to go to the grocery store is short enough to leave a hue of disappointment in their eyes.

"Look! Pineapple juice," Krystal motions to Minho. "Now you have to help me find some kind of bread everyone will like."

Krystal listed out each girl's tendencies: "Sulli likes sweet stuff, but Amber unnie doesn't like it too sweet. Vic unnie likes bread with filling or stuffing, like red bean paste, and Luna unnie likes anything as long as it's not bitter or sour."

Minho nodded. "Let's get those variety packs where there's a little bit of everything."

"Perfect."

With that, their little trip to the store is done, and perhaps unintentionally, their walk back to the apartments is taken slower than the rest.

As they make their decidedly slow steps back home, Krystal softly speaks up. "By the way, have you noticed Luna unnie and Onew oppa?"

A slow grin takes over Minho's facial features. He is itching to tell her about what had happened at the Senior-Junior Project bulletin board, but he is a man of promises and just says, "Definitely."

"Is this going to go on too, or what?" she chuckles. "It seems a lot of our friends are liking each other. It's a good thing that there aren't any overlaps."

"True! We have Taemin and Sulli, for sure--"

"Vic umma and Nickhun oppa--"

"And now Luna and Onew hyung. Nice."

They laugh and high five each other, taking joy in their matchmaking.

"Is the singing couple an official?" Krystal muses.

"I'm not sure, but--" Minho's phone goes off, breaking the easy conversation. "Maybe it's the members, impatient for their snack," he says. It's not-- he sends an apologetic glance to Krystal. "I think I might have to take this."

Krystal silently walks next to Minho as he speaks on the phone."

"Hi, noona! ... Mmm, I wouldn't think today a good time. Maybe tomorrow? ... Okay, so not tomorrow..." He cups his hand over the phone and tells Krystal, "Yuri noona, my SJ project partner."

She nods in reply, and he continues the call.

The call goes on even in the elevator, and Krystal just sends a quick wave and a small smile, getting off her floor first while Minho tries to make schedules work. She feels a bit disgruntled, but since she can't figure out why, she ignores it and lets it rest. After all, he had his own life, too.

Throughout this whole thing, the girls had been working hard at their song. Wait, no, sorry, that's not right-- the girls had been working hard at their imagination pertaining to the MinStal ship. There, that's the truth.

"I bet they held hands," Sulli whispers excitedly.

Luna playfully slaps the younger friend's shoulder in mock horror. "Sulli! Your best friend and your own brother!"

"What?"

Victoria shakes her head. "No, no, they're much too early for that. I don't even think they know their own feelings, for goodness sake."

Amber laughs. "You guys are being much too serious about this, but hey, it might not be too far from reality to expect some awkward skinship moments, that's for sure."

"Don't criticize us if you're going to join us, Amber." Luna pretends to be mad, but really, they're all much too delighted to be mad.

All too soon, before their wondering imaginations reach a definite conclusion, Krystal is back with the bread variation pack.

"How far did you go with the song?" she asks.

"..."

"We... We couldn't work because we were too hungry," Amber blurts out. They all kind of laugh, hoping to play off their nervousness as sheepish guilt.

Krystal sighs, just writing this off as the girls taking this time as an excuse to be lazy. "Fine, let's get back to work then."

"But the bread comes first!" Sulli declares. "I officially declare break time!" Everyone except Krystal, rolling her eyes, cheers at this declaration.

"A well-needed one, I say!" seconds Luna. "We've been working quite hard!"

"Yes, yes," Amber continues. "Our unofficial break is over, so now we must have our actual official break."

"We were waiting for you, Krystal," Victoria smiles sheepishly. "Now we can have fun together. Right?"

The deadpan look Victoria receives is enough of an answer. But alas, Krystal is much too lenient for her own good that she allows this meaningless break, deciding she, the one who'd gotten the bread, deserves it, even if the others don't.

Meanwhile, the boys had been quite different with their actions.

After the cheering and laughing dies down when Minho takes his leave, they snicker together at their brilliant plan, puffing out their chests in their "very original creative wonderfully intelligent smartness," as they call it.

"What do you think will happen?" Taemin asks, eyes bright and shining.

Jonghyun ponders this. "I'd say they'd act like such the lovey-dovey couple without them realizing it, and they'll both be so busy trying to hide their own feelings that they'll fail to realize the other's doing the same thing, and--"

"And the cashier or someone is going to tell them 'what a nice couple you are'--" Taemin cuts in--

"Which will make them blush and vehemently deny this all the while trying not to look at each other, but a grandma standing behind them will say 'nonsense, you both obviously love each other, my old eyes know it well'--" Jonghyun continues--

"By then they'll have given up on proving it wrong--" It's Taemin again--

"But they'll be super awkward with each other until they come here and--"

Yes, folks, while Key and Onew look on with an amused grin, the two shippers write a story out worth quite another fanfiction, full of drama and birth secrets and love triangles with a random handsome shopper and beautiful model shopping at the grocery store for no good reason.

By the time Minho comes back, they're already at the part where Minho faces his true feelings, breaks up with his model girlfriend, and heads towards Krystal's sister to ask for permission in marrying her.

This full-fledged fanfic, I'm afraid, had not been written down as Jonghyun narrated it to the fullest with Taemin cutting in here and there.

And when Minho enters the room, all he hears is silence. The boys are looking seriously onto the paper, making some serious discussions about serious notes that they had been forgetting about. Minho takes their excuse of arguing where to go with what they'd made for not making any progress at all, and he just shrugs and shares his pineapple juice. Besides, he still hasn't made any permanent schedules for working on the project with Yuri noona, so he's a bit distracted. His attention, usually so good with keen observations (like Taemin's nervous grin and Onew's constant clearing of his throat), is turned inwards, asking himself if he really has any time between this week and next week.

And so the fiasco is done, they're back to work, and by the end of the day, they've made themselves a pretty set song at last.

So, it's been half a year. I don't even have to ask who's the horrible one here. Obviously, it's me. I'm so sorry, I don't even know if anyone's even here, and I've become that author everyone thinks so sadly of. I was so determined not to be that horrible author who never updates, but without meaning to, I'm already one of them. SO SORRY!!! And I know there aren't much MinStal action here either, since I had severe writer's block coming down on this. I've thought long and hard about discontinuing this story, since I really don't have the time, but I simply love this story way too much to end it here, in the middle of everything. I'll try to quicken the flow so it doesn't take me a hundred chapters to reach the ending. If you're still hanging on there, please do accept my apology gift of air pie. I've truly, truly been horrible. And with that, I'll hopefully see you again in the next month. Merry late Christmas and Happy New Year's!