"Woohoo! Friday night get-togethers are awesome!" Sulli crows. Her arm is linked to Krystal's, and the two of them are pretty excited. Krystal, as it is public, isn't as wide-open about her excitement as her good friend is, but the smile on her face and the twinkle in her eyes are proof enough.

Behind them comes Victoria, infected by her younger friends' energy, who has a bounce in every step. She converses happily with Luna, who is naturally just hyper, planning which songs to sing and with whom. Taemin's right next to them, bopping along to a beat known only to him, chiming in here and there with his own favorite songs as well.

Key is strolling along with Onew just a bit after the two, talking about a random sports thing, while Minho and Amber are carrying all the bags, having lost the intense rock-paper-scissors game. They would've been happier, it must be said, if Jonghyun didn't take pictures of their punishment at five different angles every minute, glowering and boasting his win. Sadly, though, Jonghyun is quite determined to milk this punishment over his two good friends.

They file into the karaoke place, where the old couple is awaiting them. They come here often, so as the usual customers, they're greeted warmly. They even get service-- an hour more!

"I call first!"

"What?! Vic umma, I called first first!"

"When? I didn't hear you. Did you hear Sulli when she said that, Amber?"

"Nope, not at all. Ssul, you must have been dreaming."

"This is SO not fair!"

"Fair or not, I call second!"

"Taemin oppa! Shouldn't I be second, since I called first first but got it stolen?"

"Nope."

"Hmph. Nobody's on my side? Brother?"

"You were dreaming."

"Sister?"

"I'm your friend, and I'm the same age as you are. I'm not your sister."

"Krys, you know what I meant. Sister?"

"Since you called me sister, no, I didn't hear you either."

"Just admit it, young lady, you've lost. Totally. I call third."

"Amber unnie!"

"Fourth! With Onew oppa!"

"Luna unnie!"

"Wait, I'm singing with you?"

"Of course, oppa, we always have a duet at least once!"

"That's true."

"Hehe, you're turning kind of red there."

"Go away before I hit you, Key."

"Yes, sir. I call fifth."

And this continued on and on and on until Sulli, who just couldn't win, became eighth place out of the ten friends. Taemin, being nice, lets her sing with him, and Krystal joins in as well.

As Taemin, Krystal, and Sulli rock it out on the beats of a pop song, Onew seeks the old couple.

"Excuse me," he says loudly (to be heard over the music) towards the empty counter.

The answer comes behind him. "Yes?"

He whirls around awkwardly, scratching his head. He peeks at the smiling woman, and says sheepishly, "Sorry, ma'am. We didn't want to bother you, but we had a question that maybe you could help us with."

"Shoot on." Out of nowhere, the husband appears, his arm around his wife in an equally cheerful smile.

Onew clears his throat. "You told us you were singers, right?"

They laugh. "Good old days, huh?" the wife tells her husband.

"A pretty long time ago."

"Well, we were thinking maybe you know, uh, you might know, well,"

"Do you know a place where we can go record something? Like a song!"

Startled, Onew flails out away from the source. He registers her voice, the amount of bright energy in it, and concludes, even without having to see the blonde hair (after all, he's pretty awkwardly positioned), that it's Luna.

The old couple turns towards Luna. "Oh, of course," the man replies warmly. His wife helps the blushing Onew into a standing position while her husband writes down the name and address for them.

After they profusely thank the old couple, they make their walk back to the karaoke room.

"Why'd you come out here?" Onew asks.

His companion laughs. "You were taking forever! We were pretty much all wondering why. I volunteered to go."

"Oh." He starts fixing his bangs to try keep the redness from his face, to no success, but hey, A for effort?

"Hey, did you know that Hyorin-unnie, you know, from our choir class, is getting a solo? How cool is that!" Luna talks on and on, her hands shooting out here and there, adding spice and flair to her words. With her voice filling up Onew's decidedly silent walk, they reach the room in no time.

"Hey guys! I got Onew oppa back and a recommendation, too!" she announces the moment they go inside.

Onew is, by then, quite composed, so he nods in a very non-awkward way. "It's a place that's cheaper than most, and it's really nearby our apartment, too."

"I hope it's not too expensive, though," Jonghyun muses. "Even if it's cheaper than most, that doesn't mean it's still not very expensive."

Victoria frowns. "That is true. Do you think if we rent out a studio for only an hour or so, we can just finish recording our songs in that hour?"

Onew takes a seat next to them and joins in the conversation. "We're amateurs, so I doubt we'll be able to make it. After all, nobody here is used to recording a song."

"Neither do we have a producer, telling us what he or she wants," Amber adds in, all serious. "Most of the time will probably be spent talking about what we want."

While they ponder upon this in total silence, a certain someone sneaks over and presses a button. Loud trot music fills up and surprises the group, and Taemin grins at them with a mic.

"Think of that later, now's the time to have some fun!" he shouts into his microphone. "C'mon guys! Love battery!"

"This is my favorite song!" Luna yells. She stands right up and starts singing, adding in some steps here and there.

Victoria and Onew look at each other and laugh. She shrugs. "They're right, though. It's our Friday Night activity, we can't spend it so seriously." She takes the tambourine in her hand, stands up, and starts shaking the thing like crazy. Sulli gets the mini one and joins right in.

Pretty soon, everyone's dancing along, laughter blooming in the karaoke room. Fan chants are made up on the spot, Key and Amber don't argue (for once!), and the jostling makes it perfect for matchmakers to try match their matches up, but since everyone's a matchmaker, it just creates the perfect chaos even more chaotic.

•     •     •     •

"I got it!" says Amber, slamming down on the bus seat.

Luna, who'd been humming the tunes of Love Battery, jumps from her seat in surprise. Onew wakes up with wide eyes from his spot near Amber.

Key, who'd been sitting in front of her, winces at the mini shout it is and whips his head around to glare. Jonghyun, who'd been sitting right across from her, has it not as bad. He accidentally presses the wrong place on his smartphone, though, which makes him lose his game. He glares right at her too.

Krystal jumps away from the noise and smacks right into Minho. Minho is not surprised by Amber but by Krystal jump towards him. By the time Krystal is not leaning against him, he has a silly grin on his face that even he's not sure how it got there.

Victoria with her earphones does not hear Amber at all, but she sees the reactions of all the other folks and knows Amber has made a loud noise. She plucks those earphones off her ears and revels in Minho's grin.

"Thank goodness nobody else is in the bus," she murmurs to Sulli who, like her, had had earphones on. Taemin hadn't been too lucky, and his rigid wide-eyed surprise makes Sulli laugh.

"Yup," she murmurs right back to her second umma. "I'm surprised the bus driver isn't chasing us out, actually."

Victoria laughs. "So true." Turning her attention now to Amber, she calls out, "Got what?"

Amber twists her body to face the back, ignoring two laser-like glares aimed at her from two sides, and smiles triumphantly, making a Victory sign with her hands. "What we should do for our song recordings."

"It's relatively simple," she says in a proud voice, "but I doubt we would have thought of it any time soon."

"Stop boasting, you lizard," Key grumps. He isn't very happy that his rival has gotten an idea before him. Instead of daydreaming, he should've been thinking hard!

After shoving Key away from her, her megawatt smile is back. "So what we do is practice."

Silence. Nobody gets it.

"As in, we practice our parts and get rid of the 'how to sing it' arguments before we step into that studio. That way, we won't waste any time arguing about the style of the song or anything."

Ah, the crowd gets it. Looks of understanding pass through the group, and everyone pats Amber on the back. Everyone, that is, except for Key.

As can be expected, Key sticks out his tongue to her. "What an idea, Amber, how genius."

Amber's smile is gone in an instant. "Since you wouldn't have been able to think of it in the first place, I suppose it IS genius to you." Her friends "oooh" at the burn. She swishes her short hair and haughtily walks to the front while Key glowers.

"Aww, Key, don't be so sad," Jonghyun snickers. "I'll get you some aloe cream to get rid of that burn."

"Yeah," Minho adds, hiding a snort of laughter. "If you don't like aloe, I can get you some ice, too. Something cold to battle something as hot as that burn."

Even Krystal speaks up with a small grin, saying, "Aloe or ice, whatever you want, it's going to take pretty long for that burn to die away, so prepare yourself, oppa."

As the crowd laughs lightheartedly, since even Key knows it's just a big joke, Taemin whispers to Sulli, "Take note, Ssul. That's one more for Amber noona."

"Of course," she replies. She puts a serious and responsible expression on her face, then whips out a notebook and adds a careful tally mark. "Now they're at a tie from last time."

"Perfect."

And so it is, for the next weeks are spent in practice for the song. As they'd thought, they have many heated discussions and even more reconciliations and compromises. In the end, everyone's very ready for the recording and very satisfied with what they have. 

So I have writer's block, guys. It's true. I write, but half the time (even this chapter) I am so unsatisfied with what I'm writing, it's awful. I decided to push through anyways instead of just erasing this whole thing and save the job for another day, because if I did that, I felt like I would never get back on track and I owe you guys. That being said, I'm glad that some of you guys are still hangin' around. If it were me, I'd probably be long gone, but you guys are pretty awesome. Contrary to me, also known as the horrible author. Anyways, I'm glad I could update within the month from last time. Oh, and happy thirty anniversary! It's the thirtieth chapter of this story, which is way longer than I originally planned it to be (and we're barely halfway there!)-- I'd thought it would be ten chapters at most. From here on out, though, I think it's going to be pretty fast-flowing. Anyways, grateful for those of you sticking around! :) Happy Late New Years to you all.