Amber Steele – who is sooo obviously the leader in this expedition – insists that we all have a partner. No one even dares to consider Ren for a potential one. Rosie immediately attaches herself to Aron's arm, her big grey eyes blinking up at him innocently. He seems a little baffled yet amused and smiles back down at her. I look away, forcing myself not to entertain thoughts of tackling him. BaekHo and MinHyun partner-up at first, but when they see the leftover people, MinHyun quickly pulls Courtney over to form a . MinHyun smiles at me, like his decision to leave me and you-know-who was totally coincidental. I try not to glower at his innocent face.

JR taps my shoulder and smiles welcomingly. "I guess that leaves us as partners."

Oh, God, someone shoot me through the heart before his smile does.

My lips twitch into what – I swear to God – I HOPE is a smile. "Yep," I choke out.

Yep.

. . .

WHAT KIND OF LAME ANSWER IS THAT?!

"Alright, troop, mush! Forward ma-arch!" Amber bellows to the trees. Grasping Ren's hand in hers firmly, she starts onto the trail boldly, leaving the rest of us scrambling after them.

After about twenty minutes of BaekHo picking on me, MinHyun's curious glances thrown towards me and JR, and Courtney and Rosie's flirting shamelessly, our crowd faces a three-way. Amber stops and squints in thought. The trail to the right is narrow and doesn't seem to have been treaded upon in recent history. If we continue straight, the path delves under a shadowing, dark canopy of trees. To the left, the trail is basically the muddy, rocky bank of a small trickling stream. I think I am afraid of Amber's decision of path – but that's before she announces, "Let's split up."

Nobody opens their mouth, trusting that good ole Amber Steele will turn around and call off the joke. Instead she carries on in the most reasonable voice, "I think Ren and I should take the main trail; it leads to the lake in a straight line. That way, when the rest of you get to the cabin, I'll have it all set up for you. Don't worry: all the trails in this part of the woods lead to the lake."

Nobody moves. We're still waiting. Ren looks paler than he should and looks like he's about to barf. Rosie just clings to Aron like she's been doing so far, and Courtney's staring at Amber so hard, Amber's clothes are going to go up in flames. Ever since kindergarten, Court's had this thing where she'll sit and stare at you. Five seconds later, you're on your knees at her feet, begging her to stop because it feels like she's you with her eyes (even though she's just staring at you to make you paranoid). That's how uncomfortable she can make people.

But Amber Steele's immune. Court knows that but these past sixteen years she's still been wishing that she could get past Amber's armor of indifference. If she can just get Amber to glance at her or fidget, it will be a trophy of victory.

The crazy short girl up front turns to stare at us. "Well?" she asks. "Who's taking what trail?"

"Amber!" I bark.

"What!"

"Don't be stupid; we can't split up. You're the only one of us that's hiked these trails. Besides," I roll my eyes, "this is supposed to be a group outing, emphasis on the group." JR sniggers next to me. I give myself a small smile of triumph. Amber sticks her tongue out at me and sighs noisily and dramatically. "Alright, Ms. Party Pooper. Which trail does the Princess what to take?" Amber smirks at the nickname that BaekHo's been calling me. She knows that I don't mind the big guy calling me that – but I drew the line when Aron used it once. I ignore her and the giggles around me.

Which trail is less likely to get the nine of us killed? After a few seconds, I finally choose the main path. Amber waves her hand in front of her in a theatrical flourish and bows slightly. "After you, madam."

"Oh, shut up," I mutter as I pass her. She ducks in and pecks my cheek.

AMBER'S POV

Yes! Step two of Operation Get Them Alone is working. If MinHyunnie hadn't been quick on his feet to drag Court into his group, this never woulda worked.

Amber motions for the rest of the group to follow her actions. She stomps down the path that Starr and JR took, making a lot of noise under her feet and complaining about the cluttered path loudly. When the two kids are a considerable distance away, Amber waves her arms at everyone else wildly, signaling them to cut the noise and, as quietly as they can, follow her down the path to the right, to the stream. Everyone gets her train of thought immediately and grins broadly. Obeying Amber's instructions, everyone tiptoes back the way they came and leaves Starr and JR on the path alone.

MinKi glances at the main trail as Amber leads them down to the stream. "Amber-ah," he says in Korean. "They're going to be really mad at you. They might get lost, too."

"Oh, they'll be fine, MinKi, trust me," Amber replies. MinKi still looks skeptical, but Amber puts her faith in her theory that, somewhere in his heart, MinKi likes her just a little bit and will follow her to the end of the world just because she demands it.

MinKi suddenly pulls up short, jerking Amber to a halt and stopping the entourage from walking any farther. "Wae?" Amber asks. MinKi stares at her. "Remember that time where we ended up in Kyoto?"

"Dae. Why?"

MinKi frowns a bit. "Remember also how we were supposed to end up in Tokyo?"

Amber blinks. Then she laughs. Sandy and Courtney look at her weirdly but otherwise carry on their own conversations with the other members. "Oh, yeah, I remember now! Gosh, I have no idea how that happened! Didn't the tickets say 'Tokyo' . . . ?"

"So why are we following you?" MinKi asks. Amber tilts her head, oblivious to MinKi's meaning. "Why not, babe?"

"Because, for the lack of your sense of direction, we could end up back where we started, or in the middle of the lake!"

BaekHo, MinHyun, and Aron, who had been half listening to the Korean conversation, now pause in whatever they were saying to the girls to stand there and also remember Amber's slip up. Then Aron groans, "Oh, God, why are we following you again??"

Amber stomps and plants her hands on her waist. "Hey now! It's because I at least walked these paths just last week. You amateurs need my expertise in this matter or else you will find yourself face to face with one of them coyotes or snakes and not know what to do!"

Everyone stands silent for a minute before Sandy weakly repeats, ". . . Coyotes? Snakes?" Amber hesitates before she laughs halfheartedly and runs her hand through her hair. "Um, oops? I wasn't going to tell you guys that . . . Actually, I just totally forgot to mention it until now."

"You sent Starr and JR off alone without telling them??" MinHyun exclaims, worry written on his face for his leader and Starr, who he's come to also want to protect. Amber thinks for a second, then shrugs like the situation is a minor detail. "Oh. Well, Starr's a big girl with brains bigger than I have so she'll survive. And there's no way she's going to let anything happen to JR either."

"Right??" Courtney gasps, forgetting the prospect of wild dogs and scaly reptiles for the time being. "She's sooo obviously smitten with that guy. I mean, seriously, she needs to turn down the number of watts in that smile of hers."

"Wait, what's going on?" Sandy pipes up. Aron answers her, "Apparently JR has a thing for your friend down there." He gestures behind him where NU'EST and the girls left the other two behind. Sandy lights up. "So it's not just me that sees it?? No wonder she kept replaying JR's rapping!"

There was a scattered chorus of "what?" and "wae?" Sandy bobbles her head up and down vigorously, excited that she's the center of attention for at least a couple of seconds. "Yeah, yeah! When-when I went over to her house on Tuesday, we were listening to 'Face' and-and she kept rewinding JR's rapping parts to hear it a second time. She claimed that she only wanted to try to 'memorize' it, but I knew that wasn't the reason!"

Amber snorts and crawls over a boulder that's blocking their way. "Memorize it? That girl only knows the simplest Korean words; how the hell does she expect to memorize JR's complicated lyrics? That's the stupidest lie I've ever heard come from Starr."

"You got that right," Courtney scoffs. "From what I see, she's been firmly struck in the by Cupid."

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A/N: Hey, everyone! 1) the list of awesome stories that Daisy and Starr demands you to at least check out (for the first one, you should read the first one since the one below is, y'know, the SEQUEL):

Say Hi to Mr. Know-Nothing ♔ (Sequel to I Wish This is Just A Dream): http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/204593/say-hi-to-mr-know-nothing-sequel-to-i-wish-this-is-just-a-dream-romance-you-exok-schoolife-ren-nuest-minhyun

New Member: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/200710/new-member-kpop-romance-baekho-ren-nuest-minhyun

Head in the Clouds: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/245617/head-in-the-clouds-you-baekho-ren-nuest-minhyun-nuestjr-aron

Liars: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/219471/liars-baekho-ren-nuest-minhyun-nuestjr-jren-baekren

First and Last: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/201667/first-and-last-love-baekho-ren-nuest-minhyun-aron-jrjonghyun

And secondly . . .

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MINHYUNNIE!! <333 HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY!!! ER, 19TH BIRTHDAY!!! (Korean)

OMO, I'm so sorry that I didn't do your birthday update yesterday; I couldn't get the computer last night. I DIDN'T FORGET THOUGH! I even had my phone alarm set so that I couldn't forget!! So here's your belated birthday update! WE ALL LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH! NU'EST AND MINHYUN HWAITING!!!!

Let's hope that you've uploaded your b-day pictures by now, dae? ;3333

. . . Okay, well I just looked and the only NU'EST MinHyun b-day picture I could find on an English website won't let me see the full size of the picture. So I/we will have to make do with recent photos and old photos <3

 Honey, you got something on your shirt . . . right there . . .

 *Aegyo*

 I 'LO' you too, sweetheart x33

 JR Oppa must of caught this picture either in excellent lighting, or before they developed their horrifying-to-devoted-and-loving-fans BAGS under their pretty, God-blessed eyes of theirs. T~T My poor boys~~~ It's okay, Auntie Daisy says screw the concert in Thailand - you need to sleep for a few days.

 They all spontaneously decided that they didn't like Ren in their group pictures >>;

 , please, I ain't gonna sit here and listen to ya; I'm a supa-staah and I got otha thangs to do > A >

 And here they decided that Ren actually increased their number of viewers and instead moved to having a grudge against their Hyung x333

 I really love these pictures, the ones that they took themselves <33

 Hi, sweetheart~

 Okay, honey, smile at me later - get in that car before the saraeng fans somehow materialize in there instead >>;;;

 A recent picture from the fancafe thingy. Don't ask about the bears - NEVER ask about the bears . . .