"Suyeon," Yoojung said, "can I use your phone for a second? I need to add some things to the shopping list for tomorrow's delivery."

"What do you want?" Suyeon asked. "I can add it."

Yoojung looked dubiously at Suyeon. "What if what I want is to request something for a surprise for you? Speaking of which, I'll need you to sleep in tomorrow so I can get the groceries. In case there's a surprise for you."

Suyeon smiled at her as she handed over the phone. "Okay, fine. I'm going to bed - give my phone to Elly when you're done with it."

"You got it, unnie," Yoojung replied, as she took Suyeon's phone and headed off to her room. Doyeon was there, lying on her bed reading a book, and Sei and Lucy were sitting on Sei's bed and looking out the window at the nighttime cityscape.

"Oh, good," Yoojung said, as she flopped down on her bed. "Sei, I can't remember are Suyeon and Elly team chocomint or not?"

Sei thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure Suyeon is," she finally said, "but Elly is definitely not."

"Thanks," Yoojung said, "that makes things easier." She started typing on the phone.

Doyeon looked at her over the top of her book. "What are you planning, Yoojung?"

Yoojung didn't stop typing as she answered Doyeon's question. "I'm going to make Elly and Suyeon an ice cream sundae to split tomorrow night. I figure after an hour in the kitchen, talking and stuffing themselves on yummy ice cream, they'll see that of course they should be together." 

"And if they don't," Doyeon said, "that'll be the end of this whole thing right? You promised."

"But what if it comes close? Will you let me try one more time?" Yoojung pouted as she looked across at Doyeon. "Not that I need another try," she said as she pressed send on the phone, "because I know this is going to work! BRB - I've got to go give this phone to Elly." And with that, she skipped out of the room.

Doyeon shook her head. "She's not going to give up," she said to herself. "This isn't going to work, and she's going to want to try just one more thing, then that won't work and she'll want to try just one more thing, and then. . . it'll never end, and meanwhile poor Elly and Suyeon will never have a moment's peace." She shook her head. "No, it's got to stop after this one try, even if I have to take the nuclear option." She suddenly became nervous in case Sei and Lucy had heard when she'd just said, but when she looked up they were oblivious to anything but each other.

Just then Yoojung came back into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed next to Doyeon. "You look grumpy, sweetie," she said. "What's wrong?"

Doyeon closed her book and laid her head down on the pillow. "I'm just afraid this whole thing is going to blow up and there's going to be all kinds of drama, and we haven't had any drama for ever so long and it's been so nice."

Yoojung Doyeon's hair. "It's just one blind date for our unnies, nothing that could lead to drama. It'll be fine."

Doyeon turned away from Yoojung. "And when our unnies don't want to date each other? What then?"

Yoojung leaned closer so she was talking in Doyeon's ear. "Don't worry," she said, "there won't be any drama."

"Which is an entirely different thing from saying she won't try again," Doyeon thought to herself. She leaned back and kissed Yoojung. "I hope you're right," she said. "Now, I'm tired - I'm going to sleep. Wake me up and I'll wait for the groceries with you."

"Good night, sweetie!" Yoojung said, kissing Doyeon quickly before hopping out of her bed and pulling her duvet up to cover her.

Elly was about to drive herself nuts wondering what Yoojung was planning. She wished Yoojung would hurry up and get it over with - this one stupid blind date with Suyeon - so that things could get back to normal. She had a feeling that this was the day - Yoojung had been scuttling about trying to stay out of Elly's sight all day. So had Doyeon, for that matter. And Rina, and Lua - we're all the maknaes involved in this plan?

"Elly?" 

Elly jumped at the sound of Yoojung's voice coming from the doorway.

"I need to take you to the kitchen," Yoojung said, "then I'll go back to the common room to get Suyeon."

"And remember what you promised," Elly said.

Yoojung rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. I get one shot and this is it. Nobody will let me forget that!" 

"Okay," Elly said. "Just making sure - no need to bite my head off."

 Yoojung escorted Elly into the kitchen, which had been totally redecorated to look like an ice cream shop - Elly had no idea where the maknaes had gotten enough streamers and construction paper to pull this off, but somehow they'd managed. Yoojung had Elly sit down at at the table and then said "Okay. I'll be right back."

Elly could hear Yoojung talking to Suyeon in the common room. She couldn't hear Suyeon's responses, but she could imagine them.

"Suyeon!" Yoojung began. "we - the younger members of Weki Meki - have been feeling bad that you're stuck in quarantine and not dating anyone, so we've set you up a blind date."

Suyeon had some response to this, then Yoojung responded "Of course we didn't break quarantine! Just come with me and you'll see."

Suyeon apparently protested some more, because Yoojung said "Just come with me and see! I've promised the others that I'd only make this one attempt, and you'll ruin the whole thing if you won't at least come to the kitchen."

"Oh dear," Elly thought, "Yoojung's turning on the aegyo." Soon after that, Yoojung came into the kitchen, leading Suyeon by the hand.

Suyeon burst out laughing. "Elly! You're my blind date?"

Elly waved her hands. "Apparently so - look at what the maknaes have done for us."

Suyeon looked around, her jaw dropped. "Wow! This is amazing!"

"And that's not all," Yoojung said. She guided Suyeon into the seat across from Elly, then went to the kitchen and pulled out a huge ice cream sundae. "This is for you two to share. Also, we're all going to bed early, so you two will have the common room all to yourselves if you want to watch a movie after finishing your sundae."

Suyeon sputtered in surprise. "Wow! You did all this for us?"

Yoojung nodded. "Have a great night!" she said as she skipped out of the kitchen.

"So," Elly said after Yoojung had gone, "it looks like the maknaes think their unnies can't get a date by themselves, so they've set out to help us." She made air quotes around the word "help."

Suyeon nodded. "I know. It's sweet, and at the same time totally unnecessary. What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should eat this delicious-looking sundae, then go watch a movie without the maknaes interrupting us." She leaned forward and spoke more quiety. "Then, to keep them from trying something like this again, we should probably pretend to date, at least until the quarantine is over."

"Do you think we can do that?" Suyeon asked uncertainly.

Elly scoffed. "Absolutely! All it will take is a little skinship and few endearing pet names and nobody's the wiser. After all, they won't know what goes on - or rather, doesn't go on - behind closed doors."

Suyeon pondered this, apparently weighing deceiving the maknaes against getting some peace and quiet, and in the end peace and quiet won. "Okay, sweetie," she said with a smile. "Let's do this!"

Elly smiled as she took a spoonful of the sundae. Now even if Yoojung was tempted to go back on her word, there'd be no reason for her to.

Sei and Lucy were sitting on Lucy's bed, leaning against the wall, their legs sticking straight out in front of them. Lucy was holding Sei's hand in both of her as they leaned against each other.

"Do you think this crazy idea of Yoojung's will work?" Lucy asked.

Sei shrugged. "I doubt it, but you never know. Maybe dating Elly will see like a 'mature' enough thing that Suyeon won't be able to come up with a reason not to." 

Lucy noticed the special emphasis that Sei had put on the word "mature" - apparently that had been an issue between her and Suyeon when they were dating. She smiled. "That shouldn't be a problem as long as the two of us are together," she thought to herself. "All we've got to do is be mature enough that the unnies don't call us 'immature' - there's no need to go full grown-up."

"You're awfully quiet over there," Sei said. "What'cha thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing," Lucy said lightly.

"It must be something," Sei protested. "Come on - I always tell you when you ask what I'm thinking."

Lucy scrambled to think of something she could say she was thinking about, but her mind had suddenly gone blank. Finally, she resolved that it would have to be the truth or nothing. "Fine," she said, "but you have to promise not to get upset."

Sei nodded. "Of course."

"Well," Lucy said, slowly and deliberately, "I was just thinking how lucky you are to be with me instead of Suyeon, because I plan to make you happier than she ever did."

Sei rested her head on Lucy's shoulder and looked up at her. "Not that it's a competition, but you already have," she said.

Before Lucy had a chance to respond, the bedroom door was flung open and Rina and Lua barreled in.

"Hi guys, what's up?" Lucy asked.

Rina carefully shut the door before answering. "We just had to get away before the fighting got any worse."

"The fighting?" Sei asked, confused.

Lua nodded as she and Rina sat down on Rina's bed, facing Lucy and Sei. "Between Doyeon and Yoojung."

"But-" Lucy protested, "they never fight."

"Well apparently they've decided to make up for lost time," Rina said.

"What are they fighting about?" Sei asked. 

Lua rolled her eyes. "What weren't they fighting about? It started with Yoojung wanting Doyeon to release her from her promise that this would be the only attempt at a blind date for the unnies, and then they apparently decided to have it out over every disagreement they've ever had. For example, did you know that back in their I.O.I days, Yoojung caught Doyeon making out with Somi?"

Sei and Lucy both shook their heads.

"Well neither did I," Lua said, "but apparently it's on the table for tonight's fight."

"And they were talking about all this with you two in the room?" Sei asked.

Rina nodded. "I think they got so caught up in each other, they forgot we were there. We probably could have stayed and they would never have noticed, but it was so uncomfortable being around them then when they were like that, we just had to get out. Sorry if we interrupted anything."

"You didn't," Lucy said. "We were just sitting here talking."

"Yeah, you didn't look like we were interrupting anything," Rina said, "but I wish Fantagio had arranged a 4-bedroom dorm for us, so each couple would have have a room." 

Lua laughed. "Oh yeah, like that would ever happen. We're not supposed to be dating, and once we are allowed to date, we're supposed to be straight, remember?"

They all laughed at this.

"They've got to know, don't they?" Lucy asked. "I mean, they can't be that clueless, can they?"

Rina looked at her and said "Oh, you'd be surprised what someone can fail to notice when their paycheck depends on them not noticing."