Sei and Lucy popped into Weki Meki's apartment, laughing at something one of them had said on the stairway.  Elly and Rina were in the kitchen and heard them come in.

"Hi guys," Elly called out.  "Sounds like the street market was a blast."

"Oh, it was a lot of fun," she said.  She reached into her bag and held up a box of mochi ice cream.  "We got desert!" she exclaimed.

"That'll go great with dinner," Rina said, "I'm learning to make boiled pork belly!"  Using her tongs, she picked up a piece of the pork from the boiling water to show them.

"Sounds delicious," Lucy said, as she and Sei sat down at the table to wrap the little presents they had gotten for their girlfriends.

Sei looked around the apartment.  "Where is everyone else?"

Elly looked at something on her phone.  "There haven't been any delays, so they should be back any minute now."

True to Elly's prediction, Suyeon, Doyeon, Yoojung, and Lua came through the door right them.  Lucy and Sei scrambled to cover up their gifts they they'd hadn't wrapped yet.

"Hey!" Sei exclaimed, her eyes lighting up at the sight of her other girlfriends.  "Where've you been?"

"Secret mission," Yoojung said, with a conspiratorial wink.

"Secret mission?" Sei asked, looking to Doyeon and Suyeon for clarification.

"And based on the smiles, I'm guessing it went well?" Lucy added.

"Better than best," Suyeon said.  Turning to Sei, she said "You need to call your mother before dinner."

Sei's eyebrows slammed down, lines of anger wrinkling her forehead.  "What?  So she can yell at me again?  Hell no!"

"I think things will be different this time," Lua said, taking out her phone, dialing Sei's parents' number, and shoving it into Sei's hands.

"What?  I-" Whatever Sei was about to say was cut off by Sei's mother answering the phone.  "Hello?"  The others could hear Sei's mom's voice coming out of the phone, but couldn't hear it well enough to make out what she was saying.  Sei put the phone to her ear and started talking to her mom.  As she talked, tears started welling up in her eyes.  After a couple of minutes, she got up and took the phone into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

"So everything went according to plan?" Elly asked.

"Better than according to plan," Doyeon said.  "Sei's mom wants her to bring all her girlfriends home for dinner."

"Oh!  That's going to be so cute!"  Rina exclaimed.  "You should all wear matching outfits when you go!"

They all laughed.  "Leave it to Rina to jump straight to the fashion possibilities of the situation!" Lucy exclaimed between giggles.

"Mmmmm.  This is so good," Yoojung said.

Doyeon laughed, reaching around Yoojung to catch her up in a hug.  "We never would have guessed - you've only said that about six times!"

Yoojung used her chopsticks to pick up a piece of pork and stuff it in Doyeon's mouth.  "Hush, you!  I can compliment Rina on her cooking as many times as I want."

"Yes, it was delicious," Suyeon said.

Just then the door to Sei's bedroom opened.  Everyone fell quiet and looked to see what kind of shape Sei would be in when she came out.  She ran over and threw her arms around Suyeon.  "Thank you!"  Then she started hugging her other girlfriends.  When she got to Lucy, she asked "Were you in on it too?"

"Of course!" Lucy said with a smile.  "You think it was a coincidence I wanted to spend all day at the street market on the day when everyone else was going to be away talking to your mom?"

Lucy's the only one who knew we were all going," Lua said, resting her hand on Sei's shoulder.  "Each of us thought of asking her to take you to the street market while we went to talk to your mom, and she never told any of us that the other ones had asked."

"You all made me promise not to tell," Lucy said with a smile and a shrug.

"And because we didn't coordinate our plans," Suyeon said, picking up the thread of the story, "we didn't show up at your parents' house at the same time.  So every few minutes the conversation would get interrupted by another girlfriend showing up and ringing the bell.  It totally kept your mom off-guard!"

Sei laughed.  "I don't think my mom's ever been off-guard in her life!" 

"Then you should have seen her this time," Yoojung said.

"Your dad wasn't much better," Doyeon added.  "He thought we were pulling an 'I am Spartacus' trick on them."

"Leave it to my dad to find a classic movie to explain the situation!" Sei could barely talk, she was laughing so hard.

"But what did your mom say when you talked to her?" Suyeon asked.

Sei caught her br