With Jihyo’s guidance, Jeongyeon’s drifting, and Mina’s hidden lockpicking abilities, everyone manages to arrive home in one piece with Yeri slamming her room shut literally a minute before Seulgi and Irene return from their walk home. 

Yeri makes it a point to find out what happened last night, (Yeri briefly wonders if anything particularly spicy happened since they had taken so long to get back home, but then again this was her useless unnies, so she highly doubts anything happened anyway) and quickly becomes disappointed as she takes a few notes down on her phone.

Attempt #1 - Fail

     Note: DON’T let Joohyun do the asking

Attempt #2 - Fail

    Note: DON’T let Joohyun do the confessing

“So you’re telling me,” Yeri tries to keep her tone as level as possible after she keeps her phone away to stare blankly at Irene, “You didn’t confess.”

Irene looks pretty intimidated, and Yeri’s suddenly thankful for Tzuyu’s tips on how to appear more threatening.

“Look, okay, Seulgi was so happy, and I didn’t want to ruin the night for her and--”

“Joohyun unnie!” Yeri yells, stomping forward, “I may be the Ultimate Matchmaker, but I can’t do any miracles if you’re sabotaging yourself!” The maknae huffs and stomps like a child.

Irene briefly thinks that she deserves that response, for once.

“Anyway,” Yeri continues suddenly, mildly startling the leader. She’s also slightly terrified at how quickly Yeri’s tone has changed, “Since you ruined a perfectly good plan this time, this is my last bullet.”

“After that, you’re on your own, unnie,” Yeri says with finality. It oddly feels like some sort of gameshow, Irene muses briefly.

The leader isn’t sure why she feels disappointed at the maknae’s words. After all, she didn’t want Yeri pressuring her to get a love life anyway.

Right?

Before she can ponder any further, Yeri’s already unrolling a large poster, and plastering it onto the back of Irene’s door.

“What the--” Irene looks at the giant print incredulously,  “Why would you stick a full body poster of Seulgi here!?” The leader wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but a full body photo of Seulgi during their Bad Boy era with that whole ensemble is… more than tasteful. 

“You have to get used to facing her-- even though you’re with her all the time anyway-- so this is the best solution,” The maknae nods to herself, shaking Irene out of her thoughts.

“When Seulgi comes in here, she forgets to close the door all the time, so she’ll never see it!”

“Yeri--”

“And because this is our last attempt, I brought in some special guests,” Yeri grins crookedly. Irene sighs and wonders when she’ll ever be able to get a sentence in whenever she has conversations with the maknae.

“Dub!”

“Chaeng!”

“We are dubchaeng!”

“And what better way to woo a girl than with a song?!” 

Dahyun and Chaeyoung pose obnoxiously, looking like some of those characters in those anime that Yeri often binge watches.

“You can’t be serious,” Irene says flatly, staring at the two overenthusiastic rappers, still posed right in front of her.

“It’s a classic unnie!” Yeri tries to reign in her laughter as she watches Dahyun and Chaeyoung shiver slightly, trying their best to hold their position, “Just-- pfft-- sing to her while she looks at you from her tiny window,” She cackles loudly.

“KIM YERIM!” 

At that, Dahyun and Chaeyoung break their pose and end up laughing along with Yeri. Both rappers reach for Yeri’s raised hand for an attempted three-way high five. However, Dahyun and Chaeyoung get too close, and their heads crash against each other, sending them to the ground. Yeri clutches her stomach and cackles like a mastermind.

Irene massages her temples, wondering what went wrong when she raised Kim Yerim… One (disowned) Park Sooyoung flashes through her mind at the thought.

Ah.

“Look, you guys already did the date part, and there was an obvious connection!” The maknae says when she finally catches her breath. Dahyun and Chaeyoung help themselves stand upright, and that’s enough to detract Irene from her thoughts.  

“Now all you really have to do is just tell her!” Yeri says with the same obnoxiousness as Joy would. It makes Irene shiver a little inside at how similar they’re becoming.

“Why do I have to sing to her from the outside?! We live together!” The leader argues.

“Even better!” Dahyun grins brightly, resting her hands on her hips, “She’ll think you put in the extra effort for it!” Chaeyoung happily continues. 

“It’s like Romeo and Juliet in musical form,” Yeri remarks, “Minus their stupid, overdramatic deaths, of course,” She says with a shrug.

“I--” A flustered Irene tries to come up with a response to Yeri’s ridiculous idea.

“Nah, just kidding. We’re just ing with you,” Yeri says after a beat, thinking that Irene might’ve actually considered the dumb idea, “We aren’t gonna let you confess to Seulgi unnie like a boomer.” The maknae says with distaste.

“Yeah, we’re better than that!” Chaeyoung joins in happily.

“Yeri--” Irene hisses. The maknae was treading on dangerous territory, but she had the appropriate amount of blackmail to fight back. So Yeri continues fearlessly.

“We’re all going to a norebang to party, and you better pour your heart out to Seulgi before the night ends,” Yeri says, Dahyun and Chaeyoung nodding from behind her.

Irene decides to ignore Yeri’s crass language for once, going along with Yeri’s idea before she thinks of something worse, “By we, you mean--”

“Add nine plus five unnie, you can do it!” Yeri says and guffaws. 

“I don’t have a daughter like you,” Irene lands her final move. She didn’t think she’d lose another daughter so soon, but alas.

“Too bad you can’t use that line anymore, because I disowned you first!” Yeri pokes her tongue out like the child she is.

“Yeri!”

“I have receipts.”

“Kim Yerim,” Joy says, staring Yeri down as they buy the things they need for the noraebang, “This may be your smartest dumb idea yet,” She says casually as she inserts a bill into a vending machine.

“I know, right?” Yeri puffs up with pride, “They’ll never think Seungwan unnie would betray them. She’s too nice,” Yeri beams mischievously.

“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but what if they don’t? I’m not good at lying, you know,” Wendy admits worriedly, carrying bottles of drinks with both of her arms. 

If the vocalist thinks that Joy’s getting way too many drinks for them, she doesn’t say anything as she watches Joy grab yet another can of juice from the vending machine. It’s Yeri that stops Joy from inserting another bill, pocketing the money as soon as the older woman pulls it out of her wallet.

“Hey!” Joy huffs, harshly pushing Yeri.

“Why do you think I left them with Twice?” Yeri almost hits face first into a wall, but she ignores Joy, riling her up even more.

“I don’t know?” Wendy tilts her head like a puppy. Joy nearly squeals when she sees her small unnie.

Instead of attacking Yeri, Joy suddenly decides to wrap her arms around Seungwan instead, all the anger dissipating as she pulls the vocalist closer. The latter immediately flusters at the contact, but makes no move to pull away.

“Exactly,” Yeri says easily as she slides into the largest room, Joy and Wendy trailing behind her, “Like you guys, they’ll never see it coming.”

“I can’t believe you roped all of us to do this,” Jihyo huffs, glaring at Nayeon as they prepare for Irene and Seulgi’s arrival.

“What? It looks like fun-- what Dubu and Chaengie are up to with Yeri-- and how can you say no to Yeri?” Nayeon answers back, “If Irene doesn’t want her, I’m taking her,” The eldest says with finality.

“Nayeon, you can’t just take other people’s kids,” Jihyo sighs, exasperated.

“Watch me,” Nayeon smirks deviously. Her smile grows when Jeongyeon emerges from her room, “Jeongie, we’re adopting!”

“What?” Jeongyeon tilts her head, looking mildly disturbed.

“Yeri!” Nayeon excitedly shouts.

“Sure,” Jeongyeon shrugs casually, “She’s a good kid.”

“...You both can’t be serious,” A headache starts to bubble at the back of Jihyo’s head at the thought of taking care of another child.

Before the couple can think of a retort, the doorbell rings and Sana gleefully ushers Seulgi and Irene into Twice’s dorm.

“Well, we better get this started,” Nayeon nudges Jihyo, who only frowns in response,  “Live a little, it’ll be fun!”

“Irene unnie, Seulgi unnie!” Dahyun yells excitedly dashing towards the Red Velvet members. The lights suddenly flicker off, the fluorescent lights quickly being replaced with colorful LEDs coming out of a giant rotating ball.

“Welcome to the party before the party!”

Before Irene can even protest or look for Yeri-- because of course things aren’t going to be this simple-- the whole of Twice suddenly crowd the living room, and loud music blasts through the speakers. 

“Why are we partying before going to the noraebang?!” Seulgi yells over Irene’s shoulder. She doesn’t seem mad, just curious as she dances happily to the beat of the music while Irene tries her best to stay serious.

“, we didn’t think of why--”

“Jeong, shut up!”

“Guys--”

“It’s tradition!” Sana yells loudly over Nayeon, Jeongyeon and Jihyo’s little argument, saving them from their little dilemma as she tries to dodge Dahyun’s flailing arms. She successfully dodges Dahyun, but Momo gets smacked in the