"All right," Suyeon said, "everyone back up, let them tell us what happened."

Everyone stepped back and looked expectantly at Elly and Rina.

"Well," Elly said, "first of all, I'm so glad Rina was there."

Suyeon looked knowingly at Lucy.

Rina looked surprised. "What did I do that was so helpful?"

"The way you would ask them questions," Elly said. "You had a way of asking the simplest questions, that would expose the biggest flaws in their arguments, in the most innocent way."

Rina shrugged. "I was just asking about what I didn't understand, but if that helped..." She seemed genuinely confused.

"What happened?" Doyeon yelled.

"Oh, right," Elly said. "So Manager-nim came and got us took us to the executive floor of the headquarters building. We were in one of the conference rooms, with a big long table with the three of us on one side and the president of Fantagio and six of the other ahjussis on the other side. The president started the whole thing by saying 'You know, we've invested a lot of money in training you girls and promoting Weki Meki. We'd prefer not to lose that investment, but your Suyeon and Lucy have put us in a rather awkward situation.'" She paused for a moment.

"And?" Suyeon asked, making a "keep going" motion with her hands.

"Oh, well, they talked about things for a long time," Elly said. "There was a long part where Manager-nim and the ahjussis were just passing sheets of paper full of numbers back and forth - I'm sure it meant something to them, but they didn't bother explaining to us. Then the president asked me if Weki Meki would be willing to go out as a six-member group. I just shook my head and told him no, that Weki Meki was all eight of us or it was nothing."

"How did he respond to that?" Suyeon asked.

"He just sat quietly," Elly said. "And he looked at the other ahjussis, and they asked us to leave the room. And we sat in the lobby, and tried to get Manager-nim to tell us what was going on, but she just said we needed to be quiet and let her send some emails. So we sat there for about half an hour, and then one of the ahjussis came out and took Manager-nim back into the conference room, and Rina and I waited in the lobby for another half hour. Finally, another one of the ahjussis came and brought us back into the conference room. Then all the ahjussis started asking us questions, one after another, and that was when I was to glad that Rina was there. They would ask us a question, and Rina would ask them a question in response that showed them where they were wrong much better than I could have by arguing with them."

"I was just trying to understand what was going on," Rina said. "So many of their questions seemed to have nothing to do with what's going on with Weki Meki and I didn't know why they were asking these things."

Elly leaned over and gave Rina a hug. "Don't ever change," she said.

"So what did they finally decide?" Lucy asked.

Elly's face fell. "We don't know. After a while, they ahjussis got tired of asking questions, so they sent us back to the lobby and talked with Manager-nim for another hour, and then Manager-nim was busy on her phone the whole way back and would only tell us that we'd know soon."

Lucy grimaced. "So we still don't know what's going on?"

Just then Suyeon's phone chirped with the special notification that let her know she had a message from Manger-nim. She pulled out the phone and read it.

"Well?" Lucy asked. "What does she say?"

"These two videos should explain everything," Suyeon read, "and then there are two video links."

"We should go watch them on the TV," Yoojung said.

After they had all found somewhere to sit in the common room, Suyeon used the TV remote to pull up the first video. It was the president of Fantagio making a statement. "I regret to announce," he said, reading from a sheaf of papers in his hand, "that because of recent events, Weki Meki will no longer be promoted by Fantagio Music. We have terminated our contract with them effective immediately. I would like to say, though, that it has been a pleasure and an honor working with them up to this point-"

"Has he even seen us before?" Lucy asked, prompting the others to shush her and Suyeon to rewind the video a few seconds.

"-up to this point," the president said when the video resumed, "and we wish them all the best in finding a new company to promote their group. I truly regret that Fantagio is not that company, but we have to think of the careers of all of our artists and feel that at this point Weki Meki would be at best a distraction from our other artists. Please direct any questions about this matter to our press department. Thank you. Good night."

"Well," Suyeon said as the video came to an end, "that's not exactly unexpected, but I'd certainly hoped for better after Elly's account of how the meeting went tonight."

"Maybe the other video has some better news," Yoojung said.

Suyeon shrugged. "I really don't see how it could be any worse."

She pulled up the second video and saw Manager-nim standing in a room with purple walls, a seven-pointed gold star on the wall behind her. "Good evening," she said. "I am Mrs. Kim-"

"That's Manager-nim's name?" Lua asked, at the same time that Rina shrieked "Manager-nim's married?"

Doyeon fiercely shushed them both, and then Suyeon went back to the beginning of the video.

"Good evening. I am Mrs. Kim, and for the past several years I have worked for Fantagio Music as the manager for Weki Meki. As you've likely already heard, Fantagio has terminated Weki Meki's contract tonight. They have terminated my contract as well. However, it's my great pleasure to announce that Weki Meki will from this point on be promoted by BC Records, where I will contnue to manage them. The girls will be doing promotions tomorrow to talk about the new company."

There was such uproar and confusion after this that Suyeon had to vigorously shush everyone so they could hear the remainder of the video. "We hope that Ki-Lings will continue to support Weki Meki at the new company, and we look forward for producing more music for you. Thank you. Good night." The screen faded to purple with the gold star on it. In the middle of the gold star were the letters "BC" and there was some Hangul written below it.

"Look!" Lucy exclaimed, pointing at the screen. "Bimil chingu! Secret Friend! That's what our new company's name means!"

Just then Suyeon's phone announced a new email from Manager-nim. "You should have watched the videos by now," Suyeon read