The three pondering occupants left in the cave were not expecting this turn of events.

Yoona, Jessica, and Seohyun were startled by the sounds of a commotion coming from the entrance of their hideout.

“What’s going on?” Jessica frowned.

The doe-eyed member of the group was quick on her feet when she saw the faint and shadowy outlines of figures behind the wall of streaming water which covered the entranceway. Yoona scrunched up her wide forehead when she went closer to it. Suddenly, the figures emerged through the waterfall, catching Yoona by surprise.

“Omo!” Yoona gasped as she saw the people in front of her, “You guys! You’re all alright!”

At the sight of all their missing members here in one peace, both of Jessica’s and Seohyun’s moods immediately brightened up like a weight had finally been lifted up from their shoulders. Once Sunny and Yuri gently placed an exhausted Hyoyeon down next to Seohyun, the black pearl could not help but to let out these next two words.

“Group hug!”

All of them did not hesitate to do so.

Those who weren’t sitting or squatting down gathered around the dancing queen, squashing her in the middle.

“I’m so glad everyone is safe and sound!” Tiffany choked a sob as she held on to her precious second family.

They stayed in that position for a few seconds, relishing in each other’s warmth, until a familiar voice finally spoke out.

“G-guys, I know we’ve missed each other so much but I’m pretty sick right now, and you’re all practically squeezing the life out of me,” Hyoyeon weakly pointed out.

“Ah, so you do admit that you’re sick,” Sunny proudly said, while everyone else dejectedly broke the premature hug for Hyoyeon’s sake, “I’ll go get you some water, okay?”

“I’m coming too!”

Once again, Tiffany the puppy immediately followed Sunny outside.

“And there she goes again…”

“Hmm? What did you mean by that, Jessica?” Taeyeon asked whilst taking a seat around the campfire to rest her aching legs.

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Unnie, you’re so hot!” Seohyun said while cradling the sick girl’s head on her lap.

“I know. You don’t have to keep on complimenting me.”

“Typical Hyoyeon. She can still crack a joke even when she’s sick,” Jessica snide but then reached across Yoona to feel the dancing queen’s forehead. “You’re burning up, Hyo!” She worriedly said, or in this case, shouted at her.

“Now, now, Sica relax. It’s not like we haven’t treated a fever before in our lives.”

“Oh yeah, it’s not like we ever gotten sick whilst stranded on an unknown island in the middle of nowhere now do we, Taeyeon?” The giant of the group sarcastically remarked.

“Sooyoung, don’t make things harder than it already is. I’m trying to calm everyone down.”

"Sorry bout’ that, leader.”

“Ugh, what’s taking Sunny and Fany so long with that water? I’m dying here…” Hyoyeon tiredly muttered out.

“Don’t say that!” Seohyun scolded her, “You’re going to be fine.”

“Try not to get the maknae and ice princess riled up Hyo,” Yuri Hyoyeon’s head gently. “It hurts to see our one and only mood-maker like this.”

Hyoyeon kept silent as she closed her eyes and indulged in the soft caresses that Seohyun and Yuri were lovingly doing. She really was the mood-maker of the group. Nobody in the cave uttered a word; just enjoying the silence and much-needed company. It’d been awhile since she’d succumbed to the miseries of a lowly fever, and having her members taking care of her was a nice feeling. She heaved a sigh of relief when they finally reunited, with not a single loss. She couldn’t even imagine what would happen if any one of her girls died. Seeing Sunny on the verge of death was already enough to make her heart ache. Another terrible memory that she wished she could remove from the very depths of her mind.

Something refreshingly cool was placed on top of her forehead in replacement of the warm, gentle hands. Hyoyeon opened her eyes again to see the two aforementioned girls who went to fetch some water return into the cave. She tried to touch the object resting on her forehead, but Tiffany interrupted her from doing so.

“Don’t. It’s a leaf. You’re going to spill the water on it if you keep moving around so much. No cup or glass while we’re here, unfortunately.”

Hyoyeon had no choice but to oblige to her order. Another leaf, one of a much larger size, was brought up to her lips by the energizer of the group. She saw that there was water on its surface, and without any hesitation, Hyoyeon gladly drank greedily from it. Her parched throat was finally feeling the sensation of liquid going down her oesophagus and quenching her thirst. It was quite a disappointment once she finished it though.

“That’s it?” Hyoyeon said in disbelief.

“Sorry, Hyo. A mere leaf can only hold that much water,” Sunny apologised when she pulled the green object away, “I can always carry you to the lake if you want and then you can drink to your heart’s content.” The shorty kindly suggested.

“It’s okay. I’m not that thirsty…” the dancing queen trailed her sentence and found the floor more interesting when she saw the disapproving looks from her members, “…uh, I mean, yes, please take me to the lake Sunny.” She sheepishly corrected herself.

Satisfied with that answer, both Sunny and Tiffany then went outside again with Hyoyeon this time. Once Hyoyeon finally had the drink of water she needed, they returned back to their make-shift hideout and comfortably settled down with everyone else.

All nine girls were much more…secured now. That sense of security was pretty much the only thing that was keeping them sane.

The Leader observed each and every single one of her girls.

Across from her, Maknae was the Dancing Queen’s hair on her lap like a loving mother would do.

Im Choding was drawing something on the ground with a stick while the Ice Princess watches on at her work.

Manager Hwang, along with the Shikshin, Energizer, and the Black Pearl, stared blankly at the campfire while munching on a banana.

The atmosphere was far too forlorn and sombre for her tastes.

“We’re going to make it out of here alive, okay?”

They looked up at her when they heard her determined tone.

“Taeyeon…”

“ALL of us are going to make it, Fany. I promise all of you that.”

“That’s our leader, folks. The legendary Kim Taeyeon has emerged.”

“I’m starting to think that your mind makes more jokes when you’re sick, Hyoyeon,” Taeyeon said half-amused.

“Really? I feel like she does more heroic deeds when her brain is baked.”

“Hyoyeon did a heroic deed? Since when?”

“She did CPR on me.”

“Whoa, hold up! Sunny unnie, you almost died!?”

“Yoona, can’t you use another word!?”

“Sorry, Sica unnie. I mean, what happened?”

“Long story short, my lungs were filled with water, Hyoyeon found me, and then she saved me by blowing air into my mouth.”

Everyone in the cave now looked at Hyoyeon in a whole different light when Sunny told about her near-death experience. Seohyun has another name to add in her list of heroes and role models, and she was delighted that it was someone close to her.

“Hey, why isn’t anyone calling me a heroine? I did something heroic too you know,” a familiar giant voiced out her complaint while eyeing a certain blonde who was blatantly trying to avoid eye-contact with her.

“I saw what you did, Sooyoung unnie. And I really appreciate that.”

Sooyoung mentally noted to give something special for Seohyun when it’s her birthday. Leave it to the maknae to recognise her accomplishments when the others didn’t.

“But I also appreciate what Jessica, Tiffany and Yoona unnie did to protect me from those boars.”

Well, that did everything to break her short-lived pride.

“Boars? What boars?”

“Well Yuri, Juhyun kind of gotten into a little mess with a couple of pigs so both me and Jessi tried to defend her from them.”

“I threw rocks at ‘em.”

“Oh c’mon, I did the real job with a stick!”

“But I found the stick first…”

“Alright, enough already. It doesn’t matter who the real hero is. Let’s just be thankful that everyone is safe and sound right now,” Taeyeon had almost forgotten how much of a headache these girls can be when they get fired up.

“But not everyone made it through, right?”

Sunny’s question made everyone drop the ‘who’s the true heroine’ debate, to think about a more serious matter.

The plane crash.

Seohyun swallowed the heavy lump in .

“Manager Oppa…the pilots…”

“What actually happened? I don’t remember anything about it…” Tiffany said, fighting the urge to just break down right there.

“All that I can recall was that the jet’s right wing was burning and then I went to wake everyone up.”

“Yeah, I think I remembered that. You guys were yelling and shaking me so hard that I actually woke up in due time.”

“Thank God for that.”

“But doesn’t anyone remember anything else? How in the world did we get here?”

Jessica got no answer as she looked around at the others.

But her disappointment was enlightened when the tanned person sitting next to her spoke up.

“I do.”

“Yuri, you remembered something?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“What do you mean, ‘you think’?” Taeyeon frowned.

“Well…it’s kinda hard to believe, actually.”

“Try us.”

When everybody straightened up and stared intently at the black pearl, Yuri felt that it was her cue to tell her side of the story.

“Most of you can recall up to the part where Seohyun woke everyone up, right?” When Yuri got a number of heads nodding, she continued on. “When you guys realised what was going on, the plane was already heading towards the ocean. The co-pilot managed to make an announcement for one of us to quickly open the compartment where the lifejackets were while the others had to have their head down as low as possible and hug their knees to brace for impact so that you won’t be thrown forward. Since manager oppa was the closest to the lifejackets, he got up and opened it, and then passed all of them down to everyone as fast as he could.”

The other eight girls’ eyes widened as Yuri went on.

“I think I got lucky because by the time I wore mine, the plane crashed into the ocean and everything went dark. I thought I was dead…but I wasn’t. For some reason, the impact wasn’t enough to break all of the windows but it did made cracks on them and the window of the cockpit. Water was dangerously leaking into the plane. All of you were unconscious except for me and the pilots.” Tears were beginning to converge at the corner of Yuri’s eyes as she recalled the terrifying experience. “I-it was horrible. Oppa wasn’t able to get back to his seat in time so he got thrown forward and hit his head hard on something. He was motionless. Both of the pilots had b-blood all over them but they still managed to emerge from the cockpit and tried to see if they can get everyone out alive…”

The listeners were speechless. It was like a dagger was stabbing through their hearts the more they knew what had actually happened. Taeyeon tried to stay strong but the more she did that, the more her insides crippled under the pressure. “H-how did we end up getting out of the plane?”

“The front of the plane was already facing down in the water, but the exit was still above water level. The two pilots mustered all their strengths left to pull the door open while I checked to see if you guys were okay. To my relief, all of you were still alive but quite battered up. I unbuckled your seatbelts and carried all of you out one by one into the open water. Thanks to the lifejackets that you were wearing, they kept you guys afloat. It wasn’t an easy feat because for every second that passed by, the plane was sinking deeper and deeper. By the time I finally got out, the two pilots were already down due to a great amount of blood loss. Both of them and manager oppa went down with the plane, while we survived and ended up here.”

No one uttered a single word after hearing Yuri’s tale. Countless thoughts were raging through their minds as they tried to process all that has happened.

The blonde sitting beside Yuri was the first to take action by wrapping her arms around the tanned girl.

That action alone initiated another group hug, this time with Yuri in the middle.

“I think we just found our true heroine right here,” Jessica said.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

A/N: I hope the conversations in this part wasn't so confusing. If it is, then I will re-edit for easier reading. :]

And for all those who are still reading this, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. I am indeed puttling a lot of pairings in this story. Actually, ALL of the Soshi pairings to be exact. No matter how big or small the moment is, I'm attempting to put every single one of them in here. Yeah, it's kinda crazy but this is an OT9 fic so I'm trying to show that the girls has a close bond with each and every one of their members. I apologise in advance if this is too much for your brain to handle.  :P