Chapter 1

    "Dahee-ah!" Kim gasped, sitting straight up in bed, her chest heaving.

    "Hang on, I'm a-coming!" Dahee mumbled in her sleep, rolling of the edge of her bed. With a thud and a grunt, Dahee hit the floor, waking up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Kim-yah? What is it?"

    "I...you.." Kim stuttered, still catching her breath.

    "A nightmare again?" Jeong asked softly, slipping out of bed and sitting next to Kim and holding her hand. Kim nodded weakly. Dahee stood up and sat on the other side of Kim. Dahee took Kim's other hand in hers and squeezed it gently, leaning against Kim.

    "I hate it still hurts." Kim whispered. Dahee nodded against Kim's shoulder.

    "I know." Dahee whispered back.

    "How much can a heart love before it breaks?" Kim sang softly, a few tears running down her cheeks.

    "I think I've," Jeong continued.

    "Had much more than a heart can take." Kim whispered.

    "But you still get up anyway," Dahee sang.

    "I know I won't heal today..." Kim whispered, crying softly.

    "But we're here for you everyday." Dahee and Jeong finished. Kim looked at both of them and smiled softly.

    "Thank you, girls." Kim whispered softly.

Chapter 2

    "Good morning, Kim-yah!" Dahee said, gently shaking her awake. Kim yawned and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Dahee. She smiled softly, looking up at Dahee's beaming face.

    "Morning, sweet girl." Kim murmured, rubbing her eyes. "You want to go make breakfast?"

    "Yeah!" Dahee said, clapping her hands together excitedly. "As long as you make pancakes."

    "You don't want bap and juk?" Kim asked, sliding out of bed.

    "Nope!" Dahee said. "You and me make the best pancakes; you know that! Come on!" Dahee grabbed Kim's hand and pulled her out of their room and into the kitchen. "Sori-unnie, scooch over! Me and Kim-yah will need all the room we can get!"

    "Good morning, Sori-unnie." Kim said to her, laughing. Sori laughed as well, walking to the other side of the counter and sitting on one of the high stools.

    "What are you girls making?" Sori asked, taking a sip of her tea.

    "Pancakes!" Dahee said happily, already taking out the ingredients.

    "Oh, the OUTCASTS boys are going to come down here and demand some once they get a whiff of them!" Mi-Seung said, walking into the kitchen with some of the other girls.

    "That's why we're making extra!" Dahee said, measuring flour and then pouring it into a large bowl. "You ready, Kim-yah?" Kim grinned at Dahee and nodded.

A few minutes later, Jeong walked into the kitchen. She saw Dahee and Kim making breakfast together and smiled softly. She had almost forgotten how good they were when they cooked together. They looked

more like they were dancing, really. Dahee had even turned on music and was humming and singing along to it. Jeong walked to the refrigerator and got herself a glass of water. She started singing softly along with the song. Dahee turned at the sound of Jeong's soft voice, putting down the plate she was holding and walking over to Jeong, giving her a quick hug.

    "There you are!" Dahee said, her voice muffled by Jeong's shirt. She pulled back and grinned at Jeong. "You missed my triple pancake flip!" Jeong smiled softly.

    "Sorry," Jeong said. "But I thought of a demo and had to record it before I forgot. I'll have to show you it after breakfast."

    "Yes you will!" Dahee said. "And here, first batch, all for you." Dahee handed Jeong a plate stacked high with fluffy pancakes with syrup drizzled over them.

    "Wow, Dahee-ah." Jeong said, smiling at her, taking the plate. "You really

outdid yourself this time."

    "I know." Dahee said. "I'm just such an overachever." Jeong laughed softly and took a bite of her pancakes. "How do you like it?" Dahee asked.

    "I don't like it." Jeong said, smiling. "I love it." Dahee laughed and hugged Jeong one more time before returning to flipping the pancakes.

A few minutes later, after a few more batches of pancakes were finished and all the EVER AFTERS girls were sitting at the counter eating, the elevator door dinged and the OUTCASTS walked in.

    "Hey, girls." Jun said, walking into the kitchen. He sniffed. "Oh my gosh, OK girls, spill it. Did you manage to steal down part of heaven, or is somebody wearing perfume that smells like pancakes?"

    "Oh no! Kim-yah, he's found out our secret!" Dahee joked. "Quick! Paralyze him!" Kim smiled slyly at Jun and flipped a pancake at him with her spatula. Jun caught it and laughed, taking a bite of it.

    "Oh, wow, Dahee." Jun said, swallowing and taking another bite. He looked at Kim. "And you...your a new one, aren't you?"

    "I am not 'new.'" Kim said.

    "This is Kim!" Dahee said. "Kim-yah, these are the boys I was telling you about. Boys, this is the girl I was telling you about." Suddenly, Borg rolled in. Kim's eyebrows raised at the sight of the robot. "Oh yeah, and that's Borg. Borg, Kim. Kim, Borg."

    "Pleased to meet you." Borg said.

    "Borg, I thought you were charging!" Hyun said to the robot.

    "I was." Borg said.

    "Well then go keep charging!" Hyun shooed it away. "Sorry, it's not supposed to come down to your gal's level."

    "It's OK!" Dahee said, smiling. "It probably just wanted some pancakes, too!" Everyone laughed. "Now, who wants some pancakes?" All the boys

raised their hands.

Chapter 3

After a loud, happy breakfast, Jeong motioned for Dahee and Kim go to their room. Dahee nodded and grabbed Kim's hand as they stood up and walked into the hallway and in their room.

    "I promised I would show you girls the demo I recorded this morning," Jeong said, opening her laptop. "So here it is." Jeong pressed the spacebar and the music started. In the recorded, Jeong started singing.

    "I tried, I tried

    "I was thinking..." Jeong said softly. "We could show it to Sori and ask her if we could do a live show soon with everyone singing I'm Sorry."

    "We could ask her." Kim said after a second.

    "I would love to perform it!" Dahee said, jumping up and down. Kim laughed and smiled at Dahee.

    "Let's go show her, then." Kim said, smiling and standing up, opening the door.

Chapter 4

They found the rest of the girls in the living room, laughing and playing Super Smash Bros together. When Kim, Jeong, and Dahee walked in, Sori saw them and paused the game.

    "What is it?" She asked as they sat down on the couch.

    "Kim-yah wrote a song and Jeong-yah made the music and we want to do a live performance of it with all of you!" Dahee burst out, saying it in one breath. Sori blinked.

    "I wrote a song called, I'm Sorry," Kim said. "I showed it to Jeong-yah a few days ago, and she wrote the music and recorded a demo this morning."

    "I thought I heard you singing." Mishli said.

    "Can you show us the demo?" Kwan asked them. Jeong nodded and

opened her laptop and played the demo.

    "Wow," Noe said when the demo finished. "That's insane." The other girls nodded, clapping.

    "I'll ask the network right now," Sori said, taking out her phone and typing quickly. "OK, I texted them. Hopefully they'll answer pretty fast."

    "While we wait," Dahee said, grabbing her own controllers. "Get me in the game!"

Chapter 5

In the middle of a game, Sori's phone buzzed. She paused the game and picked up her phone off the coffee table.

    "It's the network!" She said, standing up and walking out of the room, talking quickly in Korean to the person on the phone. After a minute or two, Sori stepped back into the room, grinning at all of them. "They said yes!" They all cheered.

    "When are we going to perform?" Seo-ah asked.

    "Next week on Saturday." Sori answered, sitting back down on the couch and picking up her controller.

    "Next week?" Kim asked softly. "on Saturday...?" Sori let out a breath and nodded.

    "That's..." Dahee whispered, tears filling her eyes. She swallowed hard.

Jeong wrapped her arms around her and squeezed her gently. Dahee leaned against Jeong. "...That's Byeol's birthday."

    "...Yes, it is." Sori said, her voice cracking with emotion. She cleared her throat. "And I know that."

    "Sori-unnie, I don't think I can preform then." Kim said.

    "That's what I thought you would say, Kim-yah." Sori said. "And I respect that. We all do."

    "And I know it's going to be hard to preform for all of us on that day." Kwan added. "And I know that we usually don't preform then."

    "But I think this is different." Sori continued, smiling softly at Kwan. She looked back at Kim and Dahee. "We don't preform on Byeol's birthday because we honor her. But this time, we'll be honoring her by this performance."

    "I like that." Dahee said softly, nodding. She looked over at Kim and