Sei flounced into Suyeon's room and flopped down on the bed.

"Is something wrong?" Suyeon asked, looking up from the picture she was drawing.

Sei rolled over and looked at her. "I don't know. Things are weird."

Suyeon put her pencil down and focused her full attention on Sei. "What things are weird?"

"I just had the weirdest conversation with Rina and Elly. They want me to be their girlfriend." Sei flopped back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

"So they're joining the OT6? But they just said they didn't want to do that!" Suyeon looked confused.

Sei sat up and shook her head. "No, they don't want to join the OT6. They just want me to be their girlfriend."

Suyeon lowered her eyebrows. "So they're trying to steal you from us?"

Sei shook her head more vigorously than before. "No, it's not like that. They're fine with me staying in the OT6, but they also want me to be in an OT3 with the two of them."

Suyeon looked confused. "OT6 plus OT3 is. . . OT9. But they're only eight of us! The math doesn't work out!"

Sei reached out and took her Suyeon's hand. "You're counting me twice. I'd be in the OT6 and the OT3, but there would still only be one of me."

Suyeon thought in silence for a while. "So. . . what do you want to do about this?" she asked.

Sei shrugged. "I'm not opposed to being in an OT3 with Elly and Rina. But I think we'd need to get everyone in the OT6 to agree with this - if I'm also in the OT3, it'll mean I'll be spending less time in the OT6, and sometimes we already feel like there's not enough time."

Suyeon nodded. "I know. I miss you already and you haven't even gone anywhere."

Sei sat up, leaned over and kissed Suyeon softly. "And I'm not going anywhere. I'm pretty sure the OT3 thing isn't going to happen anyway."

Suyeon looked curiously at her. "What makes you say that?"

"Can you imagine. . . " Sei said. "Can you just imagine the hell that's going to break loose when we tell Lucy about this?"

Rina and Elly were hanging out in the coffee shop. They were each having an iced americano and they were splitting a cinnamon roll. Suddenly Rina froze, a bit of cinnamon roll halfway to . "Uh-oh," she said, "I think we're about to have trouble."

Lucy was storming through the coffee shop, headed straight of Rina and Elly's table, obviously upset about something. Rina and Elly were both pretty sure they had a good idea what. Lucy stormed up to their table, leaning across the table at them. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked, a little bit louder than was strictly necessary.

Elly held up her hands as if to fend Lucy off. "Okay, you're obviously upset about something," she said in a calm, soothing voice. "Let's leave here and go to the park and we can talk about it."

Lucy looked down at them, breathing heavily, her nostrils flaring. "Fine. Let's go." She turned and stalked out of the coffee house, leaving Rina and Elly to scramble after her.

When they were esconced at a picnic table in the park, Lucy on one side and Elly and Rina on the other, the conversation started up again.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Lucy asked again.

Elly looked at Rina, but Rina was apparently struck mute by the level of anger Lucy was exhibiting. Elly turned back to Lucy, and in her calmest voice said "Why don't you tell us what we've done that's gotten you so upset. I think that would be more productive."

Lucy stared across the table, her eyes wide. "You're trying to steal one of my girlfriends! You're trying to steal Sei!" she hissed, her voice quiet but intense.

Elly held up her hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We weren't trying to steal anybody from anybody. Ask Sei, she'll tell you." As Lucy stayed silent, she went on. "We told her from the very first time we talked to her that we weren't wanting to take her away from the OT6, we just wondered if she might want to have some fun with us."

Lucy snorted in disgust. "Just have some fun with her, until you break her heart!"

"What are you talking about?" Rina asked, having apparently just rediscovered her voice. "We don't want to break anyone's heart."

'Oh, sure, you say that now," Lucy said, leaning across the table toward Rina. "But what will you do when a conflict comes up and you have to choose between Elly and Sei?"

'I. . . I. . ." Rina struggled to find words.

'I'll tell you what you'd do," Lucy said, nodding emphatically. "You'd figure 'Sei's got the rest of the OT6' and you'd side with Elly."

"I. . . that's not. . ." Rina continued to struggle with words.

"That's not how it would be at all," Elly broke in. "We told Sei from the beginning that our relationship with each other would be primary and any relationship we had with her would be secondary. Maybe do a Naver search on 'polyamory, primary and secondary,' and maybe next time try talking to us before you come flying off the handle at us"

Lucy looked at Elly for a moment, blinking as she tried to process all this. There was something about sharing Sei with Rina and Elly that was different from sharing her with the other members of the OT6, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.  Finally, she asked Elly "Why not just join the OT6? Is the something wrong with the rest of us?"

Elly shook her head. "There's nothing wrong with any of you. It's just. . . in case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of drama in the OT6, and we're not sure we want to be a part of that. Sometimes we think we want to try polyamory, and sometimes we're content with it being just to the two of us. This seemed like a way we could see if polyamory was for us, without all the chaos that would come if we joined the OT6. Can you imagine how much chaos it would cause if we joined the OT6, then decided that polyamory wasn't for us and then left the OT6?"

"Okay. . . that makes sense," Lucy said, as if she was forced to concede this against her will. "But why Sei? Why not any of the rest of us? Why her? Did you just use the ship die to decide?"

Elly shook her head. "Of course not. We actually put a lot of thought and discussion into it. Suyeon has all the added responsibilities of being leader, so we didn't pick her. Doyeon and Yoojung st