After another half hour of vocal practice and four more of dance, it was finally time for a break. That dance practice was definitely the hardest that I've ever had to go through since being at SM, not only because of the physical aftermath of the punishment, but emotionally as well. I was in the same group as one of Minhyun's good friends who had undoubtedly heard the story from Minhyun already. He kept picking up on the smallest mistakes that I made in terms of unwritten rules of the senior-junior relationship throughout all of dance practice. I couldn't even ask to go over a section that I wasn't doing well with in fear that I might somehow get in trouble again - I was sure that my hips wouldn't be able to take another punishment any time soon. As we were all leaving for lunch, the senior gave me a pointed look and said, "Why aren't you sweeping the floors? It's your job to do as a junior."

"I'll do it," I said although I really wanted to protest. I chewed my bottom lip and walked to the cleaning closet in the room to retrieve a broom. I start sweeping.

"Don't forget to wash the mirrors, too," he said before leaving.

"Sure," I said without looking up. I wondered if I would even have time for lunch before it was time for my next practice. The senior then left with a smirk.

I was sweeping the floors for maybe two minutes when the door opened. I looked up to see who was coming in, and to my pleasant surprise, it was Jonghyun. For the first time, he bowed 90-degrees to me from his waist. I returned it with a small bow of the head.

"Sunbaenim, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Uh, just cleaning," I said, a bit embarrassed. This was the second time today that Jonghyun had to see me in such a state.

"Let me do that," he said. I smiled.

"I can do it, but thanks for the thought. You go on your lunch break," I said.

"No, it's okay. I'll do that," he said, taking the broom from my hand.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," he said, sweeping. In the meanwhile, I got a rag ready to start washing the mirrors. After a few minutes of working, Jonghyun finally started talking.

"Sunbaenim, why don't you drop your honorifics with me?" he offered.

"Okay," I replied in honorifics, "but that's assuming that you realize that dropping honorifics does not mean that I respect you any less."

Jonghyun smiled and nodded. "I know."

"You can drop it too, if you like," I said, still in honorifics.

"No, that wouldn't be right. Plus, it's good practice for me," he said, looking up. I laughed.

"Okay, if you insist," I said. I put the rag to the mirrors and started washing. "So I'll stop talking in honorifics from now on," I said.

"Sure. So start," said Jonghyun, amused that I was still talking in honorifics.

"I will!" I said, still in honorifics. He laughed. "Do you want to get lunch after?" I said, finally dropping honorifics.

"Sure," he said.

I found this to be extremely awkward; I had previously never really been in a position where someone was speaking to me in honorifics and I wasn't when we were such similar ages.

There was an awkward silence as we cleaned for a little. Then Jonghyun said, "I guess I'm just not used to all this. I come from a school where none of this senior-junior thing happened."

"I know what you mean," I said. "It was similar for me, but I had a bit of experience with it in middle school."

"I mean... he's not that much older than you, right? I don't understand how that works," he said.

"But that's the industry. This environment is actually good practice for what's waiting for us once we debut," I said. Jonghyun was silent.

We worked in silence for a few minutes again, and then Jonghyun said, "I just want to say thank you for what you did for me this morning. And I'm sorry."

"You're welcome. And stop saying sorry," I said.

"I was sure I wasn't going to go out there without a punishment today," he said.

"You got one," I said, referring to the one I gave him this morning. I was still ashamed at myself for losing control.

"I didn't. I've heard about how these things work. You were supposed to give me twice what you got."

"But if I had given you twice what I got, you wouldn't be helping me clean right now."

Jonghyun looked up, and the two of us met each other's eyes through the reflection in the mirror. He smiled. "You wouldn't have to be cleaning at all right now if you had given me twice what you got."

"Stop arguing," I said. "It worked out for the better for you. Don't try to convince me otherwise."

"Sure," he said. "I think I'm basically done... sweeping, that is."

"I'm almost done too," I said. I would have time for lunch after all. After I cleaned off the last parts of the mirror, I shoved the rag back into the cleaning closet, and Jonghyun had finished sweeping.

We walked out of the building together, discussing what we wanted to eat for lunch.