I was lying on the couch of the upstairs dorm while Donghae paced the living room and Hyukjae sat down next to me on the couch, lightly rubbing my stomach.  He shook his head as he turned his eyes to me.  “You’re an idiot.”

            “Shut up,” I grumbled, still pressing the ice to my eye.

            “So, why’d you kiss Wookie?” Donghae asked, stopping next to the couch and leaning over me.

            “Because I wanted to.”

            Donghae looked over at Hyukjae.  “He’s got a thing for Wook.”

            “You make that sound so much more trivial than it is,” I snapped.  “I don’t have a thing for him.  I’m in love with him and I have been forever.  Since even before Kyuhyun joined the group.”

            “Ah,” Donghae said, standing back up straight and nodding his head.  “That explains so very many things, doesn’t it?  How long it took you to warm up to Kyuhyun, monopolizing Ryeowook as much as you can, and your obvious objection to them dating one another.”

            “Shouldn’t you be blaming yourself for never making a move while he was single?” Hyukjae asked.  “Why do it now?”

            “I didn’t intend on it.  As it just so happened, we were on the topic of unrequited love and one thing led to another and I just blurted out the fact that I was in love with him.  I wasn’t going to kiss him either, but he looked so damn cute.  He looked so lost and confused; I just wanted to do it once.  I wanted to know what it was like.”

            “Well, congratulations!” Hyukjae said, smacking my stomach hard.

            I shoved Hyukjae and he fell on his on the floor.  “I barely touched his lips when he pushed me away.  I didn’t even get that much!”

            “You have the worst luck of anyone I’ve ever met!” Donghae laughed.  “You’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you, your crush is dating your roommate and locking you out of the room so they can get busy together, you try to kiss him and get rejected, and then get caught by his boyfriend!”

            “I fail to see where this is funny,” I complained as Hyukjae got up and sat back on the couch again, grabbing the ice from me and looking at my eye.  He frowned and set it back on my face. 

“You’re going to get into so much trouble when the manager sees this!”

            “I don’t care!  It was totally worth it,” I insisted.  “Now at least that knows that he can’t take Wookie for granted or I’ll steal him away.”

            Hyukjae shook his head.  “I don’t think Wookie would ever leave Kyu for you.”

            “Kyuhyun will screw up eventually,” I argued.

            “And if he does, I think Wookie will still forgive him, but I think Kyuhyun cares a great deal for Wookie and will try his best not to mess things up.  As of right now, the one who has some explaining to do is probably Wookie.”

            “It wasn’t his fault.”

            “I know it wasn’t,” Hyukjae said, gently patting my stomach again.  “I noticed that he pulled away from you and I assume that Kyuhyun saw that too, but you’ve certainly put an unnecessary strain on their relationship and I’m sure Wookie doesn’t appreciate it.”

            “Who cares about that?” Donghae exclaimed, plopping down into the armchair.  “Think of how pissed Kyuhyun is.  He’s never going to forgive you!  Damn!  Who started the brawl anyway?”

            “Kyuhyun did,” I informed him.  “I’m not allowed to start fights as a martial artist.”

            “Oh, that’s right!”

            “But then Sungmin let him have it after that.  He swept his leg and tripped up Kyuhyun and then started wailing on him,” Hyukjae enthusiastically described, waving his hands in the air to demonstrate.

            “What I can’t figure out is why my shoulder’s sore too,” I said, rubbing my shoulder with my free arm.

            “When Kangin pulled you off Kyuhyun, you smacked into the chair hard enough to break the leg of it,” Hyukjae explained.

            “Really?  I didn’t feel it at the time.”

            “Adrenaline,” Donghae explained.  “You can’t feel pain as well when it’s pumping through you.”

            Hyukjae and Donghae began to veer off topic and I ignored them.  Part of me just wanted to be alone for a while.  I sighed deep, thinking of how I’d made a mess of my relationship with Ryeowook.  I shouldn’t have kissed him.  I never even should have said anything, since I knew nothing good would ever come of it.  As much as I tried to come up with reasons that Ryeowook should forget about Kyuhyun and look for someone else—like me—he never deviated from his devotion to Kyuhyun.  Even when he tried dating a string of women, he told me that he just couldn’t stop wanting Kyuhyun, even if Kyuhyun never gave him any hope of ever accepting him.  And when I’m being really honest with myself, I have to admit that although the maknae can be kind of an every now and then, he’d always treated Ryeowook differently.  Clearly, he loved Ryeowook and thought better of him than anyone else.  Even before they got together, I suspected that Kyuhyun felt more for Ryeowook than he had in the past.  They had become so close and I was so insanely jealous of him. 

            I shut my eyes and tried to drown out the noise of Donghae and Hyukjae excitedly chatting back and forth.  My shoulder was sore and my eye was starting to throb.  Could I be any more miserable?  The physical pain was nothing to being so quickly rejected by the one you loved.

            Before I ever met Ryeowook, everything seemed so clear cut to me.  I found some girls training at SM attractive and never questioned my ual orientation.  I think I even had a little thing for Boa for a few months.  But who didn’t have a thing for her at one point?  I think Hyukjae liked her for even longer and I know for a fact that they were messing around together when he was working with her on the dance for Only One.  It wasn’t until they started compiling the final group for Super Junior that they added Ryeowook to the group and he looked so startled and uneasy.  So many of us had been working together for years and he was just thrown into the mix at the last minute.  At first, I just felt this overwhelming compulsion to protect him.  I didn’t understand my feelings at the time.  I was just drawn to him.

            Of course, when I heard his voice for the first time, I was intrigued by him even more.  He had the voice of an angel and just listening to his voice alone led me to believe that everything would be all right once we debuted.  We had enough talent in the group.  His voice added to the mix made everything that much better.  I had renewed faith in us.

            As the maknae, I knew that he would likely be picked on more by the other members.  Despite how hard he worked to make us all happy, there were just so many of us to please.  So, I helped him out whenever I could.  I learned to cook and started to actually enjoy it, which took some of the pressure off of him.  Ryeowook was rather quiet back then and I felt like everyone walked all over him.  He never spoke up for himself and he never refused any request made of him.  I know he did it to be agreeable and to win over all the other members, but I thought it was going to end up burning him out.

            Then one day, the unexpected happened.  The manager Kyuhyun upon us, the new maknae.  At first, I was pissed for all the wrong reasons.  I felt like he’d invaded our group.  Ryeowook never felt this way, however, since he could sympathize with the new maknae, having already been through it all.  And Kyuhyun clung to him, immediately monopolizing Ryeowook as much as possible, while Ryeowook felt this need to protect him and voluntarily remained by his side.  At first, I didn’t see any danger in this.  I thought eventually Ryeowook would realize that Kyuhyun was just using him.

            Contrary to my initial assumptions, Kyuhyun quickly began to show a backbone.  This wasn’t