I had just laid my aching body back down on the floor when I heard Heechul yell, "Cho Kyuhyun!" from his room.

I clenched my teeth and ignored him. Heechul did not have the right to be angry at me right now, after what I'd just done for him and his fans. Plus, he couldn't even get himself out of bed without help. I'd like to see him try and kick me now.

Heechul didn't say my name again, and taking this as indication that whatever he wanted to say to me wasn't important, I closed my eyes and fell asleep again.

I was nervous the next morning, but not because of Heechul. K.R.Y. was supposed to record all three songs today, and as soon as I woke up, I rushed to the kitchen for a few glasses of water; I didn't know what my voice was going to sound like after so much sleep, and I wanted it to sound as good as it could before testing it out.

"Hey," said Ryeowook from the kitchen. Well, at least his voice sounded good.

I looked at him, but I didn't reply until I'd finished my third glass of water, then spoke nervously after clearing my throat.

"Good morning," I said carefully. I nodded appreciatively at my voice. Not bad.

"I'm so excited!" yelled Ryeowook, then he flashed a wide smile. I laughed and shushed him.

"Mind your voice. And me too," I whispered, but I really was more anxious than excited.

"Are you ready for - for your solo?" asked Ryeowook a lot more quietly. He didn't seem uncomfortable, but the fact that he stuttered made me uneasy.

Just as I was hesitating, Donghae wandered into the kitchen. "How does that solo song go again?" I shrugged a little. I hadn't been practicing outside of the office, just as not to overexert my voice, so none of the other members had even heard 'Smile' yet.

"It's really nice," I whispered in an attempt to conserve my voice. "I'll make sure you're the first to listen to it after the recording comes out."

Donghae shrugged; I don't think he was too interested. "Sure," he said, then he grabbed his breakfast and moved into the living room.

Just as I brought my breakfast into the living room with Ryeowook, I saw, to my surprise, Heechul there already; I'd thought that Heechul would have slept in this morning, but he hadn't. He was sitting on the couch, his wheelchair next to him. I paused a little before entering the living room, but I went into the living room confidently. God, why was I so scared of Heechul? He physically couldn't do anything to me now, plus, I didn't do anything wrong last night. Heechul should be thanking me, not scolding me.

I bowed a little with a tiny drop of my head before taking my eyes off of him and taking a seat on the floor on the opposite side of the living room as Heechul. I saw Heechul's gaze follow me as I sat down and stared at my breakfast, not meeting his eyes, then Heechul finally spoke.

"Cho Kyuhyun, you've become brave in the last two months," he said.

I ignored him, and I also ignored the cold sweat starting to form on my forehead. As I stayed silent, Heechul snarled.

"You've become even more insolent, too," he said. "What did you say to me last night?"

I felt my face  becoming red with anger. "I spent a lot of money on your fans last night," I said quietly.

"So that's how you tell your sunbae what happened?" he demanded. "Do you not know how to separate respect and joke?"

I looked at him without saying anything, but I refused to be the one to apologize. He could yell at me all he wanted - but I wasn't going to apologize. As I stayed silent, I saw flames arise in Heechul's eyes.

If he had been able to walk, I was sure that he would have taken big strides towards me to slap me across the face, but thankfully, he couldn't, and settled for another lecture. Honestly, I didn't understand why Heechul was so intent on forcing me to respect him; he clearly didn't like me, and I didn't like him either. Why couldn't we just ignore each other? Heechul wrapped up the scolding just as the managers walked into the dorm after their all-nighter at the office, then when they entered the living room, the manager hyung glanced at me.

"You have an hour. If you think you can do the dishes and get ready in that time, go ahead," he said. I sighed, and gathered up the dishes from each of the members and carried them to the kitchen to start the dishes.

"I said smooth, not bored!" shouted the director through my headphones.

I ran a frustrated hand over my face and sighed inadvertently into the microphone. We'd been recording 'Smile' after Yesung and Ryeowook had left, and I'd been locked inside this recording booth alone for four hours now. He'd said that he wanted to give me as much freedom with this song as possible and didn't give me the specific instructions on how to phrase the passages like he did for the other two songs and had let me practice on my own. For whatever reason, though, during this recording session, he was being tougher than he'd ever been for any of my other recordings and naturally, I was more frustrated than ever before. I'd changed certain aspects of the song for the first dozen runs or so that I was criticized for, then each run started sounding the same. I didn't even know how to change the way I was singing it anymore. The song that I had come to love so much because it had relaxed me had become a source of anxiety. Even then, the director wasn't giving me any specific instructions on what I was supposed to do to sound better; just vague, unhelpful words like 'smooth, not bored'.

"You're starting to make me regret giving you the solo," threatened the director. I glared at him without even knowing it.

"I'm trying," I said through clenched teeth.

"Then make it more obvious," snapped the director.

I opened my mouth to retort angrily, but stopped myself. I had to control my temper. The director and the staff were here for just as long as I was, but they were here to make me sound good. None of this was their fault; they were waiting for me to do better.

"Yes, sir," I said into the microphone quietly. "I'm really sorry. Could I go just one more time?"

I saw the director sigh through the glass, then he switched on the button to talk to me again. "Stop everything and just listen to yourself. I'm going to play the latest run. Listen carefully, and tell me what you're doing wrong."

I bit my lip and sat down on the floor with a sigh as the run that I had just done played through my headphones. I paid attention for the first verse, but then found my thoughts drifting away as the second verse started. I was zoned out for the last two verses, and I only started paying attention during the of the song, if you could even call it that; the whole song was just - so subtle.

As the run-through ended, I realized that I hadn't thought about what I would say to the director about what I'd done wrong. As I hesitated and got to my feet again with my water bottle in my hand, the director pushed the button again.

"What did you do wrong?"

I opened the water bottle and took a drink to buy some time, but it wasn't any help. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. When I drew the water bottle away from my mouth uncertainly, the director was looking at me impatiently.

"Um... I - I'm not sure," I said, chewing on my lower lip. "I'm really, really sorry, but I kind of got spaced out. Could I listen - "

"Why?" asked the director, cutting me off. "Why did you space out?"

"I'm really sorry," I said, but the director shook his head.

"I'm not trying to hear an apology. Why did you space out?"

I didn't know. My thoughts weren't wandering because I had anything in particular to think about; the song was just -

"I don't know," I admitted. "It was just kind of boring."

"Why is that?"

I sighed. I honestly didn't think it was my fault. The whole song was boring. "It's a repetitive song. And it's just overall, not very exciting. It's relaxing, but it's kind of hard to listen to without feeling - "

"Exactly. That's the danger with this song, especially with your passive tone of voice," said the director, finally looking. "You're singing all of the verses the exact same way. No wonder you're bored."

I looked at him. "Um - if you could give me - a bit more instruction - "

The director nodded. "What's the same between the verses?"

"Everything," I said with a sigh.

"Not everything," clarified the director.

I thought a little and hesitated. "The lyrics?" I said uncertainly. Something so obvious?

The director finally smiled. "Right."

"But the lyrics for the chorus is the same," I said uncertainly.

"What changes in the chorus with the verses, though?"

It took me a while.

"The - the context?"

The director looked deeply pleased. "Exactly. Now think about nothing but what you're singing about, and think about how you'd say those words if you were to speak them. Then sing."

I stared at him and stayed silent, thinking about his words.

"Are you ready to try again?" he asked.

I nodded and moved closer to the microphone again.

The intro played, and I closed my eyes this time.

I was out of the recording studio, but I was possibly even more anxious than before. The first run after the director had given me the critical piece of advice was definitely the best musically, but I had made a slight pronunciation error since I'd had my eyes closed and wasn't reading the lyrics that time. After, I tried seven more times, but I just couldn't reproduce the musicality that I'd been able to show the first time, and the director had told me to just get out of the booth.

"Well, at least you grew as a musician today," said the director as he played through the recordings. If he'd said this any other time, I probably would have been over the moon with joy, but today, I wasn't particularly soothed by this comment.

"What if you just replaced that one - one line with a different run?" I asked desperately.

"I tried that already. It really sounds out of place," he said. He played through the run again, and when we got to the error, I put my head down on the table and sighed. Why, why did I make that mistake?

"It's not that obvious though," said the director uncertainly.

"I think it's pretty obvious," I murmured.

"Some people might say the word the way you said it," said the director.

I laughed. "That's pushing it."

"It sounds fine. I didn't pick it up until the second time I listened to it, and I only picked it up because I was really listening for mistakes."

I sighed at the possibility that my first, and maybe only, solo song might have to be released with a mistake in it and buried my head in my arms. Seeing this, the director patted me on the back as I sat up again.

"Okay. How about we call it a day for today - " I sighed and dropped my head a little - "and we'll have you take a copy of the recording back to the dorm and have everyone listen to it. If they pick up on the mistake on the first run, we'll try the recording again tomorrow."

"I don't know if I have time, I have the photoshoot for this tomorrow," I muttered.

The director hesitated. "Well, let's have the team listen to it first," he said.

I sighed. "Yes, sir," I said, then I put my head down on the table to wait in despair until the director had put the recording on a CD.

I had returned to the dorm with everyone else that day, but Donghae and a few others had another schedule. I'd promised Donghae that he'd be the first to hear it, so I had stayed awake, studying, until Donghae was back from his schedule before letting any of the other members hear the recording.

I was in the middle of a practice test when Donghae dragged his tired body into our room, but I didn't look up; I was in the middle of a question. I felt Donghae glance at me, then he frowned a little.

"Maybe Heechul hyung's right, you don't even look at me when I come back anymore," said Donghae. I ignored him again and took a few seconds to finish the question before looking up at him.

"Hyung, I stayed awake to wait for you," I said. "Just to make sure you're the first to listen to my recording."

Donghae was so tired that he was halfway in his bed already. He raised his eyebrows.

"Not to study?"

"I'm only studying because I wanted to stay awake for you," I said with a small smile. Donghae and I both knew that this wasn't entirely true, so we both laughed as Donghae nodded and extended his hand.

"Let's hear it, then," he said.

I reached for my bag and retrieved the CD from it. I handed it to Donghae, who put it on his CD player. I considered telling him about the mistake I'd made before I let him play it, but the point of this experiment, so to say, was to see whether they'd pick up the mistake, so I decided against it.

I didn't look at Donghae out of embarrassment as the whole thing played. I winced a little at my pronunciation mistake, then as the song reached the end, I looked up at Donghae worriedly. He was working hard to lessen his Mokpo accent and was paying close attention to pronunciation all the time, so I was sure that he would have picked it up.

"Did you get it?" I asked carefully as the song ended.

Donghae didn't say anything and bit his lip.

I hesitated.

"Was it - was it really obvious?"

Then, to my surprise, he turned his head away from me and looked at the ceiling, in what could have been exasperation.

"Hyung - hyung, did I - did I really disappoint you?" I asked, almost on the verge of tears. I'd worked hard for this recording, and I had really hoped to impress Donghae. I wanted to show him that his backing me into this sub-unit wasn't a mistake, but I'd clearly failed.

I bit my lip and tapped Donghae on his shoulder. "Hyung, I'm so sorry, I really wanted to do well," I said. Just as tears were welling up in my eyes, Donghae looked at me.

"No, it was - it was really good," he said in a shaking voice, then he turned his head away again.

Then what was this?

"Hyung, are you okay?"

"It was really - "

Donghae didn't finish the sentence, then, to my surprise, he sniffled.

Shocked, I grabbed his shoulder. "Hyung, are you - are you crying?"

Donghae looked at the ceiling once more before looking at me, and as he did, to my amazement, a tear fell from his eye.

"It was just - just really touching," he said, then he wiped his eyes and ordered me to turn out the lights.