I was tapping my fingers on my knee on the taxi. It was already driving well past the speed limit, but the 20-minute drive from home to the office felt like an eternity. I looked at the taxi driver apologetically from the passenger seat, holding onto the handle on the side of the seat tightly.

"Sir, I don't mean to rush you, but if you could - you know - drive a little faster - "

"Sure," said the driver with a nod, and he stepped on the gas, gripping the steering wheel firmly. I breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the taxi speed up. We ran a few red lights and we received a few honks, but we were at the SM building at least five minutes earlier than I'd expected.

"Thank you so much," I said, handing him the cash.

I opened the door and was rushing out when the driver looked at me, perplexed. "Wait, sir, your change!" he shouted just as I was about to close the door.

"Please keep it. Thank you so much," I said, then I closed the door of the taxi and sprinted towards the entrance at the building.

I swiped my access card and rushed inside. I was halfway between the first and second floor when I realized that I didn't even know what room they were in. Exasperated at myself, I ran downstairs again and stood in front of the reception desk, out of breath.

"Hi," I gasped. "Where - would Super - Junior be - practicing - right - now?" I managed. There was a small pause while she looked at me with raised eyebrows, then I realized that I didn't even know whether they were here. "Wait, they - they did come today, right?"

The receptionist just stared at me for a few precious seconds, then she looked back at at her papers. "Yes, they're here," she said, flipping through the papers.

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least they weren't still at the dorm. I kept my fingers from drumming impatiently on the counter to rush her with difficulty, and just waited. A few seconds which felt much longer than that later, she looked up at me.

"Room 403," she said.

I turned and sprinted towards it without even thanking her.

I ran up the four flights of stairs, huffing and puffing. I sprinted down the hall into the all-too-familiar extra-large practice room. On my way to the door, I glanced into the room through the windows lining the practice room, and I saw all of the members standing in a row with their heads down while the manager hyung stood in front of them through the window. I wasn't sure if they had been beaten already or if they were about to be, and quickening my paces even more, I burst into the room.

"Please! I'm here. Please stop," I said, panting and looking up at the manager hyung.

There was a silence around the room except the sound of my heavy breathing, then the manager hyung smiled a little with disbelief.

"Well, look who decided to come to practice after all," he said. "Congratulations, Kyuhyun, for getting the whole team into trouble with your selfishness, again. I thought I'd talked to you about this."

I lowered my head and stared at my feet, still trying to catch my breath. The manager hyung flipped open his phone, then he dialed. He held it against his ear for a few seconds then he spoke. "Hey. Yeah, he's back." There was a short pause, then he spoke again. "Yeah, I'll deal with him and the team here. Don't worry about it. Just make sure the choreographers are back in an hour or so."

He then hung up the phone and faced me instead.

There was a long silence as my stomach twisted up in a knot and the manager hyung started walking towards me.

"Where did you go, Kyuhyun?" he asked, crossing his arms.

I looked up at the other members and tried to read a few of their faces, but no one else looked at me; they all had their heads down.

"I asked you where you went, Kyuhyun," he said firmly.

I looked up at him for a second before looking at the floor again. "Just... home."

He stared at me for a few minutes while I flushed. I could only guess what he was thinking.

"Kyuhyun, you're three days to promotions, and you went home?"

"I'm - " I was going to say that I was sorry, but then I realized that I wasn't sorry at all. The few hours that I'd spent with my parents was the happiest that I'd been since I'd joined the team, and I deserved it. I deserved to be happy.

And I was sure the manager hyung knew.

I looked up at him. "Sir, it was just really important to me and - "

"Are you trying to justify what you did?" he asked, a smile of disbelief on his face.

I opened my mouth to retort again, then I remembered that the whole team was here. God, I couldn't talk back now and earn an even bigger punishment than the one the manager hyung was planning.

"No, sir," I said quietly.

The manager hyung put his hands on his hips and left a silence as if to challenge me to speak, but I held my tongue.

"Did anyone else know you went home, Kyuhyun?" he asked.

I paled. The manager hyung always knew if I was lying, but if I told the truth, I'd probably multiply the punishment. I bit my lip, then looked up.

"What did they say?" I asked.

The manager hyung raised his eyebrows. "That's not important. I'm asking you now."

I shook my head. "I'm sure whatever they said is the truth."

I saw sparks fly out of his eyes as he raised his hand to hit me. His hand landed on my cheek a split second later, and I stumbled backwards a bit.

I breathed out and put my hand on my stinging cheek. I saw the other members squirming a bit, but none of them did anything except shift their weights uncomfortably.

I took my hand away from my cheek, then looked up at the manager hyung. I didn't shout at him or try to argue with him like I had every other time he'd slapped me before. I just looked at him without saying anything.

As I held my gaze for several seconds, the manager hyung crossed his arms.

"What is it?" asked the manager hyung coldly. "What, you're not happy?"

I shook my head. "I'm sure I deserved that," I said, still looking into his eyes. "But I just wondered what my parents would think if they knew what you were doing to me and the team for going home for the first time in seven months, sir," I said, then I smiled a sad smile. "I'm okay, but I just can't imagine that my parents would be too thrilled."

I saw the manager hyung raise his hand again, and I squeezed my eyes shut and lowered my head a bit more, but he didn't hit me again.

There was a silence, then the manager hyung walked to the cleaning closet and took out a broom.

"Okay. Twenty for everyone," he said. "Get down."

My mouth dropped open.

No. Twenty from the manager hyung and -

I opened my mouth to argue, but everyone else was getting down already without complaining. I sighed, feeling guiltier than ever before, then I got down on the end of the line beside Leeteuk, taking care not to look him in the eyes.

I was bracing myself for the blows, since I should have been the first person to be beaten, but I saw the manager hyung's feet in front of me.

"Kyuhyun, do you remember what I told you on the rooftop a few weeks ago?"

I was momentarily confused.

"Get up, Kyuhyun. Same with you, Ryeowook and Jongwoon."

I got to my feet slowly and looked up into the manager hyung's eyes without understanding what was going on.

"I said for everything you do wrong now, I'll take away a week of studying from you. I still don't want you crying, not three days before your K.R.Y. debut." he said.

My heart dropped. God, why did I forget about that? No, no, no -

"So it's as I promised. Ryeowook, same for you. And Jongwoon - you'll use the single room for the week."

As the three of us just stood there, frozen in place, he addressed everyone else.

"And twenty for everyone else."

There's something called Jung that develops between people if they've known each other for long enough. In a lot of ways, it's close to love. It's that feeling that you feel like you'd be able to sacrifice a lot of you and your well-being for someone else. It's close to love, but it's not limited. You only love select people, but it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that you develop Jung with everyone you know. Some people are easy to get close to and are willing to do a lot for you and you're willing to do a lot for them, and you could say that they have a lot of Jung. But Jung can develop between enemies as well. You know how you'd really hate some people that you've known for a long time, but when they move away or something and you never see them again, you kind of miss them, even if you've never liked them in your whole life? That's because whether you know it or not, you've developed Jung with that person as you interacted with that person, even if it was only with hurtful words or actions. For instance, I'd obviously built up Jung with the members, because if you said that I couldn't see any one of them ever again, I'd be heartbroken, even Heechul. It's still not love. I still didn't love any of them. It's not as strong as that. But it's really close.

Why is all that even important right now?

Well, I say it because I learned something during this beating.

Taking punishment because you did something wrong is easy.

Taking punishment for someone else's mistake is easy too, if you have Jung with them.

Watching the people you respect and appreciate being in pain because of your mistakes - that's hard.

But do you know what's worse? It's having someone you love, really love, be the source of the pain. That's harder than anything else.

It's unbearably hard. And being so helpless, being so powerless to stop it - it really rips your heart out, and fills your entire body with all sorts of emotions that you didn't know you had in you.

And that was exactly how I felt as the manager hyung began the beating with Leeteuk. It didn't matter that Leeteuk had done the same to me so many times, and it didn't matter that he'd given me such a hard time for a while half a year. It didn't matter that I'd probably forgiven him too quickly.

And I couldn't stand it anymore.

"All right! That's enough!" I shouted, taking the manager hyung from behind. "That's enough. Please. They did nothing wrong!"

"You did, though," said the manager hyung, glaring at me. "And you know - "

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I cried, gripping his arm firmly. "None of them made this happen," I whispered.

"Let go, Kyuhyun," said the manager hyung unfeelingly. When I didn't, he simply pulled his arm out of my grip and swung again. Leeteuk let out a tiny groan of pain, and I felt my feet shuffling on the floor from discomfort and the need to do something.

"IF THERE IS ONE PERSON WHO MADE ME DO THIS, IT'S YOU!" I shouted on the top of my lungs.

The manager hyung turned around and looked daggers at me. "What did you just say?"

"IF YOU'D HAVE TALKED TO ME WHEN I SAID I NEEDED TO, I WOULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS!" I felt angry tears welling up in both eyes. Seeing this, the manager hyung ran his hand over his face.

"Stop shouting. I'm not beating you because I don't want you to ruin your voice. So don't start crying now, or you'll get it since you've cried anyway," he said coldly.

I glared at him. "If there is one person who deserves anything, it's you," I whispered, letting the tears fall. "It's you. You're a horrible - horrible - "

"Kyuhyun!" Kangin said from behind me, and I felt a pair of hands take my shoulders from behind. I stumbled backwards a bit while Kangin spoke again. "That's enough. It's okay. Stop it."

I shrugged his hands off my shoulders and took a step closer to the manager hyung, who was just staring at me with an expression that I couldn't quite read, but I went on.

"I've said this before, but you're nothing like my dad," I whispered, letting the tears of anger flow again. "And I'm so, so ashamed to have said that you felt like a dad. I've never been more ashamed of anything any more than I am for saying that you were like a dad. I've insulted my parents by comparing you to them. And I've never been more sorry about anything to them than committing the very act of saying you cared while they didn't. Even when I shouted at them, even when I said hurtful things to them, even when I asked them to sign the papers that would leave me to be taken care of by a - a monster like you as the last thing I said to them before I moved out - I've never felt more sorry."

Although I was too angry to register anything properly, I saw an expression that looked like deep hurt cross the manager hyung's face, but within the second, his cold expression was back. "Someone get him a drink of water," he said, looking around at the team. I clenched my fists and looked at him with tears pouring down my face.

"You only care about my voice, you don't care about me or anyone else on this - "

"CHO KYUHYUN!"

It was Leeteuk, getting up from the floor and walking towards me.

"Be quiet. You're totally out of line," he said threateningly, giving me the frown that he hadn't given me since Minhyun had left. I opened my mouth to protest, but he spoke first with a cold, "Shut up. You're talking like a ten-year-old."

"Sunbaenim - "

"SHUT UP!" shouted Leeteuk, then he took me by the shoulders and squeezed them until they hurt. "Go get a drink of water, and don't come back into this room until I call you. Go to a different practice room, the bathroom, the lounge - I don't care as long as you don't leave the building." I opened my mouth again, but Leeteuk glared at me. "Right now."

I tilted my head back and bit my lip. Why didn't he understand?

"RIGHT NOW, CHO KYUHYUN!" shouted Leeteuk, shaking me by my shoulders.

I just stared at him with my tear-strung eyes for a few seconds, then I turned around and walked out of the room.

I had only gotten to the middle of the hallway when the door to the practice room opened again, and there was a loud, "Kyuhyun!" from behind me. I looked, and Ryeowook was running towards me.

I looked at him for a few seconds, but then I continued walking with a sigh. God, I was so sorry. As I was walking, Ryeowook caught up with me.

"Hey," he said, taking my arm, then he eyed my expression. "Where are you going?"

I squinted at him, then spoke quietly. "They told you to follow me, right?"

I was sure Ryeowook was opening his mouth to deny it, but he soon sighed and nodded. "Yeah. The manager hyung wanted to make sure that you're not running away again."

Again.

God, I'd done this so many times. Probably more times than everyone else on the team combined.

We didn't say anything to each other until we got to a tiny empty practice room on the third floor. I just sat down on the floor with my knees in my arms against a wall. Ryeowook sat down next to me, but he didn't seem as troubled as I was.

I sighed again and looked at Ryeowook apologetically. "I'm so sorry. You really don't deserve this."

There was a short silence, then Ryeowook looked at me and smiled a little.

"Kyuhyun, you overreacted. We all let you go home knowing what the consequences would be. You warned us."

I scoffed with disbelief. "No one knew that they'd be hit twenty times."

Ryeowook shrugged. "I was expecting around there, I knew he wasn't going to let it off easy. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it, so I mean, the no study thing works okay for me."

"Liar," I whispered with a sigh. "What if I've ruined your academic career, Ryeowook?" I asked, pained.

Ryeowook smiled a little. "No, you haven't. And it's okay. It's really okay. I technically don't even have to write the exam, Kyuhyun. But I'm just worried about you. You - you really have to do well, don't you?"

I buried my face in my knees. "But I deserve this. You don't."

"You only deserve it as much as anyone. Jungsu hyung told me that he told you to go home, is that true?"

I bit my lip. "I shouldn't have listened to him. He just - he opened up to me for the first time last night, Ryeowook. And I - I acted without thinking everything through. I should have known that I couldn't take care of the consequences, and neither could Jungsu hyung. I'm just - so sorry."

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, when there was a ring from my pocket.

I took out my cell phone, but I didn't have the nerve to answer it. I just held it in my hands for a few seconds when Ryeowook snatched it from my hand, opened it and put it against my ear.

I sighed, then spoke quietly. "Yes, sunbaenim."

"You can come back now," said Leeteuk on the other end of the line, then he hung up without saying anything.