Ryeowook awoke me the next morning at 7:30am along with everyone else. I was extremely groggy as I folded up the blankets that I had slept on. I didn't bother returning them to the closet in the living room and kept them on the floor. I went into the hallway connecting the bedrooms to the living room to find that Ryeowook had made breakfast again. Leeteuk came out of his room, also noticed the breakfast prepared by Ryeowook, then glanced at me. I bowed, trying to clear the awkwardness from the night before, but Leeteuk clearly wasn't impressed.

"You still haven't come to your senses, have you?" said Leeteuk coldly. I looked at him, surprised.

"Pardon?" I said. I wasn't sure what I could have done wrong already; I had been awake for three minutes. Leeteuk was clearly just out to get me.

"Who's the maknae?" he asked. Well, it wasn't like he didn't know.

"Me," I said, looking at the ground.

"So why is a hyung getting up early to make breakfast while you sleep in?" he asked.

Oh.

I didn't say anything for a second, thinking that Ryeowook was actually the same age as me, then said, "Sorry. I'll do it starting tomorrow."

"That's right," said Leeteuk. "Apologize to Ryeowook right now." With this, he left the hallway and went to the kitchen to pick up his bowl.

I followed, embarrassed and blushing. 'Don't show that he got to you,' I thought to myself, and found Ryeowook still in the kitchen. When I was sure that Leeteuk was looking, I turned to Ryeowook. "I'm sorry," I said in honorifics. "I'll cook breakfast starting tomorrow." Ryeowook looked a bit uncomfortable as he nodded to accept my apology.

I ate standing in the kitchen again while the other 12 members sat in a circle in the living room to eat. I finished fastest, and this time, I didn't waste any time getting started on the dishes. As I was washing my own bowl, the bowls started piling up on the counter, and very soon, all of them were in the sink. However, this time, it didn't take too long for me to finish, having started earlier.

"The manager hyung says 15 minutes!" announced Leeteuk from the living room as I was washing the seventh bowl. I had lots of time.

I finished washing the dishes just as Leeteuk yelled "10 minutes!"

I rushed to my room. I dressed quickly out of my luggage cases, and returned to the kitchen to dry the bowls I had just washed. I was half-finished when the manager entered the suite.

"Ready to go?" said the manager. "The bus is parked outside."

The members all filed outside. I was last to leave, and I came face-to-face with the manager.

"Um... I have a favour to ask," I said.

"What is it?"

"I think I may need to check in at school sometime today," I said. The manager looked at the piece of paper he was holding.

"You have a half hour break between 2pm, when your scheduled practice ends, and 2:30pm, when there's a final check with the choreographers. I can drive you then."

"Okay, thanks," I said. "And about the recording..."

"Oh yes," said the manager. "We had a meeting about that last night. We're giving you a section of Sungmin's part. You don't have time to record the chorus, but you'll be recording the solo part tomorrow."

I breathed a sigh of relief, although I wasn't sure how Sungmin was going to react. So I was going to be in the recording after all. "Okay. Thank you," I said.

"Sure," said the manager, and we walked to the minibus and got on.

I didn't speak to anyone for the entire drive, and it seemed that no one was too excited to talk to me either. I simply looked outside the window until we reached the SM building. I was closest to the exit, but I was last to leave - I was always last.

"The room's 305," said the manager as we got off the bus. "Your practice is until 12:00pm, then there's a lunch break," he said.

We each swiped out access cards and entered the building. This was the day that the trainees missed school to be here, so it was totally packed. I thankfully didn't see Minhyun there, but many of the seniors gave me dirty looks as I walked past, at the same time that they were bowing to the rest of Super Junior. "Hey - wait, I forgot my bag on the bus," said Kibum. "Can I go back?"

"Yeah, we'll wait," said Shindong, and we all just stood in the middle of the stairwell to the third floor. I just stood there, looking at my feet, then I heard a "Kyuhyun Sunbaenim!"

I looked up, and I saw Jonghyun smiling and bowing to me. I bowed too, from my neck. He then turned his body to bow multiple times at the rest of Super Junior while repeating "hello" over and over. They seemed pleased enough at his greeting, which I was relieved about. "Congratulations," he said, looking at me.

"Thank you," I said. I looked around at the members, who looked away pointedly. "Can we talk later? Now's not a good time."

"Uh, I'm here the whole day. Whenever you're free," he said. I nodded and smiled.

"Okay, I'll find you later," I said. Jonghyun nodded and bowed, and I bowed back as he left again.

Donghae and Siwon had been watching this interaction the whole time, and they looked at me, puzzled.

"What?" I said.

"You use honorifics to your juniors?" asked Siwon.

"Oh, shoot, I was supposed to drop honorifics - we established that a few days ago. I just forgot," I said.

"I think you also bowed," said Donghae incredulously. "Is he older?"

"Uh, no, he's a 90," I said, a bit embarrassed. I wondered if I would get in trouble again. However, both Siwon and Donghae just looked away. Soon, Kibum was back with his bag.

"Sorry," he said, panting. We all then went into the practice room that we were designated to. Once we were in it, Leeteuk gathered us together.

"Okay, we're doing run-through after run-through, in sections. We work on absolute synchronicity today, with music," he said. We all nodded to signify our understanding. "Here we go," he said.

Just as he put on the music, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to see the choreographer. "Oh, hello," I said, bowing. Everyone else bowed also, surprised.

"Hey guys. Just an update," he said. We looked at him. I obviously knew what it was about, but no one else did. "It's about Kyuhyun. We've given him a solo part in the middle - and so there's a change in the choreography. Sungmin, you had two solo parts so we gave one of them to Kyuhyun."

I glanced at Sungmin. "Okay," he said, nodding. However, his face had hardened significantly.

"So there's a slight change in the choreography," said the choreographer. "Let's just run through that section."

We all got into formation, and the choreographer made the appropriate changes. After about 20 minutes, we had the choreography.

"Okay, good work, guys," he said, walking out the door.

Leeteuk counted again. "One, two, three -"

We all bowed at the same time. "Thank you, you worked hard."

The choreographer smiled, waved and left the room. As soon as he left the room, I faced Sungmin.

"I'm sorry," I said with a bow and an apologetic face. Sungmin didn't acknowledge it, and just turned away. If he wasn't going to accept my apology, that wasn't going to be my problem. It wasn't like he could make my life too much more difficult.

Leeteuk started dance practice, and we worked on the synchronicity in sections of eight measures, repeating each one until both Leeteuk and Eunhyuk declared them perfect. It was tedious work, from making sure that we were moving at exactly the same time to making sure that we lifted our feet to the same height. Once we finished, we did run-through after run-through of the whole thing. Soon, it was 12:00pm.