The next day, we had an early morning practice and we were at the SM building at 6:30am. We all had a more passionate practice than ever before, and practiced like we never had before until 11:00am, when we took our first break. I had brought water bottles for all of them again, like I always did, but when I returned to the practice room, they were all crowding around one laptop, looking at articles regarding the press conference that LSM had ran today.

I handed them each a water bottle, and while I was doing so, I glanced at the headline.

Suju no longer project group with addition of 13th member

"There's no transcript," said Sungmin, who was standing near the back, "but it seems pretty clear. Congratulations on your debut, Kyuhyun."

I smiled and didn't say anything. No one else congratulated me, but I was happy enough and relieved enough that I would now be able to introduce myself as part of Super Junior. Soon, we began dance practice again.

Practice had to be stopped at 9:00pm because a few of them had to return to the dorm to record some kind of variety show with two foreign girls. Donghae and Sungmin were cleaning the room this morning for that and had made me stow my luggage cases and extra blankets away in the closet in the living room, much to my discontent. Tired from more than 14 hours of dance practice, I changed into a fresh shirt, then wondered whether Jonghyun was still here today. I went downstairs to the second floor in the hopes of finding Jonghyun. In one of the smaller practice rooms, I saw one of the juniors that started training at the same time as Jonghyun practicing his dance. I knocked and entered the room, and he bowed from his waist, startled. He looked scared. I bowed back from my head, amused, and he looked even more startled.

"Hey, have you seen Jonghyun?" I asked in honorifics.

"Um," he said, then he fell silent.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"He... he's here, but he just left a few seconds ago with Minhyun sunbaenim," he said.

"Where?" I said, frowning.

"I think they're downstairs," he said, looking down.

"Okay, thanks," I said, still in honorifics, and bowed a bit.

"Bye, Sunbaenim," he said, bowing from his waist. I wanted to smile at him, but I couldn't with the fear that Jonghyun was being bullied. As soon as I left the room and closed the door behind me, I made half a move towards the basement, half a move to stop myself, then half a move towards the basement again. Then, clenching my teeth, I took large, confident steps towards the basement. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, but I was sure that I wouldn't be able to make it much worse for him. When I got to the basement, I opened the one practice room that was there to reveal, not surprisingly, Minhyun and Jonghyun. They were both standing, much to my relief, but Minhyun was holding the broom. Both of them just stared at me. There was momentary silence, then I spoke in informal speech.

"Kim Jonghyun, what are you doing here?" I said sternly. Jonghyun just looked at me in horror. "Get out of there. Let's go."

"Hyung, what are you doing? Go away," he said, stealing a glance at Minhyun.

"I said, let's go," I said. I walked into the room and took Jonghyun by the wrist.

"Hyung!" said Jonghyun, not knowing what to do. He pulled his wrist out of my grasp. I tried to grab it again, but he inched away from me.

"Do as I say," I said, taking him by the arm and pulling him towards the door.

"What do you think you're doing?" said Minhyun, taking me by the front of my shirt with one hand. I felt my stomach tighten for a second, then I pulled myself away.

"Wait," I said. "Didn't you see the article this morning?"

I saw Minhyun's face scrunch up in anger, then curl his hands into fists, but I wasn't too scared; at least I knew I could fight back this time. "I believe I'm the senior now," I said.

"Hey, don't cross the line," said Minhyun. I could feel my face flushing, but then I regained my confidence.

"I'm not joking," I said with a serious face. "I'm not asking you to speak to me in honorifics or anything. I'd just like you to acknowledge the entertainment industry and how it works, hyung."

Minhyun seemed to be lost for words at my boldness.

"You asked me to take care of Jonghyun on that first day. And to continue doing that, I'm just asking you to stop beating him," I said.

Minhyun scoffed. "You're planning on taking it instead?" he said.

"No, of course not, hyung," I said. "I'm the senior."

Minhyun looked at me like he couldn't believe what he was hearing, but to my surprise, he stayed silent. I felt chills go down my spine. Was seniority this big of a deal? This guy was 3 years older than me, and had been my senior until just 9:00am this morning. And now, he's actually backing down?

"So please. Don't beat him anymore," I said. Minhyun was still silent.

I took a deep breath and turned around, putting my hand on Jonghyun's back to lead him out of the room. Even as we completely left the room and closed the door behind us, Minhyun didn't say anything - he just watched us go.

Jonghyun and I didn't say anything until we reached the top of the stairwell, and then Jonghyun looked at me.

"Hyung!" he said, putting his face in his hands. "Why did you do that?"

"What do you mean?" I said, confused. Wasn't he happy?

"You can't be there to protect me all the time," he said. "As soon as you're gone..."

I lost my words. I had thought about now, but not later.

"Oh," I said, embarrassed at my cluelessness. "I didn't realize."

Jonghyun looked at me. "Hyung!" he whined, and buried his face in my shoulder.

"Okay, okay," I said, patting his back. "I'm sorry."

Jonghyun lifted his head.

"But at least now, you have time to pad if you need," I said apologetically.

"Hyung..." he said, smiling a little.

"By the way, they really worked," I said. Jonghyun was clearly still worried. "Hey, just let me know if he gives you a hard time about this," I said. "I'll take care of it."

"How?" he asked. "It's just going to be worse if I tell you and he finds out that I told you."

"I'll take care of it," I repeated. Although I pretended to be so confident, I had no idea how I was going to achieve that. "By the way, what did you do?"

Jonghyun looked at me. "Didn't you see the stain on his pants? I was carrying a open bottle of water and I spilled it on him by mistake."

I sighed. It obviously wouldn't have been something that was a big deal.

"I see," I said. "Well, do you want to get dinner with me?"

"HYUNG!" said Jonghyun, and he squatted down and burst out laughing.

"What?" I said, startled.

"How can you do that?"

"What?"

"Pretend like nothing happened! How?" said Jonghyun, still on the floor.

"I - " I started, but I didn't know what to say. I hadn't thought about it, but I wondered whether my nonchalant attitude with Super Junior had carried over to here.

Watching me hesitate, Jonghyun got to his feet. "Okay, it's okay. Sorry, hyung. I do want to get dinner with you," he said.

"Okay," I said, smiling. Jonghyun laughed at me again.

"Look, I'll take care of it. Just tell me if something happens again. And don't worry," I said.

"Okay, hyung," said Jonghyun, and we went upstairs to the cafeteria together.