I awoke to the sound of an alarm, and a light being switched on. What the hell?

I opened my eyes, trying to ignore the headache. To my confusion, I was sleeping on a bed. Then I felt a sting on my eyebrow.

"Ah!" I yelled.

"Shut up! Everyone else is still asleep," I heard.

"What the hell?" I said, and sat up quickly. My head throbbed, and I regretted moving so fast.

"Stop - moving!"

I looked at the source of the voice. To my surprise, it was Ryeowook.

"Where are we?" I said.

"What do you mean?" said Ryeowook. "We're...on my bed. In my room. Is that what you mean?"

I was silent. I knew I drank like never before last night, but I didn't know what happened afterwards. While I was trying to retrieve the memory, Ryeowook pushed me back down onto the bed.

"Can you just stay still? I'm trying to change your bandage," he said.

"Why are you doing this?" I said, suspicious.

"You don't remember what happened last night?" asked Ryeowook. He looked into my eyes.

"No," I snapped.

Ryeowook looked disappointed. "You... you came back at 4 in the morning," said Ryeowook. "And you came to my room."

"Why - "

"I don't know, that was you, not me," he said.

"Fair enough," I said after a small pause.

"You were crying," he said, stealing a glance at me. "And you told me a few things."

My chest tightened. "What did I say?" I said nervously.

"Most of it was about Leeteuk hyung," he said. He looked at me. "And how he's giving you a harder time than you can handle."

I sighed and covered my eyes.

"So you're doing this because you feel sorry for me again?" I said, shaking my head. I sat up again.

"Stop being so pathetic," said Ryeowook, and pushed me back down. I would have protested again, but the headache didn't allow me to. Ryeowook sighed.

"At least it's not too swollen... I'm guessing you took care of it a bit after you left."

I scoffed.

"You don't show me any interest whatsoever since I get on the team, and you -"

"Are you kidding?" said Ryeowook angrily. "I showed you plenty of interest. I opened up to you. You were the one that pushed me away."

"What are you talking about?" I retorted. "Since that first day -"

Ryeowook held up both hands.

"Fine. Let me tell you the truth," said Ryeowook. I looked at him. "I had a problem with you the first day."

"I noticed," I said with contempt. Ryeowook held up his hand again.

"At first, it was because you took the maknae and lead vocalist position from me. That's why I didn't speak to you before you found out you were on the team. The team found out two weeks before you did, and to be honest, I didn't want you here," said Ryeowook. I looked at him.

"You want to be the youngest?" I asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah," he said. "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, I know how hard it is to be the newcomer. When Super Junior first formed, I was in a similar situation to yours. I'd only trained for 3 months too, so I was the one bullied at the beginning. And I had a really, really hard time.

"When you came to the team, I saw the members treating you worse than they treated me for the first few weeks. And then I had made up my mind to support you... but you didn't seem to want it, or need it."

"What do you mean?" I asked with a frown.

"I mean... I cried every night when I was first on the team, and that's probably the only reason why the other members warmed up to me so fast. But you... when they yell at you or even when they hit you, all you do is apologize with a straight face and as soon as you turn around, you act as if nothing happened. They make you sleep on the floor, and you just spread out the blankets on the floor and sleep there without complaining. I know it's hard. I know you were having a hard time. And I wanted you to realize that I went through the same. I wanted you to open up to me, and you refused me every time. That was my problem with you."

"Are you kidding?" I murmured, looking up at the ceiling, and my eyes welled up with tears. Ryeowook was so hostile to me because I didn't show my emotions?

"I've tried joking with you, helping you, defending you... I even asked you to drink with me. I didn't talk to you after that night when we drank because I was genuinely disappointed, Kyuhyun. I wanted you to take the next step and open up to me, and you didn't. And I couldn't stand it. I hated you for it."

"Is that why you cried that night?" I asked. Ryeowook just nodded and looked down.

 I felt my tears rolling down my cheeks, and I tried wiping them quickly. "I was just... trying not to show it," I said. The tears didn't stop.

"I was starting to think that you couldn't feel pain... both physically and emotionally. But clearly, I'm wrong," said Ryeowook. He looked down too.

"I'm only human, I obviously feel pain... and I'm so tired of this," I said, my entire face wet with tears.

Ryeowook was silent for a second.

"Look what crying's done to your voice," he said. "The day after tomorrow's your debut. How are you going to get your singing voice back?"

I sighed. "Does manager hyung know I'm safe?"

"Yeah, I called him when you got back. You're in quite a bit of trouble though."

"What does he think happened?" I asked.

"We just didn't say anything," said Ryeowook. "You have to come up with a way to explain your cut."

I rolled my eyes. "Why do I have to be the one to do this?"

"It's up to you how you want to deal with this," said Ryeowook. "No one's stopping you from telling the truth."

I sighed again. "What time do we have to leave today?"

"Not until noon," said Ryeowook.

"Then I'm going back to sleep," I said. I slid back into the covers and closed my eyes, resting my aching head on the soft pillow. It felt good to be on a bed again.

"Manager hyung's picking you up for school at 11am," said Ryeowook.

"Tell him I'm not going today," I said. "There's no way I can go after that press conference yesterday."

"I meant, make sure you have a story by then. I'm going to go and make breakfast now. Just... sleep," said Ryeowook, and he turned the lights out again. "Oh," he said as an afterthought, "and yes. You may speak to me in informal speech."

I snorted. I had been using informal speech the whole time. "Go away," I said, and Ryeowook smiled, closing the door softly, and left the room.