We had a smoother practice than ever before that morning; we had two sing-throughs and everyone felt totally comfortable. I felt like I could have done the choreography in my sleep, now that we had gone through the choreography hundreds, if not thousands of times. As a final check, we recorded a video of our choreography with the mirrors covered, and we were generally pleased with ourselves and each other.

The afternoon practice was possibly even better - we had another video review, and every step was as perfectly executed as we could have hoped for. Each of us was feeling more and more comfortable and confident with the idea of the comeback stage the next day.

As we were finishing the packed dinners that they always prepared for us in the cafeteria together in the practice room, Heechul finally entered the practice room to join us for the first time of the day.

"Hey," he said to the group. I got up halfway and bowed while the rest of the members nodded and waved. I sat back down carefully, and Heechul unloaded his backpack from his shoulder.

"We're finishing up anyway, let's hurry and make the last practice a good one," said Leeteuk. We all got up and after a brief clean-up around the room, we were ready to dance again.

"Can we do one last video review, since Heechul hyung's here now? I don't think we've done a video review with Heechul hyung, ever," said Eunhyuk, and without waiting for the answer, started setting up the tripod and the rough handycam. I rushed over to help him with it, and he walked away to let me set it up by myself while he pulled the screens down on the mirrors instead to cover them.

After I'd checked that it was recording, we got into formation and Leeteuk quickly started the music. Again, everything was going smoothly. As we headed towards the middle of the song, I was still totally at ease and doing everything like I'd practiced. My own solo went without trouble. A few moments later came Donghae's solo, and I turned to the right to get into my position for the next formation, but then -

I gave a short yell and fell backwards at the same time that I saw another person stumble backward. We had somehow bumped into each other. As I went down, I fell into someone else, who stumbled but didn't fall. Without even registering who it was that I bumped into or the pain that followed the fall, I got up quickly and moved to my position to continue the choreography. However, being so rattled with the fall, I made mistake after mistake. I had no idea why it happened; I'd never fallen at that spot during practice before. I just wished for the end of the song, which never seemed to come. When it finally did after what felt like an eternity, I looked up, extremely distressed.

"Who fell?" asked Eunhyuk with a frown, looking around.

"Me," I said, my face flushing with embarrassment. "I'm so sorry."

"What happened?" he asked.

"I bumped into someone, but I'm not quite sure who," I said softly.

Then I heard a voice saying, "Me." I looked around to see everyone looking at Heechul. Everyone was quiet.

"Why did it happen?" asked Eunhyuk, finally breaking the silence.

"I - I'm not sure," I stuttered.

"Let's stop guessing and look at the video replay," said Leeteuk, stopping the camcorder and taking it off the tripod. I just stood there with my head down. Yesung had taken the camcorder from Leeteuk and connected it to the TV in the room. I watched nervously as we neared Donghae's solo. I visualized the correct choreography in my head while watching, and until then, I was performing perfectly. I'm supposed to turn right here and take two forward steps there, I thought to myself as we moved closer to the fall. I watched as I did exactly what I had visualized on the screen; I had turned to the right and taken a step forward, but Heechul was moving in the opposite direction as me. Neither of us saw each other and had crashed into each other. As I fell, I had bumped into Leeteuk, who stumbled.

The video replay continued, revealing my multiple mistakes following and I could barely watch in embarrassment. After it was finally finished, Yesung rewound it.

"I obviously don't know where each person is supposed to be all the time. Did you guys catch who was in the wrong place?" asked Eunhyuk. I was silent; it was clearly Heechul moving in the wrong direction, but I didn't want to be the one to point that out. I was waiting for Heechul to admit that he was in the wrong place, but he stayed silent as well.

"Do you need to watch it again?" asked Yesung. I looked at Heechul, who just ignored me and stayed silent.

"Watch it again, then," said Yesung after a short silence, and played the fall again. I watched again, only to reaffirm in my mind that it was indeed Heechul who had performed the wrong steps.

"Did you get it?" asked Leeteuk, looking at me and Heechul in turn. I gave him an uneasy look as Heechul was silent again.

"I think I was doing what I meant to do," I said carefully, filling the silence. "But I know that doesn't rule out the possibility that I know the wrong choreography," I added, leaving a loophole for Heechul for politeness' sake.

Leeteuk frowned at me in disbelief. "It's the night before the comeback and we're discussing right and wrong choreography?"

I wanted to express how unreasonable this was; I had been doing the choreography the way that I always had, but being the hoobae, I wasn't able to communicate with certainty that Heechul was the one that was moving in the wrong direction. I waited for Heechul to speak, but he was still silent.

"I'm not -" I started, but then I couldn't continue and closed my mouth.

"How about you, Heechul?" asked Leeteuk.

"I'm sure I had the right steps," said Heechul with a serious face. My eyes widened in shock. Did he really think that, or was he just saying that to get himself out of trouble?

"So how are you going to resolve this?" asked Leeteuk. I just stared at him.

"Can we try it right now, starting at the beginning of Donghae's solo, half-time? I want to watch," said Eunhyuk, and he stepped out to the front of the practice room as everyone else got into formation.

We went through the choreography slowly again, taking extra care to be aware of our surroundings. When we got to the part where we fell before, Heechul was right in front of me again, about to bump into me.

"Okay, stop right there," said Eunhyuk. He stepped back a little, and squinted at the overall formation.

"Just based on where everything is situated on the other side, I think you might be the one in the wrong place, Kyuhyun," said Eunhyuk. My eyes widened again in disbelief. I knew I was doing it right.

"That - that doesn't make any sense," I stuttered.

"This is something that should have been sorted out days, if not weeks ago," said Leeteuk, looking at me with a fiery glare. I just looked at him, feeling more injusticed than ever before. I had spent the last three weeks of my life at SM, never missed a group practice, and even put in hours upon hours of my own time learning and practicing the choreography while Heechul was only in the building less than an hour a day lately; I couldn't believe this was happening.

"The only way that you would be doing it right, Kyuhyun, is if Heechul hyung were to be moving in the opposite direction than he was supposed to," said Eunhyuk. "But I think all of us know the choreography well enough not to make such a huge mistake."

This confirmed my theory that Heechul was moving in the opposite direction. I looked around for help, but obviously, no one was able to give it.

"Can we look at a video replay of what we'd done before?" I asked timidly.

"We don't have a video of it with Heechul hyung. I've said that already," said Eunhyuk.

"Sunbaenim, those steps are what I've been doing since the day I learned the choreography," I said, my lips dry.

"Kyuhyun, are you talking back?" said Shindong, also clearly unhappy at the situation. I turned my head to look at him.

"No, sunbaenim, I'm just -"

"If you've done it wrong, admit it, figure it out, and move on."

"But -"

"Cho Kyuhyun, stop talking!" said Leeteuk heatedly.

My anger built up higher and higher to the point where I could have started shouting, but then controlling my temper, I got on my knees.

"Sunbaenim, I'm really sorry, but I really don't think I was doing it wrong," I pleaded, close to tears of frustration. I was holding back my emotion so that the frustration didn't come out as a raised voice. My chest felt like it could burst at any moment. The other members just stared at me with raised eyebrows, surprised that I was still talking back.

"Well, we have no way of confirming that now," said Eunhyuk calmly. "So let's just try to figure this out. If you were where you were before and Heechul hyung -"

"The music video," I said out of desperation. "They must have cut it to show the dance with the chorus there."

Leeteuk opened his mouth with an angry frown to comment, but Sungmin spoke first.

"I have my laptop in my bag," he said. "We can check right now."

Leeteuk exploded. "Do you realize how ridiculous you're being? Kyuhyun, part of being a professional is admitting your mistakes! If you can't do this, you're just pulling down the team!"

I stared into Leeteuk's eyes, then looked at Heechul, who remained expressionless. Although my head was exploding with hundreds of things to say, I held it all in and lowered my eyes to the ground.

"Hyung, let's look at the music video. We can't fix it without knowing the final formation anyway," said Sungmin. I looked at Sungmin with genuine gratitude.

Leeteuk stayed silent for a second, then sighed. "Fine, pull it up," he said. I was so relieved that Leeteuk agreed that I suddenly felt lightheaded; I put my face in my hands while everyone else walked over to Sungmin, who was powering on his laptop.

Within a few minutes, the video was playing on Sungmin's laptop and everyone watched intently as Donghae's solo started playing. Although the correct choreography for the fall itself was not in the video, the resulting formation was. It was exactly as I remembered; I would have been where I was in the video if I had done the steps like I had done them just now.

"Pause it there," said Eunhyuk as the formation played. When Sungmin did so, he squinted at the screen. "It... it really does look like..."

There was a massive flood of relief, and I breathed out.

"Hyung, I think you might have gotten it confused," said Eunhyuk, looking at Heechul. "It looks like Kyuhyun ends up in the right place. You're supposed to be on the right of him there. So if you turned to the right as well, then you should be in the correct position."

There was an extremely awkward silence as we just glanced around the room.

"Are you guys up for trying it?" said Eunhyuk, looking at me and Heechul in turn. I looked up, nodded and got to my feet, and Heechul got to his feet as well.

We were getting into formation as Leeteuk spoke. "By the way, Cho Kyuhyun," he said. "I won't comment about the respect level you've shown today, which was obviously unacceptable. But that fall was no excuse for the number of mistakes you made afterwards."

"I'm sorry, sunbaenim. I'll do better," I said, my eyes downcast.

"Let's try it, slowly," said Eunhyuk, coaching us into the steps. This time, both of us ended up in the right spot, with no problems.

"Good," said Eunhyuk, and joined us to face the covered mirrors and the camcorder. "Let's run through the whole thing," he said.

I had done my job with this run-through; I made no mistakes although I was a lot more tentative. The comfort and confidence with which I was practicing earlier on in the day were gone, but I was relieved just not to have made any mistakes.

"Okay, two more run-throughs, and let's call it a day," said Leeteuk, and after the two trouble-free run-throughs, we put our hands together to wish for a successful comeback. After we had finished, the other members went downstairs for showers as I started sweeping the floors of the practice room.