“How’s your leg?”

“Fine,” Jongin smiled at Luhan. Luhan and his sister often visited and every time they would bring their thanks, apologies, and gifts.

“You seriously need to stop with the thanks and the chocolates,” Jongin said, looking at his new box of chocolates. Taeyeon had quickly become friends with Minhee and they were upstairs playing. Their mothers were conversing in the kitchen.

Luhan sheepishly smiled.

“It’s fine, there’s no need for guilt,” Jongin assured.

“Hi guys,” Eunmi entered the house shortly followed by Taemin. Jongin looked between them surprised.

They were pleased with that day’s practice, Eunmi had gotten the hang of the mood of the song and it seemed like she would be able to do the rest of the song.

“Sup,” Taemin slouched onto the couch and put his feet on the coffee table.

“How’s it going?” Luhan smiled.

“Good,” Taemin said. “Yeon and Min upstairs?”

He nodded.

“You have a talent for nicknames Taemin. Yeon, Min, FatMuffin,” she scowled at the last one.

“I have a talent for a lot of things,” Taemin grinned.

“Including cockiness.”

“Including vast handsomeness.”

“Puh-lease.”

Luhan laughed, “You two are funny.”

“This isn’t humour,” Eunmi said.

“Yeah, we’re like this a lot,” Taemin said.

“I have to endure it all day,” Jongin said dully.

“I see and do you guys always add to what the other says?” he asked, amused.

“Sometimes.”

“Mehhh.”

“I guess.”

He laughed and his mother came out of the kitchen with Ms. Kim, saying it was time to go. They said goodbye to Luhan, Minhee and their mother and they left.

Jongin looked between Taemin and Eunmi who were absorbed in that day’s episode of ‘Running Man’.

They’ve been acting weird....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It soon became a routine for Eunmi to go to the dance studio with Taemin almost every day to rehearse. She had somehow managed the chorus and they were moving onto the rest of the song. She was stiff though, very stiff. They would have to fix that before the actual performance but for now it was learning and being able to do the moves. They were now moving onto the duet part with Taemin and Eunmi. That sentence alone sounded disastrous.

“OUCH FATMUFFIN YOU IDIOT YOU STEPPED ON MY HAND!” Taemin howled one Saturday afternoon in the early days of March.

“Sorry! I’m really sorry!” Eunmi apologized with her hand on . “Is it bad?”

Taemin scowled and revealed his red hand that he had been blowing on.

“I’m sorry! I can’t see where your hands are when you’re on the floor!” Eunmi said, feeling guilty.

“Let me show you. Sehun, get on the floor,” Taemin said.

“Why me?!”

“Actually, FatMuffin, you go on the floor.”

Eunmi gulped, knowing that he was going to get back at her now. She got on the floor and Taemin did the move. But to her surprise, Taemin did it without stepping on her.

“But your part is easy!” Eunmi said. “It’s just lying down on the floor.”

“Really? Try kicking yourself off the floor while you’re lying down,” Taemin challenged. Eunmi lay down on the floor, getting ready to do it. How hard can that be?
“OUCH!”

She soon discovered that it was very hard.

“Ouch ouch ouch,” she limped around holding her knee and back.

“Hm, thought so,” Taemin said with a satisfied smirk.

“Okay okay, let’s keep practicing,” Eunmi stretched and got into position.

“WRONG!” Taemin yelled. “You go to the left, I go to the right!”

“Oh yeah, oops,” Eunmi scratched her forehead and Taemin shook his head again.

That was pretty much how practices went. Teaching, arguing, practicing, arguing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jongin had noticed a definite change in Taemin and Eunmi’s behaviours. He found it odd and had his own -ridiculous- assumptions.

On Sunday morning, Eunmi was fixing her bed sheets after breakfast. Jongin tentatively entered and watched.

“Is there a reason you’re standing there with a weird expression on your face?” Eunmi asked. He had gotten a different cast that day and could walk without crutches for a bit. He would crawl upstairs, much like Eunmi did when she had sprained her ankle.

“What do you think of stepbrother and sister relationships?” he asked randomly, trying not to phrase it so awkwardly.

Eunmi looked at him weirdly and then said, “Uhhh they should be good? Certainly not where the brother takes the sister’s pillow case and fills it with newspaper,” Eunmi scowled as she took crunched up newspapers out from her pillow.

“Not like that......”

“Then?” Eunmi said distractedly, examining the comic strip written in the paper.

“Errrr other kinds.....”

“Ohhhhh,” Eunmi said, feeling quite stupid. “Oh. Uhhh I don’t know. Why are you asking me? What would I know-”

She looked at Jongin’s expression and dropped the pillow.

“Oh my gosh Jongin you didn’t- oh God,” Eunmi’s eyes widened. “No! Absolutely not ugh that’s disgusting. Oh gosh I’m going to puke.....” She held her churning stomach.
“You two have been acting funny!” Jongin exclaimed, feeling foolish for making such an assumption.

“Who’s been acting funny?”

Taemin strolled into Eunmi’s room and looked at Eunmi, “Why do you look green?”

“Ask Jongin,” Eunmi jerked her head in his direction. “I am not having this conversation. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do something distracting to get that horrifying thought out of my mind.” She walked past Taemin and went downstairs.

“What’s she on about?” Taemin asked Jongin.

“Oh.... um... nothing....”

“Tell me!” Taemin demanded. Jongin told him his absurd thoughts.

“You, my idiotic little friend, make me sick,” Taemin made a face. “Ugh that’s disgusting... what our parents would say.... oof gotta erase that from my mind now.....” Taemin mumbled as he walked out of Eunmi’s room.

“THEN WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?!” Jongin yelled to no reply.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eunmi and Taemin were extra careful now, they made sure Ms. Kim and Hyunki had excuses for their absences. Sometimes Taemin would leave an hour later (Eunmi would practice with the others) or he would come late, vice versa.

“We’re almost done!” Jonghyun said gleefully when there were about two weeks left. They were taking a break and eating snacks.

“Almost,” Taemin emphasized.

“Well aren’t you a jolly jolly Julie.”

Suddenly, they heard voices outside the door.

“Is this dump really where they practice? Are you sure, Tao?” A voice said from outside.

“I’m sure!”

The door opened and 3 boys entered. Eunmi recognized them as students from she and Taemin’s school but did not know them personally. They looked very neat and classy, as if it was below them to enter a dance studio that wasn’t exactly open.

“So it’s true,” a boy with an angelic-looking face said as his eyes flickered around the room and landed on Eunmi. “Your stepsister is your lead? That’s cute, a stepsiblings performance.”

“Is there a reason you’re here?” Taemin snapped, annoyed at the entrance of the jazz dance team, staring at Suho with dislike.

“Why? We can’t? I don’t suppose you pay for this place, that means we can be here as much as you can,” Suho smirked. Clearly, his looks were deceiving. “So how’s it coming together? I hear she’s a singer but what about the dancing? You know, clumsy feet aren’t exactly dancing feet.”

“How do you know she’s clumsy feet, are you a creeper?” Taemin asked.

Eunmi shot him a look. You are not helping. She didn’t really like this new boy, he seemed to think he was better than everyone and judged people before seeing what they can do.

“You should shout your insults quieter in the halls,” Suho replied. “Well? Let’s see what you guys can do.”

“And why do we need to show you?” Minho asked quietly. Eunmi quietly agreed, not wanting to mess up in front of these people.

“No we’ll show them,” Taemin said confidently. Eunmi panicked and tried to signal ‘NO’ to Taemin.

“Great,” Suho grinned and he and his friends moved to the back of the studio.

“What were you thinking?! I don’t know the entire thing! I don’t want to do it in front of them!” Eunmi hissed to Taemin as he got the music ready.

“I’ll stop it halfway, don’t worry!” He clapped a hand over her back and Eunmi stumbled forward.

Suho raised an eyebrow, “Balance issues too?”

Eunmi squinted her eyes at him and he pretended to be scared, his friend laughed. Not the nice-looking boy who was sitting with a lost expression on his face. He looked like the kindest.

Eunmi stood rooted to the spot as Taemin pressed ‘play’.

“Noona!” Sehun whispered loudly three seconds before her cue. Her body acted of its own accord after that. Eunmi kept her eyes on the floor and just pictured the moves in her head the way the boys had taught them to her, not knowing how they looked in real life.

The music stopped right before her and Taemin’s parts together.

“You’ve seen enough, bye,” Taemin crossed his arms. Eunmi straightened up and looked at everyone’s faces to see if she had messed up.

They looked pleased and the new boys had no remarks.

“Not bad,” Lay nodded. Suho elbowed him.

“Let’s go,” Suho said and lead them out.

“Let the door hit you on the way out!” Taemin shouted as the door closed with a bang.

“Where did that of talent come from, Muffin?” Taemin asked in a surprised voice.

“Huh?” Eunmi looked at him in a confused way.

“What he means,” Jonghyun cut in. “Is that you were really good right now. It wasn’t stiff.”

“Really?!” Eunmi brightened and looked at her body, as if she was looking for the cause of her lack of stiffness.

“Yeah,” Onew nodded. “What were you doing that was different?”

“Nothing really.... I didn’t want to look at them so I looked down and my body just acted by itself after that.....” Eunmi said unsurely, feeling quite stupid.

“Yes!” Key clapped his hands.

“What?”

“That’s what you need to do! Let your body act by itself with the music. You know these moves, Eunmi, you’re just a little under confident,’ he glanced at Taemin. “Due to some bad influences.”

“Yes yes congratulations Muffin,” Taemin said. “I’m tired, we’ll stop here today. You go first.”

“Wait how did they find out Eunmi’s doing it?” Key asked. “No one’s supposed to know!”

“I doubt they’d tell anyone now that they know we don’t ,” Taemin shrugged. “They don’t know Jongin, and they don’t know Jongin doesn’t know. “

“True,” Key nodded.

Eunmi put her jacket on. She said goodbye to them and grabbed her bag before leaving.

Ten minutes later, she walked in through the front door of the house.

“Noona!” Jongin said sharply as she entered the living room.

“What?” she jumped.

“Did you take my black pants?!”

“Jongin, what would I do with your black pants?” Eunmi asked, sitting down beside a sleeping Taeyeon.

“Where are they then?!”

“I don’t know.”

Jongin sulked and Eunmi flipped through the channels on TV.

20 minutes later, Taemin flopped onto the couch.

“HYUNG YOU TOOK MY PANTS?!” Jongin yelled as Eunmi stood up to get a snack from the kitchen. Turns out Taemin was wearing them.

“Yeah and there are no pockets! That’s so dumb! Where do I put my phone?!” Eunmi left before getting the chance to hear Jongin’s suggestion as to where Taemin should have stuck his phone instead.

Her mother was sitting in the kitchen, typing an e-mail on her laptop. Hyunki was at the restaurant, but he was due to come home soon.

“How was practice?” she asked. She and Hyunki were thrilled that Eunmi and Taemin were working together, unaware of what the practices were actually like.

“Not bad,” Eunmi replied, biting into a banana. She told her mother the story of the jazz team.

“Also known as classy and big-headed geeks,” Taemin snorted as he entered the kitchen.

“I see, well you kids have fun with your little rivalry,” Ms. Kim said, standing up. “I’m going to do the laundry.” She left to go to the laundry room.

“Who were those guys?” Eunmi asked Taemin.

“You just said it, jazz team you idiocity,” Taemin rolled his eyes.

“I know but why do you hate them?” Eunmi asked. “Come to think of it, you hate a lot of people.”

“It’s not just me who hates them,” Taemin shrugged. “They’re spoiled and think they’re better than everyone. Don’t deny it, FatMuffin, you hate them now too because of those 7 minutes you knew them.”

She couldn’t say anything against that and stayed quiet, chewing the rest of her banana.

“WHERE IS MY BANANA MILK?” Taemin yelled as he looked in the fridge. Taemin had a strange obsession with banana milk lately.

“I drank it,” Jongin walked in and threw a candy wrapper in the garbage. Taemin took this chance to do a rather rude hand gesture at Jongin. Unfortunately, Hyunki walked in at that moment and caught it.

“Lee Taemin if I ever catch you doing that again, I will deform your fingers,” he said sternly. He took his jacket off, put it around a chair and grabbed a glass of water.

“Okay,” Taemin said. Then he mumbled, “You won’t catch me.”

Eunmi shook her head and whispered to him, “You’re so bad Taemin!”

He yawned, “Anything else that’s new?”

“Guess not,” Eunmi said. She looked at Jongin who was sitting at the table playing on his mother’s laptop, his crutches leaning on the table. “Can I try walking with your crutches?”

Taemin snorted, “I think you’ll be even worse at walking with crutches than you are without. Although you could use the extra balance.....”

Eunmi stuck her tongue out and Jongin held his crutches out, already anticipating Eunmi’s giant fall.

“This is cool,” Eunmi laughed, and successfully walked around the kitchen. Hyunki shook his head at the three kids and walked out of the kitchen before Eunmi could accidentally knock him over with a crutch.

“I think she needs them more than you,” Taemin said to Jongin. “I mean look at the improvement.”

“Shut up,” Eunmi jabbed him with a crutch, losing her balance and falling on Jongin in the process.

“I’ll take these,” Jongin took his crutches when Eunmi got off of him.

“Yes well,” Eunmi cleared . “I think I’ll go sit down.”

Jongin and Taemin nodded, “That’s a good idea.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Daehyun!” Eunmi caught up with him the next day in the halls during break. “How’s your face?”

He laughed and looked at her, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Looking better,” she gave him a thumbs up.

“You gunna ask me what happened?”

“Nope,” she shook her head and began talking about something random. It had been a while since she had spoken to him, Taemin took responsibility for that with his constant practicing.

“I heard Taemin is in charge of a performance,” Daehyun said as they sat down on a bench in the hall. “For the showcase.”

“He is,” she nodded.

“I heard some teachers talking about it. They think it was risky trusting Taemin with an entire performance.”

Eunmi frowned, “It’s coming along great actually!”

“I’m sure it is,” Daehyun shrugged. “How do you know? What’s he doing anyway? There was some trouble finding a lead wasn’t there?”

Eunmi looked around to make sure no one was listening then beckoned him closer.

He moved his head forward.

She beckoned him closer.

He moved some more.

She whispered something really fast.

“What?”

“We’re doing Only One,” she whispered quietly.

“Ohh,” Daehyun said, puzzled as to why she had to whisper that. “What do you mean ‘we’- OHHH!”
“Not so loud!”

“That’s great! How’s practice?” he asked as the bell rang.

She shrugged, “It’s what you’d expect with Taemin and I working together. But we’re almost done with all the moves!”

“But I thought you couldn’t dance,” he glanced at her feet. “And you’re a little, ah, not unclumsy.....”

“Shut up I’m perfectly balanced,” Eunmi narrowed her eyes at him. “And I’m doing fine thanks! It took me some time to get used to it, I’ve never really danced to a choreography before and never thought I would, but it’s okay.”

He nodded, happy that she was doing something new and trying something she normally wouldn’t have.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HIYA!

Yeah screaming hiya hasn't stopped......

I think this two week intervals thing is going to continue for a while and who knows when that character authors note comes out..... 

But it hasn't been for nothing! I got a 91% on my unit test! GO ME! 

Sooooo what's going on? Ya'll haven't commented for a while 

I'ma put up a one-shot this weekend so keep an eye on ilovelays2~! 

You know what kind of people I really dislike? The princesses. 

And I don't mean princess as in the way Taemin calls Eunmi (half mocking, half joking, part serious), I mean like someone who actually acts like they're a princess. I know someone like that and I'm sure she's a wonderful person deep deep *ahem* deep down but I haven't seen that yet....

I mean I'm not perfect (no one is) but I don't ask someone I hardly know to tie my shoelaces. And then instead of a 'thank you' I get a 'You didn't tie it properly!' 

Now I'm a person with a very short temper but most of the time I can contain it, that was one of those times but my God the way a volcano erupted in me .

THEN THERE ARE THOSE THAT WALK SLOWLY IN THE HALLS

Not even gunna start but I probably will.... If you walk in front of me slowly in the halls you are very lucky that I do not throw you down the stairs because I HATEEE it when someone is walking slowly in the halls because they are texting or talking to their friends....no just no. I take detours and get to my classes slower so that I do not have to deal with the anger I feel when people walk slowly in the halls. (I mean if you have an actual excuse like a broken leg or something thats okay but if you're just dragging your feet for no reason UGH) 

I'm done my rant of the day, today's theme was things that bother me. 

Byebye~!