Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Or......something like that.

If Eunsook were to sing every feeling that happened to curl up into her chest, it would probably be a whole hell of a lot less cheery than anything a musical would provide her. It would probably be more like

Children on playgrounds with small sticky fingers

Bugs that fly right round with sharp pointed stingers

Waiting in lines or patience in general

Kissing with eyes closed and misuse of literal

These are a few of the things I can't stand

…..or something like that.

Eunsook was not a lyricist. Which was something else she couldn't stand.

When she actually thought about it, she was a really negative person. And people just didn't like negative people, right? Who wants to go to the movies with someone who will complain the whole time about how the book was better, or that the bread from the restaurant was too dry, or oh wow, people should really learn to control their children???

Which is why Eunsook had pretty much resigned herself to living a life flying solo.

…...pretty much.

Because even though the cynical part of her mind that never seemed to shut up screamed at her that she needed to accept her fate, there was still a small part of Eunsook's heart that thought maybe, just maybe there was someone out there who would not only put up with her day to day do not wants, but possibly maybe about them alongside her. That if she glossed over some of the small annoyances with a bright smile, then he would come along.

Taemin was not the alongside her kind of guy. Which was something else she couldn't stand.

Lee Taemin was younger than Eunsook by about four years, but he liked to crowd into her space just to draw a reaction from her. He liked to poke her cheeks and for how chubby they were, regardless that she was a grown woman at the age of twenty three. He liked to smell like sunshine and clean soap and some combination of smells that Eunsook couldn't seem to dislike. Taemin just liked things.

Eunsook couldn't stand how much she thought about Taemin.

He was a worm. A parasite. Something that crawled inside you and took up residence without giving you any notice or asking permission or caring about your feelings one bit. But then he was there. Nestled deep inside her organs in a way that if he were suddenly removed, then she knew she didn't stand a chance of survival with how much of a part of her he had become.

And the most annoying part about this snake known as Lee Taemin??

He didn't really annoy her all that much at all.

When he crowded her space she blushed and actually liked being able to smell that sunshine and clean soap and combination of smells that she could feel coming from his skin. Even though he wasn't really close enough for her to smell him. Or was he? WAIT HOW LONG HAD SHE BEEN TRYING TO SMELL HIM WHILE HE STOOD THERE STARING AT HER AND SMIRKING????

When he started following her to the places she would normally go to alone, she hated it. She hated his stupid not sarcastic at all smile, and that he knew when she was holding herself back and tried to push all her buttons so that she would explode. And then the first time that she did, screaming at him about how annoying he was and GOD couldn't he just take a hint? She had been alone, she was fine being alone, she was better off alone because people couldn't handle the type of person she was-- he simply flinched at her tone of voice and shook his head like she was speaking complete nonsense. Then he took her hand, smiled that cocky little half smile he had somehow fostered during his time with her, and gently called her noona for the first time since they had met at that library she hated four months ago.

She liked that.

She liked how his hands were small for a man's, but were just the right size to hold hers perfectly.

She liked how when she would tell him how in the book the character's style had been completely different and that was part of the appeal of them and it was completely lost by whoever had dressed him in the movie, he would laugh and agree but tell her that even if the styling was terrible the effects were fantastic and at least the director got that right.

She liked how he took her twenty miles out of the way to that hole in the wall Italian restaurant that had the best breadsticks she had ever tasted in her life, and that the entire restaurant seemed to center itself on them because his smile was this black hole that all the surrounding life forces into it. Except black hole wasn't right because it wasn't dark or scary. Maybe a comet or a star or a supernova. Some space metaphor that could describe how his smile had the ability to get her all out of sorts but not annoy her in the slightest.

She liked how she closed her eyes when he kissed her, as though they were lead curtains and she didn't have the strength or will to hold them open. She couldn't. Not with the myriad of.....everything that was happening in her just because he was in her space, because they were touching, because he was kissing her.

Eunsook liked Taemin.

And maybe that wasn't Oscar worthy, but Eunsook thought it was pretty damn good.