First Love

Chapter 1

Ahn Jae-Hwa slicked back her messy short hair and tied her scarf neatly as she looked and inspected her work. She had just finished wiping the mirror paneled wall and cleaned the floor in the practice studio. She was quite proud of herself. Jae looked at the mirror to check on her scarf, smiled and gave herself a thumbs up. She was a slender girl of 5 foot 3/160cm, slender, not by choice as she was on a tight budget and good food was considered as a luxury. The studio was quite big and she managed to finish her job there in record time. Other cleaning staff had their designated places to cover, so, Jae was flying off alone.

Being 24 and working as a cleaning personnel was tough at this day and age. Working at a big entertainment company where it is filled with idol trainees didn't help either. People in the agency were mostly nice. Some even pretended she did not exist, which was fine for her. There were a handful people were plain mean and snobbish. They looked down on her for her work, but she needed the money. Jae was desperate, but not to the point where she had to sell herself to get it. She only needed a couple of months to get enough cash to pay the last debt in her brother's list.

Jae sighed.

Her brother, Chin-Hwa may be a good businessman up front. Unbeknownst to her, he had a pile of debt and it was quite a mess. It had always been two of them together since their parents were killed in a car crash back when Jae was 8 years old. The loan he took from the loan sharks was another matter, and there were also some personal debt he took from friends. He kept track of every penny he owed in a book, and it seemed like he was planning to pay it back.

Only that, he couldn't.

Jae looked at the items she collected from the practice room in her trolley. It was quite usual for people to leave out their stuff in the studio. Water bottles were a common sight. Most of the time she picked up sweaty shirt, pants, socks, or even boxer shorts – she shuddered at that one. Then there were power banks, earphones, mobile phones, and the list just goes on. She knew some of those sweaty clothes would pay out really well if she sells it, knowing how crazy fans would go over their favourite idols. Integrity won.

She needed to keep the job to survive. Today's items were a sports jacket which was left on the floor and a laptop underneath it. As usual, she would need to drop those items in the lost and found box which the personnel staff humorously set at the staff's common room. Someone always left something somewhere around the agency, so the common room was the place they headed to when they realized they missed something – after backtracking to where they went to didn't work.

Jae switched off the lights to the studio. She was about to exit the room when a figure suddenly barged in through the door and crashed into her in the process. She yelped and saw stars when her forehead smashed into the person's chin.

"Damn! I'm sorry. Are you okay?" asked the person.

Jae nodded her head which was pounding. She knew that voice and she could barely breathe.

"Are you sure?" the person asked again, turning the lights on.

Jae nodded again. She suddenly felt small. She was already working with the cleaning agency when they were awarded with the contract at his company. For the 4 months she was there, she had never seen him nor bumped into him despite the fact she cleaned nearly every part of the building. He was always away. When he was around, he was always locked up in his studio, making music, or be somewhere else where she was not. She just hoped he wouldn't remember her. They last saw each other when they were teenagers. People changed physically when they grew up, right?

"Ahn Jae-Hwa?" he asked in shock.

Damn! Jae thought.

"What are you doing here?" he asked again. Before Jae could process an answer, he looked at the laptop on the trolley beside her. "What are you planning to do with my laptop?"

So the laptop was his, and that meant his group was the last using the dance studio.

"Were you planning to steal it?" he asked again.

"What?!" Jae blurted out. Where did that come from?

"You plan to steal my work from me like your brother stole mine?" he accused.

Jae saw red. She knew the bad blood that went between her brother and him, but it was unfair to accuse her just because they were family.

"Excuse me, Mr Min Yoongi. I am here because I work here. As a cleaner," she flashed off her ID tag to his face. "Before you go on accusing me trying to steal your laptop, for your information, YOU left your laptop ON THE FLOOR, under this sports jacket. I have just finished cleaning this studio and was about to drop this off at the staff room until you came crashing in and accusing me of theft."

Jae went to the trolley, took the laptop and the jacket. She shoved it to his chest with a satisfying thump.

"Thank you, goodbye," she then took off with her trolley with a huff, leaving a bewildered Min Yoongi behind.