Because He Is Her 'First Love'....

Mia, Jina and Jun came to the playground area, 2-3 blocks away from their houses.

When they arrived, they saw some children were standing below a tree.

"Let's go play with them.", Mia said and started to walk towards them.

Leaving Jun's hand, Jina ran towards her sister and then she held her hand walking.

When they went closer, they saw that the children were gathered around a boy, who was a year or two older and all were looking at something in his hands.

'What are they doing?', Mia thought.

"Wow!", one of the boys exclaimed.

"This is awesome! I've watched this on T.V. This is just like that.", said the other boy.

"My dad got me this.

When he went to Seoul, he bought this for Me.", the boy who was holding the thing said proudly.

"You are really lucky.", a girl said.

When Mia and Jina went closer, they saw the boy was holding a remote control racing car in his hands.

"This is the newest version! And it is very expensive." The boy smirked.

"..Hey, don't touch it!", he scolded a boy who was trying to touch it.

"Hello everyone.", suddenly Mia interrupted them.

All of them turned back and looked towards her.

"I am Mia and this is my sister Jina. And that is Jun.", she pointed towards the boy who was coming towards them very slowly and with heavy steps.

"We wanted to play with you all." And she smiled.

The boy, who has the car in his hands, came forward.

"We haven't seen you here before.", he said.

"We are here to meet our Nana, Sung Areum.

And he is our neighbor's grandson."

She said as Jun came and stood beside her.

"Oh! So you are Sung grandma's granddaughters!", said one of the girls.

Mia nodded.

While they were talking, Jun's eyes were pinned towards the remote control car in the boy's hands.

'It's SCX21 ! The same car, Papa got me for my 7th birthday…', he was thinking with his moistened eyes as he remembered his mother and father.

"So can we play with you guys?", Mia asked.

Suddenly,

"Hey! What are you looking at? Huh?", said the boy with the car, as he noticed that Jun was staring at it.

With his loud voice, Jun startled and looked at him.

"This is mine. Don't look at it like that. I won't let you play with it.", he said arrogantly.

"Who wants to play with it?", Jun said plainly.

"What? What did you say?"

The boy took some steps towards him

Jun didn't say anything.

"This is the newest version of remote control cars. SX21!

Do you even know that?"

"It's SCX21! And it's not the newest version.

SCX23 has launched last month. So yours is two versions old."

Jun said with his cold gaze staring at the boy.

All other children started whispering as they heard Jun's statement.

The boy got furious. Taking long steps forward, he came in front of Jun and held his collar.

"What? How dare you?"

But Jun didn't say anything.

"Hey. Leave him." Mia said hurriedly.

The boy looked at Jun furiously as if realizing something he said,

"Wait! You are Jun, Do Jun.

You are Kim Seong Ja grandma's grandson. Right?

Do you know him guys?", he asked to other boys.

The others looked at him puzzled.

"Hey, you shouldn't look at other's toys like that, you know?"

The boy tightened the grip on Jun's collar.

"Hey, leave him alone…", Mia said and tried to pull the boy's hand away from him.

While, Jina went and tried to pull the boy from the back.

But the boy was older and stronger than them. He didn't move at all.

The other children didn't know what to do, as he was a bully, they were afraid of him.

"You are the one whose mother and father died in an accident, right?"

Jun, who was staring at him coldly for this whole time, looked to the other way.

His eyes filled with tears.

Hearing boy's words Mia looked at him shocked.

"My mother was telling my father, that only you survived in that accident."

Mia looked at Jun, who was looking down. A hot tear drop slid down from his cheeks.

"Hey..stop it!", she said to the boy.

But he didn't.

"So that's why you were looking at my car like that.

You were jealous, because there is no one, who'll give you this kind of thing EVER.

You— AAAAAAAAAaaaaa"

The boy screamed and took his hand back from Jun's collar.

What happened was, when he was talking to Jun like that, Mia bit his hand.

She bit it so hard that a mark of her teeth could be seen on his hand.

He looked at her furiously.

She took her shoe off and started to beat him in front of everyone.

"Hey…hey….What..are you doing…Aaaa…Aaa…wait…", he was screaming.

"Don't – ever – talk – to – him – like – that-" Mia was shouting still beating him with her shoe.

"Aaa…I don't..hit girls…okay…so… Aaaa..stop…it…Aaaa", he was screaming in pain.

While, others were just watching, and Jina who was clapping happily, an old man passing by saw all this.

"Hey, What is going on there?", he shouted.

Mia stopped beating and the boy who was beaten ran from there as soon as she stopped. He was so humiliated that he didn't even look back.

As he ran away, the other children started clapping happily.

Mia was panting; she wiped her sweat from her fore head.

She looked at Jina, who was still clapping and laughing.

Then Mia looked, where Jun was standing, but he was not there.

She saw here and there, and she saw a small figure a bit far, running away from them.

"HEY!! JUN… JUN!!", she called but he didn't stop.

~

"Jina...", Mia said standing at the gate of their Nana's house.

Jina looked at her.

"You go home now. Okay?

And don't tell anyone what happened just now."

"Okay, Sis. I won't tell anyone.", and Jina giggled as she remembered how her sister beat that big guy.

"I'll go and take Jun back home.", Mia said and started running towards the direction where Jun ran.

But she soon realized she couldn't run fast. As she looked down, she saw her shoe was torn!

~

Walking as fast as she can, Mia reached at the river bank.

'He came towards this direction….but where did he go?'

She started to look everywhere.

And she saw someone was sitting on a branch of a tree near the river.

The tree was not so tall but its branches were spread in all directions.

And there was sitting Jun, on one of the branches, facing the river.

Mia ran towards him.

"Jun?", she called his name.

He looked down; tears were continuously flowing through his eyes.

As soon as he saw Mia, he wiped them hurriedly.

Mia went near the tree and started to climb it.

She tried, once, twice….but she couldn't climb.

Looking at Mia like that, a smile appeared on Jun's face.

'She just beat a bully a while ago and now she can't climb a tree!'

"Wait there." Jun said.

And he jumped down from the branch.

Mia went near him.

"Are you okay?", she asked worriedly.

Smiling at her gently, he nodded.

'He smiled…Thank god….', Mia relieved.

"Are you..okay?", Jun asked.

"Huh?"

"I mean you just beat that guy…So…"

"I am absolutely fine! I just wanted to teach him a lesson."

"Thank you for doing all that…", he said looking at the river.

"Don't say it…

....How dare he say those words to my friend?", she said clenching her fists.

"Friend?", he looked at her with wide eyes.

"Are we not?", she asked him back.

He didn't say anything.

"Junaaa…"

He looked at her.

"Don't ever feel alone and cry like before.

Your mother and father won't like to see you like that..."

Mia said and looked above at the sky.

"That's what my mom told me when my grandpa went to meet the god.

She said that he is looking at me from above there…", she pointed at the sky.

Jun also looked above, at the sky.

His eyes again filled with tears.

"And besides, we are all here for you.

Your grandma, Nana, Jina, Me…."

Jun looked at her, a teardrop fell down.

"So, don't ever feel alone…", Mia looked at him.

Jun quickly wiped his tear and nodded.

"And if anyone bothers you again, just tell me.

I'll beat them with my shoe, like before and protect you! I promise!"

Mia held her fist in front of him.

Jun smiled and looked down at her shoes. He saw that her shoe was torn.

"Your shoe…It's torn…"

"Huh?...Yeah…Hehe.." Mia laughed.

But Jun quickly removed his shoes and put them in front of Mia's feet.

"Here…Wear these…"

"What? No, it's okay…"

"We are friends, right?

You did that all for me and I can't even do this much?"

Mia couldn't say anything further.

She wore them and took hers in her hands.

"Let's go home.", he said.

And then Mia and Jun walked towards their houses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Back to the Spring break of 2004, where Mia and Jun were sitting on the hill lost in their memories….)

"Mia?" Jun asked looking at Mia who was still lost.

Coming back to her senses, she said,

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember the promise you made at that time?"

"Of course, I do." Mia smiled.

"I'll beat anyone who bothers you, with my shoe!!", she repeated her promise, laughing.

'I also want to make a promise now.' Jun thought to himself as he was looking at Mia sincerely.

'You protected me that time and now I want to be strong enough to protect you.

I want to be the one who'll comfort you in your hard times.

I want you, to rely on me.

I'll be always there for you. Just trust me, Mia.'

Jun smiled at Mia, who was looking up in the sky and smiling.

"I promise!" Jun said.

"Huh?", Mia looked at him. "Did you say something?"

"N..No....It's nothing...."

"Oh, okay.

Should we go home now? I'm hungry."

"Hm. Let's go."

And both of them started to walk down the hill.

~

After spending two days at Nana's house, Mia and Jina returned to their home.

Promising each other, that they'll meet soon, Mia said 'Goodbye' to her favorite town, the places she loved to go with Jun and to the people, who were very precious to her.