As soon as the bell rang at the end of the school day, Jiro was out of the classroom before anyone else. Emily closed the text book she was teaching from and watched him, "What's he in a hurry for?" she muttered before dismissing the rest of the class.

Jiro rushed to Calvin's company to start his job as a cleaner. On the way, he shoved a banana down his throat before jogging into the company's large and modern building. When he arrived on his floor, he quickly went over to the locker that was assigned to him and threw in his blazer and his school bag. 

Jiro looked in the mirror as he pulled on a face mask and rubber gloves. He stared at his reflection with a sigh, "How did you get into this state, Jiro? It's pathetic," he muttered, with his eyes locked on his own face in disappointment.

"Jiro..."

Jiro turned around to see Calvin at the doorway. "Calvin?" he said, "What are you doing here?"
"I work here too, remember?" Calvin responded, approaching his friend. 
"That's not what I meant," Jiro replied and his friend chuckled, "You should be in the offices, not here."
"I know," he replied, "I just wanted to see how you were on your first day of work. You must be tired after school," he added.
Jiro smiled though his masked covered it, "I'm not too bad," he answered even though he was pretty tired. 

"Jiro, get to work," a new voice came in, "The toilets on the 7th floor are a mess."
The two brothers turned around to see Jiro's supervisor standing there. 

Calvin showed him a half smile and pat his shoulder, "Then I'll get going, bro," he said, "If you need me, give me a call."
Jiro nodded him off before heading down to the 7th floor. 

When Jiro got to the toilets on the 7th floor, after struggling to get his bucket of water, mop and several other cleaning essentials down the stairs, he stared gobsmacked at the unsanitary conditions of the bathroom. Firstly, there was a horrid odour in the air. Secondly, Jiro didn't know whether the liquid pooled on the floor was water or urine and he didn't want to know. Thirdly, there were scrunched up balls of tissue lying everywhere and the tissue dispensers were empty. The worse part was the fact that half of the toilets weren't flushed and some of them were surrounded by faeces on the tiled floors.

A groan of disgust left Jiro's lips before he left the bathroom to put up an 'Out of Service' sign on the door. "I thought this was a place where gentlemen and gentlewomen worked, not street animals," he muttered, not knowing where to start with the cleaning. 

With Cyndi on his mind as his motivation, he did his best to power through the muck and transform the bathroom into the cleanest and sweetest smelling place in the whole building. 

...

"Melody Jie, he is the worst!" Emily exclaimed into her phone as she video called her elder cousin who lived in Canada. "He's the worst student I've ever had! He's so annoying!" 

Melody chuckled on the other end, "He must not be that bad, Emily, it was his first day after all. Give him some time," she said with a smile.
"I gave him time already! He's so annoying and stupid!" Emily continued, frustrated.
"I know he's annoying, that's all you've been saying for the past 10 minutes," Melody answered, "What exactly did he do that was so annoying?" she asked.
"He covered me in mud then he kept calling me 'King Kong Jie Jie' even though I told him not to, and then he made me clean his locker and he was so ungrateful about it!" Emily huffed, "Not to mention that he always starts an argument whenever we see each other!"

Melody giggled. She had never seen her cousin so worked up before especially over one student - how did one student turn her so upside down and inside out? "What was his name again?" she asked in amusement.
"Stupid golden monkey!" Emily responded, causing Melody to laugh again. "Stop laughing at my misfortune, jie!"
Melody smiled at her, "Maybe this is a chance for you to work with a difficult student. As a teacher, you've always had well behaved students so it'd be a good experience to work with someone different," she replied, "Give him a chance okay? He might not be so bad."

Emily scoffed, "I doubt it. Difficult students will always be difficult students," she muttered.
"Don't say that, Emily," Melody scolded, "He might be going through things that you can't see. If you give him a chance and earn his trust, he might open up to you and you'll see that he's actually a nice person."

Emily rolled her eyes back, not wanting to listen, "He's not a 5 year old. As an adult, he should be able to control himself."
"I could say the same to you, Emily, you're letting your emotions get the best of you," her cousin pointed out, "And listen to me. I've been a teacher for longer than you have and I have learnt that from experience."

[Flashback]

A 20 year old Melody was wandering around her father's office, who was the principal of Guava High School at that time. Back then, she wasn't a teacher and the thought of becoming one hadn't crossed her mind. Currently, she was just looking at the photo frames on his shelf whilst listening to her father as he lectured a 16 year old Jiro Wang who sat at his desk.

"Mr Liu it's not my fault that the fight started! He was the one asking to be knocked out!" Jiro exclaimed angrily. "He was the one who made fun of me for taking up that modelling job!"
Mr Liu sighed, "Jiro, you know that we don't advise highschoolers to work," he said, "And taking up that modelling job was dangerous. If you had stayed in that building, you could have been exploited and seriously hurt."
"Well I need money, so I don't care what would've happened!" he argued before abruptly standing up, "Forget it, I'm wasting my time here," he said before picking up his bag to leave.

"Jiro Wang!" Mr Liu bellowed, "I want you to apologise to that poor student who is now in hospital! You've caused a whole family grief because of your selfish desires," he scolded.
"And what about my family? Does no one care about my family?!" Jiro clenched his fist, "I'm not the one in the wrong here so like hell I'll apologise!" he spat before turning around and storming out of the door.

Melody watched in surprise and for some reason, she felt the sudden urge to chase the scruffy teenager who was covered in plasters. "Jiro wait!" she cried out as she chased him down the hallway. She didn't know why she was chasing someone she didn't even know. Even if he stopped, what would she say to him?

Jiro stopped once he reached a wall that separated the school campus from the outside world. "Jiro wait," Melody panted as she stopped beside him. 
Jiro turned around and scowled at her, "What do you want? You teachers are all annoying, leave me alone," he spat.
"I'm not a teacher," Melody retorted, "Tell me what happened, I'll listen to you," she said, "I care about your family, I'll give you a listening ear," she offered.
"It's none of your business," growled Jiro, turning his back to her, "And why would I trust someone who works with the school? Who even are you?"

"I might be the principal'a daughter but I'm not a teacher. You can talk to me as though I'm your sister or a friend - trust me, I want to help," she confessed, "There must be a reason why you did what you did right?"
"Some things don't need a reason," spat Jiro.
Melody sighed and pulled out her wallet from her pocket and brought out some money. She held out a wad of money, "You said you needed money so take it," she said, taking his hand and placing the money in his palm. Instantly, Jiro retracted his hand, "Don't treat me like a beggar, I don't need your money when I can earn my own," he replied.

"What about your family? Doesn't your family need it?" she questioned, causing Jiro to look away from her. 
"I can support my own family, I don't need the help of an outsider," Jiro replied, not looking at her.
Melody persisted and shoved the money back into his hands, "You can pay me back when you earn that money back then you can proudly say you supported your family by yourself," she tried to persuade him and when she noticed the temptation flash through his eyes, she smiled a little. "I won't tell anyone," she added, forcefully wrapping his fingers around the money. Jiro 

didn't stop her. 

"Why... why are you helping me?" Jiro inquired slowly.
Melody smiled at him, "Because I believe you're a good person... no, I know you're a good person," she answered, "My father doesn't know your side of the story and is unwilling to take the chance to understand you, so I will do that instead."

Jiro stared at her as thoughts went through his mind. After a few moments of silence, he turned around and climbed onto the wall. Melody sighed sadly, "Even after all that, are you still going to leave?" she asked before Jiro held down a hand for her. She blinked in surprise as Jiro sat on the wall with his hand extended out to her, not leaving as she thought he would. 
"Come on," he said with a small smile before Melody gave him her hand with a smile. Carefully, he pulled her up onto the wall and the two sat together in silence.

Jiro didn't say anything for a couple of minutes whilst he stared into the distance, at nothing in particular and in a daze. Melody remained quiet, giving him a chance to collect his words and share them with her whenever he felt comfortable.

"My... My dad passed away last year..." Jiro suddenly began in a low mumble, still looking into the distance, "When he was alive, we were pretty well off but... when he died, he didn't leave much money behind. My mother also fell ill and because I have no siblings, earning an income fell onto my shoulders. My mother and I are just getting by with the few scraps of money I earn here and there, but it's not enough to get her proper medical attention. So when I saw the advert for the modelling job a few days ago, I thought I really had a chance to earn some good money... but then I found out that they wanted more than just a few pictures..." he trailed off. 

Melody looked at him, "What about your extended family and friends? Do they know?" she asked slowly.
"My mum is the only family I have. I don't have any aunts or uncles and my friends don't need to know, so why should I tell them that their friend is poor?" he questioned as a response. 

When Melody had gone home that day, she had talked to her father about Jiro. She had asked him about him but what her father had told her was the opposite of how she perceived him - according to him and apparently many others, Jiro was a trouble maker and one of the worst students in the school. However, they weren't aware of his family background but she didn't tell expose it in order to respect his privacy. It was then when the thought of being a teacher came to her; she realised that she wanted to help those students who were casted out by the rest of the school community and get to know them. Jiro was one of them and she made it her mission to get him back onto the right path.



Melody shared her story with her cousin, not sharing Jiro's name of course to maintain his privacy. It did make some sense to Emily in the end.

"So Jie, if you had such a noble mission, why did you stop being a teacher and leave Guava High?" Emily inquired, curiously.
Melody sighed sadly, "Because my most important mission failed," she answered in a low tone, "The one I wanted to help the most gave up in the end and left school," she muttered, "He was the reason I became a teacher... if even he lost confidence in me as his teacher, how could I continue being a failure of a teacher?" 
Emily's face softened, "I guess he was pretty important to you then, huh?" she asked and Melody nodded with a sigh.
"I never saw him after that... I hope he's okay," she muttered.
Emily showed her a small but encouraging smile, "Jie, don't worry. If he's stubborn enough to reject your help then he'd be too stubborn to be put down in life," she said.

Melody sighed, "He was a really good boy, Emily. I just wish I could have helped him earlier," she muttered before wiping away her sadness and putting on a small smile, "Anyway, the reason why I told you that story was to show you that the student who was annoying you has a life you can't see. You can't judge him without knowing his full story and who knows, he might actually be a really nice person," she explained.

A sigh escaped Emily's lips as she glanced over to Jiro's shirt that lay neatly folded on her bed, "We'll see..." she muttered.

Melody nodded, "Alright then, I have to go Em, I'll talk to you later, okay?" she said and Emily nodded.
"Bye, Jie."
"Bye."

Once the call ended, Emily walked over to her bed and picked up Jiro's shirt. Slowly, she brought it closer to her face and inhaled the remnants of Jiro's scent that lingered between her own. "Is this what the stupid monkey smells like?" she muttered before a blush arose on her cheeks, "What am I doing?" she exclaimed, throwing the shirt back onto her bed. Quickly, she turned around and huffed. "One kind act doesn't make you a nice person!" she yelled into the air, feeling her cheeks warm up.

...

That night, Jiro came home quite late. He was exhausted. When he entered the small kitchen, he noticed a bowl of food on the table with a small note beside it, left by Cyndi. Jiro smiled at the note but felt too tired to eat so decided to put the bowl into the fridge. Afterwards, he changed into his pyjamas and jumped into bed beside his lover, too tired to do anything else. 

Cyndi was fast asleep, sleeping peacefully with a small smile on her lips. Smiling, Jiro leaned down and planted a soft kiss on ber forehead, feeling all the hardships of that day leaving his memory. With that same smile, he tucked himself into bed, holding her hand as he fell asleep beside her.