day by day [1]
songfic. 5,516 words. five parts. kris/jia (miss a). character death.
d a y b y d a y
His name was Kris Wu. He was the son of a renowned Chinese millionaire, a man who made those millions by extorting and embezzling his way to the top. He had made an enemy of himself over the decades, and several groups declared that they would make him pay for years of theft. Only one of those groups, however, decided to follow through.
Meng Jia was the youngest operative, but she had enough talent in her two years in the organization to push her past the rookies. She was put on the tough jobs, tasked with taking down targets - first with her beauty and charm, next with her physical aggression. She was somewhat of a prize at the organization, and she loved working there just as much as they loved having her work there.
Jia boarded a plane due to Seoul around dusk, using the hour or so in the air to finish her research so she could get to work as soon as she stepped foot on Seoul soil. She ran several queries on one Kris Wu, tracking down whatever movements she could find logged into the system. She knew he was in Seoul on leisure, but where in Seoul was what she needed to figure out.
Shortly before she landed, she hit paydirt - he was staying at The Shilla Seoul. Getting a reservation there on such short notice would be a task, but she’d find a solution. She always did.
She took a taxi from the airport to The Shilla Seoul, where she pulled a few strings with the hotel manager and reserved herself a room. She let the bellboys deal with her luggage; while she was negotiating her room, she managed to get information on Kris Wu’s whereabouts. The manager pointed her in the direction of the hotel bar, and that’s where she began her mission.
Jia was told to locate the target, charm him, then convince him to go back to China with her. Once there, they’d get into a taxi - a dud, in reality, owned by Jia’s organization - and the mission would end. Having done this plenty of times, she wasn’t the least bit worried about her ability to pull it off. Every mission was different, yes, but she was particularly good at improvising.
Finding him in the dimly lit bar was simple; she’d seen various surveillance videos from days prior and knew what to look out for: tall Asian man, his hair dyed a darkish blond, his face almost permanently serious. It also helped that he was seated right by the bar, under one of the few lights in the place.
Jia advanced towards then past him, making sure to lock eyes and smile with him as she did so. He was speaking to a girl next to him in Korean, but he’d managed to give Jia his attention for the few seconds she was in proximity to him. She took a seat at a table, keeping Kris in her peripheral vision while she ordered herself a martini.
She was elated to see Kris approaching her just as she took her martini from the server, but she paid him no extra attention, only sipping from the rim of her glass. She glanced up at him as he bore down against her table.
“Good evening,” he said in thickly accented Korean.
She smiled at him. “Good evening to you, also.”
“Mind if I have a seat?” he asked.
Jia shook her head. “Be my guest.”
Kris pulled out a chair and took a seat, and Jia remained sipping her martini. “I couldn’t help but notice you when you walked in. You have a presence about you.”
Jia laughed. “Is that so?”
“Yes. Something in your eyes told me we should meet more formally.” He extended his hand. “I’m Kris. Kris Wu.”
She put down her glass, examined Kris’s hand for a moment, then returned the handshake. “I’m Jia. Meng Jia.”
“Meng? You’re Chinese, then,” Kris said.
“I was going to ask you the same about your own surname,” Jia said, “but there are Koreans with the surname Woo so I wasn’t sure if I should.”
“I am, in fact, Chinese,” Kris said with a nod. “So I suppose we may be able to converse in our mother tongue from now on.”
Jia smiled again. “The fact that you’re assuming that there will be a ‘from now on’ is very... charming.”
“Is it?” Kris asked with a smirk. “Forgive me for being hopeful.”
“Hopeful?” Jia inquired. “Hopeful about what?”
Kris was silent for a few beats, then he chuckled and shook his head. “Nevermind that. What are you in Korea for?”
“Leisure,” Jia said simply. “You?”
“The same,” Kris answered. “How long do you plan to be here for?”
Jia shrugged a shoulder. “As long as I feel like. I’m considering moving here, so as long as it takes to find someplace to live.”
“It seems like we have a lot in common,” Kris said. “That’s what I’m here for as well.”
“Is that so?”
“It is,” Kris said, nodding. “My father always told me, ‘You can never have too much property.’ I have a home in Shanghai, one in Toronto, and soon, I’ll have one here.”
“The braggadocio is strong,” Jia said with a laugh, and Kris laughed with her.
“I don’t mean to brag, I’m sorry,” Kris said.
“I understand,” Jia replied. “It’s what rich men do when they’re trying to woo pretty women, isn’t it?”
Kris was silent again, but soon he smiled and nodded. “That’s... that’s exactly what we do.”
Jia humored herself with just how self-confident Kris was, how shameless he was when it came to his father’s riches. Maybe he really deserved what she’d actually come there for.
They had a few drinks and shared the tab, and Jia let Kris sweet-talk her into joining him in his hotel suite. She had a strict rule about the way she used her body on the job, and she normally never let it go past the guy complimenting her outward appearance. She usually got the job done without having to put in the extra added effort, but Kris was kissing her in the elevator ride up and she, herself and not the on-the-job Jia, was having a hard time resisting.
She decided there was nothing wrong with putting forward a little, just as long as she didn’t count it into the way she did her job. There was her personal life, and then there was her professional life. This would be filed under “personal.”
Jia tried not to make a production out of her shower the next morning, but it was difficult when Kris was watching her from the bed, which was conveniently right across from the open bathroom door. The shower itself gave her no privacy, all glass panels and brass safety bars, but she hardly minded it. She shot Kris playful smiles as she massaged shampoo into her hair and washed the suds from her skin, stretching and bending enough to appease him. She turned her back to him to wash her face and gasped when cold air hit her wet skin; she looked around in time to see Kris closing the shower door behind him. He backed her up against the wall and kissed her until the water turned ice cold.
After Jia left Kris’s room, dressed in the same outfit from the previous night, she had a bit of time to think. Something about this didn’t feel as “business as usual” as she had projected it would. If she was thinking clearly at all, she felt she’d become just a bit attached.
She chocked it up to still being a little drunk from the night before and shrugged it off.
h o l i d a y
Jia was mandated to check in with her organization every morning and every night and let them know how the mission was going, and that’s what she did. In the days following their first encounter, Jia kept her distance. She kept track of his movements and planned her schedule around them; she’d wake up early some mornings to go the gym just as Kris was finishing his workout, or she’d go to one of the hotel’s restaurants for dinner a little before he was due to show up. She’d trail him when he left the hotel and just “happen” to run into him on the way back. Their encounters were all in passing, until the afternoon Kris showed up at her hotel room unannounced.
“I know I said that we rich guys brag about how many homes we have to impress beautiful women, but I want to bend that rule a bit,” he said the moment Jia opened the door.
“And how do you plan to do that?” she asked, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Grab your suitcase and meet me downstairs in ten minutes,” was all he said, and he closed the door himself and left.
The off-the-job Jia would have left him hanging, but she couldn’t do that when she was on a mission. Any time lost might as well be a mission failure. She’d have to go with him wherever he was planning to take her.
She made sure to pack heat just in case. If she got held up at customs, she’d just flash her gun license and get through the way she always did.
“So, this is what they mean by ‘living comfortably,’” Jia said as she stepped into Kris’s chartered jet. It may as well be a small home, with its televisions and tables and recliners and actual rooms, by the look of it.
“Sort of,” Kris said with a smile. “It gets the job done.”
Jia sat in one of the recliners and flipped out the footrest. She scowled playfully at Kris as he shook his head and pushed the footrest back into its normal position. “I can’t get comfortable?” she asked.
“After the plane is in the air, you can,” Kris said, taking the seat beside her. “I wouldn’t want you getting any injuries that would impede our little trip.”
Jia eyed him. “Where exactly are we going? Is it customary for guys like you to take girls they’ve known for a week or less on trips in their private planes?”
Kris laughed. “Maybe not, but I have a motto, see... carpe diem.”
“Seize the day,” Jia translated, then she chuckled. “So you’re taking advantage of your opportunities while you have the chance?”
“Something like that,” Kris said. The pilot shut the door of the plane and soon after, the engine roared to life. Kris laid his head back against the headrest and sighed contently, letting his eyes close. Jia shrugged and followed suit, falling asleep before the plane even entered the air.
She woke up as the plane gradually made its way toward the ground, swaying gently. She looked beside her; Kris was gone, but she heard his footsteps returning from behind her.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Kris said. “I was about to try really hard not to wake you so I could put your footrest back down. We’re landing.”
Jia looked down at her feet. They were, to her surprise, hoisted up on the leather footrest. She assumed he’d lifted it for her once they were airborne. “How kind of you,” she said, using her legs to push the footrest back. He sat beside her again and buckled his seatbelt. “Where are we landing? You didn’t answer me when I asked you the first time.”
“Yes, I did,” Kris said.
“All you said was carpe diem,” Jia said. Then it hit her. “Are... are we in Italy?”
“Smart girl,” Kris said as the wheels of the plane made contact with the ground. “Any other girl wouldn’t make the connection, but you did. Very intelligent.”
Jia felt like he was patronizing her, but decided to take the compliment as it was. What he thought of her didn’t matter; if she was intelligent then he was dumb and naive, taking the first girl that showed interest in him and wining and dining her around the world in an attempt to make an impression. He was digging himself a hole and laying in it, giving her the chance to finish this mission faster than she’d finished all the others.
They were staying at a hotel named La Griffe, one that looked like an absolute palace inside and out. She couldn’t imagine how much money he was dropping on a week’s reservation, but Jia figured that whatever the cost was was hardly a factor to him.
She was surprised when he booked only one room for the both of them, especially on such short notice - but it seemed like his connections had far reach and that’s what sealed the deal. Jia wanted to go up and see the room, but Kris insisted on whisking her away from the hotel the moment they’d made the reservation. He gave the bellboy a big tip for bringing their bags up to the room and off they went.
Kris acted as a tour guide for an awestruck Jia, pointing out landmarks and his favorite restaurants and hinted at hauling her into designer stores. Her work allowed her to travel, but as a junior operative she was limited to Asia unless her target drifted elsewhere. Being in Rome was a whole new experience, and off-the-job Jia was loving every moment of it.
In the back of her mind, she wondered how she’d explain this to headquarters when she reported in that night, but for the time being she’d just enjoy.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Kris asked as they walked back to the hotel, the sun long gone after spending the evening treating themselves to lasagna.
“I think so,” Jia said, glad they’d decided to share a plate of lasagna. If she was full off of half a lasagna she couldn’t imagine how she’d feel after a whole one. “This is all really bizarre.”
“How so?” Kris asked with a laugh.
“I woke up in Korea this morning,” she said, “and I’ll go to sleep in Rome for the next six days.”
Kris laughed again. “This is new to you? For a girl staying at a hotel like the Shilla, all by herself...”
“That was a splurge,” Jia said. Really, her organization funded the whole thing , but he obviously couldn’t know that.
“Was it?”
“Mmhmm. I saved up a lot of money for that trip. I thought, ‘Hell, I’m planning to move here so why not?’ I worked my ass off and decided to treat myself to a gorgeous, expensive hotel.”
“Was it worth it?” Kris asked, and Jia could almost hear that self-absorbed part of him hinting at their “chance” meeting.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “We’ll see.”
Jia tried hard not to react when Kris took her hand and intertwined their fingers. She almost felt bad for him; it was obvious that he hardly had a chance to date anyone and he was trying really hard to make this work. Sadly for him, the little that he thought they had didn’t exist - and he didn’t even know it.
When they got back to the room - a sprawling expanse of a thing, with windows overlooking the city and a massive bed and a gorgeous bathroom - Kris had a bottle of white wine waiting for them in a silver pail of ice. He poured two glasses while Jia walked around the room, running her hands along the bedsheets and the curtains.
“With ice, or without?” Kris asked.
“Without,” she answered absently, gazing out of the window. She found him beside her handing her a glass, which she took with a nod of thanks and continued staring at the lights of Rome.
“You’re probably thinking I’m crazy for bringing you out here,” Kris said. “I hardly know you, right? Why do I think it’s appropriate to do something like this? The truth is, I don’t know myself. This isn’t protocol or anything, this isn’t something I do on a regular basis... if at all, honestly.”
“What makes me so special, then?” Jia asked, taking a swig of her wine.
“I don’t know. I thought I’d find out for sure while we were here.” They exchanged glances and Jia found herself blushing and looking away. “Cheers to a beautiful week in Rome?”
“Cheers,” Jia said, clinking their glasses. She smiled to herself as she tossed back what was left in her glass.
As the week progressed, and she spent more time in Kris’s company, she found herself distancing herself more and more from her mission. The correspondence with headquarters often went forgotten, as she was too busy trying to talk Kris out of buying her expensive gifts, or eating breakfast atop La Griffe before the sun had a chance to rise, or dancing the night away with him. It’s more than she bargained for, more than she wanted, but she couldn’t put an end to it if she tried.
Eventually, she decided to stop calling headquarters and to ignore all calls from them. She was positive she was losing her mind but she was having too much fun being carefree and appreciated for once to want to do much about it.
[n e x t]