day by day [2]
d o n ‘ t l e a v e
A month flew by, and Jia wondered how she’d managed to go so long without contacting headquarters before they decided to swoop in and see if she was still alive. It’s for the best, though; she realized she hadn’t been so happy in a long time and she would be beyond upset if they ruined everything for her.
Kris had little trouble buying himself a permanent place to live. He bought a modest (for him, anyway) apartment smack in the middle of the city, but not before he offered to buy Jia a place as well. She declined, though he persisted and persisted, but he eventually caved and only bought one apartment for himself.
Jia visited, though, waiting out her reservation at The Shilla before she went back to China and stayed far away from the organization. When she went back, she’d save up enough to go back to Korea on her own and live there instead, close to Kris. She’d probably come clean to him and change her name and practically go into hiding. It was insane, the fact that she’d thought this all through.
Enjoying her freedom post-Rome, she spent her days window-shopping and sightseeing. She’d been to Korea plenty of times but never had a chance to actually stop and look at everything, take photos, actually experience it. There were so many advantages to her unofficial resignment, and she couldn’t wait to indulge in all of them.
Her phone rang as she walked the busy streets of Seoul. She instinctively screened the call first, not wanting to answer frivolously and have to “face” an angry supervisor - but it was only Kris. With a smile, she answered the phone. “Good morning,” she said.
“You sound radiant,” Kris said, and Jia laughed. “Why don’t you come over for the day? I’ve finished furnishing the place, so you should come and see it. Maybe christen a few select pieces...?”
Jia scoffed. “I’ll be over in a bit. I have a few things to do and then I’ll head right over.”
“I’ll see you soon,” he said, and she hung up.
She wasn’t yet used to his doting, but she figured she’d adapt eventually.
Kris hopped right into the shower after he hung up with Jia. He’d just woken up, first of all, and he also wanted to be nice and clean when she arrived. He lathered up his hair and scrubbed away yesterday’s dirt from his body, paying special attention to his face as he was prone to breakouts if he was even just a little careless with his regimen. Long after he was clean from head to toe, he’d stand in the water, waiting until it went from steaming hot to lukewarm before he stepped out.
He dried off his body then wrapped the damp towel around his hips, then used a second towel to dab the water from his face and pat the water from his hair. As he straightened up from putting the second towel into the hamper, he found himself being dragged to the floor, hands wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Don’t make a sound,” his attacker, masked and gloved, growled at him through gritted teeth.
Kris gasped for breath and tried to pry the hands off of his neck, but the man was too fast; he shoved a cloth deep into Kris’s mouth and choked him harder.
He panicked as his vision threatened to go dark and he couldn’t even take small breaths anymore. I hope I’m just blacking out, I hope I’m just blacking out, he thought until he couldn’t see or feel anything.
It took Jia longer than she expected to walk to Kris’s apartment from the other side of town, but the exercise as well as the money saved from not using public transportation seemed worth it. She called Kris to tell him that she was on her way up, but he didn’t answer. Maybe he’s in the bathroom, she thought with a shrug as the elevator ascended.
She walked down the hall to Kris’s apartment and made to knock on the door, but she noticed the door was slightly ajar, which was strange for someone like him. She went inside and slowly closed the door behind her. “Kris?” she called out. “Where are you?”
He probably just stepped out, Jia thought, and she pulled her phone out again to call him. She felt her stomach tie itself into knots as his cell phone rang on the other side of the apartment.
“Kris?” she called again, stepping forward just a bit. In her years of spying and sneaking around, Jia had never been as nervous as she was now. Something just didn’t feel right, and she didn’t know what reason she had to feel the way she did.
She decided to treat this like she was still on a mission and moved forward confidently. She stopped dead in her tracks just about as quickly as she moved off.
“Kris,” she said, but it came out as a whisper. She fell to her knees and crawled to his side, pressing her hands to his chest. She didn’t want to believe it, but she couldn’t feel a heartbeat and his skin was nearly cool to the touch. “Goddamn it, Kris... what the fuck happened to you?” She looked around and saw no blood, no empty pill bottles - suicide would be such a stupid assumption, she thought, because he sounded so chipper and excited to see her. Surely this wasn’t the way he was planning on greeting her, and if it was, she hated him for it.
She didn’t know when she’d started crying but the tears were unstoppable, as well as the choked sobs and repeated chants of “No, no, no” as she stood up and took her phone out once more. Her finger hovered over the “1” key but she paused - could she really risk calling the police, especially with her past? They’d suspect it was her for sure, and that wouldn’t be fair - she’d never think to hurt Kris, but how could she prove that? She looked back to Kris’s lifeless form and knew that the sooner she called, the better chance they had of reviving him... but she didn’t want to get into any trouble. She was on her organization’s bad side, so if the police called and questioned them they’d throw her under the bus without hesitation.
She squeezed her eyes tight and tapped 1-1-9 into her phone, then put it to her ear, crying even harder as she looked at Kris and wondered if it was even possible to bring him back.
“What is your emergency?”
“My boyfriend’s dead, I don’t know what happened to him... please send help.”
h u e
Jia wasn’t much of a dancer, unless she’d gotten a few drinks into her and loosened up a bit. Alone in a VIP room with Kris and endless liquor and a straight feed from DJ booth on the dancefloor put her in the position to get up and show off whatever rhythm she could summon.
She kicked a sitting Kris’s legs apart and stood between them, gyrating to the music. She put her hands above her head and did whatever the amazing dancer in her head made her body do, lapping up the way Kris whooped and clapped and cheered. She turned around and backed away from him, beckoning with a hooked finger for him to join her.
“No, no,” he said, waving her off. “You don’t want to see me dance.”
“You’re right,” Jia said, thrashing her head about and letting her hair fly. “I want you to dance with me.”
“With you?”
“On me.”
“On you?”
“Get over here, idiot,” she said, halting her one-woman dance party to haul him over to her. She turned again so her back was to his chest and they moved together, hands intertwined - one against her hip and the other one tucked just slightly under her top. He spun her back around and kissed her until Jia was done dancing and walking them back to the couch where she straddled his hips and kissed him deeper.
It was then that Jia realized she was done using him as a target, that she was done creeping around and involving him in business that hardly concerned him.
It’s what had Jia laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, crying.
The moment the doctor came out and told her that they couldn’t do anything, that he was gone, she broke down in a way she’d never broken down before. She demanded to see him, to try to make him come back on her own, but that only ended in the doctor having security escort her off of the premises and put her on a bus back to the hotel.
She wasn’t sure how she’d recover from this. He’d put such a hole in her seemingly impenetrable life so quickly and there was no way she’d be able to patch it up.
t h e g a m e o f l o v e
Jia made a call to the coroner the day before the funeral. She told herself she wouldn’t be able to go if she didn’t know why she had to go to a funeral, when she hadn’t planned on doing something like that.
She flew back to China early, having been contacted by Kris’s family and begrudgingly asked to attend the funeral. They said they were acknowledging the fact that she’d been instrumental in Kris’s last days, but they didn’t want her to sit with the family, or the friends. They’d reserve a section just for her. At least she’d be there.
“I wanted to know if you came to a conclusion... or if it’s too early to call,” Jia explained to the coroner.
“It wasn’t a suicide, we know that much,” the coroner said. “We’re thinking foul play. There’s signs of strangulation... finger marks around his neck, to be more precise.”
“Strangulation...” Jia shook her head. “Thank you.” She hung up and shook her head again. “Strangulation... who could possibly...”
She suddenly remembered seeing a man dressed in all black leaving Kris’s apartment building, clutching what looked like a ski mask and a pair of gloves. They made eye contact briefly, and she smiled cordially, but he looked past her and continued on his way.
She remembered thinking for a moment that he looked familiar, that she’d seen him in passing at some point recently. She couldn’t place it so she’d brushed it off... but now she knew who he was.
He was a junior operative from her organization. He killed Kris.
While in Rome, Kris had bought Jia a long black dress. She told him she hardly wore dresses but he insisted, saying it would look great on her body. Tired of trying to convince him otherwise, she let him buy it.
When she took it out to wear to the funeral, the tag was still intact. She ripped it off and tossed it away immediately after spotting it.
She put a small black fascinator on her head, the one given to her by her grandmother before her grandfather’s funeral. It had a short, black veil that concealed her face slightly, which she figured would come in handy as she wasn’t really wanted at the funeral so she could at least have her privacy. She went makeup-free, figuring she’d end up crying it all off anyway. She brought two items that she figure may come in handy and then left for the painstaking drive to the church.
“We want you to lead everyone in a moment of silence,” Kris’s mother told Jia when she arrived.
Jia was taken aback. “Me? Really?”
“Yes... we may have our reservations about you, but you were important to him. He’d want you to take part, somehow.” His mother’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded and walked away. Jia took a deep breath and made her way to her seat on an empty pew toward the front of the church.
There were several prayers at the beginning of the ceremony, and Jia couldn’t help but stare at the open casket while she attempted to give the pastor her attention. Seeing him laying there so peacefully broke her heart. She’d never see him smile, or hear his voice, or feel his hand clutching hers ever again. What was left of him was in that damned embellished box, and it was only the shell of him. All of the personality, all of the charm that had her falling for him within weeks... it was gone.
“We’d now like to ask Meng Jia, friend of the deceased, to lead us in a moment of silence.”
Jia broke her gaze from the casket and stood up, slowly making her way up to where the pastor stood waiting for her.
She gulped and leaned towards the microphone. “Good morning,” she said, her voice breaking. “Before we honor Kris, I... I just want to try and say a few words. Kris... he was... he was probably the best person I’ve had the honor of meeting. He was so kind and... he treated me like he’d known me forever, even when we’d only known each other for a few minutes. I’ll never forget him.” She swallowed hard and looked out at the crowd - and her eyes focused on three people standing near the back, dressed in all black. “Now, a moment of silence,” she said, tearing her eyes away from the people in the back and lowering her head.
The rest did the same and Jia took advantage of this to look back at the people in black; she could have sworn one of them nodded to her.
She knew who they were. They were from the organization. They were coming to get her.
“Thank you,” Jia said into the microphone, and then she returned to her seat. The three people in the back started to advance towards her, but she pretended not to see them at sat down calmly.
“Now, we’d like to call upon Mrs. Wu, mother of the deceased, to give the eulogy,” the pastor said, but Jia could only hear approaching footsteps. She reached under her dress and grabbed the two slabs of cold metal from their place in her garters, then stood up and aimed them.
The congregation gasped, and the people in black stopped in their tracks.
“Don’t come any closer,” she warned, moving her fingers to the triggers.
“Put down the gun and come with us,” one of them said. “You’ve done a good job. Mission accomplished. Let’s go.”
Jia pulled the trigger on one of the guns and shot him in the shoulder. The other two drew their weapons and everyone else screamed and scattered, sure a gunfight was about to break out.
“Jia, cooperate!” one of the two uninjured, a woman, ordered. “Put the gun down and come with us.”
“Fuck you!” Jia shrieked, pulling the trigger again and shooting the woman in the stomach, then shooting the last one in the middle of his chest. “Fuck you, you killed him!” Realizing what she’d done, and where she’d done it, she gathered herself as much as she could and sprinted out of the church. She hoped Kris would forgive her, wherever he was, because she’d done that to avenge him.
She got into her car and drove until she ran out of gas. She had no idea where she was, but she was alright with it.
She could start over now. Change her name and start over. Everything was fine.