Holding On [Nine Percent/ Idol Producer]

Chapter Six

There was frustration and concern, fear too, to some extent, in Ziyi's voice, when he had called Jiayi, asking her to meet him after work at the parking lot, making her wary of the situation. Wrapping her work earlier, Jiayi has her phone against her ear. “I'll keep the report ready by tomorrow,” she says into the phone to her senior, her bag clutched against her chest as she walks out of the department site. “Yes, Ma'am.” Getting out of the elevator on the ground floor, she makes her way towards the parking lot.

She repeats the “Yes, Ma'am” a couple of times before the call finally gets disconnected. Walking towards the spot where Ziyi's four wheeler is usually parked, she hears a feminine voice squeal.

She doesn't pay any attention to it, but her feet halt the moment she hears the same voice whining, “Xukun, stop.”

The voice significantly tones down in the next second, but the rate of Jiayi's heartbeat remains the same. She moves to the side of a car trying to hide herself, opening her heels in case they make her unstable, turning her cell phone to silent in case she gets a call.

The parking lot remains silent for the next few minutes while Ziyi's name is displayed as the caller ID on her phone. Sending a quick text asking him to stand at the exit of the parking lot, Jiayi slightly gets up from her position, trying to take a look at the woman's face.

The sound of a car door opening and closing reaches Jiayi, and in the next moment the engine of a car starts to life. She gets up from her position, her back majorly facing the pathway, the sound of the car nearing her.
She turns around ever so slightly to look at the people in the car, catching a glimpse of the side profile of Cai Xukun himself, a smirk pasted across his mouth.

Looking back at the way Xukun came from, she sees a girl she's noticed multiple times, the one in Ziyi's cabin earlier, her hair in a ponytail, always around Justin.

--

“Ge,” Justin holds the beer can in his hand, not willing to let Xingjie get a grip of it and start chugging it down his throat, the same way he did with the three other cans, “it's enough for the night.”

Xingjie squints his eyes and looks up, turning his head upwards at such a pace that Justin thought he'd have snapped his neck for a moment. “I'm older than you, okay? I'm your ge. Ge. Ge. Ge.”

Xingjie starts to wrap his arms across Justin's shoulders, trying to get him in a chokehold while the younger immediately moves away from the somewhat drunk ge.

“Come here, come here, come he-"

Justin stops moving  and crouches down on the ground when Xingjie hits another person, the other person crouching down too with an intent to help Xingjie up.

“Are you okay?” while growing up, Justin has heard his sister talk about how a well tailored suit is the most attractive outfit for any man, not a single other outfit could come close, it's always the suit, the tuxedo. Now that he sees the man trying to pull Xingjie up on his feet and asking if he's fine, Justin can not help but imagine the way his sister would have reacted seeing this one particular man, dressed up in a dark suit with significantly lighter tie.

“You should have watched-” Xingjie yells which makes Justin press his palm against his mouth, muffling his words. He apologises to the man, who smiles and tells him to not worry before leaving.

--

Jiayi's apartment at eight o'clock is sad, the air communicating the tension pretty well. A row of Polaroids attached by tape and strings, with little paper birds holding them by the edge lines the left wall, even the birds seem nervous.

With Jiayi sitting on the floor facing Ziyi sitting on the couch, the regular ticking of the second hand tries to make the two talk. But, about what?

For a moment, Jiayi looks up at Ziyi, trying to make eye contact, to see the vulnerability in his eyes and convince him, convince him really hard, that involving a third party is necessary.

“Ziyi,” her voice laced around his name makes him grip the edge of the armrest a little more tightly, “we should do something.”

The said boy closes his eyes.

“Xukun threatened you. Justin has external motives. That girl is highly  suspicious. The situation is so dangerous in its entirety,” the touch of Jiayi's hand against his makes him hold onto her hand with an intensity much tighter, “we need to do something.”

“What do we do? Go to the police? What are they even going to do? Xukun will eventually make it out, clean,” Ziyi lets go of her hand as he covers his face, “I can't risk my family, you know. You saw how Justin's sister ended up-”

“You can't bring her up every time. You need to understand this, you can't draw parallels between the two situations and somehow be accepting the supposed consequences, which in this case, haven't even occurred yet.”

Getting up from the couch, Ziyi picks his car keys and jacket before walking out of the apartment, slamming the door on a Jiayi almost letting a yell out to stop the boy from moving out, the Jiayi who supposedly never loses her composure.

The paper birds sigh, now that the two have talked and gone back to square one, like earlier.
--
Justin’s hands are cold as he runs his index finger against the polished office desk, a ‘CEO' and a ‘CAI XU KUN' sketched with utmost precision on a nameplate of brown background, stands to the right side of the desk.

“Monster,” his voice is light, his eyes fragile, his fingers against the nameplate, over ‘CAI XU KUN’, “you're a monster.”

The sudden opening of the office door surprises Justin slightly, covering it up pretty well as he turns around with the file in his other hand.

Xukun looks at him with a small smile in acknowledgement before walking towards his desk, Nessa following him as she stands next to Justin.

She smiles her sweetest at Justin, at which Justin rolls his eyes before mocking her smile and looking at Xukun who's now seated behind his desk with his hands clasped together.

“Tell me about the position of the Wu Shen contract.”

Nessa places a file on his desk, which Xukun doesn't bother to look at, having the entire issue etched in the back of his mind, “a contract was signed between Wu Shen and the house where it was decided that the house will not make any change to the work submitted but as the Editorial Department carrying on its inspection, multiple conflicts have been arising.”

Justin looks at Nessa, “We've been notified about only one. Multiple conflicts?”

Xukun looks from Nessa to Justin, and then back at Nessa while she looks at Justin motioning towards another file in her hand, before looking at Xukun. “There has been new conflicts arising, a copy of which has been sent to the EIC and to the Contractual and Legal Department a couple of minutes back.”

“How's the contract coming along?” Xukun asks after staring at the file placed on his desk for a moment, looking at Justin.

“A meeting has been arranged with Wu Shen to discuss and go over the clauses once again on the coming Friday.”

“What are the chances of getting the ball back in our court?”

“Majority. Wu Shen has been notified about the reason already, and he didn't seem to defy any.”

Xukun nods, “that's good. I hope the two of you,” he looks from Justin to Nessa, “will be successfully able to resolve this. Seek guidance from your seniors, if necessary.”

After being dismissed, Nessa tries really hard to keep up with Justin's long strides, earning a small scoff from him, “what do you want?” he doesn't slow down, and he can almost hear Nessa panting as she replies with a “lunch.”

“So that you can poke around like last time?”

Nessa drops her lower lip, clutches the file in her arm a little tighter and opens her mouth to say something but gets interrupted by the woman who identifies herself as Dong Jiayi.

“Justin,” Jiayi looks at Nessa momentarily before looking at Justin, who has his entire attention on Jiayi, “there's this, uh, new contract,” she says looking away, “that we need to prepare and go through.”

Justin immediately nods before looking at Nessa, “I'll be leaving.”

“B-but, lunch?”

Justin looks at Jiayi, who's staring Nessa down, “it's lunch break, though?”

“We're running short on time,” Jiayi says, still eyeing Nessa, “it's urgent.”

Justin says nothing for some time, staring at Jiayi. After working for her this entire time, he clearly notices the urgency, mixed with a small tinge of nervousness in her voice, considering which he says, “let's have lunch some other time,” without taking his eyes off Jiayi.

Nessa lets out a defeated sigh, extending the file in her hand towards Justin, “here's a copy of the issue, hope you'll at least work on this.”

Justin looks at Nessa this time, taking the file and nodding in affirmative before motioning for Jiayi to lead the way towards their department.

The Contractual and Legal Department is almost empty with one remaining employee at his cubicle, earphones plugged in and eyes fixed on his laptop screen.

Justin places the file handed by Nessa on his desk and picks his notepad and pen before following Jiayi to her cubicle.

He sees her fiddling with her ID card, wanting to keep her hands away from it.

“The,” Justin starts, “uh, contract?”

“There's no contract.”

Justin doesn't say anything.

Jiayi's fingers continue to tug around the card.

“What happened?” Justin asks.

Jiayi looks up at him momentarily before looking away and taking a deep breath. “I know it's personal,” she looks back at him, “but what exactly happened between Xukun and your sister?”

“Xukun used my sister to get rid of his family” Justin says without missing a beat, “and Wang Michelle.”

“And you're here to avenge her?”

“I'm here to work.”

“What?”

“I'm here to work, earn money and experience. As simple as it sounds.”

There's a moment of staring, without either of the two saying anything, the air around them tensed, almost losing its own sanity as the birds back at Jiayi's apartment can already sense the atmosphere from there.

“When are you consulting a lawyer?” Jiayi asks finally, “to reopen the case?”

The pen almost slips from Justin's grip, “you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because we saw him.”

“Saw him?”

“Killing Wang Michelle.”