Xia woke up to the rise and fall of Kris’s chest the next morning. Her eyes fell onto the man’s face as soon as they opened. He looked haggard, as if he had not had a wink of sleep in the past few weeks just by judging his bags and dark circles under his eyes. She gently his face before tiptoeing herself quietly out of her room and down to the kitchen, where Aunty Zhao was.

“Ahem~” she cleared in a theatrical manner, “looks like someone had fun last night.”

Xia laughed embarrassedly, “No! Stop getting the wrong idea!” she replied with a playful slap on the older woman’s arm. Aunty Zhao announced that today’s breakfast menu was an assortment of bread with the entire stock in the jam cupboard.

Before Xia could sit down at the breakfast table to have her meal, her mobile shrilled. She lunged herself towards the mobile to make sure it didn’t wake the person sleeping upstairs. Aunty Zhao laughed at Xia’s flustered self.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Xia.” It was Zitao.

“Zitao, what’s the problem? It’s the weekend.”

“I’m sorry,” the guy apologized profusely, “you know how the work had been piling up and I was wondering whether you’d be able to lend me a hand? Please?”

Xia looked up from staring at the floor while she spoke on the phone. Kris was making his entrance into the kitchen, his face puffy from sleep and his eyes heavy-lidded from exhaustion yet he smiled at everyone before taking his usual seat at the breakfast table. Xia beamed at him before continuing on her phone.

“Give me an hour and I’ll head out.”

~

After promising Kris that she would be back for dinner and convincing him that he should spend his weekend there, Xia drove out to the city as fast as she could.

“Zitao,” she burst into the workroom they use whenever they have projects, “if this is some sort of mundane case, I swear I will resign from working with you.”

The tall man laughed, “Relax. It’s official. I swear. You will not resign from working with me,” he ended his sentence with a playful wink.

Throughout the entire afternoon, the two colleagues worked tirelessly together – fueled by bottomless pots of coffee they fetched from the office’s kitchen area and bites of nut bars here and there. By the time Xia was reading her final case paper, it was almost 9pm and she had started to wonder whether it’d be a great idea to quit the law firm for good and continue to work on her father’s vineyards.

Her mobile buzzed. It was Kris, who was asking where she was. She replied that she was still in the city. He sent a sad emoticon before telling her that he’d come pick her up since he went back to his place to pack his bag for the weekend. Xia couldn’t hide her cheeky grin before replying him in an excited manner.

“Who’s that?” Zitao asked.

Xia froze before thinking up an answer, “Just someone.” She smiled.

Afterwards, the two continued to work on their assigned cases. Xia’s eyes were giving out and she was starting to doze off, until she was awaken by someone who was her hair.

“Zitao!” she gasped and stood up.

The lawyer friend smiled fondly at her, “Oh, I’m sorry. You looked too tired that I felt very bad.”

Xia could swear that the way her colleague was looking at her was different from the way he used to look at her – all fond and overwhelmed with affection.

For a moment, she thought she had problems.

~

Xia definitely has problems. It would be a lie to say if she had not developed a massive crush on Zitao when she first met him.

Huang Zitao joined her law firm around the same time as she did. Tall, handsome, smart, top-university graduate, and supposedly rich – Zitao was the dream guy of many girls in the law firm. Xia, one of the top talents in the law firm, noticed him as soon as he joined. She assumed that he had also noticed her just like she did. Xia spent a substantial length of her time daydreaming about Zitao and of his shy, awkward charms.

However, Xia’s act of indifferent feelings towards men went a bit too far. Apparently, Zitao asked one of the girls in the administration about Xia and her relationship status. The girl’s reply was that Xia was not interested in men, which gave Zitao the wrong idea that she was attracted to the same .

Xia did not forgive the entire administration team for quite some time, her reason being the girls such nosy parkers yet never able to get the information right.  She held a grudge over them and intentionally gave them a hard time by fussing over whatever she had the access of power and rights to.

That was probably until she stopped her fulltime law firm job to become a part time vineyard owner after the passing of her father.

~

When Xia left her office, it was already 11pm. She hurried downstairs after saying a sloppy goodbye to Zitao after learning that Kris was waiting for her in the playground near the office building.

The car park was dark and ominous but Xia ignored the feelings and got onto her car.

“Boo!” Kris scared her after hurling at her from one of the slides, where he was hiding before she got there. She let out a quiet scream in fright until she saw the man.

Xia couldn’t help but let out a laugh at his attire - black facemask, black cap, black bomber jacket, black skinny jeans and even black converse shoes. “Are you in your rebellious, all-black teenager phase, Kris Wu?” she teased.

His arm reached around her shoulder and squeezed her, “No, I’m in my stealth mode to protect you, silly.” She turned in his arm and planted her face onto his bomber jacket and wound her arms around his waist.

“I’ve missed you,” she mumbled into his jacket as she listened to the sound of his heartbeat, buzzing at a higher frequency than usual, calming her down instantly as she felt stress slowly seeping away from her miraculously.

His arms tightened around her shoulders and swayed her gently on the spot, forward and backward, before pressing soft his lips onto her temples – giving her endless, gentle kisses. “I’ve missed you too, vineyard girl.”

Moments like these made Xia’s lonely life before meeting him seem even lonelier than she had originally went through. 

~~~

[Author's monologue:] Apologies to the readers that my updates had been very late. I'll try harder to update.