Title: I am but the sea
Fandom: Guardian
Words: ~500
Content notes: Shen Wei character study, with extra pining! Set during Episode 1 but includes references from at least one later episode.

Please note that I'm only on episode #18 and haven't finished the series yet. (Is there a word for 'this story may already be jossed and I just don't know it yet'?)

Summary: Shen Wei knows he is a fool, but he yearns now to pore over these 'pointless' details: to imagine every moment of Zhao Yunlan's life leading up to their meeting.



Shen Wei hurries back to his office, his heart pounding despite the serenity of the university campus. He has difficulty keeping his face calm and his hands loose at his sides as he nods to his fellow teachers, walking by with barely a greeting. He wants to push past them, push past everything between him and what he wants.

Ten thousand years of waiting have not truly taught him patience, but he can close the heavy door of his office gently enough to avoid attention.

Shen Wei seats himself carefully at his desk and makes himself pause before pulling out the file. He strokes the brown cover once, struggling to be grateful and not merely angry at his own ineptness. The time he has wasted!

Chu Shuzhi had gladly passed information to Dixing's Envoy about the SID, and the people in it. Personnel files, snatches of conversation, and of course, his own evaluations of their personalities.

"Chief Zhao is undisciplined, uncouth... and unexpectedly competent," he had said, if grudgingly at the last.

Zhao Yunlan. Chief of the SID. The photo is right there, with the smile that has haunted Shen Wei's dreams for so long.

In his arrogance, Shen Wei had never opened the file that Chu Shuzhi had given him. He and this Chief Zhao would surely someday meet professionally, and Shen Wei would take his measure then. He had no need of the man's birthdate or blood type, the careful notes of his family and personal history. None of these things could matter.

The irony! That he would only recognize how precious such things were when they had been in his possession for months. Shen Wei knows he is a fool, but he yearns now to pore over these 'pointless' details: to imagine every moment of Zhao Yunlan's life leading up to their meeting. His childhood. His joys and sorrows. Every scrap that Shen Wei can piece together and hold tightly when his impatience grows too great.

Because Chu Shuzhi had also described his Chief's burning hatred of Dixingren. "He has no mercy." A fact meaningless to the Envoy, but deadly to Shen Wei's heart.

The man in the window, with Kunlun's face and a Yashou companion, friendly enough that the cat was willing to transform before him -- Shen Wei's breath had stopped even as his mind was racing. Perhaps this would be easy, perhaps the lies he would have to tell would be small ones --

But no, nothing in all of his years has been easy. He is Dixingren, and the Envoy, and Zhao Yunlan will not easily accept either of those things.

Destiny is cruel. Shen Wei knows this, has known it for the last ten thousand years. But his hand trembles with eagerness as he traces the edges of that smile in the photograph, before turning his attention to the treasure-trove contained in the file.

Destiny is cruel. But he will take this cruelty a thousand times over, if it brings him back to Kunlun.