Work Text:
It is a dark night when Zhao Yunlan sneaks out of his house. His parents are fighting again and honestly, he is just counting down the days to when his mother finally calls it quits between her and her husband. Some children would be appalled at the thought of their parents separating, but Zhao Yunlan just wants to stop all the blaming and the fights. He wants a peaceful home. He wants to go to bed without hearing any slamming doors.
Currently, they are staying at his aunt’s house on vacation. His aunt and her family are away visiting her husband’s family, so Zhao Yunlan’s mother decides this is a good opportunity to get out of the city for a while. What is supposed to be a relaxing family vacation devolves into another round of endless fights between his parents. It tires Zhao Yunlan out but he is resolved to enjoy this ‘vacation’ anyway. If they won’t stop fighting long enough to have fun then he’ll be on vacation by himself. At night. Without his parents knowing that he had snuck out.
The seven-year-old stomps through the woods behind his aunt’s house. He adjusts the small bag he carries with him. Through the trees, the beach is visible. The water reflects the moon and it draws him in. Night swimming seems like a fun thing to do.
The sparse grass turns into sand and Zhao Yunlan runs the rest of the way with an exhilarated laugh. Everything is peaceful, the sound of waves and the occasional sounds from nocturnal animals makes him feel at ease. This is what a vacation is supposed to be, this feeling of peace, relaxation, and a substantial lack of yelling is what he had been looking forward to.
The child Zhao takes off his shirt in a hurry. His shoes are kicked off but he picks it up again after a moment, the sound of his mother scolding him for his messiness echoes at the back of his mind. He makes sure to keep it out reach from the waves. He piles his shirt and bag on top of it before he turns to the ocean with a big smile.
Just a quick swim and he’ll be back home before either of his parents realize he’s gone. No sweat.
He’s about to run straight into the ocean when a high sound of distress makes him do a turn. It sounds like something, some animal maybe, is hurt. Zhao Yunlan slows down, looks around and by the rocky outcrops, he sees someone clinging on to the wet rocks. Whoever it is, is struggling with their grip, making distress sounds as they try to pull themselves up.
“Hey!” Zhao Yunlan yells while he runs as fast as he can towards the struggling person. The sand and errant rocks hurt the soles of his feet but he speeds up anyway, “Hey! I’ll help you!”
The struggling person stiffens at the sound of his voice. When Zhao Yunlan is close enough to see their face, the stranger turns to him and this time, it was him who stops in surprise.
The person has long, dark hair, spilling down their back and to the water in mesmerizing waves. Their face is youthful, skin pale and almost glowing under the moon, lips soft but pursed in distress, and their lashes are thick and long, framing equally dark eyes. This stranger looks to be the same age as him.
She’s beautiful, Zhao Yunlan thinks, eyes wide. He has never seen a more beautiful person than this one in his life.
But then this person’s eyes narrow, ‘she’ bares ‘her’ sharp teeth at him. Zhao Yunlan takes a hurried step backs and falls on his butt.
There is a huge splash and Zhao Yunlan turns his eyes to the source and sees dark fin emerge from the water. He traces the lower half of the fish and sees that it connects to the beautiful person by the rocks.
Zhao Yunlan swallows down a surprised gasp, She’s not human!
But then the creature on the rocks flinches and ‘she’ whines. Zhao Yunlan’s immediately thinks, She’s hurt! He gets up and approaches, ignores the hisses from the creature (the mermaid?), warning him away.
“It’s okay!” Zhao Yunlan tells ‘her’ nervously, “I won’t hurt you! I’m here to help, okay?”
The creature hisses again but does nothing when Zhao Yunlan steps closer. ‘She’ tries to lean away though and the human child raises both hands.
“I don’t have a weapon! I really just want to help,” He pleads, “Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”
The creature frowns at him but continues to whimper. Hesitantly, ‘she’ lifts her dark tail and Zhao Yunlan sees a hook embedded deeply, along with the remains of a net wrapped around.
“I-I think I can pull the net off,” Zhao Yunlan offers, “I can pull out the hook too but… you might need bandages and stuff.”
The creature shakes ‘her’ head violently and tries to move away but Zhao Yunlan raises a hand to stop ‘her’.
“Okay! Okay, no bandages, I’ll- I’ll just pull them all off. How about that?” Zhao Yunlan asks with a hesitant smile. The creature looks at him through ‘her’ lashes, suspicious. ‘She’ flinches when a wave slams ‘her’ injured tail and ‘she’ tries to pull ‘herself’ up on the rock again.
To the creature’s surprise, Zhao Yunlan stumbles forward. He climbs a few rocks to get to ‘her’, grabs ‘her’ by ‘her’ cold arms, and pulls. He lets go before ‘she’ could push him away.
“There!” Zhao Yunlan grins, then he turns to look at ‘her’ injury. He swallows nervously when he sees the amount of blood coming from the wound. He steels himself, takes a deep breath and turns to ‘her’, “May I?”
The creature’s lips tremble and ‘her’ eyes were wide with uncertainty and fear but ‘she’ lifts up the injured tail anyway. Zhao Yunlan’s chest hurts for ‘her’ distrust but if humans did this to ‘her’ then he understands. He nods determinedly and reaches out carefully to help.
It takes ten minutes to pull off all the netting. The creature tries to help but mostly ‘she’ shivers and moans in pain whenever the worst of her injuries is moved. Zhao Yunlan has lost count on how many times he’s apologized under his breath for accidentally causing pain.
When Zhao Yunlan finally pulls off the hook on ‘her’ tail, he’s shaking and the creature has buried her face in her cold arms, crying out in pain. He throws the hook to the sand, as far away from them as possible. He washes the blood away from his hands and looks at the still crying creature.
He hesitates, awkward and not knowing what to do. He reaches into his pocket and finds a wrapped lollipop. He can’t believe he had been about to go swimming with candy still in his pocket. Speaking of swimming, he is still half naked. He shivers at the cold, night air licking at his skin. He wishes he could go get his shirt but he had a feeling his beautiful stranger would swim away the moment he had his back turned.
Zhao Yunlan looks and sees that the crying has calmed down into mere sniffles. He reaches out and pokes a cold arm. The creature jumps and looks at him with wide eyes. ‘She’ is still devastatingly beautiful even disheveled from ‘her’ ordeal.
“Here, this is candy. It’s called a lollipop and it’s sweet,” Zhao Yunlan’s smile grows when the creature takes it from him. He helps ‘her’ take off the wrapping and mimes licking it, “You lick it to eat.”
Zhao Yunlan watches the other follow what he says and he grins brightly, “My name is uhm,” He remembers the stern warnings of his father to never freely give his name to any creature, known or not. He hesitates but says, “…Kunlun? My name is Kunlun, nice to meet you! What’s yours?”
The creature looks up at him and sniffles quietly, lips still trembling slightly. ‘She’ opens 'her' mouth and says-
“Zhao Yunlan!”
Zhao Yunlan lets out a yelp and falls off the sofa in his surprise. Snickers erupt from the gathered members of his team. He groans from the floor and shoots them all a glare.
“Not even going to help me up? You’ll be lucky if you even get a holiday bonus this year,” Zhao Yunlan warns them.
“We already have to put up with having a human for a chief,” Da Qing is perched on the table, looking at him judgmentally, “Now we’re getting our pays deducted too? Tyranny!”
Zhao Yunlan shoots him an annoyed look, “What’s wrong with being human?”
“Aside from the fact that you think yourselves to be on top of the food chain?” Zhu Hong pipes in, filing her nails nonchalantly from her office chair, “Not much, I guess.”
“Don’t lump me in with the jerks of my species,” Zhao Yunlan finally gets up and dusts off his pants, “I might be a jerk too, sure, but I see everyone here as equals.”
Lin Jing sniffs and claps while Zhu Hong rolls her eyes at his dramatic speech. Everyone else looks at their chief fondly.
In this society they live in, creatures and humans have a peace treaty and live together in supposed harmony. It hadn’t always been like that, centuries ago, humans and creatures fought for the right to rule over the land. The creatures lost and the humans won. As a consequence, most of the creature-kind were enslaved and looked down upon by humans.
However, this barbaric practice of enslavement was put to a stop when the sea nymphs came into the picture. The rulers and overseers of the sea had enough of the suffering on land and came to the surface to instill peace. They forced a treaty between the two warring kinds. They were helped by a mixed, rebel group led by a human and creature couple, Ma Gui and Fu You.
The way non-humans are treated now is definitely better than the way it was back then. However, there is still strong prejudice over the creature kind. Most of the creature-kind went to live in the mountains and forests. They made their own settlements, away from the disdain of humans.
“Also,” Zhao Yunlan starts, trying to further prove that he isn’t a jerk like most humans, “I’ll have you know my first love isn’t human.”
A loud crash makes everyone jump in surprise. They turn to see that their new consultant caused the noise. He is a human named Shen Wei, who daylights as a professor in university. He apologizes to old Li for bumping into him while he had been carrying a tray of fish snacks.
“Professor Shen,” Wang Zheng asks worriedly as Da Qing jumps down the table to help ‘clean up’ the fish snacks on the floor, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Shen Wei adjusts his glasses, not meeting any of their eyes. He quickly cleans up the mess and finishes before Da Qing could ‘help’. The professor inclines his head in apology, “I’m sorry. I was distracted with the case file I was reading and I didn’t see you coming closer.”
Old Li gives the professor a smile and a pat on the shoulder, “It’s fine, I’m glad you’re not hurt.” He then turns to ruffle a disappointed Da Qing’s head.
Most of them return their attention to their chief. It isn’t long before they’re back to the topic of his first love.
“Chief, does someone whose heart is as cold as yours, really have a first love?” Lin Jing asks curiously, “Or are you talking about your motorcycle again? Because a vehicle as a first love doesn’t count.”
“Regardless of what you think you know about me, I’m not entirely heartless or loveless. You might have confused me with another Zhao,” Zhao Yunlan crosses his arms, “My first love is a sea nymph. A mermaid, I think.”
There is another loud crash behind them but everyone is too distracted by the revelation to see what happened this time. Immediately, chaos ensues and everyone throws in their reaction.
“What?”
“You’re pulling our leg!”
“Stop talking nonsense,” Chu Shuzhi snaps. He’s been silent throughout the whole ordeal but the recent revelation makes him speak up, “A sea nymph on land is rare. They’re powerful creatures and none of them would ever leave the sea, not without good reason. There is no way that you fell in love with one.”
Zhao Yunlan shrugs, unbothered by his disbelief. “Believe what you want.”
Zhu Hong purses her lips, “Old Chu has a point and chief, you do tend to over exaggerate some things,” She gives him a narrowed, thoughtful look, “Also, it’s hard to imagine you liking somebody, least of all loving someone. I’d know that better than anyone.” She says with a bitter twist to her mouth.
Lin Jing clears his throat and little Guo shoots him a nervous look. Da Qing tries to lighten the mood by saying, “First love, huh? Is that the reason you were making those noises in your sleep?”
A few of the SID members turn away in embarrassment at those words and Zhao Yunlan wonders what he’d been unconsciously saying to get that reaction. He’d honestly just been dreaming about helping his first love, he couldn’t have said anything too embarrassing right?
Just as he is about to deliver a sharp retort, he notices Shen Wei gathering his things and getting ready to leave, “Ah, Shen Wei? Are you leaving already?” He calls out.
The professor stiffens at the unexpected call of attention. He stops in his tracks, back turned, “Y-Yes, I received an urgent message. There’s an emergency meeting for the faculty members at the university, so I’ll be going ahead.”
“Oh, okay,” Zhao Yunlan starts to say but he doesn’t even get another word in before Shen Wei walks swiftly to the door. The professor closes it carefully behind him. The chief has a doubtful look on his face, “Is he really okay?”
Everyone looks equally as clueless, except old Chu who looks like he could care less about everything and Zhu Hong who has an unreadable look on her face.
Lin Jing shrugs, summing up everyone’s thoughts perfectly, “I thought Professor Shen didn't have a cellphone.”
Shen Wei walks out of the SID briskly. He turns on the next alley and makes sure no one is there to see him before he leans against the wall and lets out a heavy sigh.
He unbuttons the top of his shirt and holds the pendant he keeps hidden under his clothes.
Zhao Yunlan’s first love.
His hand tightens around the amber stone, thankful that it’s been reinforced to withstand his strength. He tries to draw strength from it and from the memory of his first meeting with Kunlun- no, Zhao Yunlan. His name is Zhao Yunlan, not Kunlun. He closes his eyes, remembers warm, gentle hands and a bright smile. A lollipop is offered to him, both an offering and a comfort.
In the present, Shen Wei leans harder on the wall and lowers his head to press a soft kiss on the amber stone. He feels resigned, sad, and maybe even tired.
He wonders who that mermaid is, Zhao Yunlan’s first love.