Dearest Ah Lan

Chapter 10: Little Too Late

Shen Wei stood outside in the dark, cold night. The temperature had dropped rapidly when the sun set, surprising the guests and forcing their swift retreat from the large balcony and gardens below into the brightly lit ballroom of the Zhao mansion behind him. Shen Wei had chosen to stay behind, preferring the solitude and darkness to being surrounded by all the guests and their cacophonous revelry.

What was meant to have been an intimate wedding for two, had become a spectacle for the masses. Scads of attendees crowded around the happy couple, intent on toasting the Zhao heir and his new bride, all agreed in the opinion that the two were extremely well-matched in looks, education and lineage.

He hadn't expected the crowd when he'd shown up. He hadn't expected to miss the wedding all together.

"Shen Wei, you're finally here!"

"Yunlan. I need t—"

"You're late."

". . . What?"

"I can't believe you missed the main event!"

His lips twisting into a pained grimace, Shen Wei remembered the resolve that had buoyed him this morning, as he had dressed for Yunlan's wedding. He'd intended to get here well ahead of time, intending to make one last ditch effort to stop this travesty. Shen Wei had been adamant that if Yunlan couldn't save himself, then he was going to step in and do it for him.

Shen Wei knew that Zhao Yunlan was not in love with his fiancée; he couldn't be. The man he knew would never have touched another if he was promised to someone. A week ago, when he had come to give Shen Wei the wedding invitation, he was already engaged. That was a fact. It was also a fact that those intimate moments between them had not been a dream. Yunlan had been there, in his bed, in his arms. An honorable man would never behave so; Zhao Yunlan was an honorable man.

Knowing what he did, knowing that something was terribly wrong here, he'd tried many, many times to contact him in the past week. It wasn't for his own gain, it was to prevent him from making a mistake. But the damned man hadn't deigned to answer even one of his increasingly desperate phone calls. He had gone to SID headquarters, but Yunlan had been conspicuously absent.

Shen Wei had briefly wondered if Yunlan was avoiding him, but the news media reports of the Zhao Heir's activities had proven otherwise. While the news outlets had not known what event was to be held, the wedding a well-kept secret, Shen Wei knew that Yunlan was too busy preparing for his own wedding.

Left out of options, he'd arrived early this morning, intent on forcing Yunlan to stop this farce. Irony of ironies . . . the man who was known for his punctuality had been late to his own best friend's wedding. He laughed without rancor; had he really thought that he would swoop in and save the day? His fingers tightened around the banister, the skin whitening over his knuckles with the force of his emotions.

He had been just a little too late to make a difference.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Just a little too serious for his own good.

Just a little too dull when compared to his didi.

Just a little too quiet to really stand out.

Just a little too lacking.

Just . . . never enough.

Tilting his head back, pretending it wasn't an attempt to force back the moisture that was pooling in his eyes, he stared up. The night sky, with its profusion of blurry stars, seemed to mock the darkness rising inside of him. The twinkling lights in the velvety net above were only rivaled by the flood of lights from the windowed room behind him and the lanterns in the gardens below. He stood in an unlit portion of the huge balcony, a place even the multitude of beams spilling through the glass wouldn't pierce, having sought this place to hide and lick his wounds.