“Good night, older brother. Remember to dream of me, and see you tomorrow.”
This was the message Fu Xingran sent him just after midnight. Through the screen, one could feel that bubbling excitement and anticipation.
Yet, he could no longer fall asleep.
Su Lixu tossed and turned in bed, his mind completely filled with Fu Xingran always looking at him and speaking those straightforward, unmasked words. To think they had all been meant for him, and he had been completely oblivious to it.
He had previously criticized Fu Xingran’s dangerous idea of locking people away, but who could have known that the intended target of that confinement was himself?
Then came the walls covered in photographs and that painting. He felt mostly disbelief. Was he angry? Yes, he was angry too. Subconsciously touching his wrist, he wondered if such a thing was even something a normal person could do.
He had almost thought Fu Xingran would go crazy and take him by force.
And that tattoo, was this guy out of his mind to carve his name onto his left side.
He suddenly flipped over and sat upright. Could it be that four years ago, Fu Xingran had bitten him on purpose?
“Fu Xingran.” Where on earth did this guy learn so many wicked ideas?
Finding it genuinely impossible to sleep, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table, pulled a jacket over his shoulders, and walked barefoot toward the floor-to-ceiling windows without even turning on the light.
Pushing open the garden-view glass door, the chilling late-autumn wind of the middle of the night blew against his face, waking him up just a bit. Raising his head, his gaze followed the lights of the high-rise apartment opposite his, lost in thought.
“My wish is to be able to see you every day.”
He had heard those words clearly.
He had thought that no one in this world could ever affect him again, that he could live his life single-mindedly and do as he pleased, but Fu Xingran’s existence alone had made him divide his focus once more.
In the very beginning, it was because the boy resembled his younger brother, but now it was blatantly obvious that it was no longer about that. Fu Xingran had crossed that line.
His parents had passed away in a car accident right around his high school graduation, and his younger brother, Suliuyang, had suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder from witnessing their parents die on the spot, which subsequently led to borderline personality disorder.
During the treatments that followed, there were even tendencies toward bipolar emotional disorder and dissociative disorder. At the time, while pursuing his first year of graduate school, he carved out time to accompany Suliuyang, but Suliuyang still failed to improve. Instead, he developed even more severe issues and ultimately chose the most extreme way to end his life.
This incident was the deepest pain of his entire life.
This was also why he could never truly let go when it came to Fu Xingran.
He never wanted to watch someone by his side experience such a thing again, nor could he ever bear that kind of trauma a second time.
“This life of mine was saved by you. Even if pursuing you for a lifetime yields no results, I will have no regrets, because at least I am striving toward the goal of my lifetime.”
“So loving you is something I will never regret.”
Su Lixu let out an almost imperceptible sigh. He opened his phone to check the time. It was two-thirty in the morning, and He Shi was definitely resting. He could only send the person a text message explaining his situation first, intending to invite He Shi over to the house to chat tomorrow. Right now, he could only turn to He Shi for help.
Just as he finished sending the message, a phone call rang out. It was Fu Xingran.
He froze for a moment. This guy had not gone to sleep yet?
He hesitated for a second and did not pick up, only to see Fu Xingran send a text message right after:
[I am standing right on the balcony and happened to hear the sound of you pushing the door open. Are you out on the balcony, or did I hear wrong?]
Su Lixu was somewhat surprised. Could he hear it from that far away? He walked up to the balcony, grabbed the railing, leaned his head out past it, and looked to the side. Sure enough, across a wall not too far away on another balcony, Fu Xingran was also poking his head out.
At that not-so-distant distance, holding onto the railing and leaning his head out to meet gazes instantly, time seemed to freeze in that exact second of eye contact, as if astonished that they could actually see each other.
“Why are you still not asleep?” Su Lixu spoke first. Because there was some distance between the balconies, he had to raise his volume a bit.
“I could not sleep because I was missing you.” Fu Xingran casually rested both hands on the railing. Seeing that Su Lixu had come out wearing nothing more than thin loungewear, his brows twitched ever so slightly as he tilted his chin. “Get inside.”
His tone was slightly deep, carrying a hint of command.
Su Lixu asked, “What do you mean?”
“If you do not go inside, I am coming over to hold you and sleep together,” Fu Xingran added.
Without a second thought, Su Lixu turned his head and walked back into the room, conveniently locking the glass door behind him.
Just as he leaned against the window and wondered why he had been so obedient, the phone in his hand buzzed again. It was a call from Fu Xingran. This time, he did not hesitate to swipe and answer, and Fu Xingran’s smiling voice came through.
“Older brother is so well-behaved. You went right in the moment I told you to.”
Su Lixu said, “Fu Xingran, what are you doing standing on the balcony in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?”
This guy could not possibly be letting his imagination run wild and doing something foolish again, could he?
“I could not sleep from missing you. Obviously we only parted ways two hours ago, obviously there is only a single wall between us, but I just miss you so much. What should I do?”
Deep into the night as it was, Fu Xingran deliberately slowed his speech, his tone slightly hoarse while carrying an indescribable ambiguity wrapped in his smile, let alone speaking such words with that kind of voice.
Su Lixu’s back pressed against the glass door behind him. He lowered the phone from his ear slightly, pressing his thin lips together as if trying to soothe something, while the chilling glass seemed completely incapable of cooling down the intense heat suddenly burning up in his chest.
When Fu Xingran’s confessions were directed at someone else, he felt nothing, but now that the person Fu Xingran spoke of was him, he felt that he might truly find it difficult to maintain his usual casual composure when interacting with him.
A person’s sexual orientation is not absolute; that was what he believed regarding his own orientation as well.
“It is very late. We will talk about everything tomorrow. I am hanging up first.” Su Lixu forced his voice to sound as calm as possible.
“I want to take you out to play tomorrow. As long as you promise me, I will go straight to sleep right now.” Fu Xingran on the other end of the line resumed his overbearing persistence of refusing to stop until he achieved his goal.
Su Lixu remained speechless. Giving an inch and taking a mile perfectly described this guy.
Before he could even reply, Fu Xingran continued, “Can you give me a chance to ask you out on a date, just considering the fact that I obediently put all those photos away? Think of it as a reward, okay?”
The sound of Fu Xingran’s pitifully pleading voice came through the phone, making Su Lixu instinctively associate it with a large puppy wagging its tail at him for a treat. No matter how fierce the guy usually looked, whenever he wanted something, he acted as obedient as could be.
It was glaringly obvious that Fu Xingran had figured out that he was soft on this routine, but he absolutely could not indulge this guy too much, or else he might end up at a disadvantage in this already ambiguous relationship.
And this method probably only worked on Fu Xingran.
“Fu Xingran, do you want a reward?”
Perhaps because the environment was far too quiet, Fu Xingran listened to Su Lixu’s voice through the phone. The voice transmitted via the medium carried an indescribable magnetic quality. It was gentle yet harbored an ambiguous undertone, especially the word “reward.”
Just how long had it been since he heard the word reward? Back when he was hospitalized, he had desperately wanted a reward from Su Lixu.
“I want one.” Fu Xingran answered without a single second of hesitation.
“Then go to sleep obediently right now, do not think about anything else, and I will reward you tomorrow.”
Fu Xingran’s eyes brightened as he asked, “Reward me with what?”
“A secret.”
The chilling late-autumn breeze swept across his cheeks. Hearing that word “secret” spoken in Su Lixu’s gentle tone struck his eardrums, feeling as though it were wrapped in searing heat as it slammed against him. Fu Xingran figured that even if he were standing naked right now, he probably would not feel cold at all, completely unaware of just how brightly he was smiling.
“What about the date then?” Fu Xingran asked again.
“Fu Xingran, I am not that easy to pursue.”
Fu Xingran leaned against the wall, gripping his phone tightly as he listened to the voice coming from the other end. Su Lixu’s tone right now was one he had never heard before. It was not his usual gentle warmth, but rather felt like a flower atop a snowy peak, enveloped in ice and frost, icy and alluring yet unapproachable.
So how long would it take him to get close to Su Lixu? He hoped it could be faster, even fantasizing that it could be tomorrow.
“Older brother, I hope that before long, the moment I wake up and open my eyes, the person sleeping right beside me will be you.”
Su Lixu leaned against the floor-to-ceiling glass door, emotions rippling across the depths of his pupils. The phone pressed against his ear felt like a burning hot potato because of those words spoken by Fu Xingran, causing the tips of his ears to turn red and hot.
It was even more obvious now; the feeling between them had completely and thoroughly changed.
If he had remained ignorant of Fu Xingran’s feelings, or rather, if Fu Xingran’s feelings toward him had simply been a pure, dependent attachment like one might feel toward family, it never would have felt like this.
This layer of paper had been meticulously planned, step by step, and ultimately deliberately punctured by Fu Xingran himself.
Previously, he had asked Fu Xingran if he understood what liking someone meant. Now it seemed Fu Xingran understood everything, perhaps even better than he did, filling his mouth with words that made one’s face burn and heart race.
“I hope that before long, the moment I wake up and open my eyes, the person sleeping right beside me will be you.”
“In your dreams,” Su Lixu lowered his gaze and murmured softly.
“I am dreaming.”
Through the phone, the smile carried in that slightly hoarse voice made his eardrums tingle.
What those “dreams” referred to went without saying.
Su Lixu unceremoniously hung up the phone. Leaning against the wall with his hand hanging at his side and holding his phone tightly, his racing heartbeat and the emotions overflowing from his chest made him involuntarily panic.
“He is truly out of his mind.”