Stratospheric Light

Bittersweet unrequited love | Quiet, reserved, guiding daddy-type top x beautiful, solitary bottom who's been in love for years but never expected it to go anywhere

The most impulsive thing Fu Wen ever did was send Gu Shijian that private message.

Strictly speaking, it was a reply to Gu Shijian's message.

After Fu Wen lost his job, his older sister posted on a social media platform looking for a travel companion on his behalf. He never expected an account with a completely black avatar to reach out.

He recognized that black avatar. From their senior year of high school until now, Gu Shijian had never changed his profile picture. Fu Wen had secretly followed him for seven years. He knew Gu Shijian occasionally posted explanations of legal statutes, which cities he'd visited for work, and that one late night he'd liked a song. Fu Wen had listened to that song on repeat for an entire month.

So when Gu Shijian asked, "Want to go to Bangkok?" Fu Wen replied almost instantly: "Sure."

After sending it, he regretted it. He thought Gu Shijian probably didn't even remember who he was.

But Gu Shijian did remember. On the plane, he took off his noise-canceling headphones and turned to him. "Fu Wen?" The end of his name rose slightly, as if confirming he was someone familiar.

Fu Wen murmured, "Mm," his throat tight. He wanted to say, "Hello, senior," and "Long time no see," but in the end, he couldn't say anything. Gu Shijian didn't press him. He noticed the goosebumps on Fu Wen's arm and offered him the blanket he'd brought along. "Here, cover up."

Fu Wen treated their three-month trip as a beautiful dream, asking neither when it would end nor what would come after.

They got caught in a downpour together on Phuket, running wildly beneath their clothes held over their heads. They shared a cup of hot cocoa beneath the Northern Lights in Tromso. On a plane, under Gu Shijian's gaze, Fu Wen made a wish in the light above the stratosphere.

But every dream has to end sometime.

"This is the last stop on our trip. You said before that you had something to tell me. What was it?" Fu Wen turned toward Gu Shijian in a Swiss hot spring, tracing his features through the hazy steam.

Gu Shijian looked at him for a long time, then reached out and brushed his wet bangs aside.

"I wanted to ask..."

"Could your next stop still be me?"

An unconventional road-trip story, with travel at its heart. One-sided love becomes a journey toward each other, in a healing romance.

Theme: Go out and see the world. Feel the free wind.