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It was better than what all the stories told him, better than the ways people wrote of butterflies and sparks and fireworks. Loving someone just felt so insane, so unbelievable, and Myungsoo was no newbie to love, but – the cliché police kill him, arrest him, whatever – but he had never felt this way before. Everything Sungjong did would pique his interest, make him look up, sit up – he was attentive at all times but being who he was surrounded by the people he was, he had to stamp that down under that aloof air that everyone always attributed to him. It was hard when his world was Sungjong, when his eyes only saw Sungjong, ears only heard Sungjong… and when Sungjong wasn’t there for him to sidle near close enough to catch a whiff of his scent, Sungjong was omnipresent in his mind. The realization that he and Sungjong could never fully be outside of the privacy of their dorm did little to faze Myungsoo (though he did fret over it sometimes, because he wanted to lavish Sungjong openly) in his chase for something, anything from Sungjong that indicated that the feelings were even a little mutual. And it was painful, because Sungjong was not one to be particularly ostentatious with any other emotion than anger, which he displayed outwardly in the way that he glared and sat simpering. But as to where his affections lay, it was hard to decipher, and while Myungsoo paid him every attention it was still supremely difficult for the elder to gauge Sungjong’s reactions to things that he did. It was frustrating yet this same element that irked him exhilarated him, adding excitement to the chase, and every cell in Myungsoo’s body celebrated whenever Sungjong so much as smiled at him, because it meant he had done something right.

In the beginning, that was as much as Myungsoo received: smiles and soft looks, not indicating whether Sungjong had interpreted Myungsoo’s words or actions (or both) in the exact way Myungsoo had intended. Myungsoo had a hunch that Sungjong thought that it was all a big joke, and he couldn’t blame Sungjong – he was the youngest, and the butt of a lot of jokes and pranks the others made, but Myungsoo figured persistence would show Sungjong that his feelings weren’t false. He had, after all, told Sungjong once: “I love you,”, a statement Myungsoo found surprisingly easy to let slip out after they had wrapped up filming for something, and he guessed he had sounded too flippant, like it had just been something said in passing. Sungjong barely even paused, barely even stopped for even a second to deliberate over whether Myungsoo was serious or not, before he replied “I know, hyung” and even when Myungsoo added “I’m serious” Sungjong only smiled (tightly – Myungsoo remembered very well) and let himself be whisked away by his stylists to get his makeup out.

Myungsoo knew his crush was obvious. The others weren’t blind, deaf or dumb, no matter how many times they made fun of Sunggyu’s supposedly impaired vision due to his not-so-large eyes and Dongwoo’s … special brand of intellect. They knew, and they didn’t comment. They didn’t help him or hold him back either. Their dormancy and neutrality was something to be grateful for, because Myungsoo needed to do this on his own. Any interference might’ve jeopardized the belief he’d created in Sungjong that he was being utterly and completely serious. It was the last thing Myungsoo wanted, for Sungjong to take his chasing and loving as a joke. Yet, Myungsoo thought, even if such a devastation were to occur it would do little to halt him in his constant attempts in vying for Sungjong’s, well, Sungjong’s everything. Love was crazy, love made you do crazy things – and this was love alright.

He only hoped his love was enough.

Where this all began, Myungsoo had long forgotten – but he still had that first snap of Sungjong after he’d realized his crush and had waited long enough so that his hands stopped shaking when he was poised to take a photo of Sungjong, to … take the photo. And it came out still slightly unfocused but Myungsoo loved it all the same. Taking photos for Myungsoo wasn’t about the quality of his shots but the subject, and when his subject was Sungjong, everything else ceased to matter entirely. And it was cruel, Myungsoo thought, cruel that he could never fully capture Sungjong in all his beauty for people to see, because a camera could only show so much, and though a picture spoke a thousand words, Myungsoo thought that a thousand word illustration of Sungjong was a joke, for there were so many things to say and describe and mull over about the boy, Not that Myungsoo could say anything, because once he had tried to put everything he thought and felt into words and it had barely scraped a thousand characters let alone full words and that’s when Myungsoo knew that he could only take photos.

He’d never done anything lecherous with them. Myungsoo didn’t need photos to get off, nor did he need to get off in general, not when his mind was so focussed on something that involved sex but wasn’t all about it. He was at no shortage of hormones, no, not at all, but Myungsoo was set on one thing and though he found himself transfixed often by the beautiful movements of Sungjong’s body, he was saving that sort of satisfaction for another day. Another day, another day, and soon it all became a blur and Myungsoo was able to somehow put his earthly urges in the backseat. The fact that he was so exhausted helped, but the fact that he saw Sungjong so much didn’t.

(Of course, sometimes Myungsoo gave in. He’d be lying to say he never touched himself like that, but he always felt so dirty because Sungjong was everything but, and Myungsoo felt ashamed.)

Despite the “experiences” he might’ve had, Myungsoo was not very romantic. Every man could be romantic if a dozen red roses and a candle-lit dinner were all that was needed to be so, but Myungsoo didn’t want to be so typical. Yet his mind would offer no ideas as to what he could do in lieu of that, and one day Myungsoo even found himself lingering at a florist’s, wondering what Sungjong would think if he presented him with flowers just out of the blue. “Just get it,” Sungyeol had said, because he had been there with Myungsoo (his usually dominating presence obviously having shrivelled in Myungsoo’s endless flurry of thoughts), but in the end Myungsoo hadn’t because it didn’t seem appropriate. What would Sungjong have done with the flowers anyway? And did he even like flowers?

…

To Myungsoo, Sungjong was very much an enigma. As close as they were and as accustomed as they were to each other’s tendencies, likes and dislikes, Myungsoo knew that no matter how much he knew he would never know Sungjong inside out and back to front. Sungjong never spoke much of his troubles, even when he was asked about it, something about sole reliance on oneself.  Like a chest. Storing so much but never giving anything away, really. A crappy analogy, but Myungsoo didn’t exactly possess the natural ability to be profound. And as much as Myungsoo wanted to discover more about the person Sungjong was, he didn’t want to uncover every little detail about him. He didn’t want to know Sungjong in his entirety when he already loved him to such an extent: no, the way Sungjong was so mystifying was part of the attraction.

(Not that Myungsoo would tire of him, however, if he did one day know know Sungjong.)

In any case, Sungjong was a bottomless wonder, an endless wonder, the second great marvel of Myungsoo’s life. The first of course being the substance of Myungsoo’s affections. It exhausted and invigorated him, made him feel small and insignificant yet delighted at the mere thought of Sungjong thinking of him. It kept him on his feet running even when he felt like he could not take another step, even when it made him feel like he was chasing someone who didn’t wish to be caught in his embrace. And though the prospect of Sungjong not wanting him in return at all was painful indeed, it didn’t make Myungsoo think of desisting. The idea that maybe one day his feelings would wane enough for him to cease his (kind of pathetic) love-struck behaviour was laughable, a possibility Myungsoo’s heart could not fathom, an idea his mind could not get its grasp around. Not that Myungsoo was unrealistic or naïve to the way things worked in the “real world”, but until he was faced with blunt rejection that made it absolutely clear Sungjong was not to be his, Myungsoo could not will himself to move on or to behave otherwise.

Love was a strange feeling.

It didn’t always make you happy, but it kept you going. People who had yet to experience it, Myungsoo found, were under constant misconceptions that love meant you were content every day of your life, but that utopian theory, though accurate in some ways, was far from being appropriate in describing what love was. Love was something that would never be defined objectively to the satisfaction of all who lived in the world, because people looked for and needed different things while they were in love or finding it.

For Myungsoo, it was a motivator, a cushion, a shield, a reassurance, a goal. Love was not, he thought, endless gifts and surprises. Love was not something shown under obligation or guilt or for the sake of it or because of some pressure. That much was obvious, Myungsoo knew, but he was getting somewhere.

“He would never get her flowers anymore. He would never get her chocolates or the same kind of surprise diamond ring her best friend had received from her man a few weeks before. He would rarely kiss her in front of their children, or show anything beyond a smile and a few words about how they needed to clean out the gutters soon, because the recent thunderstorms had done them in with dried leaves clogging them up.

However.

(Because there was always a however.)

When the son had swimming practice which required a 5 am start in the morning, he got up because he knew she was tired. He was tired too because he had worked till 9 the day before, but when she stirred and mumbled a reassurance that she’ll “drive him today”, he refused to let her get up. “Get some more sleep” he said. “I’ll do it today” and though she murmured then that he had done it the week before and that it was her turn, he only smiled and got out of bed. He didn’t need the mirror to tell him that he had bags under his eyes, nor the creak in his knees when he squatted to tell him that his joints were aching and had been for a while now. His eyes were weary as they scanned the road – he knew he was sleep deprived – but something warm thrummed inside him as he drove, and with a single glance in the rear-view, the sight of his son brought with it the thought of his sleeping wife at home, and he knew that this was all worth it.”

And Myungsoo had that sort of love.