From the beginning of his life, everything was dark.

Not a drop of color, a ray of light, a single shadow ever touched his eyes. He learned to rely on his other senses, took his first steps into the world by listening, smelling, touching and tasting. That was difficult, very difficult.

He spent his childhood and teenage years in a solitary confinement in his small and cozy home, only with the guide dog given to him for his 12th birthday to make him company.

After his private lessons in the morning, he used to seat in the alcove next to his bedroom window, holding his beloved dog in his arms and his soft fur. The sun that touched his skin relaxed him as he thought, listened to music and played beside the window.

It soon became his favorite corner in the entire house.

Despite the peace and quietness of his solitude, he felt a void inside of him, a lack. He had been alone his whole life, had never interacted with kids his age: they wouldn't have understood. Therefore he found himself spending his days with the sun and his pet. He believed his life would continue like this: he would have lived forever in that house, not finding any friends, no one to love.

All of this changed in a second.

Byun Baekhyun's life changed when Park Chanyeol crossed its threshold.

From that first moment, when he heard that deep voice for the first time, something in his heart began to tremble.

They met by chance at the bus stop, when the leash of his puppy got caught in something unknown. As soon as he heard the dog whimpering and the leash pulling, he started panicking. He was afraid that his friend had hurt himself and that he wouldn't be able to help him. He soon after felt a hand resting on his shoulder.

“Do you need help?” asked that deep voice that he would have never been able to forget. Chanyeol helped him unravelling the tangled leash and gave the dog a good scratching behind the ears, making him bark happily in gratitude.

Despite Baekhyun's continuous rejections, Chanyeol insisted on accompanying him back home to make sure that no other little accident would happen.

Since that day, the boy never left his heart.

Chanyeol was protective, caring, interested in his wellbeing. He was different from all the people he had ever known, all those children who, years earlier at the park, had teased and jostled him because he couldn't keep up with their pace. Chanyeol took care of him, helped him with his small daily chores, accompanied him when walking his dog, took him out to make him breathe some fresh air.

He soon fell in love with him, quickly and intensely, so much that he started to get breathless whenever he would feel his body next to his own. He discovered that feeling to be mutual the day when, sitting in the alcove of his window, their lips met and the best feeling he had ever felt spread in his stomach.

From that moment, his whole life seemed to shine with light and joy. Each hour, each minute spent with Chanyeol was sacred and precious, and he would have given anything he had to be able to spend more time in his company.

They used to always sit in Baekhyun's favorite place, next to the window, and spoke of the world. Chanyeol would his hair, as Baekhyun had done so many times with his puppy, as he told him with a soft voice how wonderful what surrounded them was. He would speak of the beauty of the stars, their brightness, the infinite darkness that was the night sky and Baekhyun could imagine it, because in his life he had never seen anything but darkness.

From that day on, he started thinking of his disability as a great night sky, and that heartened him once he added to his night sky thousands of bright dots representing the stars, although he didn't even know how the light was like.

Chanyeol told him of the colors. He led him in the garden and put a leaf in his hands.

“The soft and delicate feeling of the leaves corresponds to the color green. Green is equivalent to life. But when leaves shrivel like this one,” He handed him another leaf, this time more dry and crumbly. “It means that they've become brown and are no longer alive.”

They went back into the house and Chanyeol made him soak his hands into a bowl of cold water.

“Water is blue. When found in small amounts it's of a pale blue, almost colorless, while large volumes of water, such as rivers and the sea, are of a very intense blue.”

He then sat him down on his bed, the light bulb that was standing on his bedside table, thought he had never really needed it, and brought his hand to the heat source.

“Heat corresponds to red. It can be compared to a burning sensation. If you burn yourself in the sun, your skin reddens. And if you feel embarrassed or have strong feelings for someone who is near you, your cheeks turn to a red color.”

Baekhyun withdrew his hand from the bulb and placed it on Chanyeol's cheek, bringing the other one to his own. “Does this mean that when I'm near you my face turns red?”

Chanyeol answered, chuckling, “Sometimes.”

“And do you ever blush for me?”

In response, Chanyeol put his lips on his. “All the time.”

He told him about yellow and orange making him taste and smell fruit, and grey associating it with storm noises. White was a clean, simple color, pink feminine and a symbol of love. He didn't need to describe black, that was the only color that Baekhyun had even seen.

Baekhyun knew exactly how Chanyeol's face looked like. Although he had never been able to see it, he had mapped it using his touch. They often used to seat on his bed, Baekhyun straddling his boyfriend's hips and tracing the curves of his face with his fingers.

Everything was already familiar to him: the softness of his skin, the moist freshness of his lips, the gentle curve of his nose and eyes. He learned that his ears where slightly protruding and his eyes bigger than his own. He classified Chanyeol's face as beautiful and attractive, although he wasn't sure of the classical standards of beauty. But even if he had been the ugliest man who had ever inhabited the planet, he wouldn't have cared.

He had also mapped his body, placing his hands on every corner that he could reach. Never once had Chanyeol interpreted his gestures as allusive or mischievous, on the contrary he had let him do all he wanted and had stared at him spellbound. Because Baekhyun was beautiful, so beautiful, and even if he would have never been able to see it, Chanyeol wanted him to know. He had told him so many times of his beauty: during their mapping sessions of Chanyeol's body, as he helped him preparing dinner, in the bathtub while he was washing his hair, between one kiss and the other. Baekhyun loved to receive that attention and to listen to his words.

“When I close my eyes I see you,” he told him one day sitting in the usual window alcove, the sun kissing Baekhyun's sweet face. “For many years, every day I've always seen the same color. Now it's not like that anymore. When I close my eyes I see you.”

He felt Chanyeol's soft curls brushing against his temple and a peaceful sigh escaping from his lips. Chanyeol was the only color in his life.

And because of that, he loved him.