What is beauty?

            Myungsoo doesn’t think that it’s makeup or having a flawless face without makeup. He doesn’t think it’s long hair or short hair or any other length of hair that matters. He doesn’t think it’s expensive clothes or the pretty shoes or bags. He doesn’t think it’s Sungyeol’s long legs or flat stomach. He doesn’t think of beauty as Sungyeol’s pearly white teeth or Sungyeol’s delicate, soft hands.

            He thinks that beauty is Sungyeol. Beauty is when Sungyeol puts his hair into an apple bob at night because he doesn’t want to wake up with oily bangs. Beauty is when Sungyeol looks at the menu at the coffee shop they always go to and looks intently at even though he orders the same thing every time. Sungyeol’s beautiful when he sweats after a race he told Myungsoo he was sure he would win (Sungyeol always wins), and beauty is when Sungyeol’ pouts and furrows his eyebrows together because he knows that Myungsoo lets him win the races.

            So what is youth?

            Myungsoo doesn’t think someone is old when they get wrinkles. A person isn’t old when they aren’t as flexible as they used to be, or when their sight isn’t as good as it used to be either. Sungyeol’s not young because he has clear skin with no wrinkles visible.

            Myungsoo thinks that Sungyeol is young because of how he laughs at everything. Sungyeol’s young because he laughs hysterically, even at Myungsoo’s lame and cheesy jokes. He’s young because his smile lights up with the innocence that Myungsoo first fell in love with.

            And when Sungyeol asked him one day, when the rain was falling in the background, whether he’d still love him when he was no longer young and beautiful, Myungsoo laughed.