Erik had always loved beautiful things. It could be some sort of compensation, for all the ugliness he had. From his home's decoration, to the clothes he wore, to the music he played, he lived surrounded by beauty in all its forms.
Beauty held an attraction over him. It was what moved him in most of his trips (when he wasn't on the run from the law), what brought him back to Paris, what made him choose the opera as his living place. It was what drew him to Christine, not the beauty of her looks, but of her angelic voice, and turning such natural beauty to perfection was the one goal he had left in life.
It could be only beauty what now made Erik watch the Vicomte from one of his hidden places. There was no other explanation. The lad sure had it, though his body seemed too skinny for a sailor, and his features too delicate for a grown man.
Erik had not paid any attention to Raoul before he first visited Christine's dressing room. He was only one of the many wealthy men who frequented the opera until then, nothing about him was remarkable. But from that day on, Erik started watching him closely, trying to figure what his intentions with Christine were. He followed the Vicomte wherever he went. This habit went on even after it was clear what his intentions were.
His pursuit of Christine was irritating to watch, his attempts to get her to reveal her master's secrets were pitiful, but what Erik hated the most in their interactions was the obvious affection she felt for the boy, visible even as she kept rejecting him. Erik really couldn't bear watching the two together, but he found Raoul could be interesting when on his own.
Raoul was so full of life, so full of hope. He kept coming back to a woman who gave him nothing but coldness. He was so incredibly naive, still believing that the world made some sense and in the end the good guys always won. Erik usually found this concept laughable, but he was getting used to it.
But what he really liked was how Raoul looked when he watched the opera. Erik was sure he could not possibly understand it fully, could not get all the subtleties of the music. Still, he went every night to watch it, and focused during the whole performance. There was a sort of glow in his eyes. It grew every time Christine stepped on stage.
That look burned itself into Erik's eyes. He would find himself thinking back at it again and again. He tried to put what he saw in it on paper, in drawings, in words, in music. When Raoul had that expression, that was when he was most beautiful. Yet, as much as he tried, Erik could not reproduce it. He crumbled and threw out every pitiful attempt. Nothing he could create could fully capture it.
Was that what love looked like?