#trespassing

He didn't move, he just tilted his head with a calm that from the start had disarmed her, and when he spoke, his voice was soft, almost shy.

"You've changed? or have someone been putting ideas in your head? I know how people can influence your opinions without you noticing," the sharpness in his words contrasted with the tone he used.

"It's not about that," she said, even though doubt was slowly starting to take over her mind. "Is just that you don't pay attention to me, not really. And when you do, it's to control everything I do, everywhere I go... I feel like I can't choose what I want most of the time," she avoided mentioning how distant he could get when a boy was in her group of friends. How strict he was on their routine and how cold he could get if she didn't follow it.

Sieun sighed, soft and patient, a used exhale from someone that already had this conversation before and knows exactly how to disassemble it.

"Do I control you?" he said as she tried to relax a bit, confrontation with him wasn't easy lately. "I worry about you. A few months ago you said that I ignored you but it was because exam's period. You even admitted how exaggerated it was. Now you say I control you, the pattern is that you always find something new to blame me when in reality, you can't control your emotions."

She bit her lip, he's right about that, that did happen, and he knew, so he mentioned it. As if he'd been keeping that excuse for a moment like this, a moment she'd decided to leave.

"It's not the same," she insisted but with less weight on her words. "I feel watched all the time, but in the way that I can't breathe without you being aware of everything I do, it's suffocating to do everything your way and not being able to choose," she redirected her point.

"What's wrong with that?" his tone was more intimate now, he reduced the distance with a step, making her feel his breath, oh he was patient. "It bothers you that someone wants to take care of you. But tell me: who would do it when you leave my side?" he held her hands cold as ever, cold hands and cold gaze. "I know you, (y/n), you'd give yourself to someone if they smile at you, and when they hurt you, I'm the one who grabs the pieces and puts them in place," he was right, he'd been there when people had failed her.

"I'm not a problem to solve," she said, with trembling hands, she tried to remember that he had done this before, it was weird, like spiraling her mind, confusing her goal to his benefit. He almost smiled, but his eyes looked so sad as he denied with his head.

"I'm treating you as someone who needs someone like me to not get lost. You're not thinking clearly. When you realize, when you realize that no one understands you like I do..." he paused, saving some words. But in his eyes something now sparkled, it was cold, contained and sharp like a gillotine.

"You'll regret it," the air was dense. His threat wasn't a shout nor anything explicit, but it was there, on the edge of his voice, on the way his fingers squished hers.

But when she goes back to months of silence, of abandonment, on the looks that seemed judgmental, on the way she stopped going out with her friends because he always found a justification. She thought about not choosing herself, tried to take less space in his life and still he didn't notice.

"I won't regret it," she said, and this time her voice didn't tremble, "we're done, Sieun. I'm sorry."

For a long instant, he didn't say anything. He looked at her with an insensitiveness she only saw when someone messed with him, a shiver went through her back, it was like he was taking notes on every fiber of her face to archive in his memory.

Sieun's game started.

Then, his expression softened, a lot. Like a mask that is adjusted with precision.

"Okay, I get it," he said.

That was it, nothing more, no more pleading, no more desperate attempts that would make her scared to confront in the future, no anger. Just a couple of words that, being said with that calm... it froze her more than any shout.

He turned and crossed the road without looking back, this time to his house, not to hers. He stopped for a second, enough for her to think that he'd say something else. But he didn't. He continued walking, hands on his sides and straight back, as if he just farewelled a friend on a casual day.

She stayed in place, her pulse so fast it rang on her ears and with a weird sensation on her chest. It wasn't relief. It wasn't sadness. It was an uncomfortable certainty that something hadn't ended, that his acceptance was too fast compared to the first and second time, too clean and premeditated.

She turned to go home and after a couple of steps, without knowing why, she looked back turning her head.

He was at the end of the block, on the corner under a tree, looking at her. From afar, still and with his head tilted slightly, as if he was waiting for something. As if he knew something she didn't.

The traffic light changed and a bus broke their gazes. Then, he was gone.

But the sensation of his eyes on her didn't leave. It went with her all the way home, while she had dinner, even on the night it was difficult to sleep. When she finally closed her eyes, the last thing she saw was him. His silhouette at the end of the road, waiting.

It was done, the relationship ended and she had said what she needed. Well, not all but what mattered never the less.

But Sieun wasn't really gone. He just moved to a place he could observe without being noticed. And that, she thought as a possibility with a shiver before falling asleep, was the most terrifying part.

The remaining week before graduation was stressful, she avoided him and he acted uninterested. Then time passed by, weeks went to months, and finally she was in college.

The first month was lightweighted. She didn't feel pressured to report her schedule and make changes to be approved, she didn't feel that look above her shoulder evaluating every choice. That felt like a relief, it tasted like spring after a winter that wouldn't stop forming storms. She didn't regret it, that was certain. The loneliness Sieun had warned her about wasn't real, she found silent fulfillment; a sensation to inhabit her own life without asking permission, finally.

Her objective was a professional literature degree, so for extracurricular experience and making more friends, she joined a group dedicated to creative writing. In the past Sieun would have been against this and the nocturnal sessions full of novels, full of poetry. She found pleasure staying until the biggest library on campus closed its doors, losing herself between shelves without someone claiming how late it was. She restarted to write truthfully, something the lack of motivation ruined, she filled tons of pages with stories that belonged only to her.

(Y/n) made new friends there, girls that she could be hours talking about literature and nonsense without someone saying that it was a waste of time. She had learned the names of the baristas in the coffee shop from campus, most of the time they kept a seat next to the window for her. She went to have drinks with classmates, and laughed until her cheeks hurt. She even accepted a couple of dates that didn't end in anything, but it made her feel lighter, the owner of her time.

It went months like that, building her own routine with what she chose was better, when small details began to accumulate.

In the beginning it was so sutil she thought it was coincidence, casualties. But then her instinct told her it was a pattern, the instinct that she'd learned to silence for a long time, began to whisper that it wasn't casualties.

The coffee shop started to be full of noisy people when she decided to go every Friday, just after her literature sessions. The week she finally had the chance to have a seat, she had to clean her own table and the air conditioner above her head dripped small drops of cold water. The nice barista that used to ask her about her works in progress disappeared one day, out of nowhere.

"Oh, Sung-hoon? He quit," said another worker with a tense smile, looking at the street as if looking for something.

Her friend Hui-tae, with whom she shared notes and walked to the bus stop, started to excuse himself to not coincide anymore, regularly. She once saw him cross the street and when she called him, he fastened his steps without looking back, hunched shoulders as if he was carrying something heavily invisible.

The residence she stayed in wasn't amazing, a one room apartment that had enough space to have what she needed. The lights from her hallway started to burst with a suspicious frequency. The janitor, who used to be sympathetic, now looked at her with hidden pity.

"Is everything alright?" he asked one night with his phone in his hand. His eyes adverted to somewhere far behind her back.

Teachers praised her works, but now, most of them started to treat her coldly. They acted as if her hand up to participate was inexistent.

She had a date with a guy that studied medicine, someone she shared an easy conversation about different professions on the campus. It was nice, enough to go on a second date. But he never came. He cancelled with a confusing text message:

"I don't think it's a good idea, there's stuff I'd like to stay away from," when she asked him about it, he stopped answering leaving her on seen.

Her friend Soo-min, the first person she met from the literature club, started to be evasive. When (y/n) had the chance to talk to her, she seemed uneasy.

"I've been getting messages that asked for my family, my schedules. Nothing explicit but... I don't know, you should be careful," the friends she had made were in a similar situation, and it seemed it pointed as if (y/n) was guilty for that.

One night as she went back to her small apartment, she found her door half open. Not forced or obviously open, it just wasn't fully closed. Her heart couldn't stop beating as she entered, everything was in its place. But in her desk above her notebook, there was a bookmark that wasn't hers. With a calligraphy she could recognize one between a million:

"He doesn't you understand like I do."

Geon-woo, a neighbor from her residence that had lent to her some novels, was found in an alley with his lip split and his leg bruised.

"I got robbed," he said looking at everything but her eyes, her insides whispered that he was uneasy by something that didn't have to do with his money. He moved out a week or so later.

(Y/n)'s study group dissolved without explanation. One by one, the people that used to get together with her, found excuses to stop hanging. She was left alone in one of the study rooms, her notes were scattered on the table and the certainty that "someone" was pulling the strings, was slowly making her paranoid.

Soo-min stopped texting her, her last message was cryptic:

"Sorry, it's too much."

"I can't talk to you anymore."

"I don't want any more problems, take care."

He threatened her, she was sure about it. He threatened Soo-min, and the others too. Right?

At the literature club, people started to side-eye her. The conversation went from whispers to silence when she was near.

She stopped getting invitations. Her phone, that used to vibrate with spontaneous plans, fell in a silence that made her feel far away from everyone. She tried to organize a get-together but the answers were evasive, excuses that sounded prepared, and some silences that hurt more than a no.

That was when she started seeing him. Not close, never close. But his silhouette had become a constant: at the end of the hallway of the library, at the park in the other side of the campus, at the corner of the street when she left in the mornings. He never got closer, he never talked to her. But she felt it: a primal instinct of being watched, being watched with an infinite patience by someone who has nothing else to do but wait.

She tried to talk with someone at the police department, she said that someone had been following her, that had entered her apartment, and his expression changed to something like measured caution.

"Do you have evidence?" she said yes, that she had witnesses, –even though it would be hard to convince them.– "Come back if you have something more concrete," he said, and hope was gone.

That same afternoon, she went to the rooftop from the humanities building when she saw his silhouette, he was looking down at her like an invitation. Her legs were shaking, but courage replaced fear. Sieun had his hands in his pockets and looked at the horizon with a neutral expression.

"Stop it," she said. He turned his head slowly.

"Stop what?" he didn't deny anything after the list she enumerated. He listened with a slightly tilted head, and when she finished: "you don't have any proof," he said. "You'll come back to me. When you realize that everyone fails you, leaves you... you'll come back."

And after that, he left. He left her on the rooftop, alone with the cold wind and the certainty that Sieun would not let her go. He'll just make the world around her unhabitable, until he was the only safe option again.

The confrontation from the rooftop didn't end like she wanted. It gave her something worse: the confirmation that he was behind everything and there was no way to stop him, he already made sure about it.

For the next couple of days she walked through the campus with hunched shoulders, feeling that the world that she'd been building, was fully crumbling. No one called her, no one sat next to her, no one even held the gaze enough time to ask for help. Panic was installing in her chest and made it hard to breathe.

(Y/n) is a puntual woman, but she stopped going to class. At the beginning it was a day, to clear her head and organize ideas. Then another, because getting up from bed was too much. Another one, because only by thinking of going out to the campus, to the hallways full of people, feel the gazes that avoided her, see his frame in a far place in the horizon... it paralyzed her legs and crushed her spirit. Her phone was still silent, that week no one asked for her. No one noticed her absence. Or maybe someone did, but no one dared to point it out.

She spent ten days locked in the room of her residence, eating enough to survive and not pass out, sleeping untimely, losing herself in the darkness of the small space she had. The blinds were fully down and the light from the hallway was still bursted. At some point, she stopped crying and started to just exist, floating between a void of fear and apathy that were undistinguishable.

The eleventh day, someone called at her door. It wasn't the janitor nor a worried classmate. There were three soft knocks, almost courteous and with an interval she'd recognize before the voice confirmed what she thought.

"I know you're there." Yeon Sieun. Her body reacted before her mind; a lash of adrenaline, hands reaching for something to defend herself, her feet found the floor after hours of immobility.

But when she opened the door, –she didn't know if it was by courage, out of tiredness or morbid curiosity,– he looked slightly different. Sieun was still, with a paper bag and a thermo on his hands, he wore a black stylized jacket and his hair had a natural side part that made him look mature and sharp, even though his lips were still dry... his expression was vulnerable.

He looked at her with a slowness that wasn't evaluating, but worried, and frowned slightly with concern.

"I haven't seen you all week," he said as if it was the most natural statement, as if he was marking her absence. "I got worried," the declaration was direct and simple, she was out of words. He wasn't accusing her with his tone. Just a calm certainty, from someone who's been waiting and finally found what was searching for.

She looked terrible, pale lips, unwashed hair and eyes that had dark circles, without counting how puffed they were. She hadn't seen herself on the mirror wearing the same clothes from day one. He didn't make any comment, he just raised the bag.

"I brought food, the usual." And for a second, her stomach answered before her pride, because it had been hours since she hadn't eaten and the smell that came out of the bag, was the exact same fried chicken they used to get after class at the place Suho worked.

(Y/n) let him in. It wasn't a conscious decision; it was tiredness, loneliness... it was the way his presence filled the void with no threat, but strange familiarity. Sieun entered with measured steps, leaving the bag in her low coffee table, he took the containers with a care that was almost ceremonial. When he handed her the sticks, his fingers brushed hers, and the contact was so soft she could have imagined it.

She started eating in silence, seating on the floor against the bed while he leaned in her desk, without invading more space than necessary. He didn't pressure her to talk. He didn't ask why she hadn't attend classes. In a moment he noticed her shaking –the cold room, the nervousness, the accumulated hunger– and, without saying anything, he took his jacket and left it beside her, close enough to grab it if she wanted to.

"Put it on if you want," he said, and his eyes adverted to her closed blinds without judging.

That was when she noticed some details, small changes that made him look different. He had a simple watch on his wrist, those that were used at work. He had clean and well cut nails, but hands rough with small cuts that showed some kind of manual job. When he tilted his head to look at her, his eyes showed no empty ice that had frozen her blood before.

Now there was something warmer, a small sparkle she didn't remember seeing before.

"I've got a part time job now," he said as if guessing her internal curiosity. "In an electronic repair shop, on the mornings. I study engineering in the afternoon," he talked about it so naturally that disarmed her, as if it was another fact and everything was normal again. It was strange how, with studying and working, he had time for her.

He stayed until night fell. He didn't make any movement to get closer, he didn't try to touch her, he didn't mention the break up or the rooftop, he didn't mention the strings, nothing. He, –unlike him,– talked about small stuff: a client that gave him a console from the nineties, a teacher that gave him an unjustified lower score, a coffee shop near his workplace that made strawberry filled croissants that always reminded him of her. As if time between them didn't exist at all. As if he had waited at the margins to occupy the place from before.

When Sieun was about to leave, just before ten, he stopped at the door and and looked at her with an unreadable expression. It wasn't triumph or possession. It was quite softer, dangerously different.

"I'm free tomorrow morning, I'll go to the library," he said casually. "If you want, we could go together. So you don't have to go alone," if her mind wasn't spinning so much, she'd notice the irony in his last words, it was absurd. She didn't say "yes", but neither "no." He showed the smallest smile, for her it seemed like a riddle, but after weeks full of insolation it felt like hope.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," and then closed the door with the same softness he knocked earlier.

The next morning he was waiting at the residence entrance, with two coffees. He hadn't say a specific time, but there he was, leaning on the stairs wall with the same jacket. He gave her a cup and she frowned when saw the liquid she couldn't live without, she never said she had lattes regularly, —at least twice a day.–

"You mentioned it once," he said with a neutral face, like it was normal to remember a detail from months ago.

She started having coffees five months ago when she started college.

They walked together to the campus. It wasn't uncomfortable; it was, against every forecast, easy. He walked to her rhythm, adjusting his walk without asking, and when a group of students were getting near, he crossed to put himself between them and (y/n) without making much of a deal, like a reflex.

For the first time in long weeks, she didn't feel like every gaze was making her anxious. With Sieun by her side, the evasive looks, the rumors, the void others had left... everything seemed far away now.

He opened the building's door for her and they went up the stairs. They spent a while there, looking through the shelves, reading in silence. At the end she gave some borrowed books to the librarian, then she was getting closer to Sieun who was attending a call, but when he saw her, he ended it quickly, as if being with her was a priority.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, and when she nodded, he took her to the coffee shop he had told her about, the one with the strawberry croissants. The place was comfy, he asked her to tell him about the narrative she'd been writing.

Her cheeks burned slightly with an old feeling, a feeling she thought was deep buried under the break up: the way his attention, his focus on every word she said, made her feel seen in a way no one else could. He remembered the name of her first ever protagonist, he asked for a plot twist she'd mentioned once in an afternoon, more than a year ago on their way to school. That night in bed, she realized that was a date.

The next couple of days, he was there. Not in the controlling way from before, but with a constancy that made her feel safe. He was every morning at the residence entrance with coffee and an anecdote of his workplace. He made her company at the library when he was free without asking something in return, without reading over her shoulder, he just existed in the place that felt like a huge void.

And then, gradually, almost unperceptivebly, the world he had dismantled began to reassemble. On an afternoon leaving class, she encountered Soo-min in the hallway. It looked like she hesitated, yes, but then walked to (y/n) with unsure steps.

"Hey," she said with a lowered voice, "I've been thinking about you. I'm sorry for being so distant. I don't know what happened to me, I was... scared. Would you like to have lunch tomorrow?" (Y/n) accepted with a heavy heart, like some kind of grief was dissolving and hope started to bloom.

That early night she told Sieun about it, who nodded with a small smile.

"I'm glad," he said, and his fingers brushed hers over her table. "You needed that."

Little by little, other friends started to appear. Texts that were left on seen started to receive answers. She was invited to a dinner from the literature club, and when she went alone, everything was almost normal: laughs, intellectual conversations, the warmth to be part of something. Almost. Because when she mentioned Sieun casually, the smiles tensed for a second, and Soo-min changed the topic so fast that it didn't go unnoticed.

But they were there. They talked to her. They didn't run away. It was like the threats that made them leave had dissipated in the air, as if someone had given a silent order; now was safe to get close to her again.

The difference was on the details she could notice because she lived them herself. When she went alone to class, guys greeted her normally. A math classmate asked her for the notes from last week without hesitation, another held the door for her with a casual smile, at the coffee shop, the cashier guy asked how her weekend was going with genuine sympathy. The male world, that had been hostile territory for months that completely ignored her and inexplicable absences, seemed it was back to normal, like before.

But when Sieun was next to her, –to pick her after class, to walk her to her residence, to sit by her side and help her while she studied,– the air changed. Not dramatically, nothing was dramatic with him. It was subtle: a hand that went to the curve of her lower back with possession, a look that felt aggressive when a guy got too close, a silence that wasn't empty but a clear warning.

The math classmate that asked her for her notes, when he saw her with Sieun, gave her the notebook back in a hurry that seemed clumsy. "Thank you," whispered without looking at her eyes, and disappeared down stairs before asking him if he needed something else. The one from the door that matched some schedules, he hold the door looking down with tense shoulders, like crossing her and Sieun was a penitence. At the coffee shop, the cashier guy stopped asking personal questions when Sieun was present; his answers where monosyllables, his eyes went to her back, to the figure that was still and had the infinite patience of a predator that didn't need to move to be feared.

And the worse, the most beautifully terrorizing, was that she noticed but couldn't point something out. He didn't say anything. He didn't threat anyone. He didn't raise his voice nor made violent gestures. He was just there, next to her, with his presence and attention fully on her, and that was enough for any guy to understand, with an instinct older than any word; there was a territory that shouldn't be crossed.

She blushed one day, when she saw him intercept a guy with just his eyes, he just wanted to ask her about an extracurricular activity. The guy stuttered something and turned around, and she was there, feeling Sieun's hand on her arm, his voice in her ear asking if she wanted to have dinner with him, and the confusion made a knot in her throat

Because now he was protective. Because now he payed attention. Because now he remembered she loves lattes and puts her hair behind her ear like it was the most natural gesture in the world.

And because, even if her mind knew he was the architect of her loneliness, her heart started whispering that maybe... that was love. Someone who wouldn't leave, who chose her above everything. Someone who, although it was in a way her reason knew it was sick, had configured the whole world around her so she didn't have anywhere else to go, and that he had stood in the center of that empty world giving her his extended hand, waiting for her to make the step back to him.

And that night, while they walked under the campus lights and his shoulder brushed hers with a familiarity that hurt by how sweet it felt, she realized that she had fell. She was back. And he knew.

His fingers intertwined with hers with no hurry, as if they had always been waiting for that moment, and when she stole a gaze at him, his black eyes were already looking at her with something that wasn't possession nor triumph, but a deep relief, the relief of someone who had recovered what was his.

The walk to her home was in a blink. Her legs moved on inertia with a blank mind, too exhausted to process what had happened recently. Two months ago she had barely eaten, she went through more than a week of insomnia, in the darkness of her room in constant silence. And then he appeared, offering his hand, and for the first time in days her body didn't tremble with fear but something more confusing: relief. Relieved of not being alone, relieved that someone –even if it was Sieun, the architect of her loneliness–, had found her.

Going up the stairs, his thumb made slow circles on the back of her hand, and she let him, too tired to ask herself if that gesture was tenderness or a territory mark. Maybe both were the same for him.

When they were in front of her door, her fingers clumsily went to search the keys, and he stopped behind her so close she could feel his breath on her nape, observing. Waiting. Like he had done for months. When she opened the door, the dark room engulfed her, and he, instead of entering with her, stopped at the door frame.

"Can I?" he asked. The question was an absurd formality and she knew. He had entered before. He had been in her small home when she wasn't there, leaving clues, reminding her that the place wasn't really hers. But now he always asked for permission, and that small concession, that fraction of control he gave back to her, it hurt more then if entered without asking.

She nodded. There wasn't another possible answer.

The door closed and the outside dissolved. There wasn't anyone else: she, him, and the silence. The room was a twilight, just the street lights filtering through the curtains, and he moved with the familiarity of someone who knew the place better than her. He stopped in front of her, at a distance that was both measured and intimate, as if enjoying the space that was left to end.

"I've missed you, (y/n)," he said with a lowered voice, almost a whisper. It wasn't a declaration, it was a confirmation. And in his black hooded eyes, there wasn't just hungry. There was something deeper, something that she didn't know existed in him.

It looked like devotion. The same that was added in every detail that he reminded of her, every gesture that he had calculated to bring her back, every night he had waited on the dark. It wasn't just a whim. It wasn't just a dull obsession. It was, in the most twisted way of the word, love. A love that had disarmed her world just for him to rebuild it.

His hand went slowly to her cheek. His fingers were cold but her skin burned. He caressed her cheekbone so softly it sent a shiver, and her body, the traitor that only knew to answer to stimulus, leaned on his palm as if he was the only source left of affection.

He smiled, that backwards and small smile, that got to his eyes and lighted something that was dangerously close to tenderness, of someone who had broken her to put her pieces back, of someone who emptied her world to fill it again.

"You are the only one who matters to me," he murmured, and the sentence left with such natural tone that froze her. It wasn't just a grandiloquent declaration, it was a certain fact. "Everything I've done, everything... was for you."

His hands found hers, intertwining fingers, and guided her to the bed, slowly in a way that wasn't indecision, it was patience.

He made her sit at the edge, and then Sieun kneeled in front of her.

The gesture was like some kind of ritual, an offering. From under her gaze, his black eyes looked at her with a devotion that crumbled her more than any word. His hands went up brushing her legs, slowly, palms stroking her thighs smoothness against the fabric of her pants, as if recognizing a territory that had been a long time without touching.

"Let me," he whispered, and it wasn't a question. She nodded.

His fingers found the edge of her shirt and slipped it up with a calm that was almost cruel. She raised her arms, letting him, and then he stopped. His eyes looked at her naked torso so slow it made her burn under her skin, he didn't rush. He had all the time in the world.

"I've been waiting for this, not for just your body, (y/n)..." he said with a voice that seemed to get out of the shadows. He didn't finish his sentence. He leaned his head and his lips graced her stomach, he planted a kiss, then another. And he traced up a path with his tongue, tickling her breastbone by how hot his wet muscle was, he caressed her back with his palms. When he reached her tits, he stopped. He looked at her eyes again searching for something, and when he found it –permission, lust, surrender,– his mouth closed over her nipple.

She arched her back by reflex and couldn't stop a whimper. He answered with a hoarse sound, almost a growl as his tongue worked meticulously, he alternated a soft and hard pressure making her skin hardened inside his mouth, she bit her lip to not make too much noise. He didn't make distance, he looked at her and with her nipple on the edge of his lips, he finished his sentence.

"I've been waiting for what this means, you're mine (y/n), and I'm yours", his breath on her breast sent shivers on her body, and the words... he was right, there's no turning back.

That's when he changed to her other nipple, with the same patience and sick devotion, flicking and sucking. One of his hands massaged the tit covered in saliva, and his other caressed her hips until reaching the hem of her pants.

"Please, can I...?" he asked against her tit, the formality and vibration against her skin couldn't make her deny it.

"Yes."

He pulled her nipple with his teeth without causing harm, a thin and shiny thread of saliva connecting, before pulling away. He unbuttoned and pulled the zip down. She lifted her hips looking away as he slipped down her pants from her thighs, her legs, with the same slowness that he did everything. She was left with only her panties, and he stayed looking at her, kneeling between her legs, as if he was contemplating something sacred.

His hand went to her crotch, and his fingers pressed against the red fabric, a smooth moan scaped. His lips and eyes smiled, almost invisible, not by triumph but gratitude. He moved his fingers, feeling the warmth, the wetness filtering, with measured and calculated pressure, designed from older experiences with her, enough to make her squirm without giving her what she really wanted.

"Tell me," he whispered, with dense breathing.

"What?"

"That this is for you. That this..." his fingers pressed more, gracing up and down, she stifled a moan. "That this is only for me."

"Is for you," and the words left without thinking. "This is just for you."

And that was all he needed. His fingers hooked the edge of her underwear and slipped it down, it almost seemed he tried to control himself. She lifted her hips again, eagerly, and when she was fully naked, he pushed her back, making her lean against the sheets.

He looked at her for a moment. His hooded eyes traveled every inch of her body with so much attention that made her feel exposed, vulnerable, but he meant no mockery.

There was something darker; the admiration of someone who has been waiting too long for this and now can't look away.

Then his head went down.

His mouth found her and she forgot to breathe. His lips engulfed her hot core, and his tongue moved against her clit so slow it edged the insufferable, he worked with no ending patience, making her hold the sheets. The wet sounds were synchronized with her belly spasms. He alternated rhythms, for moments his tongue was soft and engulfing, for moments was flat and firm, always measuring her reactions and adjusting to the movements of her hips.

He caressed her belly and thigh with passion, and every time she thought she couldn't hold the knot anymore, he changed something. He lengthened the moment, took her to the edge and then made her fall softly, just to start again.

"Sieun, please..." oh his name, he'd missed the way she used his name when he eated her out. She didn't know if she begged him to stop or to continue. He didn't answer but got drunk on her reactions. His hand holded her open thighs now, his fingers squeezed her so firmly it would leave bruises, and his mouth didn't stop. He sucked and flicked his tongue against her sensitive button, devouring her as if it was his last meal, he'd been hungry for months, and now, he could be satisfied. And she, with all that pleasure accumulating inside her lower belly, shaking legs, not being able to think about something else than him, him, him... she exploded.

When she cummed with a moan that drowned in her throat, her body arching and spasming against his mouth, she searched for his hair to hold him in place. He didn't retreat. He went with her to the end and more, his tongue moving slower, softer, until it became too much, she couldn't stop making those beautiful movements by how sensitive she was. She tugged his hair and squeezed Sieun's head with her thighs. It was too much. Whimpers escaped and a few tears, without energy she tried to pull him away with one foot on his shoulder as a last resource.

That's when he pulled away and incorporated, she swore his breath could be seen by how hot it was.

He looked at her from above, he could just look at her ruined face and not get bored. His mouth and chin were fully wet, his hair messy because of her fingers, and his eyes had a deeper tone; the peace of receiving what he desired the most.

He took his clothes off with paused movements, appreciating her state, the orgasm and the over-stimulation left her shaking and breathing unevenly. He didn't look away, his shirt fell to the floor, his pants, his underwear. And when he was naked in front of her, he leaned over her, his forearms to each side of her head, his weight barely away from hers. Her tears, oh her tears shone in the dark.

He kissed her, slow, she could feel herself on his lips, mixing with him. Her tongue moved against his first, deepening it when she felt his erection poking her thigh, it was hard and hot, and surely red with excitement like she'd provoked many times before.

He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers, mixing sweats. He closed his eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked with a voice that seemed part of the silence.

"Yes," her voice was in the same tone.

"Do you want it?"

"Yes," and it was almost a cry.

He nodded. His hand went down between them, he exhaled when he brushed his tip against her entrance, he did it a few times, teasing her hole a bit. When he penetrated her, he did it slowly, first, the head full of precum. She felt everything, how all his member fitted perfectly after so long, remembering it, reclaiming it. When he was fully inside, he stopped. He stayed still. He remained like that, pressing his forehead with closed eyes, breathing irregularly like her.

"I love you," he murmured, and the frase was so simple it killed her. "You don't know how much."

Then he moved.

It wasn't fast nor rough. Every thrust was slow, tender, deep, as if savouring every second. His rhythm was constant, a cadence that engulfed her completely, and his hands touched her so affectionately that contrasted with his firm hips. He caressed her breasts, her ribs, handled one of her thighs closer to her chest. After a moment, one hand pressed her neck carefully, knowing how she liked it, and the other held hers, squeezing, as if he needed to show sweetness, as if the contact was the only proof to know this was real.

She moaned, barely controlling her sounds, and he answered with drowned sighs, his mouth worked between her neck and shoulder. He wasn't talkative, never had been, but in the way he held her, in the way his body trembled against hers, she could feel everything he didn't speak.

"Look at me," he said, and his voice was begging.

She opened her eyes. Sieun's face was so close, she could see every detail, how long his eyelashes were, how pretty his lips were half opened, the way his black eyes looked at her with so much intensity that naked her more than any absence of clothes.

"Don't leave me again," he whispered, and now it wasn't an order. It was a pleading. "Please..." she even swore he was about to cry.

She didn't respond. She couldn't. But her fingers clunged his, she moved her hips against his to receive his hard member deeper in synchrony, and that was enough for an answer.

The rhythm became faster, wetter. Her moans were less contained, their movements more erratic, and he answered growling, squishing her neck harder but with a knowing limit, he thrusted harder as if he wanted to melt with her.

The friction of his pelvis against her humid clit made her finally cum, retorting her body and losing air, he let go his hand from her neck but feeling her tight cunt trying to milk him, still when she collapsed and scratched his back to hold him. Her warmness and spasming walls, even the face and reaction she made when she finished was everything he needed to end cumming too. He growled heavily into her red neck, and his hand tightened her so hard it would hurt the next day, his body drowned in hers like he wanted to be like that forever. Semen mixed in their connection, and she felt the warm liquid escaping from her and traveling slowly to her ass till the bed.

They stayed like that, in silence. His weight over her was hot, heavy, but she didn't want Sieun to move. Their breathings were uneven, and he kept his forehead against her shoulder.

When he finally moved, it was to get out from inside her with care, that made a shiver travel her arms. He fell next to her, and didn't pull away his hand from hers. He pulled her close, her back to his chest, his arm hugging her waist and his nose in her hair.

"Sleep," he growled on her nape.

She didn't want to sleep. She wanted to think, she wanted to process, she wanted to ask herself why his arms made her feel so safe when she knew he was the reason nobody wanted to be near her for months. But she was tired and hollow. Also he smelled like cologne and his own particular sweat.

"Will you stay?" she asked, and her voice could barely be heard, it made her shy. He squished her body with his arm, pulling her even closer.

"Always," he said, and there was not a single drop of doubt.

She closed her eyes. In the darkness, her body was still shaking for what they had just done, the heat on her back was making her sleepy. She started feeling something she couldn't name, a mix of fear and gratitude; the sensation that, after all, he was the only one who stayed. The only one who saw her. And the only one that proved he'd search for her when no one else would.

And maybe, she thought while drifting to sleep, maybe that was enough. Maybe that was everything she needed. That was real love. Someone who wouldn't leave or betray her, choose her above anything else. Someone who, even in a sick, twisted way, had reconfigured her world to have no other place to go... she was so important, that he'd show how meaningless others could be and then wait with an extended hand. That night, she reached for his hand again.

While her breathing went slower, he was awake. He caressed her her fingers with mechanic softness, as if memorizing every knuckle, bone and wrinkle. In the darkness, his smile was invisible, but it was there, the one from someone who's finally got what they wanted so much.

"You're mine, you won't leave," he whispered against her hair, as if anticipating the future, and she didn't notice. He had built every piece of this moment with a craftsman's patience, and now, could have a break.

When she woke up the next morning, he was still there. His arm in the same position, just like his fingers. His dark brown eyes were already open, looking her calmly.

"Good morning," and his voice was rough with sleep.

She just observed him, feeling his warmth like the old days, feeling the weight of his palm on her waist. And something bloomed inside her chest, after everything he had put her through, after everything he had done; she didn't want him to let her go.

And he knew.

Then there is my acclimating to shooting on the roof, it was an entirely different location for me, and when I first went up there it wasn't necessarily my intention to photograph myself, it just sort of happened over time. I would bring my first iPad up with me that is the 16GB, I still can't believe I bought one so small, but I didn't know what I would use a tablet for at the time, this is when I was still using my MacBook Pro for most things, I hadn't any understanding of how a tablet would fit into my work-flow, until years later it became my go-to device.

Some of the initial shots I did with that iPad, and you can see how restrained the poses and the composition was in those early shots. I love posting them to my Tumblr because they are such a far call from the more polished shots I would do later. I also love sharing them because they are a part of the process. All art is a process, you don't just arrive at the destination, you take a journey and hope that everything you're doing will take you some where.

Timer shots, most of these shots are taken with timers, whether on my iPad, my point and shoot or my DSLR which I didn't bring to the roof often, I didn't want it getting dirty or damaged in the heat, so I would usually use my point and shoot, and whatever tablet I had at the time. The tricky thing about shooting on the roof was lack of things to prop a camera up on. Sometimes I did bring my mini-tripod, other times my bigger tripod, but most times I just got creative with found objects all around.

Using a timer it can be hard because you need to go to the camera wherever it's placed, hit the shutter button, then run back to wherever you were posing, and attempt to act relaxed. I was so pleased with myself particularly with distance shots. But generally all around I was amazed with my own abilities because I literally eventually shot myself everywhere on that roof, up on the peeks of those stairways that pop up like abrupt hills. In stair wells, on fire escapes, on the edge of the roof, balanced on chimneys and anywhere else I would think would make a fun shot.

Another trick up my sleeve was taking video with the point and shoot, and just grabbing screenshots, this bought up a whole class of photos where the movement was more organic, and the fact that it was shot in HD usually provided for excellent quality screen grabs. I would then also post short-form videos, and I went through a huge gif phase. This is something my rooftop series opened up for me, exploring mediums adjacent to the still photograph, and trying to find the artistic merits in these mediums also.

You know I nearly forgot about one of the most important things specifically to a photographer, lighting conditions. I shot on overcast days, sunny days, early morning light, late day light, night shots and interiors on the construction site of the building in my row. That was a huge challenge to someone who brands themself a "natural light photographer", I am not saying I always did the best job with the camera settings, particularly in the Trespassing (2016) series when I shot in the basement by incandescent light.

If I don't have to utilize flash I prefer not to, but I really wanted to capture the depths of this building that I kept trespassing into to photograph myself. That series was more thrilling because of the risk more than even the work itself, sneaking into a construction site, climbing out back windows, entering basements, and doing this all without a stitch of clothing on, was exhilarating in itself. I had taken my simple destination to the roof and turned it into multiple shooting locations, and even if no one else appreciated that, I did.

It's funny to me that I need a moment to appreciate my own artistry, but when something is close to you, it's easy to loose perspective. Me pulling from batches and batches of edited photos makes it easy to forget that sometimes I went up on the roof one morning and shot over fifty photos, but only found four that I selected and processed. People think painting is difficult just because of the basic skill set needed to perform it, but this also applies to photography, being that this series is primarily self-portraiture doesn't mean it was easier, but harder, cause I had to do everything. Then I had to attempt to pull together whatever I shot and figure out what kind of post-production would best suit the work.

My initial treatment of the Tar Beach Series (2016), was to make everything monochromatic. As I revisit the work with fresh new edits I am exploring the use of color a lot more. This level of subtlety isn't always caught by the viewer, but I know I went through an initial high-contrast phase with my first point and shoot images, than later begin to soften the production and smooth out the image more. All of that was part of the creative journey, and I enjoyed it so much, which is why this work is some of my favorite because I was pushed so far out of my comfort zone in so many ways, and still managed to produce good work.

[Photos courtesy of the Brown Estate]

I Enjoyed Shooting With Tom

Zero Fucks To Give

Fine Art Photography

An Interview with Trevor Brown