The knob turns, but Mi-jeong can't swing the door open. "What's wrong with this?" she mumbles, pushing harder against the worn metal.
Mr. Gu stands behind her now that he's done packing the equipment on the shelf. "Let me."
Mi-jeong tries to move aside without bumping into him, but the walking space in this shed is too narrow for both of them. She ducks under his arm and steps away while he slams his shoulder into the door, grunting when the metal doesn't budge.
"It's not locked," she says, and the hinges worked fine just earlier. So…
"There's something blocking it from outside. A cart. Or a barrel." Mr. Gu tries to slam into it one more time, but the pained expression on his face tells her that sheer strength can't move it. "Can you call someone?"
Mi-jeong shakes her head. "My phone's at home. And my parents are leaving the house." A beat passes, and she and Mr. Gu stare at each other on opposite sides of the shed, lined with shelves and many years' worth of dust. "We could… scream for help," she says, but both of them know that won't do anything.
They're trapped.
———
It's not too bad for the first fifteen minutes, and then the metal shed with no ventilation, combined with the blisteringly hot sun at the peak of noon, becomesunbearable.Sweat is dripping down Mi-jeong's back, and every breath that leaves her mouth is hot and almost wet with moisture. She peels off her arm sleeves and tosses them aside in frustration, and one lands right on Mr. Gu's lap.
Flushing with embarrassment (and, of course, the heat), Mi-jeong scrambles to take it from him. "Sorry," she whispers— and does heat affect hearing too? Because she can barely hear her own voice, not past the buzzing of the insects outside and the rushing of her blood to her ears.
"'s fine," he mumbles in response, voice drowned out by the heat too.
This is the most they've spoken to each other… ever, really. Among her siblings, Mi-jeong interacts with him the most, giving him food or telling him when her parents expect him to come in for work. That's the extent of their interactions; most of the time, they just avoid each other's eyes as they pass by.
But now… well, what else is there to do but look?
Mr. Gu tugs at one, two buttons on his shirt, revealing a few inches of his chest, a little less tanned than his neck. Her mother is always nagging at him to wear a scarf or towel around his neck; the sun rays are most dangerous at the time they usually start farming.
Like with most things, Mr. Gu just ignores them and does as he wants.
Mi-jeong watches as a drop of sweat slides from behind his ear, down his neck, into the divot of his collarbone. When he wipes it off with his sleeve, he tilts his head and looks straight into Mi-jeong's eyes. They both avert their gazes, though there's not much else to look at in this tiny room.
Oh,oh,Mi-jeong feelscrazyfor doing this now, right now when there's nowhere for either of them to run.
Again, what else is there to do butlook?
Mi-jeong raises her arms to tie her hair up again, trying to get every loose strand of hair away from her damp skin. She sneaks a glance at him and catches his eyes tracing the slope of her neck, up her ear, down to her lips, and up to her eyes again. Her fingers fumble with the elastic, and it takes her a second or two longer than usual to pull it through the loop.
And Mi-jeong—feeling absolutelyinsanein this heat—stretches her neck out, lifts her chest higher. The sweat is making her shirt stick to her body in different ways than usual, rendering the shapelessness of her oversized shirt null as it clings to the tops of her breasts, to the curve of her back.
She's rewarded with the sight of his throat bobbing up and down as he swallows and looks away.
This is actually unbearable, borderlinedangerous.They'll either faint in the heat or die of thirst— so Mi-jeong stands and paces, thinking of any way to get out of this before something drastic happens.
A ray of light catches her eye. Peering past the equipment on the highest shelf, she sees a small window at the very top. There's another one on the other side of the shed too; both look like they've been shut for decades.
Mi-jeong tries to reach up for the handle, but it's way too high for her to reach. She could step on the shelves, but the metal brackets are probably as old as she is.
She looks at Mr. Gu, silently asking for some help. He's had his eyes trained on the ground since…the hair tie incident,but he's oddly attuned to her distress, standing up without being asked. He's taller than her, sure, but it's still too far out of reach.
"You could give me a boost," she says, and Mr. Gu nods and laces his fingers together. Hesitantly, Mi-jeong takes off her boots and lifts herself up with his help— one hand steadying herself on the shelf, the other reaching out to open the window.
It works, thankfully, and they can feel a small draft coming from outside. Mi-jeong sighs in relief when she feels the heat escaping the tiny room, feels the wind against the beads of sweat on her brow.
Carefully, Mr. Gu sets her down, and they both ignore Mi-jeong's hands on his shoulders as she steadies herself on the ground. Instantly, it's easier to breathe. But they're both still sweating profusely, and the dust they're inhaling can't possibly be good for them.
"There's another one," he says, and he inches past her to ready himself again. Mi-jeong places her foot on his hands again and pushes herself up, leaning on his shoulder to avoid touching the rusty, muddy shelves.
The hinges of this window are stiffer than the other one, and Mi-jeong struggles to open it with one hand. "Give me one more second—" she says, pushing harder against it, but instead, the handle breaks off the window— and Mi-jeong falls backward with the excess force.
She braces herself for the pain against the back of her head, but she doesn't expect the hand on her back and the arm around her hips. Instinctively, her legs wrap around Mr. Gu's waist, and she feels his heavy breaths against the flesh of her stomach as he hugs her body close and slowly lets her down.
His hands have slid up to the base of her neck and the bottom of her spine, and Mi-jeong gasps when his arm brushes against the curve of her ass. She tries to catch her breath, but she's distracted by the scent of his skin, her face barely an inch from his chest.
This moment feels… otherworldly. Mi-jeong doesn't think, forgets to care about the world outside of this shed when she leans in and breathes deeply into his collar, inhaling the scent of dried sweat and exhaling warm breath against his skin.
And when she's had her fill, Mi-jeong leans back and realizes that her hands are on his neck— while he's cradling the back of her head, the other cupping her ass.
All logic flies out of Mi-jeong's mind when she sees Gu's lips, parched and parted.
What else is there to do but… taste?
A peck on his bottom lip, a tug with her teeth, a tongue to soothe it, and one last kiss to seal the deal.
Then Gu responds in turn, kisses ranging from light pecks to broad sweeps of his tongue, making Mi-jeong's knees buckle, making herneedhis hand at the back of her head to hold her up against him.
And somehow, her arms have wrapped around his neck while his are holding her waist close, pressing their bodies against each other. In the pressure cooker of this tiny shed, they're sharing even more heat and sweat and skin with each other, and Mi-jeong breaks the kiss with a gasp when she starts feeling lightheaded.
Gu stares down at her with hooded eyes, almost like he's drunk— drunk on the heat andher,this time. He's panting, leaning into her touch with every movement of her fingers on his face. She touches his bottom lip, reddish and swollen with the attention of her teeth.
Mi-jeong feels an even greater urge to touch him, taste him, mark every inch of him.
She kisses the stubble under his jaw, traces the path of a bead of sweat down his neck with her tongue. Gu is restless beneath her, so Mi-jeong pushes and pins him against the shelf with her knee between his legs.
He's hard.
Mi-jeong rushes to unbutton his shirt, nipping and biting at his hard, smooth chest with each inch of exposed skin. When she reaches the fly of his pants, Mi-jeong drops down to her knees.
It feels even hotter down here, when Mi-jeong pulls his pants down to his knees and noses against the shape of his cock. "You don't have to—" Gu attempts to say, but he can't help but shudder when Mi-jeong cups him through his boxer briefs.
Mi-jeong never liked giving head to her ex-boyfriends. It tasted bad and made her jaw hurt and it was always forthem,for them to muster enough arousal to fuck her even if she didn't really care for it at the time. She did all the work to get them up, to be wet and warm for them to sink into, and Mi-jeong never understood any woman who claimed that they did any of this for themselves.
But now, Mi-jeong feels dizzy with desire when she takes the tip of him into her mouth. He responds with a long moan, a twitch of his hips, and the gentlest hands she's ever felt on her head, stroking her hair as she wraps a hand around the thick base of his cock that her lips can't reach.
This man, who hasn't spoken more than a hundred words to her since they met months ago— now he's moaning beneath her, cursing, whispering her name when he thinks she can't hear.
Mi-jeong feels herself getting wetter at the sound of it, broken by another low moan as she takes him deeper into her mouth.
And she ignores the rough cement beneath her knees, fights through the aching of her jaw. She feels his hips starting to stutter, his breath coming in quicker, his hands on her head tugging on her hair. Mi-jeong pulls back, sitting on her heels (though her calves and knees at nearly thirty years old aren't thanking her for it).
She can't even imagine how much of a mess she looks right now: jaw aching, eyes watering, sweat dripping down her temples, hair half undone— but Gu's expression is almost pained,feralas he looks down at her.
Despite that, there's an unspeakable gentleness in how he kneels to her level, takes off his unbuttoned shirt, and lays it down behind her like a blanket. Then he cradles her head and kisses her slowly, guiding her to lie on her back. His kisses are gentler, deeper despite the bitter taste of him that lingers on her tongue.
Gu tugs on the hem of her shirt, and she inches away unconsciously. "Okay," he whispers on her lips. He makes do with his mouth on her neck, his hands molding her flesh over her clothes. Mi-jeong gasps when she feels teeth on her skin, on the most visible area of her neck.
Then she feels him smiling against her collarbone, feels the curve of his cheek as he presses his face into her breasts, into the flesh of her belly. He's still hiding that smile from her as he pulls her pants and underwear down and kisses the red splotches on her knees, all the way up to her inner thighs.
What playfulness she saw in him is gone when he breathes against her core, wolfish eyes making her feel like prey about to be feasted upon.
Andfeasthe did, lapping over her flesh, using tongue and teeth and suction to make Mi-jeong writhe under him with her leg slung over his shoulder. He doesn't let up, not for a second, not until it's too late for Mi-jeong to stop him before she comes and comes, crushing his head beneath her calf to keep him closer,right there—
It's over before Mi-jeong is able to open her eyes, but Gu's still kneeling between her legs, kissing her hips, kneading into the flesh of her thighs. He's nosing at the hem of her shirt, where it lands higher up on her torso, but he doesn't push it up any further.
That's sweet.
She pats his head and combs her fingers through his hair, the afterglow making her more affectionate than she expected to be in a situation like this. "Come here," she says, and Gu crawls up to lean over her, mouth and chin covered in slick.
Mi-jeong laughs weakly at how he looks, but his flushed cheeks and dark eyes are tempting her to do more. Before he can kiss her, Mi-jeong wipes his mouth and reaches down to hold his cock, to pump slowly until their fluids cover the tip, until he's grunting against her temple.
"Do it," Mi-jeong whispers when he starts thrusting into the tight grip of her fist. He looks at her like she's insane, like this isn't whatall of thishas been leading up to.
She twists to get under him, then she wraps her legs around his waist and waits for him to make up his mind. The heat is driving Mi-jeong crazy; she needs to let this out of her, and his touch is the closest she'll get to another release.
Mi-jeong hugs his neck and presses her lips against his earlobe to whisper,"I want you, please."
It takes barely a second for Gu to hold his cock and slide into her, every bit of hesitation thrown out the tiny window open above them.
The touch of his skin, the movement of his hips— Mi-jeong is overwhelmed by her capacity tofeel,to hold and be held. She can't keep her hands off him, though her eyes are hidden behind her lids, closed shut with bliss. Her body shakes with every thrust, and the friction makes her smile and moan, even if she tries to throttle it with bitten lips.
"You're so—" Gu grunts above her, and then he buries his face in her neck again, so close but hidden from her view.
She could ignore it, dismiss it as the ramblings of a man lost in her flesh, but she feels the teeth of his smile against her damp skin and knows that there's more to it.
Mi-jeong holds his head and pulls him up under the pretense of a kiss, but she stops when he's just close enough for her eyes not to cross. She locks her feet together behind him, and the delicious pressure almost makes her forget what she's planning to ask.
"I'm so… what?" she asks. His hooded eyes are focused on her lips, but his hips stop thrusting when they make eye contact. "What were you going to say?"
He's hovering over her, blocking the light coming from the window. The shadows on his face can't hide the bright red blush on his cheeks— from exertion, arousal, or something else, Mi-jeong can't tell.
Gu's eyes roam around her face and trail down her body, and Mi-jeong squirms under his scrutiny. Even with her top still on, she feels exposed,too exposedwith all this attention.
"You're so…fucking beautiful," Gu says, voice gravelly with lust— and honesty. "I can't stop looking at you, even if I should."
Mi-jeong is stunned. Even when he starts thrusting again, starts marking her neck with endless nips and kisses, Mi-jeong's mind is stuck thinking of his words, thinking of his eyes on her.
She can't pretend that she's never noticed how he looked at her from across the street, from across the table. Mi-jeong is used to being invisible, used to eyes passing over her while she blends into the crowd.
But with him, with this stranger who wouldn't give anyone even a cursory glance or the briefest greeting—he can't stop himself.Hewantsto see her,needsto look at her.
He needsher.Mi-jeong doesn't doubt that now, while he's thrusting into her and forcing himself to avert his eyes when he hovers over her.
Suddenly, Mi-jeong feels the urge to push him onto his back, to straddle his lap, and to rest her weight on him fully. Gu squirms beneath her, but when she refuses to move, he waits patiently with his hands on her thighs.
With shaking hands, Mi-jeong holds the hem of her shirt and slowly pulls it over her head, undressing herself. Unclasping her bra, sliding it down her arms, tossing it aside.
Then she sits there, hands on his chest again, watching him watch her with parted lips and dark eyes. "Look," she commands."Keep looking."
It's performative, she knows, when she grinds slowly to rub against her most sensitive spots, all while her body moves and twitches above him. She never liked performing for her ex-boyfriends, but every time she looks at the bliss on Gu's face, she feels the same pleasure riding up her body, all the way to the smirk on her face.
Mi-jeong feels… powerful. Playful. Full of life and lightness.
She rides him until her knees start to ache and her thighs feel like they're burning. She's close,so closeto another orgasm, but the soreness of her body is keeping her from the peak, no matter how hard she grinds against his cock.
Gu holds her neck and pulls her down for a kiss, and Mi-jeong moans into his mouth when she feels her breasts pressing against his hot skin. "You're tired," he whispers.
With an arm cradling her head, he turns them onto their side, still kissing her. He slings her leg over his thighs and starts thrusting into her again, letting her rub against him.
The pressure is building now, stronger than ever, making her muscles tighten around him as she chases her release. She feels her name being whispered against her skin, and a strange sense of jealousy overcomes her.
"What's your name?" Mi-jeong whimpers, just wanting something of his to remember this by, wanting a name to scream and to sigh when she looks back at this moment with her fingers between her legs, chasing this same high.
Gu hesitates, but she thinks he succumbs to her request eventually and whispers it into her ear. Her mind's too far out of it to recognize what he says, not when he grinds against her perfectly and tips her over the edge of climax, too high up to see or hear anything else.
It's almost too much for Mi-jeong to handle when he keeps thrusting, chasing his own release. But she swallows her whimpers when she sees his eyes, still focused on her, taking in every drop of sweat on her brow, every reddish mark from the heat or from his mouth.
Mi-jeong kisses him while he fucks into her, forgetting to tell him to pull out before he comes— though thankfully, he has the presence of mind to do so, releasing into his fist and wiping it on the shirt beneath them, now filthy with dust and his seed.
They're lying on the floor, with her using his arm as a pillow while he tangles his fingers in her hair. It's hot and humid andsticky,but Mi-jeong doesn't have the strength to lift her body off the ground.
So they stay there for a while, until Mi-jeong starts feeling her legs again and her nakedness dawns on her. The initial rush has died down, and now Mi-jeong realizes that she just fucked her neighbor while trapped in her family's supply shed— the same neighbor that she hasn't shared a single personal conversation with in the months that they've known each other.
(The same neighbor who apparently can't stop looking at her. The one who made her body hum and thrum for the first time in months, maybe evenyears.Satisfying desire is easy; the conversation after isn't.)
Mi-jeong sits up and reaches out for her underwear, gingerly slipping them on while Gu gets up behind her to start dressing as well. She twists her arms behind her for her bra clasp, but her muscles are too sore after lying on the floor for so long.
She struggles and struggles and struggles— and then warm fingers graze against the skin of her back and fix the clasp for her, before running his fingers along the elastic that digs into her flesh.
Mi-jeong turns and looks over her shoulder, meeting his half-lidded eyes and soft, still parched lips. And again, they kiss, tenderly this time.
It feels… calming. Affirming. He looks gentle in her eyes, not quite like the feral wolf he used to be. He's not a house pet just yet; maybe more like a wild dog that follows her around, baring his teeth when she approaches but melting instantly when she braves the bite and reaches out to touch him.
They're fully dressed in their filthy,filthyclothes now, but they're still stuck inside. They sit beside each other and steal glances occasionally, too spent and thirsty to break the silence just yet. Can't waste precious energy on a conversation that… well, Mi-jeong has no idea if it's meant to go anywhere— or if it'll happen at all.
She hears something. Distantly. Like a motor getting louder and louder.
"Du-hwan?" she realizes, standing up and banging at the door."Du-hwan! We're inside the shed!"Gu gets up too, starts making a racket with a metal barrel by the door.
They keep going, and Mi-jeong's throat gets raspy as she continues to scream for help. She almost gives up until she hears noise outside the shed and eventually, she stumbles forward when the fallen barrel blocking it from outside is moved aside.
Du-hwan stares at them in shock when he manages to push it away, revealing the two of them inside, sweaty and covered in dirt. "What happened to you two?"
Both of them are too tired and too relieved to respond. Mi-jeong glances at Gu before they part ways, though it seems like he's retreated back into himself as soon as they remembered that the world around them still existed.
———
She takes a long, long shower when she gets home to an empty house, with her siblings making plans in the city and her parents visiting relatives farther down south. Her mother left food on the table, now cold after a few hours of exposure. When she starts to reheat it, she realizes she's not the only one who hasn't eaten yet.
Mi-jeong stacks two servings on a tray and makes her way across the street, mustering whatever courage she has left in her.
He's still in the bathroom when she enters his house without permission. It's rude, clearly, but she doesn't think decorum matters that much right now, not after what they've done.
Her nerves start acting up when she hears the water stop. She only has a few seconds to decide on what she wants to say, what she wants to happen, why she's here in the first place. Gu comes out and stops in his tracks when he sees her, hair still wet, skin still damp. Mi-jeong resists the urge to stare at this glistening neck and looks down at the food instead.
"No one's home," she says meekly. "My mom left food for the two of us."
It's a weak explanation, and that's obvious in his cautious steps, moving to hang his towel and turn off the bathroom lights without taking his eyes off her. It's unclear to her— who's the predator and who's the prey?
No.At that moment, Mi-jeong decides what she wants from this conversation.
Carefully, she says, "Gu Ja-gyeong." She thinks she remembered it correctly, and his eyes widen in response. "Did I get it right?"
Who are you?she asks.Will you let me know?
She looks straight up at him, unflinching beneath his gaze. It's a challenge, a gauntlet dropped, a question:what willyoudo? What willyoudo if I don't want to forget that this ever happened? What will you do if I wantyou?
Mi-jeong has fallen in love with herself today, with the power she has within her, with the playfulness she's never let herself experience. She's never felt that way before, never thought she was capable of being like that.
And she thinks he can help her be that person again, always. Gu saw something in her, something worth seeing, something hecouldn't stop himselffrom looking at.
Who is she, in his eyes? And is that who she wants to be?
Mi-jeong doesn't know yet, but she needs him— in that way andmore.
Gu walks towards her, their eyes locked in a stalemate. Though she looks up at him when he holds her face, she feels immensely powerful again when his warm hands start shaking as he touches her.
If he's searching for hesitation, he won't find any.
And he eventually realizes that when they've stared at each other long enough and Mi-jeong's hands have settled on his hips, thumbs tracing the flesh above his waistband. Mi-jeong likes his smirk, his uncontrollable smile now that he's not hiding it from her.
He can be playful too.
"Thank you for the food," he breathes onto her lips before kissing her again, devouring her like she's his prey— but the awestruck look in his eyes when he pulls away tells her he sees her as a predator too, one and the same.