The Gaze Before Possession
After parting with Gyujin, Eunju and Minjun walked in silence for a while. The air outside the pub was cold. Having sat inside for so long, Eunju’s body met the night breeze and she drew her shoulders in slightly. Without a word, Minjun slipped off his outer jacket and draped it over her. Eunju did not refuse. As the jacket settled over her white skirt and pale sky-blue tank top, the outfit that had drawn Gyujin’s gaze inside the pub was now covered by one more layer. Yet strangely, it didn’t feel completely hidden. Too many eyes had passed over her that day. Hyeonwu and Doyun’s cameras. The sidelong glances of strangers on the street. Minjun’s gaze watching from a distance. Gyujin’s frozen stare. A single jacket could not erase all of them.
Minjun matched his steps to hers, walking slowly. “Gyujin seemed pretty shaken.”
Eunju nodded. “He did.”
“Still, I get it.”
“Because of his ex-wife?”
“That too.”
Eunju paused for a moment. “And because of us.”
Minjun gave a low chuckle. “We are a bit strange, aren’t we?”
Eunju shot him a look. “You say that like it’s someone else’s story.”
“It is our story.” Minjun reached out and took her hand. “That’s why we have to be even more careful.”
Eunju squeezed his hand in return. They emerged onto the main road. Taxis passed by, but Minjun didn’t hail one. It seemed he wanted to walk a little longer. Eunju didn’t rush him. The warmth of the alcohol hadn’t entirely faded. Inside she still felt pleasantly warm, yet her mind was strangely clear.
Minjun spoke first. “You decide the shooting date.”
Eunju looked at him. “Me?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have any major plans for a while.”
“Check with Hyeonwu and Doyun, then pick a day that works for you. I’ll fit my schedule around it.”
The words sounded oddly practical. Only moments ago they had been talking over drinks—imagination, jokes, and confessions all tangled together in heated words. Now they were discussing actual dates. Which day would be good. Who could clear their time. Where to shoot. What to prepare. The fantasy Eunju and Minjun had shared for so long was slowly turning into something that could appear on a real calendar.
Eunju tightened her fingers. “Oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you one more thing?”
Minjun looked at her. “Go ahead.”
Eunju couldn’t speak right away. The photographs she had seen in the workshop that day rose in her mind. Her smiling face in the white skirt. The hand pressing down the hem. The expression of helpless embarrassment beneath the light. And the faces of Hyeonwu and Doyun as they looked at those images. They had seen her as beautiful. That truth remained inside the pictures.
“Originally…” Eunju began slowly, “we agreed that after the shoot we’d take all the memory cards with us.”
“Right.”
“That’s still true, but…” Eunju turned her gaze toward the roadside. “When I looked at the photos today, I felt… strange.”
Minjun said nothing. Eunju took his silence as permission and continued.
“The boys really did see me as beautiful. It shows in the pictures. It wasn’t just that I looked pretty—it felt like the way they were looking at me had been captured too.”
Minjun’s hand wrapped a little more tightly around hers. “And?”
Eunju lowered her voice. “I was thinking… maybe it would be all right if they kept a few of them.”
Minjun didn’t answer immediately. Eunju added quickly, “Not just any shots. Only the ones we choose. The ones that turned out really well. From the photos they want, only the ones I’m comfortable with too.”
Minjun slowed his steps for a moment. “Eunju.”
From his tone alone, she knew what he was about to say.
“I know. It’s dangerous. Far more dangerous than you think.”
Minjun spoke quietly. “Once a photo leaves your hands, it’s almost impossible to control completely. I’m not saying we can’t trust them. But people’s hearts, situations, everything can change with time.”
Eunju nodded. “I know.”
“Right now they see you as beautiful and photograph you with care. But there’s no guarantee those images will mean the same thing years from now. Depending on who keeps them, where they’re stored, who they’re shown to, they could become something entirely different.”
Eunju pressed her lips together as she listened. It frightened her. Yet separate from that fear, a small desire inside her refused to disappear. She didn’t want to leave Hyeonwu and Doyun with nothing. She wanted to leave them some proof that the Eunju of that day had truly existed for the two men who had looked at her that way. The thought embarrassed her. But it was undeniably there.
Eunju spoke carefully. “I know that too. But… I just had this thought that I wanted to give them a few as a gift. Like a thank-you for seeing me beautifully. Since they looked at me with those eyes, maybe they could keep a little piece of the me that stayed in their eyes.”
After she finished speaking, heat flooded her face. It wasn’t really about the photographs. She was saying she wanted to leave a part of herself in their hands. Eunju knew it. Minjun knew it too. For a moment, words failed between them.
The traffic light on the main road changed. People crossed to the other side. Eunju and Minjun stayed where they were, simply holding each other’s hands.
Minjun spoke slowly. “If you really want it, then let’s do it.”
Eunju looked at him. “Really?”
“But there are conditions.”
Eunju nodded quietly. Minjun’s eyes were calm. His face wasn’t driven by desire alone. It was the face of a husband, a protector, and at the same time a man who wanted to witness every scene—carefully measuring the line.
“We take all the original files. That doesn’t change.”
“Okay.”
“They only keep the few shots we select. The ones you approve. The ones I approve.”
“Right.”
“And there must be zero external release. No sending, no uploading, no portfolio use. We make it crystal clear that nothing happens without your explicit consent.”
Eunju thought for a moment. “We’ll need a contract.”
Minjun nodded. “We will. No external leakage or disclosure without the consent of the rights holder. We define the scope of use. Whether it’s strictly personal keeping or if it can be treated as work product—we make all of that explicit.”
As she listened to Minjun, Eunju felt a strange sensation. A contract. The word was dry and rigid. Yet today it touched her body in an oddly intimate way. Her photographs. Her face. Her legs. Her body. Her shame. The fact that all of it would be placed inside a document, given conditions, and partially permitted into the hands of other men made her even more tense.
“If we write something like that…” Eunju said softly, “it will really feel like it’s happening.”
“Because it is happening.” Minjun’s answer was brief.
Eunju swallowed at his words. He was right. This was no longer simple fantasy. It wasn’t the playful talk they had shared in bed. It wasn’t a confession spilled under the influence of alcohol. They would set a date. They would define conditions. They would write a contract. And they would have to meet the boys again.
Eunju felt her fingertips tremble slightly. Minjun asked, “Are you scared?”
She didn’t lie. “Yes. But I still want to do it.”
Minjun looked at her for a moment, then asked in a low voice, “You’ve done it once before, haven’t you?”
Eunju couldn’t answer right away. He wasn’t wrong. She had already bared her body in front of strangers. She had endured the gazes of older men, holding her breath. But for some reason, this felt far more frightening.
“Back then…” she said slowly, “I didn’t know anything. It happened almost by accident. I didn’t really understand what I was doing or how it would stay with me. So the fear was less.”
Eunju looked down at her own fingertips. “But now I know. I know what it feels like to offer my whole body in front of someone. How their gaze stays on my skin. How long those scenes follow me even after it’s over.”
Minjun’s hand rested gently on the back of hers. Eunju took a breath and continued.
“And back then I had no feelings for the people taking the photos. They were just strangers, and their eyes were the eyes of others.” She looked at Minjun. “But now it’s different. I’ve grown a little attached to Hyeonwu and Doyun. I want them to see me as beautiful. If I look strange in their eyes, it would hurt.”
After speaking, Eunju gave a small laugh. The end of it trembled. “That’s what scares me more than undressing. The thought that I might not look pretty to them.”
A few days later, Eunju headed to the workshop again. This time she went alone. She didn’t wear the white skirt. She didn’t want to seem too conscious of it. Instead she chose a calm skirt that fell below the knee and a knit top that lightly hugged her body. On the outside she looked a little more proper than usual. Inside, however, nothing was proper at all.
Inside her bag was a simple draft of the contract she had prepared with Minjun. Sentences stating that without the rights holder’s consent there could be no external disclosure, transmission, or upload. That the scope of photographs provided would be limited to cuts approved by both Eunju and Minjun. That the original data would be collected after the shoot ended. The sentences were dry. Yet simply knowing those sheets of paper were in her bag made Eunju’s body tighten with tension.
The path to the workshop was no longer unfamiliar. She had walked it several times. Past the convenience store, past the small laundry, into the entrance of the old building. The route had become almost part of her daily life. But today her steps felt different. There was excitement at seeing Hyeonwu and Doyun. There was tension at the thought of asking them about the main shoot date. There was embarrassment at having to discuss giving them a few photographs as a gift and writing a contract.
Yet beneath all of that lay a more uncomfortable thought. A man is different before and after having her. Minjun’s voice came back to her. So did Gyujin’s answer. The tension eases. Eunju slowly slowed her steps.
Hyeonwu and Doyun were affectionate toward her now. When she opened the door, Hyeonwu would smile a little awkwardly and Doyun would greet her playfully. When she brought up the photos, the two of them would focus so intently they seemed to hold their breath. That was how it was now. Because they had not yet had her.
The thought pierced her. If the main shoot really ended. After the heat of that day passed. Perhaps after they had crossed even deeper lines. Would the two of them still look at her with the same eyes? Would they greet her as warmly as before when she opened the workshop door? Or would they become slightly awkward? Would they look at her with looser eyes, like a woman they had already seen everything of, a memory already in the past?
Eunju unconsciously pressed her lips together. If that happened, she would probably pretend nothing was wrong. She would smile, wash the cups, talk about black bean noodles, and try to move on to photography talk. But her body would know first. Ah, it’s different now. The moment she felt that, her pride would probably be wounded. She wouldn’t get angry with them. She wouldn’t be able to resent them. Because she was the one who had approached them first. Still, it might become difficult to return to the workshop again.
If she began to feel like an unwelcome woman. If she felt that only the brief time when she had been pretty remained, and afterward she had become an awkward guest, Eunju might stop coming altogether. That thought frightened her more than offering her body. More than being embraced by younger men. More than showing shameful poses in front of the camera. The cooling of their gazes afterward terrified her most.
Eunju paused for a moment in front of the building. She looked at her reflection in the glass door. Today’s self looked calmer than before. But inside her eyes was a tension she could not hide. In a short span of time, too many thoughts about physical and emotional love between men and women had passed through her. Having a body. Giving one’s heart. Desire cooling. What remains even so.
Once, Eunju had not thought deeply about such things. She had lived long with her husband, raised children, and believed that couples simply grew accustomed to each other. She had thought that both body and love gradually wore down in daily life. But now she saw differently.
If Hyeonwu and Doyun looked at her with such longing because they had not yet had her, then what was Minjun? The question rose suddenly. Minjun was the man who had possessed her longer than anyone. He had seen the young Eunju, her pregnant body, her exhausted body after giving birth, the body that had slowly changed with age. He was the man who had held her until he must have grown tired of it. Perhaps the man in the world who knew her body the longest and most completely. So why did Minjun still look at her that way?
Why did he swallow hard while watching her stand in front of younger men’s cameras? Why, when she said she wanted to look beautiful to other men, did he feel more like collaborating on the order of events than feeling hurt? Why, the farther she tried to go, did he try to watch even more closely?
Eunju lingered over that question for a long time. Perhaps Hyeonwu and Doyun longed for her precisely because they had not yet had her. But Minjun was the man who had already possessed all of her. Even so, his eyes had not cooled. They had simply changed shape. Not the impatient eyes of a young man, but the strangely heated eyes of a husband who had lived with her for years. Eyes that did not want to lose her, yet wanted to see her go even farther. Eyes that tried to embrace even the scene of her being revealed as a woman inside other men’s desire as part of his own love.
Eunju let out a slow breath. Perhaps Minjun was the strangest man of all. Not cooled because he had possessed her for so long, but now seeing her again in a different way precisely because he had known her for so long. The thought made her heart tremble a little.
The fear did not disappear completely. She still didn’t know whether Hyeonwu and Doyun would look at her with the same eyes after they had her. But at least one thing seemed clear. Minjun would still look at her afterward. No matter what form she took. No matter what lines she crossed and returned from. Minjun would probably want to confirm all of it with his own eyes.
Eunju stepped inside the building. As she climbed the stairs, her heart beat a little faster. When she stood in front of the workshop door, she heard faint voices from inside. It sounded like Hyeonwu’s voice, and also like Doyun’s laughter. Eunju placed her hand on the doorknob. She hesitated for a second. What if, when the door opened, the two of them didn’t greet her the way they used to?
The thought brushed past her one last time. But soon Eunju gave a small smile. Nothing had happened yet. Their eyes had not yet been tested. She had not yet stepped into the photographs. And today, she was the one who had come to speak first.
Eunju took a breath and opened the door.
“I’m here.”
The two men inside the workshop lifted their heads at the same time.