Love this! I agree. I wonder what your thoughts are on Blind Play.
Blind Play...
while I started reading it and stopped after the "blind" guy's session with the author...I'm not real sure yet.
When it comes to stories about dangerous situations, my impression is for the main character to not go back once it's done. So my impression, up to that point, is for the guy to quit that job, change his hairstyle, and pretend he earned enough to get surgery so he can see again...because the last thing he should be doing is going back to being a blind callboy who just might be subjected to that author's sick habits again.
But where would the story be if he made a clean break, right?
The one point that made Killing Stalking work was that both guys were in situations they couldn't, nor can't, get themselves out of. They were damaged before the story began.
this was one heck of a read!
I decided to try this out to see what kind of story it was. I wanted to compare it to the comments I've seen comparing this to stories like Obey Me and Warehouse...heck, I wanted to compare it to comments people were making when they compared Sangwoo to Seungho from Painter of the Night.
So what do I think?
I think this is one of those stories you can't make fair comparisons for because it's so well written and the root reason for the relationship between Sangwoo and Bum is on a totally different level simply because of Sangwoo himself.
He's not gay.
He's not obsessed with Bum romantically.
When he lashes out at Bum, it's not Bum he's looking at. Every action Sangwoo takes is eclipsed by the trauma his mother put him through. So he doesn't see anything as what it is. He can't process his thoughts that way.
For Sangwoo, Bum is a conflation of his mother as well as a pet who can also be used like a girl when needed.
Warehouse's main plot was a guy getting revenge on another guy by locking him up in some building and raping him....all because neither party could get their feelings cleared up.
Obey Me is over the top ridiculousness. I don't like "torture porn," stories. I couldn't continue reading it, so I dropped it.
Painter of the Night is a historical romantic drama featuring a bi-polar noble who is told his homosexuality is a disease, and a talented painter who grew up in a brothel and was told by his admired tutor that the homosexual nature of his depictions were indecent. (I'm still invested in this story because I really like it.)
Killing Stalking is not a romance. And while yaoi moments do happen, Sangwoo doesn't do it because he wants Bum. He does it because "its" there. A hole.
Sangwoo's end was interesting. While his mother didn't succeed in smothering him when he was small, someone else did it for her after he became an adult. And though she spoke of a painful death, he did die emotionally and physically alone.
Now do I believe Bum died at the end? I couldn't care, really. I don't think the point of that ending is his death, but his refusal to stop his obsession to follow Sangwoo.