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While faking his own death and killing Player 390 is easy, the screams of despair that follow In-ho up the stairs add an unexpected lump right where his throat and chest meet, burning, almost painful.
Everyone has their weaknesses. Gi-hun’s is his naivety, In-ho’s is Gi-hun.
Fascination is what it starts with – long before Gi-hun even wins the 33rd game. It’s somewhere between Gi-hun’s failed attempt to kidnap In-ho and In-ho infiltrating his own game as a player among others when In-ho understands the nature of his weakness.
He’s found himself a match, someone ready to challenge him, someone worth his time, worth his interest, worth his devotion.
“Bring him up to my office,” the Front Man tells his soldiers through the two-way communicator and steps in the middle of the control room to oversee the cameras that are still working.
The stairwell from what In-ho can see, albeit still full of bodies, has calmed down from before and the rest of the players have been circled back to the dormitory. All of the cameras in the dormitory have been shot dead, but the silence through the communicator is enough of an indication for In-ho to believe everything’s under control.
They’ll be resuming their normal schedule in no-time – continue the games as intended.
With one last nod to the manager, In-ho retreats to his office where he knows Gi-hun will be waiting for him.
The sorrow on Gi-hun’s face is instantly replaced with anger as In-ho steps inside the room. In-ho tilts his masked face and motions for the soldiers to leave them alone – Gi-hun’s restraints won’t give him any leverage over In-ho, as hard as he’s trying to tear his arms from behind his back. His legs have been restrained against the chair he’s sitting in, and the chair won’t budge.
“There’s no point,” In-ho says, his voice getting filtered through the mask. “You’re powerless here.”
Gi-hun spits. It misses In-ho barely.
“You and I, we’re more similar than you know,” In-ho continues conversationally. “You’ll realize it soon.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Gi-hun grits out.
Oh, Gi-hun.
“You mind if I sit?” the Front Man asks, motioning towards the couch opposite to Gi-hun’s chair and then sits down before getting an answer. “I’m merely following a bigger plan. You’ve got me all wrong.”
“You killed Jung-bae! You could stop this all right now!”
In-ho swallows the flash of jealousness in the mention of Player 390. He ignores it, moves straight to the second sentence. And, yes. “Perhaps I could,” he answers. For a few seconds, In-ho considers what would happen if he did put an end to it all to please Gi-hun. It's a foolish imaginary. “But is that truly what you want?”
“Of course that’s what I want!” Gi-hun spits. “For you to put an end to the games.”
“Your passion is misplaced,” In-ho says. “Tell me, why did you voluntarily return?”
“To put an end to this,” Gi-hun answers instantly.
“No,” In-ho disagrees, “you came to play. You’re a gambler, a player. You could’ve taken the plane, Gi-hun, and you didn’t. You could’ve taken the money, and lived with it.”
“I am going to end the games,” Gi-hun says again, stubborn, weak. “It’s blood money. I don’t want it.”
“You should’ve just taken the plane, my friend.”
Gi-hun tries to leap forward, the restraints stopping him almost instantly. “I’m not your friend, Jung-bae was my friend!”
In-ho feels another flash of jealousness, hurt. Hides it in his sleeve with his other weaknesses.
“I have brought you here for a choice, Player 456,” In-ho says. The anger on Gi-hun’s face stays, but there’s a short moment where In-ho recognizes curiosity. Good. “You can either decide to return to the dormitory to the other players still alive, alone after losing all of your friends by bringing them to an unwinnable battle. Or, you could join me and the VIPs to watch the rest of the game. If I was you, I’d choose wisely. No one has won the games twice.”
Gi-hun’s anger mixes with disappointment.
“You didn’t think I would actually end the games here?” In-ho asks. “You’re foolish. There are things in play you’ll never understand.”
“And you’re sick!” Gi-hun’s voice gets louder. “What do you get out of killing innocent people?”
In-ho shrugs. “What do you get out of voluntarily fighting for your life while all of your friends die off one by one? What do you get out of killing masked soldiers? They are people too, young with a life still in front of them. What do you get out of letting other players die for – how did you say it again, for the greater good?”
Gi-hun snaps his mouth shut.
“I was you,” In-ho confesses. “I know how it goes. Obsession, returning, all of it.”
“I could never become a pawn for this game,” Gi-hun argues. “I’ll never be–”
“You’re missing my point, Gi-hun,” In-ho interrupts. “I won, I returned. You won, you returned. We share something no one else could ever understand.”
That makes Gi-hun stop. In-ho has learned to read the other man, can see the gears turning inside his head.
“You won? You won the games?” Gi-hun asks.
“And I didn’t take the plane either,” In-ho confirms.
Gi-hun clearly considers his words, looks around the room before turning back to In-ho’s masked face. “Who are you? Why are you telling me this?”
“Choose wisely,” In-ho remarks.
“What would you get out of me staying here, not returning to the games?”
In-ho tuts. “Make your decision, Player 456.”
Gi-hun slumps against the chair. Looks at the screen on the wall, showing multiple empty hallways and a few shots of the dormitory, old cameras replaced with new ones. The players are clumped together in two groups quite like before, defeated.
“You returned as a player?”
“No,” In-ho answers honestly, “not until recently.”
“You won again, then, recently? Who are you?” Gi-hun asks, and there's that curiosity again.
In-ho shakes his head. “As I said, people don’t tend to win twice.”
He’s probably given away too much already, but Gi-hun is already moving on, “So, I either go back to the games, probably die, and this conversation–, all of this has been for nothing? Or I’ll stay with you, get answers while watching everyone else die? Nothing happens to the game, and it will go on?” he asks. “I rather you’d kill me.”
In-ho sighs against the mask.
“What do you propose, then? I will not kill you.”
“Why are you gaining from keeping me alive? What do you get out of me joining you?” Gi-hun demands again.
Everything, In-ho wants to answer. Someone that can challenge me. Someone I think is worth my commitment.
“Pick,” In-ho ignores Gi-hun’s words, “I can also just keep you here. Restrained, alone, unfed.”
Gi-hun stares at him blankly, unreadable. In-ho stares back through the mask.
“If I win the game, will you put an end to it?” Gi-hun asks, then. In-ho is taken aback by Gi-hun’s sudden interest to counter his offer.
He could lie, say yes, of course, and let Gi-hun go complete the game – let him die with the others. It would be the easy option. Should be the easy option. Killing is easy, letting people die is easy.
Not when it comes to Gi-hun, apparently.
“No,” he answers, honestly. “There will not be ending the games. That’s not something I’m willing to gamble on.”
Gi-hun seems to consider it, then asks, “Your life, then? Are you willing to gamble with your life?”
In-ho finds that yes, he is. “What are you offering me?”
“We join the game together, we play together, we die together. You said you and I are similar, then you’re a player, too. A gambler. You crave for it. Play with me,” Gi-hun lays out his proposal.
“I thought your end goal was to end the game, not to end me,” In-ho says. His voice feels heavy.
“Maybe my end goal has shifted,” Gi-hun answers. “Maybe it got personal. You clearly have made it personal, for whatever reason.”
In-ho mulls over the offer. It’s tempting, interesting, even worth his time. His end goal has been to make Gi-hun understand where his fascination for the game actually stems from, see In-ho’s side of it, keep him from causing more trouble so the game goes on. This, though, this is an offer he is willing to take.
In-ho makes a decision, briefly wondering if willing to die for Gi-hun should be an indication of something even bigger than just willingness of devotion.
He stands up. Gi-hun follows him with his eyes.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” In-ho says shortly, bringing a hand to his mask.
He pulls it over his head and sees the moment of recognition fall on Gi-hun’s face.
“Young-il?” Gi-hun breathes out. “You–,”
“In-ho,” In-ho corrects him, flashing an easy, emotionless smile. “Hwang In-ho. I believe you know my brother. Pleasure to meet you at last, Seong Gi-hun.”
In-ho expects for two different reactions – either they go back to point zero, Gi-hun spitting on him, tearing his wrists open from trying to get out of his restraints, or Gi-hun’s jaw reaching the floor with how low it’s hanging open. “It’s rude to stare,” In-ho says.
“It’s rude to lie,” Gi-hun collects himself quickly to answer. “I trusted you.”
The words are not accompanied by spitting or lunging. Gi-hun sounds hurt, like Young-il has meant something for him.
Maybe he has. In-ho wishes to mean something even more.
“I’m willing to take your offer,” In-ho says. “Playing together, dying together. I will return to the game with you. For you. That, or you stay here with me, like in my first proposition.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you get it, Gi-hun? I’m willing to die for you, what more should I say for you to understand?” In-ho asks, kneeling in front of Gi-hun’s chair. “The games are bigger than you and I. The games will not end. This is all I can give you.”
Oh, how the roles have been reversed – In-ho, showing all of his cards, and Gi-hun hiding behind a steel mask.
“Are you–,” Gi-hun starts after a few moments, then stops, blinking at In-ho, “are you in love with me?”
That’s not at all what In-ho expects the question to be.
“I’m willing to play with you, die for you,” he repeats his words from before, because that’s the only way he knows to answer. It’s been long since In-ho has felt anything resembling love, and he’s not sure he ever could.
“Then, let’s play.”