world is on my shoulders, keep your body open

by imarvelatstars

Summary:

It wasn't supposed to end this way. Gi-hun had thought that by pushing you away, he might spare you the pain and misery that an association with him will always bring. He hadn't known you might actually die at the hands of the Frontman.

In-ho had thought that bringing Gi-hun into the Games and forcing you to comply would end with his victory. But now that he has you right where he wants you, In-ho finds that things aren't quite as simple as he once thought.

What happens when the man who runs the Games and the man obsessed with bringing them to ruin are both forced to come to terms with the truth of their feelings for you?

Notes:

Just a quick reminder that reader is a foreign college student, and has no physical descriptors or gendered language so that all readers can enjoy the story ♡

Chapter 1: lost in the fog

---

In-ho’s hands shake when he reaches for the bottle of antiseptic. “Get out,” he snaps to the guards lingering at your side. They look at him, then to each other, then down at you where you’re bleeding all over his chair. He grits his teeth behind the mask. “Out.”

The taller guard hesitates. “… Sir–”

“Go to the dormitory and get things under control.”

He waits for the elevator doors to close before he’s wetting some gauze and covering your mouth with it until you’re fully unconscious. Only then does he rip off his mask, gasping for air in an environment that suddenly feels custom-built to suffocate him. He can’t afford for you to see his face yet, but the longer he wears the mask, the more confined he feels. It makes his vision tunnel and his ears ring, and neither of those will save you from bleeding out, so he’s relieved that you go down without a fight, something of a small mercy considering the circumstances. Perhaps in another life In-ho would feel guilty for sedating you, but this is only one of many sins he has committed against you – what difference is one more? He could choose to leave you half conscious while he operates, but it would only cause more pain. This is mercy.

He takes a swig of whiskey before turning on the screen. The ambient sounds of players idling and whispering is soothing in much the same way that watching a wild animal pace in its cage is soothing, in witnessing how nature runs its course, how the strong survive and the weak perish. It is soothing in the way it feels like history repeating itself, something familiar to ease the ache of existence.

A few quick swipes of the scissors leave the left shoulder of your shirt in tatters, allowing In-ho to swipe away the blood and better inspect your wound. From the looks of things, the bullet went all the way through. What a shame that all of this might have been prevented.

He quickly douses his hands and forceps in antiseptic before taking a moment to simply… look, to study you. To hang his head and sigh.

Why couldn’t you have stayed where you belonged? In-ho would have preferred it if you had remained among the gutter trash and hidden like a coward. A sardonic smile twists his mouth into something unrecognizable. If he and Gi-hun have ever been in agreement on a single thing, it’s that you should never have been anywhere near the fighting, and yet Gi-hun still made the decision to bring you into the fight. Gi-hun is the one who chose to shower you in his so-called “blood money”. Gi-hun is the one who chose to bring you into not only the rebellion, but the grander battle between himself and the Frontman. All of this is Gi-hun’s fault, In-ho was merely following through.

Another glass of whiskey, half-full and uncharacteristically bitter, slides down his throat, the rim  slick with his saliva and a smear of blood where his thumb had slipped. He doesn’t even bother to wipe it away. For a fleeting moment, he allows himself to savor the coppery tang of it on his tongue, to press it against the back of his teeth until it soaks into his gums and part of you becomes a part of him.

Your body trembles when the antiseptic pours through the bullet hole, and he pauses for a moment to make sure you aren’t awake again. It would do neither of you any favors if you were to wake up and find Young-il in the Frontman’s attire, nursing your wounds. You aren’t ready, and In-ho isn’t certain how, when, or even if you ever will be. Fortunately, your body relaxes once the initial sting wears off and allows him to finish patching you up. If his mind wanders towards his brother and the bullet Jun-ho once left inside him, he pays it no mind. There isn’t time for such sentimentalities.

When Gi-hun is carted into the dormitory, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the display. Everything is quiet for a few minutes. 120 and 007 carry him onto the nearest bed. They speak quietly, too low for any of the cameras to pick up. Then Gi-hun wakes. Then In-ho sees the grief in his eyes, the bloodshot terror and regret that penetrates him down to the bone, and his stomach twists painfully in response. He had worn an expression not so unlike it nine years ago. How strange to see himself reflected in those eyes that, when last fixed upon him, had looked at him with hope.

Hope. In-ho scoffs and pours another shot of whiskey. Hope is fickle. It’s about time Gi-hun learned that.

The liquor swirls absently in his hand as the manager announces the consequences of the rebellion. “As a result of the additional Games, another 35 players were eliminated, bringing the current number of remaining players to 60.” Many of the O players appear to revel in the light of the won-stuffed pig that hangs over their heads. “The total prize is now 39.6 billion won and each player's share is 761 million won. We will now begin another round of voting to determine if you wish to proceed to the next game.”

The apartment is quiet, yet Seong Gi-hun manages to fill every corner and void with his anguish. “Why didn’t you kill me? Why did you let me live?” He approaches the guards without fear or hesitation, only the burning embers of his grief alight in his eyes. “Why?” One of the guards raises their weapon in warning, but Gi-hun takes it as an invitation, grabs it by the muzzle and aims it at his head as he screams. In-ho thinks he sees a flicker of bare hands grasping for the trigger, but he tells himself it’s only a trick of the light. “Shoot. Shoot me, you bastards! Shoot me! Kill me too!”

He takes a long drink. Gi-hun gets tackled to the floor like a criminal. It’s a familiar sight for Hwang In-ho, former darling of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

“Why did you let me live? Why? What else do you bastards want from me?”

But no amount of familiarity can explain away the guilt he feels coiling up inside him like a viper. Player 456 is weeping, restrained and desperate and in the most exquisite pain a person could ever experience – In-ho would know, of course. This is a victory.

“Why didn't you just kill me? You won! So go ahead and kill me!”

So why doesn’t it feel like one?

---

Everywhere he looks, he sees it.

Your tear-streaked cheeks. The horror in your eyes. The panic. The fear. “Gi-hun!” you cried, and he’d felt the knife in his gut twist even tighter.

Blood. Dead bodies. Guards in pink suits and shattered masks.

The Captain.

“Player 456, please cast your vote.”

It should have been me, he thinks. You should be here now, looking at him, hoping, fighting desperately for the chance to live free again.

“If you do not express an intent to vote by the count of three, it will be considered an abstention.”

They’d pressed a gun to your skull and made you kneel. Made you watch. Made you cry and bruise, and he couldn’t do a thing.

“Did you have fun playing the hero?”

Gi-hun shakes. The metal around his wrist clatters softly against the bedframe, and all he can think of is how much he wishes that bullet had been his. That he had been the one to die.

The gun meant for him. The man destined to kill him. “Look closely at the consequences of your self-righteousness.” He didn’t look away. Couldn’t.

“Player 456 has forfeited his vote and as such, his will not be added to either tally.”

And why should he care? What use is the vote anymore? What’s the point of anything?

Your face swims before him now. It’s distorted, painted in streaks of red and sweat, half the innocent student you’d been the night he met you and half the grief-stricken soldier he’d molded you into.

His fault. His self-righteousness.

“I don’t want you to die.”

He should have known.

Your face loses its shape until it becomes unrecognizable. “I just thought… how they used to call our names when… when our moms had made supper for us,” you gasp through the droplets of rain showering your face. You sound so much like Sang-woo. Or maybe Sang-woo sounds so much like you. “That won't happen again.”

Nothing he touches ever stays alive.

“When we get out, let's go for a drink and talk.” Gi-hun feels his lungs start to collapse. “Let them both stay, Gi-hun-a. I’ll find another team.” He sees Jung-bae’s face and feels so empty inside, he’s almost sick. “We’ll see you again at the finish line!”

The other players make a mockery of him. It doesn’t hurt the way he thought it would. It doesn’t hurt because it wounds him, it hurts because you’re dead and they’re all laughing. Saying he planned it from the start. Made you his sacrificial lamb. You’re dead and they blame him.

He blinks emptily at the floor. At the wall. He looks everywhere, but he can’t find you, and they’re blaming him for all of it. They don’t know just how right they are.

“Oh, you poor fool.”

It takes him a moment to realize this voice is different from the others. No less pitying, but closer, sharper. He frowns as he comes out of his haze, only to find himself looking into the shaman woman’s eyes as she crouches in front of him. Looks at him with the lazy smile of a victim who fancies herself the predator.

“What did I tell you? You're not here of your own volition, are you? It was the vengeful souls hovering over you that dragged you here.” I don’t want to die, you’d told him, and just look at how he’s failed you. “Do you hear that? It's the sound of all your little friends, screaming into your ears from the dead.”

Too many memories come rushing back to him to make sense of, but the faces are painfully familiar – Sae-byok, Sang-woo, Jung-bae, his mother, you. He squeezes his eyes shut, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re still dead.

The shaman hums to herself, bemused, perhaps, with his grief. “Ah, but cover them all you want, it won't stop the noise. You'll only hear them scream louder each day.” His breath catches in his throat. Stop talking. Just leave me here to rot. “And you… you're going to continue to hear them from now until the day that you die.”

In truth, Gi-hun never expected to survive this place. He barely escaped the first Game with his life. He always knew that coming back would be a death sentence. That’s why he kept you at arm’s distance for so long, why he never dared to dream or hope for anything good in his life until Halloween night, when he looked you in your eyes and took the one thing for himself he had always wanted but never dared to truly have.

You died because he gave you blood money. You died because he put a target on your back. You died because he actually thought he survived for a purpose. It’s his fault. And that’s when he realizes why his hand is clenched so tightly, why the flesh beneath his fingers feels strange, why the eyes he’s staring into aren’t his own.

“He sick,” one of her devoted followers whispers once they’ve pried their leader from his hand. “There’s something wrong with him,” says another.

Maybe they’re right, too. Maybe he’s always been sick in the head, broken in some irreparable way. He wonders now if it all started when he was born, or if the corruption came later. Maybe it was the first time he shoved Sang-woo to the ground when they were children. Maybe it was the night he saw someone murdered before his eyes, the night his daughter was born. Maybe it was the gambling. Maybe it was every won selfishly stolen from his mother. Maybe he’s just been lying to himself every day of his life, trying to be something he isn’t, trying to fight for the innocent and the downtrodden without ever realizing that he was the problem all along.

“I should’ve done more,” Hyun-ju later laments. She and the few remaining players who are on Gi-hun’s side have come to sit with him in the space between the vote and the next Game. “I should’ve tried harder to get the ammo back for you.”

Truthfully, Gi-hun doesn’t have the heart to care anymore.

“That wasn’t your fault,” says Geum-ja, and she pats Hyun-ju’s arm in an attempt to soothe her. “You and [___]-ssi both tried your best.”

And then, suddenly, the entire world grinds to a halt. Because the moment your name is spoken aloud, he can see you. He can actually see you. Blood-splattered shoes, wide and teary eyes. You’re looking at him from across the room. You’re saying his name. You’re pleading. You’re–

You’re dead. He remembers that and the illusion fades, but the shape of you lingers in his chest. There’s a hole in his heart that you used to occupy, a place where your presence stopped the flow of blood oozing out of his unhealed wounds, and now that you’re gone he feels constantly on the cusp of bleeding out.

You’re dead, and whose fault is that, exactly?

The universe seems to answer with a name. He thinks he hears it mentioned in passing by the ghosts whispering, hovering around him, but he’s too bereaved to pay much attention to the details. He asked a question and the universe has chosen to answer.

Dae-ho.

He watches, fascinated to a sickening degree, as Player 388 devours his food several beds away. He remembers the gunfight, the confusion, the despair threatening to choke the life out of him. He remembers asking for help and being told that Kang Dae-ho would be the one to retrieve the extra ammunition. Kang Dae-ho would be the one to bring salvation to his failing uprising. And he remembers the tremble in your voice when you picked up the radio and promised to fill the role that Kang Dae-ho had left behind.

“–aid that he was panicking.” Hyun-ju’s voice echoes in his ears as reality slowly comes back into focus. But for Gi-hun, he still feels like his head’s been forced underwater. “Too many soldiers come back different. I don’t… I don’t think it was his fault.”

Gi-hun feels his expression twitch in disagreement. If it isn’t Dae-ho’s fault, then whose is it? Dae-ho was the one who volunteered. Dae-ho was the one who was supposed to help the uprising survive. Dae-ho was the one who allowed his cowardice to end the lives of his entire team. Your life. The life that the Captain so easily snuffed out. And if Gi-hun can’t claw his way back into the management area and shove the muzzle of a gun down the Captain’s throat, then he will take his revenge some other way because Gi-hun won’t let your death be in vain.

And so he sits. He watches. He waits. And when Dae-ho, coward that he is, finally dares to meet his eyes, Gi-hun says everything with his stare that he cannot bring himself to say aloud: this is all your fault, and I’ll make sure you pay for what you’ve done.

---

There’s music playing. Not the same awful classical music you’ve been waking to for the past few days, but something softer. Smoother. It sounds almost like jazz, or maybe some kind of vintage blues tune, and that’s as confusing as it is to wake up in a space that isn’t the player’s sleeping room. Mostly because you don’t remember ever going to sleep. You remember…

The pistol shifting. The monster in the mask – the Captain? – pulling the trigger. Gi-hun on his knees. All that blood. And Young-il…

You jolt upright with a shriek, your heart practically beating right out of your chest. Where’s Gi-hun? And where are you? What happened after you–?

The dull, burning ache of a bullet hole in your shoulder answers that question easily enough. Fuck. So he really did shoot you. That absolute fucking creep. After all these years of ruining Gi-hun’s life, of slaughtering countless people, he had to top it all off by shooting you? You suppose you should be thankful you’re still alive, but to what end? Most likely, everyone who works here knows your affiliation with Gi-hun by now. What if they want to interrogate you or something? Torture you? Would they go so far as to make an example of you? You’re not sure.

The place you’ve been relocated to doesn’t exactly answer any of those questions. It’s simultaneously dark and bright in this room, not quite the hopeless prison cell you were expecting. The walls are three dimensional, decorated in dark gray cubes that divide themselves into triangles. Even the furniture is dark – a desk, the light fixtures, the bar, even the plush lounging chair you’re currently seated in all share a similar shade of golden-brown occasionally marked with gray. Orangey light spews out from behind the muted lampshades. And the music… Just what kind of place is this? Is it another game?

You stand on unsteady legs, your head spinning as you try to make sense of this new world. A massive screen spans the wall opposite of you, but it’s off and you can’t see a remote anywhere, so that’s useless. A small table sits to the left of your previous seat. There’s an opened decanter of some kind of amber liquid, likely whiskey, as well as a frosted glass and a notable bloodstain, but nothing else. If this is a game, it’s unlike any of the others that have come before it. It’s too mature, too serious. There isn’t a hint of color here that even slightly resembles the sickly sweet pastels of the bathrooms, game arenas, or the halls that tie them all together.

So, does that mean you’re here… alone? A cursory glance down the only hallway that connects to your current location tells you that there are several other rooms. Maybe it’s a test. Pick the wrong door, get killed. Pick the right door, live to fight another day. That sounds sick enough to be a game the Captain might force you to play.

Only, there’s something familiar about the light fixture dangling from the hallway ceiling. It comes to you slowly at first, then violently all at once.

The guards, dazzlingly pink as the light passed over them. Your body limp in their hands. The Captain and his mathematical mask, the steel tools in his hands, the chemical smell of his gloves as he leaned over you. And the pain. God, all that pain…

Pressing your fingers to your shoulder is an awful mistake, though it confirms your suspicions that you’ve been operated on. You can feel the stitches and bandages through your shirt. But why would the Captain dress your wounds? After going through the trouble to shoot you and drag you away, after quite literally aiming at your head and firing his weapon, why not let you die? Or send you back to join the other players? Why waste any effort on you?

Gi-hun would know. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe you’re just grasping at straws because you’re stupid and alone and scared out of your mind, and you wish that you weren’t.

The door at the far end of the hall dings softly and the little light above the frame comes on, and you realize that it’s not a door at all, but an elevator. The only way in or out, assuming the other doors are just for decoration or to trick you. You scan your surroundings for something that might resemble a weapon, but there’s nothing worth your trouble except for the decanter and glass. And what would it matter if you had a weapon anyways? How can you fight against soldiers and machine guns with a wounded shoulder and no courage left to draw from?

You lunge for the decanter, hefting it in your right hand when your left arm threatens to give out under its weight, just as the elevator doors split and reveal the Captain to you. Only the Captain. There are no guards with him and you can’t spot any weapons. It’s just him and… the strange box he carries.

You swallow hard. Your feet shift a bit as he approaches, uncertain if you should try and run or stay put, but the opportunity to choose is gone before you have a chance to go one way or the other. The Captain stops at the back of the chair, looks at you, and sighs.

“You’ll only injure yourself further,” he says, his voice warped and heavy in your ears. The mask moves just slightly, you think in the direction of your raised hands and the decanter, but it’s hard to tell. “Sit.”

“Fuck you,” you snarl.

The remaining items on the side table are cleared so the box can be settled there, every movement careful and precise, every second agonizingly slow. And when the Captain huffs to himself under that stupid fucking mask, you swear you hear him laughing. “That’s no way to thank me for saving your life,” he muses.

Ice cold disgust prickles down your spine. “You shot me,” comes the bitter, trembling response that makes your nose and eyes sting with unspent rage.

The box is opened. “I did.”

He turns his back just long enough for your anger to be made manifest. His gloved hands dip inside the box, the hood and mask turned away as if you’re not even worth a moment of doubt or hesitance, and you feel like you’re spinning on the Mingle carousel once more. Young-il is with you, a voice in your ear, a presence at your side, all empty eyes and endless depths, and suddenly you’re slamming the decanter down on the curve of his spine.

Liquor sloshes out the top, slicking your hands, while pain the likes you’ve never known before radiates up your injured arm, and suddenly you’re screaming. The pain, the anguish, the rage – it all boils over until you feel like you’re drowning in an endless sea. The Captain reaches for you. He’s harsh, his fingers digging into your skin until you wail. You can feel his eyes on you, peering through the mask like he wants to unravel you atom by atom, and then he’s wrestling you back into the chair and pinning you down with a hand dangerously close to your wound.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he pants.

But what else is there for you to do? There’s no Young-il, no Gi-hun. You’re alone in a room with the man who has orchestrated every agonizing moment you’ve spent in these games, who has tortured and haunted Gi-hun for as long as you’ve known him, who’s allowed the deaths of so many defenseless lives, and he expects you to, what? Lay down like a dog and take whatever he gives you?

You remember the way he’d stood over you – was it hours ago? days? mere minutes? – and leveled his pistol, and you’d thought he would put a bullet in your brain, and you remember Gi-hun’s screams and Young-il’s final breaths, and you feel something inside you shatter.

The Captain digs the meat of his palm into the tender line of your shoulder, just inches away from the still raw stitches and aching hole in your flesh, and your entire body goes limp as electric agony sears through your bones. “I don’t want to sedate you, but I will if you can’t behave.”

Behave? Behave?! Your lips curls in disgust as you lash out again, kicking your legs, snapping your teeth, swearing. After everything you know he’s done, he has the fucking audacity to speak to you li–?

The cloth fits perfectly over your nose and mouth. You inhale the heavy scent of chemicals, your mind hurtling itself back to the night in your apartment when the Square Mask had attacked you. You fight, of course, but you’re at a serious disadvantage. He’s broader, stronger, faster, and you’re wounded. And you can only hold your breath before so long.

You never stood a chance.

Notes:

my love and appreciation goes to @squidbrainz on tumblr for their amazing new sequel to "4æm", "oblivion". that was the kick in the pants that i finally needed to get this chapter posted! thank you bestie!!! and all gi-hun stans need to go read both fics ASAP

Chapter 2: give up the game

Notes:

this chapter's title comes to you directly from sleep token's "sugar"

---

When you finally wake, In-ho is more thoroughly prepared. Your arms are restrained behind your back so you can’t pounce on him again when he isn’t prepared. (Though every time his thoughts drift back to the memory of your enraged expression and the blunt force of the whiskey bottle on his back, he feels something hot stir in the pit of his stomach.) The recordings of today’s earlier events are edited and neatly assembled, waiting only for the press of a button. He’s even transferred you to another chair – small, wooden, and uncomfortable in the hopes of discouraging you from being too difficult – and arranged you so you have a completely unobstructed view of the Games.

Well, unobstructed except for the slight intrusion of him and his plush chair seated directly opposite of you. He watches you for a moment, hands twitching atop his thighs with the need to light a cigar, or down another shot, anything that might lend him a moment of peace while he waits for the inevitable.

Your chair creaks as your arms, bound together by a pair of handcuffs, strain against the wooden back. Everything that isn’t you simply fades away. “You fucking drugged me,” you spit at him, your voice still roughened from your bought of unconsciousness.

Rather than reply, In-ho settles back in his chair and studies you openly. Always so stubborn, even when it benefits you to obey. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve forced his hand yet again, but it does amuse him that you’re so determined to cause problems for yourself. This could all be so much easier if only you would listen.

“Stop looking at me.” Oh, if only you knew just how long he’s been looking. “Stop it.”

He leans forward, his elbows braced against the plush arms of the chair while the leather creaks under his weight. “I have a proposition for you.” And how he loves the fire in your eyes when you look at him. “I’m sure you have questions. I will answer them if you play a game with me.”

There. The flicker of fear he’d seen before suddenly blazes to life. What are you thinking about, he wonders? Are you recalling the first recruiter sent to propel you into the Games? Are you thinking of Mingle? The six-legged race? It’s a shame he can’t read your thoughts. In-ho imagines flipping through the pages of your mind would be as intriguing as it would be to crack Seong Gi-hun open at the seams and tear all his carefully crafted morals to shreds. Still, he can certainly prod at your wounds until you break apart on command.

A remote is pulled from his coat pocket and the security screen fizzles to life, casting new light across the planes of your face. One by one, sections of the screen come into focus to create a patchwork of pseudo live-feed images: the stars dotted along the walls of the maze reflect in your eyes when you turn.

“Player 456 was a gambling man before he met you. Did he ever tell you?” He can’t help it, can’t fight the urge to pick at your scabs until they bleed, to tarnish the idol of Gi-hun that stands so tall and proud in your mind. Because he knows that you don’t know. There are so many things Gi-hun hasn’t told you in the hopes of remaining your battle-weary savior, but In-ho knows the truth and he wants you to know it too. He wants you to understand. “He bet on horses. I’m sure you understand the concept.”

Uncertainty and indignation flits across your features. Yes, you understand, you just don’t have all the pieces yet and In-ho is enjoying relinquishing new parts of the puzzle to you as he sees fit. He relishes the control, the whiskey-smooth taste of reclaimed power and abandoned weaknesses.

“Which horse has the best chance of winning? Which horse is more likely to lose? How should you divide your bets?” He leans back until his shoulders hit something soft and he exhales heavily, letting the sound reverberate in your ears for a few moments, letting you wonder and guess where the Game will lead you next. “I’m curious to know which horse you think will win.”

It only takes a moment for your face to shift and twist. Uncertainty becomes understanding becomes full comprehension. There you are, he thinks.

He gestures to the screen and stands, turning to observe it head-on. “60 players remain after your revolt,” he explains, though he pauses just long enough to see if you take the bait. Young-il may be dead, but In-ho recalls your frustrations with perfect clarity. He remembers your anger and your fear, how you had pawed at Gi-hun and begged him not to go, and he thinks it a shame to leave that well untapped.

The lump in your throat bobs precariously as you consider him. “Did you kill Gi-hun?”

He pretends it doesn’t bother him that you ask about 456 first rather than Young-il. “And what would you do if I did?” he asks.

Your handcuffs clink noisily against the wood backing of your chair, quickly accompanied by the sound of your teeth grating and your poorly suppressed hiss as the movement strains your bullet wound. “Did you?”

“I didn’t.” But how great the temptation had been.

“Then why am I here?”

The weight and shape of unshed tears in your voice does not move him because nothing moves the Frontman, but the ghost of Young-il pulls at his heart in a way that makes him feel sick. In-ho thinks of your kiss – the closest he’s been to another human in nine years – and he thinks of his wife, and he knows the answer is one he can never give you.

The vein in his jaw ticks irritably. “I will allow you the chance to bet on the fate of five players, as well as the goal of each Game. For every bet you place correctly, I will answer a question. For every bet you place incorrectly, you will have to answer a question of my own.”

Yet all his frustration melts away when In-ho sees just how enraged the proposition makes you. “Why the fuck,” you start, and he feels his chest tighten to a painful degree, “would I play a game with you? You’re the sick bastard who started all this. It’s your fault that–”

“If you want an answer, you’ll have to play the game.”

“I–!” Your anger dissolves into wordless sputterings flung carelessly at him, but none of the vaguely barbed insults you seem to be attempting to verbalize land. In-ho waits, watches with baited breath, eager for the game – the only game that truly matters now – to begin.

It takes you a few moments. “Fine,” you eventually sigh, your nostrils flaring and the seam of your lips parted just enough to show the way your tongue presses up against your teeth in disdain. “What am I supposed to do?”

Anger is a handsome look on you, as much as halfhearted resignation is a beautiful reflection within your eyes. In-ho, for once, finds himself glad for the mask he wears if only because it allows him the opportunity to look without remorse. How intimately familiar it is to study you through a lens and watch the way you respond to the world. How utterly strange it is to finally do so in person. As he has for the past three years now, he chases the feeling with reckless abandon, allowing it to seep into his flesh until he’s sick with the suggestion of you.

He gestures to the screen. “Tell me what you think.” Show me what lies behind that mask. “What do you see?”

Your head tilts as you examine the star-dappled maze, devoid of players for only a few minutes more, and In-ho suddenly finds himself standing in a gallery on a university campus, watching the way your mouth purses or your brows twitch, watching you scribble your notes. The first time he truly opened his heart to you, even though he had managed to lie to himself so thoroughly about his intentions that it is only now he realizes how weak he is when it comes to you. How weak he has always been.

“It’s a maze,” you sigh. “I’m not sure what else there is to see.”

In-ho tsks. “You can tell me more than that.”

He enjoys the less than subtle roll of your eyes, how easily your frustration comes to the surface with so little effort on his part. If he lies to himself only a little, he might almost pretend that things are how they once were – Americanos, late night texts, and promises he never intended to keep but offered all the same.

“There are doors, so… maybe shortcuts that lead through the maze? Or trapdoors that get you eliminated?”

“Very good.” It’s meant as a mere formality, though the flicker of your eyelids tells him that you do not appreciate it.

A quick press of a few buttons switches the camera feed from the maze to the player hall, and your attention immediately fixes upon Gi-hun, as it always has, and In-ho does not feel bitter about it because this was all his design. “He’s alive,” you breathe, and In-ho does not feel bitter about that either.

“You’ll find I have little reason to lie to you.”

“Why… Why is he cuffed?” Pity and pain shine brightly in your eyes, a light that In-ho cannot ignore no matter how he wants to. “What did you do to him?”

He glances down at his subtly shaking hands as Gi-hun’s pleas for death echo in the back of his skull. If he is grateful for anything, it’s that you were unconscious when Gi-hun put the nearest muzzle to his head and tried to pull the trigger. He’s certain you would have attempted something drastic had you seen. It’s better this way. It’s better that you don’t know the full extent of your friend’s ideations. You should be grateful.

“Player 456 broke the rules of the Game,” he tells you, the same lie he’s been telling himself. “His bravery was as stupid as it was useless, so he must bear the punishment that he has earned.”

Your eyes cut him right to the core. “He was trying to save people. Innocent people.”

A glimmer of light slips through the cracks in your mask, another weak point for In-ho to press the advantage and crumble your defenses. “Innocent,” he muses, and he almost dares to laugh, but it’s all for show. He can admit that to himself, at the very least. He isn’t amused by your vitriol or by the lies you tell yourself about the human filth you’ve been fighting alongside, but the Frontman… The Frontman knows better. “Innocent like Player 100?”

All the color drains from your face in an instant, and In-ho feels his chest swell with emotion – guilt? pride? satisfaction? He isn’t sure.

“Or perhaps you’re referencing Players 343 and 428.” And he recalls the feeling of a life ending at his own hands, the blood slicked across your skin. The fear. The anguish. The arousal. “You and Player 001 made quite the team. I wonder who else you might have killed together if I hadn’t put a bullet in his head.”

His pulse is roaring in his ears by now. Sweat prickles at his hairline, dripping down the back of his neck as he watches your face contort under the weight of the truth. You’ve been lying to yourself, and perhaps he was doing the same to himself too, swearing that what happened during Mingle doesn’t define you even though you both know that it does.

Your head shakes frantically. “I-I didn’t– it’s not like that,” you stammer.

In-ho exhales heavily. “You were more alike than you realized.” It feels strangely like a confession, and that scares him.

“And you… you killed him.”

One of his hands starts to twitch, the leather gloves creaking under the pressure of his joints as they bend.

“You killed him!”

He sees Player 015’s face, bloody from the impact of In-ho’s bullets cutting through his flesh. He remembers holding the radio to 015’s lips to capture his dying breaths. He remembers the brief flicker of guilt when 015 had died under Young-il’s name.

I did what had to be done.

Because of Gi-hun, because of you. Because of the VIPs and the money, and the heartless society that created them all. In-ho did what he did because he had no other choice.

“He was a good man.” The wooden chair creaks noisily as you wrestle with it. He wouldn’t be surprised if you fought hard enough to break it since you’re so fond of causing trouble. It’s another irritating trait you’ve picked up from Gi-hun. “He was my friend!”

His hand lifts, fingers trembling, heart racing, as In-ho stares sightlessly through the mesh holes in his mask. He perceives your heartbreak, your tears, but only just. In truth, In-ho’s mind is far away. He’s thinking of the day you called him and begged for help because Gi-hun was missing. That was the first day he held you. He’s thinking of the challenge you gave him the moment you realized he was the deciding factor in the first vote. How you had forgiven him despite your frustrations. He’s thinking of how he’d kissed you mere hours ago, almost an entire day now, and how he wants so much more, but he knows it can never be.

Fingers rest gently on the underside of his chin, pushing the mask up just slightly. He thinks about all the secret fantasies he has treasured inside his rotting heart, the possibilities of what could be if only you understood, if it had only ever been him and you. No Games and no Gi-hun. Just two people and the gallery they found themselves in, standing together like an empty house and a dazzling little streetlight. He thinks about it all and he starts to push his hood back so he can break your heart the way that you and Gi-hun have broken his, only–

---

The sickly sweet voice of the announcer cuts through your anguish, drawing your attention back to the display screen above the Captain’s chair. You were so busy mourning Young-il that you’d fully forgotten about the game itself. “Players, what you see before you is the fate of those who refused to accept the results of our free and democratic voting process by attempting to forcibly put an end to the games through violent means.”

Bodies. Dead bodies. Corpses. Friends. Hung from the ceiling by their wrists like wild game caught after a hunt and displayed by the hunters with a self-satisfied smile. There’s so much blood.

“Let us be clear. We will not tolerate any further irrational behavior, or attempts to violate the fair, just, and clearly outlined rules of these games. Such actions will be punished in accordance with our strict regulations. We would like to thank you all for your understanding and cooperation.”

You frantically search the bodies for familiar faces, too horrified to look away but too sickeningly curious to stop yourself from wondering about their fate. The camera angle isn’t good, so some of the numbers are obscured, but you don’t see Dae-ho or Hyun-ju’s numbers. At first, you’re overwhelmed with relief, thinking that perhaps they’re still alive and have been forced to join the others players like Gi-hun was, but then you catch a glimpse of the Captain from the corner of your eye.

He adjusts his hood and mask before allowing his hands to clasp casually behind his back, face tilted toward the screen in what you assume is passive enjoyment. Could he have done to your friends what he did to you? What if Hyun-ju’s tied up, being tortured right now? Could she be behind one of the doors in this very room?

“Where are the others?” you ask. “The players you didn’t string up like carcasses. Where are they?”

The Captain doesn’t visibly react. God, you wish you could knock that stupid mask off his face and punch him in the teeth like he deserves.

“You have a game to study and five players to bet on,” he answers. “You had best choose now before I make the decision for you.”

You hate him. You hate him. He thinks he’s so smug hiding behind that mask, manipulating everyone and everything from behind the scenes so he never has to face the consequences of his actions. He’s a coward. Only a coward would hide behind a mask. Only a coward would restrain someone seriously wounded and force them to play games for his amusement.

But Gi-hun will show up eventually, right? He managed a rebellion the first time around and seemed to have gotten decently far. Couldn’t he try it again? For you?

That dream gets eviscerated pretty quickly, though, when you see the way Gi-hun is staring up at the bodies. He’s barely in frame, his face sliced in half by the edge of the camera, but you can see the despair clinging to his body. He suddenly looks ten years older than he usually does and ten kilos lighter, as if the effects of the uprising have stripped all the meat off his bones. Following the line of his gaze shows you the back of a dead player’s jacket, bloodstains dappling the spine and chest area where the too-familiar number ‘001’ is printed in white.

It's like Jung-bae all over again.

It should’ve been me. But it isn’t. A man with a too-kind heart has taken your place once more, dying in the very spot where you should have blinked out of existence, and now Gi-hun is left to pick up the pieces.

You glare at the Captain from under your brows. “Why am I here? Why didn’t you kill me?” Why have you been allowed to live when Young-il had to die? Why have you somehow managed to survive every single game so far while others have died, either through your own inaction or for your benefit? When will it end? “Answer me!”

The Captain sighs and turns to face you at last. “Then ask me a question worth answering,” he suggests, as casually as one might suggest turning on the light or ordering takeout. He continues before you even have the chance to spit hellfire at him. “What kind of game will be played today?”

Your shoulder protests loudly when you start tugging at your restraints again. It’s possible you even tear a stitch, but you don’t care. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore because everyone keeps dying and there’s nothing you or Gi-hun can do to stop it.

“I don’t give a fuck about your stupid game.”

“You should. I’d wager half of the players will be eliminated by the end. What do you think, [___]?”

If you could just get your hands on him, wrap your fingers around his throat and make him regret ever being born… “I think you’re a piece of shit who gets off on watching other people suffer. I think Gi-hun should’ve killed you when he had the chance!”

The Captain makes an amused sort of sound in the back his throat, not quite a laugh but not fully hidden either. Like he wants you to hear it. Like he wants you to know that he doesn’t take you seriously. “Perhaps you and he aren’t so different after all.” He moves a few steps closer, slowly as if he were approaching some rabid beast, and rests a hand on the curved back of your chair. “Perhaps you and I aren’t so different either.”

Your teeth snap viciously in the direction of his mask, but you’re miles away because his hand moves to your shoulder while his head tips back, and then you’re swearing under your breath because your entire left arm feels like it’s on fire. “I’m nothing like you. And neither is Gi-hun. We’re not murderers.”

The chair shifts under you, suddenly. It takes a second to realize what’s happening when all you can see is that awful mask and the almost glimpse of real, human eyes peering out at you from beneath the mesh eye covers, but your center of gravity is… off. Your feet are dangling mid-air. Every subtle move you make feels like the last nudge before the rollercoaster drops you. He’s pushing your chair back so you can’t fight him, trying to intimidate the rage out of you so you’re docile and willing to play his sicked, twisted little games.

“Choose your horses, Player 457. I won’t ask again.”

Unfortunately for you, it’s working.

“Gi-hun,” you tell him once your feet are back on solid ground. The adrenaline is raging inside you like an oncoming storm; your entire body feels white-hot and shaky. “Gi-hun’s going to win.” If the Captain disagrees with you, he doesn’t show it. He merely encourages you to name another four players. “Hyun-ju. Number 120. If Gi-hun doesn’t make it somehow, then it’ll be her.” Assuming she’s still alive, but you haven’t managed to spot her on the screen just yet. Still, he gives you no confirmation about her fate either way, so you can only hope for the best and pray that it won’t come to that, that Gi-hun will find a way to stop everything before more people die.

You give him three more names: Jun-hee, Dae-ho, and Yong-sik. Choosing between him and his sweet elderly mother is more painful than you’d care to admit, if only because your reason for electing him is simply due to the fact that Yong-sik is younger and presumably stronger. Thankfully, the Captain doesn’t ask you to elaborate on your decision.

“And the game?” he prompts. “What kind of game do you think will be played?”

Honestly, you have no idea and no desire to perform the mental gymnastics required to find out. You’re not interested in gambling with the lives of your friends or whatever weird fantasies this guy might have. But you’ve already fought him on it and been forced into submission each time, so it’s not a question you can ignore any longer. Besides, if you try and guess correctly, maybe he’ll finally answer some of your questions. Maybe you can somehow goad him into slipping up or setting you free.

It’s a pretty lie to tell yourself.

“I don’t know.”

“Then you forfeit your answer?”

No. No, you won’t let him take your freedom from you like that, not when it’s the only freedom you have left. You have to think of something, anything. You have to try. Gi-hun would want you to try, and so would Young-il.

You mentally flip through the images of the blue, star-studded maze the players will soon be forcibly herded into. What kind of game can you play with a maze that would kill off half the player count? “Is it… something to do with the guards?” The mask stares blankly at you. It might almost be humorous if lives weren’t on the line. “Like, you choose the wrong door and you get shot? Or teams? Maybe the players get divided into pairs and they have to find the way out together. Anyone who doesn’t make it out within a certain amount of time gets killed.”

The Captain inclines his head. “Is that the sort of game you would create?”

Ew, is that what he thinks? What, so he wants to grill you for answers and then use your ideas to create new games in the future? Is that what he’s doing? Well, fuck him for trying to manipulate you like that. You won’t let him get into your head so easily.

“I wouldn’t create any of the games. I wouldn’t want to.” You don’t even bother to fight the bitter curl of your mouth that dares to taunt him. So what if he doesn’t like your attitude? What more can he do to you? “I’m just trying to think like you.”

---

If the Captain were to ask you for your honest opinion on the newest game, you wouldn’t give it, but you certainly bombard his subconscious with all the foul-mouthed insults you can conjure as the game rules are revealed to you through the live feed. ‘Keys and knives’? Just call it what it is, you pretentious fuck, it’s hide and seek with extra steps. You took a pre-existing game and made it worse by adding secret doors and daggers. As if there hasn’t already been enough bloodshed. As if any of this is fair. Maybe he should be the one playing the game, wandering through the maze with no way to defend himself except for the slight possibility that he might happen upon a door that leads him to freedom. Bet he wouldn’t be so full of himself then.

But there is, at least, the slightest of silver linings in this game: Hyun-ju and Dae-ho are alive. They’ve both been relegated to the blue team, forced to hide like rats in a sewer to avoid being murdered, which doesn’t give you much confidence, but you have faith in them. Hyun-ju more than Dae-ho, if you were to be fully honest with yourself. He still looks visibly shaken from the rebellion. You wish you knew why. You wish you were there to help him, to make him feel a little less alone, yet you’re still glad (relieved?) that you aren’t. And you feel terrible for it.

“Since your guess was incorrect, will you permit me my question?” The Captain has long since returned to his own chair, his back facing the screen, his arms resting comfortably atop the arms of the chair, and his knees spread. Lounging. People are dying and he’s lounging.

Tired eyes drift lazily over his frame. You don’t have the energy or the strength to fight him right now. “Fine.” It’s the far more polite version of the answer you give in your head.

His shiny dress shoes catch what little light shines in the room, the black leather turning a vague shade of not-quite orange. “Which team would you choose?”

For a long while, you don’t know what to say. You don’t know the answer for yourself, let alone what kind of answer he expects. Will your response have a say in your survival? In the survival of your friends? Or is this just another attempt to claw around inside your skull and make you miserable?

“Does it matter?” you sigh. It’s a much easier answer to give than making an actual decision.

A chill runs down your spine when he replies, “It does to me.”

Whatever he means by that, you don’t think you want to know. There are too many possibilities and none of them good. Instead, you focus on the present, on the question he’s presented you with.

“Blue team.” If it makes you a coward, then it makes you a coward. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The Captain shifts in his seat so one leg is crossed over the other. It seems like such a normal thing to do, like a businessman adjusting during a long financing meeting. Young-il used to do that. Not often, but sometimes. When your coffee meetings ran long and the two of you got carried away appraising art or musing on college life. Grief knots itself up in the hollow of your throat. You miss him.

“If you had been given a red ball,” he muses, choosing his words as carefully as one might choose a lover, “who would you have switched with?”

Dread and bile mix uncomfortably in your stomach. “You mean, whose life would I trade for my own?”

He shrugs. “You don’t have to look at it that way. This game is no different from the game you play every waking moment. Kill or be killed. Choose yourself or sacrifice your life for someone else’s sake and hope they’re worthy of it.” You swear you can feel his eyes boring into you from behind that mask. “Is that not the way of the world?”

The sentiment feels eerily familiar. Disgust and dismay cling to you like a second skin, choking you, tearing you apart every time you try to breathe, because all you can think of now is Young-il and the way the light shone in his eyes in the moments before he kissed you. He’d said almost the exact same thing. You try not to think about whether he would have agreed with the Captain’s argument or not. You don’t want to sully his memory like that.

“Maybe it’s the way your world works, but it’s not the way that mine does,” you mutter.

Several minutes tick by in awkward silence. The blue team and their keys are released into the maze first – a two minute head start so that they might have the chance to find shelter or freedom. Among them, Dae-ho, Hyun-ju, Jun-hee, and Geum-ja, the sweet older woman who refuses to leave Jun-hee’s side. The latter three choose to stick together, which makes you feel somewhat better considering the circumstances. While you weren’t able to see everything that happened on Gi-hun’s side during the uprising, you remember Hyun-ju being a beacon of strength and hope. She’d taken out several of the pink guards before disappearing further into the complex. You choose to believe that she’ll protect the others to the best of her ability. You just hope she manages it without getting herself killed.

Gi-hun and Yong-sik are both on the red team. So is Thanos’ buddy, 124. None of those decisions fills you with confidence. 124 makes your skin crawl, especially after that one time he and Thanos had tried to corner you. You don’t like the idea of him roaming the maze when someone like Jun-hee is out there with no weapon to protect herself. Yong-sik and Gi-hun… Just the thought of them killing someone makes you feel sick. Yong-sik is so sweet, you can’t imagine him hurting a fly, let alone another human being. Gi-hun is capable, sure. He’d told you some of what happened the first time he was brought here, how he was forced to kill people, and you saw him take down guards with his own hands. He’s the one who taught you how to shoot. He knows how to kill. It’s just that you’re not sure he’s capable of taking a life that isn’t deserving of it, not when it’s his life on the line.

“One final wager,” the Captain proposes as the red team is released into the maze. “Player 456.”

Your stomach twists so violently that you’re afraid you might throw up.

“Do you still think he can win?”

You almost wish you would throw up just so you could project it all over the Captain’s pristine charcoal suit. “He’s not like that,” you insist. “He’s not a killer.”

“If he can’t take a life, then his is forfeit.”

So you’ll be forced to watch him die. The only person you have left. The man you… think you might be in love with. The realization – if it can be called such a thing when you think you may have known from the very start – knocks the breath right out of you. It hurts to admit it, even to yourself, but it hurts even more to think about watching the light leave his eyes without him ever knowing just how deeply he is adored, how much he matters.

Your head shakes almost without conscious thought. “He can’t…” Can’t die, can’t kill, can’t be gone from this world. Because what else is left for you if he’s dead?

The Captain sits up a little straighter, hands pulling lightly at the folds of his suit. God, you hate that suit. You hate him. “If 456 dies, I will return you to the game. You can either choose to fight in his place or win and take the money. But if 456 kills someone, then–”

“Then what?” You stare directly into the eyes of his mask and you hope the motherfucker shits his pants when he sees how angry you are, how tired you are, how much you hate him and everything that he stands for. “You’ll kill me? Torture me? Laugh in my face, maybe? What more can you do to me? You’ve already won! Why does it matter?”

“It matters,” he growls, “because you’re naïve. Content to live happily in your head where people are good and justice prevails. Like 456. He thought he could stop the games, but he has only caused more death.”

“Yeah, because of monsters like you who prey on the weak.” A shot of fire races up and down the veins in your arm when you snap forward, momentarily lost to the adrenaline rush of an ethics debate and forgetting that you’re still handcuffed and still wounded. “People are dead because of you.”

“They’re dead because of their own selfishness and greed,” he counters. Both his feet are flat on the floor now, his elbows perched against his knees as he leans forward. “These people you claim to be innocent are nothing more than filth strained from the gutter.”

Tears sting along your waterline. “Don’t talk about my friends like that.” He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know them like you do. If he had ever bothered to talk to the people he’d recruited, maybe he would understand that they’re people just like him.

He laughs. Boldly. Unapologetically. “Your ‘friends’?” Or maybe he wouldn’t understand. Maybe he’s too fucked in the head to ever understand anything as simple as compassion for another human being. “Is that what Player 100 is to you, then? Your friend? I seem to recall you treating him otherwise.”

He’s the exception, you want to tell him, and what’s your obsession with 100 anyway? But you think better of it almost immediately. You can only imagine how your words would get twisted if you admitted that so readily, even if there might be a modicum of truth behind it. Because in your mind, people like Player 100 are as evil as people like the Captain – selfish, uncaring, unkind, and bloodthirsty.

“He’s not… He’s not my friend. But people like Gi-hun and Hyun-ju are. Good people. They’re willing to risk their lives to help others, but I don’t think you’d ever understand the concept of self-sacrifice for the greater good even if it slapped you in the face.”

It’s that sentiment that is punctuated by the first kill of the game. You don’t notice at first, you’re both too wrapped up in debating each other to even notice the actual damage being done on the screen above the Captain’s head. But the announcement of Player 310’s elimination cuts through the chaos raging in your head long enough to bring you back to reality.

310. You’re not even sure you know who that is. Their face and name are lost to you, survived only by what you can see of their hair in the corner of the screen. The Captain tilts his head to look at you more directly. You wonder if he finds the irony amusing, if he’s laughing at you underneath that mask and hoping you feel ashamed of your trust in humanity.

If he were Young-il perhaps, or Gi-hun, you might admit just how much your faith has wavered since these games began. You might be bold enough to say that people like 100 and his goons deserve whatever reward they’ve reaped in return for the violence they’ve bestowed on others. That people like the Captain and his guards deserve the very same, if not worse, for creating the conditions that have fostered countless thousands of murders. That Gi-hun’s plan was never going to work, but you hoped that it did all the same because you wanted to see this place torn down to its foundations. You don’t have it in you to say any of that, but what you are strong enough to admit is still a half-truth at the very least.

“You’re the one who brought us here. You’re the one who made the rules. This is still your fault.”

That earns you the most derisive laughter you’ve heard since you first woke up in this room. “Your dedication to living in denial should be commended.”

You definitively do not tell him to eat shit and die, although it’s incredibly tempting.

“Will you still take the wager?” he asks after a beat, finally relaxing enough to cross one leg over the other as he had before. He looks much too comfortable sitting in his plush chair like a king on a throne. And what a kingdom he’s chosen to rule. “There are still almost thirty minutes left in the game. Plenty of opportunities for a man like 456 to pass.”

And although admitting it also means accepting Gi-hun’s fate as a dead man walking, you refuse to let your faith in him be shattered by the very man who shaped him into what he is today. “I know Gi-hun and I know he’s not a killer. I don’t care what you do to me,” which is, of course, a blatant lie, “but I believe in him. And I know he’d rather give himself up than hurt somebody else.”

After that, the Captain seems to settle. He doesn’t poke and prod at you once the game gets going, not even when Gi-hun snaps less than five minutes in and tries to stab a fellow player. You very nearly choke on your own saliva when Gi-hun corners the poor man against an open doorframe, his knife raised high. What are you doing?! you want to scream. This isn’t you! And thankfully, Gi-hun allows the player to run away. You catch a glimpse of his eyes when he turns, all wide and glassy with regret, but there’s something about his face that doesn’t look right. He reminds you, oddly enough, of Dae-ho – not fully present, lost to some unknown terror that lurks in the shadows of his mind.

It's temporary. It’ll pass. He’s just desperate and scared. You think that if you were driven to that same level of despair, you might also be frantic enough to consider killing someone. It’s that basic human instinct to survive at all costs. You know that Gi-hun won’t do it. He’s already stopped himself. You’re proud of him for stopping, for remembering why he’s here, but it only leaves you with more questions than answers.

Why was he so intent on killing? He chased that poor blue player down for three solid turns through the maze. He very nearly drove that blade all the way through the man’s chest. Human instinct is strong, sure, but that strong? (Don’t think about the players who died in Mingle because of you. Don’t think about them. It’s not the same. It doesn’t count, it can’t.) And what’s more, the Captain barely even reacts. These are his games, are they not? He runs them, he broadcasts them live to other sick fucks who spend money and bet on the players – that’s what Gi-hun had said. So isn’t he curious? Doesn’t he want to know that the man set on burning this place to the ground almost had a change of heart and murdered someone in cold blood?

The most logical conclusion is that he simply doesn’t care. Perhaps he has no heart left with which to care about such things. Or, as it happens to occur to you in the moment, perhaps the Captain’s interest has shifted. You wouldn’t normally dare to assume yourself important enough to draw the attention of a psychotic gladiator freak in a mask, but you should have been strung up among the other players. You should’ve taken that second bullet to the head and bled out on the floor with Gi-hun screaming your name. You should be dead. The only reason you aren’t is because of him.

Why? And why is he so intent on watching you? He hasn’t looked away from you once since the new game began. Is it some bizarre kind of mind game designed to freak you out? But still the question remains – why? What makes you special enough to warrant this kind of treatment? The same goes for Dae-ho and Hyun-ju, though to a lesser extent. The three of you, as well as Gi-hun, all played your part in the rebellion, yet all of you were spared. If any of you should be facing the Captain now, it should be Gi-hun. So why are you here while he’s left to fend for himself in the maze?

On the screen, Jun-hee, Hyun-ju, and Geum-ja huddle together against a wall as they wait for some of the red players pursuing them to lose their scent. It feels so wrong to be stuck watching them while they’re forced to flee like animals. Surely there’s something you can do, especially if the Captain deems you interesting enough to spare your otherwise useless life.

“Maybe… Maybe you’re right,” you begin, too anxious to look the mask in the eyes for fear of being rejected outright. “About the other players. Maybe some of them are trash. But not all of them.”

You receive nothing – no verbal reply, no physical sign of acknowledgment, not even a hint of recognition that you’ve conceded a point to him. Asshole.

“Jun-hee’s pregnant.” And that, finally, seems to trigger a response. The broad, sloping shoulders under the suit go rigid and the quiet, steady breaths beneath the mask grow harsh and heavy, all in the span of a single second. “She’s barely a child herself. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“She made the choice to come here,” says the Captain, though his voice is distinctly off-balance. Is it possible you’ve struck a nerve? That there’s a heart somewhere under all that filth?

“An uneducated choice. She’s young, she’s alone, she might not have anyone to support her in the real world. And you kept the truth from her, from all of us. Do you really think she would’ve agreed to come here if she’d known how dangerous it was?”

Silence. Not a single word of protest. Not a single remark fired back in your face to remind you of how horrible and disgusting humans truly are. So then, logic dictates that the Captain must still have a shred of decency left when it comes to young, single mothers and their unborn children. If you play your cards right, maybe you can still fix things. Maybe you can make up for everything that you didn’t do during the rebellion and try to redeem yourself, if not in Gi-hun or Young-il’s eyes, then in your own.

“You said you’d let me go if Gi-hun loses.” Dies. If he loses, it will be because he failed to take a life. It will mean the loss of his own. You can’t forget that, but neither can you verbalize it and make it anymore real than it needs to be. “I-I want you to let her go instead.”

The Captain visibly freezes. “You would take her place?” he asks, breathless, intrigued. Human.

Say it before you change your mind. “Yes,” and your chin wobbles under the weight of your anger as it reforms into the shape of fear and grief.

“You barely know her.”

This time, it’s your turn to laugh, bitter and hollow like an old tree stump left to rot in the forest. “So?”

He shakes his head as if he were scolding a child too stubborn to be properly disciplined. “You’ve spent too much time with Gi-hun,” he hums. “You sound just like him.” It’s the highest compliment you’ve ever received.

Notes:

or in other words, frontman is too busy trying to prove his point (and also secretly crushing on you) to even enjoy the games meanwhile you're unleashing the verbal equivalent of a category 5 bc he's evil and wears a stupid suit. that's pretty much what happened, right?

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of SWIM