Work Text:
Interior design is not his thing. Sangwoo likes his environments to be simple, modern, and sleek. However, he’s well aware that the ambience of the stairs back to the dormitories is intentional. The bright colours spit in your face as the adrenaline runs out, your legs are almost numb from carrying your weight up every step. By the time you arrive, you only remember the death sticking to your back like waking up from a bad nightmare. There is nothing visibly wrong, but the unease remains, danger lurks between your eyelashes, in your peripheral vision.
This time, the death is a step ahead of him, looking into his eyes and reaching out. Blood clings to his hands even though he had already left when it happened.
A whirlwind of thoughts makes his head spin. His beating heart wants to pretend he did the right thing, that surviving was the goal and he’s succeeded. If the guards accepted it, then no cheating took place. He cared about Ali as much as one can care for a stranger. He pitied the man as much as someone who wasn’t doing better in life. But it’s preposterous to think he would hand over his life just like that. He did what he had to; he always has to take responsibility for the hard decisions, the ones no one wants to think about but reap the benefits from. Joining the games was an opportunity, a second chance at life, those that no one ever gets. Giving up would have just been stupid. Then why can’t his brain just understand that?
Even blinking is dangerous. If he slips, his mind will picture Ali, feeling the weight of pebbles atop his hands, betrayal painted over his soft features. If he slips, he can see the bullet run him through, a crimson so dark and thick splattering the—
He sees Gihun walking some steps behind. When choosing partners, he had hoped not to compete against each other, imagined him and that old man strung along for some physical game that would get them eliminated. Gunshots would echo in the distance, far enough that he wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t feel it. Their death would hang on some other pair who would justify themselves to their gods come nightfall.
And he… Would lie on his uncomfortable mattress, feeling saltwater drown every pore of his face and holding in the ugly sobs until he lost his breath. But it would be easier because, for the next game, he wouldn’t have anything holding him back.
Statistically, realistically, he had some of the best chances at winning. He would take the money, fix his misdeeds, and make sure Gihun’s mother had a good enough life.
That is all so reasonable that he can almost put it on a to-do list and put it up on a corkboard. What is irrational and absolutely infuriating is the way his shoulders drop and his breathing eases up when Gihun goes to stand next to him after getting his food. He must imagine the other’s heartbeat, his chest going up and down in steady motions, even hallucinating his annoying baritone filling up the space like it irks him to be quiet.
Subconsciously, like magnets unable to stay apart too long, they shuffle closer and closer. Their arms almost touch, enough that Sangwoo can feel the warmth of another body, living, moving, next to him. Sniffles are coming from two people in the small circle they’ve created. From a sideways glance, he notices the red puffiness around Gihun’s eyes, the trembling lip that fails to capture his usual grin. It’s wrong, so wrong that a childish instinct from old times wants to apologise, to make it up to him and invite him over for dinner so he will just stop crying. If only it were that easy.
What happened back there? Did he choose one of the games they played as children? Made up a new one? Or did he just listen to what the old man wanted to do?
However it was, he sincerely hoped that they didn’t leave it to chance. Even though he did the same at first, trusting probability to be on his side, the thought of letting randomness choose whether Gihun lived or died is too much to bear. What if the old man won? Would he be sitting with them right now? Crying even harder, perhaps, knowing he killed a person who deeply worried about him. Sangwoo wouldn’t have it in him to bring up comfort, then.
Gihun tries to make Saebyeok eat something, do something, or say something. She’s always been stoic, and Sangwoo actually doubts she knows how to smile. But this display is downright uncanny. There was an edge of mischievousness to her, she was always cagey around others, making herself look bigger like a scared little cub. Gihun refuses to accept the change, swallowing his anxiety, untightening the fists that haven’t stopped trembling since he let go of that rope, and he tries to smile.
It’s something so pathetic, the way his lips fight the pull into a frown, and he can’t find nice words to say, but still, he rubs her back and tries to look her in the eyes.
Saebyeok pulls away to hide her face in her sleeves.
At least he tried. Always the same with him, caring for others at the wrong moment, forgetting about himself until he realises he stumbled over his own feet.
“Don’t worry about it. He was just a man you met a few days ago.” Always the same with him, saying the wrong things, unable to care. Don’t worry about it, Sangwoo. He was just someone you didn’t know who won’t return to his family. “That man over there, his partner was his wife.” Gihun nods. It’s probably an automatic response; he doesn’t seem to find comfort in the words when his eyes get lost in the sight of that poor man.
“We saw those people break their heads from the fall, remember?” Sangwoo turns to look at him, confused. “Even back in the first game. I had never seen so much blood.” He does remember. Nothing can capture the terror hanging in the air, the sudden spike in adrenaline that makes you lightheaded. Or the sudden panic when the rope started to chafe and their soles weren't hanging on, trying to escape the same fate as the others. “But I don’t think I understood what these games were about until now.”
Oh, so there was a point to his reminiscence.
Additionally, Sangwoo can also recall the taste of coffee and a cigarette shared with an old friend. He felt the rug about to be pulled from underneath him, the police catching up to him, the red numbers getting larger and larger. And Gihun believed in him to solve it, nothing but brains and teeth to crawl out of a grave he dug for himself.
The people they were back then definitely didn’t understand the games. A man dropped dead beside him, red staining his face and glasses, sweat percolating around his temple, trying to stifle the harsher movements. And they didn’t understand it was kill or be killed because they weren’t the ones pulling the trigger.
So they came back.
“The human brain avoids the truth until the last possible second.” Gihun can’t possibly find solace in that, but he nods again. At least it’s familiar, the way Sangwoo needs to rationalise things, put it into boxes, call on science and numbers to sort himself out.
They get even closer now, and Sangwoo is so aware of the skin touching his, the back of a hand, light as a feather, passing the contact off as an accidental bump. He knows better. Gihun stills for a moment, but Sangwoo forces his fingers to move, sneak to the other side and wraps themselves around the others’. He sucks at words, he sucks at being good, but if this makes him feel better, how else can he react?
What seals the deal is when he finally gets a glimpse of that old grin in the form of the slightest quirk of lips. They don't mention it, there's no need to. It's like when they were kids and they wanted to cross the street, or one of them was about to trip and fall. It's an instinct to reach out for safety.
As much as Sangwoo wants to pretend he's forced into it, he can't escape from the shiver that runs down his spine or the warmth sneaking into his very bones.
“I hope Saebyeok didn’t have to look,” Gihun confesses, low enough that the sound stays stuck between them. “But I’m glad she made it out alive.” Sangwoo looks at the girl, wondering what he was doing at her age. Not in severe debt or whatever was her issue, trying to learn some tricks to survive on the streets. Not seeing people die. He doesn't have an answer for Gihun; everything he comes up with has an undertone of anger. Stop caring so much.
“Do you know what ‘Gganbu’ means?” Again, Gihun holds on to the habit of filling up the silence. Sangwoo shakes his head. “It’s like… close friends, who play together and stay on each other’s team. Like us when we were kids.”
He remembers it differently, not so fondly. For a long time, he buried his childhood under a lens of embarrassment and overcoming difficulties. No one at work came from such a small neighbourhood, no one had the smell of fish and produce stuck on their nostrils, and no one clung to memories of riding in the back of a bike to go to school. But he can't deny that it happened. He did win and lose marbles to Gihun, pulled and pushed until they were both covered in mud and laughed so hard he thought his stomach would implode.
“I didn't know there was a word for that.”
“Ilnam… The old man said we were gganbu, you know, kids playing together as a team. And I…” There is more to that statement. So much more, Gihun never finishes his sentence; it gets stuck in his throat like a pill. But Sangwoo can read between the lines and can see the boy he used to play with, crying over a scraped knee. There is no need to say more because he understands; he took a two-way blade and stuck it in a friend before it could touch him. So did Gihun. So did Saebyeok.
His first instinct is to tighten the hand between his, to rub his thumb in circles, clumsily offering something he doesn't have.
When his mind settles, he can also read into an implication that Gihun didn't even mean to put in there. Like us when we were kids.
First, you betray a stranger, and it cuts you so deeply that you might have lost a piece of yourself, too.
Then you'll have to face a friend.
If he hadn't chosen Ali… Could he win against Gihun? The odds might be in his favour, and then what?
He feels so stupid for thinking like that. The clauses were clear, and the rules were clear. Every single person knew what they were getting into. And the further they go, the guilt just piles up and drenches over. There is no plausible deniability in walking out with the prize.
Sangwoo has to close his eyes for a minute, remembering the feeling of wet fabric sticking to his skin, hard ceramic pushing against his nape. At that moment, he thought, there are worse hells than bleeding out on an island. At least there was the hope of maybe getting lucky, maybe being the last one, surviving. Not to look into the fact that ‘maybe’ is what got him in debt in the first place. Well, is he any better than Gihun? They just do different kinds of gambling.
A man breaks the silence, his voice bouncing on all the space available from the missing beds.
“Let’s just stop all this. I can't keep doing this. I can't.”
Now that's a thought. One that Sangwoo can't entertain. The memory of Ali, that old man and the girl was enough of a weight. Adding failure to the list is just not on his plans. Through whatever it takes… Right?