Chapter Text
Hwang In-ho felt the icy wash of stillness across his expression. That ever-neutral look he had long ago mastered. Yet in the slim mesh of the mask’s eyes, he could watch Seong Gi-hun. His back was uncomfortably straight and stiff against the back of the limousine seat, his mouth flattened into a bitten line, as if to suppress the nausea he was feeling. He was not swaying, although the paleness of his cheeks led In-ho to believe he could feel the rock of the boat they were on. It was just them in the stretch of space. Though In-ho knew he had his two most competent guards in the front.
Still, Gi-hun looked affright. His dark eyes, strained and unblinking, stared down at his feet. His hands fisted the fabric of his pants. He had, surprisingly, not darted to the opposite end of the vehicle like In-ho suspected he would. But perhaps it was the fear that the guard who had loaded their baggage might accompany them. He had been so frigid; his face had been a manicured scowl that fell away the moment the staff had disappeared.
Typical, they had already spent a whole morning’s worth of travelling. Gi-hun had not eaten, not the dish offered by the circle guard. He had just stared straight at the mask, the staff having peeled open the door, holding up a silver tray for him to take. But his little hero would not break for him. And so the door slid shut, and his sweet fool shrunk back in on himself.
Tired, hungry, stubborn.
Seong Gi-hun never broke for the pink guards. He was devoted to his cause.
But he had long ago crumbled for In-ho, even if he had never realised. In-ho had become near-perfect. He was the drug where the need began to override the logic of it all, his connotations, his cruelties. Gi-hun could not quite rid himself of him, and lapsed every time he tried.
Handing him a cat so sweetly and seeing the light spark its way to life in those dark, dulled eyes. How the pouting mouth twisted and turned like a sob might break out. Gi-hun wanted to be so collected, to be the pinnacle of strength and stubbornness but he was merely the latter. He was a petal that would not rot in even the coldest of months. Gi-hun was unable to pull out the pins that pressed him to a framed wall. In-ho had, in nearly all ways, completed his original ambition.
The sweet broken-hearted attempt of a hero, that he had wanted to scoop up and cradle, had grown into his place. Seong Gi-hun had become a permanent element of his home, but had become more than that. He had, as gentle as one might expect, opened up for In-ho’s taking. And god, would In-ho take. He was greed reinvented. Having touched, kissed, and encouraged, until Gi-hun forgot they weren’t supposed to do such a thing.
Perhaps for a moment, like all things born from greed do, he had been derailed. Gi-hun had come free from his grasp, his ownership. The man had broken out and snarled like a hurt dog would. But that’s when In-ho had learnt, that the addiction had set in, somewhere deeper. Because, still, Gi-hun came back to him. Had let him touch once more, had let his gaze linger even if his red face averted to deny returning the long looks.
“Gi-hun, come here,” he called, patting the spot by his side. Gi-hun’s eyes flickered over fast before darting away. Huffing like he was too ill to speak. He was not at the far back, just adjacent to him. “Gi-hun, come.”
Slowly, the man unfurled from his stiffness. His legs stretched out slowly, gangly and long. His fists uncurled, and anxious fingernails dug momentarily into the leather seat. He shuffled over, not quite as close as In-ho would have liked. But still, his lips quirked up in quaint satisfaction.
Gi-hun’s shoulders were drawn in, uncomfortable. A ginger, fragile crack of a voice broke through their ambience. “Is someone coming in?” was all Gi-hun said, nearly meek, pretending to be passive.
Ah, because of course. Gi-hun shifted slightly, his fingers flexing and his jaw tight. It was the games that made Gi-hun restless, nightmares that had given him bags beneath his eyes for so terribly long. Now, when Gi-hun stirred in his sleep, his terrors showing on his screwed-up expression, In-ho would coax him into relaxing. Running fingers through his hair, nails sliding sweetly down his scalp. Gi-hun would lean in close, his heavy breaths bubbling away until he found serene slumber. He knew he saw those pink soldiers, heard the firing of their guns, and remembered the spill of blood. No stubbornness stole away trauma, no true terror could be buried so easily.
He almost wanted to lie, to tell him yes just to see if the man remembered how to tremble.
But In-ho couldn’t. He could not with the ease that he wanted to – frighten Gi-hun. It felt instead, that he had a different duty.
“No, not if you don’t want them to,” In-ho found himself murmuring, voice washed by the deep filter the mask added.
Gi-hun nodded slightly, exhaling slowly.
Did vines know they grow towards the sun? Did they feel the heat against the vegetarian, see their destination somewhere along their journey? Did Gi-hun know his feet were angled towards him? His shiny leather shoes, ones In-ho had bought for him, pointed towards him.
In-ho looked down at his arm, at the leather glove he wore. Slowly, his other hand met it. He pulled it off, slowly. He could feel Gi-hun watching, could feel the waves of curiosity that burned as they washed over him. The cool air against his palm, bare fingers that stretched and cut through the thick stuffiness of the small space.
“What—” he didn’t give Gi-hun room to finish. His arm stretched out, dragging against his back until they found the other’s waist. There was a slight gasp, one that died into silence. In-ho with his fingertips pressed into the small waist, holding his dearest tight yet tender. Gi-hun stiff against his hold. But just as he knew he would, the guard dropped slightly. He felt him breathe into his touch. Saw the way his cheeks were sprinkled with a dusting of colour.
Gi-hun was so sweet, so strong-willed. In-ho was still hungry. He wanted to take care of him. He didn’t know why. He should focus on his most animalistic desires—the ones that told him to hold Gi-hun like this, pull him close until their thighs were pressed against each other.
He swallowed a thick dry lump that had clung to his throat. His other hand, the one still gloved, would reach across. It would palm against the other’s crotch. He knew his sweet hero would begin to wriggle, to mumble and fret. But In-ho would push forward. Press the face of his thumb against a half-hard clothed cock and drag slow circles until he heard a sobbing enticing whimper. He would fish out his prize. Smear pre-cum until he could fist that cock into his unyielding touch. Drag, rock, and stroke, and coax, until Gi-hun was crying and moaning. Like he should. Until he was burying his head in the crook of In-ho’s neck. Shaking slender fingers digging their nails into the rough fabric of his coat.
It was bliss to make the other cry. To watch him choke on his words, and shake his head like it would alleviate him of taking responsibility. In-ho would never let him, would never let him pretend that what they had was not true in every way. It was finding heaven, it was feeling the angel’s feathers against his skin whenever Gi-hun clung to him.
He wanted that even now. But, he craved Gi-hun in the worst ways, in the softer ways. He wanted—needed for Gi-hun to be aching for him. To keep leaning towards him.
In-ho experimented with the idea of using his own mouth, of getting on the floor of the limousine and pushing apart Gi-hun’s legs. It was like he could hear the sudden inhale, see the quivering bottom lip, and the wide eyes that stared down disbelieving.
He knew Gi-hun would be overwhelmed. He was so perfectly sensitive. He would shout his name, forgetting where they were. His hands would snap to In-ho’s head, trying to drag him away. But In-ho would be so generous, so giving. Would kiss his useless dick until it was too hard to deny him. Would hollow out his cheeks without all the embarrassed nervousness that Gi-hun had. And then suddenly those hands would stiffen, and those pretty fingers would curl in his hair. Ignorantly tight and selfish. Gi-hun would whine, wanting more, and In-ho would grin.
He was going mad. He, without even realising, pulled Gi-hun close suddenly. The other blinked at him but did not move.
Gi-hun was awful, he was making In-ho lose his mind.
He should do as he pleased, Gi-hun was his dog. He could grope and fondle him as he pleased. All his pet would do, would whine before he begged for more. So selfish, so greedy—Gi-hun was just using him—
“In-ho…” Gi-hun was speaking ever-soft, the corners of his lips twitching downwards, “Are you okay?”
His jaw tightened beneath his own mask. His fingers pressed further into the waist, and there was the muffled sound of fabric creasing. Gi-hun seemed to swallow a grimace.
“Are you maybe…” the taller man’s broke off, and he shook his like what he had begun to say was foolish. And for once, as if too distracted by his hungering thoughts, In-ho could not read his mind.
“What is it, tell me,” In-ho said, and the quickness of his words had Gi-hun twisting his face away. His gloved hand—the one he had thought to use with such lustful desire, snapped over. Catching his cheek with cradling softness, turning him back to face him. “If there’s a problem then you should tell me.”
Anxious eyes blink into wide searching lanterns of light. He stutters through a choked sound. “You’re not always so smart,” Gi-hun scoffed, a voice dipped low and tired. He leans unknowingly into In-ho’s touch, the fat of his cheek smushed against the hold.
“Who knew that you thought of me as smart.”
“Bastard, I can’t say anything to you.”
“That’s not true.”
There was a silence. A short gentle kind. He swore that had never existed before Gi-hun. He wanted to do something. To make it harsher, to keep himself safe from the pounding of his heart in his ears. But, at least, he could study the way Gi-hun’s body responded. The way his ears had reddened, the way his lips were parted only slightly. His mind must be reeling, working overtime. He always thought too much.
“Take off your mask,” Gi-hun whispered.
The mask, the barrier that frightened Gi-hun endlessly. It was their curse, the kind that haunted them both. Though he doubted Gi-hun in his sweet selfishness would ever realise such a thing.
“Why would I do that?” In-ho asked, leaning back against the seat, his gloved touch loosening against the face of the other. He knew exactly why he would, for the mere simple reason that Gi-hun had asked. Still, he leaned back, raking a last, stealing look at Gi-hun in his entirety. In his balled-up fists, in his frown that twisted to a bitter pout, in the lines that drew along his face. “Surely, you remember how to take it off of me.”
So sweetly did his tongue dart out, flicking long and quick against his bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobbed with the panic he swallowed.
But he moved close, and In-ho had to move his gloved hand until it was palm-pressed against the nape of that slender neck. Opened himself so the other could lean in, and his nervous hands could slip into place. Fingers that curled against the mask’s edge. The way he shuddered, like he had never touched it before. Like it made him ill. They scaled it, finding the straps. Fiddling until it came loose.
And despite it all, Gi-hun did not let the mask fall.
He pulled it off softly, carefully. Until he flipped it over in his own hands, and saw the cage that In-ho entered.
He placed it to his side. Not sparing it another confused look.
In-ho wanted to swallow. His mouth felt dry, unbelievably so. The way Gi-hun was looking at him, frowning but not quite upset. How those wide eyes had narrowed, and for once he felt that he was the item of dedicated studying. Gi-hun was still so close. His face screwed up with thought.
“You don’t have to be the Front Man,” he said, oddly honest—even odder, kindly. In-ho wanted to say something, maybe that’s why his lips parted. To say that was funny coming from the nervous wreck that had tapped his foot the entire trip, or that was such a naïve statement to say – especially now. Gi-hun never gave him the chance. “Right now, that is.”
“Then who would I be?”
Gi-hun’s brows furrowed. And In-ho fought the urge to whistle low from his failed joke.
Like the creases smoothed out, and the dusting of sugar on a cake, Gi-hun shook his head slightly. “You would just be In-ho, wouldn’t you? It’s not like I’m asking for Young-il…”
Oh.
Oh.
He wished he could make the other repeat himself, not that he needed it. Those words were committed to memory the moment they had been uttered. Embroided somewhere deep in the flesh of his being. Golden and alive, and burning him in his entirety but he could not quite explain why.
Gi-hun jutted his chin out, fidgeting where he sat. “Don’t look at me like that,” he hissed. In-ho did not know what his face looked like, but he was in no rush to change his expression.
The thoughts of having Gi-hun melted, not of course without scolding him with his own lingering want. The candle wax that melted downwards, slow and hot. He ached for the other, but Gi-hun was a raw flame. Licking him with an unexpected heat. He should laugh, shake his head at the nonsense of it all.
He could not quite comprehend Gi-hun. He had most of him traced out. Had dogeared so many pages of the other’s brains, had memorised those expressions with ease. But it was his will, and his words and those tender looks that kept him in constant studying.
“It’s not ever really you when you put the mask on,” was all Gi-hun said, after pausing with tentative thought. “You’re someone different.”
In-ho’s mouth felt dry, unbelievably so. “It’ll always still be me.”
In-ho was smart, even when there were elements he had not fully grasped yet.
Like why Gi-hun cared so much about whether the mask was against him or not.
Or why Gi-hun denied him so fervently but was pressed to his side nonetheless.
Or why In-ho wanted to say words he had promised not to say since his wife died?
“You’re an enigma, Seong Gi-hun.”
There was something entirely different, fracturing, about being on the island again. Yet, it was not at all like when he had awoken the second time. No. He was not in that dormitory; there were no childish bright sets or naïve victims.
It was minimalism. Sleek hallways and In-ho had led him to this private viewing room of his. One so oddly familiar. He wondered if he flipped his hands until they were palm-up, would they be once more coated in blood? His nostrils stung, coated with the memory of alcohol’s thickly pungent scent. The armchairs had been traded for a loveseat, and the small table was still there with the whiskey decanter set – like nothing had ever touched it. He had been here.
Seong Gi-hun had been here when In-ho had offered him this place by a side.
He wondered if he wished hard enough, he might wake in this same spot but a year prior. All the things he could do differently, how he would save people – how he would get things right.
“You saved them all, they would have died here.” In-ho’s voice came behind him, the voice filter was there. He had put his mask on the moment they had stepped out of that limousine. Gi-hun shook his head. As if accepting that he had something good meant he might think of himself as having done right by those people. But the knowledge of all his shortcomings was evident by the fact that he was back here regardless. “But think what you might, I suppose. You won’t be able to save these players,” the Front Man said, and he could hear the footsteps of him approaching. “And they won’t save themselves either, they never do.”
His ears felt like they were ringing.
There was his cycle of belief, of faith. It was what dared him to hope every time, that people could be trusted to do the right thing.
“They just don’t know.”
What did they not know?
Did it take a dead body to be enough to want to leave? But he knew they would stay anyway. Hundreds would fall, bodies slapping against the ground with gutting final breaths and dulling eyes. Hauled like game, nailed into cheap coffins. When was their cut of the money enough, when was it truly the last game?
But his fingers curled against the leather couch. The starving would do anything for a feast, the cut of an apple was not worth their fight. The thirsty would ignore the raindrop when they could see the ocean, so close, so in reach. Those lucky to survive thought themselves lucky to survive again and again.
“I don’t want them to die,” Gi-hun’s quiet, pained voice whispered.
There was no response from the Front Man, and Gi-hun squeezed his eyes shut. There was no relief, that was only this odd obscure begging inside that In-ho would listen.
Yet he knew, Hwang In-ho would not. Embracing him, and giving him the sweetness he wanted to taste so badly was not enough to end these games. It gave Gi-hun only small slivers of salvation. A golden pea-sized thankfulness that In-ho had loosened his grip on the reigns for him.
He had walked these halls that had once been splattered with blood, and breathed the air that others had died choking on. History would repeat itself. Victims dressed in green who were clueless to the cruel abstract fantasies of the filthy rich would trail the same paths of thousands of dead.
A man dressed head to toe in dark colour sidestepped him, In-ho, but not quite. The Front Man. His gloved hands poured two glasses of the whiskey bottle plucked straight from its place. Everything truly does repeat itself.
This time, he took the drink with less resistance. His eyes peeled open but only slightly, his lashes could barely pull apart. Wet with tears he begged not to let fall.
Liquor burned. Against his tongue, the walls of his mouth, honey-thick against his grit teeth. He shook his head, his forehead already speckled with droplets of sweat. Strands of hair clinging to his skin.
The other simply held his glass. He wouldn’t drink. Not now. Not with the mask on, ready to step out and man these games like it was something he was built for. Hwang In-ho thought of himself as a robot, a machine. He thought the mask detached him from it all, from his humanity, and made him passive.
Gi-hun knew better now.
Knew it in the damned limousine. He saw the tightness, the stiffness, of the other’s body. The Front Man was not still because he didn’t care, he was still because it kept him safe. He was a mutant of a man, one who was divisive and cruel, yet the kind who cooked him meat so tender because he knew Gi-hun was oftentimes too weak-willed for difficult food. Who learned quickly that Gi-hun was less resistant to watching a film with him when it was boring and free of violence and philosophical morals – and he hated how that meant that Gi-hun knew there was still a human side to him.
Still, he ached to hate him. But here, surrounded by masked guards who made his blood run cold, he could not help but feel as if In-ho was perhaps the last human on Earth. That here on this island, where Gi-hun could not reach the players, there was only In-ho. And in the kindest way, In-ho was a headache. He was humanity proven in the worst of ways, he was thoughtfulness apparent when it was least wanted, and he was something dark and desirable in the worst of ways.
The other slipped his spare, gloved hand into his deep coat pocket. There was the smooth crinkle of fabric. It fished out Gi-hun’s white mask.
“Oh,” was all he could say, his shoulders tightening in one slow breath. “But the pink soldiers have seen me before.”
“Consider it uniform, really,” came the filtered alien sound of the Front Man, “You’ll prefer it eventually. You won’t feel as if it is you watching the games.”
Gi-hun frowned but found himself nodding nonetheless, yet his hands never came upwards. They never reached for the white mask in the other’s hand. And like a curse, In-ho seemed to understand how truly difficult it was for Gi-hun to so much as breathe in this place.
“Turn around,” he instructed, and already nauseous from this place, Gi-hun obeyed easily. Turned softly on his heel so that his back faced the Front Man. Gloved hands stretched around until they pushed a velvet-soft mask upon his skin. His breath wavered, and his hands squeezed themselves into fists. “You’re okay, it’s still me,” was said ever-gently, with the purring thrum of a voice filter that should be making him recoil with disgust.
Hwang In-ho was somewhere beneath that mask, and according to him, he was still there. He was still being violently considerate of Gi-hun in every possible way. He felt the mask get fixed in place. His own shaking hands reached up to touch it. To trace its outline and feel where it met his skin.
“Do you still feel like yourself?”
The control room. A room with a black screen flooring, and filled with working pink soldiers. Gi-hun wanted to tug at his sleeves or tap an erratic, anxious rhythm against the ground, but he couldn’t. He had to put up a front. He had to hold it together.
Yet that all felt impossible in a place like this.
Nausea ran on the underneath of his tongue, his lips bitten into a flat line. His hands were stiff at either side of himself, although he wished endlessly to smooth them against something – to act out the anxiousness that had long set itself in his bones.
He thought of Jun-hee, of Eun-jung, his mind even flickered to Jun-ho. In a place like this, on this island, they felt barely real. A year ago, a mirrored version of himself would have used this opportunity to end the games rather differently. He knew he would have told Jun-ho everything, would have pulled out every tooth and nail if it meant leading the man here. But Gi-hun was stubborn and willful, but he was not the same fool. It hadn’t worked, In-ho was never going to let him even chance his island being found. Still, his heart grieved them, as if he thought he might truly die this time round despite being in an entirely new position.
He felt like he was breathing and alive when he had been in their home, tucked away and watching Jun-hee experience motherhood, finding bittersweet okayness in his comfort around In-ho. In their apartment, with their mangled mess of a group, perhaps, Gi-hun allowed himself to believe he had done something right. He had gotten Jun-hee out safe, and gave Eun-jung the chance to learn her first—well, everything.
Here, there was only the crushing weight of the past, of the future. Of every death, and every wail for mercy. These players, the ones he hadn’t even seen yet, would derail. They would obsess, and they would become entirely fearful of the system, and they would become resentful and desperate. And Gi-hun would watch it all in the safe comfort of this room.
The room came to life with a thrum. Screens flickered on, and live video footage filled the empty space.
It was all like it had been, all like it ever would be.
Green tracksuits. Confusion, anger, shame. Their debts. Their desperation.
The Front Man directed with few words spoken. He would lift one pointed finger, and staff curved to an unspoken whim. The contracts came out all with the gesture of a hand like he was there in that dormitory telling the staff himself.
Gi-hun felt his eyes burn, unblinking as he watched them sign their lives away. Believe they could do this without him, he told himself, believe they would be free before unimaginable horror transformed into repeated tragedy.
Hwang In-ho was cold displacement, something that was not entirely unfamiliar. Still, being the Front Man brandished an alien pain that felt like a dagger that was plunged death-deep into Gi-hun’s chest.
Red Light, Green Light. The same familiar set, the sand that was not yet blood-splattered. He felt his feet against it even from his spot by In-ho’s side. Felt the way he fell, felt Ali’s fist keep him from a fate he wished he had suffered. He could feel his throat sting, voice coarse as he yelled and begged instructions from players. What did he do now? Nothing.
It was like it all rolled in slow motion. With their easy-going attitude, the game starting at a safely sweet pace. Until the first person failed, and the gun went off. His shoulders jolted, and pain shot swiftly down his spine from the tension. His heart hammered – it was like he was still there, still playing.
Then it was a bloodbath.
He should have been there, begging for their understanding, their will, and their patience.
His breath shook with every shallow fitful gasp of it he swallowed, his ears rung with a hollowing unhealable whine. The way players’ hands shot to their faces – their shock, their shouts, the way they shivered before they too were gunned down.
He was going to be sick—
There was a touch against his hand, against the skin of the back of his hand. A leather-covered finger and its ice-cold touch grazed him. Like it was unintentional like it was incidental. The Front Man was still staring at the screen. His touch was brisk, yet still there. He who seemed devoted to manning this suffering was inciting this grazing touch.
Why?
Why would Hwang In-ho reach for his hand like this, so subtle but still in a room full of people where he was supposed to dictate power and control?
Denial, frustration. They were the initial black raging feelings that flooded Gi-hun’s mind, with waves that crashed against him hard and unforgiving. They wanted to drown him, to leave him tasting salt and anguish. He wanted to snatch himself away, to levy a scowl so cutting In-ho would know not to taunt him. In-ho, he thought, had dared to touch him so tenderly in the face of raw untamable death.
But In-ho hadn’t done it in such a way, and Gi-hun knew that. So, the current dragged out, not without its claws sinking into the sand trying to will itself to stay.
In-ho was comfort. Was acknowledging every unspoken frustration, and daring to try and accept his distress. It was not a taunt, it was just plain and simple comfort.
His eyes stuck to that black mask, the one that was looking past him. Cold and sharply cut, all angles and lines with no softness. The Front Man who was supposed to be above humans, above their greed and their animalist nature, had thought to comfort Gi-hun like the fool that he was.
Gi-hun didn’t know whether he wished more to laugh or to cry.
He felt that hollowed shell of his beliefs, of his faith in humanity, steady itself with a newfound and disgustingly ironic weight.
Still, when he looked back to the screen, he could only see what he could describe as a desert painted red.
The game ended much as it had the first time, with a mountainous death toll.
Then, like dominoes, he watched history repeat itself. The horror, the outrage, all the things that were supposed to remind people why they wanted to leave—why they should leave. It all fell away because a goddamned glass pig was lowered into the room. Clattering with the sounds of money pooling in – dinging like a casino machine. And, suddenly, the people weren’t so sure.
Here, they looked so small. But he would never forget, being there himself. Knowing what waited back home, what some thought they owed and what they would sacrifice to repay it. Still, he found himself breathing the faintest “Don’t.” There was no reply, just the sensation of In-ho’s thumb running across his hand.
They voted to stay.
He wondered if In-ho was still hung up on proving Gi-hun wrong. What was his expression beneath the mask right now?
“Gi-hun, now,” In-ho’s voice was firm, crackling with the disturbance of the Front Man’s filter. “Gi-hun, please.”
He didn’t care. It was too much. He was too little. His knuckles, white, as he clenched the abandoned whiskey glass. His expression was so sour before he threw it at the television screen. It had not even been on. Yet, still, he hoped he would cause it to never be. The glass didn’t smash until it finally met the ground. Crystal glass like clumps of snow, soaking in an amber puddle. The screen looked untouched. A frustrated snarl snapped its way out of his mouth, his fingers running through his hair furiously.
“Where are they—where are the VIPs? I’ll kill them myself, I will,” Gi-hun snapped. The heel of his shoe tapped with vivid erraticness against the ground, his fingertips playing the same rhythm against his forehead.
“Dear, you’re ahead of yourself—”
“I’m not. Just tell me where they are.”
“They haven’t even arrived yet.”
And just like that, he squeezed his eyes shut, his throat thick with the want to sob. He sunk into the couch. Like his outburst had barely happened at all.
“Of course, of course, no—it’s not interesting enough for them yet, is that it?” Gi-hun said. What a taunt. To think these esteemed guests were far too above the games’ opening. The gruesome betrayal killed hundreds, and the VIPs weren’t even there to watch it live.
“Gi-hun,” In-ho’s voice was quieter, softer. There was a ginger touch against his knee. “Look at me.”
His eyes blinked open, and he was there. Mask in hand, a familiar face staring back at him. Hwang In-ho was kneeling in front of him, one hand with fingers curled softly around Seong Gi-hun’s knee and the other holding the geometrical mask.
“End the games, or let me back in, I won’t retaliate—I’ll convince them to go,” he pleaded, pathetically close to whining.
There was a thumb tracing slow, small circles against him. A tired, knowing shake of a head. “Like how you convinced them last time?” he asked. And Gi-hun wanted to sink away, shame hot and heavy.
“It’s not right, they don’t deserve this.”
There was a beat, and In-ho said the impossible.
“I know.”