Chapter Text
Gi-hun had gone silent, mouth snapped shut as if he had been insulted rather than heard a meek, sudden admission.
‘I know.’
What unearthed Hwang In-ho? What delivered Gi-hun this evolved and transformed person? He believed he had grown, had known it every time he had looked at his phone in the apartment and seen the photo of In-ho and Eun-jung lighting up its screen. To say it out loud was something else entirely.
In-ho, who had whispered those damned words when they had returned to his disgustingly simple viewing area. How his touch had sought to gentle his rage, his desperation.
How Seong Gi-hun had allowed it to. He was rendered wordless, his tongue flat against the bottom of his mouth.
He had been slowly led back to these quarters.
Hwang In-ho, who had peeled the white mask off of him so carefully. His own dark eyes flickering to Gi-hun constantly, a sorrowful hush to them. Still, Gi-hun knew he was under the familiar study of the other. From his meltdown at the lounge to there. In-ho’s eyes watched like he was waiting for him to crack open, for a pearl of acceptance to be there for his taking.
Perhaps that was why Gi-hun had been rendered so quiet. He felt too incapable of responding to such a comment—In-ho, who had said what he wanted to here, but would not budge nonetheless, it seemed. He felt ill.
In-ho seemed to know, as he always did, and had carded his fingers through his hair. He had let him, his lips pressed into a thin line. His heart was raw and unfiltered in its beats. His shirt was unbuttoned, and a hesitant hand undid his belt, sliding it off, but not once did Gi-hun stop him. In-ho, who knelt and pulled off his shoes, rolled off his socks. He did every single step until Gi-hun was bare. And the man just stood there.
“If you’re angry, then you can shout,” In-ho murmured, and dejavu licked his heavy bones. In-ho undid his coat, stepping away to hang it on a wallhook. He stood in just a black tank top, but he never moved to remove that either. His gloves were peeled off and left in Gi-hun’s own muddle of clothes. A warm, firm touch came to Gi-hun’s lower back.
He wondered if he should respond, to say anger was not nearly enough to describe the shock that had jolted him so horridly. Gi-hun felt displaced in a void, as if he might look down and see his feet replaced with nothingness. He felt unsteady, lost.
In-ho guided him to the bathroom, maneuvered him until he was sitting in the tub.
He wondered if he should speak now—to say this was ridiculous, to say—
“I can do this myself,” his voice was hoarse, like he had not spoken in years rather than one cruel hour.
In-ho’s voice, clean and tender, came calmly. “Do you want me to do it anyway?”
Gi-hun’s eyes flickered up to In-ho, and the showerhead he had lifted. He thought of the panic when he had held the cat, how there had been that sudden, terrified hope that In-ho would read his mind—would comfort him, and hush away the stress. It was as if he was doing that now, that In-ho had gingerly touched the inside of his mind with the most tentative of touches. Had traced the crevices that had crumbled over time, knew what he wanted, knew what pride would not let him ask for. In-ho was making it all too easy to be cared for. He could close his eyes, bite his tongue, and let warm water wash everything away.
There were no further words. Just water that felt like blanketing rain, fingers that adjusted him so carefully. In-ho was the strange steadiness, this odd constant that convinced him not to give out. Even though he wanted to, he wanted to fall back, to lie and let his body rot. But that wasn’t happening. Not with In-ho, never with him.
Gi-hun should be ashamed, cheeks red and tears running down his face. Even now, he should be at the minimum, hollow and empty.
Fingers scrubbed at his scalp; a mint-scented shampoo massaged into his scalp. He swallowed - hard. He rolled his neck back, almost thoughtfully, and felt himself push further against the other’s touch.
“If you want to break—or hit something, that’s fine, Gi-hun,” came In-ho’s voice. There he went again, as if trying to cut short the quiet before the storm. Gi-hun wondered if perhaps the other was unnerved, would rather skip the suspense of his silence. Perhaps In-ho had made bold assumptions on Gi-hun’s response to the games, and this immediate reservation had not been anywhere on the radar. It was almost funny to consider – that the man who had been so dedicated to memorising Gi-hun would miss the mark so miserably.
His lips parted, ready to speak, but not a sound came out. The words ‘You’re such an idiot’ were so ready to slip out. He let air slip inside, let it chill the heat inside his mouth, let it freeze the bile that bided its time at the bottom of his throat. “Like you?” he croaked.
In-ho paused. He felt water and suds run down his neck, watched it hit the tub’s porcelain body. “Yes, you can hit me,” In-ho finally replied, his soft touch returning as he rinsed him off before plucking up a soap-lathered cloth.
Gi-hun hummed, eyes unable to meet In-ho’s own. He watched his hands, watched the way they traced along him with just a cloth as a barrier. The way he ran it over Gi-hun’s arms—up to his shoulders, across his chest, with such brilliant care. He didn’t feel hunted, nor did he feel like a participant in some dark and lustful act. In-ho was just there, taking care of him. Like Gi-hun was his wound to dress.
The VIPs weren’t here yet. His muscles eased under the thought, or maybe it was the way that In-ho’s thumb had dragged firm against his shoulder blade.
He bet In-ho would like to join him. He thought of when they had bathed together, and he knew the memory was probably chained like a cruel untamable creature in the scape of his mind. Not that he blamed the other.
His own fog had cleared, In-ho’s warm touch having cut through it all seemingly. And suddenly the idea, as it always did at the worst of times, seemed nice. That sleeping with Hwang In-ho was the easiest way to stop feeling so terrible.
Not that it would have made him feel any less guilty.
“What did you mean?” he said, his own hand catching In-ho’s.
The other stilled, his mouth twitched as if it couldn’t catch a response. “I’m not finished yet,” In-ho said softly. Gi-hun’s gaze swept downwards, to the hand he had caught, to the cloth In-ho was still holding.
“I thought you agreed with the games, you had no qualms with—”
“I did.” His hand was empty, the cloth dropped, and Gi-hun felt In-ho pull out of his touch. A frustrated sound started on his lips, only to die as both In-ho’s hands reached to hold his face. Thumps that dragged softly against his cheeks. “I think people become animals, and I think these games will never change.”
He wanted to say something, to argue. To say that it was the games that did this, it was circumstantial and contextual—
“But, maybe I could have been more empathetic—” Odd place to start, but Gi-hun bit his tongue. “I can see now that the horses, the ones that we bet on, trample the free animals.”
“No one is—”
“You asked, are you going to reject what I say if it isn’t the same words you say?” In-ho asked softly, and Gi-hun felt his cheeks heat up in shame.
“The worst of men win these games.” For once, Gi-hun could agree. His fingers twitched. It should have been Sang-woo, or Sae-byeok, yet it had been him. He shivered. There was a sigh. So fleeting, he wondered if it had merely been the sound of the floorboards of his heart creaking. In-ho’s touch feathered to his sides, pulling him up and out. A towel was pushed against him.
“You were unexpected. I wanted to say that you were an exception, an outlier,” In-ho continued. He nodded slowly and wondered if, in their year together, this was the most they had ever been so open about everything. “I still thought that, even after your rebellion.”
He hadn’t said it like a taunt. He hadn’t said it the way that he had – when he wanted Gi-hun to be embarrassed, to strike his pride, to remind him not to overstep. It was the most passive he had ever been on the topic.
“I still believe you to be better than so many of them. So naïve, so foolishly headstrong, your hope was inspiring. I almost began to wonder if I had started to root for your victory,” In-ho confided, his lips nearly twitching upwards at Gi-hun’s annoyed frown. “But, I suppose, knowing Player 222 as Jun-hee afterwards, I wonder…” He didn’t have to say it because, strangely enough, Gi-hun understood.
“You’ll never know they are humans when you make them horses,” Gi-hun said softly. Not interjecting, not tearing the other down. It was understanding. Because his heart had been twisted, and his flesh gutted as his perspective was warped in games of adrenaline and fear. The urge to hate others, to blame the cruellest men as evil and less than human, but he knew—he might have never thought such a thing outside of the games.
To rid their names, to force their predicaments—In-ho never had a chance to learn to think differently.
“When you watch from a screen, you begin to think we only ever existed within that frame.”
In-ho swallowed, his eyes had a glossed-over look. “I suppose, I suppose that’s right.”
“It was hard for you, wasn’t it, playing in the games?”
In-ho gasped for air, his hands suddenly against his own chest. He forced alaughr, one so painfully chipped and strained. Gi-hun could not help the surprised look that was suddenly tossed across his own face. It was as if—In-ho had tried to wedge himself back behind his walls; he let the vulnerability go down the drain.
“I’m beginning to wish you had just shouted at me,” In-ho tried to smile, Gi-hun’s frown only deepened.
“I don’t understand you,” Gi-hun murmured after the moment, sidestepping him. His hands found the door handle.
“Where are you going?”
“To put clothes on. You can’t be trusted.”
They shared a bed. Which Gi-hun supposed was typical now, still, he had shot In-ho a narrow look. Jun-hee was not here, which meant there was no usual excuse. Still, the ghost of fear that had kept his eyes bloodshot and his head aching was ever-present and hung like a weight in his chest. So, he would not put up a fight, not when—not when he knew sleep came so much easier this way. Even if In-ho had a bad habit of running his hands along him like they were newlyweds, and not two slightly-confused enemies. Though he wondered with slight disbelief if In-ho had ever thought of him as a serious threat, like he had for him. Regardless, he had sunk into silk sheets with the same heaviness that had always been plaguing him. Hwang In-ho was right behind him, the bed dipping with his weight.
They were facing each other in a still darkness. He could see the shine in his eyes. A glint illuminated by the one lamp left on. Feathery golden hues against midnight blindness. Everything was incomprehensible; he felt blind. Blind to everything but the one shape he could make out. Hwang In-ho. His gaze had lingered long enough to adapt. He could trace the fall of his neat hair, damp from his own shower. He could see the cut of his jaw and wondered vaguely what his pulse might feel like if Gi-hun were to tenderly drag his fingers from there and down the flesh of his neck. Fast, beating bloody like Gi-hun’s had been earlier or perhaps slower, coaxing itself into gasping for life for every overly long in-between moment.
“You think the games are wrong.”
“Gi-hun.” In-ho’s voice was tired. It was telling that he thought the conversation was at rest, that Gi-hun would find no relief in diving deeper.
“So, end them, we could end it,” Gi-hun said, honest. Voice an eager, terrified whisper. He wished he could call Jun-hee, but In-ho had made him leave his phone back in Busan. His hand snaked out, finding the other’s under the blanket. He squeezed tightly, and In-ho was still.
“It’s not that simple.”
His mouth opened to say that, of course, it was.
“Gi-hun,” In-ho pressed, and finally that cold touch squeezed him back. “The games go on with or without me. It—it was worse, before.”
“So, what? There’s nothing we can do, are you telling me to give up again?” Gi-hun pressed. He shuffled closer, until he could hear the way In-ho had sucked in a breath. It was perhaps unfair, since In-ho had told him a multitude of times to give up. To abandon his hope, to squash his heel against his faith in humans.
He thought of the voice on the phone, the one that had told him to board the plane. What would the voice say now?
“I can’t let you be reckless again.”
There was a flare of frustration, and Gi-hun tried to shake off In-ho’s hand. He couldn’t. For all his flash of rage, In-ho was keeping him encompassed in a warm and committed touch. Reckless. So what? Gi-hun’s messy approach would be worth it all if it meant saving the players.
“You always jump to conclusions. I didn’t say that I would not—” In-ho's voice drifted off.
His tongue darted out to nervously wet his lip. He nodded, earnest to hear what he always knew was going to be said. It was finding religion the night before the battle, it was learning how to clasp hands and pray.
“Go to sleep, Gi-hun. You’ll need it,” the other said delicately.
He needed it. He needed it more than he needed his bad ways of coping. Gi-hun wanted to hear the words from Hwang In-ho, from the Front Man himself. He came closer, felt the way the body stilled, felt the fingers, intertwined with his own, twitch.
“Say you’re going to help me,” he breathed, leaning in. His forehead against the other.
“You have got to be kidding me,” In-ho gaped, but he could feel the way the skin was heating up. Gi-hun frowned, serious. “Okay. I’m going to help you, conditionally. You’re going to have to accept that.”
“You’re going to help me,” he repeated In-ho’s words, breathing them out with such relief. He nearly wanted to smile. He nearly wanted to—his eyes flickered down to the lips that had blessed him with their words. He swallowed a dry, sudden nervousness. Is that what they meant in books—when adrenaline overcame one's senses?
Good thing he came to his senses, and knew that kissing the Front Man was incredibly irrational when they were on an island with games taking place that made Gi-hun emotional and disorientated. Such a good thing that—
He shoved forward, pressing his own lips against the other. But yet, it was perhaps the most gentle kiss they had ever had. In-ho sighed into it. Their hands reluctantly pulled apart, but it was just so In-ho could touch his face.
Gi-hun almost wished for it to be an awkward touch, something so ridiculous as he leaned into it. The same way he hoped for In-ho to be greedy, to devour him right there, but that didn’t happen. It was, instead, all terribly thoughtful. A warm mouth that kissed him perhaps a hundred times, but it never deepened to a level he knew they couldn’t return from. Nails ran tenderly against his skin, creeping over to his ear, and they ran along his hair until he shivered.
In-ho smelled of clean soaps and jasmine fresh linen, not quite like whiskey and the thick musks of their fragrances at home. Still, it was unexpected and new. It wasn’t what he pictured when he thought of the Front Man—which he thought he would be more similar to now that they were on the island. Gi-hun supposed they had both made their assumptions.
“Gi-hun,” In-ho breathed, his breath ghosting across the little space between their mouths. He could only make a choked sound of response. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re mine, and I’ll let every VIP and player die before that changes.”
“Don’t ruin this,” he condemned, but he was still inching closer, his fingers shaking as they latched to his biceps. “Don’t—”
“Okay.” And In-ho was kissing him again, ending his panic with a honeying embrace. “Is that what you wanted?”
His cheeks were licked red, and he felt himself inhale a desperate taste of air. He was so close now, close enough that In-ho could throw an arm around him and keep him there. Gi-hun nodded slightly. He thought of how strange it always was in the games, how the days there stretched for years, and how relationships blossomed in moments that would outlast the ones forged for years outside. Perhaps it was a curse of this island, or just his wishful thinking.
“You still think some people are bad enough that it excuses the games,” Gi-hun said at last. There was a pause. “I—I’m not so sure that you’re one of those people.”
“Oh.” In-ho had never asked to be forgiven, had never even begged to be pardoned or acquitted for his acts. He had worn them as simply as one might wear a watch on their wrist. He saw himself tied and inseparable from what Gi-hun viewed as indistinguishable from the Devil in Hell. Still, he lingered under Gi-hun’s words as he was soaking in them. “That’s rather…” He swallowed, and Gi-hun could almost feel the way he was trying to find it in himself to believe what he had said.
“I mean…” Gi-hun stuttered slightly, eyes flickering away for a mere nervous moment. “I still have faith in you, I know you can…”
In-ho froze entirely, and neither of them moved.
In the end, there was a sigh. In-ho dragged him forward, pressing his head until it was tucked beneath his chin. “Go to sleep.”
The second game was much like the first.
And Gi-hun was unsure he could stomach watching. Perhaps it had been planned long in advance, perhaps it was a cruel happening now in front of him. His gaze flicked from the screen to In-ho. He eyed the side of the Front Man. The ever still man in grey and black. The second game was Dalgona.
Like he had told the people, it should be when he was last in the game. He wouldn’t put it past In-ho to have picked the game shortly after the end of the last one, when he knew that Gi-hun would most likely learn of it. That bubbling hope stretched against his pressed lips; it told him the game was chosen long ago. That In-ho had not done this now with malicious intent.
Still, it was hard to watch.
The games could not end with Hwang In-ho’s decision. But his help was so desperately needed still.
Gi-hun had ached to ask questions. Waking up, warm and held, he almost forgot where he was. Until his eyes had blinked open, and In-ho was gazing back. His face was tense—uncomfortable. Gi-hun wondered if the man knew that he had changed so much, if he knew how sorry he looked at the idea of causing him so much grief.
In-ho was rather unique; he seemed to bloom under the idea of taunting Gi-hun. Yet he had rewarded Gi-hun so often that he too had seemed to believe Gi-hun’s comfort was his own reward, too. In another life, Gi-hun might find humour in thinking that sex might have been the needed domino effect for Hwang In-ho to get his priorities in order.
Now, it was painful to see players line up like ants to sugar, behind shapes that would decide their fates.
He paused.
The circle.
The triangle.
The star.
And a square.
That was—different.
In the aftermath, there was no longer a daily vote. That seemed to be only implemented previously for the sake of torturing Gi-hun with In-ho’s philosophy. Still, he felt disappointment lodged in the unswallowable dryness of his throat. As if he hoped this time could be different, too. That the people would collectively choose to leave and never return. Now, they were chanceless. They were trapped in a stubborn violence.
There was no reason to watch their meal, it seemed, and he followed the Front Man out of the control room. His head turned just to see the masked officer step into the spot that had been In-ho’s. The conducting continued so simply, so seamlessly.
And he knew In-ho had been right. The games would continue even without their precious Front Man.
They were led back to In-ho’s own viewing room, his hand plucking the remote before either of them had sat.
“If you want, you may continue to the bedroom,” In-ho said, his mask still delicately aligned to his face. “I won’t make you watch.” The In-ho of a year ago would have. Gi-hun would have been studied so closely, In-ho would be eyeing his every facial expression just to grin afterwards with sick satisfaction. Not now, not recently. His cruelties were less than they had been; they were short and selfish, not grand and grotesque. The current flaws of In-ho felt less bothersome somehow. The way he never truly minded the way Eun-ji always raised her voice to a pitchy, annoyed tone on Mondays after work, or always burned the expensive meats even after promising to watch the stove carefully. It was like a little part of Gi-hun had just adapted, that he could nod and say, yes, this is In-ho, and he’s an asshole, and that’s just how he happens to be.
“There were no umbrellas in the dalgona game,” Gi-hun replied, his nails digging into the palms of his hands.
“No, I suppose there weren’t.”
He wished most fervently for the mask to be rid of. All to see that stupid face, he could understand at least a fraction better than edges and lines. He wanted to know if he would see those same sad eyes, and see the shamed monotonous look, and not the cold, distant memory of In-ho.
“Squares.” It was all Gi-hun managed, and he thought of the easel with which so many who had picked it had. Their shaking, terrified sobs, but so many more breaths of relief. The blood on the sand—not even comparable to the dead of those unfortunate enough to have picked the umbrella. It was the trade of the most traumatic shape for something so safe, he couldn’t understand why.
“A last-minute adjustment, really.” In-ho flipped the remote in his hand. Last minute? Did that mean the night prior, weeks prior—months? When had the change happened? It felt as though it meant all the world suddenly. “The later games are more suited to a greater number of players.”
“When did you—”
The next two days were a blur. In-ho’s one interference was certainly not enough to prevent players from dropping like flies. And Gi-hun’s will felt like it was crumbling. He begged it not to, he wished for the strength not to feel his body sag with every defeating deaf, gunshots deafening. Their bodies were dragged like waste by soldiers so apathetic that he began to wonder if they were looking at the same thing.
In-ho had asked for his faith, something that Gi-hun had perhaps foolishly given him long before.
Sometimes, his mind was anywhere but exactly where he was. It begged for relief, to be momentarily eclipsed from considering the pain of the death he watched. He had drunk the sights of the screen until he was sick. Anywhere but here, that was where his mind took him. He tried not to at first, he told himself that he could not take such an easy reprieve when there were players who could not take even a moment for themselves. But yet it still happened, somewhere in the middle of the third game. Everything glossed over.
And all he saw—
Was the apartment in Busan.
He was staring at one of In-ho’s many bookshelves, the one complete with a neat assembly of foreign novels. He couldn’t recall their names, but he could remember their spines, their colours. He had spent so long, a lifetime ago, just watching everything. As time passed by outside in the roll of the sun against a sky he never studied, and In-ho was gone on business trips. Gi-hun had memorised the house, learned it as he moved through the stages of grief against his will.
He remembered throwing books and locking himself away to hollow, empty days. He remembered ignoring In-ho and missing him so terribly that it kept him awake.
Blinking, his view changed. It was his room, had been his room, but it had a crib assembled in it now. And there was Jun-hee in an oversized t-shirt, arms stretched up high holding her daughter, and she was smiling the largest grin. Still, his mind was ruffled with thought—Where was In-ho?
It was like floating, recalling every room of theirs. The kitchen, the gym, the bathroom, and he was not there at all. His fingers twitched at his side. The piano, the bed, the couch, he was not there either.
A gunshot. Gi-hun flinched, and suddenly a black mask tilted slightly, and he knew that In-ho was watching him through the narrow slits of his mask.
But he had found him.
As usual, Gi-hun had followed In-ho back to their viewing room. His own hands darted up to pull off his white mask. He abandoned it next to the decanter, breathing shaky relief as his twitching fingers went to pour two glasses of whiskey.
“Do you have a cigarette? Tell me you do,” he said quickly, rushing to drag a sorry sip of the amber liquid. His expression souring immediately afterwards.
In-ho didn’t say anything, he just stood there for a long and most painful moment. Gloved hands never moving to take off his mask.
“Gi-hun.”
He took another quick sip, surprised that In-ho was not as eager to drink. “I think I lost my appetite,” he tried to joke, but In-ho’s silence washed against him.
“I have to go.”
Eyes widened suddenly before blinking themselves into relaxation, and Gi-hun shook his head in disbelief. “No, no—You can watch it here, that’s why we came back.” He spoke like he was telling the other what to do, as if he were naïve enough to believe he could do such a thing.
“The guests are arriving; I need to be ready to greet them.”
The VIPs. The people of maddening and loathsome taste. With diamond-dipped fingers that wiped in dismay at the dust of people like him. The ones who stood between Gi-hun and ending the games.
“Now? So soon,” he asked, voice webbing into panicking nervousness.
In-ho seemed to hesitate. “Soon,” he said, or perhaps allowed.
“Take off the mask then,” Gi-hun said quickly, swallowing another desperate gulp of his drink. He soon abandoned it, the clink rattling back at him as he deposited it.
A second passed, and the sudden breath of memory shoved against him, tangling in his own frightened one. He remembered the previous time he asked, and like muscle memory, he staggered forward, his hands reaching to pull off the black mask. In-ho’s fingers caught his wrist, as if to stop him, but just as suddenly they let go. The mask came off, and he found the face he had been searching for.
“You’re rather eager,” In-ho murmured, voice intimately low, but there was a crease between his brows, a strain of tension against the muscles of his face.
“What are they–” Gi-hun said, his fingertips digging into the black geometrical mask that was still in his grasp. “The conditions?”
Dark eyes studied him, a broad chest breathed a long, tired draw. “You have to trust me, if this ends, then it ends in the only way possible. You can’t fret, you can’t rush in, you have to do as I tell you.”
What a perfectly vague answer. Gi-hun’s stomach twisted, and it knotted as he considered it lightly. He thought of what In-ho was asking—he was telling Gi-hun not to panic and charge in after the next players died, he was asking him to bide time and let the reigns be passed steadily and surely to In-ho.
“A small sacrifice for the greater good,” he replied, the words dull and flavourless against his tongue. In-ho’s head nodded, and a conversation seemed to take place in the quiet between them. Trusting Hwang In-ho was a bold ask. It was asking to trust a man who had already caused so much disturbance to the peace he could have had. It was digging up Young-il from his grave, it was dragging his nails against the sorry glass of a two-way mirror. But, in a way, Gi-hun had always been trusting In-ho anyway. Perhaps the man didn’t deserve it, but that was not the deciding factor. A pearl of faith passed from one hand to another, and he silently curled In-ho’s fingers around it, quietly telling him that he was already long entrusted to his care. “I trust you,” Gi-hun said softly. Why did he trust him? Why did he forgive him? Those questions were folded like paper and slipped away for safekeeping; it was not yet their time.
In-ho came close, his head tilting as he leaned in. A feathering light kiss to the corner of Gi-hun’s lips. His own mouth twitched; whiskey mixed in the delicateness.
“I want to come with you, to greet the VIPs,” Gi-hun said softly. The idea was grotesque, meeting with the predators that stalked halls with greed in the black holes of their masks and selfishness in their taking fingertips.
“When has that ever gone well?”
Gi-hun frowned, unsure how to convince the other. Eyes roamed him. “Because—” Gi-hun’s tongue darted to wet his lip. In-ho watched him in an unbreakable stare, “—It entertains you.”
“Until it terrifies me.”
Terrifies? He thought In-ho was rather exaggerative with his words. For all the affection that In-ho offered to him, he could seemingly only return so little. The white moon and his light that a black sea reflected only a glittering sliver of. In-ho embraced him often and foolishly so, and kissed him so tenderly that Gi-hun nearly thought he was not asking for more. Still, it was strangely comforting. This game they played – he was unsure who had begun to seek the other for more than relief and favour.
In-ho had handed him a white suit and had fixed both of their masks back in place.
“Are you certain?” came the Front Man’s filtered voice, firm and asking but plagued with the quietness of worry. Gloved hands smoothed the lapels of his suit, seemingly an appreciative once-over. The Front Man in his blacks and greys, and every inch of skin covered or shadowed, prideful of Gi-hun in white with his worried frown visible beneath the mask and his stubborn fingers balled into white fists. He nodded.
Minimalism drained away, but not in the trade for pastel children’s sets. No, it was glistening wood walls, deep green curtains and gold framing tropically floral designs. A room with a false outside, like a glassbowl that the fat cats prowled in and waited for their meals to be served with. “A set from last year, unused, otherwise there would be quite the uproar at blatant repetition,” In-ho told him lowly, his hand on his lower back as he guided them into the room. “Seemingly, I’m out of the loop with our number of guests.”
Gi-hun’s gaze flickered to the set dining space, and he wondered idly what In-ho meant. No one was there. The masked officer was close, and perhaps that comment was for him. There was a black tablet, angled to the Front Man, but the man merely waved it away.
“If there are more guests, then it is what it is, the room has clearly adapted aptly.” Gi-hun could not help the fright of nervousness that stung at him at the idea of In-ho being out of the loop in the situation. At least he was grateful for the confidence the men held in himself with.
The masked officer left the room with a coldness that lingered. His skin prickled and sharp, as he followed behind In-ho much like a lost dog. An emerald velvet seat was rolled out for him, In-ho guiding him into it before taking the seat next to him.
He wondered what number of guests In-ho believed they were to be seating, his eyes danced across the table. Ten seats, including their own, at a decagonal table. Eight rich bastards. Eight of those gold-masked fuckers and their tipsy stupor.
Their silence passed slowly and was troublesome until the waitstaff opened the doors. With eyesore outfits, Gi-hun could not help but avert his gaze. He heard In-ho rise from his seat, and unsure of what else to do, he followed in his stead.
Neatly, VIPs stepped into place, a blinding, obnoxious array of gold animal masks and colourfully obtuse clothing. Some familiar faces after only a meek and fleeting glance.
“It’s an honour to host you all for this year,” was In-ho’s steadying voice, and Gi-hun quickly looked to him. The way he carried himself, his arm outstretched like an ever-welcoming host, his masked face tipped to the nearest guest and moved to eye them all. The equal and fair greeting expected of him, and Gi-hun could not help but find the most comfort in watching him rather than the pigs in jewellery. “I hope you will find your entertainment will truly meet your expectations—” there was a pause, not unnatural, not abnormal in the way of speaking, but still there. And the Front Man had not carried on in the turn of his head, it had lagged, catching on something so apparently remarkable his words had been snagged from the teeth in his mouth.
Gi-hun swallowed, daring himself not to look too quickly, his gaze snapped to the disruption. In-ho had already begun to carry on.
“—And may this meal be repayment for your travels.” It was tight, clipped.
Of course, it was, as Gi-hun felt his mouth dry immediately. An ivory suit and gold mask that framed a still visible smile, one with skin peppered with small flecks of white scars across the skin. White teeth flashed a sharp, toothy grin, one that strained painfully wide. A hand lifted, a faux-adjustment of the gold mosaic rabbit mask that he wore.