Chapter Text
It happened so fast.
One moment Ji-yeong’s fingers were dropping her last marble, the next Sae-byeok was pinning her to the wall, and before either of them knew it, a riot had started from the other end of the playground.
That gave them just enough time for Sae-byeok to slip one marble in Ji-yeong’s hand, grab her by the sleeve and walk away from the henchman with a circle mask watching them.
«Don’t ever, ever try something like that again. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare—»
Hiding in one of the set-up old houses, sounds of shotguns being fired overlapped with Sae-byeok’s last edges of panic and desperation, as she tried to recollect some sense of lucidity. If they were going to get out of here alive, Ji-yeong needed to drop the heroic act and get her focus on.
«Sae-byeok—» Ji-yeong said, interrupting her, with an expression Sae-byeok couldn’t quite grasp. Mounting on her adrenaline, Sae-byeok knew Ji-yeong must have been shocked, and was having a hard time responding. Her eyes were wide, almost curious, as the cartoon wall behind her hid both of them from indiscreet eyes, and Sae-byeok whispered directions for the both of them.
«We have to hope no one saw what stupid shit you pulled back there. If one of the henchmen comes for you—»
«Sae-byeok, shut up for a second.» Ji-yeong said, one thread of a voice, as a sly smile took place on her lips. As if inebriated with craziness, Ji-yeong looked as if she was descending from another dimension. As if she died, and was resurrected back to life. «We’re alive. Both of us, we’re alive,» Ji-yeong delivered with a quick, open-mouthed laugh.
«And if we want to stay alive, we have to take advantage of the chaos.»
After one moment in which Sae-byeok checked on Ji-yeong, the latter lifted the marble Sae-byeok gave her, so that it was held in the small space between their faces.
Then, Ji-yeong’s smile increased even more. «So what? “We” go back there?»
Sae-byeok didn’t linger on the subtext, on Ji-yeong’s silent “why did you save me?” that she knew would be asked out loud, sooner or later — and for which she didn’t have an answer… yet.
So she just nodded, and leaned out towards the window-cut in the cartoon-wall, to see deserted streets.
Then a mechanical voice spoke through the speakers: «for all the remaining players in game, please go back to the main room. I repeat: for all the remaining players in game—»
With one shared perplexed look, Ji-yeong placed her hands on Sae-byeok’s shoulders to force a step back from her, and walk out of the hideout. Then, with a look over her shoulder she asked: «you coming?»
Sae-byeok found herself in a much shredded herd of players, on the way back from the playground. They couldn’t have been more than twenty people, and Sae-byeok’s eyes scammed the other players for familiar faces.
«What happened?» Sae-byeok asked Gi-hun, as soon as she fell in line next to him.
He seemed terrified, guilty, and his eyes looked as if they could pop off any minute now. He turned around slowly, and huffed a relieved breath upon seeing her. «Sae-byeok, you’re still here! It was a massacre. Deok-su’s partner rebelled because of the change of rules and managed to steal one of the henchmen’s guns.»
«They had to stop the game or they wouldn’t have enough players for the next one,» Sang-woo finished for him. A few steps ahead, Ali looked tense, as if Sang-woo’s voice alone triggered some fight-or-flight reflex.
Sae-byeok filed the weird reaction in her mind.
As if proving Sang-woo’s statement even more, as soon as they were in the main room, they found Mi-nyeo: smiling, with her feet swinging over the edge of the bed, speaking to Deok-su about how the game has been fair, sparing her life.
Across the few players left, Sae-byeok found Ji-young, with her eyes captured by Mi-nyeo’s speech, with that perennially bored expression that now Sae-byeok was starting to think was more of a mask than a genuine approach to life. Something in Sae-byeok’s chest trembled, and a flash of Ji-yeong’s sacrifice still pictured dark colours in the back of her eyes.
«What do you think will be tomorrow’s game?» Ji-yeong asked her, when Sae-byeok was biting down on her potato, and the little water left asked to be drunk before someone else comes stealing it.
Sae-byeok lifted her eyes, and again she had the weight of the most recent events in front of her. Unable to understand why the hell she reacted the way she did, when she thought Ji-yeong was about to die. Why Ji-yeong chose to sacrifice herself for her, for her explanations still didn’t make any sense to her ears. Why now that she looked at her, she felt like that. As if there was something else in the background: as if she could walk out of this hell with something more than the money. As if she had to be even more careful when Ji-yeong was around, and her ears perked up, and her memory tried to impress every little thing.
Sae-byeok knew her body reacted to dangers like that. But that didn’t make any sense, did it? Ji-yeong was willing to sacrifice her life for her.
So why the hell—
«Sae-byeok?»
Sae-byeok blinked, as the shell Ji-yeong represented for her flashbacked eyes suddenly was filled with Ji-yeong’s essence. «Uhm, I don’t know.»
«Well, how can you? Just guess,» Ji-yeong happily said, sitting next to her on her bed.
«I didn’t play many games growing up.»
Ji-yeong huffed a laugh, «me neither» she just said, with a tone of voice that resembled a lazy yawn, as she laid on Sae-byeok’s bed. «That’s why I asked.»
Sae-byeok, from the glimpse of childhood Ji-yeong shared with her just a couple of hours before, could understand why. They were so similar it scared her, as Sae-byeok had lived all of her life thinking she was born sick, in a sick world populated by sick people, and got so unlucky with understanding it. But now Ji-yeong was here, so effortlessly living in her same world, coming from much worse conditions, just laying next to her and looking at her with those dreaming eyes.
Or perhaps it was Sae-byeok, the one dreaming.
What was happening?
«Now I feel weird,» Ji-yeong admitted with a little embarrassed laugh, as she averted her eyes. The timing almost made Sae-byeok think she was telepathetic.
«What for?»
«If I knew I’d still be here, I wouldn’t have been so dramatic back there.»
Sae-byeok couldn’t help but laugh, and it occurred to her that might have been the first time she did so, when Ji-yeong narrowed her eyes. «So she has a sense of humour, huh.»
«You just failed to make me laugh until now.» Sae-byeok replied, keeping the bantering while defending herself. But «this isn’t a very fun place either,» she conceded.
Before Ji-yeong could bite back with that snark of hers, Ali made his way towards them.
«Sae-byeok,» he started, and she was a bit surprised by the direct confrontation; as much as they played in the same team, they never formed a link the way Gi-hun and her did. «You have to watch out for—»
«Here you are!» Mi-nyeo interrupted him, and a few beds away Gi-hun and Sang-woo directed their attention towards Sae-byeok’s bed, which was now being used as a meeting point, apparently. Annoyance started building in her.
Mi-nyeo carried on, looking for reassurance in the team, in case the next game would involve groups the way tug-of-war did.
«Sure, whatever,» Sae-byeok dismissed, hoping Ali would finish his warning. If her body was this tense around Ji-yeong, and Ali looked so worried, perhaps Sae-byeok had a reason to doubt Ji-yeong’s sacrifice. Perhaps the riot hadn’t been casual. Perhaps—
Out of nowhere, Gi-hun jumped to his feet. «We didn’t prepare for tonight,» he realized, starting to pace all around. There was something off about him, but the fact that the old man was nowhere to be seen, Sae-byeok attributed his weird behaviour to guilt.
She briefly wondered how she’d feel, if Ji-yeong had truly died.
She was having a hard time putting the pieces together: her tension, Ali’s half warning, Ji-yeong’s friendly attitude, her own sudden, out-of-character attachment.
Sae-byeok gritted her eyes as she stood up and helped Gi-hun create some makeshift barricades.
Then Ali said: «what if the enemy is within?»
Gi-hun stopped in his tracks, much like everyone else did, except for Ji-yeong who just rolled on her stomach, as if to enjoy the drama better.
And those two things made Sae-byeok’s stomach sink. Had she been that naive?
«What are you saying, Ali?» Gi-hun asked, as Sae-byeok’s hands clenched around the metal bar in her hands.
Then Ali locked eyes with Sang-woo, and raised his finger, now pointed at him.
«I don’t think he should be with us. It’s unsafe.»
Sae-byeok’s first instinct was to follow Ali’s finger: Sang-woo looked as if he was fighting so hard to keep his composure. «What are you talking about?» He said firstly, before starting to discredit him: «he doesn’t even know what “unsafe” means, c’mon. I say we get rid of him before he becomes a dead weight.»
The way Sang-woo spoke seemed so out of his character, so different from his logical and rational self, that Sae-byeok knew something was off.
Then, just as the rest of the group seemed to share that same sentiment, Sae-byeok’s second instinct was to look back at Ji-yeong, from the inner accusation she was toying with just seconds before. She knew she had to guard herself in there, for this place was designed to be mortal and dangerous, and to turn loyal people into traitors. Yet she felt a sense of relief, a sense of familiarity, that warmed her heart with every detail of Ji-yeong she drank.
«I say we vote,» Ali said, clearly riding off the suspects that the group’s eyes reflected.
It took them so little, with Sang-woo’s complaints and Gi-hun’s attempts at diplomacy ignored, casting Sang-woo out of their squad.
As Sang-woo spoke with Deok-su on the other side of the room, the nightly countdown started. Sae-byeok knew how she had to feel: cold, detached, eyes-on-the-prize like the first time she stepped in this place. Like the first time she promised Cheol she’d take him out of the hellhole he was put in. Like that piggy bank held the dreams of a lifetime.
But now in her bed there was Ji-yeong, toying with the hem of her sleeves, making a mess in Sae-byeok’s heart. Tonight’s events only proved to her that she couldn’t trust anyone in here. Perhaps Ji-yeong’s actions were all part of an elaborate plan. Perhaps Sae-byeok was being manipulated.
She had to confront her before it was too late.
So, as soon as the countdown finished and the lights went off, Sae-byeok climbed up on her own bed, and placed one hand on Ji-yeong’s mouth, before lowering herself at her ear-level, to whisper. «Why did you drop your last marble?»
It took Sae-byeok one second to remember to lift her hand, if she wanted an answer, and she felt immensely stupid for it. But, as soon as she did, Ji-yeong propped herself on her elbows, forcing Sae-byeok to sit on her lap and listen. «I already told you,» Ji-yeong replied, with a much colder tone than before, and a matching level of voice.
«That’s bullshit. What do you want from me?»
«Sang-woo’s betrayal is making you paranoid. I don’t want a thing. Just that mojito on the Jeju island, when we get out of here—»
«Don’t play with me,» Sae-byeok replied hastily: now she knew what Ji-yeong’s game was, and she was sticking to it even after Sae-byeok called her out.
«We’re here to play, Sae-byeok. I can leave you alone, if that’s what you want.» Ji-yeong said, now more collected than before, with a tone that sounded a lot like a goodbye. Like the one she delivered that very day, while Sae-byeok was pinning her to the wall, and her heart was so sure of her. But then Ji-yeong leaned in, her hands around Sae-byeok’s neck, for one last whisper: «it doesn’t look like it is, though.»
With that, Ji-yeong slipped from under her, and Sae-byeok’s bed was left empty.