Chapter Text
Years had gone by. Years since that dreadful, awful, savior of a facility took her friends' lives and all semblance of naivety and innocence that protected her from believing the world was nothing but a cruel, cold hearted place. How could the girl just move on? How had anyone?
For months after 45.6 billion won was deposited into her account, she wondered. She wondered how anybody could just go on with their lives. She wondered how nobody with a heart had won and had the courage to confront what had happened. She did. Why not anyone else?
She was completely alone. Anyone who could possibly understand her pain was dead. Anyone who might understand her pain was anonymous and wealthy enough to have completely privacy or a whole new life somewhere she could only imagine.
She had to do something.
She started hiring people. She hired some, still frugal, but not by much, hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone, anyone, could catch that salesman. The one playing Ddakji and recruiting players. Surely her game wasn't the last. It would never end, would it?
But time crawled by while soaring like an eagle, her biting her nails as seconds felt like minutes, waiting for a call, and her money was being drained what people would call fast if she didn't have billions.
As the time grew near for the games to start, she felt dread. She felt absolutely dread. Her stomach gnawed and she waited, completely still, for a call, imagining what she'd do. She zoned out many times, imagining how she'd feel as she ran to her car, fumbled with her keys, and stomped on the breaks, plotting her revenge.
But nothing came.
He was never found.
On the year anniversary of her journey into the games, she merely cried. She called off the search for months, knowing that nothing would happen. She crawled up in her bed, tears flowing as quickly and surely as she believed blood was as the people who were losing their lives due to the human need of wanting to have enough for more than mere survival died.
With money, time crawled some more, and the soaring nature was dwindled by her not having anything to listen for or count on. She waited.
And again, he was never found.
After two whole years, she had cried all too much. Too much, she knew, so she met with the man whose men were searching for some man they surely couldn't have believed was real and took her money to just look around all day. She begged for the allocation of many more workers, covering every train line, every single one, demanding the closure of having photographic evidence of each station being searched and people come up empty handed right around the time that she knew the man lurked. As the man protested, saying it was a fortune, she rolled her eyes, throwing the fortune at him.
She needed to know. She couldn't wait another year.
Every day, the girl sat on her phone, scrolling on a map, getting text notifications of people who searched each and every station. Day by day, she crossed out her calendar, a sense of hopelessness growing with each new stroke of her marker.
Today's search has ended.
She stared at the phone as the white noise of heavy rain came down over her. It blurred her view of the city and fogged up the glass of her car. She could feel cold seeping through the doors, and she lay back on the cool leather seats. A rainy day was the perfect metaphor for her.
Another day, she just watched her phone. She gripped her wheel. She felt something. An anger, almost. As she huffed, she felt her phone buzz. Annoyed, she picked it up with a disdainful greeting.
She sped down the road, gun in hand, in no time. She followed the directions given, zigzagging to a father far station, then a grocery store, then a park, then being pulled over, then an alley, all to find the man she longed to see for years.
An alley.
It didn't sound right to her.
It sounded like a trap.
As soon as she got near, she ran. No way they were in an alley for this long without notifying her and everything was okay, right?
She was right. She found blood on the concrete and surrounding areas. And the salesman was gone as well. There were no traces of any of the three men. She stomped, her heart cracking as now surely she had put some people in danger and lost all leads to the man. As sudden as he appeared, he had ceased to exist.
Her despair was heavy on her mind. Had the higher ups been notified about this little incident? Had they already known that the Salesman knew she had been looking for him? Did they now not want to leave her to live her life now that she had openly declared herself a threat to their organization? Probably.
She had to muffle a gasp as she saw the back of the man she had been looking for in a place she felt safe. A place she thought she wouldn't be discovered. She knew that he'd heard her come in, yet she still was dead quiet, hoping for the silence to be prolonged and his inevitable confrontation never to begin.
"It's been a long time, Miss Y/N L/N."
The man stared at her calendar, and she breathed deeply to calm herself down as she walked to the side of him. He sipped on a drink.
"You should have left."
The man revealed his gun and pointed at the twisted lines of railroads mounted on her wall.
"It looks like you've been trying hard to find me."
"Yeah, well you're the person who led me to getting rich. Don't you deserve a little thanks?"
"Me?"
The salesman turned around, but she walked to the side and refused to look at him, trying to calm her racing heart.
"Why not? I won and made 45.6 billion won. You helped with that."
He slid down as coolly as liquid into the chair and relaxed into a pose suitable for a man such as him.
"I'm just a messenger who delivers invitations."
"Who had you deliver those invitations?"
She tried to stay calm and not let him see her nerves as she sat down in front of him and tries to look nonchalant as she asked the question. Of course, she didn't feel vetted nonchalant. She was pretty nervous, and she had to make a big effort to appear calm and composed, and not as if she was scared.
"Let me meet him. I have something to say."
His smug demeanor merely remained as she stared at him.
"Give me the message, and I'll pass it along."
"I don't think I can say it to someone as low in the hierarchy as you. You're a predator who goes after weak and injured prey. Scams them in subway stations. That makes you just like them. Weak. Someone like that wouldn't be able to understand it."
"Ms L/N... how do you think I got to where I am?"
She exhaled.
"I don't care how you came to obey their every order like a desperate puppy, no. Bring me to your owner."
"Hm. I used to work in the games when I was younger. I removed and burned the bodies of countless people like you. 'These things aren't human. They're just trash, utterly useless in the world.' I kept telling myself that and worked hard for a few years. Then they gave me a gun. It felt pretty good. Like my existence was acknowledged for the first time at time in my life. I don't know which year it was, but one day, I was about to shoot a man who had lost a game. Huh? The guy seemed familiar. Guess who it was."
"Your father?"
His eyes stayed mystical as he told the story, ignoring her guess.
"My dad. My dad was suddenly standing right in front of me. He was in tears, begging me desperately to spare his life."
He suddenly lunged, pointing his gun at my face. She didn't want to flinch, but she did. She then went back to angry, looking hatefully into his eyes.
"I shot him right in the middle of his forehead and realized, 'ah. I'm cut out for this job.'"
"Whatever it is that you do for them, no matter now or in the past, you've always been just their little dog."
The gun clicked and she looked down the barrel. Her eyes flicked back up to meet his. His other hand steadily reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She tracked his movements and he let his hand linger on her cheek for one second.
"Miss L/N... do you think you're special because you won the game?"
She leaned forward, pressing his gun to her head. His hand fell from her face.
"Someone like you could never know or understand how I made it out of that place alive. Know how it feels to play the games."
She didn't flinch this time when the gun cocked.
"Let's play a game."
Publish Date: 12/30/24