Chapter Text
unlucky bastards
He thinks of the oysters.
The mediocre ones he'd had for lunch at a shitty seafood place with Junho three months before his second game. A meal where he could barely meet his brother's eyes.
The finer oysters the VIPs were likely consuming as they watched the remaining players fight to the death. Picked out for decadent assholes who thought themselves above it all.
The promise of oysters his wife so desperately wanted while she was pregnant and in the hospital.
Human filters. That's what the guards were—oysters extracting waste from the island's system. He'd watched them for nine years, precise and mechanical, never questioning orders.
He never thought he'd be the waste again.
But a trio of soldiers surrounded him now, their masks reflecting nothing. He'd barely reacted at first—they'd obviously heard his calls on the radio and were there to escort him back to quarters.
Then they forced him to his knees.
Then number 012 pistol-whipped him.
Then he understood.
"Did you really think they wouldn't be mad about your little rebellion roleplay, Inho? What you allowed that trash to do?" Ha-joon's voice came before his boots did. "The VIPs have tolerated your shit for too long. Consider the games under new management."
He'd never have oysters again if Ha-joon had it his way.
Those words hit harder than the punches and kicks that followed.
---
Now here he was. Back in that god-awful dormitory—the air still as cold and metallic as it was in 2015.
He had to figure out a plan. He needed help.
He needed something like the rebellion again—something distracting, chaotic. He couldn't manufacture that alone.
He needed someone who knew these games as well as he did. Someone who didn't feel afraid of the guards, the system, the Frontman.
Someone not afraid of him.
He needed a player to help him outlast the trash currently whispering from the O's side.
He needed Seong Gihun.
And he was nowhere to be seen.
H̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶j̶o̶b̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶.̶ ̶S̶q̶u̶a̶s̶h̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶e̶d̶.̶
D̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶?̶
Fuck.
"Do you think—"
Inho turned. Dae-ho stood before him, blood spattered across his forehead, shaking like a leaf. The young marine barely met his eyes as he continued, "It's been a few hours since you returned. If they wanted to kill them— If I had— oh, god."
Dae-ho closed his eyes. Still trembling.
The rebellion had been six hours ago. The silence since felt longer.
Inho looked at Dae-ho. That tired face—Junho after the first time he'd shot a criminal. The same far-off look. The same hollowness.
"Dae-ho, sit."
The young man complied immediately.
Dae-ho stared at him, waiting. Expecting answers.
Inho had none.
"I'm wondering the same things," he said finally. "Something is not right. If they just killed them, or even wanted to parade their bodies around as victory totems, they would have done it by now."
"Something else is going on."
Dae-ho's eyes were glassing over. Shit. The kid looked on the verge of tears.
"Are you mad at me too?" Dae-ho asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
*For what?* Inho thought. *For trying to beat a system I designed to be unbeatable?*
He was shit at comfort. Always had been. When he was a cop, he'd passed the messy emotional work to his partners. When his wife died alone in a hospital room, he'd had 104 missed calls he never answered.
He knew what Dae-ho needed to hear. He just didn't know if he could give it.
Dae-ho's file flashed through his mind. Thrown out at eighteen. Four years in the Marines. Father was arrested half a dozen times for abuse.
He'd seen how the kid flinched when he yelled. He knew what it meant.
Inho looked at his feet, then shook his head. No.
Dae-ho didn't smile, but let out a shaky breath. Inho almost laughed—at least someone was listening to him. "We need to figure out how to deal with those guys." He tilted his head toward the O players on the other side of the room.
Inho turned. Player 100 was watching him with a raised eyebrow. No longer as smug as before the revolt, but still just as icy.
Just like the rest of the players who had voted to stay.
Inho looked back at the empty bunks around him. The dead had been taken away before his arrival, leaving behind only a handful of players who wanted out. He had delighted in Gihun's moral compass slipping just hours before. Had been thrilled to watch him try to justify their deaths as "the greater good."
It had been promising. The kind of spark he'd been looking for.
At this current moment? All it did was make him worry.
What greater good was there now?
Three years of surveillance footage and Inho had learned everything about Seong Gihun except how to stop wanting his attention.
He'd watched Gihun on screens for three years. Thought he knew him. Then he'd met him in person—the kindness, the cunning, the way he led people made from fire instead of breeding. Gihun was supposed to break. To see the futility.
Instead, Inho was the one who felt fractured.
N̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶h̶r̶i̶n̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶v̶i̶o̶l̶e̶t̶.̶ ̶M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶I̶l̶-̶n̶a̶m̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶.̶
Where was Gihun?
The need twisted in his gut—primal, instinctual. The same feeling he'd called a hunch when he was a cop.
This was—what? Obsession? Need? Something more dangerous that he refused to name?
When had Gihun stopped being a player and become necessary?
He'd wanted something like this once. With Chaemin. Before the island taught him wanting was weakness.
He needed Gihun to come back, and he hated that he couldn't explain why.
A fool. A monster who'd mistaken fascination for something softer, something he had no right to feel.
A monster that was going to die very soon if he didn't figure out a way to get off this island.
---
The thought shattered.
Boots. Scuffling in the corridor outside.
And the muttered screams of the devil himself.
Every head in the room turned. Pale as ghosts.
"Why won't you kill me?"
Gihun's voice—raw, destroyed—came before the officers burst through the doors, dragging him with them. He thrashed like a wild animal, nearly taking one of the guards down before they steadied themselves.
They dropped his body to the ground in front of a bunk.
Just a few feet from Inho.
If Inho had any doubt whether it was purposeful, the guards erased it. They straightened. Turned in his direction.
He raised a brow at his former subordinates and sneered. What sort of show were they playing at? How dare they forget who gave the orders?
Gihun, drowning in his grief, didn't seem to notice the small crowd of players encircling him. He kept screaming, shaking the guards for an answer. At one point he reached for a gun—was quickly pulled off by one of the larger guards.
"Why won't you do it?" Gihun's voice was shrill, angry, broken. Begging each pink guard for his death.
No reply.
It was no use. Inho knew that too well.
Mercy was not something done on this island.
"Why won't they do it?" Dae-ho whispered, barely audible over Gihun's harsh cries.
Inho stared at the scene unfolding before him.
Why didn't they?